Hey, kids! Do you like webcomics? Sure you do! But do you think that webcomics have gotten a little … sissy these days? You read Penny Arcade and you say to yourself, “You know, dickwolves was funny. But it sure could’ve been a lot funnier if they’d actually shown the rape. And in graphic detail.”

To which I say: “What the hell is wrong with you?”

But, boy, do I have a comic for you! It’s a little something called Shädbase, by a creator who goes by “Shadman.” It’s a darkly humorous take on pop culture. Shädbase takes references from video games and cartoons, and it physically forces itself on those references without any consent, horribly abusing those references with blunt force trauma, and violating and humiliating those references until they’re emotionally scarred and bereft of dignity.

Suffice to say, links contained in this review are not going to be safe for work.

Now, to be fair, Shädbase does offer glimmers of actually being funny. As Metalocalypse showed us, there is something quite silly about excessive blood, guts, and violence (which it gets away with by depicting its leads as oblivious yet likable boneheads). There’s a comic where a soldier — which is from one of those first-person shooters that all look alike to me — shoots at propane tanks, and he incurs the ire of a famous propane enthusiast. A very early one shows a dude getting off on a dirty magazine, but his demeanor totally changes when he sees the date on the magazine. It’s dark humor that reminded me a lot of Sexy Losers, which went so far over the edge that, after your initial shock, you laugh because of how ridiculous the whole set-up was.

I was even slightly amused by a comic that many would consider to be highly controversial: a comic that depicts the Ku Kux Klan lynching an African-American man. I know. I’m a horrible person. Still, it’s kinda funny to imagine a bunch of frightening, racist Klan members cracking up at a really corny joke from Family Matters.

The thing that I cannot easily dismiss though, is Shädbase‘s depiction of women. And man… does this comic ever hate anyone with a double-X chromosome. I haven’t done an actual tally, but seems like fully half the jokes are about humiliating, raping, and graphically brutalizing women. It’s even the payoff to some of the comics’ multi-part storylines. In the world of Shadbase, women are dressed in the skimpiest of clothes, yet are not usually naked. They are playthings to be used however you see fit and disposed of like garbage whenever they become inconvenient. It’s done so often that you start to expect the worst by the end of each strip. Hell, do you know how relieved I was when I reached the end of a comic and it was just a joke about a woman’s period? Very relieved. And then the next comic was about Mystique from X-Men dead with a wrench to the head.

Oh.

Again, Sexy Losers could get away with this kind of stuff. While it did include a strip about a dude raping a dead, headless woman through the trachea, it never let your forget how utterly stupid and silly the whole situation was. “Don’t take this seriously!” it seemed to blare in big bold letters. Here, it’s just depressing. There’s no punchline beyond, “This bitch didn’t put out, so she deserved what she got.” What the hell kind of punchline is that?!?!?! Let’s face it, despite its trappings as a humor comic, Shadbase is really for those creeps who, for some reason, feel morally obligated not to click on the Rule 34 site, but are turned on by seeing their favorite cartoon ladies get their eye sockets dislodged.

Or … maybe someone out there actually does find it incredibly hilarious that April O’Neil is getting her head impaled by Shredder’s gauntlets? How? They’re pretty much robbed of shock value, which is the only way I can imagine that they’d every be funny. Maybe the humor is in the mutilation itself? God, do loyal readers of Shadbase find the Holocaust to be a laugh riot, too?

Wait… don’t answer that.

Rating: 1 star (out of 5).

Well, it’s finally come to this.

If you’d asked me five years ago that I’d be approaching this milestone, I would’ve thought you crazy. My goals were simple when I started this site. I only wanted to review more webcomics than any other site ever has before. I think that mark has long passed. Then, after I’d reviewed my 100th review, I thought to myself, “Well, I have nothing more to prove. I think I’ll wrap up this site in, oh, six months.” Well, it’s been two and a half years since I crossed that milestone, and this site keeps on going.

I have reviewed everything from Jack to Rice Boy to Ctrl+Alt+Del to Lackadaisy. I have seen the stunning heights of Gunnerkrigg Court and the Stygian depths of Grim Tales From Down Below. I’ve seen the fall of Zuda Comics, the controversy over dick wolves, and Order of the Stick netting a bunch of money on Kickstarter. I’ve been interviewed by a Canadian magazine for an article on Kate Beaton, and I’ve presented an hour lesson for a class on webcomics.

And now … just now … I’ve reached the milestone that I thought I’d never achieve.

That’s right: today’s the day I review Least I Could Do, a rather notorious webcomic by Ryan Sohmer and Lar De Souza. It has published a comic strip every single day for almost 10 years now. That is a whole buttload of comics, people. And to a comic with such a deep archive… this is madness. THIS … IS …

…wait. Now’s not the time for a 300 parody. It’s 100 reviews too early, and… LICD has it covered. *sigh* Let’s just move along, shall we?

Readers of this site know that I try to be as thorough as possible when reading a webcomic archive. My original plan was to read the entirety of Least I Could Do from the beginning to end, experience the glory of every strip and every bawdy sex joke. Well, after reading the entire first year, I pretty much scrapped that plan. If LICD has taught me anything, there are, perhaps, only six sex jokes in the world, and to hear the same thing over and over again was seriously damaging my mental health.

Hence, like my 100th review on xkcd, I will freely admit that I did not read every strip. I read through the whole first year, then sampled two to three storylines for every year onward. I payed close attention to the storylines around the time Sohmer lets his characters age. If I missed a key storyline that redeems the entire webcomic, like if Rayne Summers is revealed to be a secret government project to impregnate women with Scott Baio clones, then feel free to correct me in the comments section, where things are always discussed with the utmost sincerity and civility.

Let’s not fool ourselves, people: the truth is that most of you have already formulated an opinion of LICD. Judging from all the people who have requested that this comic be reviewed, it’s also not a stretch to say that most readers of this site hold a negative opinion… which is understandable. I mean, who among us can take a look at Rayne Summers’ face and not think, “This is a face that needs to be punched, and punched often with increasing savagery”? Not I, my brethren. Not I.

And yet, LICD has its fans. LOTS of fans. And these aren’t people you’d expect would be fans — like, say, drunken fratboys and/or one-celled organisms. Many fans are, in fact, rather well-educated, somewhat nerdy, and decidedly multi-cell organisms.

For example, let’s take a look at the multipe awards LICD has won and/or has been nominated for:

• Wizbang!’s Weblog Awards, Won for Best Comic Strip, 2006
• WCCAs, Nominated for Ounstanding Comedic Comic, 2007
• Schuster Awards, Won for Outstanding Canadian Webcomics Creator/Creative Team, 2008
• Schuster Awards, Nominated for Outstanding Webcomic, 2009
• Harvey Awards, Nominated for Best Cartoonist, 2009
• Harvey Awards, Nominated for Best Online Comics Work, 2009
• Havey Awards, Nominated for Humor in Comics, 2009

Sohmer was also accepted as an associate member of the National Cartoonist’s Society.

And then there are the fans, many of whom are far more level-headed in their defense than you may thing. This one, for example, was written by fellow reviewer Eric Burns-White of Websnark:

Least I Could Do … is good Guy humor. It’s cheerful. The women are all busty and beautiful, the guys all handsome (even the ‘short fat guy’ isn’t all that short or all that fat… and it goes without saying that none of the girls are fat). A darn good case could be made that the strip is sexist. I don’t think the strip pretends to be anything else, however. It’s guy humor, pure and simple.

Here’s another one from John Teehan, who, by all accounts, seems to be an affable chap:

It’s a pretty fun webcomic. I’ve heard some accuse the authors of engaging in wish-fulfillment fantasy, but I take it more as a feel-good sort of comic where fun things happen to a guy who knows how to have fun and happens to be insanely lucky enough to be able to act on it.

Good Guy humor, eh? A feel-good sort of comic, eh? Well, I’m a guy, and a guy who likes to feel good, at that. I like typical guy things like pro-wrestling, football, outdoor grilling, go-karting, first-person shooters, and NBC’s hit drama series, Smash. Surely, I’m the target audience for this fine webcomic!

To review this comic, I went and downloaded the LICD app for the iPhone. I do not exaggerate when I say it’s probably the dirtiest thing I have ever done in my life. The intro screen looks like this:

And yes, I sprung for the 99 cent upgrade so I could view the archives. That’s 99 cents that could have gone to feeding the homeless. 99 cents that will instead likely go to adding breast jiggle detail to the LICD animated series. As I wrote this, by the way, I was sitting inside of a Starbucks, looking at cartoons occasionally containing naked women (and, to be fair, naked Rayne) on my high resolution iPhone 4S Retina Display while three young women are sitting at a table right next. Thank you, LICD, for making me feel like a complete perv.

These are the kinds of sacrifices I’m willing to make, people. My only consolation is that, by paying for this app, I proved Scott McCloud’s micropayment theory to be true. Suck on that, micropayment haters! SCOTT-MC-CLOUD! SCOTT-MC-CLOUD! SCOTT-MC-CLOUD!!!

So, for those of you who don’t know, LICD is about a sex man who sexes sexy women. Also he is apparently a big nerd who likes nerd things. His name is Rayne Summers. Now, if you listen closely, to the name and pick it apart, you might notice that the name sounds awfully familiar. It sounds a lot like … “Summer Rain,” the hit song recorded by Belinda Carlisle that hit #30 on the Billboard Hot 100. He is also something of an idiot savant, as he is the successful CEO of IDS Enterprises. Now, I wasn’t fortunate enough to encounter the strip where this happened, but apparently Rayne got the job in a 2005 plot when his friends falsified his resume.

Whatever.

I imagine that this comic wasn’t originally the Rayne Summer Show. In fact, I think that it was supposed to be an ensemble cast, and Rayne was the wacky comic relief guy. Early stories seemed to spread the plot around to the different characters. There’s — uh — the fat guy, the blond guy… er… another blond guy? … and the token female, Issa. I think I know Rayne ended up taking over the show: every other character is an absolute drag. They suck the life out of every scene that they’re in. Which is why most were eventually banished to the background, rolling their eyes, and sighing, “Oh, Rayne, you’re so wacky!”

The character I don’t get, by the way, is Issa. I mean, I know why she’s there: blatant fanservice. But why does she hang around Rayne at all? She’s got that virginal allure going on — well, relatively speaking, as she’s one of the few girls in the series who won’t jump into bed with Rayne. But that’s just it: that’s the only incentive for hanging around the guy. Other than living vicariously through him, which is why I think Rayne’s guy friends hang around. So… what’s Issa’s excuse for sticking around a pompous, leering windbag like Rayne? Because he’s rich? That’s pretty shallow. There’s some guff about her being a childhood friend, but, c’mon. Childhood friendship only gets you so far? They friends from The Social Network parted ways for far less.

In a way, it makes sense how Rayne pulls an Urkel and worms his way into becoming the star. Rayne is the resident sex pervert, and that means you have a built-in excuse to draw ladies who are either scantily clad or fully naked. What can I say: sex sells.

Second, since he’s supposed to be childish and a bit of a moron, he’s covered by the excuse that we’re not supposed to take him seriously. When not doing jokes on sex, LICD pokes fun at religion, namely Christianity. Rayne is the only characters who makes these jokes. Why? Because coming out of the mouth of any other character, it’s mean-spirited. But look! Rayne is saying it, and even though he’s a CEO, he’s a dumbhead! Gotta love him!

At the same time, it’s really, really annoying. Here’s the thing: Rayne cannot be allowed to ever progress from the standpoint of maturity… mainly because he’s a one-dimensional character. Being a sex pervert and a guy with politically incorrect opinions are about the only things that define him. Take that away and, well, you’re left with a comic that no one’s reading. This is why he’s, at best, a supporting character.

To my shock, there are attempts at fleshing Rayne out. There are plenty of LICD parodies floating around on the web where we get a glimpse into Rayne’s true self, revealing him to be an emotional wreck. What surprised me is that, reading LICD, there are a few rare times when those parodies almost come to fruition. Rayne is allowed to experience moments of sweetness, and there are indications that his heart was once broken. He experience some weird moments of ennui.

Ultimately, though, these incremental attempts at character development feel horribly inappropriate and out of place. This is the sort of comic, after all where Rayne coyly suggests branding a potential sex partner because he can’t remember her name. And also where there’s a prostitute loving referred to as “Suck for a Buck”. One side’s gotta give, and the raunchy jokes are the ones that bring in the readers.

I think that’s why a lot of the character progression falls to friend of Rayne, Noel. Noel carries the brunt of the plot development. He dates a woman named Kate. He moves in with her. He proposes and gets married. They have a child. They’re pretty much the most turgid storylines in LICD … and a big part of that is that Rayne Summers has to be shoe-horned into everything. Remember that Simpsons episode where Homer suggests, “Whenever Poochie’s not onscreen, all the other characters should be asking ‘Where’s Poochie’”? Well, Rayne is Poochie. It’s like Sohmer figured that if Rayne wasn’t on the screen, the regular readers would get bored and, I don’t know, watch The Golf Channel or something. He’s probably right, though: stripped of Rayne Summers, the strip becomes as boring and flat as NBC’s new hit drama, Smash.

(Yeah, yeah… that’s my second Smash reference in this article. This is a sordid reflection of my TV viewing habits when we’re between football seasons, people.)

LICD has been through three artists. What it was about the comic that apparently made multiple artists want to sign on, I don’t know. According to Bad Webcomics Wiki Mr. Adams left the strip for a very good reason: he actually respected women, and he saw where the strip was going. Good for him. Beyond that, Mr. Adams does succeed where the other two falter: his style makes Rayne look almost likable. In his strips, Rayne comes across as a goofy doofus.

Our second artist, Chad Porter, has an awkward start. His very second strip contains one of Rayne’s friends looking at a bunch of “sexy” women walking by and commenting, “I think the new artist is trying to get in good with you.” Only these women are bizarre rubber people. They’ve got no knees and squishy faces… which is a big problem when male gaze is a huge part of your comic. Seriously, ma’am, what’s wrong with your faaaaacccceeeee…..

The third and current artist is Lar De Souza. His original depiction of Rayne unfortunately looks a little like Scott Baio. Because when readers of LICD think of an audience identification character who sleeps with all the women, it’s Scott Baio. He is easily the most competent illustrator of the three. His character designs are attractive and unique. He breaks away from the static ground-level shot that plagues most webcomics. His style is the one that comes to mind whenever you mention Least I Could Do. There’s nothing wrong with his art alone.

However, he may be a little too good of an artist. After all, he’s managed to successfully illustrate Rayne Summers are the creepy, smarmy douche that he is.

Some of you are probably thinking that at least LICD has the balls to make a totally unlikable character the star. To which I say, “What are you talking about? Are you not reading this site? This site that reviews webcomics? You know, the medium that spawned the whole video game comic trend? The genre where every star is an arrogant, self-important little weasel?”

Characters who are unrepentant assholes, by the way, are not easy to write. Most writers at least have the decency to make that character charming. Eric Cartman from South Park, for example. He’s a vile little racist who, by all rights, the viewer should not root for. However, he’s often funny in how overblown his schemes get, and he gets hilariously flustered when things go wrong. Cartman has what Rayne lacks: a reason to root for him, despite his terrible morals.

All we get for Rayne, on the other hand, is his typical look set: heavy-lidded eyes and a shit-eating grin parodied in such works as Smug I Could Do. Actually, I’m not even sure Smug I Could Do qualifies as a parody, since it actually downplays the irritating smugness of an LICD strip. He’s less Eric Cartman and more like Soltan Gris from L. Ron Hubbard’s Mission Earth dekalogy.

(Crap. No one’s going to get that reference. Shoulda stuck with Smash. So, does anyone else agree with me that Katherine McPhee can sing well, but she can’t play a convincing Broadway star? No?)

There are times when it becomes very difficult to separate Rayne Summers the character with Ryan Sohmer, the writer. There was a plotline about Rayne buying a struggling newspaper which ended up becoming a rather preachy rant about the obsolescence of newspapers. While I agree with a lot of Rayne’s/Ryan’s points, he comes off as such an arrogant bully that you’re embarrassed to be siding with him.

Then there’s the time where Rayne/Ryan decides to bag on other webcomic artists for not being on a daily update schedule. Oh, and ending this short arc with guys dressed at Stormtroopers aiming guns at webcomic creators? Classy. Because that … proves he’s right? Somehow?

Sigh.

This.

Comic.

Thus, Rayne has carte blanche to be a dick to everyone. The author is always going to give him an out: a strawman argument, an improbable plot convenience, etc. There’s one storyline where Rayne has an event staffed by homeless people. When his gets called out on it, he says it’s to teach the rich people a lesson.

“What do you know about poverty that makes you qualified to educate others?” his assistant asks angrily.

Cue the plot convenience. “I know about living off of seven dollars a week on groceries,” he says. What, seriously?

Then we’re hit with the strawman argument. For no reason I can discern than to show that Rayne is your moral superior, our assistant asks, “Why don’t yo do more to help?”

Rayne goes into super preachy mode: “Like taking care of an orphan who’s petrified of the foster care program, and making sure he has shelter, food, and goes to…” Screw this comic. Seriously, screw this comic. Anyway, it ends, as you may expect, with a sex joke.

The sex jokes, by the way, end up sounding like a broken record. LICD reads like a Mad Libs written by a sex obsessed ten year old who thinks he’s funny, but in actuality is not. Anytime there’s an attractive woman drawn, you know that — surprise! — there’s going to be an awkward sex joke at the end. For example, there’s this exchange from a strip charmingly entitled “Horton Hears a Ho”:

“I really hope you don’t have any kids.”
“Why? Are you offering? I’m flattered, though it’s a little quick. I don’t even know your breast size.”

Wow, that was … a natural reponse.

Then you have Rayne doing some poetry, where he rhymes “nookie with wookiee” and “witty with titties.” Eh. I’ve heard better. I guess this is the “good guy humor” I keep hearing about? Here’s the thing about LICD that probably more annoying than anything else: it is really not very funny.

Something I discovered when I reviewed The Gutters is that Ryan Sohmer is horrible at telling jokes. There’s an early storyline, for example, where Rayne’s friends trick him into thinking that looking like Goku from Dragonball Z will impress the parents of his Asian girlfriend. As an Asian, I’m not really offended by this storyline. What I am offended is by how horribly unfunny it is. Especially how Sohmer has to friggin’ overexplain the premise of his joke.

LICD seems to pride itself in being fresh and current, unlike those stale newspaper comic strips. So why do the jokes feel so old and hackneyed? Are we really going to do a Star Wars “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for” gag? Seriously, anything that reminds me that Rayne/Ryan is a nerd makes me loathe anyone who takes glee that nerds have taken over the world (or pop culture, at least). Does simply referencing “Jem” a punchline? Why? Because he reminded us that Jem is a thing that happened?

And then there’s one of the most out-of-date jokes of all: he observes that Shakira’s song “Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)” sounds a lot like Fozzy the Bear’s catchphrase. Pay attention to the date that strip was released. That’s right: LICD made the joke a full year after the song was prominently featured at the 2010 South Africa World Cup, when literally everyone had made the same exact goddamn joke already.

I seriously could go on and on, but the word counter says that I’ve gone over 3000+ words and that’s way too much to write about friggin’ LICD. You’ve probably noticed I haven’t touched on the major complaint most have made about LICD: its misogyny. That one’s a little tricky. Rayne is promiscuous, true, but at least it seems that women use him as much as he is using them. On the other hand, the women who do sleep with him are shown to be rather shallow, which puts the ball back into the critics’ court. It’s something that’s been discussed plenty of times on other sites, though, which is why I focused on the other faults. Namely, that this is a boring, unfunny comic with a completely unlikable lead.

So there you go. Y’all can stop writing me now. LICD is reviewed! And…

Wait, this is my 200th review? Ugh. Worst… 200th review… ever. I’ve gotta say, at least there’s no worse comic out there to review when I hit my next milestone.

What’s that you say?

Moon Over June is still out there?

NNNNnnnnoooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

Rating: 1 star (out of 5)

While checking my email during my break from reviewing webcomics, I recieved a profound feeling of deja vu. I got a request from an avid reader of this site to review a webcomic that, to put it politely, looked rather sketchy. It featured a world with humans and furries who would often mutilate each other. There were long scenes of characters having their skin and limbs peeled off and of gratuitous murder porn. The hero, if you could call him that, was often in contact with an anthropomorphic grim reaper character who lived in hell.

Yes, this reader asked me to review Jack.

But not THAT Jack.

This is the other Jack, written and illustrated by Norweigan webcomic creator Catya Alvheim. The comic is a little hard to find on Google, given the prominence of David Hopkins’ Jack, but if you type “drunk duck jack” in the search field it pops right up like a mischievous imp trying to educate you on the importance of springs. I felt a little guilty doing this, since Jack, and the art of Jack, specifically, strikes me as the sort of terrible comic that you’d make up in high school. So, yeah, I did my due diligence and, not for the first time, looked up the author’s age, hoping against all hopes that perhaps this was just a screwed up teen who didn’t know any better.

To my dismay… yes, this author is probably old enough to take it. Hopefully, if she comes across this review, she’ll take things in stride. (Heaven knows there are fairly cruel reviews of this Jack populating the internet.) It is also true that Jack was ,at some point, the product of some screwed up teen. But the author is no longer a teen, it’s still updating, and to my further dismay, it has apparently just celebrated its six year anniversary. That’s … that’s a whole lot of Jack.

(Incidentally, many links in this review are going to NSFW due to mutilation, nudity, cannibalism, excessive gore, and juggalos. Viewer discretion is advised.)

Let’s address the question that is probably on your lips at this very moment: is this webcomic as bad as the other, more famous Jack (which I reviewed here)? That’s a resounding “No.” For one, I was, in a very perverse way, more entertained reading this Jack. Now, I should note that Ms. Alvheim gets quite upset when asked if this Jack has anything to do with Hopkins’ Jack.

I’m a big fan of his comic,been reading it since 2002,but my comic is in no way related or even fucking LOOK like it.It’s named Jack simply because I like that name and it fits my character.They don’t even look alike,have the same powers,background or even do the same.

And really, can you blame her? Would you want to be compared to Hopkin’s Jack? I’m sure she’s pretty tired of it. Probably gets asked the same question at least five times a day. However, it’s not like the inquiries are unfounded. Jack and Jack DO look similar. If I showed you a few panels of this one, I guarantee that you’d probably take one or two minutes trying to figure out which Jack it belonged to. Honestly, if you knew that the other Jack existed, you could’ve saved yourself a lot of grief by releasing your webcomic under a different name. If I released a webcomic named Cathy about a furry who wears a hockey mask dealing with romance and weight gain issues, then it’s my own fault when I get all those “Ack! Is this webcomic about chocolate chocolate chocolate?” remarks.

And yet, for all the blood and severed limbs and pages and pages of crying (oh Lord is there so much crying), there’s something charmingly innocent about this Jack. Hopkins’ Jack hammers you over the head with how important it is (which was no more apparent than when he shoe-horned the World Trade Center into his comic). This Jack is more introspective an personal, like that dark poetry you thought was so deep and original in your adolescence.

Heck, I can imagine a younger El Santo putting something like this after a brief obsession with Live back in the 90′s. Who hasn’t? Hell, I once went to college dressed all in black wearing a chain necklace around my neck with a white flower and a butter knife on it. (“Good thing I grew out of that,” says the guy who posts videos of himself wearing a luchador mask.) I probably would’ve created the characters in the margins of my notebook, then scrawled a few pages while eating pizza rolls alone in my dorm room. Of course, if I ever came across that theoretical comic this day, I’d throw it in a steel barrel, douse it with propane, and burn any evidence that this comic ever existed.

That said, none of this means that this Jack is any good.

The likes of Live and Evanescence and My Chemical Romance are not hardcore enough for Ms. Alvheim. After reading the first 50 pages or so, I had it all set in my mind to write down “this is a webcomic as written when Juggalos” thinking I was all clever. And then this and this show up. Sometimes I hate it when I’m right. So it’s time to plow into this thing with The Great Milenko playing on my iPad and rocking a 2 Liter of Faygo Redpop.

The reason I can’t really hate Jack is that it is unintentionally hilarious. It’s supposed to be deep and gothic, but fails utterly at this. Our opening scene is of our hero (?) tied up against a post and suffering the blows while preaching against violence. Which is kind of odd, given that later he’s going to brutally murder and eat — yes, eat — his tormentor … who, by the way, looks less of a bigoted grandpa and more like a hip blues musician. His only friend is a sympathetic young girl who — surprise! — is dressed up in Hot Topic fashions circa 1997.

Jack always wears a hockey mask that he has — no joke — screwed onto his face. His real face is unseen. We’re told, though, that it’s lacerated with burn scars from when his childhood home went up his flames.

So, outside the cannibal thing, Jack is really former WWE heavyweight champion Kane.

So why does Jack look like Jason from the Friday the 13th movies? I imagine that the mask is supposed to be frightening or ominous. Perhaps it is meant to recall a skeletal visage. However, it’s hard to take Jack seriously when he looks like a muppet half the time. The design’s been streamlined in later comics. Jack now has a mohawk, and the mask is more gaunt and features a more prominent nose .. but man does he still look goofy.

For some reason, but Jack also lives in world populated by both humans and furries.

Why?

There’s little in the first story arc (other than an anthropomorphic grim reaper type creature) to indicate that this is the case. Humans are portrayed, by an large, to be bigoted assholes. Whenever they see Jack and his bizarre appearance, they instinctively want to do harm to him. This could be a nice moral about how it isn’t right to judge a person by their looks … but, as we’ll soon find out, most of these bigots were actually right about Jack.

I have a feeling “prejudice is justified” was not one of the main take-aways the reader was supposed to arrive at.

So, is there any reason that this is a furry comic? Other then, after the first story arc, Ms. Alvheim gook hooked on the genre? Because the furry aspect of the comic is the one that feels the most out place. Here’s some dialogue, in fact, that comes off as strikingly awkward.

“Someone helped me. A blond and brown fur dog named Ronnie.” I’m almost certain that Jack’s description would be “a brunette and pink skinned human named Jack.”

“The puppies. The dead puppies! If it was humans, it would be dead babies.” Clearly, this is a universe where there are dog cops, but when you talk about puppies you have to remind people that we’re not talking about the cuddle little things in pet calendars.

That last scene, by the way, is part of a plot where a fellow prisoner recounts the harrowing tale of how a mad scientist forced two furries to make puppies (if you are human, it would be babies) for him to use in his experiments. Are we really supposed to be taking Jack’s trials and tribulations seriously when he also lives in a world filled with mad science?

Jack commits all of the most sordid cliches when it comes to writing amateur fiction. ALL OF THEM. It even includes one of the most reliable stand-bys for writers trying to convey a sense of, “People, things just got serious.”

Yes, there is a rape scene.

Jack goes to the bar, and refuses the proposition of a hooker. Well, that turns to be a wrong move, because the lady is part of a duo who happen to be rapists who also happen to be serial killers. Jack is kidnapped, stripped naked, and in a scene that’s way too goofy to be taken seriously, is raped. Ms. Alvheim depicts the killers as so casually sadistic that it’s no longer frightening and almost crosses the line into parody. They casually discuss how they’re going to rape Jack and and chop him up with a chainsaw later (!) like they’re talking about what movie they’re going to watch tonight.

Oh, these two!

It’s bizarre to the point of being surreal. I’m probably going to go to hell for this, but the rape scene is such a botched attempt at being horrifying that I actually laughed. It’s so weird that I almost missed the piece de resistance: on the very next page, we get a saucy pin-up photo of a scantily clad Jack in a racy pose where he’s being forcibly turned into a furry. I… guess that’s supposed to be edgy juxtapositioning or something?

Now that the strawman situation has been set-up, Jack’s vengeance is justified (technically). He breaks free of his bonds, and then he straight up brutally chainsaw murders the couple. He goes to jail, where he has to serve out his … five year sentence?!?!?! For chainsaw murder? It says that he pleads self-defense, and that probably keeps you out of the electric chair… but five years for hacking people up with a chainsaw? I’m not sure the self-defense argument could even stick. The story established that someone freed him, and he probably could have escaped scott-free a scene before. In fact, he tells that to the police himself!

Methinks the justice system is totally geared against humans and toward furries here. I bet if the serial killers were dogs (if you are human, it would be people), I’m guessing Jack would at least get twenty years. It’s probably why people instinctively want to beat the crap out of this hockey-masked loser every time they see him. They just know he’s the patsy of the furry-dominated hegemony.

Jack works in close quarters with The Violator an alligator named Chains, who seems hellbent into be turning him into Spawn Spawn. So what duties does being Chains’ personal errand boy entail? Its seems one of Jack’s first duties is to kill a Satanist furry that he’d just met in prison. God, the revolving door that prison must have. I guess that by forcing Jack to murder, he becomes more and more Chains’ servant. You start off with blues man grandpas, graduate to Satanist furries, and for your post-doc perhaps the souls of innocents.

Later, Jack kills two rednecks who were looking for any excuse to lynch anyone. One, judging from his hat, seems to hail from Scotland (certainly that can’t be a Confederate flag, because, man, would that ever be a sign that Ms. Alvheim gets all her plots from 1970′s exploitation movies). But, oh snap, looks like they messed with the wrong undead guy in a hockey mask! Jack mutilates the bodies, poses them in obscene positions, and just gives in to his whole martyr complex.

At the risk of incurring Ms. Alvheim’s wrath for making the unpardonable sin of talking about that other Jack, I’d venture to say that David Hopkins’ Jack is a far more likable guy than Alvheim’s Jack. In fact, I really had nothing against big green bunny Jack. Here’s a clip of what I said in my review of Hopkins’ Jack:

I think the Jack character himself isn’t that bad…. Imagine this theoretical scenario: a murderous and particularly hirsute and lupine serial killer who ripped off his crotchfruits has a gun shoved up my ass, and he demands an answer as to which character I’d rather spend all of eternity with: Jack from Jack or Fisk from Better Days. For me, it’s Jack every time. Hopkins actually succeeded in making him an interesting character, with a backstory worth exploring. He is, at last, not an infallible John Galt. Jack deserves better than the comic he was doomed to appear in.

On the other hand, Hockey Mask Jack is a totally unlikable crybaby. The writer tries her damnedest to game the story so that Jack is supposed to look like a hero when the killings start. It never, ever works. Jack comes off as the sort of lying, self-victimizing sad sack who changes the details of the story just to justify his actions. I mean, just look at that first story. All that talk about the wrongness of cold blooded murder (which actually stays the hand of his tormentor), only to be a total hypocrite and kill the guy anyway. And then we’re treated with a fantasy straight out of the serial killer’s handbook: the granddaughter of the deceased is so happy about Jack’s murdering ways that she sits on his lap and give him a big hug. Awwww.

Cripes, every time something terrible happened to Hockey Mask Jack that caused him to cry those big bitter tears, I was tempted to say, “Good. You deserved it, you big baby.”

Good Lord, in a battle between bunny Jack and hockey mask Jack, I’d be rooting for bunny Jack all the way. And, man, that’s the sort of admission that no webcomic should ever force me to say.

I have to say, though, that Jack is a fascinating view into how a juggalo’s mind works. The belief that everyone in the world is out to rape, torture, or chainsaw you to death, and the only way to save yourself is to become a bigger monster.

I look forward to future installments, though, when Jack contemplates the miracles of magnets.

Rating: 1 star (out of 5)

When I bring up Steve Napierski’s Dueling Analogs, your first reactions is probably, “Good Lord, is that comic STILL being updated?”

Followed swiftly by your second reaction: “No, seriously, bro, is that comic still being updated?”

After a bit of research, it should be a surprise the Dueling Analogs is still around. While never as successful as Penny Arcade — and really who could be — the history of Dueling Analogs is filled with relatively impressive achievements. Compete.com calculates that it’s had at least 127K unique visitors. That’s seriously mind boggling. In comparison, PvP only gets a third of those numbers.

Dueling Analogs is also a founding member of the Gamers Pair of Dice collective, which includes prominent titles like Goblins, 2P Start, and Nerf Now!! The comic has been nominated twice in the WCCAs (for Outstanding Gaming Comic and Outstanding Web Design) and has been voted best gaming webcomic by Joystiq readers at least nine times.

At the same time, a lot of hate is directed at Dueling Analogs. Take this one strip where Steve Napierski draws his self-insert his main character Harvey with a big poo-eating grin, holding a blitzball (which is the bare minimum needed for making this a video game webcomic), and having buttsex. Beyond being dumb and tasteless and terrible, there’s the absolute headscratcher that there’s absolutely no joke in this strip. None. Like, nothing there resembles a punchline. That’s… that’s sort of a requirement when you’re doing a comedic short-form webcomic. It’s just our author, drawing himself having sex and posting it online for all to see … and that is so very sad.

Lately, though, I hadn’t found recent entries to be half bad. I even mentioned it in one of the comments sections around here. It was based on seeing a few strips that had been posted here and there. I’m specifically the Flapjack strip, which, while banal, wasn’t terrible. I like Flapjack. I like Portal. And the strip was really cute. I mean, it wasn’t Arrested Development or anything, but I admit I smiled a little.

Perhaps those early, unfunny strips were merely a product of a young, hyperactive mind that hadn’t grasped the basics of wit and humor yet. It could be that the days of strips with titles like “Luigi’s Anal Adventure” were over. Maybe Dueling Analogs just needed to grow up.

But now that I have read the entire run of Dueling Analogs, I would like to issue a retraction. In fact, I would like to issue a blanket apology to anyone I may have inadvertently convinced that Dueling Analogs is good now. I would like to apologize to Tim Buckley, Mohammad Haque, Scott Ransoomair, Matt Thompson, and any other video game webcomic creator who I may have said had created the worst video game webcomic of all time. I would like to apologize to Scott Johnson, creator of Extra Life, which I haven’t reviewed yet, but I’m pretty sure the phrase “worst video game comic ever” would have passed my lips at some point.

Because OH MY GOD IS DUELING ANALOGS BAD.

I mean, the comic is so very soulless. Every single joke sounds like it was generated by some sort of robot. Specifically a robot that forced to watch only Attack of the Show, South Park, and Adult Swim and told that this is what people find funny. It processes the inputs that video games and offensive content are necessary variables with which to make for maximum humor delivery. After a series of calculations, the robots eyes light up as it prints out its findings: Luigi in assless chaps. Aerith wearing a strap-on. Little does our poor little robot know how far it’s completely missing the point.

Ah, but are algorithm is no one trick pony. No, no, no. You see, it can get topical. Windows Phone coming out soon? How about a picture of it’s dropping into a wastebasket with the caption “Windows Phone 7 Dropping This November.” Let it never be said that Dueling Analogs was never clever! Oh, but I hear that Octomom is in the news! Let us have Aerith from FFVII babbling on about wanting babies, and include the punchline: “It was a good thing that Aerith died.” What do you mean this joke makes no sense? Can 127K readers be wrong?

I admit, one strip in particular made me laugh out loud. There’s one that pokes fun of how female avatars in fantasy games are given scantily clad outfits while the guys are given all sorts of cool armor. Now, strip itself is lame and terrible and everything you’d expect from a Dueling Analogs joke. The funny part is that this comic comes EXACTLY ONE STRIP after a fan art Mr. Napierski drew of Princess Daisy in the Princess Leia bikini. (Subtitled “Daisy Chain.” Naturally.)

You! Yes, you! You who did comics about a dumb cheerleader playing chess, a clothing disintegration gun, Samus doing a striptease, and a beyond terrible “Hookering Mama” pun! Yes, you, the one who once did a Dragon Quest VIII comic where the punchline is The Hero motorboating Jessica’s boobs! Do you really want to be the one white knighting female gamers?

Dueling Analogs is soulless and robotic, but if I were to describe the entire comic in just one word, I think I’d go with “lazy.” I have read lots and lots of webcomics — about 250 — and without a doubt Dueling Analogs is the laziest I have ever read. For all the faults Jack has, you can tell that David Hopkins is at least trying to skeeve everyone out. Napierski, on the other hand, seems to have resigned himself to writing the blandest crap imaginable and decided that it was his lot in life.

For example, Mr. Napierski draws the Megaman Bosses as Mr. Men. There’s Mr. Nitro, Mr. Freeze, Little Miss Splash… and the piece de resistance, Mr. Knight, who is Batman. Oh ho ho. Cleverness, thy name is Dueling Analogs. But you know what kills me? Alone, this is an already lame and repetitive gag. Apparently, though, this is the 6th time he’s done this exact same strip.

Think that’s a petty complaint, though? I estimate nearly half the comics in the Dueling Analogs archive are these “Variants on the Same Theme.” You also get variants on pokeballs, pokeballs, and pokeballs. There’s rejected Megaman villains (Nega Man is a racist stereotype? How cheeky!), which is in its 13th iteration and has been ringing the death knell to humor since the very second strip. How about variants on Wario, which is basically Wario in cosplay? Or “Games I’m Glad Were Never Made,” torturous attempts at making up fake video game titles?

It… never… EEEEENNNNDDDDDSSSSS!!!!

Not lazy enough you say?

How about a series of comics that copy and paste pictures of consoles talk smack to each other. Let’s put a side for a moment the obsolescence of the entire console wars concept. How lazy do you have to be to not even draw gaming systems that are, in essence, simple rectangles? There are a few solid commentaries on video games in there, by the way, like the one about DLC’s vs. iPhone apps, but the delivery is so cheap that anything positive is DOA.

Not lazy enough you say?

How about the ones featuring some stuck up gamer with long hair and a monocle? The wiki entry on Dueling Analogs (yes, there is one) tells me his name is John Shelf American, and that his inspiration is a John Kricfalusi character. Geez… way to put together a copy-and-paste job that, if John K. were aware of it, would ridicule on his blog about how cartooning has gone to seed in the 21st Century. Eack strip is typically the same three images. John repeats what I’m supposed to assume are smug, arrogant gamer attitudes that Mr. Napierski culled from countless video game message boards. Even if that’s not where John Shelf American’s comments are culled from, these strips come off as incredibly petulant in that “people I disagree with will be drawn as dumb morons” kind of way.

Not lazy enough you say?

Then I’ve got one word for you: anagrams. Just… anagrams. I kid you not.

And the hell of it all is that Mr. Napierski knows he’s being lazy. In fact, he regularly makes fun of it. It should note that metacommentary on the banality of your webcomic works a whole lot better when it’s not 100% true.

It’s kind of impressive, in fact, how Dueling Analogs can so consistently fall flat. It almost unintentionally becomes a parody of bad video game webcomics. Mario jokes — and there are a hell of a lot of them — are milked so dry that Napierski has to resort to a “Toad Stool” pun. Reading through Dueling Analogs made me retroactively hate that Flapjack strip. Napierski apparently does a lot of parodies about beloved childhood cartoons, and most are incredibly lame. Some jokes are dead in the water from the beginning, and yet Dueling Analogs soldiers on to its own doomed conclusion. It’s almost admirable and awe-inspiring in that way.

But what it isn’t is funny. In the end, you have to do a whole lot of work to convince me that even Steve Napierski himself isn’t bored out of his skull about the whole thing.

So yes, Virginia, Dueling Analogs is still being updated … and it’s as terrible as ever.

Rating: 1 star (out of 5)

Have you every run into a bitter person who will talk your ear off about all their problems whether or not you actually want to listen? Will that person rant and rant and rant, and at some point say that they’re speaking their minds, and if no one speak up, then who will? But really, everything they’re complaining about is trivial? And that person is really just goddamn annoying?

Put it in webcomic form, and you get Andrew Dobson’s So … You’re a Cartoonist? This comic, by the way, was introduced me by a message board thread devoted to making fun of Ctrl+Alt+Del, who were bowled over by its horribleness despite being amongst the most jaded webcomic readers on the internet.

It’s the sort of comic where Mr. Dobson draws a handsome, reasonable Star Trek cosplayer and contrasts him with football fans, who are all drooling, homophobic retards. Which, as a fan of both Star Trek and football, I find irritating as hell. But you gotta understand… he’s only speaking his mind! If you stereotype nerds, he’s going to stereotype jocks! How edgy is that?

You know what else he doesn’t get? Final Fantasy! Seinfeld! People who get upset over how much he likes Other M! Ladies and gentlemen, this is what modern day nerds will look like an a few decades when they look like grumpy old men. Makes you sorta respect your elders for their whole “I used to walk uphill to school in cold, freezing weather” thing, which sounds hardcore in retrospect.

Then again, Dobson seems like the sort of grouch who’s only happy when he’s mad. Pretty much most of this comic is him complaining about people approaching him at conventions, people not buying his book, robble robble robble. Now, I understand that complaining about a webcomic for being whiny may sound a little hypocritical, since here I am writing a negative review about a webcomic. But, Good Lord, I’d like to think that I haven’t sunk so low to the point where I’ve drawn a comic about a real life flame war you had over whether or not Ocarina of Time was the greatest Zelda game or not.

I repeat… a comic about a flame war over The Legend of Zelda.

When Dobson gets into his earlier life, it becomes incredibly apparent that he’s the sort of guy who just will not let anything go. Did someone kick over his brilliant sand drawing when he was a kid? He’s still mad about that. Seriously, he’s totally going to unfriend you on Facebook because of it. Seriously, at some point, you want to take the guy aside and say, “Dude… get over yourself.”

Of course, Dobson is also the sort of guy who excuses his confessionals with an “If you do nothing, nothing will happen!” Which… really makes him just as bad as all the childhood bullies and manga lovers he complains about non-stop. Hilariously, there’s a strip where our hero thinks that if he stops being angry, he won’t be funny … which mistakenly assumes that the comic was ever funny in the first place.

Incidentally, are you wondering if I wrote this review to one day make it into Andrew Dobson’s comic? Get real. But I have a feeling it’s coming. Some things, it seems, just get his goat.

Rating: 1 star (out of 5).

I’ve brought up the subject of John Kricfalusi on this blog before. Needless to say, I’m not much a fan of his style. Now, I appreciate his love and respect for cartooning history, since I too have a similar love the cleverness and creativity in classic newspaper comic strips as shown in my “Know Thy History” entries. While I don’t agree with him, I love how he seems to have a disdain for Pixar, The Simpsons, and anime. It’s a refreshing, unconventional stand, and I like how he backs himself up with the passion of a thousand burning suns.

However, I don’t think he’s as revolutionary of a cartoonist as many think he is. In fact, at the risk of drawing hatemail from hardcore John K fans, I think he’s a bit overrated. Much has been said of how he brought the veiny “ugly” style of cartooning and gross-out gags into the mainstream. It’s revolutionary! Maybe. But to me, the intentionally off-putting art style was just that… off-putting. Some people will see Powder Toast Man thrust his hairy nipples in Ren’s eyes and find it the pinnacle of humor. I am not one of those people, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

In fact, I think Craig McCracken and Bruce Timm have had more influence. Powerpuff Girls made it safe for simple, retro-style cartoons that dominated Cartoon Network for over a decade. Meanwhile, Batman: The Animated Series signaled a significant improvement for action toons: the static, kitchy 80′s styles from Dic and Sunbow turned into a fluid, flexible style that emphasized action and movement. Heck, I’d go so far to say that Mike Judge did more for the “ugly” style of cartooning than John K. What did Ren & Stimpy influence? Spongebob Squarepants … and that’s about it.

(You could probably argue that John K. is a major influence for KC Green, and for that I’m thankful. However, I’d still read way more KC Green than watch one episode of Ren & Stimpy. It’s like KC Green was better at being John K. than John K. was.)

It’s probably fair to say, though, that Aaron J. Paetz, Chris Allison, Ryan Kramer, and Mike Nassar don’t feel the same way. They’re the cartoonists behind Toonhole, which oozes the Spumco style from every pore.

Now, I should warn you, the links on this site are definitely not going to be of the safe-for-work variety. I don’t feel like tagging every link with an NSFW, so I just warn you now: proceed at your own risk. Don’t click on any link lest your boss look over your shoulder to see… well, we’ll go into detail later.

The Toonhole guys seem to be inspired by John Kricfalusi in more ways than simply by the art style. They seem to have bought into John K’s entire philosophy… and then some. John K, for example, is quite outspoken about his stance against political correctness. There’s his argument that it isn’t necessarily racist when you draw caricatures of Black people. He’s been very upfront about his love for Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs, a cartoon that’s been notoriously banned for its racist humor and imagery.

I have some sympathy toward this stance. It came up not too long ago when MSNBC pundit Lawrence O’Donnell slammed Batton Lash for drawing racist caricatures of President Obama on his online comic, Obama Nation. Batton Lash responded with the following: “What’s racist about it? Cartooning—specifically political cartooning– has always been about exaggeration, whether it was Nixon’s prominent jowls, Carter’s toothy smile, or Bush ll’s beady eyes. If our current president is exempt because of the color of his skin, I think that would be racist.” Despite the politics, I actually found myself siding with Mr. Lash on this. (Which doesn’t even factor in O’Donnell’s low-blow in calling out Mr. Lash’s wife and urging viewers to harass her at home.) I wouldn’t go so far as to totally exonerate Coal Black … but I think there should be some leeway with facial features with regards to caricature.

However, there is a fine line between “freedom of speech” and “going too far.” For example, there was the time when Ren & Stimpy transitioned to the Adult Party Cartoon block on Spike TV. Unbridled from those hateful censors at Nickelodeon, John K let his id run free. And thus, every joke became something about swallowing spit and vomit and you get the idea. It was gross. It pushed the envelope of good taste. It was also not that funny. Practically everyone hated it. Only six episodes were ever produced.

The guys behind Toonhole seem to have come to completely different conclusion. (Oh God. Can’t I stall this review any further? Looks like I’m going to have to talk about … sigh … Toonhole.) “Hmmm,” they seem to have said, “maybe the reason the new Ren & Stimpy failed was because it just wasn’t being edgy enough. We need to be even MORE politcally incorrect! Then we shall reach humor nirvana! Boys, to the Toonhole-mobile!” And thus, Toonhole was born… a deluded notion that there’s a golden formula where being more offensive is directly proportional to being more funny.

And, so, at least half of Toonhole is about dick jokes. I’m not even exaggerating. It’s dick joke after dick joke after dick joke. There are jokes about how huge someone’s member is. There are plenty of gags about getting a blow job. Can you believe there’s a comic about a bull typing up the cows so he can get his one-eyed trouser snake digtally stimulated by the farmer? Such cheek! Or how about the one where an Indian christens a newborn blessed blessed with a massive John Thomas by announcing: “We shall call him Trips-On-Dick.” How ribald! Surely if I were some sort of elegant Victorian lady, I would be fainting dead away by now.

I mean, who giggles uncontrollably when they hear the word “tip”? If dirty thoughts came to your mind whenever the word “tip” was brought up, you’d probably be in a lot of trouble every time you’re calculating the 15% every time you’re taking your significant other out for dinner, right? But the guys as Toonhole hear the phrase “tip of the iceberg,” and you can be pretty damn certain that they’re thinking “penis.” Then again, I may be totally missing the point here. Maybe they’re not trying to be funny. Maybe they just like drawing penises. God… how old are these guys… twelve?

But then you run into the poop jokes, likely the second most popular (or “poopular,” ah HA HA HA ha ha… ha… eh) joke on the site, and suddenly you say to yourself, “Nope. I was wrong. These guys can’t be older than eight.” Now, I realize that not too long ago I sang the praises of a poop joke presented on another webcomic site. I will fully admit to publishing the following phrase on my blog: “…who knew that the image of Luke Skywalker squatting to poop was just what I needed to make me smile today?” So what changed?

Well, in the case of the Space Avalanche strip, the joke is more about what we already know about these characters, the shocked expression on Leia’s face, the pleased expression of Luke’s face, how Han’s phrase is so similar to something he’d say in the movie trilogy that we can almost hear it in our heads. It’s not really about the poop… which kinda look like yams. With Toonhole, the poop IS the joke. It’s about getting pooped on or swallowing poop. (By the way, a word on that last one: ew.) These are seriously the laziest ways to set up a joke ever.

Penises! Poop! Why aren’t you laughing, bro?

Needless to say, Toonhole is engaged in futile attempt after futile attempt to push the shock value like a hack comedian at the Apollo. Toonhole plunges into familiar depths of loathesomeness, quipping about pedophile priests, amputees, and suicidal fat people. They’re the “Yo momma’s so fat” jokes of webcomics, only, you know, not actually humorous.

In fact, the gages are so tired they seem to be lifted straight out of The New York Cab Driver’s Joke Book — a collection of stale jokes that seem designed to elicit revulsion rather than humor and have been told a hundred times already, you hack cabbie. Hey, have you heard the one about the vampire that went down on a woman going through her period? Ya have? Eh, then how about that female sex addict counseling center where the guys are more than happy to assist? You heard that one eh? Well, there’s one about Superman, Wonder Woman, and the Invisible Man… oh, wait. Toonhole hasn’t done that one.

Yet.

And then there’s the moment when comic transitions from “mild discomfort” to “full blown revulsion.” You know, despite John K.’s love for Coal Black, I don’t think he personally has penned anything that approaches racist caricature. Not so with Toonhole. You get an inkling of the cartoonists’ political stance when we get a comic about Honest Abe giving a speech about freeing the slaves one moment, and then hypocritcally being carried on a ride lifted by four slaves. This gets even worse, later, when we run into a cartoon about a Klansman getting railroaded in a court of law by a bunch of Black “gangsta” caricatures.

Blacks aren’t the only minority group featured in Toonhole. We get a cartoon of an Arab baby is shown playing in a sandbox while jealously stealing a glance at the white kid’s airplanes. Oh boy, I wonder what’s going to happen when he gets his hands on those! Shenanigans, I’ll bet! There’s also a stereotypical Mexican is shown eying a green card. Man, who needs those when they’re just gonna enter the country illegally anyways, amirite? I hope he doesn’t end up marrying that magician guy to gain citizenship! AWWWWKKKKWAAARRRDDDD!

But what’s that, you say? Maybe they don’t care much for minorities, but at least women get a fair share? Oh, you blind deluded fool. Don’t you know that women are useless unless they’re in the kitchen? There’s not one but TWO comics where a guy either smacks around his wife or feeds her to the sharks for being a mouthy dame. And… that’s it. That’s the joke. Or how about that one comic about a little girl who gets a black eye because she’s playing house? Domestic abuse is COMEDY GOLD!

Now, I’m not surprised that Toonhole exists. I’ve run into many, many repulsive webcomics over the years. Toonhole is just one of them. What does surprise me is how popular this webcomic is. Compete.com tells me that the comic attracted close to 72K readers last month. Then again, we’ve seen webcomic readers make home made “DICK WOLVES” T-shirts (which prompted an officical version). We’ve also seen some transform the “Everybody Draw Mohammad Day” thing from a statement against censorship like the founders intended into a forum for contributors to spew vile racism.

Heck, as of this writing, Toonhole has managed to make it onto Reddit’s Comics That Are Awesome list (which is how I came across it). Please be assured, dear reader, that this categorization is incorrect. Toonhole is not awesome in the slightest. In fact, it’s the polar opposite. Anti-awesome. Or just plain vile, gross, and worthless.

If anyone ever emails you a link to a Toonhole toon, do yourself a favor and follow these steps:

1.) Douse your computer in gasoline.
2.) Set your computer on fire.
3.) Tell your insurance agent that your house burned down for “Toonhole related reasons.” They will understand.

Rating: 1 star (out of 5)

In the climactic sequence of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, or main character (played by Mike Meyers) confronts his nemesis, Dr. Evil (played by Mike Meyers) in the evil conference room. Nonchalantly stalling for time, Dr. Evil sneers, “There’s nothing as pathetic as an aging hipster.”

To me, this comment makes little sense. First of all, Austin Powers wasn’t an aging hipster. He was just unfrozen and in the prime of his life. He was simply just acting his age. Secondly, while Austin was a fish-out-of-water in the first movie, subsequent movies (where we can assume Austin was more aged) showed that he was more awesome than all the button-downed squares. And finally, his dad, played by Michael Caine, was the best thing Austin Powers In Goldmember, and he actually was an aging hipster.

Had Dr. Evil said, “There’s nothing as pathetic as an aging gamer,” then perhaps he would be on to something. Austin Powers would nod in agreement, Dr. Evil would be happy someone appreciated his opinions, and they wouldn’t have to wait for the last movie to discover that they are indeed brothers. (Whoops! Spoiler alert!)

Matt Thompson’s No Cash Value takes a look at gaming from the perspective of an older gamer. The writer and the comics’ stand-in, a bespectacled fellow ridiculously named Alan Spectre, are both in their mid-30′s. The days of hyperactive caffeine-fueled gaming are for a younger age and have passed him by. In a way, this is a departure from other webcomics, which have always were written from the perspective of ….

What’s that you say? Scott Kurtz is in his 30′s? And the Penny Arcade guys?

Huh.

For some reason that is likely both misguided and masochistic, I’ve always tried to keep tabs on video game webcomics. What can I say? It helps keep me grounded in the much maligned filed that got me into webcomics in the first place. One valuable resource is Joystiq’s Weekly Webcomic Wrapup.

The latest entry, as of this writing, boasted an “embarassment of comics” … a whole nine video game entries! That seems rather short, since I’m almost certain that the entirety of the internet contains at least a hundredfold that number. And not just obscure DrunkDuck stuff. For example, Ctrl+Alt+Del is missing… though, to be honest, no court in the world will convict them for that omission. I mean, come on.

The selections turn out to be an intriguing cross-section of the gaming webcomic genre. You have the Usual Suspects with Penny Arcade, VG Cats, and Dueling Analogs; the webcomics catering to Nintendo fanboys and fangirls with Awkward Zombie and Brawl In The Family; a webcomic for anime/genderswapping fans with Nerf Now!!; and some sort of unholy fusion of Ballard Street and gamer comics called Extra Life, which, I imagine, caters to gamers who live in retirement villas. Then you got a couple of oddball smaller offerings who don’t have as big an audience than the rest… one of them being the subject of today’s webcomic review.

No Cash Value gets off to a pretty good start with the first strip. I mean, you can’t go wrong with a Mass Effect joke. Sure, it’s a gag everyone’s done; Shepard is a total manslut (and also everyone ends up hooking up with Miranda). But it’s decently drawn, and the pacing doesn’t feel too unnatural.

Everything afterward, though, goes downhill faster than Human Target Season 2.

It all begins with the introduction to our main character, Alan Spectre. One of my biggest gripes about video game comics lately is that most of them are nothing more than character says a gag, then gag is illustrated as absurdly and as drawn out as possible. It’s basically Family Guy‘s “Holy crap, Lois, remember the time when…” joke, but done with only one-tenth of the wit (which wasn’t that witty in the first place).

Our version of the played-out joke starts with Alan Spectre facing the reader and saying “imagine… that video games are like senior prom”. Oh boy. My sides are splitting already. It turns out to be an excuse to draw Kratos from God of War and Dante from Dante’s Inferno as cross-dressers. This is seriously the whole gag. That’s too little material and too flimsy a premise to structure an entire three-panel webcomic around. I imagine it could be improved by eliminating Alan Spectre entirely and condensing the whole thing into one panel… but perhaps that would get you flagged by the sequential art police.

Predictability is No Cash Value‘s biggest enemy. For example, there’s a Super Mario Galaxy comic whose punchline is that Mario can’t breathe in space. Seriously, if that joke hasn’t been done in at least 20 other webcomics, it’s because most webcomic creators are savvy enough to figure out that this is easily one of the most obvious jokes to make about Super Mario Galaxy. In the same vein, there’s a strip about how The Internet Implodes because everyone loved Sonic Colors. This strip is so generic that you could literally use any other game on the same comic template.

There’s one strip where Alan Spectre takes the viewer aside to tell us how he doesn’t like Mario Kart or Super Smash Brothers … after which he his killed by a crazed fan dressed up like Pikachu. This strip bugs me on several levels. The first, obviously, is that there clearly was on punchline, so we had to have some sort of “wacky random violence” gag tagged on until the end. Second, why should we care that someone who’s over 30 doesn’t care for some cutesy Nintendo product? I mean, they ARE designed for little kids. Not liking those games should make the most sense in the world.

Thirdly, why should Alan Spectre even care what a bunch of kids think? We’ve established that Alan over 30. Should he even be talking to gamers young enough to be his kids about how he doesn’t like Mario Kart and Super Smash Brothers? That would like be me writing a blog post going, “Well, I’m not ashamed to admit that I don’t care much for Ben 10 or Total Drama Island,” then acting out a small play where a pre-teen fanatic Cartoon Network fan decapitates me. Wait a minute … that actually sounds like a great idea!

Finally, that third panel exemplifies a major problem I have with No Cash Value: the rigid-looking art. All the movements are drawn stiffly and unnaturally… as if the characters were all like Indonesian shadow puppets. Everyone has rigidly jointed arms and legs capable of barely two degrees of motion. This is a big problem for a comic that relies heavily on sight gags.

While we’re on the art, I should point out the design of Alan Spectre himself (and, by extension, the kid who looks exactly like him who is either his son or his younger self). To put it the most gentle terms possible, Alan Spectre looks totally unappealing. If you look at it one way, I suppose it’s a good thing that he’s not depicted as a dapper young man. However, Joe Dunn from Joe Loves Crappy Movies is drawn with similar characteristics (disheveled hair, thick glasses, rotund face, bad complexion), and he doesn’t look half as unsettling. The entire design of Alan Spectre conveys sweatiness and grossness. He’s not the sort of character you’d want to spend an entirety of a gag-a-day strip with.

I mean… Good Lord… is it just me or is Alan’s head absolutely huge? It’s like a pumpkin with eyes. Looking at that again, though, maybe I’m taking it the wrong way. Perhaps the heads of all the females from No Cash Value are really tiny instead? I suppose you could defend it as some sort of legitimate artistic direction… but if you were going to the Pablo Picasso route, I’d suggest going whole hod with the uneven eyes and the Bird-of-Paradise fingers.

Eventually No Cash Value steps out of its video game comfort zone and covers subjects best describes as “Not Ready for Joystiq’s Weekly Webcomics Wrapup.” I suppose that’s a good thing, since focusing solely on video games gets incredibly myopic. Sometimes it works, like when Scott DeWitt navigated away from the strip’s gamer roots in Fanboys. But… complaining that I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter tastes like feet? Whoa, whoa, whoa… I thought Alan Spectre was in his mid-30′s, not a cranky old man his mid-60′s. There’s also a bizarre plot where Alan marries and then divorces his HD TV, which makes as much sense as it sounds. (Note: one of those contains a joke about a ribbed HDMI cable “For Her Pleasure.” Groan.)

And, of course, there are the inevitable Star Wars jokes. Truly, there’s nothing as pathetic as an aging Star Wars fan.

There are signs that Matt Thompson does have different tastes and perspectives than the creators of the average gamer comic. I feel that he’s got some good comics in him based on that one fact alone. For example, he does a comic about the obscure iPhone game called Game Dev Story. He deserves recognition for the attempt, even if the end result is yet another interchangeable strip. And while I can’t stand by his opinions on Seanbaby, I can at least respect that he doesn’t worship the man (unlike every other gamer, including myself).

At the same time, No Cash Value also tries way too hard to be part of the crowd. The gags feel generic. There’s an over-reliance on wacky violence as a punchline. It has not personality of its own. If this No Cash Value continues to go down that path, it can’t win … simply because most other gaming comics are already doing the same thing but are funnier and feature much better artwork.

Rating: 1 star (out of 5)

Strawberry Death Cake, written and illustrated by Elliot Dombo, bears more than a few similarities to a notoriously banned webcomic strip. I’m speaking of Penny Arcade‘s parody piece: a sexy drawing of a tarted-up (heh) Strawberry Shortcake lampooning American McGee’s Alice video game. That very comic got Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins in trouble with American Greetings, which led to some legal mumbo jumbo, which led to that particular comic strip not existing officially. Also everybody got a nice lesson in “fair use” … mainly that no one has any idea what the hell “fair use” even means.

But back to Strawberry Death Cake. Is it possible that this very webcomic was inspired by the parody strip? There’s the title, which features both the words “Strawberry” and “Cake.” Its heroine look like a sexy Goth stripper out of Suicide Girls’ central casting. Penny Arcade has a demon cat; Strawberry Death Case has a demon moose. The parallels are interesting, no?

Curiously, Strawberry Death Cake is more similar to the Penny Arcade parody than to the actual freckle-faced youth in the strawberry-print bonnet. I mean, there’s no strawberries, and there’s definitely no cake. So… why is this comic even called Strawberry Death Cake? Was Goth Panty Flasher too on the nose?

Ah, THAT got your attention!

I should probably give you some fair warning ahead of time: assume, dear reader, that every link is not work safe. Oh, there’s no straight up nudity, if that’s what you’re looking for. However, if your boss catches you looking at underage underwear models in striped nylons, I have a feeling he won’t be giving that raise you asked for.

Based on all the cover art, our main character, theoretically, is Marilyn. She is, most notably, the owner of a pair of panties, which are thrust at the viewer every five appearances or so. Lest you think Marilyn is some sort of slut, I should point out that she also wears some striped thigh-high stockings, a corset, and a way too short miniskirt. That Marilyn… keepin’ it classy! Incidentally, Marilyn is a demon hunter. Her attacks include flying kicks, spin kicks, and generally a lot of moves that call of exposing one’s crotch. Seriously, if you’re in that sort of business, shouldn’t she wearing something more sensible? Like … pants? You know, instead of a Valentine’s Day negligee from Hot Topic?

(Wait, is that even a thing anymore? Last time I peeked into the place, it was chock full of Cookie Monster, Transformer, and Nintendo shirts. Do they stock the stereotypical buckles and leather gear in a super-clandestine Adults Only section located in the backroom now?)

Marilyn carries around a sword stolen from an Soulcalibur game. I suppose that’s supposed to make her badass. Mr. Dombo even does a one-off comic where she owns Dante from Devil May Care. However, while looking for more recent Marilyn action images to include in this review, I noticed something curious: outside of the first two chapters, there are no Marilyn action sequences. Half the time, she’s standing around and posing, often with her derriere hanging out. I’m guessing that, in Strawberry Death Cake, “demon hunter” actually means “kinky lingerie model.”

A stronger case for the status of main character can be made for Jessica. While Marilyn is the grumpy and cynical veteran (at age 18, naturally), Jessica is the fresh-faced newcomer eager to learn about this shadow world of demons. At first, Jessica dresses somewhat sensibly. I mean that using a very, very liberal interpretation of the word. While the skeleton hoodie and short shorts does indeed look ridiculous, I can imagine seeing someone wearing that same outfit to the mall at least. Later, though, she seems to be in a “Who can whore it up the most” contest with Marilyn.

Jessica joins the team after she gets eaten by a demon. No, no, you perverts, not in that sen-… wait, maybe it was in that sense. The comic’s rather vague on the particulars, and I think it says a lot about the comic that I’m not dismissing that possibility outright. Anyway, she’s partially digested, and that turns out to be one of the best things to happen to her. (Ugh.) First, Jessica develops some super powers that allow her to turn guns into other guns. Useful, I guess? Second, we get the following immortal line:

“I’m not sure quite when it happened but my panties disappeared after he had eaten me.”

Boy. These are the sorts of problems you want to have!

There are some male leads in this comic, too. Supposedly. Jason shows up in the first chapter, and, as the guy Marilyn saves and the first recipient of super-demonic power by way of partial digestion, he’s seemingly being set up to be the main character. He’s also the lead singer of a band where Jessica’s playing back-up… that’s got to factor into the comic at some point! (It doesn’t.) However, Jason fades into irrelevancy soon after. It figures. When most of the comic’s plots are primarily concerned with getting its female characters in their knickers, guys can’t compete. No one’s bookmarking this comic to see some dude’s abs, I’m guessing.

Then again, Jason does scream, “Yatta!” after a victory once, which ranks him pretty high up on the dorkiness scale. It’s hard to say which was more embarrassing, this or Annakin yelling, “Wizards!” in Episode 1. All things considered, maybe Jason’s demotion to bit player was a blessing is disguise.

Our characters are recruited into a super-secret paranormal organization called the Black Ministry (no relation to the band “Ministry” or the Undertaker’s “Ministry of Darkness”) by Winston, a cartoony moose demon and our resident comic relief character. I’ll give credit where credit’s due: Winston is responsible for perhaps the only funny scene in the comic. Jason goes to the shower, and all signs point to impending fanservice. However, when he opens the door, it’s an anthropomorphic moose.

You’ll come to realize, though, that Winston is easily the most annoying character created since Jar Jar Binks. Witness his “humorous antics.” Listen to his “hilarious” “random” bon mots, such as “Moose needs a new waffle toaster!” Did I want to slam this guy’s head with said waffle toaster?

Did you even have to ask?

And wouldn’t you know it, this comic features not one but TWO odious comic relief characters. After all, you can’t draw sexy underwear pin-ups of an anthropomorphic moose. (Well, technically you can… but I don’t want to find out.) That’s why we have Kendall. I think her character can best be boiled down to “The World’s Cutest Lesbian Molester.” She’s perky. She’s nerdy. And whenever she sees an attractive woman, she either grabs her ass or buries her face in her breasts. This is all as hilarious as it sounds … which is to say, not at all. She’s basically all those creepy underwear-sniffing anime characters from the 90′s, except those anime characters may have been a tad more sympathetic than Kendall.

Chapter 5, incidentally, almost redeems this character. Kendall gets possessed by a demonic hat, and her character begins exuding some disturbing rapist vibes. However, this is all really an excuse to have our male “heroes” take advantage of a room full of brainwashed nymphomaniac women. Plus, in the end, Kendall goes back to her groping ways anyway. Instead of, you know, dying, the best possible conclusion to the character. (It would have bumped this review up a whole star rating, at least.) The experience, by the way, has left Kendall with a lovely head of blonde hair. I mean, why not? We already had a brunette and a redhead. Fans of blondes need cheesecake, too!

Incidentally, the sexual hi-jinks seem rather innocent compared to some of the fetishes that Strawberry Death Cake only alludes to. Let’s see what this comic features:

• Vore.
• Tentacles.
• Hypnotizing women to take their clothes off.
• Nazi S&M bondage.

But all of it’s done in glorious PG-13 so the whole family can enjoy! I don’t know about you, but merely hinting at the kinkiness makes this entire comic feel slightly more skeevy than actually delivering on it. At least, I’d be sensible enough to ignore it.

And just to prove that this comic was written for teenagers too chicken to google for porn, Strawberry Death Cake features several stillborn attempts at “random” humor that falls flat on its face. I’m sure the Death Bunny Squad was hilarious on paper. Bunnies in Nazi regalia? That’s totes random and offensive!

Well, no. I mean, I’ve read Jack, so I kinda have a good idea what truly offensive webcomics look like. (Wait. Am I actually giving Jack credit for something? That’s it… I’m losing it.) And, well, jokes become less funny (and also less “random”) the more you try to convince the reader that something is silly and wacky. So, naturally, there are two whole chapters of Strawberry Death Cake ramming the Nazi Demon bunny joke down our throats. At some point it’s going to be funny!

Not.

I initially going to make a remark on the artwork about how Elliot Dombo uses the color red like its going out of style. The color of each panel matches the rage you feel reading it. As of the newest page, though Mr. Dombo seems to have discovered at least five other colors. Perhaps this won’t be a problem going forward. At the same time I think the art’s gone downhill… but it’s only the first page of the new style, so I won’t give Mr. Dombo too much crap for that.

Instead, I’m going to give Mr. Dombo crap about his compositions. Remember how I said it seems like Marilyn never does anything except stand around? That’s because most of the panels she’s in are obviously glamour posters, first and foremost. There’s one panel in particular that seems like it was shoe-horned in. Why is Marilyn striking such a dramatic poise for such a mundane speech? How come her words aren’t coming out of word balloons? And why are the characters so badly drawn in every other panel on that page? Simple: the pin-up art came first, and the entire page was more or less built up around it.

And why not? The pin-ups are fairly well drawn. Plus, they distract the reader from the rest of the comic. Else you might notice that the action sequences are badly paced and ineptly executed, and that every character moves as if they have stainless steel rods jammed up their joints.

I’m not anti-cheesecake, by the way. I think I’ve mentioned on this site before that I liked the Sorcerer Hunters manga. That comic was about hunting down demons, humorous camaraderie … and stuffing its two female leads in revealing dominatrix outfits. But it worked! The characters were generally likable (even Carrot, who was more of an unrepentant perv than Kendall), the demons were legitimately scary, action sequences were executed nicely … and it was sexy. The fanservice was icing on the cake. It’s a pretty good example that when you have a good grasp on the principles of storytelling and character development, the salaciousness feels more like a bonus than straight up pandering.

Strawberry Death Cake, on the other hand, is all icing, no cake. I suppose Mr. Dombo can hardly be blamed. The going theory is that “Sex sells,” and raging libidos bring in curious viewers. However, if there’s nothing beyond that, what the hell keeps me going? The characters — from the standpoint of personality and not physical build — are flatter than flat. The dialogue is hardly more than a collection of “clever” catchphrases that make me want to stab my brain with a fork. Both the paranormal investigative squad concept and the rock-band-turned-supernatural-heroes concepts are inherently pretty solid, but any semblance of plot is completely undermined by failed attempts at “humor.”

I mean, seriously … Nazi Death bunnies.

As a result, I don’t care for either Jessica or Marilyn. Both Kendall and Winston remain characters that you wish had died in a fire. I don’t know why they seem to think demons are such a bad thing. There’s never a sense that Strawberry Death Cake is anything but outside of the pin-up illustrations. Great, put together a DeviantArt gallery. However, a good webcomic? Strawberry Death Cake is most definitely not.

Final Grade: 1 star (out of 5)

(This is Part Two of a very special Two Part retrospective of Ctrl+Alt+Del. Please click here to read Part One.)

The sum of Ctrl+Alt+Delete‘s early run can easily be summed up by one of the most notorious advertising campaigns in video game history: the ad for Daikatana. So, basically, creator John Romero thought it would be a good idea to sort of do a parody of gamer talk. So he put together a simple red poster with a very simple slogan: “John Romero’s About To Make You His Bitch.” This was supposed to be ironic, of course.

It went over as well as you would expect.

So far, Buckley’s put together a comic about gamers being moronic troglodytes, emotionally stunted man children, and gamer girls with no personality, while each parody needs to be explained over and over again while the violent punchlines are pretty much telegraphed since panel one. Meanwhile, Buckley’s Mary Sue, Ethan, becomes crowned King of All Gamers, pwns all the world’s religions, and envisions a story where video games can save your marriage. Ironically, of course.

That went over as well as you’d expect.

But now it’s different. Now that Tim Buckley has crossed the bridge from wacky humor to maudlin drama, we’re now reading a totally new comic. the upgrade that finally makes CAD a comic that deals with serious issues.

Welcome to CAD 2.0.

What’s CAD 2.0, you ask? Before, when Ethan committed violence, it was a punchline. Now, people threaten to press charges. In CAD 2.0, when Ethan tries to get wacky, his antics are frowned upon. In CAD 2.0, it’s wrong to make someone your his bitch. CAD 1.0 was about playing video games. CAD 2.0 is about playing the biggest video game of all …

… the video game of life.

So let’s take a trip down the all new, all different CAD and see if things may have changed for the better. Prepare, dear reader, to have your heart torn.

6/04/2008: I’m not going to harp too much on the blog post that accompanied the “Loss” strip. However, it does reveal two key things about the storyline to come ahead: 1.) that it’s partially autobiographical, as Tim Buckley went through what a relationship that, in his his own words, “was toxic to begin with and doomed to fail regardless,” and 2.) that he’s going to apparently retcon everything and say that he’s had this particular storyline planned for a long, long time.

That explains some of the developments this story takes … and makes them a little creepy. Like a whole page explaining that the miscarriage happened because Lilah’s blood attacked the fetus? I mean, WOW. Let’s just say that the classy thing to do would have been not bringing that up in the first place.

9/01/2008: The Funky-Winkerbean-ization of CAD continues beyond the Passion of Ethan. Our big friend Lucas even goes through his own mini-torture. Earlier in the series, Lucas had been dating a girl named Kate (who had met him while dressed in a fat suit, but it’s best to block that stupid, stupid plot out of your mind). After sleeping with her, he discovers that he he doesn’t love her (and reveals his feelings after sleeping with her again). They entered a relationship of convenience.

Now, fast forward to the present day. He finally finds out that he does love Kate, but when he goes to pour out his heart to her, he finds out she’s been sleeping around. Dun dun DUN! Seriously, CAD 2.0 has swiftly morphed into a Telemundo soap opera here.

Ah, but fortunately for those of you who’ve been clutching at your hearts and on the verge of fainting from this particular twist, Lucas and Kate patch things up. Lucas’ monologue, which include such choice lines as “I’m mad … I’m hurt, and it will take me a while to trust you again,” is, quite possibly, a picture perfect template on how not to do an apology. Incidentally, this who theme where the guy is not wrong and women should feel bad for acting like women? This is not the last time we’re going to see this theme played out in CAD….

10/29/2008: What Lucas is going through is but a mere fraction to the absolutely impenetrable trials and tribulations that Ethan’s going through. Like the return of Christian, Lilah’s millionaire boyfriend, who buys up the Gamehaven as some sort of elaborate scheme to steal Lilah away from Ethan. (Seriously.) And the introduction of Shannon as an employee to Gamehaven, who for some godforsaken reason, tries to seduce Ethan. (It turns out that this was also part of the elaborate scheme to steal Lilah away from Ethan … which at least makes a smidgen of sense.)

It all looks really bleak for Ethan, who runs back home and doesn’t find Lilah there in what I like to call Loss, Part II. But all’s well that ends well. Lilah apparently only went to the airport so she could somehow have Christian hauled off by authorities. And she apologies to Ethan for not being there for him emotionally during this whole ordeal. (!!!!) OK, ending two storylines where two different women come crawling back to the author’s Mary Sue and the Mary Sue’s best friend (who may also be a Mary Sue)? DAMN.

Now here’s a great “What If?” What if Tim Buckley had decided to let Lilah run off with Christian in the end? Granted, that might be too dark, but we sorta jumped that particular shark after the miscarriage arc started. Maybe it would be too close to what the author really experienced, and perhaps he wouldn’t have wanted to go that far. Maybe it would have been just as terrible. Scratch that: it would have been just as terrible.

But you know what? It would’ve been far less of cheat. It would’ve made Ethan more sympathetic, since now he’s been through some real hardship that would’ve forced him to finally grow up. It would’ve ended a relationship that wasn’t too realistic in the first place. Lilah always acted more like Ethan’s mom … which was never more apparent than in the CAD: The Animated Series, where there’s a whole plotline where Lilah has to explain why she’s different from a mother (by, appropriately by CAD standards anyway, showing him her boobs). Uggggghh.

(And YES, I did watch the entire run of CAD: The Animated Series. The things I do for you people!)

Instead, we learn that Ethan is never wrong and his “friends” should do everything to tolerate him and make his life better despite getting nothing in return. Appropriately enough, Lilah and Ethan steal Christian’s tickets so they can go to Italy and get married, because, you know, everything comes to Ethan for free. This signals the blessed end of one of the worst story arcs in the history of webcomics. I know I’m missing a lot of things, such as a subplot where Ethan sadly puts away a tiny controller he had been building for “Darth McManus,” but I’ve got home renovations to get to.

By the way, in case you were keeping a running tally, despite the marriage of Ethan and Lilah it’s still not the end of the marriage arc.

11/26/2008: Ooh, the second out-of-continuity Ethan McManus in space story arc. I’m starting to understand why these are so popular. They’re perhaps the most interactive a webcomic creator ever gets with his audience (except maybe MS Paint Adventures), they give Tim Buckley a break from having to try to stay current with video game jokes, and we the readers get to take a break from the forehead-slapping uber-drama. And you know what? It’s still just as wordy as hell, but, you know, reams of exposition have always been par for the course in sci-fi novels. The fact that Buckley actually hand-draws his backgrounds for once is a definite improvement. I mean, sure, the spaceship is basically an obviously modified X-Wing, but STILL!

And… here’s the best thing about it… it managed to kill the increasingly turgid Winter-een-mas stories! Glory hallelujah!

2/16/09: Tim Buckley seems to be expanding his scope beyond video games. There are now pop culture strips are about guys from infomercials, the UFC, and older games? But let’s answer the most important question: is the punchline still really, really unfunny? YES.

3/16/2009: You know, I kinda like Ethan as the manager.Oh, sure, everything about this situation is contrived as hell. Ethan only gets the store because the previous owner had bought it from Christian and didn’t want to buy it back. And Lucas forgoes his dreams of going back to college and signs on to help with the paperwork because ETHAN ETHAN ETHAN. But, it’s nice to to see Ethan go crazy for legit reasons for a change, and not because, I don’t know, there’s not enough buttered toast sticking on the walls or some “random” crap.

8/12/2009: Just when I thought we’d turned the corner on CAD, apparently Ethan is always right and everyone should feel bad for making him feel bad. Also, this storyline gets rid of that XBox robot, one of the last vestiges of CAD 1.0, as he leaves the house so he can travel the world with his new lady love. As many have pointed out, Ethan seems to be more broken up about this than his wife’s miscarriage.

9/07/2009: Huh. Nice offensive imagery there, Tim.

9/25/2009: Let it not be said that Tim Buckley doesn’t listen to criticisms about his art. Today marks the day that he finally changes his art style. The “B^U” jokes end here, people. Now, it’s not perfect. He still struggles with giving anyone much of an emotional range, which really stands out now that he’s put more work in the detail. The Player comics look… kinda creepy now, to be honest. But I think it does look better than what came before, and the more mature style meshes well with the all-new, all-different CAD 2.0.

12/07/2009: And now we get to the wedding arc and … it’s really very, very boring. Which is a surprise, considering Buckley throws everything he can into it, including a subplot about dealing with a douchebag brother and running from the Hawaiian mafia. (Seriously.) Perhaps CAD wants to preserve the solemnity of marriage? Eh. Doubtful. I mean, the marriage vows somehow include gratuitous references to video games in a pale attempt to conform to CAD‘s original mission statement. I have a feeling that Buckley’s getting petered out on the entire thing, and he’d rather be back to writing those “Ethan McManus in Space” stories.

3/10/2010: Ethan has to draw up a contract to see his wife’s boobs? Is he that unfamiliar with the concept of marriage? Also, this panel was apparently re-edited from the original, which contained no boob jokes. Because no one would recognize it was CAD if he didn’t.

4/30/2010: We end our Tour de CAD on the Abby storyline, a.k.a. that girl he created using Google image search. Basically, Abby’s cheating the system and using Gamehaven’s policy against them for her own personal benefit. So… basically a female Ethan. The limited facial expressions from Abby and Ethan, by the way, register as “mildly flirtatious” rather than “thinly veiled contempt,” which is what I think Buckley was going for. (Or not. Abby does complain that Ethan was sending out mixed signals, so point to Buckley I guess.) Anyway, Ethan and Abby patch things up, Lilah somehow doesn’t go into a flying rage that he husband is spending so much time and passion over another woman, and everything turns out well and fine in Ethanland.

I’ve spent something like 6,000 words ragging on Ctrl+Alt+Del, so I think I’ll close this out with something positive: Tim Buckley is probably one of the top reasons people get into webcomics at all. Maybe video game humor isn’t exactly Oscar Wilde, but there is an audience and they appreciate that someone’s got jokes about their hobby. And those fans? They started writing their own comics about video games. CAD even got CAD haters to start reading webcomics, because when you’re devoted to hating something, you have to eventually ask yourself what you like. I’ve seen more than one message board thread devoted to hating CAD evolve into discussions about where the good webcomics are.

Also, I like Rob. He seems like a cool character.

So if you’re reading this, Tim Buckley: your webcomic is bad, and you should feel bad … but it’s so spectacularly bad that, in a way, it does come right back to entertaining, in a way you definitely never intended. Just when we thought we knew CAD, there are crazy new alleys just around the corner. Congratulations, Tim Buckley, you are the Rob Liefeld of webcomics.

Rating (2008-2010): 1 star (out of 5)

I like Rob Liefeld.

It’s sort of an out there thing to say. Nowadays, when most people mention the name “Rob Liefeld,” they like to talk about pouches, no feet, ridiculous muscles on muscles, impossibly small waistlines on the women, and that one Captain America picture. I get that.

Still, if people were craving artists who drew in “How to Draw Comics The Marvel Way” dimensions, how come there’s no alternate movement to honor the likes of Dan Jurgens, Tom Grummett, or Jerry Ordway? What people are forgetting is that when Liefeld broke out onto the scene, the rigidly standard character designs were prevalent and, frankly, very dull. A style, though, that placed more value in the visceral over realism? The guy running the “I Love Rob Liefeld” blog summed it best:

I thought it was AWESOME. The energy, the power, the thrill of super-heroes beating the snot out of super-villains. I loved it.

I understand all the criticisms. I know Liefeld can’t really draw well. Look, you don’t have to send me that link to Progressive Boink. I’ve seen it. But I don’t care. Liefeld was one of the biggest reasons I started collecting comics, so he’s OK by me.

I mention Liefeld because, in a way, I totally understand what it’s like to be a fan of Tim Buckley’s much maligned webcomic, Ctrl+Alt+Del. Perhaps no other webcomic has been so widely mocked by critics and by fellow webcomic creators. Yet it still frequently pops up on a lot of people’s “Best Of” lists, including many people whose opinions I value.

Once upon a time, I called Tim Buckley “the Rob Liefeld of webcomics” … maybe he can’t draw, maybe he’s a bit of a hot-head, maybe a lot of his fans hate what he did to the genre … but if you ignore him, you’ll never get a full picture of what webcomics (or in Rob’s case, comics in the 90′s) were really all about. It’s been a long time coming, but it’s time to put that theory to the test.

I do get asked, from time to time, “What’s the big deal with Ctrl+Alt+Del? Why the haters? Is it as bad as everyone says it is, or is this just more internet drama from a field that isn’t exactly short on irascible, drama-hungry raconteurs?”

To tackle such a hefty subject, I am, for the first time, going to split a review into two. I think there are two big questions when it comes to CAD. The first being, “Is CAD as bad as everyone says it is?” and the second being, “After Tim Buckley retooled CAD, is it now worth reading?” For the first part, I’m going to run a sort of live review covering the years between 2002 to about 2008. The second part will take us to the present day.

What’s easy to forget is that Tim Buckley was not always the pariah of the webcomic world. I understand Jerry Holkins wrote the intro to the first CAD book. Ryan Sohmer, of Least I Could Do, was one of the people behind the pay-for-play CAD Animated Series. We also forget that CAD was once the darling of fans as well: in 2004 and 2005, CAD was nominated for the WCCA’s Outstanding Gaming Comic Award, while in 2005 it was nominated for Outstanding comic. The webcomic remains ridiculously popular. According to Compete.com, CAD had 418K unique visitors in June, which is below Penny Arcade (773K) and above PvP (114K).

But, yes, Buckley’s responsible for a multitude of transgressions. It’s unoriginal. The pacing is terrible. It’s preachy. Not funny. Not particularly well drawn. But let’s not beat around the bush and get directly to the elephant in the room: everything completely went to hell when he decided it was a good idea to turn a comic where the characters said “XBox” every three sentences into a miscarriage drama.

The controversy doesn’t end there. Just a few months ago, someone discovered that his latest character, Abby, was ripped off the first result for “punk girl” on a Google Image Search. (Buckley has since recolored the character to eliminate the similarities.) What made things worse was that, in the past, Buckley, had very publicly torn into someone with a long, angry rant for using his characters in a school project. These mistakes and more have been well documented in fine publications like Encyclopedia Dramatica (NSFW) and The Bad Webcomic Wiki.

But let me play devil’s advocate for a moment.

Let’s look at that case, for instance. The latter for instance. Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins have made no secret that they don’t like how Buckley, a.k.a. Franzibald, is basically ripping off their creations, either. However, when they get into hot water for depicting a “sexy” Strawberry Shortcake, they’re hailed as martyrs because they were being hassled by American Greetings. I understand they’re two slightly different situations, but consider this: if it were Buckley getting in trouble over the Strawberry Shortcake strip, would we be as charitable?

And, really, with regard to the infamous “Loss” strip: who in webcomics HASN’T made a bad decision by plunging into drama? Shortpacked!‘s “ironic” pulling of the drama tag or xkcd‘s creepy Megan strips are only a couple of examples. Buckley’s may be the most spectacular, but that’s because his comic is under a microscope full time.

I should state off the bat that I don’t have very high opinions of CAD, but I’ve only seen bits and pieces… basically the worst-of-the-worst highlight reel. So to formulate a fuller opinion, I’ve decided to keep a running blog as I read CAD from beginning to end.

10/23/2002: So. It begins. Two guys. A couch. Video games. “Random” gag. So far, so generic.

The zeitgeist among gamers at the time was that there was an all new console war going on. Once upon a time, we had Nintendo vs. Sega. Now we had Sony vs. Microsoft (with Nintendo becoming a threat later when the Nintendo Wii outsold both of ‘em). Enter Ctrl+Alt+Del, one of the many game-oriented comics popping up on the scene to feed off the trumped up faux-animosity between gamers … who, let’s face it, aren’t very well known for their social graces.

While “inspired” by Penny Arcade, CAD itself became the inspiration for many other webcomics out there, plenty of which have since become defunct. And thus the era of the video game webcomic entered its Golden Age. The rest of my these can be found in Part One of my hopefully 47-part series: “An Ode to Video Game Webcomics.”

But, yeah, this is the one with the watermelon.

4/07/2003: My guess is that one of the earliest criticisms about CAD is encapsulated in that B^U meme. If you’re unfamiliar with “B^U,” turn it 90 degrees clockwise to see the “B” form permanently frozen half-lidded eyes, while the “U” forms a slack-jawed expression. Now, I was prepared to dismiss it early on as part of a learning curve. After all, early PvP‘s and Penny Arcades look pretty rough, too.

However, the lack of expressions beyond “B^U” in certain scenes are just too ridiculous to ignore.

5/30/2003: You know, given that Ethan is a game-obsessed man-child (and quite possibly Tim Buckley’s Mary Sue character), I thought that Lucas, who’s set up as the straight man, would turn out to be sympathetic. But goddamn is he ever smug.

7/21/2003: I will say this, though. I do like Scott.

8/23/2003 – 10/03/2003: OK, this is the first storyline that really, really annoyed me. Basically it goes like this: Ethan gets all his “friends” together to ambitiously put together a video game. He’s supposed to be taking art duties. Ethan starts getting on everyone’s case to get their stuff done, while he does jack. Eventually, he alienates abuses everyone he knows, but Lucas realizes it was the tie controlling him all this time (which doesn’t even make sense, since he wasn’t wearing it the whole time). So, in the end, all is forgiven. Oh, ETHAN!

Now, I’ve heard fans defend Ethan by saying that he’s basically Homer Simpson. As in, Ethan is basically an idiot savant, he does stupid things, but in the end, we root for the guy. Sure, I see the point … if we’re talking about the “jerkass” Homer Simpson from Season 12 onward.

That’s the point former Simpsons diehards like myself typically think the show jumped the shark, plus or minus three seasons. But back to the analogy: the reason we put up with Homer’s stupid antics is that, in the past, there have been touching times when the Simpsons pater familias has proved himself to be someone who cares about his family.

Do we ever get a moment like that with Ethan? So far, the guy’s been portrayed as being utterly selfish and unreasonable. So Ethan makes life miserable for everyone around him, and that’s supposed to be funny? Maybe for a few toss off gags, yeah. But we’re entering the second year of CAD here, and I can tell you that cruelty without anything behind it just isn’t that humorous.

12/20/2003: CAD often gets slammed for being wordy. The first year has been relatively breezy, so this is the first time I’m really noticing it. One of the recommended reading techniques pointed out by haters is that the comic is greatly improved by reading only the first and last panels. I try this technique out. It works out surprisingly well.

1/03/2004: Great now that technique’s not working out too well, either. So the punchline here is Ethan does something wacky and Lucas goes, “Any explanation you could possibly offer will only further destroy my faith in the future of humanity.” Holy crap, was that the most unnecessary punchline to add at the end or what? I’m starting to think that a greatly improved CAD would be entitled CAD Minus Lucas. By they way, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard this exact same punchline repeated like ten times already.

3/05/2004: I guess this is as good a time as any to point this out: using the results of a Google image search for your backgrounds? Really obvious, and really lazy. And Tim Buckley does this every other page. The first couple of times, I chuckled. Afterwards, I just sorta put my head between my hands and sighed forlornly.

5/15/2004: Goddammit, I am seriously getting sick of these stupid “random” Chef Brian strips.

5/19/2004: Oh, boy, no sooner do I say that than we get the first of the Player One, Player Two strips. I’ll be honest with you, though… these don’t really bother me. When you have to slog through the utter wordiness of a typical CAD strip, the Itchy & Scratchy like antics of Players One and Two (and later Three and Four) are almost a blessing.

8/11/2004: Here’s something I don’t get. Gamers in CAD are depicted here as cruel, violent psychopaths, dangerous morons, and he-man woman haters. Yet we’re supposed to be tut-tutting when the media depicts them as such? I know what Buckley’s going for here … but, crap, way to give your tormentors an easy excuse, eh?

9/22/2004: Here’s a Chef Brian strip showing a fork having sex with a spoon. There’s nothing really remarkable here except for the absolutely perfect B^U face on that spoon.

11/15/2004 – 12/14/2004: OK, I’ll admit that this was funny. Ethan creates a machine that can freeze time. Why? So he can play more video games. He walks around the apartment and find Lucas and Scott frozen into place. It turns out they were messing with him. And they carry out the joke as long as possible. Perhaps I was just more than a little impressed that someone in the comic was allowed to put one over Ethan.

1/1/2005-12/31/2005: Overall, the comics put out this year aren’t terrible. They’re still far too many words to explain a punchline when less is more (especially in the last panel), the characters are still unlikable, and there are far too many instances of Buckley face … but compared to the stuff that came the years before, it’s, at best, inoffensive. Lucas and Ethan by an HDTV. Lucas finds a date (the running gag here is that every woman Lucas dates is insane). Zeke (the XBox robot) goes robo-crazy. For the most part, it’s been a 3 star year so far instead of the typical 1 or 2 stars. I imagine this is the year everyone remembers when they stick it on their “Best Of” lists.

10/12/2005: And then we get to the really awful Jack Thompson strips. Please, Buckley … I think I speak for everyone when I say never ever open your mouth about politics again. There tasteful ways to go after people who you disagree with … and then there’s implying that the guy you hate was raped as a child. I’m sorry, but if your argument boils down to drawing yourself as the smuggest man on the planet while railing threats like “We outnumber you, and the people who think like you. Don’t fuck with us,” I am strongly inclined to side with the opposition just on principle.

1/30/2006: I’m only bringing this up once, because I don’t want to make the same argument every year, but goddammit but I do so hate Winter-een-mas stories. Winter-een-mas stories come off as embarrassing exercises in masturbatory wish-fulfillment. It doesn’t help that Ethan wearing that stupid crown makes his smug-ass face 200% more punchable.

Winter-een-mas 2006 is especially infuriating because, at the end, Ethan is crown king of all gamers. I don’t normally use obscenities on this site, but fuck that. Unwittingly, Buckley highlighted the most awful element of this comic: Ethan as a stupid, worthless sack of crap, yet the audience is supposed to worship him. The excellent yet defunct Bonus Stage cartoon parodied this scene in its very last episode, putting into animation why this particular conclusion is stupid stupid stupid:

Speaking of Winter-een-man, here’s an excerpt from the wiki page on CAD: “The holiday, which began in the webcomic, where it was celebrated by the characters, has become popular in real life. Many gaming stores, such as EB Games, celebrate the holiday.” There is no [citation needed] big enough. Plus, there’s this: in 2005, EB Games was taken over by Gamestop, which then fired 800 EB Games employees (and keeping only 65). Coincidence? I think not.

2/13/2006: OK, since we’re apparently starting the long-running marriage arc, I think it’s fair to ask the question: what in the world does Lilah SEE in Ethan? Lilah has always been ill-defined, as if Buckley wrote down “Gamer Girl” in her profile but couldn’t figure out anything after that, but this attraction to Ethan? What the hell? Yes, gamers CAN have girlfriends, but typically there’s something a woman sees in the guy beyond ignoring her for hours at the time just so he can play XBox, right?

This plot, where Ethan meets Lilah’s parents, acts like a 12-year-old, and gains their love doesn’t help matters much. Reality check: when you ask someone about school and all they talk about is Everquest, you don’t merely dismiss the man who’s marrying your daughter as a “buffoon.” If you entertain the idea of disowning your own daughter, you would not be in the wrong.

4/14/2006: Laziest. Paris Hilton joke. EVER.

7/31/2006: I would say that now is the first time I’ve really gotten so tired of this comic that I dread coming back to it. I am typing the URL and cursing myself for getting into this. I am CAD fatigued.

Starting with the marriage arc, by the way, I’ve noticed a definite uptick of sappy storylines. Does Buckley pull it off? Imagine if you listen to a band that pumps out albums of novelty tune after novelty tune. And then, all of the sudden, they start introducing sincere love songs. Not only is it jarring, it’s really laughable in all the wrong ways.

8/21/2006: Also, the “wall of text” has grown to ludicrous levels. A transcript:

Lucas: Ethan, I think we should talk about this E4 thing. I know you’re upset that you never went to E3. I feel bad too. You would have loved it.
Lucas: But I’m not going to let you get carried away with this, and blow it all out of proportion.
Lucas: There will be other shows in the future, and maybe — Ethan? Are you listening?
Lucas: Ethan, your hair is on fire. Ethan, a kangaroo is eating your face.
Ethan: I hear talking coming from your vicinity, but I don’t think it pertains to helping me kill these zombies.
Ethan: And since your talk has nothing to do with zombie slaughter I deem i unimportant, and must ask you to keep the chatter to a minimum.
Lucas: Ugh, your brain changes changes channels faster than I can keep up, and every single one of them has poor reception.
Lucas: Whatever, I’m leaving before it flips to a channel that has you playing with scorpions again.

Good. Lord.

I’ve seen many parodies about the “wall of text” … but it doesn’t beat the real thing.

The worst part? This isn’t even the most extreme case.

9/02/2006: Oh, wait! Lilah does have a personality!

Lilah: So I think Ethan… scratch that, I know Ethan is upset that I got invited to this thing and he didn’t. He’s kind of being pissy about it too. I hate that he can’t get over it, because I want him there with me. On the other hand, I do feel like I’m partially to blame for the whole thing…. Maybe he has a right to be upset. I’d don’t know what to do.

So here’s the lesson from the day, ladies: stay far, far away from videogames. Or one day you may turn into a doormat like Lilah.

5/09/2007: Is it just me, or is every argument in CAD sound like a strawman argument?

7/05/2007: Yes, they do. I’d forgotten about the story arc where Ethan and Lucas pwn all the world’s religions.

It starts when Ethan starts his own gamer-based religion. (Ugghhh….) This somehow offends all the religions of the world. (UGGGGHHHH….) Never mind that religions are founded every day on shakier premises. The world’s organized religions form a summit to block Ethan’s new religion, but Lucas totally pwns all of them with perhaps the smuggest expression ever captured in webcomics: “He will completely shut down the Church of Gaming if you can provide an argument for why his gods don’t exist, that can’t also be used to disprove the existence of your gods.” To which the religious leaders stand agape and in awe at such unassailable logic.

Like that argument would ever work in real life. Still, you have to marvel Buckley’s construction of the world’s biggest strawman argument for something that no one in their sane mind would even argue for: a video-game based religion.

Hold up. Lucas, despite being a victim to Ethan’s selfish shenanigans multiple times, stand up for him. Ethan being proved right and can do no wrong. Ethan effortlessly defeating his enemies. Huh! It may be … YES! Ethan is the biggest Mary Sue of all time!

Congratulations, Tim Buckley!

11/03/2007: I have come to the realization that Ethan is not so much “wacky” as he is “wacky in the most belabored way possible by a person whose definition of ‘wacky’ comes from watching Family Guy episodes.”

1/25/2008 – 1/31/2008 : “It’s a Gamer’s Life” may be one of most sincere moments in all of Ctrl+Alt+Del … and that is so terribly sad. I’ve theorized that it might be a parody of Capra-esque movies (this is a Winter-een-mas story after all), but there’s very few hints that this is the case … especially since every other parody in CAD is explained in long, arduous detail. I almost feel bad for mocking it, but it’s impossible not to when the moral of the story is, “Playing video games is crucial to happiness.”

Seriously.

Incidentally, if anyone I knew ever told me that that was their life’s motto, I’d sit them down and tell them that they may be a tad obsessive. I mean, I love comic books, but I’d never say, “Reading comic books is crucial to happiness.” We begin our story with a lonely boy whose only solace in the world is video games. As he grows up, he drifts away from games, which may be why he’s feeling so distaff from his pregnant wife. But, lo, a kindly and apparently magical man thrusts a gaming system in our hero’s hands, free of charge. It apparently saves his marriage. What really sends this story over the edge to sheer madness is that Buckley includes an ending where an old man looks back at his life and reminisces about video games. Video games. Video games…..

And here I thought the Penny Arcade guys were obsessed with video games. This is just disturbing.

2/15/2008: Lilah tells Ethan she’s pregnant.

Brace yourselves.

You know what’s coming.

7/02/2008: Do I really have to say anything that hasn’t already been said a thousand times already?

It’s as terrible and as misguided as everyone makes it out to be. Just to give you an idea of how ridiculous it is, two strips ago Ethan was trying to repair a hole in the wall because he’d launched a rocket powered brick through it. And this happened after a lengthy “Choose your own adventure” story about space-faring Ethan entitled “Idiots in Space.” Which happened after Ethan tried to name his baby “Darth.”

Yes, it was that abrupt.

Plus there’s the added bonus of a terrible blog post rationalizing the plot development and the aftermath. But, again, it’s been talked to death. I don’t imagine there are that many people out there defending it. (If you are going to defend it, leave a comment here. I am genuinely interested.)

What the strip signals, though, is perhaps one of the biggest shifts the comic has seen. You know how video games are really a younger man’s game, best for people who have the luxury of time, i.e. between the ages of 12 and 30? This may be a sign that, for the first time, Tim Buckley is feeling his age. As the comic shifts to trying to give the characters a personality worth following, the video game references have felt more and more forced. It’s been six years, and you can’t talk about video games indefinitely.

Unfortunately, there’s a cautionary tale here, too: for the webcomic creators trying to follow in Tim Buckley’s footsteps, there’s no way to make a turn toward the maudlin without looking really, really stupid.

So where does CAD go from quite possibly the most embarrassing nadir in the history of comics? Find out next time, when the Webcomic Overlook powers through the aftermath of the miscarriage, the Ethan/Lilah wedding, Buckley’s new art style, and beyond.

Rating (2002-2008): 1 star (out of 5)



(Haven’t had enough of CAD? What the hell’s wrong with you? Anyway, check out Part 2 of this review… IF YOU DARE.)