The Webcomic Overlook #97: HijiNKS Ensue
September 22, 2009 at 3:53 pm | In 2 Stars, The Webcomic Overlook, WCO Big Review, comedy webcomic, pop culture caricatures, spoof, webcomics | 2 CommentsTags: HijiNKS Ensue
From time to time, one of you lovely and well-intentioned readers inadvertently asks, “El Santo, why don’t do make your own webcomic, you vitriolic nincompoop?”
And I respond, quite politely, “Because. That’s why.”
Earlier this year, though, my wife and I got sucked into the Lost TV show. It started innocently enough: we say Naveen Andrews on The English Patient and we wanted to see what he was up to these days. Two months later, we were buying up DVDs to finish Lost Season 4 and downloading episodes from iTunes to catch up to the telecast. We now have a pair of sweet Dharma t-shirts and are contemplating buying a VW Van to convert it into our Dharmamobile. I also have the full Michael Giacchino soundtrack of Lost on my iPod as well as “recap rock” from the comedy band who call themselves (quite cleverly, I think) Previously On Lost.
This is Lost sickness, and we love it.
Around that time, I thought to myself, “You know what? If I ever do a webcomic, I’m totally doing Lost jokes. There’s a got to be a ton of humor to be mined from that show, right?”
Well, it’s a good think I didn’t follow up, because, as it turns out, there’s at least one webcomic out there that tried to squeeze humor out of that show. The creatively capitalized HijiNKS Ensue, a webcomic written and illustration by Joel Watson, is proof-positive that while Lost humor might be a good idea in theory, it suffers a little in execution. In the end we’re all going to fall back to “Hurley’s so fat” jokes.
The Webcomic Overlook #93: Ulysses Seen
August 1, 2009 at 3:35 pm | In 2 Stars, The Webcomic Overlook, WCO Big Review, dramatic webcomic, historical webcomic, literary adaptations, webcomics | 24 CommentsTags: James Joyce, Joyce, Ulysses, Ulysses Seen
Over the years, The Webcomic Overlook has offended many different kinds of people: conservatives, gamers, furries, Apple users, Lost Cause proponents, anime fans, and Bobby Crosby, to name a few. Ah, what a fruitful two years it’s been. Just so you know, I’m not sitting around in my Cave of Hate trying to figure which people to tick off. El Santo doesn’t roll that way. However, reviews are reviews, and getting a rise out of people fuels our passion, no matter how tangentially related it is to the subject matter.
That said, I’m at least a little bit hopeful that today’s review will be the sort that brings in more literary nay-sayers. You know, just to see if I can class up this blog.
“Whatever,” you’re saying. “It’s not like you’re bagging on James Joyce.”
Ah, monsieur… but I am! For James Joyce has deigned to enter the world of webcomics. Today, I’m reviewing Ulysses Seen, illustrated and adapted by Robert Berry, laboriously annotated by Mike Barsanti, and written by some bespectacled Irish dude who’s been dead since 1941.
The Webcomic Overlook #86: Boss Noodle
June 30, 2009 at 11:26 am | In 2 Stars, The Webcomic Overlook, WCO Big Review, action webcomic, adventure webcomic, anime, fanservice, manga style webcomic, webcomics | 6 CommentsTags: Boss Noodle
Back in the early days of this site, I once ran afoul of Dave Cheung fans. The drama stemmed from a small comment I made about John Solomon’s return:
I just finished reading his “Chugworth” review, and … what can I say? The webcomic deserved John Solomon.
This managed to touch off some colorful replies from the creator and his fans. Words were said. Tears were shed. Yet, in the end, I finally conceded a tiny point. I hadn’t read all of Chugworth Academy.
Really, I’d only read the 20+ pages on the review after all (written by Solomon associate Lilith Esther), and, while it seemed like a good sample, those few incompetent, atrocious, and borderline racist panels might not be representative of the 300+ pages that Mr. Cheung put out. Who knows? Perhaps those 280 other pages dealt with Mr’s Cheung’s personal relationship with his Lord and Savior. I have no idea! I’d be a blind fool to left a few unspeakably awful panels color my entire opinion.
Still, I vowed that one day, some day, I would review Chugworth Academy in vengeance. That day will most likely never come. Chugworth stopped updating last year, and I don’t typically review out-of-date comics. Instead I’m reviewing Dave Cheung’s brand spanking new webcomic, Boss Noodle.
The Webcomic Overlook #85: Earthsong
June 25, 2009 at 10:58 pm | In 2 Stars, The Webcomic Overlook, WCO Big Review, adventure webcomic, anime, dramatic webcomic, fantasy webcomic, manga style webcomic, webcomics | 6 CommentsTags: Crystal Yates, Earthsong
Back in college, I used to read buttloads of fantasy novels. It used to be that unless there was a dragon or at least a comely lass in a silky princess outfit on the cover, I wasn’t just that interested. Also, it was a good excuse to make time with the cute and bookish brunette. My deformed bookshelves are currently fighting a losing battle to support The Book of Jhereg, Kate Elliott’s Crown of Stars books, Mary Gentle’s Grunts, some Raymond Feist paperbacks, some Steven Brust hardbacks, and others.
While my interested has waned somewhat over the years, I learned a valuable lesson: when a story is set in a strange, mystical world, it becomes very important to have characters you can relate to. My absolute favorite series was Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, mainly because you could put yourself in Simon’s shoes and witness the wonder and terror of the unfolding world through his eyes. Stories set almost exclusively in elven enclaves never appealed to me because when everyone’s alien, no one’s remarkable … and it’s hard to relate to a people whose main purpose in life is to sit around playing sitars and looking pretty.
This should have set of warning bells regarding today’s subject for the Webcomic Overlook, by the way. Everyone in the book, including the few men, are cuties, and at no point do they stop being cuties. Today, we look at Earthsong by Crystal Yates, a webcomic which is not really about singing … or even set on Earth, come to think about it.
One Punch Reviews #22: Deleted Scenes
June 4, 2009 at 9:42 pm | In 2 Stars, One Punch Reviews, The Webcomic Overlook, comedy webcomic, pop culture caricatures, webcomics | 1 Comment
If anyone in society is under served, it’s movie parody fans. The annual allowance for the Friedman-Seltzer brand fast-paced mockeries like the Scary Movies, Superhero Movies, Date Movies, Epic Movies, Not Another Teen Movies, Meet The Spartanses, and Dance Flicks are barely enough to satiate the appetite. You tide your hunger over with Family Guy, which unfortunately intersperses their vignettes with “plot” and “heavy-handed moralizing.” What’s an aficionado hungry for cheap, easy pop-culture yukfests to do?
Sarcasm aside, I have nothing against jokes about movies. I mean, sure, as a whole pop-culture humor tends to get dated, is usually juvenile, and relies too much on audience recognition. What I’ve realized, though, is that if you’re clever enough, you can make anything funny. People forget that the great, ground-breaking comedy Airplane! was a spoof of 70’s disaster movies, mainly because it did so much to forge its own sense of original nutty fun.
So what about a comic composed almost entirely of movie parodies? That’s what we get with Deleted Scenes, a webcomic by Dave Graff.
The Webcomic Overlook #77: Surfboards and Rayguns
May 26, 2009 at 12:08 pm | In 2 Stars, The Webcomic Overlook, WCO Big Review, action webcomic, adventure webcomic, webcomics | 6 CommentsTags: Surfboards and Rayguns
I don’t know about you guys, but over here in the usually cloudy confines of Seattle, we’re in full summertime mode. OK, so technically summer doesn’t start until the solstice happens on June 21… but that’s scientist talk. When was the last time we gave those poindexters any sort of validation, anyway? I personally won’t start listening to ‘em until they start delivering on flying cars and vacations to Mars. Until then, summer starts when we dust off the Weber grill and start cooking mass quantities of pork, beef, and sea creatures.
Summer’s all about fun times. Cranking on the Beach Boys while driving down the Pacific Coast with the moonroof down. Turning off the TV and cooling down in the movie theater to watch dinosaurs chase Will Ferrell around.
And probably not reading the webcomics. Seriously, there’s usually a huge dip in readership around this time. You webcomic creators might as well pack up and head to the beach, perhaps outsourcing your strip to India in the meantime.
Still, if you’ve got a lazy afternoon to spare, you could do with some light reading. Enter Bradley Overall’s Surfboards and Rayguns. Like many things in life, I discovered this when Mr. Overall put up an enticing banner ad of a red-headed gal in a form-fitting spacesuit.
Continue reading The Webcomic Overlook #77: Surfboards and Rayguns…
The Webcomic Overlook #66: Femmegasm
January 22, 2009 at 1:20 pm | In 2 Stars, The Webcomic Overlook, WCO Big Review, anime, comedy webcomic, funny animal webcomic, manga style webcomic, pop culture caricatures, webcomics | 14 CommentsTags: femmegasm
When you assemble a list of the worst names for musical artists, names like Bubba Sparxxx and the Goo Goo Dolls rise to the forefront. Bad names, both, but I think I’ve got one better. It’s hard to have a worst name than the hip-hop group that goes by the rather colorful name of Cunninlynguists.
That noise you hear is you letting out a disgruntled groan.
Nathan Rabin’s review at AV Club praises the Cunninlynguists: they have “a moody sound that puts a dark, Southern-gothic twist on the soul-sample-based hyper-soul of Just Blaze and Kanye West, while the group’s lyrics explore sensuality, spirituality, and politics with smarts and conviction.” I downloaded two of their songs, “Lynguistics” and “Love Ain’t,” and I admit that they’re quite good. Still, do you want to be the guy that has a band named “Cunninlynguists” on their iPod? Do you ever want to tell anyone you’re a fan of Cunninlynguists?
Why do I bring up Cunninlyguists in this review? Maybe today is Kentucky Hip-Hop Appreciation Day at The Webcomic Overlook. Or maybe because today I’m reviewing a comic by Pembroke W. Korgi (real name, Robbie Allen) named Femmegasm.
Trust me. This comic … it’s not what you’re thinking about.
Like the aforementioned Cunninlynguists — who, I am to understand, have “stunning English” — the comic may turn out to be pretty good. Hell, if The Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allan Poo (reviewed here) taught me anything, you can’t judge a book — or webcomic — by its title.
Er… ignore that sample panel. Femmegasm still isn’t what you’re thinking about.
Continue reading The Webcomic Overlook #66: Femmegasm…
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