The Webcomic Overlook #133: Another Videogame Webcomic
August 31, 2010 at 11:09 pm | Posted in 2 Stars, The Webcomic Overlook, WCO Big Review, comedy webcomic, video game webcomic, webcomics | 5 Comments
Despite playing some of the most popular video game franchises in history, very few of my most played games will ever make their way into a video game comic. Why? For the simple fact that they’re sports games. I played the hell out of the SSX games, the Midnight Club racing game and its sequels, three iterations of the WWE Smackdown series, the Madden football series, and various NHL games from both EA and 2K Sports. Yet, outside of the token “Madden is the same game this year as it is last year” joke, you’ll never see any of them mentioned in a video game webcomic.
Some of this, I think, can be chalked up to the sniffy, dismissive attitude gamers — and by that I mean specifically the ones devoted to first-person shooters, fighting games, and Mario — have toward sports games in general. (Never mind that players of Madden and SSX are technically gamers as well.) Oh, do I wish you could have been there to see the drama unfold when SSX 3 made the AV Club’s Best of the Decade list!
Or maybe it’s just not easy to make jokes about sports games where the playable characters are either real life personalities or anonymous avatars rather than something as well defined fictional creations like Master Chief, Cloud, and Sonic the Hedgehog. (I’d argue that this still isn’t true with the case of SSX, as the little fan community that clustered around the Merqury City site can attest.)
If there’s something I can respect about Phil Chan and Joe Dunn’s self-effacingly titled Another Videogame Webcomic, it’s their almost quixotic devotion to doing jokes about games that don’t typically get featured in a video game webcomic. Oh sure, we’ll get plenty of Bioshock and Bayonetta jokes. But we’ll also get some jokes about Madden and … Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine? The Grey’s Anatomy game?
… huuuuuuuhhhhh?
Continue reading The Webcomic Overlook #133: Another Videogame Webcomic…
The Webcomic Overlook #131: AmazingSuperPowers
August 20, 2010 at 10:53 am | Posted in 2 Stars, The Webcomic Overlook, WCO Big Review, comedy webcomic, stick figure webcomic, webcomics | 12 Comments
Located to the lower left of the AmazingSuperPowers webcomic title is a jolly-looking creature with no arms, no legs, and no nose. His head sways back and forth at a comfortable pace, while his face, for the most part, maintains a pleasingly blank expression. Typically, there’s a halo over his head … but not always.
The FAQ calls him the “Godslug.” He looks more like a worm, if you ask me.
Every time you refresh the page, Godslug dons a new and different costume. Sometimes, he appears as an angel or a demon, sometimes he appears as a tourist or a redneck, but most of the time he runs the pop culture gamut. Sometimes he is dressed like Mr. T. Sometimes he is dressed like Queen Elizabeth II. Sometimes he’s dressed like Homestar Runner. And, if you’re very lucky, sometimes his face morphs into a remarkable facsimile of Barney Fife.
This may seem like a lot to write about a simple webcomic mascot, but trust me, Godslug is easily the most entertaining part of AmazingSuperPowers. The comic was written by two guys only known as Wes and Tony, two guys who met on a college improve comedy team who now are putting their own sense of humor on the internet for all to see.
Continue reading The Webcomic Overlook #131: AmazingSuperPowers…
The Webcomic Overlook #128: 1977
July 19, 2010 at 1:51 pm | Posted in 2 Stars, The Webcomic Overlook, WCO Big Review, adult webcomic, comedy webcomic, webcomics | 12 Comments
Nostalgia. It’s a terrible thing. It makes you feel old, and creates the illusion that everyone’s missing out by not growing up the same.
Nothing gets your nostalgia running quite like music from yesteryore. This is why the Sirius XM Corporation manages to suck money out of my wallet every month. Everyone’s got their own era, but my formative years are hard coded in the “90′s on 9″ station. Oh, sure, the format’s awful. The range is too wide: it goes from Salt N’ Pepa “Let’s Talk About Sex” to Christina Aguilera’s “Genie in a Bottle,” which were before and after my time. The music selection’s not ideal, either. Let’s just say that the audiences for alternative and hip hop and Celine Dion never really crossed paths. But when it gets it right, it gets it right. The moment Red Hot Chili Peppers or Collective Soul or, heck, Marcy Playground hits, I’m immediately transported to a world when MTV videos were poetry, flannels were a fashion statement, and personal hygiene was optional.
I know what you’re thinking. “Go to bed, OLD MAN!” That’s the risk of waxing nostalgic: unless your audience is nearly the same age as you, you inevitably sound like Grandpa Simpson, rambling on and on about absolutely inconsequential items that no one wants to listen to. Ramble on too much, and people get tired with the implied arrogance on elevating one’s memories of yesteryear over those of others. This is why there’s a bit of a backlash against Baby Boomers these days: we are pretty damn tired with your incessant Beatles deification and your Woodstock worship and your general cultural hegemony.
But in the end, we indulge in reminders of our past because, in a way, they’re a nice reminder of the days when everything was possible and there was no limit to the future.
With Byron Wilkins, his personal nostalgia trip is located somewhere in between. I’ll give you three guesses which era he’s going to flashback to in his webcomic, entitled 1977.
The Webcomic Overlook #113: Xylia Tales
March 15, 2010 at 12:17 am | Posted in 2 Stars, The Webcomic Overlook, WCO Big Review, adventure webcomic, dramatic webcomic, fantasy webcomic, romance webcomic, webcomics | 45 CommentsTags: Xylia Tales, St. Patrick's Day, fairies, faeries
Top o’ the mornin’ to ya! St. Patty’s Day is coming along later this week, and I thought it would be nice to do a piece on a webcomic dealing with tiny creatures of fables central to Irish culture. Unfortunately, I think very few folks are very interested in doing a webcomic specifically about leprechauns, so we have to dig a little deeper into Celtic mythology to find other diminutive folk better suited for long term narratives: fairies.
Every so often, somebody comes along and tries to make fairies (or faeries) cool again. I mean, cool for people who aren’t pre-teen girls. And why not? Fairies were once the mythological creature of choice of the Celtic nations. They were either tiny folk who had been driven into hiding by humans or a race of spirits who lived in a parallel Otherworld that may or may not be the realm of the dead. There are already existing myths of people wandering into these magic worlds, which opens up a myriad of storytelling possibilities.
Modern writers are emboldened by how Tolkien took elves out of Santa’s workshop and turned them into stoic and sexy warriors with serious larper cred. But no matter how hard writers like Tad Williams and Susannah Clarke try, fairies are doomed to roam the world’s Trapper Keepers alongside killer whales, sad unicorns, and Edward Cullen. Perhaps Tinkerbell’s hold on the modern notion of fairies is too strong for even the Fairy King John Uskglass to break. Or maybe centering stories in a world where pain and disgrace are absent are serious handicaps when stories need conflict.
But that doesn’t mean writers won’t stop trying. Today, on the Webcomic Overlook, we’ll take a look at an attempt to put together a compelling fairy-centric story in webcomics: Xylia Tales, written and illustrated by Barb Jacobs.
The Webcomic Overlook #97: HijiNKS Ensue
September 22, 2009 at 3:53 pm | Posted in 2 Stars, The Webcomic Overlook, WCO Big Review, comedy webcomic, pop culture caricatures, spoof, webcomics | 5 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 | Posted in 2 Stars, The Webcomic Overlook, WCO Big Review, dramatic webcomic, historical webcomic, literary adaptations, webcomics | 25 CommentsTags: Ulysses Seen, Ulysses, James Joyce, Joyce
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 | Posted 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 | Posted 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 | Posted 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.
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