Category Archives: 4 Stars

One Punch Reviews #55: The Trenches

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I am something of a fan of stories about he software industry. It probably has something to do with taking the driest subject matter possible (programming) and turning it into a story that’s dramatic or epic. One of my favorite biographies is Masters of Doom, the story about the creators behind the revolutionary first person shooter, Doom. It starts off with hard times with the creators being forced the work around the clock in a dank room and ends with a truly remarkable fortunes for its two principle characters: John Carmack went on to become so rich that he amassed enough money to build his own space ship, while John Romero had a momumental rise and fall, going from the rockstar to the laughingstock of the video game industry.

And you can bet that I am totally on board with seeing Man On A Mission, the documentary about Ultima creator and longtime cosplayer Richard “Lord British” Garriott, who also amassed so much money he eventually fulfilled his childhood dreams of becoming an astronaut.

The creators of The Trenches, Scott Kurtz, Mike Krahulik, and Jerry Holkins, also achieved some pretty amazing — albeit less galactic — milestones. Between them, they’ve established one the premiere game expo franchises in the world, emceed the Harvey Awards, were named as Time’s most influential people, and are regarded as the founding fathers of webcomics. Still, I don’t expect this partially autobiographical webcomic about life in the software development industry to arrive at something quite so mind-shattering.

Maybe if one of those lazy bums should get off their butts and build an actual space ship, huh?

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The Webcomic Overlook #191: Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether

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Greg Rucka is the sort of comic book creator who’s developed quite a reputation for writing strong female characters. I mean, real strong female characters. Not the unrepentant cheesecake masquerading as feminism that Kate Beaton famously mocked that studios like Top Cow have exploited to the extent that you’re actually more embarrassed reading their comics in public than if you were reading, say, Maxim.

Rucka, though, is the real deal. He was at the helm for the controversial launch of the new Batwoman, Kate Kane, perhaps the first prominent lesbian superheroine with her own title. He turned Batman supporting character, Rene Montoya, into the mysterious, faceless Question, which is about as far from the girls-in-swimsuits look that most superheroines sport. He’s been given writing duties on other notably headstrong female characters like Elektra and Wonder Woman.

His most famous independent work is Whiteout, which starred a female Deputy US Marshall. In 2009, was turned into a movie starring Kate Beckingsale. Another independent series, Queen & Country, centers around a female secret operative who goes no dangerous missions. For his efforts, he’s won 4 Eisner Awards, 1 Harvey Award, and 1 GLAAD Media Award.

Last year, alongside artist Rick Burchett (a fellow Eisner Award winner for his collaboration with Paul Dini and Ty Templeton on The Batman and Robin Adventures), Mr. Rucka also launched his won webcomic: Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether.

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The Webcomic Overlook #190: Mokepon

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It would probably be fair to say that I was too old to get into the whole Pokemon phenomenon. Oh, I watched the episodes when they first aired on the Kid’s WB. I did have a younger brother and sister after all, who, I suspect, actually watched the show semi-ironically.

The magic of the show, too, was that it was one of those rare instances that a young adult or adult can watch a kid’s show without feeling too weird about it. Frankly, I blame Beanie Babies and Tamagotchis… which, for you youngsters, were like NeoPets but way, way more annoying.

However, if you asked me to identify a Pokemon beyond, say, the core 20, I’d probably be at a loss. I would totally fail those infamous “Who’s that Pokemon?” stingers, thus bringing shame to my ancestors. I never played the game on the Game Boy, nor was I part of the card craze, nor am I familiar with the show after Ash, Misty, and Brock disappeared. I don’t remember the name of that lame-o Brock replacement guy. Hell, I was totally befuddled by the whole “Gary F***ing Oak” meme and had to google it just to get caught up. Let me tell you, when you have to resort to “Know Your Meme,” then you know you’ve truly lost the pulse of what makes young people tick these days.

So you’d think that I’d be the totally wrong audience for Mokepon, a webcomic on Smack Jeeves written by someone who apparently goes by “H0lyhandgrenade.”

Au contraire, mon ami! Mokepon turned out to be a surprisingly fun read, full stuff that can entertain even a reader with only a passing familiarity of Pokemon. Let’s dig in, shall we?

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The Webcomic Overlook #180: GG Guys

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It may be my old-fogey-ness talking here, but the things kids find hilarious these days seem to be about being super-annoying. Take that Fred character. The guy talks like a squeaky helium balloon, which is pure comedy gold for the kids but is like nails on chalkboard for anyone over twelve.

Or that Problem Solverz show on the Cartoon Network. Granted, I have no evidence that anyone actually watches it, but, again, it seems to traffic with the same premise that “funny” and “headache inducing visuals” are the same thing. When I was younger, I had the vague sense that my parents were rolling their eyes at a lot of stuff that I found funny. Now that I’m on the other side, I suddenly know why, and it makes me feel old as hell.

It makes me want to buy a rocking chair, put a shotgun on my lap, and warn young whippersnappers to stay off my property. Partly because of the symbolism … but mostly because rocking chairs are hella sweet.

Which brings me to Psyguy and Supadave’s video game webcomic, GG Guys. At first glance, it seems to be something aimed at the Fred crowd. Will all the eye-rolling cause my eyes to come unscrewed from their sockets, thus preventing me from reviewing webcomics ever again?

Let’s find out.

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The Webcomic Overlook #179: The Society of Unordinary Young Ladies

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Ever since Alan Moore decided to expand his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen universe beyond the era of Victorian England, fans have been speculation what other pop culture characters would work well in a crazy mash-up. Some speculation have been serious, but much has been tongue in cheek.

One of the best was an April Fool’s gag at Comics Alliance in 2010, where the writers imagined a 1980′s superteam. This League included Doc Brown, B.A. Baracus, Jack Burton, Lisa from Weird Science, and the GODDAMN MacGyver. You’d have to work hard to come up with anything more idea than that, which was a weirdly more compelling premise than, say, The Black Dossier.

But did you know that this isn’t the first time someone attempted to do an LXG pastiche in the Me Decade? I didn’t either. It wasn’t until Comixtalk linked to this piece on Newsarama that I learned of the existence of Wahab Algarmi’s The Society of Unordinary Young Ladies.

Like LXG fills its roster with public domain characters you were forced to read about in elementary school, The Society fleshes out its roster with young female characters from 1980′s sitcoms: Punky Brewster, Evie from Out Of This World, Vicki from Small Wonder, and Wednesday Addams.


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The Webcomic Overlook #176: Botched Spot

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As you may have guessed from my online handle, my image of myself if a silver mask, and the banner with an image of Eddie Guerrero with an iPhone for a head, I’m something of a fan of pro-wrestling. I blame my sister, who was all over that stuff in the mid 1990′s. This was in the middle of the Monday Night War, and both WWE and WCW were throwing up crazy storylines and outlandish gimmicks to try to grab the viewers. As someone who’d been a casual viewer in the 1980′s, I preferred WCW since it featured several of the wrestlers I knew, like “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan, “The Macho Man” Randy Savage, and “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan.

Also, we only had basic cable, which, at our house, meant that we had TBS (where WCW aired) and not USA (where RAW IS WAR aired). That’s right: my intro to wrestling was the much-maligned WCW Thunder. Which, frankly, wasn’t a terrible show. While the big name stars got the spotlight on Monday Night Nitro, Thunder focused on the mid-carders, who were, by far, the better wrestlers. There was Chris Jericho, Booker T, Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, and my first introduction to the luchadors: Rey Mysterio, La Parka, Silver King, and El Dandy. Seriously, who are you to doubt that guy? There was a refreshing can-do spirit to those guys, all trying to become huge stars through a combination of showmanship, athleticism, and incredibly corny gimmicks… like that time Hugh Morrus rebranded himself as the military-themed Hugh G. Rection. (Seriously.)

I haven’t really been watching wrestling that much recently, but I do know enough that Raw is now the John Cena show, Triple H is taking the Vince MacMahon role of WWE president, former wrestler Brock Lesnar caused a tidal wave of pride from wrestling smarks by winning one of the top belts in mixed martial arts, and The Miz, CM Punk, Sheamus, and Jack Swagger are all former champions. Oh, and apparently Hulk Hogan is still kicking around in TNA Impact Wrestling.

When you have a niche but rabid fanbase, inevitably someone’s going to try to make a webcomic out of it. While James Hornsby’s Botched Spot isn’t the first wrestling-themed humor webcomic I’ve come across, it probably does the best job at capturing the zeitgeist of wrestling fandom.

(Incidentally, while the title sounds like a particularly lewd and filthy sexual position, Botched Spot is named for when a wrestler badly screws up a move.)

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The Webcomic Overlook #175: Sluggy Freelance (Part 1)

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If there is one comic that I’ve always been dying to write a review for on this site, it’s Pete Abrams’ Sluggy Freelance. This webcomic is virtually a first ballot Hall of Famer. Sluggy and me: we go way back… despite never having read the comic until relatively recently in its run. (And by “relatively recently” I mean four years ago.) I used to frequent a science fiction/fantasy message board with an incredibly passionate Sluggy Freelance fanbase. I think some even had online handles of “Zoë” and “Muffin the Vampire Baker.”

At the same time, Sluggy Freelance has its share of detractors. Sluggy, in fact, was one of the comics reviewed on the “Your Webcomic Is Bad (And You Should Feel Bad)” blog. (I don’t remember any of the main complaints about Sluggy, though, beyond the disappointment over the comic not being about a hard-boiled detective slug.) So, 4 years ago when I started this site, Sluggy made it on my short list of comics I had to review.

I read three or four months in the archives when I came to the startling realization that, despite having read 150 strips, I had read less than 3% of the entire comic.

So that was that. Two years later, I got in touch with a fine paragon of a fellow from New Zealand who used to post fairly prominently on that old message board. He found out that I did webcomic reviews. He was like, “Hey, cool! Mind if I make a request? I’m sure you’ve never heard of this comic, but … how about doing a review of Sluggy Freelance?”

I said OK. I promised myself that this time … THIS TIME … I’d push myself to the limit. I tied a necktie to my forehead like those dudes studying for the final exam in those anime. I would brave all the slings and arrows of Sluggy Freelance. I’d withstand the overuse of the word “nifty,” stomach all the super-precious moments with Kiki the poinging weasel thing, stare down all the dated pop culture references (remember when Dr. Laura Schlessinger was a thing), and prevent my eyes from rolling when I’m reading a comic where there are characters named “Slappyhoho.”

It is time to face your reckoning, Sluggy Freelance!

By the time I reached the three year anniversary strip, it dawned on me: despite buckling down and setting a goal to finish this comic, I’d spent TWO WHOLE MONTHS TO GET TO THIS POINT! That was two whole months I could’ve spent reading other webcomics. Or rambling about my opinions about the state of digital comics. Or feeding the poor. Or joining an underground band of resistance fighters in North Korea. Or (and this is the most likely scenario) watching my MST3K DVD’s for the fifteenth time. I’ve gotta give Pete Abrams credit: it isn’t easy doing a comic that updates every single day. He is a prolific little bugger.

After fourteen years of daily updates, Sluggy Freelance has accumulated over 5,000 strips. Typically when a webcomic gets this long, I can justify skipping around a little. Sluggy Freelance is the sort of webcomic, though, that makes you feel like you’d be missing out if you skipped anything. Storylines and characters accumulate at rapid speed. New characters are added every three months. Important plot elements are introduced every week. Even having read every single story up to 2005, I can’t help but feel a little lost.

Anyway, after failing for the second time, I learned something about myself. Sluggy Freelance was just too long and too dense. It was destined to be one of those webcomics I would never, ever review.

Until now.

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