Category Archives: funny animal webcomic

The Webcomic Overlook #184: Cucumber Quest

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The artwork for Gigi Digi’s Cucumber Quest is so adorable that you start to wonder why this isn’t a webcomic that has a hundred different kinds of t-shirts on display in its virtual storefront. In an alternate universe, shirts sporting different kinds of Cucumber Quest characters would be seen on the racks at the local Fuego, on iPad slipcases, on backpacks, wallets, and purses, and on a baby’s disposable diapers. Cucumber Quest characters would give Hello Kitty and My Little Pony a run for their money.

Cucumber Quest is filled with cute rabbits with big fuzzy faces and rounded ears. Ms. Digi’s art makes you just want to cradle their soft, huggable heads of our two principle characters, Cucumber and Almond. You want to nuzzle their hair affectionately, which no doubt carries the refreshing fragrance of fresh cut vegetables or the faint sweetness of roasted nuts. Ms. Digi doesn’t ink the outlines and renders her characters in soft tones and brush strokes (or whatever passes for brushstrokes in the computer art world), which increases the adorability by a factor of squee.

Some cute touches slip your attention initially, but when you catch on, you can’t help but smile. One character named Carrot, for example, has hair that’s bundled up to look like carrots. Cute! But then you notice that another character named Dame Lettuce has lovely locks that look like lettuce leaves. And then you notice Sir Bacon’s coiffure, which looks like little strips of everybody’s favorite savory breakfast. The visual and verbal cues engages senses beyond the visual. It’s hard to see and read about Sir Bacon without also imagining the smoky, alluring aroma of sizzling pork fat. In a way, the food’s characteristics subliminally add to his personality.


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Random Quickies: Battlepug

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Woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof arf woof woof woof woof arf arf woof Battlepug. Woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof grrrrrr. Grrrrrrr. Grrrrrrrrrr. Woof woof arf woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof. Woof woof. Woofwoofwoof?

(Translation for human readers:

The introductory image of a warrior riding a pug is pretty much all there needs to be drawn for me to be sold on Mike Norton’s Battlepug. Fair warning: the site may be NSFW — while there’s no full frontal nudity, there is the framing device of a naked woman telling a story to two small dogs. Just be clear on your company’s policy on naked butts.

Battlepug is an epic fantasy about a muscly sword-and-sorcery barbarian raised in slavery who fights fearsome monsters and was raised by a society of elves. Norton’s art is top-notch. His got a great grasp at drawing action-packed scenes. The story is just starting, so we haven’t even got to the part where there guy rides the pug yet. The best part is that all these adventures are completely true! Not that you can expect humans to buy into real history that’s so canine-centric. Humans. Amirite?)

One Punch Reviews #45: Ninjasaur

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In elementary school, we learned that the stegosaurus had two brains. One peanut-sized brain in its head … and one in its butt. This little piece of trivia may be the thing that keeps the stegosaurus from joining ranks of the dinosaur elites like Tyrannosaurus Rex, velociraptor, and the enchantingly named sauroposeidon. It doesn’t matter if the stegosaurus has spiky tail and that ridge of pentagon-shaped plates that paleontologists can’t seem to determine if they’re for armor or for prehistoric sunbathing. That whole brain in the butt thing is a hard thing to live down.

But what if a stegosaurus were equipped with a spiky tail, the double-row of backplates … and a ninja sword? Yeah, who’s the butt brain now? This fantastical scenario is explored in Jason Horn’s webcomic, Ninjasaur.


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The Webcomic Overlook #152: ReMIND

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Most of us remember Shel Silverstein as the author and the illustrator of The Giving Tree. It’s the book that convinced millions of children that the boy was a jerk for using up the whole tree without giving anything in return, only to realize that, when they got older, they were in fact the little boy and the tree represented their parents. His simple little tale was simultaneously rewarding and traumatic, and likely launched more than one graduate level humanities theses.

However, most people don’t remember Shel Silverstein as also being a songwriter. I know it totally blew my mind when I found out that Johnny Cash’s hit song, “A Boy Named Sue,” was written by none other than Shel Silverstein. I mean, seriously, THE Shel Silverstein? Aw, hell naw! But it’s true: ol’Shel wrote the whimsical lyrics to the song that made the denizens of Folsom Prison squeal in delight.

While we sometimes think that songwriting and the illustrated arts are two different creatures, there is an anthropological link. They are, after all, based on two of the most ancient artistic traditions. Hell, cavemen probably embellished their wall-drawn adventures with some bomb-ass tribal chants. So, when the Let’s Be Friends Again guys say that they’re forming an alliance with nerd rapper Adam War Rock, it sorta makes sense once you overcome the initial skepticism.

In his FAQ, Jason Brubaker mentions that his webcom- … I’m sorry, online graphic novel reMIND started as funny song. It would be interesting to hear that song, especially since it probably had something to do with steampunk inventions, anthropomorphic cats, and a secret race of lizard people. Not something Johnny Cash would sing to win over hardened criminals, but fun nonetheless.

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The Webcomic Overlook #146: Tiny Kitten Teeth

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Not too long ago, a reader took me to task in the comments section of one of my recent reviews. His comment implied that I am easily swayed by pretty pictures. It was as if a cheap, theatrical device blinded me to other deficiencies, which thus led to The Webcomic Overlook handing out inflated ratings.

Now, I could go into some diatribe about how ratings really aren’t that important, and it’s the content of the review that matters, and an opinion is just an opinion…. but, you know, this guy’s onto something. I’m man enough to admit that I like pretty, pretty pictures. And what’s wrong with that? If I didn’t, I probably wouldn’t be reading comics. I probably would best be spending my time curled up with a book or an audionovel or something where illustrations are not such a key component of storytelling.

That said, even I have my limits. There are times when nice art doesn’t hide deficiencies, but, rather, amplifies them. Case in point: Tiny Kitten Teeth, illustrated by Becky Dreistadt and illustrated by Frank Gibson.

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One Punch Reviews #30: The Intrepid Girlbot

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Despite my gruff and incredibly manly exterior, the Webcomic Overlook is, in reality, a big softie. I am big on cute. I get weak at the knees over kittens and puppies. This may be why I am a sucker for Diana Nock’s adorable webcomic with the unbelievably precious title, The Intrepid Girlbot.


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The Webcomic Overlook #105: Order of Tales

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High fantasy is probably the only literary genre in existence where the author has to essentially write two stories. The first is what’s happening now: hero goes on an adventure, fights a dragon, yadda yadda yadda. However, the author also has to write a second story. He has to write a detailed and epic history of the lands and people going back to, say, 1000 years before the hero of the story was even born. The hero’s tale cannot exist in a vaccuum, and his raison d’etre is deeply embedded in the tales that go before him. So, quite amusingly, it’s essential in high fantasy to include stories of a glorious, long lost past in a tale that is itself a fantastic approximation of humanity’s glorious, long lost past.

It’s probably all Tolkien’s fault. The brutha not only inserted poems about elven lovers that were only tangentially related to the narrative of Lord of the Rings itself, he also wrote a library’s worth of back notes (of which the Silmarillon was only but a small piece of the puzzle) to flesh out the myths and beliefs of Middle Earth. It’s kind of understandable in his case. The guy was a professor, and those guys are up to their wazoos in textbooks. Besides, he pulled off the faux-textbook atmosphere so well that to this day people enjoy reading and studying Tolkien as if it were a minor college elective.

The fantasy novelists the follow Tolkien reiterated the superficial aspects. Most fail to come up with anything compelling. One of the best recent efforts is Susanna Clarke’s Hugo-Award winning Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, who fills you in on the history of the Raven King John Uskglass through some of the most ridiculously detailed footnotes you’ll find in fantasy literature today. (It also made me very happy that I sprung for the hardcover. I imagine squinting to read the footnotes in paperback form would be a headache and a half.)

Storytelling is also a key component of Evan Dahm’s fantasy webcomic Order of Tales. Here, Mr. Dahm fills us in on the past through a nifty device: his hero is a plucky little storyteller whose greatest weapon is knowledge — specifically, the legends, myths, and history encompassing his fantasy world.


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