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.

As you might expect of a place where the characters are all bunnies who are named after foods, the color palette is bright and sunny and maybe even a little girly. But, really, what can you expect when one of the principle locations is a giant tiramisu? The world is awash in baby blues and sherbet orange and strawberry pink. You half expect Strawberry Shortcake to show up at some point. (She very nearly does.) It also gives you a nice warm feeling inside.

But lest you think you wandered into the webcomic equivalent of a baby shower, let me tell you something important: it’s all a front. The highly adorable visuals — I think this is the third time I’ve used “adorable” by the way, and it’s hard to describe this comic in any other words — are meant to distract you from the fact is dripping with some unexpectedly snarky (but never mean-spirited) humor.

Cucumber Quest starts with our villainess, Cordelia, planning no less than WORLD DOMINATION! This involves collecting a bunch of Dragonballs Disaster Stones to summon a large, horned fellow called the Nightmare Knight, an ancient terror who has currently been sealed away. A noble named Cabbage, who’s stationed in Doughnut Kingdom, panics and shoots off a letter to his family. He calls for his son, Cucumber to put an end to this and to become a man.

Cucumber, though, doesn’t want to go. He wants to go to Puffington’s Academy for the Magically Gifted And/Or Incredibly Wealthy, partly to prove to his father that higher education is no waste of time. Unfortunately, everybody wants him to go on this quest. His mom kicks him out of the house. The magical, fairy-like Dream Oracle bestows upon him the status of legendary hero who must restore peace to the world.

However, Cucumber figures that, really, it’s not his problem. After all, shouldn’t a person called “the Dream Oracle” be the one doing the heavy lifting? Wouldn’t it be easier to destroy the Disaster Stones to prevent the resurrection of the Nightmare Knight? Cucumber is too clever for his own good. He’s the legendary hero who can unfortunately see all the plot holes in Campbellian mythmaking. However, he also sees that he doesn’t have much choice in the matter, so he goes along begrudgingly.

There’s a bit of a feminist undercurrent in Cucumber Quest. Cucumber is incompetent, but everyone pushes him to be the hero of the story. Meanwhile, his spunky little sister, Almond, is forbidden to join him on his adventures. “Little sisters aren’t legendary heroes,” says the Dream Oracle. So of course, Almond does all the butt-kicking with little to her credit while Cucumber is reduced to the role of spectator.

The rest of the men are pretty useless. When we first see Carrot, a sort of secondary hero on a quest to rescue the Princess Parfait, we see him hiding in a tree from a scary bear … who really isn’t all that scary once you get to know him. Cucumber’s dad is lazy, manipulative, but overall ineffective. The only guy who isn’t useless is Sir Tomato … and he’s really just acting as a henchman for the much more powerful Cordelia. Women, on the other hand, are the clever ones: conquering kingdoms, thieving priceless weaponry, fighting battles, etc.

That may be a point of contention for some. I assure you, though, that none of it is preachy. Besides I’ve read enough fantasy novels to know that, for a lot of them, the female characters are usually annoying traveling companions that are tolerated, there for the sole purpose of getting the hero to move to the next spot, or non-existent. Yes, even plenty of the ones with a female protagonist. But a fantasy epic where the men are stuck in those roles? That’s actually a pretty clever inversion of the standard Campbellian formula.

Besides, Cucumber is not totally useless. It’s just that he’s not cut out for the particular task of saving the world. He’d probably be much happier going to school. Or baking a cake. Being the Chosen One, though? That’s not his thing. To coin a phrase from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, sometimes you got to know your role.

Rating: 5 stars (out of 5)

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?)

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.

You may be surprised to find out that Ninjasaur, our title hero, is a dinosaur who is also a ninja (and not the other way around). As described by Mr. Horn, Ninjasaur lives in “a world where everything exists at once.”

What does this mean for the viewers playing along at home? It means that moment Ninjasaur could be fighting an alien from outer space or Napoleon Bonaparte or a skeletal supervillain with a time machine gun; the next he could be chilling to some David Lynch movie or watching informercials. Ninjasaur generally acts like a big kid in a ninja outfit, acting all tough and flipping over things and laughing at danger.

There’s an air of innocence about Ninjasaur. Perhaps it’s because the comic’s target audience. While silly and random to us adults, Ninjasaur lives in a “smash the action figures together” world that makes all the sense in the world to kids. This makes Ninjasaur a very light and breezy webcomic. It’s not without its faults, though. Few of the storylines feel like they have any actual resolutions, which can be a little frustrating. Attempts at establishing a Ninjasaur mythos seem out of place in its generally consequence-free universe. There’s also the sporadic update schedule, which can be as little as one strip a month.

Despite all that, I can’t help but find Ninjasaur charming. There’s a very good chance that I sorta like the character because, when I was but a little luchador, I used make up stories about a Triceratops who was also a superhero named The Masked Dino. Ninjasaur follows the same absurd storytelling that you see in Dr. McNinja and Axe Cop … only it feels even less complicated and freer of irony, which is reflected in Mr. Horn’s simple and streamlined artwork. While I felt a little defensive at first from the “ninja plus dinosaur” premise, I thought that Ninjasaur was just silly enough to be cute without being overbearing.

Rating: 3 stars (out of 5).

P.S. Jason Horn, by the way, seems like an all around solid guy. Check out this Robot 6 piece about the time he spent in Guatemala drawing superheroes for underprivileged children.

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.

So what is reMIND about? Well, dear reader, everything you need to know iss right there in the title. The first has to do with memory and remembering. However, notice that the “MIND” portion of the title is in all caps. That’s because reMIND is also about mad science … the kind where you take someone’s brain and put it into a big robot, a Frankenstein’s monster, or, in this case, a mangy cat.

Sonja, our heroine, is reminiscent of Brandy Carter from Liberty Meadows. She’s young, she’s attractive, and she hangs around some really goofy-looking animals. She’s the keeper of a very steampunk-y lighthouse, which seems to generate wattage through a built-in wind power generator. Using a lighthouse as a setting gives Brubaker a nice enough excuse to illustrate spreads of the lush, picturesque scenery, where a lonely pocket of civilization meets the harsh beauty or nature. Mr. Brubaker adeptly illustrates both feminine and natural beauty in delicate lines and washed out watercolors, which does a good job in capturing your attention during the rather slow, exposition-filled opening.

The lighthouse overlooks the nearby town of Cripple Peaks, whose local economy is heavily Lizard Man-based. The Lizard Man is something like The Loch Ness Monster or Champ of Lake Champlain or Big Blue from the “Quagmire” episode of X-Files: a creature whose very legend bring in some tourism money. Sonja is pretty skeptical of The Lizard Man’s existence, but she’s a little conflicted since the man who started the legend was her own dearly departed dad.

One day, her cat, Victuals, disappears. She gave him up for dead, until one day she drags his barely alive body out of the water. It doesn’t take long for Sonja to discover that there’s something … different about her cat. I mean, he’s drawn cartoonier than everyone else in the comic, but that was true even before he supposedly drowned. But there are other differences. Victuals can now walk on two feet, speak English, and has an unquenchable craving for lasagna. (OK, that last part doesn’t happen.)

Victuals tells Sonja that he’s not really her cat. Rather, he’s a Lizard Man … not THE Lizard Man, as Sonja was lead to believe, but one of a race of lizard people who aren’t so make-believe after all. In fact, he used to be an disturbingly buff lizard man who was once betrothed to the princess of the lizards, except that a vengeful god named Nahusthan (also known as The Invisible) had cast his soul into the body of a lesser creature. Namely, Sonja’s cat.

Huh.

Despite the story sounding somewhat embellished (“Really! I was once a super-muscular prince-to-be from a race of mythical creatures!”), Sonja takes his story at face value. Why would a talking cat lie to her?

So Victuals hangs around, moping and cursing his fate, until one day he catches a picture of Sonja’s dad. He then dismisses his entire belief system in the span of one page.

Wha—?

Now, I understand the whole “with evidence, reason defeats blind superstition” thing. Only… a picture of Sonja’s father standing next to a carving that was placed atop his gravestone? THAT’S the proof Victuals needs to realize his whole belief system is a lie? I mean, I can come up with literally a hundred different reasons how Victuals can reconcile his doctrine with the evidence in front of him.

For example: how does he know what Nahusthan looks like in the first place? Was it because there are graven images made of Nahusthan? If so, isn’t it possible that Sonja’s dad somehow caught a glimpse of one of those graven images and made a replica? I mean, it’s not like the picture depicts her dad with a flesh-a-blood Nahusthan… just a statue. And how does Victuals know that Sonja’s on the level, anyway? She’s from a completely different culture and race. I mean her own people think that lizard-folk are some sort of myth! So couldn’t that mean that other myths inherent to the lizard-belief system be real? I just find it implausible that Victuals would be so quick to dismiss the possibility that Nahusthan is, in fact, some sort of diety.

But nope, instead it’s straight to “Well, looks like God is a lie. Where’s that robot suit?” The entire sequence just seemed unrealistic and far too convenient, which is a problem because, according to the “About” page, this is “a mystical, sci-fi about faith, love and brain transplantation.” The “love” and “brain transplantation,” I get. It’s just I find the “faith” part of the equation to be muddled and unconvincing.

Anyway, before you can say “Sufferin’ succotash!” Victuals (he sticks to referring to himself by Sonja’s cat’s name, by the way) returns to the land of lizards by way of a modified suit that Sonja’s dad had built to peek into the hidden lives of the lizard people. The rest of the comic is about Victuals totally owning the lizards with the power of his nifty Iron Man power armor analogue. He discovers that experiments have been going on with brains being transplanted into new bodies. Some are now in the bodies of dogs, bunnies, and other little critters. Victuals discovers that his original body is in cold storage somewhere.

reMIND is worth checking out for the illustrations alone. The adventures in the lizard world gives Mr. Brubaker to switch up his style a little. Comfortable outdoors scenes from earlier pages make way for pipe-lined metallic corridors and vast underwater seascapes that will likely give you agoraphobia. The colors shift, too, going from a the warm and pleasant yellow-and-light-green palette to harsher reds, purples, and blues.

Which is kind of a shame that I thought the plot and the characterization to be a little thin. I found it very hard to be sympathetic toward Victuals. We learn very little about him, other than he used to be a lizard with muscles upon muscles. His quest — while being of the standard “long lost hero returns to his homeland” variety — doesn’t strike me as being very urgent or emotional. Bottom line: I just don’t care about Victuals. I don’t care if he returns to his body. I don’t care if he ever gets back with his lady love. I don’t care if he upends society by exposing how they’re run by a false god. Victuals is just so … uninteresting.

It may have been a misstep to spend so much time early in the comic with Sonja. Her background, is also somewhat undercooked. However, and perhaps this is my human bias talking, I found her easier to relate to than the cat with the lizard brain. Like that Red Letter Media guy with the mumbly voice once said in his review of The Phantom Menace, “Post on my webzone and I’ll send you a pizza roll.” But also something about having a naive character who needs to have the weirdness of the world explained to him really works well in the sci-fi, fantasy, and action genres. This character is a stand-in for the reader, and when the world is explained to him, it’s also explained to us.

It was working in the first chapter. However, by the time Chapter 3 rolls around, she more or less disappears from the narrative. I have a feeling this graphic novel would have been more compelling if she’d accompanied Victuals down to the lizard kingdom, and we saw their world, once regarded as a myth, unfold through her eyes. Alas, she does not, and the adventures in lizard land are stripped of potential awe. Quelle dommage.

Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)

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.

Unsurprisingly, the two creators have solid artistic credentials for people working in webcomics: Ms. Dreistadt is a grad of the Savannah College of Art & Design, while Gibson is a grad from Griffith University in Media Communications. The two, who currently hail from New Zealand, have had their work featured in a few print publications, like the Popgun anthology from Image Comics and Discovered from Top Shelf.

Tiny Kitten Teeth is really two comics rolled into one. Part of the comic centers around a young tiger with the far-too-precious name of Tigerbuttah. Basically, these are single panel entries that run a couple of times a week … or whenever the comic needs loads of filler material.

The plot-centric portion of the comic is about a proper young feline lad named Mewsli. He is very earnest and very naive. He also has a kitty for a pet, a contradiction that confuses even the denizens of the Tiny Kitten Teeth universe. A reference to how Mickey Mouse could have one dog for a friend and another dog for a pet, perhaps?

Mewsli has just recently arrived to Owltown, a tight-knit metropolis built around a liberal arts college. Everyone in town also seems to be somewhere on a sliding scale between loopy to high-strung.

The first thing anyone with functional eyeballs will notice about Tiny Kitten Teeth is its gleefully retro artwork. Ms. Dreistadt’s illustrations are awash in bold colors that pop at the viewer and the playful superfluous asterisks. It’s like it’s the 1950′s all over again! It makes me want to go down to the local diner, order up an ice cream sundae, play some Elvis on the jukebox, and like Ike.

The character designs are simple and loose, and the settings recall the beautiful detail of an matte background from a classic Warner Brothers cartoon. They recall the fun, free-form stuff you’d see in the 50′s and 60′s. The artwork is very much like something you’d see in a children’s book, specifically Little Golden Books. (Incidentally, I wrote this portion in my mind before checking out the site’s “About” page. I pretty much did a fist pump when Dreistadt & Gibson cited Golden Books as an inspiration.) If I were a rich man, I would pretty much pay upwards of a million zillion dollars for Becky Dreistadt to draw all my Christmas cards.

Fun and attractive as it is, though, I don’t think that the artwork of Tiny Kitten Teeth quite works from a storytelling standpoint. The first story is tough to follow. Our very first panel follows Mewsli as he clumsily makes his way to the bus stop. Only … it’s not immediately apparent that that’s what’s happening, is it? Dreistadt seems to be so focused in making the page attractive that several emotion beats do not register. Compare that with the stylistically similar Bugs Bunny cartoons that share the same aesthetic inspiration. Sure, it’s a little bit of an unfair comparison. Bugs has got motion on his side, for one. Voice acting, for two. However, even if you look at the individual frames, you’ll notice that the sight gags are not cluttered to the point where they become irrelevant. They’re simple, clean, pointed … and humorous. In the case of Tiny Kitten Teeth, I don’t feel anything beyond, “Well, it does look pretty.”

Another scene tries to portray a stampede and its old-school 3D inspired aftermath. It’s nice to look it, but I had no idea what was going on the first time I read it — which robs the scene of any sense of impulsiveness.

To be fair to Ms. Dreistadt, I think she herself was aware of this problem, and more recent sight gags are far better paced. I still feel as if the panels are overstuffed, and elements could be eliminated without sacrificing the fundamental style … but they are less cluttered, and the action is at least discernible.

Even when you don’t factor in the art, the stories themselves are fairly trite and frustrating. They try too hard to be whimsical. Rather, Tiny Kitten Teeth feels more of a professor’s cold definition of whimsy, with the driest possible case study provided in the lesson plans.

For example: some time during Tiny Kitten Teeth, we’re introduced to a character named Rapstallion. (Heh, heh…. because he’s a horse, and he wears a backwards cap.) We are more or less informed that he is very annoying. Mewsli whimpers for help after spending some time with him and even goes so far as to tearfully apologizing for his presence. Rapstallion spouts “wacky” nonsequiturs about wanting waffles, looking for his car keys, and pretty much yelling in all-caps all the time. Clearly, he is supposed to be an annoying character.

So why doesn’t this gag work? Because everybody in Tiny Kitten Teeth is no less annoying than Rapstallion. The moment Mewsli arrives in Owltown, he’s pushed around by literally everyone. This includes the “good guys,” which include the deer, the owl, and the beagle guy. (There’s a gag, by the way, where Mewsli can’t remember the names of a couple of the characters. Trust me, when you get to that point, you too will be party to Mewsli’s frustration.) So why save all your exasperation for one guy? Is it because everyone else is so passive-aggressive?

Which doesn’t even factor in my sneaking suspicion that Rapstallion is a pale imitation of Donkey from Shrek.

It’s hard to even sympathize with Mewsli because he’s such a doormat. Every time Mewsli has to do something, it’s always explained away with “Well, he was forced to do it.” Had to go to a party? Forced to do it. Getting stuck with fictional writing as a major? Forced to do it. Ending up in a hazing ritual for a secret society? Forced to do it. I guess it could be a pretty funny running gag if it didn’t feel so … um … forced? It feels like it’s less a joke and more of a narrative cop out.

The whole “Mewsli gets stuck in a party” plot ends with Hootenanny, the owl character, ordering a puppy pal for his dog. How … silly? The one about Mewsli signing up for classes and ending up in a hazing ceremony concludes with a hasty “everything went according to my secret plan” wrap-up. Yeah.

I get that Gibson is trying to retain a loose, absurd vibe throughout the entire webcomic. It’s just that with everything being so forcibly and coldly nonsensical, the story arcs tend to feel highly unsatisfying.

The single-panel Tigerbuttah strips are less essential and far more saccharine by a factor of 10. They sometimes come off as the LOLCats meme, but with incredible art. I think that these strips may actually be better than the main narrative starring Mewsli, if only because there’s no attempt at putting together a plot.  They’re all one-panel comics starring Tigerbuttah or, sometimes, a member of the cast. These single panel comics are also all unbearably cute. I mean, look how much Tigerbuttah loves them leaves! Who’s a big boy? You are, arentcha? Yes you are! Yes you are!

But I digress.

It’s way too precious for me. I’m sure these comics appeal to a wide swath of readers out there. I’m thinking cat people. Pre-teen girls. Grandmas. Er… middle-aged Neopets collectors.

After writing this review, I skimmed online to see what others had to say about Tiny Kitten Teeth. A lot of people, it seems, want to love this comic. The art is just so unique and eye-catching. We want to hold this up to other webcomic creators as an example of how to think out of the box. And yet, everyone also seems to admit that the problems in composition and storytelling are impossible to ignore. As in life, being pretty only gets you so far.

Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)

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.

The title says it all. The comic stars a girl robot, “Girlbot,” who is quite intrepid. She’s also kind of naive. Being a robot, Girlbot has no concept of either her own strength or how fragile organic life is. She love nature, but she’s clumsy and she ends up wrecking up the wilderness by accident. Does she feel remorse? Probably, but it’s hard to tell from her permanently unemotional face. The comic also stars an unwilling cyborg raccoon, one of Girlbot’s unlucky “victims,” who’s not quite as happy-go-lucky as our heroine.

There’s no dialogue in The Intrepid Girlbot, but that never put a good robot down! Nock seems to be taking a lot of cues from the similarly silent Wall-E, where the art of the visual gag was reborn and perfected. There’s a lot of humor from watching everyday activities reinterpreted through the eyes of a robot. Plus the nearly indestructible nature of our cybernetic friends means that every day is Looney Tunes day. For those with a keen eye, Ms. Nock fills in some humorous details in the margins.

But while The Intrepid Girlbot is very light on plot and is all about how cute its title character is, there are times when the story gets creepy and a little sad. The comic dwells on the curse of loneliness that visits both our girl robot and our robot raccoon.

Not much has happened since the first strip debuted a little over a year ago. But, you know, the same issues with pacing can be made about the highly acclaimed The Abominable Charles Christopher (reviewed here). Come to think of it, the two comics are very similar. Mute hero/heroine, expressive animals rendered in realistic detail, a serious undercurrent that never subverts the silly visual slapstick. Hmmmm… do I smell the next superstar webcomic crossover?

Final Grade: 5 stars (our of 5).

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.

Evan Dahm first burst out on the webcomic scene with the highly acclaimed Rice Boy. I haven’t read the comic, but people whose opinions I respect tell me that it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. (Believe you me, sliced bread is pretty frikkin’ great.) It’s full of some of the most iconic images in webcomics: the simply designed rice boy character and The One Electronic, a robot man whose got a big spotlight for a head. I will have to read it someday. However, since The Webcomic Overlook favors ongoing series over ones that are concluded, I decided to latch onto Mr. Dahm’s current ongoing project, Order of Tales, which is scheduled to finish some time later this year.

The protagonist of Order of Tales is an earnest young frog-lizard named Koark. He engenders our sympathies immediately, which I think is partially due to his resemblance to Kermit the Frog. In modern parlance, Koark is what we would call a total nerd. He would rather pick flowers than do medieval jock activities like jousting and swordplay. He aspires to be a Teller, one who collects, reads, and sometimes memorizes stories from the various unique civilizations of his land. When Koark’s home comes under attack from evil forces, his father christens him a Teller and a member of the Order of Tales, a once glorious organization of storytellers so decimated that Koark is the last of his kind.

An aside: in a weird coincidence, I’d been working on a fantasy novel where the main character is a story collector involved in a secret society (which I’d named “Order of the Owl”). I thought I’d been pretty clever until I started reading Order of Tales. While I can probably explain this away that Mr. Dahm and I have both seen Star Wars at least once, I still probably have to backtrack to my fallback plan of casting my hero as a pig firmer who finds out that she is The Chosen One.

Moving right along.

Koark finds himself thrust into a quest when he has a chance encounter with the spotlight-headed fellow named The One Electronic (or, as everyone calls him “T-O-E.” From what I’d seen of Rice Boy, T-O-E is often depicted with a human face photoshopped on his circular screen of a face. Here, his face displays nothing but the glassy surface, which doesn’t look so offputting in the context of Order of Tales‘ fantasy setting (provided you allow for the existence of mechanical men in your fantasy universe in the first place). T-O-E is Koark’s Gandalf: he’s wise, world-weary, and is reluctant to reveal everything he knows. He’s also quite legendary, and he has no trouble gaining an audience with Order of Tales‘ power brokers. Does he also have a taste for the halfling leaf? Perhaps.

T-O-E sends Koark off to rendez-vous with a friend at Tenshells. Things don’t go as planned: Koark finds the place ransacked, he’s accused of murder, and he’s unclear of why he was doing T-O-E’s bidding in the first place. After discovering that the true perpetrators were the Blackbirds, Koark snatches their ill-gotten gains from under their noses. There, he meets the Bottle Woman. She’s a surly, transparent gal made of glass with liquid in her belly. Everyone seems to want her so they can use her for their nefarious purposes. When you look at fantasy tropes, you could say that The Bottle Woman is a combination of both the One Ring and the archetypal Chosen One of high fantasy.

(Wait. Chosen One? Crap.)

Koark discovers that The Bottle Woman is as clueless as he is. She doesn’t know to what ends that people want to use her. All she knows is that she feels an undeniable urge to go to Rog, the mysterious and unseen force causing havoc throughout the land. Rog has a history before the beginning of the tale: he’s responsible for the world’s greatest cataclysm, and there’s fear that history may repeat itself.

All the while, Koark and The Bottle Woman run in allies who aren’t friends for long. Most are willing to simply be rid of The Bottle Woman so they can be left in peace. Koark soon learns that there’s no such thing as a safe sanctuary. Those who pledged to defend you may turn on you in an instant, friends may have plans that while altruistic may not be in your best interests … and while those who you thought were your enemies may not exactly be trustworthy, they might be your best option for survival.

Order of Tales follows the most standard of fantasy structures. The heroes voyage from point A to point B, then to point C, then to point D. Standard, yes, but to fans of high fantasy this is the ultimate comfort food. If you’re not going to send your valuable reading time being whisked away to far off lands of magic and whimsy, then why read fantasy at all? I might as well be reading some John Grisham.

Mr. Dahm sends us to some truly breathtaking venues, like the giant nautilus spirals of Tenshells and the majestically tall towers of the Sirpah. And it’s not just a matter of making everyday objects giant-sized. In one part of the story, Koark and The Bottle Woman realize that they have to take an underground path on the way to the town of Imfort. The buildup to the dire nature of the path is highly effective, so that when we get our first chilling glimpse of the path itself we fear for our heroes.

Dahm gets a lot of mileage out of the most simple designs. One of the most noticeable aspects of Koark, for example, are his tiny feet. You don’t notice it at first: in the first chapter, Koark is styling Alladin shoes. But when Koark grows older, sprouts some long stilt-like legs, and wears his traveling shoes, he looks like he’s gliding across the ground. The fact that we can relate to Koark is, incidentally, one of the greatest advantages comics have over print. In literature, it’s very difficult to write a non-human, anthropomorphic character that people can relate to. The only exception is usually children’s literature, and they usually have some handy illustrations to use as reference points. In comic form, it’s easier to make a connection, because now you can see how a frog-lizard moves or emotes.

Following the “less is more” aesthetic discipline are the wonderful designs of the different races that inhabit Order of Tales. The Horned, for example, are basically just horseshoes with giant eyes. It’s an easy look to pull, but yet it’s so versatile. You can string a ribbon and a bell between the horns and — voila! — instant crown. Or you can wrap up one of the horns in a makeshift bandage. It’s almost as if Evan Dahm created the Horned for the specific challenge of creating diversity out of identical looking characters through small visual touches and conveying personality and emotion completely through the eyes.

Interestingly, the Blackbirds, servants of Rog, are indistinguishable from each other both in terms of appearance and demeanor. The are also weak-willed and pressed into service due because they can’t read or write. How Dahm artistically ties this theme together is really rather astounding.

Order of Tales loves to linger in quiet scenes that evoke contemplation. Several of the panels take up the entire page, inviting the reader to embrace the wonder of the epic vista alongside its characters. Even scenes of violence somehow seem to happen in slow motion. When a rock is launched from a catapult, the panels layout urges us to contemplate the trajectory. The entirety of Order of Tales feels very zen, much like the T-O-E himself.

When reflecting on the stories of legends gone by, Order of Tales makes a seamless transition into prose. Some might find this a tad jarring. This a webCOMIC, not a webNOVEL, you say. Personally, I’m hard pressed to think of a better alternative. If the tales were illustrated like any other panel in Order of Tales, for example, it would somewhat defeat the internalized effect that Koark is reciting written and oral history, where images are generated completely inside the mind of the reader/listener.

Plenty of the stories, by the way, are only around to provide color to the world of Order of Tales. However, there are a couple that provide insight into the main storyline. The one about Rog is the most essential, and the story of the Machine Men is probably high on the required reading list.

Dahm’s work is reminscent of Jeff Smith’s Bone… though I don’t know if I’d tell that to his face. Here’s what he stated in Mountain Xpress when asked a similar question about Rice Boy:

I read Bone a little while before I started Rice Boy, so I imagine the influence is there, but I can’t really find it. I think I’ve drawn more influence from the sorts of things Jeff Smith has drawn from than from Jeff Smith himself: old cartoons, mythology and fantasy stories. I have trouble looking for my own influences; I try to make a practice of sucking in the whole world through my eyes indiscriminately and synthesizing it in my comics, somehow or other.

Fair enough. I’ve avoided making comparisons, and I’ll continue to do so now… though, as a parting shot, don’t these guys look a lot like the stupid rat creatures? Still, I think it’s a good starting point. Fans of Bone will find a lot to enjoy when it comes to Order of Tales.

But say you’re not a fantasy reader. Say you’re just looking for a good webcomic to dig in to. This Order of Tales I’m talking about might not be something up your alley. And the length is a bit daunting. Right now it stands at over 500 pages. Do you really want to start reading Order of Tales?

The answer is, undoubtedly, YES. Many times YES.

Order of Tales was one of the comics brought up by a reader when I put together my Top Ten Best Webcomics of the Decade list. I said it didn’t make it on because I hadn’t read it yet, and it would be dishonest to place it there on reputation alone. What do I think, now that I’ve read it?

Order of Tales would’ve ranked first or second… easily.

Seriously, Order of Tales is amazingly put together. It makes no false steps. The comic itself is one of the finest examples of sequential art storytelling I’ve come across: print, digital, or otherwise. It’s eye-catching, suspenseful, memorable, full of wonderful characterizations, and lyrical. Those 500 pages went by quickly because the webcomic is the very definition of a page turner. Order of Tales is so good it’s outclassed almost every single other webcomic I’ve ever read. It should be dipped in lucite and preserved for future generations as how a comic should be.

In the end, that’s why I spent most my time in the review comparing Order of Tales to books rather than to other comics. It’s not just a great webcomic. It’s great literature. In summary: Order of Tales is as perfect a webcomic as you can possibly create.

Final Grade: 5 stars (out of 5).

Online, Cracked has been going through a lengthy process to distance itself from it’s dismal and historical reputation of being the poor man’s Mad Magazine. The efforts, I think, have been largely successful. When you think Cracked these days, you think less of “magazine that also does comic movie parodies but not quite as funny or creative as Mad” and more of “Top 7 List of Trivia that makes you feel all smart and knowledgeable, although generally the information is pretty worthless and the only reason you read it was because you liked seeing the words ‘Max Planck’ and ‘badass’ together.”

Well, that’s not completely true. There’s also “Top 7 list of things where we can laugh about other people’s cultures,” “awkward YouTube sketches that used to be aired on public access channels,” and “photoshop contests that are not as quite as funny or creative as SomethingAwful’s Photoshop Phridays.”

Cracked is also a strong proponent of webcomics. Unlikely as it might sound, the site is starting to become key in introducing webcomics to new audiences outside of the typical circles (e.g. nerdy and verbose blogs like The Webcomic Overlook). Think of it as the funny pages section of your local newspaper. I can’t vouch for the quality, though; some comics, like the recently showcased Fatawesome, have been mind-bogglingly terrible.

However, sometimes Cracked strikes gold. The site and the members of its forum are partially responsible for the publicity of at least one decent webcomic. It’s the subject of today’s Webcomic Overlook review, Ben Driscoll’s Daisy Owl.

According to an interview conducted by CBR’s Robot 6, Daisy Owl began life on the Cracked.com forums. (Are forums a good way to test-market your comic? I don’t have a definite answer, but I give a tentative “yes” … if the forum isn’t filled with “everything’s great” enablers.) The comic got a huge boost from Anthony “Nedroid” Clark, who drew a fan art of one of the characters. (I reviewed Nedroid’s comics here and here. Also, his Bad Webcomics were the inaugural webcomic feature on Cracked). One thing lead to another, and soon Daisy Owl landed a prominent feature on the Cracked.com front page. Sitewise, Daisy Owl leaves much to be desired. There’s no About page, no list of characters… there isn’t even a credit on the strip telling you that the comic is, in fact, created by Ben Driscoll.

The title takes its name from one its characters, a young girl named Daisy Owl. She is easily identified by her thick glasses, deadpan attitude, and the big daisy stuck in her bonnet. She’s also very smart, what with knowing the biggest number and all. Despite her ambitions in mad science, overall she’s a very practical kind. I imagine if a Daisy Owl cartoon were ever made, she’d be voiced by Sarah Vowell.

Her brother, Cooper, is not as intelligent, but no less curious. He’s your typical boy, playing with little boy toys like stuffed bears and plastic dinosaurs … only stuffed bears must be put through the perils of experimental medical treatments and the dinosaurs get repurposed in a morality play regarding misconceptions about Industrial Revolution .

Together they attempt to put together new inventions and use their vivid imaginations to infuse their playthings with mad science. They live in a world very similar to Charles Schultz’s Peanuts. You know how Lucy would be running a lemonade stand that gave out psychiatric advice for a nickel? And in the back of your mind you’d be wondering, “What would a kid without any sort of college degree know about psychiatry?” Daisy and Cooper play in a world that’s intelligent for their age, yet are unable to completely grasp the concept or separate it completely from the world of their playthings.

Long story short: it’s cute!

Their dad is Mr. Owl. He’s an actual owl. Despite some physical resemblances between Daisy and her dad, the two are not blood relations. No, Daisy and Cooper were adopted. Mr. Owl is a bit of an aging hipster, buying ironic shirts and ashamedly watching Princess Bride well into middle age (not that there’s anything wrong with that, as his friends try to convince him). He’s also not as wise has his owlish reputation would suggest, having to be reminded constantly how raising humans is not quite the same as raising owls. It’s sort of an endearing look into the life of a befuddled single dad.

The story initially revolved around the Owl kids, but as Daisy Owl progressed, the spotlight seems to have shifted to Steve, Mr. Owl’s old pal from high school. And why not? The jokes about Steve seem to feel more natural.

Steve is a laid back dude who, at the beginning, is looking for a job but eventually is gainfully employed at The Guild of Honey. He is also a bear … a polar bear to be specific. This leads to several parallels on race. Bears, for example, have restaurants that serve ethnic fare where “they spray you with a hose and throw salmon on your face.” Bears are also subject to unique physiological considerations, too, which means Steve has to figure out how to beat that urge to hibernate.

In Daisy Owl, bears are sometimes the subject of bigotry from humans. There’s even some casual racism going on among their own species (like when Steve’s brother, a grizzly, feels hesitant when he’s invited to a polar bear party). Steve’s own parents, a traditional couple with some bigoted views, are very concerned when Steve mingles with people of other species, including a certain owl, perhaps? Yet Steve, like most of us, takes it all with a shrug of his shoulders. Life’s complicated as it is, y’know?

As heavy-handed as this might sound, Mr. Driscoll deftly treats everything with a light touch. Rather than preach, these sorts of dilemmas instead build the character of the Daisy Owl world. As Ben says in his interview,

If I were a lazy writer, I’d use their non-traditional situation as a soapbox and make lame political comics. I’ve resisted that temptation so far. You have no idea how hard that was during the election.

Besides, Daisy Owl is, above all, pleasantly surreal. Steve’s job at The Guild of Honey fills a good portion of the weirdness quotient. It’s a ridiculous corporation that puts honey at the center of everything. Some of the best jokes in Daisy Owl stem from Steve temporarily filling in for the Queen Bee. Other jokes revolve around weird and unlikely honey-based inventions like the honey laser.

Not that an owl with two adopted kids and Steve have a monopoly on weirdness. Why does Steve’s brother have a not-quite-magical wizard for a roommate, anyway?

Weirdness is so prevalent that you could start wondering about some of the incongruities in the world of Daisy Owl. Like why do sentient animals still get treated like objects by humans? I mean, in a world where anthropomorphic characters exist on a fairly equal footing, why would they still get mistaken for discount novelty objects?

Stylistically, Daisy Owl will always get compared to the popular Achewood (reviewed here). The minimalistic compositions, the square dialogue boxes and no-nonsense fonts, the black and white format with the gray shading, thie simple panel layouts, and the character designs look somewhat similar. With “Haunting Rememberance of a Roadside Rest Stop”, Daisy Owl even imitates how Achewood sometimes forces your brain to fire synapses from left side to the right side as the strip switches to an all prose format.

Where Daisy Owl differs significantly is the mood. Achewood warns you ahead of time, what with that cat in the thong, that it’s going to enter some fairly adult territory. Daisy Owl, on the other hand, is fun, pleasant, and almost family friendly. The comic progress at the gentle ambiance of a Peanuts strip or Calvin & Hobbes. Jokes aim for a fairly dry conclusion rather than anything wild or shocking, like a strip where Daisy recounting a dream she had about the History Channel, which ends with a very understated final panel.

Notice I said “almost family friendly.” The most risque the comic gets is a plotline where Steve gets offered some weed. Admittedly, it’s fairly tame, but, depending on your moral compass, it’s probably something you don’t want to show kids under 12.

Anyway, Daisy Owl is a highly enjoyable webcomic that always, always, always leaves a smile on your face at the end. It’s actually quite fitting that Nedroid would help promote it; both creators make cute comics that don’t come off as cloying. There’s a bit of a plot, but following it is not a necessity. This is a traditional comic strip through and through, but modernized and updated for the new millennium through fresh eyes of a creator who remembers why we loved comic strips in the first place.

Final Grade: 5 stars (out of 5).

Scott McCloud popularized the term “infinite canvas.” In a nutshell, the very nature of internet browsers means that comics aren’t limited dimensionally like they are on the printed page. Very few webcomic artists take Scott up on that challenge. Most still look like they’re in a conventional format, perhaps because the artist is think ahead as to when the strips will be collected in book form.

Plus, if you go by McCloud’s examples, it can get pretty disorienting.

That doesn’t mean that there haven’t been some successful experiments. One of the best examples of the “infinite canvas” I’ve had the pleasure to run into is Drew Weing’s incredibly attractive “Pup.”

“Pup”
I’ve read two of Mr. Weing’s comics in their entirety — “Pup” and Set to Sea. Hot damn are they excellent. The art echoes the old school cartoons. Characters have round bodies and spindly arms, like the ones you’d find in Thimble Theater or early Disney toons. The humor, too — which lean on physical gags and Charlie Brown-like contemplations — feels like a pleasant throwback. Weing does nothing to hide his love for Krazy Kat.

At the same time, Weing also updates and refines the classic character designs. With “Pup,” the colors just pop off the page. Despite drawing some highly detailed backgrounds (seriously, look at the work put on the bark of this tree), Drew uses a lot of negative space in his page layouts. As a result, his comics feel clean, crisp, and introspective… the latter of which befits the zen-like philosophical demeanor of the title character.

Drew really shines, though, when he plays around with the infinite canvas. Check out “Heat Death”. “Pup” starts to think about the end of the universe. As a result, he imagines himself floating farther and farther from Earth. Weing plays with the size of the panels, and Earth, the Sun, and the universe look absolutely massive. When the heat death finally occurs, its scale hits us in all its gargantuan significance, then sucks us into its lonely emptiness.

Another effect happens in the less metaphysical and more standard visual gag in “Call of the Mild”. We follow “Pup”‘s eager-to-please feline friend, Kitzer, through a grueling trek in the winter snow. The comic has us scrolling from the upper left to the lower right, then to the lower left, then to the middle left … yet it all feels as natural as following someone around in real life. No arrows or Family Circus dotted lines are needed.

With only 13 strips thus far and only 15 planned total, “Pup” is a very short comic. Yet, in that span, Drew Weing proves that the “infinite canvas” can be more than just a smug-sounding idea. He makes the whole concept of comics without borders feel real and comfortable.

Rating: 5 stars (out of 5)

Way back when the Fellowship of the Ring movie was coming out (and boy does that seem like a long time ago), Peter Jackson was all the rage. Unashamed fanboys and fangirls of the hobbit-y looking director began singing his praises all over internet message boards. Films that no one but the most obsessive horror movie buffs knew about began crawling out of the cracks. The most recommended movie? You guessed it: Meet the Feebles.

I was intrigued by the premise. It was a dark, grim version of the Muppet Show. I enjoy parodies on Jim Henson’s creations, being perhaps one of the few people in the world who enjoyed Greg the Bunny. So I went down to the local video store and rented out a copy on tape.

I hated every single minute of it. For me, Meet the Feebles crossed the line from a dark yet whimsical parody — like, say, American McGee’s Alice — to mean-spirited splatter porn. I don’t mean that Peter Jackson is himself a joyless curmudgeon; all accounts are that he’s a friendly fellow to be around. It’s just that for this particular movie he seems to be actively despising the characters and, unforgivably, Jim Henson’s original premise.

I was reminded of Meet the Feebles when I decided to check out the subject of today’s review. It’s a black-and-white webcomic called Glam, written by Pedro Camargo and hosted on the Act-I-Vate website. To sum it up, it’s Care Bears meets Fall-Out and all the shenanigans that implies.

According to his bio, creator Pedro Camargo is a native of Brazil who studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York. The man is also a high school art teacher. Glam is one of two comics he has hosted on the Act-I-Vate site, purveyor of original indie-style comic series. (His other comic is Space Sucks.) His style is gritty and unpolished. It’s a cross between Don Simpson (Megaton Man) and the ball-point pen sketches that you might find in a bored high-schooler’s notebook. On one hand, I admire that a hand-drawn style can worm its way into the antiseptic world of webcomics. On the other hand … it does tend to look sloppy at times.

The world of Glam revolves around a group of characters from the town with the subtle name of Happy Fun Place Land. The citizens resemble like either some sort of 80′s Nelvana cartoon or a stuffed animal (or both). If you suspect that their insides are made of fiber fill, later pages will prove you wrong. The town is a world of sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows and everything that’s wonderful. The sociopolitical world seems to revolve around the ethics as established by a benevolent deity who may or may not be Strawberry Shortcake. The residents of Super Fun Happy Town act like everyone’s high … on life! While the comic is in black and white, you can imagine that local folk are all rendered in baby-calming pastels.

Of course, you always have to be wary about this kind of set-up. The only people nowadays who portray anything this innocent are the ones who are trying to set you up for unrelenting grimness. See: Wonder Showzen!, the Christmas Critters from South Park, the Veggie Tale analogues on Drawn Together.

One of them, a lucky bee named Jacob, is traveling along some road probably named Camaraderie Boulevard. He’s so lucky because today’s his birthday! On the way, he encounters two sketchy-looking ninjas. This worries Jacob, because 1) they’re not on the invitee list, and 2) they’re kidnapping one of his friends. But they do have a present for our little pal: a syringe full of plague virus.

Our hero, a fellow named Whyte Rabbit, is at Jacob’s home, preparing the decorations. (Ooh, a reference to the character in Alice in Wonderland. Only, like, the 400th time it’s ever been done.) And who happens to be coming to the door but jacob, the busy bee, now bristling with sores. Oh, Jacob, it’s bad luck to be the first person at your own birthday party! A short time later, he sees a side of Jacob he’s never seen before: his insides. Whyte is on hand while Jacob explodes into a million tiny pieces. Covered in the viscera, blood, and guts of his friend, Whyte’s eyes widen to the size of saucers… which either signifies his lost innocence or that a little bit of Jacob is floating around in his cornea.

Happy birthday, Jacob!

Whyte then finds out that Jacob witnessed the kidnapping of Polyphemus, a one-eyed turtle and a dear, dear friend. This news sets him over the edge. Armed with nothing but the empty syringe that killed his friend, Whyte sets off from Happy Fun Place Land. Indeed, if Glam teaches us anything, the bonds of friendship are strong.

At the same time, Glam also teaches us that the bonds of friendship are also terribly inconvenient. Four others, for whatever reason, won’t let the rabbit go out on his own. The decide to accompany him down the dark path to the far-off city of Mordor… er, The City. (I’m not sure that’s its official name, by the way. I skimmed through the comic and didn’t find a direct reference. it could be Oz, for all I know.) Their designs, by the way, are supposedly adorable… but I think Mssr. Camargo also intended them to be a little off-putting as well. When I first saw Bruno, I pegged him as a cross between the Muppet Fozzy and the Grateful Dead bear. Sally, the potential love interest, hardly looks cute, despite the girly accouterments. With her long limbs and bug-eyed face, she looks something like a spider/bulldog hybrid. Finally, the twin blobs, Tat and Tot, are cute enough, but given what happens to one of them in the first chapter it’s best not to get attached to them.

As Whyte comes closer to The City, he descends further and further into despair. Early in their travels, the group is assaulted by Roaches, hostile creatures that live on the outskirts. Needless to say, things do not go well. Whyte is driven to madness as he must contemplate a mercy killing for one of his friends. As he becomes more desperate, Whyte contemplates sticking the plague syringeinto the incredibly annoying Bruno.

But why did someone kidnap Polyphemus in the first place? There have been no answers yet. However, it seems that these simple country animals possess more powerful than they initially appear. And it’s possibly psychic.

The City itself is an unholy dystopian fusion of the worst neighborhoods in Detroit and Transnistria. Bar brawls seem to be the national sport. Sanctioned bouts are staged in a Thunderdome-like setting. Its citizens, who dress like extras from Final Fantasy: Advent Children, need little excuse to start stabbing each other in the back. The Dickensian skyline is dominated by factory smokestacks — a horrible pollutant, to be sure, but an adequate background for those prone to monologuing. Every street seems to be a dark alleyway. People are packed like sardines. Curiously, few seem to be women.

I suppose we can make some sort of real world analogy. It’s like how industrialized cities become amoral wastelands while people in rural areas live simpler lives and are united by community. That might be giving Mr. Carmago too much credit, though, who’s probably in it to draw fluffy animals in various states of mutilation. Also, I can’t really fit roaches into my pat, grad school level theory. Disenfranchised union workers, maybe?

The City presents a new set of friends and enemies. The most prominent thus far is a heavily scarred ranger with a skull mask. He had been following Whyte and company and narrating their adventures in the form of a children’s storybook until the bug-eyed bunny called out. The group also encountered a creature who may or may not be a Guyver suit. He’s likely an ally… but with Glam, you never know.

In my opinion, the most distasteful thing about Meet the Feebles was how the movie attempted to get as dark and raunchy as possible to get laughs that never came. Peter Jackson assaulted the viewer with mass murder, rape, S&M, and, most infamously, sodomy. It almost seems like a losing proposition. If I like it, then obviously I’m an avant-garde who appreciates its edginess. If I hate it, then I’m some sort of humorless square. Of course, there’s the third option: we’ve seen all these jokes before, and smearing everything in feces doesn’t make it any more edgier or funnier.

That sums up some of my feelings about Glam. Stuffed animal creatures that bleed and have mental breakdowns? Seen it. To be fair, there is no scene where Sally is raped and murdered… but the way Glam is going, I’m not tossing it outside the realm of possibilities. I mean, when Camargo devotes a page to a loving depiction of self-mutilation, you have to gird yourself against depravity yet to come. Angst is ratcheted to critical levels. After something bad happens, there’s pages and pages of hand-wringing, finger-pointing, and arguing. It’s like reading someone’s emo LiveJournal.

Glam‘s not all bad, though. If you’re a fan of gore, or if you’re a fan of stuffing a Ziploc bag with hamburger and stomping on it (which is what most of the frags look like), Glam might be right up your alley. In addition, Camargo does craft an interesting world to explore. I want to learn more about how a society fragmented to the point where everyone’s a hitman. I want to see why the world evolved to the point where all evil was contained in one city. The world of Glam is like the Metalocalypse world, where everything is an over-the-top parody of the album cover definition of grim-and-gritty.

However, here’s where we come to the comics’ biggest downside. Metalocalypse, at least, has five lovable doofuses anchoring the series. The problem with Glam is that there are no characters to root for. While it’s easy to sympathize with the mission, it’s hard to root for Whyte, who’s become a dangerous and insufferable bastard. His friends have few redeeming values and do grate on the nerves something fierce with their constant whining. If said it before: characters are important to retaining readers for a continuing series. And right now, I’m not too keen on following up on the further adventures.

Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)