Category Archives: One Punch Reviews

One Punch Reviews #66: Shädbase

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Hey, kids! Do you like webcomics? Sure you do! But do you think that webcomics have gotten a little … sissy these days? You read Penny Arcade and you say to yourself, “You know, dickwolves was funny. But it sure could’ve been a lot funnier if they’d actually shown the rape. And in graphic detail.”

To which I say: “What the hell is wrong with you?”

But, boy, do I have a comic for you! It’s a little something called Shädbase, by a creator who goes by “Shadman.” It’s a darkly humorous take on pop culture. Shädbase takes references from video games and cartoons, and it physically forces itself on those references without any consent, horribly abusing those references with blunt force trauma, and violating and humiliating those references until they’re emotionally scarred and bereft of dignity.

Suffice to say, links contained in this review are not going to be safe for work.

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One Punch Reviews #65: Outfoxed

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Webcomic short stories tend to make a big splash with two audiences: the people who read Reddit and the judging panel of the Eisner Awards. In 2009, for example, a whopping three short stories were under consideration: Speak No Evil, Vs., and The Lady’s Murder. A fourth, Bodyworld, was longer, but structure to come to a finite ending. It’s a format, that, in a way, is more appropriate of an award that bills itself as “The Oscars” of comics. There’s a complete story, a more cohesive theme, and character progression… things that Oscar-worthy movies are typically judged by.

This year, we also have three short stories vying for the Eisner. There’s Sarah and the Seed (which I looked at here), perhaps the shortest work every submitted for Eisner consideration. There’s Bahrain (which I took a look at over here), which muses about politics in the titular country.

Then there’s Outfoxed by Dylan Meconis. Ms. Meconis has, perhaps, more webcomic-cred than the authors involved in this year’s round of Eisners. Her previous works, Bite Me and Family Man, have taken a look at classical horror elements (vampires and werewolves) in historical settings. There’s nothing of the sort in Outfoxed. I mean, maybe a werefox… if that’s a thing.

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One Punch Reviews #64: Next Town Over

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One of the genres that has surprisingly thrived under the webcomic format is the weird western. Now, I ain’t saying that readers cotton it, particularly — the same way they cotton those comics what make fun of video games, I mean. Weird westerns, though, sure do cut a swell during awards time. High Moon, which is about the Wild West with werewolves, won a Harvey Award. Guns of Shadow Valley, which is about cowboys with superpowers, was nominated for an Eisner. It makes sense when you think about it. Weird westerns hearken back to the Golden Age of movies when heroes like John Wayne, Gary Cooper, and Clint Eastwood lit up the screen. At the same time, they play to more modern audiences when you add some sci-fi, the supernatural, fantasy, and steampunk.

Who could have imagined that The Wild Wild West was the future of storytelling?

Which brings us to Erin Mehlos’ Next Town Over. It sure is a mighty unassuming name. You hear it and you done think to yourself, “With a fancy title like that, this is surely some sort of romance comic.” Which, come to think it it, may not be all too far from the mark. At its heart, this is a webcomic about two lovers. They also have superpowers. And a couple of souped up horses. Set down a spell and you’ll see what I mean.

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On Punch Reviews #63: Bahrain

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There’s something about editorial cartoons that can be incredibly dangerous. Offend the wrong groups, for example, and you might find yourself running for your life. With televised, audio, or print media, you can build up or soften your argument by surrounding it with empirical evidence. There is rarely such a safety net for one-panel editorial cartoons. They are immediate an powerful in their brevity. The concise format strips the opinion to the stark naked core.

Josh Neufeld’s Eisner nominated webcomic, Bahrain: Lines In Ink, Lines In The Sand, follows the struggles of two editorial cartoonists living in Bahrain, a country caught in a politicl turmoil that, as of this writing, is still making news at the Bahrain Grand Prix. Neufeld has previously reported the personal stories of people caught up in Hurricane Katrina with AD: After the Deluge. Now he uses the same techniques, applied on a smaller scale, to take at look at the Arab Spring. It’s fairly short at 17 pages, but perhaps that’s as long as it needs to be.

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One Punch Reviews #62: Life In Aggro

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It’s probably a sign that I’m getting increasingly out of touch with the gaming crowd, but I’m not entirely sure what “aggro” means. The last time I heard that term used in the context of games was in Midnight Club 3. If you were driving a truck or a luxury vehicle, you could fill up a meter depending on how many times you ended up rear ending other vehicles. When the meter filled up, you could activate a mode called “Aggro,” which let you plow through heavy traffic without taking any damage at all. It’s especially useful if you needed to both smash through to the finish line and also to scatter crashed cars in an opponent’s their path.

It was, suffice to say, absolutely ridiculous. I mean, how does that mechanic work when translated to real life? The more damage you take, the more you’re likely to plow over other vehicles? It makes a little bit of sense when applied to a human being; the idea is you’re sick and tired of being a victim, so you reach for that last bit of adrenaline rush to lay the smack down on your opponent. But how does that work when you’re driving a car? Does the car suddenly get an adrenaline boost? And how is it all of the sudden invincible? Is the car suddenly equipped with a force field generator?

Anyway, my meager understanding of the term leads me to believe that “aggro” refers to plowing things down with reckless abandon. If that’s true, I a little perplexed by the title of Casey Vasquez and Fei Hsiao’s Life in Aggro, a webcomic about … you guessed it … video games. The comic stand-ins for the two — Bear and Pie — seem to be chill for the most part, and I can’t see either of them getting into a Cadillac Escalade to tear up interstates in the greater Los Angeles area.

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One Punch Reviews #61: Bearmageddon

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Ethan Nicolle made his mark on webcomics with Axe Cop. This much celebrated comic proved that if you added stellar illustrations to a six-year-old kid’s rambling storytelling, you come up with something that’s pretty magical. We all knew though, that it was destined to end. Little Malachai would soon become self aware or tired, and you can only hang on the adventures spouted by a kid for so long vefore it no longer becomes cute.

Fortunately, Ethan decided to follow up his initial effort with a story from his own creation: Bearmageddon. Now, I know what your thinking: between the title and the webcomic’s header image of bears with different animal forms (which looks like a kickin’ rad album cover for a 70′s metal band). You’re saying, “Man, El Santo, not another webcomic with random humor!”

This webcomic does rely on goofy nonsequiturs like an octopus bear. But, thus far, you know what this comic reminds me of? Animal attack movies like Anaconda or Lake Placid. And that is not a bad thing.

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One Punch Reviews #60: Noncanon

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Tom McHenry’s Noncanon is one of those single panel webcomics that feels like they were tossed off on a LiveJournal. They feel sporadic and of the moment, as if they’re just ideas that popped into Mr. McHenry’s mind that were given life on pen and paper (or Cintiq) mere moments later. They’re also quite funny in a way that’s both randomly absurd yet so classy that they look like they belong in the New Yorker.

Heck, maybe they are in the New Yorker. Maybe, just mabe, Mr. McHenry worte a song about it, too.


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