The Webcomic Overlook #192: 2D Goggles

Through its relatively short lifespan as a genre, webcomics have proved they can do things just as good as any other form of media can. They can make you laugh. They can make you cry. They can make you poo your pants when you get a surprise animation of a creepy anime zombie girl. They can make you find the goodness in humanity through the flooded streets of New Orleans, and they can make you feel the frustration of trying to find a loved one in Iran.

And, yes, webcomics can teach. Moreso, I suspect, than conventional print comics can. There are a lot of webcomic creators out there — such as Kate Beaton and Randall Munroe — that actually respect the intelligence of their readers. They’ll give you a set up using an obscure historical figure or an advanced calculus mathematical equation and trust that you’ll laugh even if you don’t get it at first, and that you’ll do more research if the subject piqued your interest.

Take, for example, Sydney Padua’s 2D Goggles (subtitled The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage), a webcomic about two historical characters that I hadn’t thought about since my high school BASIC programming class.

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The Webcomic Overlook #190: Mokepon

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 #179: The Society of Unordinary Young Ladies

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 #171: Blue Milk Special

Oftentimes, Star Wars brings out the best out in people. Say what you will about Seth MacFarlane, but the guy seemed to be at his peak when he was doing Star Wars parodies on both Family Guy and Robot Chicken. Weird Al charmed millions of his fans with “The Saga Begins” … which was notably based on internet rumors and speculations about Episode One, not the official script. Turning back the clock, I remember totally marking out when Mark Hamill and C3PO showed up on Pigs in Space. And that Star Wars episode of Muppet Babies? Nothing but pleasant childhood memories.

Lucas may be something of a hack, but you have to give George Lucas credit for creating characters and scenarios that stay in that warm-and-fuzzy parts of your nostalgia forever. I think even Harry S. Plinkett would even agree to that. Star Wars was a little nerdy, but it was never as nerdy as the staid-by-comparison Star Trek. Epic and sometimes dark moments were balanced out by fun, creative touches. The movies imprinted both the iconically evil look of Darth Vader and the whimsical muppetry of Yoda into our fertile mental consciousnesses.

Star Wars humor is a natural fit for webcomics, too, with both Irregular Webcomic (featuring a long-running Star Wars parody) and Darth & Droids getting high marks from this site. We also have Blue Milk Special, Rod and Leanne Hannah’s own comedic twist on Star Wars.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

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The Webcomic Overlook #166: The Gutters

With regards to The Webcomic Overlook, the question I get asked the most is, “El Santo, if think you’re such an authority on webcomics, why don’t you write one yourself?”

My answer is: BECAUSE. DAMMIT.

The second most asked question is, “When are you going to review Least I Could Do?”

This is an incredibly loaded request. It’s a comic that gets tons of love from people that generally I respect. It is also, paradoxically, one of the most reviled webcomics of all time. I’ve got to admit that these conflicting standpoints would make for a hell of a review.

However, being someone of the latter disposition, I have a hard time reading more than ten LICD strips in a row. I know, I know… I’m the same guy that read Jack and Ctrl+Alt+Del. How could I be possibly fazed by LICD? Well, the first two are at least enjoyable to watch go off the rails in a “Can this comic get any worse?” sort of way. From what I’ve seen of LICD, it’s the same thing day in and day out, and I have a hard time imagining that it would ever keep my attention.

I’m not discounting a review of LICD outright. However, sadistic readers of The Webcomic Overlook, I offer you a taste. This next review is written by LICD writer Ryan Sohmer, and periodically illustrated by Lar deSouza. By my estimates, it is at least 53% created by the LICD crew. The webcomic is a little thing called The Gutters.

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One Punch Reviews #43: Space Avalanche

There used to be a time that whenever you ran into a Star Trek gag, it had to do with the original series. Why not? While the show took itself incredibly seriously, it had that ineffable 1960′s cheesiness that was so easy to make fun of. There were the redshirt jokes (which made it into the recent movie). There were gags about the transporter malfunctions. Kirk’s womanizing ways. Clint Howard as that weird baby alien. Heck, the official (and very funky) commercials for the Star Trek DVDs made fun of how they used the exact same footage for each planet the crew visited.

Lately, though, the nostalgia has started to shift toward its heralded progeny, Star Trek: The Next Generation. There was a time when most fans would think that TNG was far too stuffy a show to milk any humor out of it. Oh, but how time makes a fool of us all. After almost 25 years, what once looked cool in your childhood youth now looks hilariously cheesy through older eyes. Our beloved bridge now looks less like the nerve center of a Federation flagship and more like the local Lenscrafters. It’s TNG that becomes one of the recurring themes in Eoin Ryan’s webcomic, Space Avalanche.


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One Punch Reviews #42: Dream Life

Dreams are a fascinating theme for a writer to tackle. It gives carte blanche to play with surreal imagery, such as, oh, a Duchess who plays croquet using a flamingo and a hedgehog or a huge cityscape falling in on itself. It lets you explore the realm of your mind that you should control, but for some reason slips beyond your grasp. Our dreams represent a highly personal and private experience, so it’s embarrassing enough when we let slip the events going on in our slumber. How do you react when someone’s peeking in on your most unguarded moments?

This fragile mental ecosystem that you enter when you close your eyes at night is one of the major themes of Dream Life: A Late Coming of Age, a webcomic written by comic artist Salgood Sam (a.k.a. Max Douglas, but in reverse). It’s also about mystery, the crises we go through as we age… and Charlie Brown, surprisingly.


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