Category Archives: sci-fi webcomic

The Webcomic Overlook #202: Scenes From A Multiverse

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Nestled among the sands of the American Southwest lies a city where fortunes are lost under a kaleidoscope of gaudy lights: Las Vegas. There, last week, old men and some old women gathered at the Green Valley Resort to hand out awards named after a quick-witted man who spent his time drawing impossible machines. It’s tradition that dated back to 1946, when a group of cartoonists banded together to entertain the troops. They were here at the resort to hold a black-tie banquet evening to recognize excellence in cartooning. The past honorees are legend: Milton Caniff, Al Capp, Alex Raymond, Charles Schulz, Chester Gould, and Hal Foster, to name a few.

This year, however, an award would be given, for a the first time, to a comic that had been published entirely online. Two of the nominees had readerships in the millions: Penny Arcade, founded by two smartasses from Seattle who had parlayed their success into a larger media empire; and The Oatmeal, created by another Seattle cartoonist who successfully made a profit through poster reprints.

The third was by a guy from New York who had toiled in the webcomic world but had not met the same amount of success. He’d put together two webcomics previous to this one: one that was semi-autobiographical, and another with the unpronounceable name of megaGAMERZ 3133T. This one probably had the oddest concept: a series of small vignettes with few recurring characters set across different settings, which were located in separate universes.

That comic would be the eventual winner of the first Reuben Award for an Online Strip: Jon Rosenberg’s Scenes From A Multiverse. (Gary Tyrell, a judge at the Reubens, posted a first-hand account of the events here.)

It was a boon to Mr. Rosenberg. I looked at the Project Wonderful stats right after a win, and pageviews were up from a typical 24K to a very respectable 120K. To be fair, though, a lot of that new readership arrived from a gracious link posted at Penny Arcade, where Mike Krahulik praised Mr. Rosenberg for being “a great guy and talented cartoonist.”

I think it deservedly won, a point on which I’ll elaborate later.

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The Webcomic Overlook #195: Derelict

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Loneliness is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s kinda nice to be away from people. You can be alone in your thoughts. You never have to worry about behaving or others looking down on you. You are your own master.

And then there’s the flipside. It’s unnerving when the only voice you can hear is your own. There’s no one to help you if you get in trouble. There’s no one to comfort you when you cry, no one to laugh at your jokes, no one to tell you if you look good today.

Loneliness is both alluring and frightening. Thus, it’s a natural theme for most post-apocalyptic stories. Take the movie I Am Legend, for instance. Sure, an abandoned New York can be a pretty cool place where you can play golf on an aircraft carrier or break into houses and rummage through other peoples’ drawers or drive whatever exotic car you want. It’s such an alluring fantasy that there’s even a term for it: “cozy catastrophe.”

It’s also soul-crushing. When Will Smith is forced to kill his dog, you can sense that he lost something even more valuable than his utter surplus of freedom: companionship.

Which brings me to Ben Fleuter’s webcomic, Derelict.


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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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One Punch Reviews #54: Power Nap

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Every time I come across a reference to Maritza Campos’ Power Nap, there’s always a reference to College Roomies From Hell. I’ve never read that comic. I suspect it’s a blind spot that will prove to be my undoing, like that time I didn’t know what Penny Arcade and Ctrl+Alt+Del were. (Oh, to return to those blissful, innocent days.) It’s long, and it never really seemed something that was up my alley, anyway. I’ve never really been a fan of college roommate comics, let alone one where they’re apparently from the eternal netherworlds of the damned. So I’m not the guy to go ask if this is better or worse than CRFH.

It doesn’t much matter, anyway. First of all, it’s visually distinct from CRFH. This time around someone else is handling artistic duties. Power Nap is penned by Bachan, a Mexican illustrator who also does Vinny. It seems to be about a werewolf of sorts.


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Crabcake Confidential: Shockwave, Darkside

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The say that in space, no one can hear you scream. But can they see you wearing rectangular glasses where one side is red and the other side is blue?

Shockwave, Darkside is a webcomic written by Jay Weisman and illustrated by Weilin Yang and team (who are the same art team behind previous reviewed Keenspot stablemate Wayward Sons). It’s a comic based on an indie movie of the same name. Despite a title that sounds like it could be title of a weepy Tori Amos single, Shockwave, Darkside is actually 3-D sci-fi movie where two factions on the movie fight over patches of water. That’s fairly ambitious for a film without a big Hollywood budget. The movie’s most prominent actor is a fellow by the name of Bill Sage. Also it has Filipino actress Mei Melancon, who played Psylocke in X-Men: The Last Stand.

Wait a minute… Psylocke was in that movie?!?!?

The comic is, in a way, equally ambitious. Because along with being tied to a risky indie project, it’s also coming atcha… in 3D!

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The Webcomic Overlook #178: Space Time Condominium

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Hey, I’ve got a sitcom pitch for you: take one unlucky schmo. Put him in a house with four roommates. There’s a redneck, a nerd, a wigger, and a homosexual. But get this! All of them are alternate reality versions of the same guy! They’re on a collision course with wackiness!

Which, to be honest, isn’t that farfetched an idea for a sitcom. Isn’t there a comedy about a guy in a doggy fursuit currently on the air at this moment on FX? However, this sort of pitch probably works best in the crazy 80′s. I suppose you can point to the Sherwood Schwartz era as true cartoony cheese in sitcoms, like when two cavemen traveled through time and space and five passengers setting sail on a three our tour. And yet, those 80′s sitcoms tried everything they could do to top that earlier weirdness. Ah, that was the time when you had sitcoms about alien life forms, robot little girls, and nerdy next door neighbors who build Urkelbots. And the “dramas” (if you could call them that) were even more cartoony. Need I remind you about four soldiers of fortune touring the LA area in a black van or a couple of moonshiners in an orange Dodge Charger? Of course I don’t.

Dave Dwonch has the same idea. His webcomic, Space Time Condominium, frames the situation as a failed 80′s Canadian sitcom. Yes, not only is it a cheesy sitcom, it’s also Canadian. Sorta gives it a nice aura of shoe-string production values, off-kilter wholesomeness, and a heaping dose of whiteness, doesn’t it?*

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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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