The Webcomic Overlook #101: Azure

As the month transitions from summer to fall and eventually winter, we’re caught up in an absolutely magical mood. All across the country, people start putting up decorations and turning on tiny lights to give beauty to the night. At the same time, we begin to wonder: wouldn’t it be cool if the world ended right now?

My pet theory is that this hunger for post-apocalyptic imagery is fueled, in part, by childhood fears that the end of the calendar year coincides with the end of the world. (Laugh all you want about childhood innocence, but is this really so different than the current 2012 mania?) Hollywood is only happy to oblige. During the Christmas season, movie theaters are filled with end of the world scenarios like I Am Legend, The Day The Earth Stood Still remake, and The Day After Tomorrow, which laughably featured a first-person view of killer cold.

This year is no different. Blockbuster movie buffs can thrill to the collapse of the world in 2012. On the other hand, those with more art-house sensibilities who look down upon people who enjoy mindless orgies of explosions can bathe in the more muted desperation of The Road. See? You CAN be a hipster AND an end times enthusiast!

So it should be no surprise that I’m kicking off December with a webcomic that foresees the end of the world as we know it. It’s an offering from Zuda Comics called Azure, a webcomic written and illustrated by Dan Govar. Azure is set in a world where the polar ice caps have melted and most of the world is under the waves of a new globe-spanning ocean.


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El Santo vs. The Vampire Women: Juliette: Worst Vampire Ever

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So if the last few entries of “El Santo vs. The Vampire Women” have had you feeling like a pedophile, I offer you a deep apology. It really is not that easy finding comics about vampire women where the main character doesn’t look like a preteen. That’s pretty much the case, at least, with any webcomic where the styles bear overtly Japanese influences. To find stories with more mature looking vampire ladies, we have to turn our attention overseas.

OK, so technically the protagonist of Juliette: Worst Vampire Ever is still in high school. You wouldn’t know it by looking at her, though. She looks like she’s being played by someone over 25.

Zuda Comics seems to be committed to becoming DC Comics’ reigning horror division. So it should be no surprise that a lot of the Zuda contestants take the horror route as well. Juliette is but one of many examples residing in the vast grave yard that is the Zuda former competitors archives. The comic didn’t fare well in the Zuda competition, finishing tenth place in its group. It hasn’t surfaced anywhere else online since its loss, so the continuation of this particular webcomic series may be in doubt. It was created by Cedric Poulat, a French artist who specialized in really nice cheesecake illustrations of popular superheroines. Oh, Zatanna… you can shuffle my deck anytime.

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The Webcomic Overlook #83: The Black Cherry Bombshells

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Lately, I’ve been in the mood for some power. But not just any power.

GRRL power.

Or, uh, GRRL PWWR. You know what they say: girls rule, boys drule. Amirite, ladies?

“Grrl Power,” not to be confused with “Girl Power,” was probably conceived some time in the 90′s, with the Spice Girls as the chief spokespeople. The main tenets of the Grrl Power movement seemed to be tights, tattoos, mountain biking, and rollergirling. It was a win-win scenario for everyone. Girls found a convenient template for which to indulge their fantasies about rebelling against authority without, you know, any of the actual rebellion. And boys got to stare at gals in bare midriffs and fishnet stockings. Win-win!

And you just can’t get more Grrl Power than the estrogen-fueled world of Zuda Comics’
The Black Cherry Bombshells
. It’s set in the world where women are smarter, more courageous, and more athletic than men. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the men are all zombies.

And the literal kind, not the kind that watches the NFL all day and never takes out the garbage eventhough you’ve asked, like, a million times.

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