Sunday, November 23, 2008

Happy Shanksgiving (Belated)

Because creating holidays for your multis in KoL is so much fun.
The NaNoWriMo was ended early after 10,000 words at which point I mentally rewrote what I had a dozen times before calling it quits and so because of that, a random reader and the fact that I am now another year old (11/21) I decided to drop another blog.

Anyway, two quick reviews to tide you over.
Truck Bearing Kibble by Jeremy Kramer and Eric Vaughn
Truck Bearing Kibble is a good strip but I don't care for it. My main problem is that it is unlucky enough to exist in a world with Perry Bible Fellowship, the now essentially defunct comic that stopped creating comics when it figured out how to turn a profit. TBK is a nonsequitur comic seeming to focus more on pop culture references (or nerd culture/childhood memories) than anything else. The jokes have humor but some are much weaker than others especially if you miss the reference. The art itself is very solid and well done but its always the same and I hate to say it, but after PBF's variety of art styles, it is hard to deal with the same overly complicated stuff time after time. There are a few comics that would actually be better if they were drawn in another style. Another small thing is the lack of an update plan which is a pet peeve of mine. My final comment though, is that the site really bugs me. Too many comment areas are dispersed throughout the pages, the controls for scrolling are difficult and it bothered me enough to remember it a week after reading through the comic. Overall it earns an A- and its worth reading. My complaints were mostly personal issues so go and read it now.

Dead Winter by S. Dave Shabet
College has literally destroyed me sleep schedule so I am writing this at 5 in the morning after reading through Dead Winter. Dead Winter is a zombie comic. Plain as that. I myself am a zombie fan. To celebrate my birthday I went to the mall where they filmed the original Dawn of the Dead (Good trip, visit the zombie museum in the toy store!). It annoys me though that there are several zombie comics, or I might just be crazy right now. From the start the comic seemed a bit generic writing wise but then again I had the voice of Yahtzee (Zero Punctuation) voicing the female lead which made it a bit tedious. Once the comic gets going though, its an okay story, you have your generic lucky characters and the overall badass and all of them doing things to make Max Brooks (Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z) cry himself to sleep. I will note though, I was surprised to find myself in 100 in what seemed like only 40 pages of reading so that means that it actually moves effortlessly. The art sort of bothers me because throughout reading it, I continued to tell myself, "Wow, does Ant draw this?" because the two styles are similar. I am fairly certain though, that Dead Winter was first but that gives you an idea. The comic is mostly greyscale with some bits of color ala Sin City speckled throughout. The art changes though which is mostly an improvement, except where it suddenly looks like done in a half hour on MS Paint. Overall though its not bad to read and I don't hate it despise its genericness. Looking back I am also pretty sure there are no other zombie comics (that actually dead with normal zombies) though so disregard that section and feel free to the give the comic a shot. I give it an A-.

Thanks to those people who actually chat with me on here in the text box. I do need to fix my IM links though so you readers can contact me (since I apparently have readers!). I have a good list sitting but I might do some graphic novel reviews just because I paid money for them and such.

Peace out for now.
-Koltreg

Saturday, November 8, 2008

NaNoWriMo Break

So, the NaNoWriMo is going well. I'm currently at about ten thousand words and I can probably drop a couple thousand more tonight cause tonight is all right to write.

I've added .... 6 webcomics (8 if you want to be technical) since the last review so its a super jam packed review tonight. Plus you get two from people who apparently watch me on Twitter. Why? I have no idea.

First off:

Brawl in the Family by Matthew Taranto
Normally I don't like video game comics with my levels of hate for them eventually reaching epic levels like the time I dropped Dueling Analogues mid post. Good times, good times. It takes a special kind of gaming comic to hold my attention and to make me laugh. Brawl in the Family is one of those comics. Simplistic art with characters mainly drawn from the Kirby series (with a few other Nintendo stars) combined with classic gags makes Brawl in the family similar to those comics you and your friends (or at least me and my friends) used to draw all the time. Quick, funny and something that you'd think would probably not do well on the Internet. Still, this comic has kicked that level of writing up sew notches making your average gaming comic with a heavy dash of XKCD. Frankly the comic is one of my top ones to read and I think we as readers can expect a good future from it. The downside though is the art which could be better but on the other hand adds a level of charm to it with its flaws making it better than the copy pasta work of CAD. I'm going to have give it an A-.

Eegra by Patrick Alexander
Back when I originally saw the comic on forums, I thought KC Green was doing a secret project. Then I ran blindly to the actual site and saw the Black Monolith (like in 2001: A Space Odyssey) of a webcomic that Patrick Alexander has created. A revolving cast of misanthropic beasts that should have never seen the light of day illustrated by hands that have probably dealt with large amounts of drug money create a comic that scares me, disgusts me and brings me back for more. To call it a gaming comic would be like calling... Menage a 3 a gaming comic, except that this actually has gaming references. References that tear the soul of a man and make him hide from sleep. Frankly I fear giving it a review as if it were some book from a Lovecraftian horror story that would make me go insane so I will end by saying simply, read it, fear it but overall enjoy it. It gets an A.

The Gun Show by KC Green
Its KC Green. Seriously. Just read it. This and Birdworld. I'm not giving full reviews of them because my love for him is too powerful now for a nonbiased review.

Kukuburi by Ramon Perez (add accent marks where necessary.)
Remember Dresden Codak? The prentious comic that I loved so much for its art? Imagine that but with a bigger fantasy world, better art and a storyline that you don't have to be a jerk to understand. Welcome to the world of Kukuburi, a world where the imagination comes alive and... It's like I'm describing a animated film. Frankly, you just should read the comic already. It's fault is one that is reasonable being that it only updates once a week driving some associates of mine away. The fault being reasonable because the author/illustrator is a professional artist. Give the comic a shot and read through the archives, then wait a few months for it to build its archive back up with new comics and you will not be sorry. An A+ is well earned here.

Roomies!/It's Walky!/ Joyce and Walky! - David Willis
The three part continuing epic of David Willis, guy who does Shortpacked! is not something to be triffled with. With an archive beginning in '97 and leading up to an update every Saturday with Joyce and Walky!, the story will do your mom and pay her a nickle cause she's cheap that way. Roomies! is the weakest of the three stories starting as a generic college comic with some sci-fi moments. It does a good enough job establishing the characters that you see throughout and it has its moments but it never really becomes ungeneric. It's Walky on the other hand takes you by the balls to the bathroom where it shows you some pretty awesome shit. I mean really. Sure the comic can be seen as something filled with Mary-Sue and Marty-Stu characters but I really didn't care. Walky and Mike are amazing enough to power it through its storyline ending with an epic climax fitting the series and leading into Joyce and Walky!. Joyce and Walky! earned every right to be a gag strip. It did some serious shit (seriously, you should go look at it) and its kicking back now with an occassional break for some story development but in many ways, its a second wheel to Shortpacked! which is all right. It also apparently has some monthly subscription thing showing the Willis is only in the business for the money (actually its a good deal, gotta try it out). Frankly, the comic is shit loads long, took me about 12 computer restarts with my bandwidth limits at college and about 10 hours of reading but it was worth it. David Willis, I salute you. It earns a B-/A/A.

The Non-Adventures of Wonderella
by Justin Pierce
Frankly, I don't get the hype of the comic which disappoints me. Almost every comic I read has a link to this somewhere, maybe 60% of the ones I'd say. Maybe I've grown tired of the long format webcomics. Maybe the art doesn't do anything except remind me of early Scary-Go-Round art. Maybe the writing just tries to hard. It's made me guffaw once or twice but I don't really get the deal. Blah blah blah superhero with problems, wacky situations. I have no idea why but it does nothing for me. I'll leave it up though. It's on notice. B-

And now because I have people watching me on Twitter, they have opened up the torrent of reviews that lie within me. Fun fact: I watch people on Twitter whose comics I don't read. I'm looking at you Lesnick!

Sticky Figgers
by Beau Watson
Now I might understand that through my correspondence with Slackerz, an association of sorts between fans might occur. This is my only reasonable explanation for this association.
Sticky Figgers tries to be XKCD except even less artistic. With XKCD you get the feeling that Randall Munroe actually understands art and just goes for the minimalist style. With Sticky Figgers, this is far from the case. Its essentially stick figures done for shits and giggles and I see as I am writing that there are high levels of hate flowing through me. I made it through about 20 or so comics before my headache began and my Chinese food was getting cold. I ended there with the conclusion that this was yet another person hoping to climb aboard the train of fame that XKCD rides up. Frankly the art is...crap. It shows little or no effort to it. It's like, "My heroes of the internet do stick figures and so can I!" This is only true when and only when you have the writing to back it up. Maybe this comic isn't for the reviewers. Maybe it's just for a bunch of friends. I don't know. All I do know is the comic needs to learn they are not XKCD, learn to draw by hand. Seriously, I don't care if you have a Wacom pad and Illustrator. If you use it like MS Paint, you might as well save money. It earns a D+ only due to the fact that it may suddenly pick up after where I quit reading.
THIS IS WHY I HAVE HELD OFF REVIEWING COMICS I DON'T LIKE SMITH!

Fantasy Story by Ming
What I like about this comic is that he confesses that he is still learning and that he doesn't over inflate his ego. The comic is essentially him learning to comic which I am fine with. The art has potential though I am not sure if he is solely restricted to his current style or not. The writing seems to be his biggest downfall with characters that I know nothing about and that I don't want to learn about. Frankly he could use a writer to make his characters say more than essentially "Hi (insert noun) I am going to (location)." So yeah, he needs to work on writing. Luckily the Internet has tons of writers willing to write. I'll check up on this every once in a while though so it's got my attention at least that far.

Currently I'm busy doing NaNoWriMo so talk to you later.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

It's NaNoWriMo

Its National Novel Writing Month, a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel that I felt like taking part in. Going to mean probably no updates until it is done. Still, I should have some gaming news after that.