Webcomics in Print 2: Webcomics in Print United

As mentioned in the last post, I went to SPX and purchased a lot of stuff and played the "OH GOD I NEED MONEY FOR THE ROOM" game (from Milton Brothers Gamez). A partial selection of the books is featured here.

Beartato and the Secret of the Mystery:
By Anthony Clark
The Nedroid book is pretty amazing encompassing a good deal of classic strips all of the Beartato/Reginald variety. No dinosaur warlocks. This also includes a mini books content and some fancy art. All of the art for most of the older jokes has been redrawn and the quality of the pages is at incredibly epic levels. There is a good deal of semi new comics as well and it is just generally good deal.
I can't really think of an issue, it was worth the money I got. Topatoco makes some damn fine books.
A+
Perfect gift for: Junior high on up.
Fun fact: He signs the book and does drawings in it if you meet him in person and watching him draw drove me to tears. http://s410.photobucket.com/albums/pp189/Koltreg/?action=view¤t=Photo609.jpg

Johnny Wander Vol. 1: Don't Burn The House Down
By Yuko Ota and Ananth Panagariya
Johnny Wander Volume 1 is great all around gift to anyone of any age with all ages humor and I am obsessed with the comic. Since buying it 3 days ago I've read it some 5 times already. It has a recipe, stories when relevant (instead of shoehorning in commentary and notes) and the entire package is very professional. Also I totally have a Maw in a bowler in my copy thanks to Yuko doodling in it (my copy is currently on loan though....). It covers the first year of comics, minus the additional color stories.
It is just all around professional and I can't think of complaints.
Perfect gift for: High school grads, college students and on up.
A+
Fun Fact: It is addictive!

Octopus Pie: There Are No Stars In Brooklyn
By Meredith Gran
Meredith Gran produced a nice and thick tome of the first two years of the comic and included bonus strips that add to the chapters. The art is all nicely printed, the paper is high quality and it is worth the $17 (pay extra for the sketch version though!)
My one complaint is the printing color. All of the pages are in a greenscale print and with the shiny paper, it can be hard to read. I attempted to read on the bus back from SPX and reading under slightly sub par lighting was different. Still, I appreciate not being forced to have all black ink pages and it wasn't as bad as the one chapter in the Gastrophobia book where it was almost entirely unreadable. Also on a slightly less important note there was one page that was slightly smushed by the printer but not troublesome and most likely prevalent to be a major issue.
Perfect gift for: College students on up.
A-
Fun Fact: I totally have a Hanna in my book. Forgot to ask for a Marek (I was tired, disoriented) Still cool to see how fast she was able to draw.

Octopus Pie Minis:
By Meredith Gran
The mini comics are mini books encompassing new comics. I purchased Fear and Couch Sitter, two of the more recent chapters. The quality placed into the minis reminds me the homemade cards my aunt used to make with each page being hand crafted on a variety of materials. It gave me a touch of nostalgia to me personally.
The ink is also black which works well on the brown stock-ish paper. All together this is a high quality piece and I could see myself paying something like $7 for one of these with no issue.
A+
Fun Fact: These are limited issue things so buy them up!

Under the Ever Watchful Eye of 68668

Seriously, some person is apparently always logged onto the blog, or its me always auto connecting...I auto connected your mom last night. Yeah...
I made the poor choice of another night of not sleeping. At all. I figured that I owe you, my fans, some more comics to occupy your time though.

Pixel by Zappit/Sean Conchieri
Pixel is one of those story comics that follows the general belief that wacky situations and wacky reactions will result in great lolz. This rule has so many exceptions in the webcomic world (aka probably all of Drunk Duck - calling you out- I'm an angry non-rested person!). Pixel does skirt the edge quite a bit though but I've laughed at it so its okay. Essentially it follows a pretty generic wacky character as he tries to go about his life with random shit happening. The comic only has about 30 or so strips if I remember correctly so it is hard to tell where it is going. With the art, it is pretty solid stylistically but being the art student that I keep getting remind that I infact am, I must criticize the fact that the character design could be better. Overall, it has room for improvement to seperate itself from the rest of the pack but it earns a solid B.

Ugly Hill by Paul Southworth
In my generic struggle to keep tabs on the Internet's supply of web comics, I ran across PvP which apparently has an animated series (done by the same company which does the CAD: Animated Trainwreck). I watched the previews and was forced to remind myself that PvP is essentially a comic for the newspaper in which it doesn't push any boundaries in any humor class. Then my buddy Coroidan told me to go read Ugly Hill. Frankly, I was apprehensive at first. The same party with Evil Inc and PvP? How can this be good? (I really am planning on dropping strips). Surprisingly it has since become one of my favorite strips. Let's face it, PvP is running stereotypical characters (though I realized they created the stereotypes) and the average storyline is crap. Ugly Hill on the other hand has some pretty awesome variations on the archetypes and overall it just frankly blows me away. The storylines show planning and forethought and the art is delightful. My only problem is that he frequently reairs old comics but if it allows him to keep updating daily, that's good enough for me. Ugly Hill earns an A.

Nedroid by Anthony Clark
It falls between the simplistic style of KC Green and the imagination of a kid with ADD making the comic epic. I can't really say much more except that the navigation can be a bitch starting out. It earns an A+.

Next time I'll do the Koltreg removal of comics/rereview because I have 50 comics to check. Gosh!