Review #24: A Thesaurus of Penis Jokes

Oh my God! It's a head on a deformed sack of flour!

Title: Caveat Lector
Artist Creators: Christopher Mesaros and Adam Coleman
Collective/Studio: None
Genre: Philosophy/Humor
Link: http://www.caveat-lector.com

Ladies and gentlemen, your esteemed Watcher of Webcomicry, Doctor Haus here. As you know, American doctors often have to supplement their income by selling out to The Man. But I would never stoop so low.

On an unrelated note, might I interest you in this completely original comic? This comic contains a plethora of penis/vagina jokes and pickup lines that you often need a thesaurus handy to understand. But it is a sure-fire way to pick up that intelligent girl or guy who happens to carry one around when going to bars.

After all, how can you go wrong with lines like these:

"...I like to think there's a vas deferens between us."

"...do you fancy sex with men?"

"Casimir, get your Balzac off of my forehead!"

Caveat Lector knows your privacy is paramount to receiving this product, so we've wrapped it up with the musings of a pair of philosophy majors whose goal is...well, I don't think they have many goals outside of getting laid and making Matrix metaphors while showing how vastly superior they are to their intellectually inferior bretheren. It's like the Nietzschean idea of the Ubermensch, except they would prefer to spend their vast brainpower on beating up straw men (both figuratively and literally) and making risque puns.


As a free bonus, we'll even throw in not-so-subtle digs at religion using easily-squashed Christian stereotypes. Order now!

Please order now! The insurance companies have my family at gunpoint!

So what more is there to say in the uber-serious section? Quite simply, this comic is about a couple of up-and-coming philosophers named Kether and Casimir, and how they verbally destroy inferior straw-men with their awesome brain power. Two regular characters on the receiving end of their abuse are a stereotypical dumb Southerner named Tex (oh, and he's also a closet homosexual) and a whiny, sheltered, devout Christian named Ezra.

So they don't like religion, idiots, or simple vocabulary. What do they like? Women...or at least the idea of them. I mean, seriously, never have I seen so many sexual innuendo or references since The Lounge, but at least John Joseco can draw sexy women pretty well while indulging one's desire for fap-worthy material. With Caveat Lector, you'd probably need a dictionary to understand some of the references, and then slap your forehead while asking yourself why anyone would laugh at that joke.

And most of the women that appear are one-dimensional characters: like the hypocritical Batel, the amazon-esque Danni, or the various NPCs who show up and disappear.

The drawing in this comic is often like watching talking heads on clay surfboards that look like torsos, with arms that usually don't materialize unless the script calls for it. Occasionally, you'll see a very good exception to this rule, but for the most part, the drawing style has stayed pretty much the same from the beginning, except with some 3D effects added and somewhat more emotive faces.

What's infuriating about this comic is that it has the potential to be so much more awesome, but Mesaros and Coleman waste their time on stupid, sophmoric shit like this. The intelligent webcomic lovers might feel insulted by the sexual puns that seem to pop up almost once a week, and the stupid-funny fans may not be willing to sit through the word balloons with rich vocabulary. I guess the target audience here is philosophy majors who want to get laid, but are too embarrassed to Google up actual porn.

If you want an intelligent webcomic with much better drawing and a sense of humor that doesn't rely on sexual innuendo, I prescribe Dresden Codak. If you want stupid humor, try the Nineteenth-Century Industrialist. If you don't care about the writing and want fap-worthy material, then look for The Lounge or Otenba Files to satisfy your needs. Unfortunately, Caveat Lector brings you the worst of all these worlds.