The Webcomic Watchman

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Sorta-review #46: I sing the body politic

"What have you done to my boss?" The receptionist boy shouted, "I know you've moonlighted as his archnemesis in the past!"

"Oh jeez, you again," Doctor Dix rubbed his own forehead, "How did you get past my receptionist?"

"The promise of marijuana and a night on the town, but that's not important. What did you do with Doctor Haus?"

"Hey, it wasn't my idea, but he insisted..."

"What did you do to him?"

"He began an experiment, to see if he could withstand looking through political cartoons on the internet."

"You liar! He would never assent to that during an election season!" The receptionist boy shouted, "Do you have any idea how insane he'll become from that exposure?"

"Hey, I'm alternating the images around..."

"What are the comics he's seeing? Show me, dammit!"

"Alright, fine, I'll show you a sample."


THIS...IS...SUBTLETY!

Title: Fighting Words Comics
Artist: Abell Smith
Genre: Politics
Updates: Weekly
Link: http://www.fightingwordscomics.com

The receptionist boy peered at a sample of the comic and then reeled back, "Holy shit! That has all the satire of dropping an anvil on someone's head! Do you know what this is going to do to the Doctor's writing?"

"Make it crappier. What do you expect? I'm his freakin' arch-nemesis here."

"I mean, it's like your standard angry blog post, but the actual cartoon part almost seems like an afterthought. You can easily tell who the artist here hates: all the Republican caricatures are wild-eyed and angry while all the liberals are calm and have relatively normal-sized heads. "

"Oh, and don't forget that he's just added flash animations to his cartoons."

"Do they do anything special?"

"No. They just kinda print the same stuff that you see in the cartoon itself, but with annoying sound clips included."

"Fuck! Next thing you'll tell me is that someone animated a Ted Rall cartoon."

Doctor Dix immediately queued up that same cartoon on the playlist, and listened for Dr. Haus to start screaming again. Strangely enough, he seemed to remain silent. Maybe the effects were wearing off?

"What are you going to show him next?"


HAV U 4GOTTN, LIBTARD?

Title: Electronic Tigers/RightLeftCenter
Artist: "Hapajap"
Genre: Politics/gaming
Updates: Frequently
Link: http://comicstripclub.com/

The receptionist boy flipped through the pages before dropping it on the floor, "Uh, this isn't really bad, it's just kinda sad. I mean, even the gaming jokes are kinda an afterthought."

"How so?" Dr. Dix started listening for the sound of crying from the torture chamber, but nothing came.

"Well, it's kinda got humor on par with Mallard Filmore, where the only punchline seems to be 'LIBERALS!' and the first two panels seem to be recycled on the RLC strips. That's assuming you can even find the joke. The art's not bad though."

"Really? That's all you have to say about it?"

The receptionist boy thought about it for a moment, and then replied, "Yeah. Pretty much, unless you feel like expounding on the part where he's begging for money at the end of each strip now, or that the artist uses a bucktoothed-Japanese caricature as his avatar."

"So, you're telling me that this machine isn't torturing Dr. Haus at all?"

"No, it's just making him annoyed right now."

"What? Dammit, that defeats the whole purpose!" Dix shut off the projector and opened the door to the torture room, only to find an empty chair. "Wait, where did my arch-nemesis go?"

"Probably decided to stop wasting his time on this shit."

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

"I dunno, flip through Eric Allie's archives?"

"Oh yeah, that guy's hilarious!"

The receptionist boy rolled his eyes as he quickly left the evil doctor's office. Apparently, Dix never did have the good Doctor Haus in his torture chamber, so where could he have gone?

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The Return(?) of Doctor Haus

It's difficult running a clinic where all sorts of webcomic personas ask for a diagnosis.

It's even more difficult when you occasionally have to go fight your arch-nemesis who thinks he can do it better, only to vanish after scratching you across your lower-right eyelid with a surprisingly sterile scalpel. Plenty of people have requested my help, like that one guy who posted a link to me after the webcomic boogeyman John Solomon beat him with a 2x4 so long ago.

Thank God for non-biodegradeable stitches, I thought as I slowly cut the thread one-by-one. The receptionist boy said I should totally see an ophthamologist about it, in case the eye itself was actually damaged, but I told him that I was a doctor, and with the amount of drugs in my system, I wouldn't feel a thing.

Of course, then I felt myself practically crying blood as I took my own stitches out, like in one of those crazy animus, or maybe more like that one scene in the crappy-except-for-Sammy J's-voice Afro Samurai. In any case, the receptionist boy was busy taking down insurance information as I ran to get a shitload of gauze and some rubbing alcohol.

It was gonna be a long month, but those webcomics needed to be saved. They needed the healing that only Doctor Haus could provide! So I swore that I would once again return...just as soon as the space under my eyelid stopped bleeding.

[Ed. Note: The preceding story was partly inspired by true events. Actual humor coming soon...after this message]