The Webcomic Watchman

Review #47: POW! NUTSHOT! FANSERVICE!

2009-02-08T19:05:00.000-08:00

A Fist Laser powerful enough to break
the Sound (FX) barrier!

Title: Oranime
Artist: Aaron "Adyon" Foster (w/ "Ninya" doing some coloring)
Genre: Action!
Updates: M-W-F (usually)
Link: http://www.oranime.com

私は急を要する医学的な注意が必要！

"Dammit, I don't have Google Translate open!" The receptionist boy shouted at the mysterious ninja, "Gimme a second will ya?"

どうぞ、お時間がかかります。 The ninja responded in a calmer voice.

"Thank you." The receptionist boy did his best to read the subtitles, ran them through Google Translate, and then looked back at the ninja, "Yeah, you're going to have to wait until Dr. Haus gets back from his Japan trip."

私は医者にカ月間待って！

"Hey, not my fault that the Doc has mysteriously disappeared and the nurses all left the clinic in the wake of the new Great Depression. Take a seat with the rest of the sick kids over there."

鶏痘の場合はどうすればでしょうか？

"Well, I guess it's God's will then. Now sit down." The ninja sputtered, and then simply took a seat in the already full waiting room. If Dr. Haus wasn't going to make it, then the Receptionist Boy would have to do some...ugh...some webcomic watching in his place.
_____________________

Two self-inserted characters on a mission to rid the world of evil, because they can! Toss in a Guardian Angel, a bunch of rejected bad guys from an episode of Yu Yu Hakusho, superpowered fisticuffs and artistry that treads the line somewhere between manga and manhwa, and that's pretty much the entirety of Oranime so far.

Oh, that's not enough for you people, is it?

Okay, fine. Let's go to the tape, as John Madden would say before he just signed his paychecks directly over to the local buffalo wing place. Oranime is the story of two average folks named Adyon and Ninya (buy two vowels, get a "y" for free!) who have a guardian angel named Krione watching over them. Fast forward after some brief storytelling from said angel, a very obvious "cryptic dream" and some hilarious misandry, our heroes find themselves in a pickle, one that not even John Madden would eat.

Suddenly our heroes are faced with a spiky-headed guy they can't defeat, until they can through the power of positive thinking. Now the Demonic Black Forces of Evil Darkness are invading the world and only Adyon, Ninya, Krione and a Corgi puppy can stop them before they penetrate the last barrier of the sky

[Oh God, Heaven is in the Troposphere! Or was it the Exosphere? Depends on the order, I guess. Maybe they have receptionist desk on the outside? Or perhaps the last barrier is the median, like the Mesosphere? Ugh, I'm wasting too much time on this hypothetical.]

So a few shots of half-hearted fanservice and more comedic misandry later, everyone wants to get their hands on Adyon and Ninya, because they contain the power to magically weld Heaven shut or let the demons invade Earth or something. I'm sure that will be revealed in due time.

Now, despite my misgivings about the story so far, I will admit the artwork is quite flashy and stylized. Sure, the anatomy isn't always perfect, like the guardian angel who has a simultaneous hourglass figure with well-defined abs. But the action scenes are pretty damn cool, tip-toeing on the slash seperating the anime/manga distinction.

Yeah, there's a lot of action, but you can actually follow most of it without having to reread previous scenes to make sure that the combatants didn't just teleport around. Plus, the fighters don't just scream and fire energy balls at each other, at least not yet. They actually kick and punch and grab and make contact where most artists would've just stuck with the *pew-pew-pew* of the energy balls and/or gunfire.

Yes, the action scenes definitely have their wondrous flair, as long as the occasional anatomical errors don't throw you off. As for the writing...well, Adyon wrote in his info section that he was shooting for something like modern fantasy, post-Tolkien if you will. After reading through this stuff, I gotta say that the story sounds more like a cross between Power Rangers and Yu Yu Hakusho: The kind of story that was enough to excite and sell toys when I was a kid. But then I grew older and now look at these series usually as an object of either youthful nostalgia, MST3k-ish mockery or both on the odd chance that someone brings them up.

Okay, so for those of you who are still unsure of whether or not to click through and view this thing (my buddy Ed reports that he could barely make it through the first chapter) I guess I should wrap it up. If you took a look at Ninja Spirit and thought that it could be good if only the story contained more nutshots and the mythology references were more ambiguous, then "...you'll love Oranime!"
--Dr. Haus

[postscript: I know how to write in a few languages, but Japanese is not one of them. So if I got something wrong during the intro, blame Google Translate.]

[post-postscript: I am not updating regularly again. You're just imagining things.]

CT Review #7: Mistakes of Youth

2008-10-25T22:00:00.000-07:00

I told you I had a review coming up for Comixtalk. Linky linky what I got here for you.

It's interesting what you can come up with once you have enough caffeine in your system and some Jimi Hendrix jamming through your earbuds.

I could say more about the comic itself, but I think the review is pretty straightforward, or the part of it that actually became "review" material and not just "a crazy narrative that entered my brain at the time" material. Peace out.

Filler Post, or "The Disappearing Doctor"

2008-10-24T08:46:00.000-07:00

Well, now that my site numbers have hit rock bottom once again, I guess that gives me carte blanche to say something mostly unrelated to webcomicry:

I mocked Aarin for quitting awhile back, but now I see why he decided to take an extended vacation from this stuff. There's only so much you can say about the world of webcomicry before getting tired and walking away. This goes double to the folks doing it in their spare time for little or no change on the side.

At first, webcomics were a world full of wonder and amazement, and I decided to do a little review site in a corner of the internet that no one but myself and a few folks from the Megatokyo forums would care about. But then something happened...people recognized the existence of my blog, and they would come rushing to me in hopes of getting some more exposure for their own comic no matter if I praised their comic to the heavens or burned it down around them. Hell, when the webcomics boogeyman called John Solomon slammed the now-ended Hookie Dookie Panic (it has since been transformed into a more story-driven affair called Geist Panik!), the artist of that comic linked to myself and Aarin to portray us (I guess) as a sort of foil to his mean-spiritedness.

Suddenly, I had attention, and I felt it was my duty not to just review comics, but to run through them with a scalpel and bring the bad shit to light. Doctor Haus the character became more of an asshole than Doctor Haus the writer. The Internet Haet Machine had to be fed. Granted, there were a couple of comics that needed it, but sometimes my need for cynical snark outweighed the need to simply review the subject. I started hating webcomics in general.

Now I find that I don't have enough time on my hands to dish out the hate anymore on such petty things. With all these important responsibilities the real world has decided to throw my way, it just seems so unimportant now to hate on some poor shmuck making Fantasy Comic #4,632 starring Marty Sue and his Dragon Pal.

If you really want webcomic review sites that update regularly, there's Comic Fencing (of which I almost joined, but just didn't have the time), there's ComixTalk with the always awesome Xaviar Xerexes keeping things running smoothly, and there's the Gigcast, which involves this newfangled "podcasting" technology to talk about the drama of the webcomic world.

As for me, I would like to reiterate that while I'm not quitting this blog or that small spot at ComixTalk, don't expect me to update regularly. I've been involved in things including politics and comedy, sometimes both, and next to my class schedule at the ol' university I've got very little time for the drama of the webcomic-o-sphere. But every so often, I feel that itch to just voice my opinion, and there's the occasional artist who still asks me to review their comic. So chances are there will be new written content coming up in the near future.

One last note: I did manage to find a spot of free time a couple days ago to do a brief review in the classic Dr. Haus style for Comixtalk, which should be getting posted soon. I'll post the link when it comes out. I also wrote about half an article about comedy in webcomicry. Maybe you'll just spit flames into my inbox if I ever get around to finishing that piece, but I hope you'll at least enjoy some of it. Just remember...my opinions are serious business

2008-10-07T17:50:00.000-07:00

Brain has exploded, ergo, no post yet.

Taking bets on whether Dr. Haus has come back too soon.

[Insert "that's what SHE said!" comment here]

Sorta-review #46: I sing the body politic

2008-09-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

"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?

The Return(?) of Doctor Haus

2008-09-24T07:29:00.000-07:00

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]

CT Review #6: Happiness is a Warm Gun

2008-06-18T19:32:00.001-07:00

Bang Bang Shoot Shoot.

In completely unrelated news, Dr. Haus is now really fucking busy with life. Sporadic updates will now include 90% less self-loathing and whiny filler, leaving this blog with about the same amount of content as the amount of edible lettuce in a McDonalds salad until further notice.

Then again, that's the awesome thing about most webcomics and webcomic review sites: If you have a broadband connection, all it takes to check for updates is a few seconds of your life (even faster if you have one of those newfangled "Live Bookmarks"). So I am not closing down this blog and moving all operations to Comixtalk, but for the moment, I'm rarely going to update this thing unless the mood just happens to smack me when I'm not working.

CT Review #5: The Perfect Fantasy Webcomic

2008-05-25T10:47:00.000-07:00

Review Here. This time around, I used Wayfarer's Moon as a way to talk about most "serious" or "epic" fantasy webcomics I've seen. But as it stands right now, Wayferer's Moon is possibly the most generic of generic fantasy comics in terms of plot. A shame, because the characters actually look kinda different, and the artwork is pretty freakin' good.

2008-05-20T19:04:00.000-07:00

I've updated some links on the sidebar with webcomic and non-webcomic stuff.

Also, Aarin is a quitter!

More reviews coming soon.

That is all.

Review #45: [Your Fantasy Here!]

2008-05-07T20:19:00.000-07:00

:facepalm:

Title: Catalyst
Artist: Esther Chuah
Genre: Fantasy
Updates: Unknown
Link: http://catalyst.comicgenesis.com/

"Wait a minute," the patient wondered aloud, "aren't you just the receptionist boy?"

"Yeah, what's your point?"

"Shouldn't the doctor be reviewing me?"

"Lady, the doctor has been awfully busy as of late."

"Busy with other patients?"

After a beat, the receptionist responded, "Sure, whatever, let's go with that. So tell me, what's the problem?"

"Well, I had this dream where there's an evil empire, and there's a Chosen One, and they're in some sort of fantasy story where --"

The receptionist boy stuck out his hand, "I'm gonna have to stop you there."

"Why, because this sounds like the beginning of most other fantasy stories?"

"No, because it's time for my lunch break."

"But I still need a diagnosis!"

"Yeah, and I don't get paid for overtime." The receptionist boy grabbed his coat from from a nearby counter and started leaving the exam room. "I'm getting a burger, be back in fifteen."

"Is someone else going to help me?"

The receptionist boy left, then returned a second later. He tossed a small blue bottle at the patient. "Webcomic personified, meet Doctor NyQuil! With your insurance, this is about the best we can do for you."

"How is this going to help?"

"Hey, at least this way you'll have better luck at interpreting your dreams after you fall asleep. Now I'm getting a burger. See you in thirty."

"But you just said 15 minutes!" By that time, the door had slammed shut and the receptionist boy had left.

Alright, alright, time to get back to the serious reviewing...oh if only I could say that with a straight face.

So, Catalyst...yeah. It's like when they wrote this thing they should've put, "Evil Empire looking for self-proclaimed heroes to rise up against it. Animal companions a plus."

It stats out with some white-haired chick named Lady Elei beating up several redshirts from the Evil Empire because apparently she doesn't know her place in society. These men try to remind her, but apparently they weren't genre savvy enough to notice her unique costume. But before Elei is able to announce her evil schemes in a dialogue, the story warps over to some blind girl named Kailin who just happens to be a Chosen One. Though in this story it turns out that Chosen One duties are split between a few people: including a talking fox and possibly Elei (If you couldn't tell by the glowing markings on the arm).

Apparently, the only power the Chosen One has is either having somewhat lucid dreams or being able to speak with other species. It's kinda like if the Planeteers only had Ma-Ti around to summon Captain Planet while the rest of the team had to stand around and watch him on his journey of discovery despite having more practical skills themselves...actually, wasn't that like half the show? Crap, I'm getting off track here.

Oh yeah, the Chosen One is called a Catalyst. And both Kailin and Elei have hangers-on (a farmboy named Rune and a Redshirt named Daian who's afraid of horses).

Not much more I can say about this one. There's something about Elei wanting to rip off Kai's tattoo, and how the foxes are mad that mere humans are starting to use the same gift that a bottle of NyQuil and/or some "dream herb" can bring. But there doesn't really seem to be a story there, just an obtuse mythos without a coherent plot to draw newbies in.

On the artistry side, it seems to be pretty good. It's evolved from the strange anti-lens-flare effect of the sunlight from earlier, and the shading feels a little more natural. There are some other minor mistakes, like
some wasted space that just kinda hangs out there. Another nitpick I have happens during the epic action scene with bandits who attack the heroes just because they can, showing Mister Redshirt
furiously stabbing at a bleeding ghost or something.

Overall, if you feel like trudging through a 169 page archive (as of this post), you might find something to like. After all, that's the wonderful thing about nearly all webcomics: they're free to peruse at one's leisure with little cost except a small bit of bandwith. The art is actually kind of good, and the few action scenes in the comic are decent. However, there's just not much there to make this a "must-read" just yet.

Review #44: SIZZZORD-FIZZZZZIGHT!

2008-04-23T19:18:00.000-07:00

Damned Indians and their tomahawk-throwin' ways!

Title: S12ORD
Artist: "yamslayer" (a.k.a. Dan Chamberlin)
Writer: "DemiLevy"
Genre: Action!
Updates: Randomly
Link: http://s12ord.smackjeeves.com/

"Okay, Samuel L. Jackson with a straight-edge sword versus a half-dozen guys with guns. Who would win?"

"Sammy J. man. Can't fuckin' beat that guy."

"Okay...what if those half-dozen guys had motorbikes? And what if they were in the desert and there were a bunch of innocent people circling in conestoga wagons?"

"Now you're just getting retarded. Why would anybody be riding in Conestoga wagons with swords if they had motorbikes with guns in the same place?"

"Fine, how about if we had Samuel L. Jackson team up with Pocahontas--"

"You mean the real one, or that horrible Disney caricature of Native Americans?"

"Somewhere between those two. Anyways, what if we had Sammy J. and Pocahontas fighting a woman with a rapier, a magic rapier that could instantly grow roses from its hilt..."

"Oh...kay..."

"...and the roses were throwing knives?"

"What the fuck? Why even bother with the sword then?"

"And let's say this all happened in a forest next to a desert town."

*cough* *sputter* *wheeze*

"I can understand if you're speechless, you've obviously never heard an idea this cool. I'm thinking of turning it into a webcomic. What do you think?"

*gurgle*

"I guess I'll let you sleep it off then."

I apologize, this was not the one I meant to review when I posted that song hint a couple posts down. Then again, it's not like there was a prize for guessing correctly anyways. That comic is being put on hold. I've decided to finally jump into S12ORD.

First off, do not expect anything involving plausibility with the story. As you may have garnered from the imaginary dialogue above, this story is rife with anachronisms, where your Suspension of Disbelief is entirely propped up by the Rule of Cool to see whether the former runs out or the latter keeps on jamming needles of dopamine into your spinal cord before you shut off your browser window.

Anyways, the protagonist of this story is a black guy named Malcolm (who for the rest of this review shall be referred to as Sammy J.) who just happens to have amnesia that makes him forget everything except the ability to beat people with a sword named Arondight [Google sez: Arondight was the sword of Sir Lancelot].

Just a short moment after he gets rescued by Pocahontas (who will be called Prima for this review, as that is her character's name), troops from the Evil Empire just happen to be riding around on motorcycles with guns and a flaming hand guy. They proceed to destroy everything Prima cares about, though both Sammy J. and Prima manage to fight off the mysterious evildoers with only a sword and a tomahawk.

Honestly, why even bother if no one actually thinks to shoot the good guy? They even carry a wireless communicator, despite the complete absence of anything resembling power lines or a communications tower (possibly explained as "A Wizard Did It"). Why not just send in some more motorbikes to finish him off?

Ah, but then it would be a short story, right? Let's move on.

So anyways, after a little emoting, Sammy J. leaves Prima behind to walk into the nearby forest (not a joke) to meet a woman who seems to recognize him. The two reminisce about The Twelve. Who are The Twelve? We won't be able to find out because the forest caravan is attacked by hidden archers.

[Ed Note: If you haven't guessed that The Twelve are probably the Chosen Ones who hold the magical S-izORDs, please turn in your brain at the desk before you leave.]

Another action scene later, Sammy J. attacks an evil woman who steals the rapier called "Hauteclere" [Wikipedia sez: Hauteclere was "the sword of Olivier, a character in the French epic, The Song of Roland.]. She repeatedly screams that "brute force is useless" despite the fact that she's able to block quite well with the blade against a much heavier blade. This is the part where the creative team behind this work will scream "Rule of Cool" or "A Wizard Did It" and expect you to accept it. If this were a one-shot gag comic, then that might be acceptable, but you gotta offer a little more class than that.

And I didn't even get into the part about the roses that double as throwing knives.

Now, as for the artwork itself: from a technical standpoint, it holds its own (minus this aberration). But as a guy who took a few years of fencing lessons back in the day, the poses during the current fight scene just feel all wrong. Sure, it starts out small, with the handles being switched around at the end of this strip, then there's this whole strip where Sammy J. strikes a dramatic pose to move a few feet forward. Then uses two hands to thrust a one-handed sword and takes her time, despite having no problems with handling it correctly before. And then Malcolm kicks her in the gut despite falling downward from his magic teleport above her (A Wizard Did It).

Okay, I seem to be nerd-raging on this one fight scene, but why is Sammy J. jumping up and down like a fucking bunny when he leaves himself open to getting skewered? And if the evil woman was able to kill one of The Twelve in a brief battle scene before, why is she suddenly incapable of scoring a single cheap shot without the really stupid throwing knife-flowers?

And on one last note, if the Evil Empire had people with guns, why is the evil woman forced to use archers anyway? Couldn't she have just bought a pistol for one of her evil henchmen?

*Le Sigh* Well folks, I tried to make this review funny, but how can you mock a comic that does such a great job of parodying itself? If you can get past the anachronisms, the contradictions, the cliches, check your disbelief at the door and find yourself able to watch an entire season of Naruto without being physically strapped down to a chair with your eyeballs propped open and a bucket of cold water thrown in your face every 15 minutes, then you'll probably enjoy this.

Well, the Internet Hate Machine now has its pound of flesh. Tune in next week when Dr. Haus wonders why he still has to give a shit about webcomics.

IRL Drama: La Continuación!

2008-04-21T21:47:00.000-07:00

Fuck, I didn't want to post this shit again, but I also didn't want to sound like one of those comic artists who's constantly making excuses for not doing any work. Guess it's too late for that though.

Ah well, enjoy this until I can finish up one of those drafts of a post I have piling up.

Not-Review #44: Okay, I'm totally, totally awake.

2008-04-09T12:22:00.000-07:00

Oh c'mon, you're using the overdose excuse again? Look, it was funny the first time, but now you're just bullshitting everyone.

"Is that you God?"

What is it this time? Cough syrup? NyQuil? Acid spiked with meth? Vast quantities of "Spider-Man's Wife"?

"No. It was allergies, and the medication I took to stem the flow of--"

Look, are you getting a review done or not?

"Yeah yeah, just lemme check my files."

You know how long it's been? It's been so many fucking weeks that the Internet thinks you're dead!

"Oh shit, the Internet is gonna think bad of me! I don't think I'll ever live it down if that happened! Here, lemme throw up a song that bares a passing reference to the title."

Ugh, classic rock again?

"Don't diss the classics, dude."

IRL Drama! (the se/pre-quel)

2008-03-30T14:41:00.001-07:00

Writing up yet another thing for CT and this blog on top of a pile of real work that matters.

This is not an allegory of anything at all.

Hopefully something more relevant will appear in this space.

CT Review #4: Police Procedural with a werewolf

2008-03-20T15:54:00.000-07:00

Well, this review focuses on a comic called Paradigm Shift. Bland name aside, it's one of the few werewolf-ish comics that doesn't make me run for the exit. Maybe because it focuses more on the police side of things, and it does actually paint some realistic pics of downtown Chicago.

Anyways, I tried to make it funny, but the comic was actually decent, so it may not be my best work. Hope you like it all the same.

Review #43: Meet the Epic Harem Comedy Movie!

2008-03-19T21:31:00.000-07:00

Trust me, this LOLcat is funnier than this comic.

Title: Shonen Punk
Artist: Andy Pinkard (a.k.a. "Teh Andeh")
Genre: Harem Comedy(?)
Updates: M-W-F
Link: http://shonenpunk.com/sps2/ (current strip)
(Also, click here for the archive of the "first season" of Shonen Punk. Don't stare at it too long.)

[Ed note: Dr. Haus's brain was too far damaged to write an accurate review for this comic. So instead, we have cobbled together a transcript based on this audio cassette he happened to be carrying just before he crashed out on our couch. We have given him a large glass of ice water and are now playing the DVD box set of the entire first season of The Boondocks on the TV screen in front of him, in hopes that it will wake him from this catatonic state.]

--0:00 "Okay, I've decided to try jumping into this thing. Apparently the archive only has about 15 strips. Oh, I see, this is just a 'season 2.' I guess I should look at 'season 1' to get the story."

--1:01 "Beginning has been located. Possible artist self-insertion character, drawings look hastily cobbled together with shoddy inking, but I'll excuse it for now, as the artist is just starting."

--1:12 "Holy shit, did he just toss in random Japanese words for no reason at all? This doesn't seem right. And what the fuck kinda name is Chiitsu Pinkada?"

--1:43 "Oh God, the first female lead character has been introduced, magically appearing from a Hentai DVD. And in one brazen act of wish-fufillment, her first act is declaring she wants to jump on the main character's dick for no reason at all. In Andy's defense, she did come from a Hentai DVD, but was he really that desperate for a girlfriend? Sorry, getting off track again."

--2:55 "Her brother is a robot? Okay, that's a bit of a stretch, but my suspension of disbelief is seriously failing pretty early here."

--3:10 "A cat-girl named Neko-Chan who may or may not have the hots for that Chiitsu guy? Fuck this, I'm going to mooch some booze off my friend, and then try to tackle this review again."

--4:20 "Wait, you're telling me he plays fucking Gaia Online? No wonder he couldn't get a girl until one magically jumped out of a Hentai DVD."

--5:05 "Okay, there's a black chick, and she's tossing in random Japanese words. Something about a secret evil scientist guy too."

--5:16 "Oh, and now she wants the fat guy's cock too. Didn't think he would bother to include actual personality in any of these people."

--5:20 "Maybe it's the booze talking, but I think my brain is starting to die. Lemme just skip ahead here..."

--6:42 "Some chick obsessed with Pocky. Did this artist actually meet any women, like, in the real world? Or did he just learn everything about relationships from hentai and anime? Lemme take a shot of Jim Beam. [incomprehensible] Yes, it's for science dammit!"

--6:50 "Oh, and they're at some academy or something...but really, who gives a shit? I thought this shit was supposed to be a harem comedy, but I don't see the fucking comedy."

--6:59 "Maybe it'll get better if I scroll through to half a year..."

--7:04 "No, no it didn't."

--7:13 "Holy shit, this guy combined l33tspeak, an unnatural obsession with Pocky and big-breasted, two-dimensional women. On one page. The world really is coming to an end."

--10:22 "Look, if you're gonna reference Power Rangers, at least make it funny goddammit. Simply referencing the material doesn't make it funny. Oh he's also trapped in a MMORPG or something.

--13:00 "Wait, now it's an allegory for Chiitsu's IRL girlfriend and his [not-]Real Doll Eva fighting over him? Wow, talk about wish-fulfillment."

--15:30 "What did Ashton Kutcher say in that episode of That 70's Show? I think it was something like 'could God make a boob so big that He Himself could not fully grab it?' [inaudible] Wow, I must be drunk, cuz I'm actually laughing at a joke by Ashton Kutcher without wanting to punch him in the face! [laughter]"

--17:07 "Another girl wants to fuck the Gary Stu main character. Why don't I encounter big breasted women who want to have my babies every time I step outside, or a preteen catgirl who refers to me as 'daddy!' every few minutes? Wow, these weeaboos must have some pretty high self-esteem."

--20:01 "Wait, is that possible plot I smell? Nah, that's just cannibis."

--20:13 "Hehehe...plot! Just sounds funny. Plotplotplot."

--21:18 "Not-Zordon has returned. I'm just gonna play some Doors right now while we...I mean I smoke this bowl. There's no one else in this room except me and a nice couple who did not sell me illegal drugs and alcohol. Believe it! [laughter] ...wait a minute, that's not funny! That's not funny at all! Put on the Doors, man!"

--24:23 "Wait, 'The Thrill Is Gone' was a song by B.B. King, right? Right. Guess what? The thrill is gooonnnne. The thrill is gone awwwwaaaayyyyy. That's the feeling I get while reading this shit. Fuck, I don't even think John Solomon could stomach this shit."

--28:55 "I AM NO MINIBOSS TO SIMPLY CATS ASIDE! MWAHAHAHAHAHA! You'll never take me alive, coppahs!"

--32:00 "No! The [not-]Real Doll dies! And she was a robot all along?" [excessive sobbing in background--Ed.]

--36:59 "Get me another bottle! I'm just getting drunk enough to laugh at this thing!"

--42:38 "Now a Naruto-ish woman wants to jump on his dick? Why have I not seen one panel of nudity to make up for all this shitty writing? At least John Joseco could deliver some hot lesbian sex in The Lounge. Oh, and that Pinkader, Pinkerton, Pink-whatever also wrote in the blog post below this comic:

omg it’s trista. she’s a friend I met on gaia XD most kissable lips on person i evar met i swear *0*

>> nice tits too >>;

Here, just smack my nuts with a 2x4, it's the only way I'll be able to get through with this review."

--43:09 "OWWWWWW! FUCK! MY NUTS ARE ON FIRE! GET ME A DOCTOR!"

--43:19 "Oh wait, I am a doctor! [inaudible] Hey, I don't tell you how to do your job. Gimme that 2x4 bitch! Gimme it now!"

[It was at this point that the tape recorder ran out of batteries. According to later interviews with Dr. Haus, he admitted that the art has gotten considerably better in Season 2, but the writing still sucks like a underaged, two-dollar whore with Chris Hansen watching nearby.

Apparently, the anime references, random Japanese language, and the two-dimensional females who were just there to jump on the male lead's dick were just too much for Dr. Haus to handle. However, upon recovery, he has prepared a statement:]

Yeah, I put in as much effort into writing this review as "Andeh" did with his comic. And here I thought Marilith was semi-exploitive, but at least Marilith had a plot, and it had women who didn't need to rip off anime tropes to fight. And at least they fought for something other than the privilege of sucking off the fatass male lead.

So, Andy, wanna know why I think this comic sucks aside from the above? Because you throw in several references to Japanese manga and anime at random, and then you don't even bother to parody them. As I said all the way back during my review of Bad Guy High, references alone do not make a humorous comic, you must take the reference and turn it upside down or else the humor is gone. You just use the references to reinforce the Gary Stu-ness of your main character.

Then again, you can just throw a ton of pop-culture references in your script and hope enough stupid people pay you to see it before they realize they've been swindled, if at all. But enough about every movie written by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.

Look, if pretty much the entire comic is about how every female character with big breasts wants to fuck the male lead character, then stop dicking around and turn it into an H-comic. Lord knows you can make money off of it, just look at John Joseco. But if you're going to make a harem comedy, you have to include some actual fucking "comedy." If you're going to parody the genre, then stop playing into the same fucking stereotypes and parody it already.

I just hope this was one giant-ass parody of a bad comic intended to piss the reader off so you can say you "did it for the lulz" like those folks behind Powerup Comics. Chances are you'll say it anyways even if, as I suspect, you really don't have any ability to write any characters outside of stomping flat every anime trope I can think of while you engage in blatant wish-fulfillment with your self-inserted character. Excuse me, in season two it's the semi-digital copy of a blue-haired boy created from the sperm that two of the [not-]Real Doll girls carried from the original Gary Stu of Chiitsu Pinkada who is now Emperor of Earth or some shit. No I am not fucking joking.

I'm sorry, you obviously understand Japanese, right? After all, you dropped "chan" and "san" and "nani" and all those words that people pick up after reading enough manga, so maybe I should spell it out for you in this way: お客様のウェブコミックは悪いですが、気を悪くしておいてください。

You're welcome.

UPDATE (3/31): It has been brought to my attention that the artist of this masterpiece, "Teh Andeh," has graced this humble blog with his presence to say that he did it for the lulz. Dr. Haus is unable to fully respond, as he is currently chugging a bottle of NyQuil and hoping for yet another bout of sickness to leave his body. However, it seems some of "Teh Andeh's" words were scrambled upon posting, and this is the best our team of translators could transcribe in response.

Also, Dr. Haus scribbled this down on a piece of paper before punching out:

I've officially reviewed almost 50 comics, and this one sparks the most nerd rage?

Review #42: A History of Violence

2008-03-12T20:08:00.000-07:00

Go-Go Gadget Hand!

Title: Elven Lacryment
Artist: Alex Moore
Writer: "Q" (no, not that Q)
Genre: Fantasy/Horror
Updates: Unknown
Link: http://elvenlacryment.com

They say there are two ways orcs are represented in games and comics: One way is the bloodthirsty savages who run through the countryside, looting and pillaging and breaking shit up for the hell of it (say, the Orks from Warhammer 40K). The other type are the noble savages with a whole spiritual/mystical tribe revolving around shamanic traditions who are always misunderstood by humans (say, the orcs from the later Warcraft saga).

Unfortunately for the elves in this comic, their orcs fall into the first category.

The story is narrated by an elf named ShadowWolf [sic] with a shitty life. Her mother is attacked by some dark elf just as she's about to be born. Her village is attacked by orcs when she becomes a teenager and her mom's head is stuck on a pike. Her only traveling companion (so far) is some empathic wolf/hound named Xanther. And for some reason, the same orcs that razed ShadowWolf's village to the ground keep hunting her. Yes, that's pretty much a summary of the whole story so far. Nothing special, nothing awful, just a good ol' tale of revenge.

One would ask why the orcs even bothered to spare ShadowWolf after decimating her entire village, but then the comic would be incredibly short. Either the orcish leader has some ulterior motive that has yet to be revealed or ShadowWolf has just been given special plot armor from the writer.

The artwork on this thing is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, the faces of the characters are incredibly detailed, this particular style seems to draw out such rich emotional reaction that you can see the fear or the anger in their eyes quite vividly. The weapons are quite detailed, and the red blood seems to contrast well with the more gothic, grayscale appearance of the comic.

However, there are several strips where the artist just leaves a grayish wall in lieu of an actual background unless the script demands it, though the later pages have gotten better with this. Another thing that bugs me is that there seems to be quite a few different styles of orc yet there just seems to be one body type for the elves (with slightly different hair colors). Hell, I had a hard time telling that the protagonist was even supposed to be a woman until I peeked at the character bio page.

Overall, this comic could get better with time, but as it stands, it just isn't really special. I guess my first warning should've been the fake word in the comic's title: lacryment, a bastardized form of lacrimation, though I guess titling it Elves Who Cry Excessively doesn't sound as mysterious or alluring.

Review #41: Don't Fear the Reaper

2008-03-02T16:35:00.000-08:00

Oh come on! You knew that pun was coming!

Title: Reaper 7
Artist: Brian Brock
Genre: Sci-fi
Updates: Monday, Friday
Link: http://www.crimsonnight.net

"How much recreational drug use is it going to take for me to die?"

The Grim Reaper finished a hit of the nargila and passed the pipe back to me as he contemplated the question. "In your case?" He responded, "Probably never, considering you're but a fictional character like Spider Jerusalem or Hunter S. Thompson."

"Dude, Hunter Thompson was real." I took another hit from the nargila as the Reaper pondered this statement.

"Oh no my friend, Hunter Thompson is but a codename that was used at the time to designate one special journalist with a high tolerance for pain suffering for the subjects he covers and the recreational drug use to escape it." As I blew smoke rings at the ceiling, the Reaper continued his statement, "I believe the current incarnation of the Gonzo Journalist is currently that reporter who marched around in a gorilla suit doing interviews with the Kerry campaign in '04...what's his name again? Matt Taibbi, right?"

"You keep track of this stuff?" I asked, passing the pipe back to the Reaper.

"Believe me, plenty of people find they can't go on during these times of turmoil, like in this comic you've chosen to review: It used to be some fantasy-ish tale called Crimson Night, and it went through a few different incarnations before the artist settled upon the one you have chosen to review right now." The reaper took a long hit before he finally exhaled the biggest smoke ring I had ever seen, "Believe me buddy, sometimes death is just a pit stop on the road of life. Speaking of which, you did choose one of those religions with reincarnation, didn't you?"

"Nah, I was born into one of the more Western, monotheistic ones."

"Well," the Reaper drawled out that word before finishing with, "you're just shit out of luck then."

So the world's gone to shit, the Emperor dies on the very first page, a school has taken control over the unnamed Empire (you mean the educators actually have power outside the ivory tower of academia now? We are so fucked.) and is training psychically gifted people to hone their talents for some reason, and the world is in one of those "post-technology" stages of evolution. Pretty dark, huh? Welcome to the world of Reaper 7.

The hero of this story is a perpetually pissed-off guy named Issac, carrying a small scythe who may or may not be a member of a rebel group.

Brief rant on weaponry here: why would this guy be carrying a scythe? It just seems pretty damn impractical to be using unless he was a farmer in a previous life, and even then, wouldn't a pair of kama be easier to whip out than a huge blade that only works with a forward slicing motion? Even the old Polish war scythe had the blade extend out from the end to serve as a halberd instead of curving back in towards the user.

I know, I know, this might just fit under the so-called Rule of Cool, so I'll shut my mouth about it for the rest of this review. Back to my slightly-more clever voice.

Oh, but it gets better: Issac is forced into a shotgun marriage with a cliche "girl-floating-in-a-tube" from a rundown facility (named Seven, hence the second half of the title), thanks to exposition from a holographic projection of her now-dead father/creator. The hologram tells him that a device implanted in his neck will kill him if the two are separated for too long. Issac grudgingly accepts his new position, even though he doesn't seem to care enough to leave her for a drink. The reason why Issac bothered to show up at the facility in the first place if he truly doesn't give a shit about anything is unclear. It kinda feels like the character is trying too hard to emulate that anti-hero attitude and just ends up coming off as an asshole.

Also, there's a robot with a paper bag and glowing eyes instead of a head. Sorry, got distracted again, but he doesn't seem to really do much of anything.

So anyways, the odd couple pick up a scholar named Daevlon, from the aforementioned ruling Academy, who seems to have a sword and psychic powers. The only difference between him and Issac seems to be hairstyle and the ability to walk around in torn button-down shirt, otherwise they look pretty similar. His primary motivation seems to be stopping Issac from using Seven against the Empire, but if this was his real purpose then one wonders why he didn't just leave Issac to die after stabbing him through the back. There's also something about a rogue tomboy with a gun, but as of this post that character hasn't really been developed yet.

As far as the artwork goes, the backgrounds are pretty well drawn and give off a nice, rustic motif, though the fantasy-ish village following the rundown industrial factory does make me question how post-modern this regressed-tech setting is. The character models are drawn pretty small, and sometimes you have to squint to see their faces. It feels like the artist is trying to shove as many panels as he can in a predetermined 468x720 pixel frame, whether or not that was his intention. Also, the anatomy is occasionally a little twisted around in a few panels. Though it has improved from what little I remember of this comic's previous incarnation (Crimson Night), it seems there are still quite a few kinks lying around.

It feels like there's a comic with good potential wanting to jump out here, but the cringe-worthy dialogue coming from Issac and the okay drawing are currently leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

Review #40: I Know You're Out There, Somewhere Out There

2008-02-24T11:00:00.000-08:00

If only the bank took "ambition" instead of
"money," things would be awesome.

Title: Out There
Artist: R.C. Monroe
Genre: Romance/Comedy (or just take your pick)
Updates: Daily (minus Sundays)
Link: http://outtherecomic.com

It may seem daunting at first, to review a webcomic that has updated almost daily since June 2006, but some of that fear is alleviated when you notice how incredibly minimalist it is. The comic uses simple black-and-white drawings with little in the way of background as opposed to the lush colorization and backgrounds from comics like Purgatory Tower or Dresden Codak. As a result, this comic relies more on the script to tell the story instead of the artwork.

Allow me to explain: Out There has no magic powers, no guns, no swords, no blunt political or religious messages, no angsty anti-heroes, no unlikely heroes banding together to defeat a powerful evil, and nothing in the way of internet memes or "dead baby comedy" for cheap laughs. It's just a snapshot of the life of a bartender named Miriam and the various characters she either knows or meets over the course of the story. This does make the comic a bit of an acquired taste.

The comic starts out with Miriam driving across the country from not-San Diego to a port town in not-New England, planning on both taking a bartending job and hooking up with an online boyfriend. In the first few strips, she decides to pick up a bald, mild-mannered drifter named John pretty much on impulse. The story seems to flow from that one decision, as Miriam tilts between her slight attraction to the mild-mannered John and her promise to her online boyfriend, Chuck.

The comic switches back and forth between scenes of the Miriam traveling eastward with John to not-Portsmouth, the setting of their destination. While they drive cross-country, the aforementioned Chuck and the bar owner Sherry are trying to keep their trust in Miriam, while their hangers-on (James and Clayton, respectively) are thinking the opposite.

You think the story would be all about the journey, right? No, that's only a small part of it, but things continue even after Miriam (with John in tow) reach their destination. The comic segues into the adjustments Miriam has to make upon finally taking her new job at Sherry's bar and physically hooking up with Chuck. At the same time, John decides to stick around with his mild-mannered ways, James is forced to deal with his roommate now having a girlfriend, and Clayton...is still an alcoholic.

The story may not be a great fit for everyone, and the artwork is pretty damn minimalist. Hell, the strip itself looks like it could fit in a newspaper. However, if you are in the mood for something along the lines of Doonesbury with alcoholism instead of politics (hey, Clayton looks a bit like Zonker from the olden days), then chances are you'll like Out There as well.

Review #39: Welcome to Purgatory, Such a Lovely Place...

2008-02-17T17:45:00.000-08:00

"You can checkout any time you like/
But you can never leave."

Title: Purgatory Tower
Artist: Sarah Hebblethwaite (a.k.a. "silentkitty")
Genre: Fantasy/Anthromorphic
Updates: Unknown
Link: http://www.drunkduck.com/Purgatory_Tower/

[UPDATE: Narrative replaced with something funnier and trippier, and title of post changed slightly. Also, a couple sentences added to the actual review.]

Enjoy your stay, the receptionist said. You’ll love it here, the concierge said. Wish he’d told me about the jungle I’d have to wade through to find the exit. Maybe I should’ve paid more attention when I checked into this place. I had no idea there would be so much damned vegetation in Purgatory.

All I wanted was to unpack my bags and find a bar to drown my sorrows in before heading off to diagnose some more patients. Bunch of whiners: “Oh, look at me, I’ve been shot in the arm and I need a doctor to pull the bullet out! Oh, I’m suing Dr. Haus because he left a pair of pliers in my stomach and sold me painkillers that didn’t work! Oh, I need Big Government to come in and help me pay these astronomically-high medical bills because the insurance company dropped me on a whim!” Whatever happened to pulling yourself up by the bootstraps? What happened to survival of the fittest, or evolution?

In the distance, I could swear I heard my receptionist boy calling out for me again. “You’re Robo-tripping, aren’t you?” He’s saying. How can he find me in this jungle? “You’re not in a jungle! You’re in Vegas!” He shouts back. Then what are those monsters above me? Oh God, that monster is swooping down at me, a green freak of nature with bird wings. “Cirque du Soleil” he shouts back, “And you’re walking through the middle of the second act!”

How could this be a circus? I didn’t see any clowns or abused elephants taking center stage. Suddenly, the music stops and several creatures are looking at me. Then the Receptionist boy is dragging me out a door, muttering, “When we get back home, I’m locking away all your Hunter S. Thompson books.” But I still see the face of a catgirl staring back at my limp form, a catgirl with three eyes. Oh God, what did I get myself into?

What's this? I'm able to publish a review in less than 21 days again? Someone break out the mother fucking champagne! [Ed. Note: Dr. Haus does not endorse fucking mothers with champagne bottles.] Onto the comic itself though, in my super-super-serious voice:

The story's premise sounds a bit familiar to anyone who's read Battle Royale or anything related to Roman Gladiators: Several folks serving a life sentence in an unnamed place are given the chance to race to the top of a tower known as Purgatory. Anyone who reaches the summit alive gets a full pardon for their crimes. Aside from that, there are no rules about how to get there.

Gotta admit, it's a fine example of Darwinism with several anthromorphic prisoners. At least they're polite enough to listen to the rules before they start killing each other. But several pages of simply watching these folks fight each other to the death wouldn't hold my interest for long.

Instead, the story focuses on a few characters in particular: On one side, we have Aisha, the squirrel-girl thief with a tail about as large as her body. On the other end, the story follows Cai, a cat-girl with a third eye infused in her right shoulder, and a talking tree-thing with a human face named Morgensen. Why it is that every character seems to have become some human-animal hybrid is not quite known, although according to this strip, it seems to be the equivalent of a Bar/Bat Mitzvah ceremony in their still-unnamed world.

If I have any complaints about the story so far, the setup for the main characters running into each other seems kinda awkward. The meeting borders on Cai/Morgensen somehow acquiring and using the materials for a large explosive right at the moment when the squirrel is about to get cut by a magic sword. Not to mention that all the characters caught in the aforementioned explosion miraculously survive. The explosion is never mentioned again, though one assumes that if Cai knew how to make explosives, she could make one again when fighting this big blue creature rather than just fighting it hand to hand. A small problem, yes, but one that nags me in an otherwise plausible narrative.

There isn't much else to say about this thing without spoiling what exists of the story, considering only around 80 pages have been completed ("only" 80, I know). The artwork is quite exceptional, just one beat below the CG goodness of a finished The Prime of Ambition strip. Aside from the occasional melted toes and one inexplicably green mushroom cloud (from the aforementioned explosive scene), the action scenes are pretty well drawn and the characters show a decent range of emotions.

Of course, if there's one main thing I can credit this comic for, I was genuinely willing to keep reading the next page, and not just for the sake of reviewing it. Take a look, and maybe you'll enjoy it too.

Review #38: Wake Up and Smell the Coffee!

2008-02-11T12:19:00.000-08:00

The mob boss with a heart of gold.

Name: Coffee Time
Creators: John Kratky (writer) & Tobias Kaschinski (artist)
Genre: Comedy/one-shot gag (Volume 1), Drama! (Volume 2)
Updates: Monday/Wednesday
Link: http://www.coffeetimecomics.com/coffeetime/index.shtml

"Dr. Haus?" The receptionist boy knocked on the door to my office, expecting a sign of life from beyond that solid block of wood yet receiving none. He somehow escaped that crazy man from the mountain like I did, but then tried to enter my office. Couldn't he understand I was busy trying to inject some antibiotics into a patient?

"Dr. Haus?" Came the cry again, followed by more knocking at the door. Couldn't he see that there was nothing he could say until I was finished with this patient?

"Dr. Haus? I have your coffee!" With those words, I ran to the door and ignored the whining of the man in whose left arm I had forgotten to remove the hypodermic needle. As I opened the door, the receptionist boy indeed carried a steaming double mocha from a coffee shop that wasn't pretentious enough to rename its cup sizes "grande" or "venti." Feeling that awesome elixir of life slipping down my throat, I finally felt energized and ready to face the day while my brain began to uncurl.

In my excitement, I went back to my patient and ripped the needle out of his arm. For some reason, he didn't seem to feel grateful that I had cured his illness as I wrapped part of his upper left arm tightly in gauze to stop the bleeding.

Awright, awright, Dr. Haus trying to get back into the reviewing groove that he once had awhile back. Let's see if we can't get a new review done through a haze of painkillers.

It's a bit difficult to review this one, because it's broken up into two volumes. The first volume obviously showcases when the creators of Coffee Time were just dicking around with their ideas. The second volume takes a much more serious and edgy turn. So I'll try to sum up both as best as I can.

The first volume sets up the cast of characters, including

Steph, the Nice Girl
Cypress, the Bad Girl
Vince, the self-styled mobster with a big heart.
Tom, the Nice Guy(TM) with the baseball cap.
Eddie, the badass with a cool car and a knit cap.
The Angry Ashkenazi (my name, not theirs), a young Jewish wrestler (with stylish yarmulke and matching headgear) named Eugene.
Karate teacher and prideful Japanese guy Tanaka.

Is it really that easy to sum up? Yes, for the first volume the characters mostly play their type in three/four-part gags. The artwork is workable if a bit sloppy with the characters and too much unused background space, and the jokes kinda meander in their own zones as the various character types play across each other. All of them (except Eugene and Tanaka) work at the coffee shop called "Coffee Time" while some anarchist pastiche of Willie Nelson looks on.

Things pick up later in the volume two, but whether for the better or worse is questionable. Like NJ Huff of Emergency Exit and "Mookie" of Dominic Deegan, the creative minds behind Coffee Time seemed to tire of simple gags and decided to try something more story-oriented. And how do they kick it off? With a horrible car crash during a race with badass Eddie in the car and Cypress ending up in the hospital to mark the end of volume one.

It only gets more angsty and dramatic from there: Tom has mommy issues and nets a girlfriend who turns out to be a devout Christian. Eddie keeps blaming himself for Cypress being in the hospital and having bad dreams about the race. The Angry Ashkenazi decides to try training in martial arts under Master Tanaka, probably to justify keeping him around in the story. And there's also a developing plot about a bookstore with a not-Starbucks threatening to suck away business from the Coffee Time shop that most of the aforementioned cast works at.

Personally, I found this comic interesting because I found myself identifying with a few of the characters in the strip in volume 2. From Eugene's determination to master karate to Eddie's questioning his values in the wake of a car crash, I've actually known some people with these same traits in my life. On the artistry side, the artwork gets a little more creative without using a generic manga or American style. This style seems to shine a lot more during brief action or exaggerated emotional scenes, but it does show quite a lot of progress on the artist's part.

So in the end, is this a good comic or a bad comic? The cartoons start out as cardboard caricatures and slowly get some depth written into them, the artwork is a lot better in the current strips, and I find myself empathizing with a few of the current characters. It doesn't try to be anything too expansive or complicated, nor does it take itself too pretentiously. For those of you who want me to pigeonhole it into a category, I'll sweep it towards the crop of "good" comics.

But I reserve the right to sweep it back into the "bad" pile if the characters don't continue growing out of their two-dimensional selves.

CT Review #3: Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition (updated)

2008-02-04T10:52:00.000-08:00

I review Marilith here.

More commentary to come later when I've had coffee, except to say that I may or may not get some more knee-jerk reactions from this piece. Of course, that assumes that I haven't driven off most of my readers already by not updating.

_____________

[UPDATE] Okay, it seems that someone spiked my coffee or somehow ripped out the caffiene from it, as I couldn't get back to this thing for a few days. I blame my evil arch-nemesis.

I don't have much else to say, other than the fact that some folks seem to think that just because I say bad things about a comic means I hate it. If I hate a comic, you will know in blunt terms that I hate it. But even for comics I like, I'd be abandoning my duties if I didn't mock the parts of a comic that deserve to be mocked, or point out the flaws that need fixing.

If I may use a popular example, just look at most of Yahtzee's game reviews: he doesn't hate every game, but he does hate on the parts where he feels that the developers drop the ball and where they deserve it, and he does it in a rather hilarious manner. I may not have the British charm to pull off the phrase "stonking great tits" in a review without sounding like a total "wanker," but I do try to lighten up what would otherwise be just another blog with some dude shouting into the void that is the world of webcomics (unofficially known as the "webcomic-o-sphere," except it doesn't quite roll off the tongue).

That is all. Now let me get back to my coffee.

_______________________

[UPDATE 2]: Wow, three days after this review was published, Krazy Krow is handing off artistry duties to a fourth artist. Where does he keep finding these relatively talented people to draw his comic, and where can I get them?

2008-01-31T00:00:00.000-08:00

So it's been, what, over two weeks since my last real post?

Well, I've submitted a review for ComixTalk, and I'm trying to skim through one of the comics on my waiting list of those requested, but my free time has grown incredibly small. "Why can our beloved Doctor not even keep to a simple once-a-week schedule?", you may ask. Good question. And let me say that the following song does not pertain to my situation in any way.

New review forthcoming...

2008-01-24T23:03:00.000-08:00

...after this message:

Review #37: "The War" (Revised)

2008-01-15T08:59:00.000-08:00

[Ed note: the way this comic's website is set up, it won't let me link to individual pages. So you'll have to excuse the lack of embedded links in this post

Now revised to include actual review and hopefully less ambiguity.]

Title: Alpha Shade
Creators: Joseph and Christopher Brudlos
Genre: [TBD]
Updates: Sporadically
Link: http://www.alpha-shade.com

From the war journal of PFC Gordan Haus

Today we arrived in a desert region. Apparently, we were covering the flight of some folks escaping an evil empire. For some reason, our CO was a young woman. A young woman leading our forces? I couldn't believe it either. Next thing you know, they'll want the right to vote.

Wait a minute, they already have that? Ho boy...

Anyways, there I was, manning the artillery, and then we see giant fucking birds flying overhead. No, I'm not just talking about planes, I mean giant fucking birds. Big blue, raptor-like ones that look like creatures from a Michael Crichton novel, before he jumped the shark and became all preachy.

How do I know about Michael Crichton, you ask? Because just as the huge battle scene is getting good, the story flashes back to a scene where my CO happens to be a gymnast in a futuristic American college (all the way to the year 2006!), and the senior officers are her assorted friends, or at least alternate dimension copies. They haven't really explained that yet. There's also some magical stone found in Peru, and magical, telepathic cats with the power to kill people. I knew those LOLcats were part of an evil plot, but did they listen to me? Nooooo!

But then, just as we're getting to know the main characters, the story kinda wandered off to elaborate on evil secondary characters that are apparently running some secret operation in our world for the purposes of...well, I don't know why. Something about power among Great Houses and a Lord named after an old hardware store. But why is my CO a college girl, and how did she and her band of merry men appear in this world where giant birds drop bombs and people travel on giant airships despite only having 1940's technology? Are they actually from the future? Another dimension? Who gave her the command? Did she earn it or what? I still haven't gotten an answer to those questions before the writer decided to raise brand new ones. Kinda like that chick from Arabian Nights, but without the looming threat of death from a crazy sultan.

I tried to tell this to the men in my unit--after all, the dreams were filled with such vivid imagery that they seemed true enough--but my friends just laughed and told me to stop hitting the shisha. Apparently, those blue birds with giant talons were just Nazi planes, the college girl CO was just an effeminate guy who hadn't cut his hair in a long time, and the magical telepathic cat was just a normal mind-reading cat I ran into outside of France.

Wait a minute, how are those cats reading my mind again? Fuck it, I'm going back to the shisha.

Okay, it's a bit tricky to explain Alpha-Shade in one sitting, especially since it's reached 225 full strips and I can't link to the individual pages, but I'm gonna try to explain anyways.

So far, the story seems divided up into three parts: Part one starts off with a huge infodump, where we learn about rich mineral deposits and two great empires fighting each other over protectorates that seem to control said mineral deposits. A bit direct, but hey wars have been started over less.

Oh, and it also seems that a young woman named Laura Stone is the leader and Commander in Chief of one of these protectorates that is getting squished between this war of two great empires. She also has some magical cat named Grey. Okay, now I'm curious.

Soon enough, war breaks out, the briefing gets cut short, people die, biplanes and "Flyers" smack each other out of the sky, moments of truth are realized, and I'm in danger of using a run-on sentence to describe it. Just as we reach a climax between Laura, her cat, her wristwatch and some crazy woman on a big blue raptor/bird thing, the first part ends on a cliffhanger by abruptly switching to an archaeological dig in Peru.

Part II begins afterward with Laura the college gymnast, who bares a stark resemblance to the C-in-C from Part I. A little backstory is revealed on Laura and her troupe, a few of whom also resemble various senior officers from past pages. There's even a little fight scene about how they escaped from some guys trying to shoot them because...well, I don't know. I guess it's to set up the fact that they can fight on their own, and maybe to excuse the reasons they become the senior military staff in whatever world was mentioned in Part I.

But oh no, don't think that we'll get an explanation, because before you know it, we're already at Part III, where we see various evil or evil-ish characters running some dummy corporation in modern-day America for a reason that still hasn't quite been revealed. Apparently, traveling and adapting between the our world and whatever world comes from Part I is as easy as stepping through a magical gate. If that's true, one would be tempted to ask why the bad guys couldn't just teleport a cache of AK-47s and Uzi submachineguns or some C4 to their world. It seems they're skilled enough that no one from our intelligence agencies asks about a big freakin' raptor-bird appearing in the middle of a major coastal city or what Lord Hechinger has been leasing that huge tower for.

Currently, there's a subplot about House Shapira and how their eldest daughter was killed in action. Not quite Part IV, more like Part IIIa.

So what's the point to all of this? The writer of this story seems to have gotten so far ahead with making an epic that he seems to be tossing in new characters and other folks into the pot of established A-S canon that he's forgetting to actually tie up the original plotlines he started all the way back in the first hundred pages. Maybe there's a huge plot synopsis bible somewhere, but trying to click on any page listed under the "AS Guide" tab takes you to an unfinished character page.

Individually, these three parts could be pretty good stories on their own. But connected together, they seem to form a loose narrative that only raises more questions instead of answers. On the other hand, like Prime of Ambition, I'm sure there will be some better payoff if you stick around, but I am wary of those stories (webcomic or otherwise) that take more than 200 pages just to get to the freakin' point. Or maybe I'm just an impatient bastard.

The following is a Public Service Announcement

2008-01-10T08:30:00.000-08:00

If you have to open a package with a pocket knife, make sure the blade is facing away from you so it doesn't cut your other hand should the blade slip.

Ironically, the bullet-time moment doesn't happen until after the accident, contrary to what webcomics and some video games tell you.

Reviews will come as soon as my brain can think of what to write that doesn't sound like it was dipped in a vat of LiveJournal angst that somehow became corporeal.

Webcomic Drama: Don't Feed the Beast

2008-01-06T06:50:00.000-08:00

Finally, my winter break is over, and I'm considering getting back into the groove again, when a certain abomination catches my eye. I'm not going to link to it, because I know curiosity will get the better of you and I'll just be sending him more hits. So here, go to this forum thread to get the gist of it.

Currently, this comic is #2 most-read on DrunkDuck, despite all the wailing and the butthurt and even possible sockpuppetry found in the comments below each of its strips.

In a nutshell, this Comic-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named is taking the cliches of gamer comics (and even directly rips off Penny Arcade in one strip), and features crappily drawn characters with only one pose, sprinkled with bits of teenage homophobia. So for the both of you that read this, here's the scoop: The comic is a joke, a scam, designed to make you pissed off enough that you have to come back and watch. The creator of this comic has even set up a Cafepress shop with the characters from the strip in the hopes that some 13-year-old will be sympathetic enough to buy one of them.

Perhaps the creator is the ghost of John Solomon (dun-dun-DUNNNNN!) taking his revenge on those of you who wouldn't listen. Perhaps it's an SA goon engaging in a grand experiment of punk-ery. Perhaps it's the work of Anonymous. Perhaps it's someone who actually thinks that the number of hits they're getting directly corresponds to how funny they are (the least likely, yet worst-case scenario). I don't know, and I don't care.

You want it to stop getting attention, then stop feeding the goddamn beast. Let it sink to the depths of obscurity like most of the crap that passes through DrunkDunk and ComicGenesis. Let its only mark on history be an article on Encyclopedia Dramatica. Whatever created this comic will not easily be cowered by simple flames in its inbox, but if you take stop paying attention to it, then maybe it will choke to death on its own suck.

Review #36: Xanatos Roulette

2007-12-26T08:30:00.000-08:00

This is funny. Laugh at it. Now.

Title: Masters of the Art
~~Artist~~ Creators: Justin Pixler and Patrick Johnson
Genre: Comedy
Link: http://www.mastersoftheart.com

"To understand the complexity of this art, you must find the simple answer."

"But what is the question?" I asked

"You must find the differences in that which makes us alike."

I couldn't help but cock my eyebrow in a manner not unlike Saint Stephen Colbert in response to that non-answer.

"Dr. Haus! You have patience to diagonse!" I thought it was another non-sensical koan, until I realized it was really the voice of my receptionist boy. I mentally noted that he said "patients," not "patience."

"Where the hell have you been, doc?" The receptionist boy gasped. Apparently, he had run all the way up this mystical mountain to find me, "You know we have 20-30 people waiting to see you back down in our new office!"

"You must face your fears, in order to defeat them." The wise guy continued, "Also, the cowardly squirrel can defeat the mightiest fireman, provided he has laser vision."

"...what?"

"Also, Santa Claus is a hobo. That will be 150..."

"How much?"

"150, in Israeli Shekels and box tops, for my book of wise sayings."

I didn't want to piss off the old man, but I also didn't want to pay for a book of random new-age crap that lasted over 350 pages. So I came up with a cunning plan to trick him, consisting solely of throwing a placebo behind him and shouting, "Hey, look over there!" The animalistic growling from behind me as I ran told me that I should've thought of a better distraction.

Then I remembered another piece of advice from my youth: "When running away from a dangerous wise guy who wants you to buy his book, you don't have to be faster than him, you only need to be faster than your friend." Too bad my receptionist boy didn't learn this lesson fast enough.

Bah, I'm slipping on my narratives, but that still made a little more sense than this comic I'm now reviewing for you all.

Masters of the Art is a comic. It has characters. They do stuff.

Oh sure, the characters have names, and they have a few interesting story arcs with Santa Claus the hobo, a (medi-)evil twin, and some guy named Chef Mysterious. In fact, click here, scroll down, and look at the names of various characters. You can probably guess the various story arcs by looking at the names of the supporting cast members.

And as for the main cast members who get tossed into this insanity? About their only distinguishing feature is their hair color and the occasional pair of breasts where the artist feels like introducing a female cast member into the scene. I usually try to make some kind of effort to learn about the characters, but my eyes kinda glazed over after the 100th strip.

Kim (the red-haired girl) is a slight nymphomaniac, Reed has Super Saiyan hair, Jackson reminds me of that guy from that Full Metal Panic manga I read years ago, and there's probably more quirks I could point out among the regular cast...but really, who gives a damn? The main characters are pretty much interchangeable. The secondary cast is only marginally better, but the characters do a small turn from bland to "pick two character traits out of a hat and laugh at the result!" Witness the superhero chef character, marvel at the hippenpenguin, chuckle at the court case featuring an amazon lawyer!

Anything else? Oh yes, the artwork. It starts out as generic anime-style, but over the course of the comic it becomes a little more Western-influenced. It does a decent job, nothing too flashy and nothing that makes me want to pour bleach my eyes. Aside from the occasional emotive action scene, the art prefers to stay in its little corner, sipping a martini and occasionally stumbling out on the dance floor to perform a drunken rendition of the macarena when it feels like being more adventurous.

Go ahead and read this if you must. It doesn't cost you much and you'll probably find something to chuckle at. But do not assume that you will find much substance (comedic or storywise) within this comic...unless this is one hell of a mystical koan and the characters are soon going to turn from simple gag characters into angst-ridden wizards tasked with saving the world.

But enough about Dominic Deegan.

Happy(?) Holidays

2007-12-26T08:04:00.000-08:00

I feel I should do something special for this "holiday season." Like maybe update more than once in a fortnight like I used to.

On the other hand, let's face it: Hanukkah is long gone, Christmas is mostly over (aside from Boxing Day), and if anyone who reads this blog celebrates Kwanzaa or another holiday I forgot to mention I'll give you a cookie.

Okay, here, some winter-ish* comics for* you to enjoy.

[X-mas pics from, respectively: Fanboys, Errant Story, Misfile, The Bastard Swordsman, Two Lumps, Star Cross'd Destiny, and Badass Muthas! I take no responsibility for how much you like or hate them.]
(*possibly NSFW)

Review #35: God is a DJ

2007-12-16T09:37:00.000-08:00

[Upon further reflection, trying to review S12ORD right now would be like clubbing a baby seal. The damn thing just parodies itself as it stands. So instead, I have moved to another comic, from my "waiting room" list.

Also, kudos to the person who can guess the musical reference in the title of this post.]

Title: ~~Ratification~~ Retribution of Lambs
Artist: Jason Lai
Genre: Supernatural/Sci-fi
Updates: Randomly
Link: http://www.projectrol.com

One time, I met God on the bus. He told me the meaning of life and then he gave me a pretzel...maybe I should've written it down. But it was a good pretzel.

--Tommy Chong as Leo from That 70's Show (paraphrased)

Man, I had this whole narrative in my head about how to ratify a lamb, and then the creator had to change the name to something that makes a little more sense, thus removing an area for me to mock. So instead I offer you this quote.

Apparently, ROL (as the "cool kids" call it) has had three previous editions before the current storyline. You can read them here if you really want to, but for the sake of this review, I'm only going to focus on the current edition that has been floating around the top 10 of the Buzzcomix list.

The story starts off with God taking the form of a pink-haired girl bitching at a blue-haired guy who apparently is supposed to be the "Adam." Sure, it may seem like a biblical allegory with a twist at first (how can God's son rape God? Consider this your new koan, my dear readers), but after about 10 pages the theme mixes with some Evangelion-like sci-fi story, mentioning something about neuro-synchronization and killer "angels" and the humans (the "lambs" in ROL) who are trying to rebel against them. I'm going to assume that the "why" of this story will appear within the next 10-15 pages, but maybe I'm just a lazy and impatient bastard.

The girl Yasu bears a striking resemblance to the one calling herself God at the start of the story. The boy she ends up saving (aside from a large hole in his gut) bears a strong resemblance to the Adam. Lai has let slip in his comments that the character of God is supposed to be a slightly younger version of Yasu for reasons he hasn't explained yet.

Onto the artwork: the characters, for the most part, look flat even to my untrained artistic eye. I don't mean flat in the sense of character development, but as if you're really looking at a two-dimensional painting. Not to mention the hair colors that don't exist in the real world without a massive dye job (unless there's a reason for that). However, the latest strips have shown improvement in bringing a better perspective (literally) to the art. I hope the artist will continue improving along this route with his artwork.

If there's one thing that nags at my conscience, though, is the reveal at the first ten pages. To me, it might've been better if those pages were slapped on the end of the story instead of the beginning. Not only does it ruin some of the suspense, but the whole rant about the Adam using God or an incarnation of God as a sex toy at the beginning just feels like shock value for the sake of shock value rather than adding anything of value to the story. However, this is my opinion.

However, as it stands right now, ROL is a decent read, if only because Lai avoids falling into the trap of using his soapbox to promote or bash religion despite writing a comic rife with psuedo-religious imagery. Of course, this comic may be frustrating for those looking for a Good Guy or Bad Guy to root for.

Not-Review #35

2007-12-07T07:43:00.001-08:00

UPDATE: Yet more stupid drama.

Bah, here I was all set to rip into S12ORD, and then the comic mysteriously disappears. So, looks like I'll have to find something else to review.

Also, tonight will mark the fourth night of Chanukkah this year. Because I can't find anything better to mark this occasion, here's some consolation.

Finally, this is hilarious (or at least it seemed so at one in the morning).

CT Review #2: Buddy Cop Fantasy Therapy Hour

2007-12-02T23:44:00.000-08:00

This time, Dr. Haus tries to be a relationship therapist while reviewing a comic that's been floating around the Buzzcomix 100 for awhile now, entitled The Prime of Ambition. You can read it here.

It's true, the majority of said review focuses on just two characters from the story, but then again, that's where the creators of the comic have put their focus on so far. The sun elf literally spends an entire chapter arguing with the drow/black elf (I haven't paid attention to the whole Forgotten Realms shtick) about pointless shit while threatening to kill him or feeling threatened by him. The entire time I read this, I kept thinking of a few of those buddy-cop movies that were based around an uptight white man who gets paired with a loose, streetwise black guy (i.e. Steve Zahn and Martin Lawrence in the lukewarm National Security, or Robert DeNiro and Eddie Murphy in Showtime). They always argue with each other because their two different personalities just won't mix until they decide to work together to take down the bad guy of the story in the last 20 minutes.

As for the "TV Tropes" I mention in the review: Do not dig through that site unless you have a lot of free time, because it can be fucking addictive.

My next review here will deal with a lesser-known comic that thought putting a number in place of letters was a good move. On the other hand, the protagonist looks like Samuel L. Jackson with a slight goatee.

Review #34: "Big Brother is--nah, too easy."

2007-11-21T20:23:00.000-08:00

"I know where y-- hey! Stop stealing my material!"

Title: NSTA
Artist: Kirstan Norris
Genre: Drama, political-ish
Updates: Sundays
Link: http://www.nsta-net.com/

"National Satellite Tracking Agency," I muttered to the agent currently shoving me along a grey corridor, "You guys really need a better interior decorator, and some better PR on your name. Make it sound less evil, something like the National Saving Trees Agency."

"Hey, I didn't choose the name."

"Did you really have to handcuff me and bring me here?"

"It was the only way to get you to fucking update, man," The agent replied, "People start asking questions when you stop updating. Questions about things that matter in real life."

"Are you kidding? You're giving webcomic readers too much credit. There's no way they'd find out about this place, and if they did, who'd believe them?"

The agent dragging me along the bland, taxpayer-built corridor gasped, "You know too much already!"

"What, that people are stupid?"

"No, that people think we have the capability to watch them 24/7 and pull up every piece of info about them in seconds! If they knew how incompetent and underfunded America's intelligence agencies really were, this country would be good as dead!"

"See, this is why you need better PR."

"Shut it, we're here." The man escorted me into a room and shoved me in front of a computer, "Now type! And don't mention anything about a Sattelite Tracking Agency!"

I booted up Internet Explorer and waited a couple minutes for the home page to load before saying, "You know, there's some revolutionary technology out there called 'broadband.' You guys should also consider investing in that." The sound of a second agent audibly pulling the slide back on a Glock was more than enough to convince me that I should silence my doubts to write a completely honest and objective review.

Imagine a Homeland Security agency with the capability to track you with agents hooked up with cybernetic implants. Now imagine these agents can download that information into their brains on command, and hunt you down in flying cars? Well, that's pretty much the shtick behind the folks working at the NSTA [National Sattelite Tracking Agency]

This comic deals with the trials of Agent Flashfire, a Scottish-twanged "nastie" who lives with a cat named Quasar. Though he is the main character, it would be wrong to say the comic revolves around him. Several folks in the NSTA get their face time, from the reckless youngster Agent Delirium to the stoic intel officer Agent Foucault. There's no Jack Bauer to bark commands at everyone or beat the shit out of terrorists, which leads to some rather unsatisfying interrogation scenes where the crooks confess without being shot in the kneecaps. The comic is more about the NSTA as a whole as they fight crime around...wherever the place is located.

And it's not all about people engaging in gunfights either. Half the story involves NSTA agents doing investigative work and dealing with the cybernetic implants installed in their brain. Also, there's a sub-plot following Agent Flashfire as he meets a woman who doesn't quite like his organization, even leading him to call for a smoke bomb to cover his escape from protesters so his girlfriend doesn't find out where he works.

In terms of the script, it's a pretty good story that manages not to lapse into the usual cliches of an oppressive government agency (though the usage of a satellite-fired laser beam to heal a downed agent is kinda out of the blue) or usage of a super-agent to make everything better. With a little more exposition about the setting and politics behind the agency, the story could be even better.

However, the artwork leaves quite a lot to be desired. When looking at the faces from the front view, the mouth just kinda disappears into the rest of the face a little too often. Also, the shapes and sizes of the characters seem awfully inconsistent. For instance, the aforementioned kid Agent Delirium has the cheekbones of a old man. In one strip, Flashfire's head looks like it was squeezed in a dough-presser, then transforms into regular size from the side view, then back again to overtly-narrow in the next strip.

It's a real damn shame, because according to the copyright at the bottom of each page, Ms. Norris has been working with this strip since 2003, yet four years later her drawing ability does not seem to have made any substantial improvements from the first strip. I've always believed that good writing in a webcomic can save bad artwork, but after [approximately] 225 strips with only miniscule changes and nothing more than several drab shades of gray and black to look at, it does put a strain on the reader's eyes along with my belief. While I wasn't too crazy about the artwork in Spades (see Review #32), at least the character models were mostly consistent.

Overall, I'll give a light recommendation to this comic for its decent writing, but Ms. Norris should seriously consider going "back to the drawing board," or fixing the scanner, or whatever it is that has turned the artwork into a mostly drab gray mess.

Where is Dr. Haus? (redux)

2007-11-16T16:18:00.000-08:00

The explanation.

Review #33: Got Me Rockin' and-a Rollin'...

2007-11-06T19:48:00.000-08:00

[The Doctor has valiantly fought through the foggy cloud of a headache being fought with several acetaminophen, pseudoephedrine, loratadine and various other OTC drugs to finish this update, and can't think of a good narrative to go with this one, so take it as is].

You fell down the stairs again?

Title: Marsh Rocket
Artist: Jules Rivera
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action
Updates: Tuesdays and Thursdays
Link: http://www.marsh-rocket.com/

Welcome to an unnamed period in the future (hinted at being the 22nd century, but not quite confirmed). A former soldier from an unnamed "barrio" named Victor Black sheds his dress fatigues and sells loyalty to his country for a new Benz.

From here, the narrrative kinda drifts between three different plots: On one side, we have Mr. Black gunning down his former comrades before they turn as witnesses against his employer, Ross Tiburon. On the second plot, we see the trials and tribulations that Ross goes through as he tries to free his "guilty as all hell" father from jail while his family keeps getting slapped on the tabloid pages. And then there's Marshall (a.k.a. "Marsh Rocket"), the title character and the protege of Victor Black who tries to retrieve a mysterious briefcase for a loan shark who would otherwise break his kneecaps.

While it might be complicated to juggle three interweaving plots at the same time, the artist somehow pulls it off with a decent flair. The action scenes are pretty well done, the internal politics are explained, the paper is octagonal, and there's an appearance by a crazy guy who is not-Steve Jobs. Storywise, my only real complaint is that the whole future-seeing, pot-smoking "Gemini" thing feels kinda shoe-horned into the plot. But hey, Marsh couldn't have picked a more high-strung chick to kiss than from a group that refers to itself through ancient Greek names. Seriously, I haven't seen blood spurt like that since the last time I played Metal Gear Solid 3.

This brings me to my next point: the artwork. From a technical standpoint, the characters are pretty well drawn, with a whole host of expressions and faces to tell them apart (though I keep getting Agent Stonefish and Victor confused). The action scenes also have a nice flow to them. However, it's the odd decision to use various colors in lieu of lighter shading that just kinda bugs me. I guess it's an attempt to add a noir-ish flair to the strip, but I don't think that any film noir was set in a universe where all lights were replaced by multi-colored strobe lights. Seriously, I don't think I've ever seen so much green color over the course of any two strips than right here. And that comes after an arc where the only colors in the strip are black, white, red and purple.

However, if you can forgive the odd coloring, chances are you'll be able to enjoy Marsh Rocket.

CT Review: The Gaming Addiction of Slackerz

2007-11-05T07:00:00.000-08:00

My review for ComixTalk is now up. You can view it by clicking here. This particular one examines Slackerz and mostly focuses on the writing therein.

While writing said review, it has occurred to me that sometimes my little narratives receive more emphasis than the actual review. Perhaps I should take steps to rectify that situation. This is why I tried a sorta hybrid of my satire and my serious writing in my piece for CT.

Another Webcomic Watch-exclusive (Ha! As if that means anything!) review might be coming within the next 48 hours if my head stops hurting.

Until then, here, have a belated Halloween treat (kinda NSFW). Or you can re-read my Medicating of the Dead mini-series of reviews. Yeah, it's cheap, but it'll last longer than that tiny box of Milk Duds and bite-size Snickers bar you swiped from your little brother's candy stash.

An awesome development!

2007-10-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

Just so you all know, Dr. Haus has been asked to do a review for the website ComixTalk (formerly "Comixpedia"). Keep your eyes posted for it to appear, and I'll provide a link here when it's up.

Fear not, dear readers, for I am not abandoning this blog anytime soon, and those requesting reviews will eventually receive their just rewards. But at the moment, the CT review takes precedence.

Review #32: "3's and 7's"

2007-10-22T17:00:00.000-07:00

"He made love like an eagle falling out of the sky..."

[Two song references and this review hasn't even started! I'm on a roll!]
Title: Spades
Artist: Diana Cameron McQueen
Genre: Modern Fantasy
Updates: Unknown
Link: http://www.spadescomic.com/

"Your move, Doctor Haus." The man to my right said in a heavy Russian accent before proceeding to exhale a cloud of smoke directly in my face.

"You realize that cigar will eventually kill you, tovarash?" I muttered after I finished coughing from the smoke.

"Forgive me, I keep forgetting to read your Surgeon General's warning on these things." The man waved his cigar in front of my face anyways, and said, "Of course, if one has a death wish, a bullet is much faster and more efficient than death by cigar. Now, are you going to call, or are you going to fold this hand?"

My attention turned back to the two playing cards lying face down on the soft, velvety green table. There were three spades in play already, I only needed one more...

"Tell you what, I'm going all in on this bitch." I shoved all my chips into the center of the table as the assembled crowd around us suddenly oooooed and ahhhed at my play. The Russian nearly choked on his cigar. All the while, I was hoping that whale would jump away from the bluff.

The artist has billed her comic Spades as a sort of "modern fantasy." Usually, this kind of genre mixing is among one of my favorites: seeing the battle of old-school vs. new-style, evolution vs. tradition, spiritualism vs. humanism, magic vs. bullets...and the list goes on. It is difficult to pull off correctly, but when it's done right, it can be quite awesome.

Spades certainly has the makings of a good comic, but as it stands, there ain't much to get excited about. Storywise, McQueen jumped right into the characters without talking too much about the setting they are in. It seems to me that Spades could've been set in Arthurian Camelot (for lack of a better example), traded the guns for swords, and little would've changed from the story.

The story features a guy with one eye, named Kanon, who happens to have amnesia. The only thing he can remember is that his name is Kanon. Somehow, he has the power to fly and to stop a speeding vehicle with his bare hands just like Superman. After 100+ strips of canon (no pun intended), all we've got is that Kanon has teamed up with a pair of thieves, has amnesia, there's an evil snake-headed guy who knows about him and a fortune-telling mage hinting at danger in his path. That's not to mention the long-haired Mr. Hydra, who can't possibly be evil. I have yet to see the twist away from "Generic Fantasy Story X."

As for the artwork: While the drawing of the characters is decent, there is just too much damn shading. Even in chapter 3, which supposedly starts during the daytime, you can hardly tell from flipping through the pages that there's any sunlight at all. In some pages, the background just disappears entirely, leaving naught but a grayish blob behind the character, as if the background were just a luxury for the characters to talk in front of. It only leads to more confusion as to where exactly the characters are in terms of the setting. The coloring does provide an interesting symbolism for the magic that pops up every so often in this world.

Another little bug in this comic are the speech bubbles. Sometimes, it seems that McQueen didn't quite plan how big they should be in regards to the art of each panel, and in some cases the text is so squished it can be difficult to read.

As of right now, I can't quite give Spades the Doctor's recommendation. I can understand not giving everything away too early, but you do have to drop a few clues in the story about the what/where/when/why at some point, otherwise people may just grow tired of being dragged along and stop reading.

As the river card came up, it appeared that I didn't have the hand I was hoping for. But that didn't matter anyway, as the Russian had hit the floor wheezing from all the smoke accumulating in his lungs and folded by default without calling my bluff. As he was escorted out of the room by his posse, I peeked at his hand. Had he called, he would've destroyed me.

"Told him those cigars would kill 'em," I smirked at the dealer as I collected my winnings. Now maybe those collectors would get off my case.

UPDATE (10/25): [The first couple of paragraphs in the actual review were kinda dangling alone out there, so they've been absorbed into other paragraphs for better effect. The gist of the review remains unchanged.]

"Where is Dr. Haus?"

2007-10-14T21:02:00.001-07:00

Short explanation here.

Review #31: Perpendicular Sanity

2007-10-07T10:28:00.000-07:00

[a.k.a. "The Medicating of the Dead III"]

Odds are 20:1 that's a woman, and
4:1 that she will say "Nuclear Wessels".

Title: Parallel Dementia
Artist: Ben Fleuter (a.k.a. "834n")
Genre: Supernatural/Horror
Updates: Mondays and Fridays
Link: http://paralleldementia.comicgenesis.com
[Disclosure: An alter-ego of mine appeared in a cameo role in this PD strip, other than that, I have no personal connection to this comic or its creator.]

Just as we expected, the brain-dead druggies eventually rammed through the door to the pharmacy. Shouts of "PILLS!" and "DRUGS!" and "I NEED MY FIX, MAN!" covered the room.

As soon as it swung open, the receptionist boy and myself tossed out capsules full of hydrocodone, rohypnol, sildenafil citrate mixed with a hearty dose of dextromethorphan from your everyday cough syrup. Just as we had hoped, the brain-dead druggies started piling on each other, diving at the capsules full of the sweet, sweet drugs we threw at them.

We quickly filled more plastic drug capsules with cough syrup, antidepressants, aspirin, whatever we could grab off the shelves. It didn't matter what sated those druggies, what did matter was holding them off until my man at the FDA could drop the Big Red One.

"Dr. Haus! There's too many of them!" The receptionist boy started fending off a few extra druggies with a two-legged stool.

"Dammit, receptionist boy! Hold the line!" I quickly injected one druggie with a needle full of morphine I found, "Just another minute!"

"I can't hold them off much longer!"

Suddenly, my cell phone chirped as I delivered a large dose of NyQuil to another druggie before punching him square in the face. Mr. Edwards sent me a text message informing me to step back. A moment later, I watched as a gigantic red capsule crashed through the roof directly on top of the closest wave of druggies. A few seconds after that, a rope ladder appeared in between us and the Big Red One as a chopper hovered above the caved-in roof. I could almost swear I heard Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" playing in the background.

Over the cacophony of enraged druggies, my receptionist boy's bitching, the helicopter and the classical music, I heard Mr. Edwards shouting for us to get up the ladder before the Big Red One started heating up. I prayed we had enough time before the massive, red, double-chambered gel capsule started to release its payload.

Parallel Dementia is a rather interesting specimen of a webcomic. On one hand, it hits quite a few cliches that would normally put it in my "meh" category. But at the same time, it manages to put a unique spin on these cliches with a somewhat interesting story with characters that aren't all godlike.

Having said that, there is a lot of stuff that I couldn't help but mock in off-hand comments. If this becomes "tl;dr" (too long;didn't read), then just scroll down to the last 2-3 paragraphs for my summarized thoughts on this.

PD takes place in a post-new-Depression America where an evil corporation (there are never any good ones) named Uni-Corp seems to have experimented on people--or so I'm guessing from the flashbacks of Fall Boxer (Yes, that is the main heroine's name. Was "Rip Torn" taken? Wait, don't answer that.)--until something went wrong and the corporation shut down. Apparently, the majority of America was employed in this massive company, thus sparking an economic depression when it shut down. (What? How could one company spark such a wave? When Enron tanked, it didn't exactly bring us into another Great Depression on its own...but ah, I digress.)

So apparently, in post-new-Depression America, a pair of organizations have sprung up. A reincarnation of the Knights Templar (just "Templar" in PD) to hunt down evil beings called "Nightmares," that were possibly created by Big Evil Uni-Corporation's experiments. Also, she has a robot friend named Reginald.

There's also some sort of US Peacekeepers organized to keep order (because "National Guard" is soooo pre-9/11), but no one seems to care about them. The main hero, named David Shizukana, is a former Peacekeeper, but he quit because he doesn't like killing looters. His brother apparently worked for Big Evil Uni-Corporation and now regrets screwing people over from his desk job. He also has a cat named "Mittens".

Together, Fall and David fight off evil with lots and lots of guns. They also have a smart-ass demonic sidekick named Timmy who provides comic relief in between setting things on fire. And there's a Russian woman named Alexandra Ivanova ("Alexi") who "speak every vord like zis, cuz she's Russian!" and has exploding knives.

One big problem I noticed through PD is that Mr. Fleuter has a problem with drawing distinctive feminine qualities on any of his female cast members. Seriously, back when I first stumbled across PD, I couldn't tell whether or not Fall was a woman until I read more of the dialogue. It gets a little better in the later strips, when the characters don't just look like lanky stick figures with flat faces, but look at one of the more recent strips with Alexi, and you'll see only minor improvements.

Though in the artist's defense, he mentions Alexi having tomboy-ish qualities.

So it seems that PD's story is a convoluted mess that tries to combine "evil Corporation" with "supernatural creepy-crawlies" as mixes it up with semi-biblical mumbo jumbo, and only succeeds halfway. The shading in the later strips does help set a dark mood, but it's still difficult to tell the women from the men.

But, if there's one thing I do like about PD, it is that there is no one super-protagonist who everyone relies on to destroy the bad guys. Everyone's got a role in fighting these "nightmares," and even the smallest character has a chance to not end up in a "Redshirt" role. It's possible that PD can still be saved, but it's going to take some work untangling the knots of this story.

[Addendum: No, I don't want to get into the big-ass crossover Fleuter did with NJ Huff's Emergency Exit crew. That will be a topic for a later time.]

The chopper finally whirred away from the office as the receptionist boy was seated. A faint smell of medicinal marijuana reached my nostrils even from this height as the Big Red One began releasing its payload. Soon, the druggies that didn't already swallow the crap we threw at them would become too mellow to harm anyone else.

"Receptionist boy, I hope you learned a valuable lesson today." I said.

"What is it, Doc? Is it 'Drugs can ruin your life and turn you into a brainless zombie, so think before you down that next pill?'"

"Actually, I was gonna say that 'if you're gonna take drugs for recreational purposes, do it responsibly.' But that works too." I took one last look at the now-disintegrating top half of the Big Red One, having been melted away by the flame buried in the bottom of the capsule, wondering how my insurance company would ever believe this story.

Review #30: "Now in Spooky-Vision!"

2007-10-01T08:16:00.000-07:00

[a.k.a. "The Medicating of the Dead II"]

My thoughts exactly, Charlie.

Title: The Zombie Hunters
Artist: Jenny Romanchuk
Genre: Zombie-Horror
Updates: Weekly-ish
Link: http://thezombiehunters.com

"Dr. Haus! Dr. Haus!"

"Ugghh, receptionist boy," I muttered as the world seemed to swim around me, "Tell me this is a bad dream."

"What are you talking about?"

"Something about brain-dead druggies being a metaphor for mindless zombies, and my humble office being overrun with them?"

"You stuck yourself with a needle full of morphine!"

"I did?" I stared for awhile at the empty syringe that I was still holding for some reason, "Oh yeah, I was gonna use it on them, but then I only had one of these and there were so many bad guys. Y'know 'waste not, want not' and all that."

"You're lucky I managed to drag you into the pharmacy, the nurses are either gone or looking for a quick fix with the rest of those druggies by now."

"Do we have more drugs in here?"

"Enough to make a small, liberal-arts college campus start 'Robo-tripping' for days, but not even this supply will hold out forever against that many druggies once they burst through that door!"

I glanced towards the door to the pharmacy that the receptionist boy gestured at, hearing progressively louder pounding on the door. Either that, or some rich kid with a pimped-out ride was showing off his massive bass system in the parking lot again. If I didn't think of something fast, I was going to have to argue for days with the insurance people about whether or not this event was covered...oh, and the possibility of being bitten by brain-dead druggies also sounded bad.

The Zombie Hunters brings us into a desolate wasteland where zombies roam the Earth and one last band of surviving humans tries to...okay, you've heard this story before, haven't you?

Yeah, that's pretty much how the story has progressed to so far, with a cast of characters that has been sorta developing over 90 pages of escaping from zombies. They run up to a roof, make an ill-fated attempt to cross a power line, hit the ground, and then continue running. Also, Charlie might be a half-zombie, or something.

One thing you can definitely say while digging through the archives of The Zombie Hunters is that even the earlier strips have a sort of cinematic flair to them. Though it seems that Ms. Romanchuk takes this a bit too literally as every other page for the first 13 strips displays some sort of "opening credits" sequence. While it might look nice in a movie or a Flash animation, in the webcomic format it just becomes annoying very quickly.

Around strip 50, it's almost like we have a brief interlude from the doom and gloom feel of the earlier strips as Jenny (the hatted one) and Sammie (the blue haired girl...wait, is that natural coloring? Who really has blue hair outside of Japanese anime?) crack jokes while their heads shrink and noses disappear.

I think this comic has the same problem as Dead Winter (see below), in that while the art has its interesting quirks, the creator can't decide which direction the story should be going. While Dead Winter has a Quentin Tarantino-esque gunfighter alternating with a Simon Pegg-like everyman (or woman, in that case), TZH goes from dire peril to a light-hearted action sequence with a brick flail and a shovel. However, I gotta say that this is the first webcomic I can think of that has juxtaposed these two scenes.

Perhaps this would be more permissible if we found out why young girls and an old half-zombie dude were sent out together in the first place, and why they couldn't bother to spare a few anti-zombie suits like these guys had. And on a side note, how does one who claims to be hemophobic in her blog entry draw a comic that depicts several pints of blood splattering every which way?

In any case, the comic has some very nice artwork, but the story is still struggling to catch up. One can only hope it doesn't take another 90 pages before we finally figure out what the hell really happened in the world of TZH.

Thinking fast, I pulled out a cell phone and started dialing a number, "I never thought I'd have to call in this favor, but desperate times call for desperate measures."

"Who are you calling, Dr. Haus?"

"My friend at the FDA, he owes me big time." I waited for the call to connect, and then spoke, "Lady, get Mr. Edwards on the line, tell him Dr. Haus needs him to drop the Big Red One right in my office...yes, I know the consequences, but this is a goddamn emergency! Brain-dead druggies are about to bust through that door...look, I'll sign whatever forms you need, just find Mr. Edwards, and tell him to get me the Big Red One!"

To Be Continued...

Retrospective (Part III)!

2007-09-24T20:06:00.000-07:00

[the "Dr. Haus is pretty fucking swamped with work for the next few days, but does not wish to lose the 10-50 readers who actually come back for this thing yet" edition]

The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
Then: "Then explain how he can be fighting old-fashioned pirates with a portable electric system, wrangling velociraptors, and turn frozen shamrocks into makeshift shuriken? This shit isn't scientifically possible!"

Now: It's still pretty damn hilarious, but more in a stupid-funny than smart-funny way. The action scenes are also top-notch.

Otenba Files
Then: In the following chapters, we are introduced to the stereotypical team consisting of the huge dumbass (Koda), the little whiny bitch (Juppy), and the chain-smoking angry badass (Tamka). They fight, they yell at each other, the female members go off and get fucked (either in flashbacks or in current time), and then they do it all over again.

Now: It died. Then came back. Then died again. Still some good ol' sketched out yuri for you folks out that appreciate that sort of thing, but at this point, I've just stopped caring.

The Bastard Swordsman by Dan Glasl
Then:
"But the main character is a woman. Wouldn't a more accurate title be 'The Bastard Swordswoman?'...Who else could he be referring to? That guy who bares a resemblance to Shan-Yu from Mulan? That drunk dude who doesn't even have a sword? Or is this another one of those comics where the main character magically had his/her gender switched and doesn't know why?"

Now: There isn't any TG-ism in this comic (thank God). The action scenes have gotten a little better, but TBS still doesn't seem to be rising above anything more than a generic action comic. However, the artwork has improved considerably from previous strips. I'm still waiting for a scene where the protagonist does something other than be useless without that Shan-Yu ripoff possessing her body.

Podunk U

Then: "The Doctor hopes that someone will put this comic to sleep."

Now: It's dead. Trust me, it wasn't worth it anyways.

Webcomic Drama!

2007-09-19T17:40:00.000-07:00

Part I

Part II

Actual review coming sometime in the next few days, but with Yom Kippur coming up, keep your fingers crossed.

Review #29: The Medicating of the Dead

2007-09-14T17:50:00.000-07:00

Bowler hat beats do-rag!

Title: Dead Winter
Artist: S. Dave Shabet
Genre: Zombie-Horror...sorta
Updates: Tue, Fri
Link: http://www.deadwinter.cc/

It all started when one guy came in, and muttered a single word to the Receptionist Boy: "Pills."

So the receptionist boy made him fill out a form and sit in the waiting room. A few minutes later, a few other dudes hobbled towards the desk, mumbling the same word: "Pills."

The receptionist boy ran out of clipboards to hand them as he told them each to fill out their info. If they don't fill that shit out, then the insurance companies don't pay me a cut of the profits they suck from their pockets. Next thing I know, the receptionist boy runs into my office just as I'm doing some hardcore research on my computer.

"Sir! They're climbing over the desks, and bursting through the doors!" He shouted, "They didn't even finish filling out their forms!"

"Who?" I asked, suddenly hearing about twenty voices groaning in unison, "Pills!" This time in a more demanding tone.

I walked into the hallway, and shouted at the assembled crowd, "I don't have any pills to give you unless you have insurance!"

"Pills!" They shouted, and shambled towards me.

"Okay, fine, you want pills? Take em!" I threw handfuls of hydrocodone at them that I kept in my jacket for other research purposes, "Take 'em and leave me alone!" Only about half of these brain-dead folks took the pills and shambled away. But more started pouring in. I should've known they'd only want more.

Eventually, I ran out of hydrocodone to throw at them. "Receptionist boy!" I shouted, "Grab my universal problem-solver and meet me at that overturned table! We got ourselves a mostly-un-dead druggie infestation!" I ran backwards and kicked over a nearby snack table as the receptionist boy fetched my problem-solver. The nurses weren't going to like that when they came back.

"You guys want some drugs?" The crowd grunted an affirmative, "How about some hot lead?" My problem-solver accented this perscription with a bang as I pulled its trigger, "Mixed with a small dose of tungsten and antimony!" I fired again as the brain-dead druggies went down, "In the rather convenient form of double-ought buckshot!"

Ah, nothing like a crappy Dawn of the Dead parody to try and talk about a comic that sounds more like Shaun of the Dead.

The story starts with a waitress named Elizabeth Rose Cooper (or just "Lizzie") who got a B.A. in English. You see how that turned out early on in the story. She is just trying to scrape enough money to get by with her boyfriend and a cat.

Also, there's some guy named "Black Monday Blues" who kills a shitload of people for some reason. He also seems to be a Mets fan. I'm not sure why he is able to sleep in the middle of a zombie infestation, or how he found time to set up an elaborate trap to kill one guy. I suppose that us mere mortals are not meant to know this.

Their world is turned upside down by a zombie infestation. Of course, zombie infestations only happen in movies, so no one seems to notice except for the various TV and radio reports. Instead, Lizzie tries to retreat to her happy place where she suppresses her anger without any form of medication and the world becomes more colorful...literally.

The artwork is an interesting blend of ink and watercolors to provide some nice shading, though there do seem to be a few anatomical issues here and there...okay, a lot of anatomical issues, though they get better on in the later strips.

My one biggest caveat is the character of Black Monday Blues. Funky name aside, he seems to be a bit out of place in this comic. His run-n-gun scenes just seem to kill the story's momentum when laced in-between the scenes of Lizzie getting pissed off at her boss and her lot in life. I'm hoping the connection between the two characters and the zombie outbreak will be made clearer in later strips, but now it just feels kinda awkward.

In any case, the comic does provide an interesting twist on the usual zombie-horror genre with some tongue-in-cheek humor and a cat. If the unique artwork doesn't turn you off, then I'd definitely suggest keeping your eye on this relative newcomer to the world of webcomicry. Sure, the story could use a little work, but I'm sure there's still plenty of ground to cover.

I fired several times until the problem-solver clicked empty. The receptionist boy cowered behind the overturned table, obviously not accustomed to such violence from a supposed doctor against folks who were brain-dead enough for me to consider them zombies.

"Here," I tossed a bunch of keys at him, "Run down to the pharmacy, grab as much hydrocodone, cough syrup, and anything that could be used to get a quick high. It's the only way we can hold off these druggies until help arrives."

"But what about you?" He shouted, picking up the keys with shaky hands.

"Apparently, gun violence can't solve all our problems," I muttered, throwing the now-useless "universal problem-solver" at a nearby brain-dead druggie and unwrapping a needle full of morphine. "So let's try drug abuse instead."

To be continued...

Retrospective (Part II)!

2007-09-10T08:39:00.000-07:00

[a.k.a. the "Dr. Haus is sick (how ironic)" edition]

Clown Samurai by Quinn Fleming
Then: "Utamaro is a clown who hasn't made any kid laugh in three years. One day, he stops for a drink at a bar in Brooklyn after making a kid cry at his birthday party. Somehow, the bar is owned by a prominent mobster, who takes "Maro" in the back of the bar and gives him an offer to join their group. As a clown, he is able to infiltrate the home of another mobster whose daughter is having a birthday party of her own, and shoot him in a fierce firefight."

Now: The comic is still up, but it has stopped updating.

Emergency Exit by NJ Huff
Then: "The comic gets even bigger when you have a girl who wields a "Zapper" (a.k.a. that light gun for the NES classic, Duck Hunt) as a real weapon, a mailman who has a monocole and a pirate hook, a green-haired gamer who can talk to a female cat named Fred."

Now: Updating almost daily now with a much more serious tone than its earlier days. Admittedly, my comparison to early Megatokyo strips might've been a little hyperbolic. Most of the "serious" stuff has come in crossovers with NJ's buddies behind Beyond Reality and Parallel Dementia, and the goal behind the collection of the artifacts has not been made clear yet. Still, EE has become much more interesting since my last words on it.

Neotopia by David Coacci
Then: "Though Neotopia is a bit of a generic name, I'm willing to look past it as Mr. Coacci has built one hell of a strip with a solid foundation (provided you're willing to read some of the background material he wrote up). I just couldn't pass up the sight of seeing an elf in a Sam Fisher-esque suit."

Now: Domain name has changed, and the action sequence has ended and given way to a little more exposition behind the major players in the strip. The artwork is still pretty damn amazing. Also, it actually updates once or twice per week.

The Avatar by James Firkins
Then: "The real kicker of this comic is this fellow, "Sir Godfrey of Boullion." He seems to play the lovable retard of the comic, though it is unknown whether any of the characters really like him or not. Seriously, just try reading multiple strips featuring this character. It made Dr. Haus' brain implode, the sheer random retardedness of Godfrey will cause the same reaction within your own skull."

Now: Back in the day, the comic did have some of the most retarded humor of any webcomic I've ever seen. Nowadays, Mr. Firkins has done a complete 180-degree turn, making his strip into a much darker tale involving a CIA agent after the death of the American President.

Review #28: The Spiritual Journey of Dr. Haus

2007-09-08T12:51:00.000-07:00

I can has cheezburger?*

Title: Crowfeathers
Artist: Amy Watson ("Sagebrush")
Genre: Western/Supernatural
Updates: Sat, Tue
Link: http://www.crowfeathers.net/
*(for those not acquainted with the "LOLcats" meme, click here)

"Receptionist boy!" I shouted, stumbling into my office and making various folks in the waiting room jump up, "I have returned from my trip, and I have seen many awesome sights! I have looked into the face of the angels, I have seen giant one-eyed cat pouncing on a demonic crow! I saw a Native American shaman become possessed by a giant Sessomaru spirit! And I have seen..."

I suddenly stopped in the middle of describing my spirit quest. The receptionist boy was asking me why I stopped, until I held up a hand in his general direction. That's when I saw that crow, that creepy fucking crow from before.

"Doctor Haus," the crow spoke in English, "Your quest has not ended."

"Why not, dammit?" I yelled back at the crow, "Why must I be the one to sift through these webcomics?"

"It was not me that chose to be a Webcomic Watchman, Doctor Haus."

"You say that as if I have a choice, oh great and wise talking crow."

I could almost swear the crow laughed when I said that sentence. I took a moment to glance at the waiting room and watch the other folks waiting for their work to be reviewed. They all seemed to be frozen in place, jumping up from their seats upon my arrival. Time just seemed to stop as I focused on that laughing crow.

"There is always a choice, Doctor Haus. You could very easily walk away from all this."

"No, I've come too far to stop now," I growled, "I'm gonna finish this fucking review."

"Are you sure you are prepared for this responsibility, oh self-appointed Watcher of Webcomicry who claims to be a doctor?"

"Damn right I am, you talking crow! Now gimme that sweet, sweet spiritual release!" I shouted.

Next thing I knew, the crow was gone, and I was waking up inside a model tepee in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.

Crowfeathers, the story of a young kid named Chase Corbeau living in the old west. A half-French, half-Indian (think Sitting Bull, not Gandhi) kid whose real father was actually some ancient sky god, thus giving Chase the ability to turn into a giant crow.

Chase is not having much luck in life: A trio of witches ("the Brujas," according to the cast page) turned him into a crow from the start of the comic. Through a very extended flashback, he reveals how his mom and grandpa were killed in a fire by a crooked ex-sheriff, though the current sheriff Jimmy Tate and his sister take Chase in. After that, he gets attacked by a one-eyed cat demon with a hard-on for Chase, discovers that the town doctor is actually a snake-person, and then later in the story finds himself being a pawn in some supernatural civil war.

That's the best I can summarize the plot without giving too much away, but then again, this comic is currently on its 25th chapter.

It starts out interestingly enough with a bit of good ol' schoolyard drama and a crow who has somehow survived in what appears to be modern-day America that contains the essence of Chase Corbeau. After chapter 5, the story has essentially become one whole flashback with several interesting twists and turns.

However, I don't get when this story turned from a supernatural Deadwood into a Western Yu-Yu-Hakusho. Maybe it was the borderline snuff in chapter 8 (no, I'm not linking it), or the whole spirit battle scene over in chapter 17. Or maybe it's just the fact that I've tried to read over the whole comic within a few days. In either case, it seems there's still little about how this connects to the events at the start of the story: Why did Chase end up getting sealed by witches if he's fighting all these evil spirits? Couldn't these witches do something about those evil ghosts too? And how did he survive to what appears to be the modern day?

Let's move on. The artwork looks decent enough for black and white pencil and pens, but the characters still have that generic manga style look to them. This guy, though nicely detailed, looks less like an evil undead ghost and more like that old man who yells at those darned kids to get off his lawn. I'd hope a western-based comic would at least have some more western art influences to go along with it, but hey, to each his/her own.

There's a lot more I could cover about the story, like how Jimmy Tate's dead wife and son are constantly used as a cudgel to make you feel sympathetic to an otherwise flat side character, or the lack of elaboration on the relationships between the various spirits that inhabit this comic. But then this review would destroy 56k modems all over the world.

Overall, the doctor will give this comic a light recommendation, but only if you're willing to dig through all the strips to find the relevant story info.

"...and that's why I can't ever go to a museum again," I told the recptionist boy.

"Doctor Haus, if you didn't want to go to the museum, you could've just said 'no.' I didn't need that whole drawn-out story." The receptionist boy sighed and put the IMAX tickets back in his jacket, "I guess I'll just have to go by myself."

As the receptionist boy left the office, I looked outside the window in the waiting room. And then I saw that crow again. That creepy fucking crow.

"Looks like its back to watching webcomics for me," I sighed, throwing up my hands and walking back into my office. I had reviews to finish.

Retrospective!

2007-09-03T08:38:00.000-07:00

Yep, Dr. Haus is digging through the archives to sate you folks whilst he tries to get another review finished.

I blame Aarin for convincing me to try to update this with some form of regularity. Yeah, you heard me.

Joe and Monkey by Zach Miller
Then: "Take a delivery guy named Joe, a talking monkey, and a robot with a compulsion to steal everything (hence the name Kleptobot), and throw them all in the same part of Minneapolis where hilarity will inevitably ensue."

Now: Still funny in that subtle, newspaper-strip way. There's also the makings of a story too if you look at Miller's recent foray in GoComics (check the archives). And he's come out with two more books.

Edge the Devilhunter by Sam Romero
Then: "Romero pulls no punches in his strips, and apparently expects none to be held back. EtD gives voice to some of his politics, envisioning a futuristic America where the government is controlled by faceless corporations, American highschoolers are drafted to fight the never-ending War on Terror, and “NYPD Inc.” has a way of tracking down those who dare dissent from America’s government."

Now: A giant penis-face monster from Hell (Zajra, a.k.a. "Dickhead") breaks up a romantic moment between Jack (the protagonist) and Princess Tail. This could very well be the freakiest thing I've seen in a webcomic that wasn't mostly pornographic. Probably not the ideal strip one would want to see if reading this comic for the first time.

The Hero's Handbook

Then: "I know this comic is a parody and not a straightforward fantasy comic, so some pointless humor and plot devices are acceptable. However, clustering them all together within a short span of comic pages is just lazy in terms of storytelling. In a span of 13 strips, Lute breaks out of jail (with some help), conveniently finds the "Hero's Handbook," and spots nearby weaponry to fight the evil bandits."

Now: Hasn't updated in three months and change. The updates that have occurred since the above review was written haven't helped HHB suck any less.

Onward Bound by Darrick Chen and Dustin Baker

Then: "The setting appears to be a smorgasboard of different themes. It's set in an Old Western canon, yet the protagonist runs into a spellcasting mage, a sheriff with a metallic, steam-powered arm, and likes to smoke a slow-burning Dwarvish tobacco."

Now: The main link takes you to a page with a "Coming Soon" message. Not sure what's coming soon though.

Review #27: Pulpit of the Gnome

2007-09-01T23:12:00.000-07:00

Not exactly subtle, is it?

Title: Kidnapped By Gnomes
Artist: Kathy Peterson
Genre: Humor, political
Updates: Mon, Thur
Link: http://www.kidnappedbygnomes.com

[Sorry folks, the doctor isn't including a secret narrative with this one. You'll have to just take the review as is.]

This comic is about two gnomes named Ed and Wilson. One of them is blue, and one is purplish. They appear to live with a women named Kathy (self-inserted character?), who is never actually shown in the comic but implied in offscreen speech bubbles.

Kathy says all the way back in strip #1 ("The Disclaimer") that they won't be including any references to "...video games, furries, tv shows, L33T speak, anime, obscure sci-fi, or underage Japanese girls in their panties." Okay, I'm pretty sure you've just driven off a good portion of your potential audience with that statement, but what have you decided the gnomes should talk about if you want to shy away from the usual pop culture references?

Apparently, the answer is politics. I will say it is difficult to do political satire that doesn't feel like writing an old man sitting on the porch yelling at everything, (I'm looking at you, Fighting Words Comics.) but is quite spectacular when done right. So how does Ms. Peterson deal with it? Apparently, by retreading the same ol' right-vs-left humor. The political satire is a little funny, but I've seen a lot better and edgier.

There's also a bit of situational humor to be found: Wilson has a crush on Ann Coulter as a running joke, Ed wants to conquer Delaware for some reason, and they both hate the vacuum cleaner. But it just isn't enough to hold my interest.

As for the artwork...if you pick one comic at random, you'll notice that there's a lot of unused blank space just sitting there that could be used for...well, something that's not blank space. The gnomes themselves look less like this and more like amorphous blobs. Not to mention the arms that only appear when the script calls for it and the balls for feet.

To conclude, the Doctor recommends you take a look at Monkey Law. It's a decent example of how to write political humor while making the characters into something more than just political mouthpieces.

Quickie review

2007-08-29T23:53:00.000-07:00

The Doctor was asked to review a comic, under the subject line Omg review me lolz!!1 I thought he was being ironic, but I was wrong. As I looked through his almost 40 strips of work, I contemplated pouring bleach in my eyes. I also wondered if maybe this was just an elaborate prank to bring attention to some shmuck across the internet who was starved for any attention, whether or not it was positive.

While I could give this the full Doctor Haus treatment, this bastard stepchild of a webcomic doesn't deserve it. Instead, here is a simple one sentence summary review of Matt Newton's Land of Nodd, a supposed "humor" comic that forgot to be funny:

Reading "Land of Nodd" can't be that much worse than getting lung cancer.

Thank you for your time, and good night.

Review #26: Are Uwe Boll-ing?

2007-08-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, we totally believe you.

Title: [sic] Productions
Creators: Remy (writer), Jax (artiste)
Genre: Humor, movies and naughty puns
Updates: Weekly-ish
Link: http://www.sicproductions.com/

"Dammit receptionist boy," I growled, "I told you that information ain't for your ears."

"Oh c'mon Doctor Haus! What happened to that crazy bartender guy? You never finished that report, but you swiped some hydrocodone from the pharmacy!"

"I already said you'll find out when I'm ready to tell you! So who's my next patient?"

The receptionist boy sighed in defeat. "Some dude named...Uwe Boll?"

"Eh, I do ball occasionally," I said, suddenly remembering my humiliating defeat the last time I challenged a guy to a 1-on-1 game of basketball.

"Doctor Haus, his name is Uwe Boll."

"Oh jeez, another drama queen?"

"No, but he does claim that some guy beat him up and left him in a dumpster after stealing his recent movie script. He wrote something about a movie idea he had with Destro from GI JOE and some other guy with massive dreadlocks fighting Cutsman from the Mega Man games?"

"Wait, and you're telling me these guys stole that idea from him?"

"Oh yeah, and he says they threw in a catgirl, a cross-dressing wuss who becomes a dada detective, and a militant lesbian that..."

"Stop right there," I held my hand up to his face to emphasize the point, "You're sure he was fully conscious and sane when he was saying this shit?"

"Well, aside from the bruising, yeah."

"Here," quickly whipping out my trusty notepad, I wrote down a perscription, tore off the top page, and handed it to the receptionist boy, "Give this to him."

After reading the paper, he did a double-take before saying, "You're prescribing Mary Jane for this guy?"

"Why not?" I said, "Maybe if we're lucky, Uwe Boll will have a spirit quest and come out with an original idea that doesn't suck." With those words, I ran out the door, hopped in my car, and headed for the nearest movie theater. The local movie reviewer had to be warned before he became a patient of mine yet again.

After reading this far, you might be under the impression that I'm about to bury [sic] Productions six feet under. Well, you'd only be half-right.

The story seems based around a few self-inserted characters (Jax, Remy and their buddies are the main characters, but at least they don't take themselves too seriously) getting together to shoot a superhero film on a whim, based on pretty much everything I said above. Something about a hero with large dreadlocks and another hero with a bald head ("even Destro is gonna say, 'That's a bald bitch!'") fighting Cutsman from the Mega Man games for some unknown reason. To fund the shooting of this movie, they make a deal with a mobster named Ronnie Cordova, who doesn't seem to ask for much in return. But he does have a robot butler.

What's to like about this comic? The artistry does seem to evolve pretty well from some black-and-white sketches to fully-colored and shaded panels. Also, the humor in the comic seems to swing wildly between trite parodies to the occasional original situational comedy.

However, there is one big thing that I can't seem to find a good excuse for: Several characters suck.

Maybe I'm over-generalizing a bit, but the cast has grown so large that its hard to keep track of why we should care about many of them. Has the catgirl done anything other than act as a catalyst for the blonde-haired Beldin to grow a pair and do a film noir parody? How about the token black guy/dance choreographer/CIA agent, or the CIA woman with the huge freakin' gun who hires two other crazy women who are supposed to be evil? Apparently, the extent of their evil was replacing Jax's (the character's) wedding ring, magically turning him into a Hot Topic shopper and gluing on a soul patch. And that's not getting into the fact that several of the women that appear in this comic are either militant amazons, evil lesbians, or both.

And yet, despite all this, I will give them props for somewhat staying on a storyline that isn't used too often. When the jokes actually center around the movie-making quest instead of the dead horses of gaming parody or sexual stereotypes, the comic actually has a glimmer of hope...at least until some evil femi-nazi cutout smacks one of the dudes in the face.

Despite this, I can't bring myself to hate this comic. The "smart humor" fans out there may hate it, the "stupid-funny" fans will probably enjoy it, and the folks who like an actual story in their humorous webcomicry might like it if they can look past the stereotypes.

"No..." I muttered to myself, looking at the movie reviewer convulsing in the aisle of a movie theater screening room. I was too late.

"Doc, aren't you going to help him?" Someone shouted out.

"I can heal him," I shouted back as I ran down the stairs towards the reviewer, "But I don't think this guy will ever be the same again."

"What can we do?"

"I'll prop him up in a chair, just tell the management to start playing Adaptation over that screen and hope his jaded elitism will come back naturally." As the startled moviegoer ran out of the screening room, I thought out loud, "There's only one person capable of unleashing such horror upon this world: my archnemesis."

To be continued?

The NAQ! (v1.04)

2007-08-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

Well, most websites have one of these lists lying around somewhere, so I thought I’d introduce what shall henceforth be known as the NAQ (a.k.a. “The Nack”), the Never-Asked Questions, the questions you’ve always had but were too afraid to ask.

Who are you?

I am Dr. Haus.

…care to elaborate?

I am Dr. Haus, a young man living on the east coast who is currently going to college in the midwest. I’ve done a wide range of jobs including Janitor/Bagboy/Stacker in a supermarket, State Senate Page, and reviewing music CDs for a semi-independent online publication. I’ll probably be doing more in the future.

Are you a real doctor, or actually studying to be one?

Does the Pope take a crap in the woods?

You didn’t answer my question...

Tough shit.

Fine. So, what convinced you to start a blog about webcomics?

Because I am a huge fan of the medium. An outlet where people can put their creative energies on display for all to see, without always having to argue with some big corporation for shelf space. That, and when I started this I had a lot of free time on my hands. I read a lot of webcomics, and am often searching out new ones to explore, so I decided to put my creative energies to better use.

Do you have a webcomic of your own?

I would, but I can’t draw for shit. I tried teaming up with an artist on a couple occasions to make one, but both times, the artist just couldn’t follow through or simply vanished. So for now, I just make stories in the form of the written word.

If you can’t draw, what makes you qualified to judge my comic?

There are plenty of movie critics out there who have never acted or made a movie themselves, yet any positive quotes they make get slapped on the movie’s DVD case. There are food critics who have never worked as chefs, yet some restaurants frame their articles and plaster them on the wall. Yes, I have never created a webcomic, but I’ve seen enough of them in a large variety of art styles and story genres to know what should make a good one and what should make a bad one. You are perfectly welcome to disagree with my reviews either by E-Mail or commenting in the respective post itself, but don’t bitch and moan if I give your comic a bad review.

In short: Ebert's Law

You’re mean!

Believe me, I’m one of the nicest critics out there, especially compared to Mr. John Solomon, but I will still tell even the ones I like where they need improvement. The thing about webcomics is that, for every real diamond in the rough, five more exist that are complete and utter crap, and three of those crappy are sprite comics by people who can’t even write to save their lives, let alone draw. If you want someone to kiss your ass, there are plenty of other websites out there that will be glad for the exposure. But if you want an honest critique about your comic, the Doctor's office is always open.

Okay, so what’s up with your rating system?

Ah yes, the eternal question. Basically, I just call it the “Lazy-Ass Summary,” put there for people who don’t feel like reading the 3-4 or so paragraphs I wrote about the comic.

I rate the important aspects of the comic individually: Art, Story, Humor, Action, and Characters. These usually don’t factor into the overall score, but are kind of a warning what to expect. For instance, something like Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal would have low scores in Story and Characters because it is a “one-shot gag” strip, but its humor value would be high. The overall values are often based on the comic’s strengths, rather than its weaknesses.

Nowadays, the Lazy-Ass Summary has been eliminated.

Why did you stop the Lazy-Ass Summary when you came back?

Because I decided to quit trying to rate every comic when I saw that some of them actually have totally different writing and drawing methods than others, and just let the review speak for itself.

Why do you need to warn us of “evil stuff?”

Because I used to think people cared about that shit. Nowadays, it's disappeared with the rest of the Lazy-Ass Summary. I'll warn you if there's a conspicuous plethora of sex/violence/awfulness, but I take no responsibility for anything the artists of the reviewed comics have drawn.

I’ve been contacted by some guy named Adam, claiming to be your receptionist. Who is he?

Oh yeah, he’s my means of communicating with those pitiful souls who ask me to review their comics. He always complains about me having a God Complex or something, but just because I am the greatest man alive and people should worship me doesn’t mean I have a God Complex.

Why don't you update often?

Because I have a life outside of this blog. Unless you feel like paying me (hint, hint) to post, the reviews will come when I feel like writing them.

2007-08-26T20:35:00.001-07:00

Doctor Haus is busy getting high on life (*cough*and hydrocodone*cough*).

For the five of you still reading this...be patient.

Review #25: "The Ultimate-ish Showdown"

2007-08-16T18:01:00.000-07:00

I can't think of a better caption than that.

Title: Badass Muthas!
Artist: David Ryan
Collective/Studio: None
Genre: Action/Humor
Updates: ...don't ask
Link: http://www.badassmuthas.com

"I am not in the mood for this!" I shouted, filling the syringe with liquid from a vial I keep in my drawer for such occasions. "You got a beer bottle? I got a syringe with fucking potassium chloride here!"

"Bah, you're a doctor," the bartender finally stepped into the doorway, "You don't have the fight in you."

"Are you kidding? Do you know the comics I've viewed in the past few days? You wouldn't believe the shit that lurks in the darkest corners of the internet."

"Oh man, you really need to leave your room more. Get yourself a girlfriend. Too bad you won't get that chance." The bartender stared me down for a moment, which I took as an invitation to lunge at him with the syringe filled with potassium chloride. He dodged my attack and launched an uppercut with his broken bottle-holding hand, thrusting the shards right in my chest.

"You should've tipped me," he smiled, wrenching the broken bottle out of my chest only to see my bleeding body transform into a green leaf. He didn't know that I had acquired this new power after reading a new comic.

As I prepared to thrust my syringe full of potassium chloride into his neck, he would never know where I found it.

Badass Muthas! The story of a greenish fox-ninja thing named Guy McFly (because Speedy McNee was taken, I guess) and some blue guy called Ralph who can kameameha (did I spell that right? I really don't care) a demonic thing that's three stories tall.

Any attempt to explain the plot or setting after that will just cause severe convulsions within the reader. I'm guessing that us mere mortals are not worthy of knowing what the hell is going on. Something about how Ralph and Guy McFly (ugh) are conning people out of their money, and then get hunted down by some special forces guys, and then the fox ninja person gets injected with green fluid in his head only to escape the hospital.

Apparently, they live in a world that somehow combines sentient robots, swords, rocket launchers, very tall demons, religion, and shit like that. The heroes are apparently too cool to be facing any actual hardship or weakness other than lukewarm dialogue. Guy McFly hates authority and apparently can always escape death through ninjitsu or some inexplicable shit like that, while Ralph calls out the names of his attacks before he says them like a reject from Dragonball Z.

Sadly, it seems all the plot in the comic at the moment could be squeezed into a thimble.

The artwork has its own little charm, I suppose. It does have a way of standing out from the glut of generic manga-style that seems to permeate a good portion of the webcomic-o-sphere. But as unique as the art is, it doesn't mask the fact that this comic has little substance underneath aside from a few spectacular fight sequences.

So in the end, read it if you like fight sequences, just don't expect much in the way of plot. Then again, that approach hasn't exactly hurt Ninja Spirit.

EDIT (10:35 PM): The original conclusion was determined by the Doctor to be "not funny." A better one will appear shortly.

Up in the sky! It's a shitty arc!

2007-08-13T19:03:00.000-07:00

What the fuck?

No, seriously, what the fuck is this shit?

I was all set to do a review on another comic, and then I saw that Sunday splash image, and all that was right with the webcomic world just outright died. I think it's a sign that "Mookie" has officially jumped the mo-fuggin' couch of creativity. It also seems to be an admission that my suspension of disbelief has worn out its welcome in regards to this strip.

That particular page of the prolific Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire, for those of you who haven't read the arc, is the apex of the week or so worth of exposition of a crappy story arc. One of the Chosen that survived in some epic battle in a previous arc returns wearing a magical painted-on suit or some shit threatens to freeze the town to death. On its own, it would just be "meh"-worthy filler.

However, it seems Mookie never met a subtlety that he feels he must smash with the warhammer of "Deus ex Machina" so his idiot readers get the point. Go back to the 8/01/07 strip and click forward to see how everything was planned in minute detail, even the fucking chocolate cake that the evil ice-magic woman ate near the start of the arc.

But what really turned this whole arc into a sinkhole of suck? When it turns out that the way to stop the evil ice woman was for Dominic's white mage brother Gregory Deegan to transform into a mo-fuggin' Superman pastiche.

No, wait, I mean "Supermage!" My apologies. Apparently, in a world full of swords-n-sorcery, someone has the ability to print comic books of the most boring superhero ever. I'm guessing from the title that this guy has the power to use magic. Set aside the idiotic anachronism for a moment, can you imagine the conversation when some idiot showed his friends a Supermage comic?

"Look! I got the latest issue of Supermage! He can fly!"

"So? My brother just learned a flying spell today."

"He shoots laser beams from his eyes!"

"My uncle taught me the same spell last month."

"He can run really fast!"

"My mom already knows that spell. What else can he do?"

"Ummm...he can punch through steel?"

"That golem my sister made ripped open a bank vault."

"What about seeing through walls?"

"Dominic can look through fucking time and space."

"But I paid four bucks for this!"

"Greg, you're a fucking dumbass."

Of course, at the end of this arc, Gregory saved the day, and got an inexplicable Super~~man~~mage cape to wear out of the deal while his dearest brother Dominic planned the entire thing to teach him a moral about not overusing his power or some shit.

When you have to start ripping off fucking Superman, and not in a satirical sense, perhaps its time to put down your pen and come back in a few years when you can throw a storyline together that doesn't hinge on a walking, talking deus ex machina.

On a related note, the vengeful John Solomon explained this arc a lot better than I ever could have.

Special Edition: News Reel #1.1

2007-08-09T15:50:00.000-07:00

Well folks, Dr. Haus has been using his writing energies for things that don't include writing about webcomics, and has been inoculating himself with perfectly legal drugs for unrelated reasons. So until such time as he feels like doing another one, here's a few that may or may not find themselves reviewed:

Sword? Ess-Twelve-ord? Sizzord? Who thought that title was supposed to be cool?
"So there's a guy named Marsh, and he's rocketing across the universe, or something..."
Mommy, why does Little Red Riding Hood pack heat?

Review #24: A Thesaurus of Penis Jokes

2007-08-01T16:30:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-07-30T21:43:00.000-07:00

Dr. Haus apologizes for tricking you all into thinking he was going to update this with regularity, but adds that you only have yourselves to blame for believing it.

There is another review being written up that should present itself within the next 48 hours. Until then, enjoy this panel from a comic that is not from the web:

Oh, Stephen Colbert's Tek Jansen, where would we be without your awesomeness?

(Pic ganked from here, but it wasn't exactly his work to begin with.)

Review #23: A Shocking Revelation!

2007-07-23T22:14:00.000-07:00

Ooooh, BURN!

Title: Mystic Revolution
Artist: Jen Brazas
Collective/Studio: N/A
Genre: Humor/Fantasy
Link: http://www.mysticrev.com

“Dr. Haus?” The receptionist boy, banged on the office door, “Dr. Haus? We got several more patients here that need your…”

“I’m busy! Come back later!” Dr. Haus’ muffled voice yelled through the door.

“But sir, these guys need your attention…”

“I just told you, boy, I’m busy!”

“Dammit sir, I can’t keep up with all these calls!” The receptionist boy turned thee handle and burst through the door, “You need to…what is that?”

“What is what?” Dr. Haus shouted, furiously trying to Alt+F4 a window on his desktop, only to get a message from Firefox asking him if he wanted to delete all three tabs.

“You’re reading that comic? I thought you hated it?”

“Well, it seems that…”

“You called the artist a hack!”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes you did! Over a week ago! I heard you mutter it in a drunken stupor!”

Dr. Haus hesitated before replying, “I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

“Dammit, Dr. Haus! This shit is serious! If you’re trying to get back in the reviewing groove, you could at least take it seriously!”

“Taking it seriously is what burned me out before, my young receptionist. Speaking of which, don’t you have paperwork or some shit to fill out?”

As the receptionist boy left, Dr. Haus let out a long exhale, “Why couldn’t I have a hot female nurse like my archnemesis? Instead I got stuck with this lame college kid.”

With that comment out of the way, he canceled the closing of the Firefox window and continued to read the strip on his monitor.

So what do we have? Something about a L33T Ninja guy and a fallen angel (or banished GM, depending on your point of view) named Lourdes trying to survive in a dot-Hack-like world against some corrupted super-admin named Machiavelli (not this guy). Also, a couple catgirls and a guy with no clothes show up, thus ensuring further hilarity.

Over the course of the story, the team runs through the usual RPG cliches about evil bosses, level grinding and the good ol' "REZ ME PLZ" bit. Though the writer provides plenty of opportunities for romance to bloom between the two main protagonists (Ninja and Lourdes), the story does seem to tilt more towards poking fun at...something. I suppose it's a good thing that it doesn't just spend most of its time beating RPG cliches with a stick, but taking some time to establish its own unique storyline as well.

The artwork has its own little quirk as well: Constantly floating the line between full-bodied anime shtick and crazy chibi midget. Personally, I find it a little annoying, a la the crappy "Teen Titans" cartoon, but others may find it quite interesting. On the other hand, this particular style does allow the characters to express a wider range of emotion.

One little nitpick I have is that Mystic Revolution keeps switching between offering the setting as a gaming world, and as a self-contained fantasy. As such, suspension of disbelief hits a speed bump and gets tossed into the backseat often. Then again, you're probably not reading this for its realistic portrayal of World of Warcraft.

All-in-all, I'll give this comic a small recommendation. The humor is nice, the artwork is kinky, the characters are okay. The story ain't much that you haven't already seen in an episode of dot-Hack. And yet, I can't stop laughing at this particular strip. Skim through the archives, I'm sure you'll find something to like here too.

Review #22: "Are you the Beer Baron?"

2007-07-21T08:42:00.000-07:00

Part of a nutritionally-balanced breakfast!

Title: Lackadaisy
Artist: Tracy J. Butler
Collective/Studio: N/A
Genre: Hard to classify.
Updates: Whenever
Link: http://www.lackadaisycats.com

“Woah…” I muttered, the booze giving me that floaty buzz in my head, “This is some good stuff. Didn’t think you could get such libations these days.”

“Well, I got connections,” said the woman next to me, “Connections that continue to please my customers, even in this era of Prohibition.”

“Wow, when did the world start turning into a sepia tone?” I wondered aloud, staring at the bottom of an empty beer mug.

“Honey, you sure you just had one beer?” The woman asked, and as I looked up at her, she had turned into some freaky, anthromorphic cat. “What’s wrong?”

“Get away from me!” I muttered, jumping off the barstool and backing towards the door, “I’m a doctor! You don’t wanna know what I can do to your organs while I’m drunk!”

“You okay, man?” I turned around to notice a bouncer walking towards me, who had also transformed into a cat-person, “I think you’ve had one too many.”

“No.” I muttered, looking around the speak-easy, to find that the patrons of this establishment had all somehow taken on the form of anthromorphic cats, “I’m not crazy, the world didn’t just turn brown and filled with cat-people! It’s not true! It’s not true!”

My eyelids sprung open in an instant as I woke in a puddle of sweat in my own bed. The covers were unbearably warm. As I turned my head to face the nightstand and check the time, I saw a review I didn’t remember writing lying next to my alarm clock.

The semi-popular August J. Pollak once wrote that this comic “is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” While that might be a bit of an exaggeration, this comic is still pretty freakin’ awesome.

Sorry, that wasn’t very analytical language, was it? Let’s get serious for a brief moment:

This comic is set in Prohibition-era St. Louis. For those of you un-American folk reading this, it was a tragic moment in our nation’s history when alcoholic beverages were outlawed by a constitutional amendment, later repealed. The story is set around a speak-easy from that time, basically a place that secretly defied the ban to deliver booze to those who knew where to look. The only difference is that all the characters are anthromorphic cats, instead of people.

The story involves a big cast of characters, from a cold, Slavic cat with an eyepatch, to the feline equivalent of hillbillies, to the quirky, um...protagonist. In any case, it is interesting the way these varying personalities bounce off of each other, and makies for some pretty good writing.

The art does seem to have a Disney-ish quality to it, if you look at the very impressive drawing of the characters. Also, like a Disney movie, you have guns, explosions, a cat with the hugest-freakin’ smile I’ve ever seen (yet doesn’t stretch to un-anatomical proportions, a la The 19th Century Industrialist) almost getting run over by a train.

Sure, the artist does take a long time to release new strips. But the end result is more than worth it. The comic is well-drawn, the characters are well-developed, the humor is funny, and the action sequences are cool, what’s not to like about this comic? Well, if the idea of a world populated by cats turns you off, then maybe you should stay away from this. But otherwise, you’ll probably find something to like from this comic.

"Dr. Haus," shouted a man from outside my bedroom in a strange accent, "I got me half a Heineken with yer name on it!"

Upon hearing this, I reached under my pillow and pulled out a syringe. Something tells me I should've tipped that bartender from the other night.

To be continued...

[UPDATE: This post now has a title, and the review itself has an extra paragraph. The Doctor regrets the accidental omission.]

Review #21: "How to drown in self-pity"

2007-07-15T16:36:00.000-07:00

Title: spiky-haired dragon, worthless knight
Artist: "ak-ryuu" (real name unknown)
Collective/Studio: N/A
Genre: Fantasy, with a touch of humor.
Updates: Tue-F
Link: http://shd-wk.com/index.php

"Alright kid," I said, "I'm trying out a new format with these reviews I've decided to do again. So...what's your name again?"

"I'm worthless..." the kid responded.

"Kid, nobody's worthless...except maybe Carlos Mencia and George Bush."

"No, that's really my name."

"Huh." I muttered, flipping the papers on the clipboard again, "What seems to be the problem then, Mr. Worthless?"

"That's just it! I'm fucking worthless!"

"I heard you the first time."

"No, it's just that...I'm supposed to be this bad-ass knight from some unknown medieval time, but because of some stupid freaking curse placed on me, I can't pick up a weapon!"

"Really?" I asked, biting off a piece of gefilte fish from a toothpick that someone left in the break room, "That sounds serious."

"Tell me about it, I can't touch so much as a toothpick without it shocking me!"

"Wow, that must be some serious curse. Here, hold this." I said, handing him the toothpick while I slapped on some latex gloves. I suddenly heard a loud crash of plate mail hitting the floor of the room where I do my doctor stuff. "Ooh, you should've checked 'allergic to seafood' on this chart."

"No...it was the toothpick," He growled from the floor.

"Okay, so you want me to test your reflexes then?" I held out a large rubber mallet as a joke, but that worthless knight's face looked like it was trying to escape his head.

"Stay away from me!" Worthless shouted, running out the door as fast as he could in his plate mail.

"What a wuss," I chuckled before I looked over his archived strips for a little bit, and then prepared my latest review.

The main point of the story is thus: A young knight-in-training named Vincent Worthless is cursed in that he cannot pick up a weapon, which kinda sucks when you're supposed to be a knight. Apparently, the curse can be broken if he kills a dragon with his bare hands. When he meets a baby dragon at the very beginning of the story, you may think, "Damn, that was a quick comic." Surprise, it isn't.

From there begins the tale of the spiky-haired, mind-reading, booze-guzzling, trick juggling dragon, named "Spiky," who seems to have all the best lines, yet remains so darn cute that our protagonist can't bring himself to snap her neck. And then there's Vincent Worthless, who seems to spend most of the time moping about how much his life sucks, his curse sucks, the Baron and his black knight Siron treats him like shit, and he can't find the only girl who showed interest in him (long enough to steal his money, I might add). I suppose he's the medieval equivalent of your modern-day emo stereotype who feels like writing shitty poetry on his journal instead of actually doing something about his endless cycle of self-pity.

I'm sorry, but that's pretty much the main story. It's been going at a very slow pace during the course of less than four years. And the only character who's really kept things interesting has been Spiky, but one baby dragon can't pull all the weight in a comic where she shares top billing with a character who is about as sympathetic as a random emo kid on MySpace. As for Vincent, the only thing he seems to have done is get his ass kicked around.

There haven't been many action scenes, and the humor is chuckle-worthy, but not "ROFLCOPTERS!" funny. As for the art, it's passable, but I never thought I'd see something that would make me yearn for the stick figure-ness of XKCD. I swear those stick figures show more emotion in one strip than shd-wk has done in a year.

This comic hasn't done much to earn my ire, but at the same time, I can't think of a very good reason to recommend it either. Sure, Spiky ain't bad, but you can find a wittier animal companion in FOXHOUND, and he doesn't even have top billing in the comic! In the end, the comic is just too damn dry to swallow without enough booze to make the little jokes sound really funny.

With that review done, I raced down the hall after the sobbing worthless knight, only to find him being rushed to the IC ward. Apparently, he tripped over a crate full of old syringes that someone forgot to take out of the hallway. I did the only thoughtful thing I could, and gave him the username and password to a MySpace account I set up just for him, should he survive the ordeal. I may not have been able to cure his self-pity, but at least I could give him a way to vent it, considering he couldn't even shoot up a school without shocking himself from holding the gun.

Review #20: What's this?

2007-07-12T20:16:00.000-07:00

Title: The Nineteenth-Century Industrialist
Artist: Renee Katz
Collective/Studio: ComicGenesis
Genre: Humor
Updates: M/W/F (I think)
Link: http://thebaron.comicgenesis.com

"Doc, you gotta come back!"

"Receptionist boy..." The doc muttered, shaking a glass full of ice in his hand, with a small brown spot at the bottom indicating that some alcoholic beverage once inhabited it, "I...I thought told you...piss off."

"Uhh, no you just told me that now."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, then here's your second one: piss off!"

"Dammit Dr. Haus! What happened to you?"

"I just couldn't keep it up." The doctor gulped down whatever drop was left in his glass, then proceeded to start chewing some of the ice around in his mouth. As he chewed, he continued, "Dammit, what is going on with webcomics these days? Everyone tryin' to be the next Penny Arcade or...or the next...whatever fucking insult to 'Dot-hack' this is! Dot-hack! Hah! More like the artist is a hack!"

"Dr. Haus, you were usually snarkier with your put-downs! You even reviewed one in the style of the Rude Pundit, even if it was with more restrained language! You're better than this!

"Oh really?" He proceeded to chew the remaining ice around his mouth from the cup in his hand, "Like what?"

"Well, there's this one I found in your absence that I can't stop reading."

"Lemme see it," Dr. Haus said, "What the hell is this shit?"

"It's The Nineteenth-Century Industrialist, sir."

"So, who cares about the industrial revolution?"

"Uh, sir. It's not that simple."

"Then what is it about? A stereotypical rich, evil Jew with bad teeth?"

"Well...yeah, actually."

"Then I don't wanna read it."

"Dammit sir, look through the archives!"

"Fine, if it'll make you shut up."

And as the beloved Doctor Haus flipped through the archives of this comic, he suddenly felt a warm feeling in his gut, one that wasn't induced from the booze he just drank.

"Hmm," The Doctor muttered, cracking his knuckles, "I feel a review coming on..."

It seems that this comic is a one-stop shop for 'stupid' humor.

Lesse, right off the bat, you'll notice this strip contains lots of tension between the old 19th century industrialist with bad teeth and a monocle named Hiram Thorpe who hates the environment and his workers, yet is inexplicably the owner of a factory in the present day (probably because he bleeds oil). Throw in the disgruntled poster boy of the working-class hero, named "Grimey," who seems to clash all the time with his foil in the small, androgynous, happy-go-lucky worker named "Sooty". What do you get? FUN! IN ALL CAPS! WITH SEVERAL EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!

Also, there's some dude named Professor Scourge (who knows the secret of how Thorpe appears in the present, but won't say why), and Karl Marx shows up early in the comic. Oh, and don't forget Uncle Sam, Pope Panzerfaust I, and other people who don't really matter.

So, what's to like about this comic? One-shot jokes and schizophrenic humor. Witness how, in one strip, Uncle Sam fucks up Thorpe's office before verbally berating him. Directly following that strip is a mini-arc where the Pope and his "Priest Patrol" try to forcibly extract some charity from him (no, not like that! What the Hell is wrong with you people?).

The art also seems to match this style of humor perfectly. Sometimes, you'll see Thorpe's mouth stretch to ginormous proportions when he's berating his workers. Other times, you'll see him turn all chibi-like when he's happy. Also, just look at the last four panels in this strip. Thorpe's face takes on an almost Looney Tunes-esque transformation.

Long story short, if you want to find a stupid humor comic that doesn't simply retread gaming jokes and pop-culture references, but allows you to laugh at your asshole boss who won't give you that raise for your minimum wage job, despite working to the bone for him (me? Bitter? Nah.), then you'll love this comic.

And as the bartender came to pick up the tab, the Doctor had disappeared, leaving only that brief review on the barstool as proof that he was ever there.

"Dr. Haus," The bartender growled, grabbing a pre-made broken bottle, "You think this shitty review will sate my thirst for money? Guess what, when I punch out, your ass is mine!"

To be continued?

Please turn off the lights...

2007-02-11T14:47:00.000-08:00

Lemme lay it down quite simply: Dr. Haus has let this slide for too long. This has simply become a low priority compared to the other things in life that demand attention. As a result, this blog is on official hiatus, unofficial death.

I'll keep this blog up for posterity's sake, but I just lack the energy to make a decent update anymore. Sorry for the five or ten of you who still read this.

"Where Are They Now?" #3: Go For It!

2007-01-15T13:51:00.000-08:00

Once again, the battle rages on...

Our current subject is an amusing webcomic I found last September, entitled "Go For It!" Drawn by R.L. Peterson, a member of the "Cornstalkers" collective, this collection of mostly one-shot strips has some rather edgy insights on the various absurdities of life, religion and self-proclaimed "otaku" culture.

From the Trix Rabbit ("It was just for some f**king cereal! What the f**k is wrong with you kids?) to the existence (or non-existence) of God. Not to mention an interesting jab at a lot of webcomics that The Doctor has viewed before pausing to reflect on the time he's wasted at his computer (I won't name any names, just look through my previous reviews). And that's just within the first 15 strips.

Aside from joking about the usual suspects, like D&D, DBZ, and Peterson also ups the ante by exploring less-explored areas like liberal guilt, global warming, and even editorial cartoons themselves. And as mentioned above, you won't believe all the shit he gives so-called "otaku" throughout the comic. There are too many examples to list here, but trust me, you'll know it when you see it.

So where is he now? According to recent reports, he's doing college stuff in London. That's about all I know. Even so, this is one of the funniest comics out there, provided you aren't invested emotionally in the characters of FFVII or Inuyasha. Go read it. Now.

Review #19: ...where no one can hear you "guffaw."

2007-01-01T11:03:00.000-08:00

What the hell is that thing?

Title: The Far Reaches
Artist: Gerhard Bahnsen
Collective/Studio: Outlandish Studios
Genre: Comedy/SciFi
Updates: Usually biweekly
Link: http://www.thefarreaches.com (link updated)

A long time ago (February '02, I believe) a joint project between the creators of RPG World and Adventurers! (Ian Jones-Quartey and Mark Shallow, respectively) was born, called Starsomething. Then it went on hiatus, then continued, and then just stopped after November '04.

This comic has nothing to do with that, but it will give you that satirical scifi fix you've been looking for ever since Starsomething unofficially "kicked the bucket," as the old folks say.

The story starts with a young, wealthy guy named Gilrec Dauntless, who has apparently decided to retire to the countryside in his mid-to-late 20's (take that, you young, poor farmboy protagonists!) with a butler robot. However, it isn't long before an old friend convinces him to board an interstellar ship that happens to be attacked by aliens that look kinda like Ivan Ooze with longer faces. Oh, and the robot butler kicks ass too.

The good thing about this comic? It manages to stay humorous without constantly referencing other SciFi shows or memes, unlike Starsomething.*

Lazy-Ass Summary:**
Art: Starts out black and white, but transfers into full color. Pretty good CG graphics and art that drifts between Disney and manga styles, though the occasional chibi-ness of the characters feels a bit unnecessary.
Story: Still kinda growing, though aside from the Star Wars-ish intro, it doesn't feel rushed and the relevant stuff is mostly explained.
Humor: See above paragraph, or read the comic. I ain't writing it again.
Action: Some good action sequences in the middle, though I was hoping for
Characters: Interesting variety, from the Palpatine-esque cyborg uncle to the butler robot.
Money Quote: "No, it can't be...NIGH-PSYCHOTIC CYBER SHEEP!"
Final Thoughts: It's a worthwhile read. You might like it.***

(*This statement is subject to be proven wrong in the future)
(**After much contemplation, I decided to keep the Lazy-Ass Summary, but dispense with the point system)
(***The Doctor regrets that he lacks the creative energies to come up with anything better than that at this time. This is also subject to change later on.)

Humorous!

2007-01-01T10:48:00.001-08:00

Is it not?

Special Edition: The News Reel!

2006-12-12T17:25:00.000-08:00

(Alternate Title: "Watching webcomics in two sentences or less!")

Hello everybody, this is "The Receptionist" again.

Dr. Haus is still missing in action, leaving behind little more than a note saying that he was going to deal with a cliche. I'm not sure what he meant, but I hope he comes back alive.

Anyways, it's finals week at my university, and I don't have time for a full review, but I can give you a sampling of what may be reviewed via this "News Reel."

Have no fear, the Zero Hunters are here to save the day, including "Slant-Eyed Asian #1" in the third panel! And he has swords, too!
I don't know what's worse, that Solid Snake looks like a Vietnam-era hippie with bitch tits, or that Giando feels like mocking those "90's-era [genre] CD collection" commercials without actually being funny.
"What do you read, my lord?" "Words, words, words."

Bonus points to whoever can name where the dialogue comes from (hint: It isn't a webcomic)

OMG THIS IS T3H MOST 0R1G1N4L COMIX EVAR!!!11!!!1onetyone!
Heh, he put those dogs to sleep...what?
A knight in a trenchcoat on a beach. Now if he could only control his nose, that picture would be real awesome.

Review #18: Sicario: Hidden Angels

2006-12-04T18:39:00.001-08:00

"Only HE can tell me why this 'mysterious silhouette with red eye' effect hasn't worn off yet! Seriously, it's annoying the crap out of me!"

Title: Assassin: Angeli Nascosti
Artist: Trenton Thompson
Collective/Studio: Mystic Way Productions
Genre: Action!
Updates: Weekly (Fri)
Link: http://www.mysticwayproductions.com/Home.htm

Hi y'all, this is "The Receptionist" Speaking, covering Dr. Haus' ass for the past few months. However, the good Doctor has mysteriously disappeared, and with few signs of returning, I must take it upon myself to hack into his account and write a review for him until he gets back.

Anyways, onto our current subject:

It starts, as most webcomics do, with a happy young white boy dragging a sled up a snowy hill, well, at least with the "happy young white boy" part. With a face that almost looks like clay in the second panel, not to mention at the end of the page with the shrunken arm, the smoking twig in his mouth, and a head that looks like someone snuck into Cloud's hair gel stash, we can already tell the comic is going off to a great start.

Next thing you know, Manuel Noriega has survived...oh, excuse me, that's "Noriyega", my bad. Anyways, Isamu barely notices winter coming, despite the fact that he's playing in freakin' snow.

Oops, wrong again. It was a botched allegory to the fact that his entire family is going to be killed by snipers, except for his dad, who is killed by a teenager who appears to have had a tragic accident in a black ink and red light manufacturing plant, or something. Oh, if you haven't seen the comic, then don't read that last sentence.

Look, I can understand the "mysterious silhouette" effect, but if the silhouette is kept up while the person is portrayed in plain view with no shadows in sight, then that's when my "Suspension Of Disbelief" (or S.O.D.) begins to slip.

But back on topic, for reasons unknown, the kid manages to evade two assassins on snowmobiles with combustible engines with nothing more than a simple wooden sled with steel skids and no engine at all. And then, if your S.O.D. isn't already dead, the fact that the ice underneath one assassin and future protagonist just happens to be the part that's thin enough for them to sink, without the evil dude pulling the trigger, should shatter it.

As if that weren't enough of a "deus ex machina" (or "God of the Machine," one of the few Latin phrases I know), Permanent Silhouette Man decides to rescue the kid instead of his own comrade. His only reason being that "...he has potential." I was tempted to laugh at this, only to realize that "Holy shit, this dude is serious!"

So then we fast-forward to a part where Isamu wakes up, his hair gel still working overtime, in a rather swanky bedroom. Seriously, is this how they treat the son of their hated enemy? Maybe I should ask my dad to piss more people off and then take me on a trip to Alaska. Apparently, this grand bedroom is part of the "Vendetta Syndicate's Assassin Training Base." And they immediately start training him to become a cold-blooded killer (insert "Montage" here). Why? Just cuz' Isamu's got that spiky hair, that's why! Oh, and don't bother looking for an explanation of how he trains to become an assassin, that stuff is just meaningless filler to Mr. Thompson. Maybe he'll expand upon it later in the comic, but he's got a story to tell about a great young assassin, and by God, he's gonna tell it! Fuck elaboration!

Of course, it takes him 16 years to finally yell at the old butler, "Hey, you mean they're training me to kill people? And you're telling me I didn't actually die that night? When did this happen?" And that's not even mentioning that huge brown hair-stalk that seems to stretch over his left eye in the last panel.

By now, if your S.O.D hasn't left the station, it's probably stolen your credit card to buy plane tickets instead.

Lazy-Ass Summary: Temporarily unavailable until Dr. Haus can be located again. But here's the final word.

The art could use some work, but it is better than a good lot of webcomics out there. However, the story still needs a lot of tweaking. And no fancy Flash cover page with generic, ominous background music is going to hide that.

Developments

2006-11-10T11:44:00.000-08:00

First of all, Dr. Haus would like to thank a certain Bean (of the non-"Mexican Jumping" variety) for displaying his alter-ego in a recent comic of his making, called Parallel Dementia. Just look in the background of the first panel. On the other hand, Bean, don't think the Doctor is going to show you any mercy for your "contribution" should your comic be featured on this site!

Now that that's out of the way, the Doctor has been tied down for the past month or so (with the exception of the post below) with everything from quizzes to medical problems to a half-assed attempt at NaNoWriMo that looks like it may fall short of the goal, and thus has had little time to post on this or any blog. However, I have recieved a couple of requests, and, time permitting, both of you still reading this will finally see a real update.

Now if you'll excuse me, The Doctor must finish a certain assignment. Shalom, y'all.

Special Edition: "On Notice"

2006-10-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

You better believe it, you people brought this on yourselves. As Saint Stephen Colbert displays below, you all are On Notice!

Oh yeah, feel the burn! Dr. Haus has officially declared open season, biyotch!

Scott Kurtz: For drawing a gaming comic that no longer really talks about games. I think Kurtz has become more like Jim Davis (creator of Garfield) over the years, just drawing whatever it takes for Image Comics and his legion of fans to send him a paycheck.

OnlineComics.net: For what originally started out as a good idea, but has now turned into a cesspool of crap where anyone can pimp their poor excuse for a webcomic for free.

"Fighting Words" Comics: Because all it takes to make a political cartoon is just cutting up paragraphs of a blog entry and pasting it onto different panels while drawing a line to a head with its mouth open, or at least that's what Ben Smith seems to think here. Maybe he should take a page from Kirk Anderson's Banana Republic instead.

John Joseco: Because his art style may be good, but it seems his writing mostly wanders along two different schools of thought: soft and hard(NSFW). Makes me wonder if he did a small stint as the sexpet of a femme dominatrix in his past, and then poured out his frustrations afterward by drawing all the girl-on-girl innuendo and action he could muster.

Christopher Paolini: Okay, he isn't in webcomics, but I still fucking hate him. The home-schooled young writer who managed to get a publishing deal at the age of 19 thanks to his parents, and now has a movie and a video game coming out. All this based on a book that looks like someone took Lord of the Rings and the Star Wars prequel trilogy, tossed in a bunch of convenient plot devices, and spitted it all onto the page while the rest of us actually have to work hard just to get a short story published for a profit, let alone a freakin' novel.

Hugh Laurie: Because he totally stole the name Dr. Haus from me, except he spells it "House." I'm onto you, Laurie!

NJ Huff: I can understand you wanting to try for more of a serious story, but this formerly "stupid funny" comic has just turned into a freakin' dark soap opera. Eric Burns of Websnark calls this little change of mood "First and Ten" syndrome, where "Rather than be a mix of the Funny and the Story with much better developed characters and more of a sense of reality, the strips fall into a suckfest of angst and misery, with bad things happening to characters we like and all sense of fun beaten out with a stick."

People who review webcomics: Because you have too much time on your hands! Throw those empty pizza boxes away (or recycle the cardboard, that's better), get off your lazy ass and go outside! Learn some Krav Maga or maybe even meet some girl. Do something other than bitch about other people on a blog where you'll be lucky to get 5 regular readers unless you somehow get linked by Penny Arcade or Ctrl-Alt-Del through an act of God!

And for the record, I am not a webcomic "reviewer," I am a Webcomic Watchman. There's a difference. Until next time, this has been a special edition post from Dr. Haus, I hope you all enjoyed it. If you wish to praise me, my E-Mail can be found on the sidebar, just replace "-at-" with "@" when sending me a message.

UPDATE: Saint Stephen is so great that he took up a hella lot of space, so I just had to shrink it down to a thumbnail, but you can still click it and get to the real picture for full effect.

2006-10-25T23:05:00.000-07:00

See, I was actually planning on posting an "update-related-activity," but now Blogger feels like going batshit again.

If this message gets through, my next update will be courtesy of Saint Stephen himself. That is all.

Review #17: "Your next storyline will involve a Civil War, amirite?"*

2006-10-05T15:05:00.000-07:00

Lex Luthor called, he wants his suit back, and his cheesy one-liners.

Title: Bad Guy High
Artist: "RedDeath" (possibly Dan something?)
Collective: DrunkDuck
Genre: Action/Comedy/Fancomic(?)
Updates: Biweekly
Link: http://www.drunkduck.com/Bad_Guy_High

I imagine that the creator of Bad Guy High originally wanted his comic to be a lighthearted look at "the other side" of the superhero comic genre, the evil people. But about halfway through the comic, it seems the humor just died inside him.

Now, I can understand how some artists eventually get tired of doing joke-a-day strips and want to form a more coherent storyline, like Dominic Deegan. However, one thing that Michael "Mookie" Terracciano has that our current subject does not is original material. For example, when the majority of your comic's humor revolves around simple reference gags like this (Ha, he's like Superman but he isn't!), this (Ha, he's like the Silver Surfer but he isn't!), this (Ha, he's like He-Man but he isn't!) or this (does DC know about this comic?), it's a sign that you've stopped caring about making anything original and instead you've decided to pass off the Cliff's Notes of old famous comic storylines as your own work.

I will praise the fact you can draw reasonably well, and with more of a Western style than the multitude of comics ripped from a "How to Draw Manga for Idiots" guide. But of all the humor and story possibilities you could've had with "bad guys" as main characters, you just turn them into carbon copies of characters from actual cartoons with the occasional forced fights with the "heroes" of your story just to remind your readers and perhaps yourself, "oh, right, that dude's evil!" It just looks like someone's fan-fiction grew a little too fast.

Look, if you want to draw for DC Comics, send them a few strips and maybe they'll accept you. But don't spit on my cupcake and tell me it's your special frosting, becuase in the end, it's still just spit.

Lazy-Ass Summary
Art: 3.5/5 Pretty good western-style artwork, aside from a few small anatomical issues.
Story: 2/5 I think there was one, but then it got lost in the second-rate fanfiction.
Humor: 2/5 See above
Action: 4/5 Actually, there are some pretty good action sequences
Characters: 1.5/5 I can't find that many that aren't cribbing from some other famous character. I mean, your second-main character is a fucking rip-off of Superman, with little comedic twist other than "Ha, he's like Superman but he isn't!"
Overall (not an average): 4/10
Evil Stuff: Plenty of cartoon violence, some blood and occasional dark themes (but chances are you won't care).
Final Thoughts: The Doctor reccommends that you (both the artist and the poor schmuck reading this) take a look at The Last Days of FOXHOUND. This is how a fancomic is done right, despite the poor artwork. BGH, on the other hand, is an example of an out-of-control fancomic that deserves to be taken down a few pegs...with a mallet.

*(Alternate Title: "Bad Guy High? More like Bad Gay High, amirite?")**
**If you don't get this joke, you need to read Mitch Clem's Nothing Nice To Say. Now.

I know...I know...

2006-10-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

I've let you guys down by saying I'd come up with a review in a week and now I have nothing to show for it. But Clark Kent duties have kept your Doctor from doing his review. The Doctor will do his best to squeeze out a review within the next 36 hours, but he makes no promises.

A summary of webcomic drama that no one could give two shits about:

2006-09-27T21:09:00.000-07:00

Yeah, the title pretty much says it all.

Apparently, there's a big hubbub about some outfit named Platinum Studios buying DrunkDuck, spiffing up the website, and releasing it as DrunkDuck 2.0! Now with only 70% of the crappy, unimaginative sprite comics that existed before and 25% more crappy, unimaginative actual stories! Apparently, they plan to give a few artists some stipend for doing good comic work, including the oft-rebellious D.J. Coffman and the team of people behind some new comic called Cowboys and Aliens. The only one I recognize is a writer named Fred Van Lente for his work on The Silencers and Action Philosophers!

In any case, professional webcomic dude/asshole Scott Kurtz and his professional groupie Kristopher Straub got their respective panties in a wad and started screeching at DJ Coffman and anyone else who cares about the integrity of webcomicry...seriously, was Scott McCloud's phone busy? Must've been, because he's the only other guy I can think of who would care.

In this case, I believe in the free market principle: If you think it's a good business model, then go take your shit to Platinum and ask for a paycheck. If you don't, then keep going with your own method of selling your webcomics or webcomic-related material. Lord knows Kurtz could find outlets for his shit long before anyone even heard of Platinum Studios.

With luck, I will finish my review of a comic that deserves a kick in the ass within the next week. Here's a hint: It's a "popular" comic even before DrunkDuck had a "two-point-oh" where the comedy relies purely on references to DC/Marvel characters.

Review #16: "Tearing across new (perforated) lines!"

2006-09-01T01:05:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not Dante from "Devil May Cry"! I have a scar, dammit!

Title: Hunters: Fall of Evergrace
Artist: "ScreamSin" (real name unknown)
Collective: None
Genre: Action/Supernatural
Updates: Unknown
Link: http://www.evergraceonline.com/huntersentrypage.htm

Let us see how many cliches we can spot in the first 40+ pages of this (*cough*) masterpiece:

An evil blood cult [1] tries to raise some huge monstrosity through sacrificing the blood of innocents [2] when a mysterious, [3] brooding [4] antihero [5] [with fireproof clothing] named Night [6] and his team of Hunters [7] fight against these evildoers whilst spouting cheezy one-liners[8] for reasons unknown. For some reason, no one bothers to look out their bedroom window [9] and notice that a monster the size of a tall office building [10] is walking right outside[11]. Night slices people with a sword about the same size as his whole body [12] while others use guns, a chain whip [13], and magic. Including one gunfight scene that almost seems ripped off of The Matrix Reloaded [14].

I really should've paid more attention to this comic, but there's really not much to say about it. A bunch of cultists, "Hunters", demons and Not-Dante from DMC fight each other for...some reason that hasn't been explained yet. If you've drawn 42 pages of comics, and you haven't even begun unraveling any sort of plot, and you aren't drawing "Pointless Violence," then maybe you should just start over. Hell, look at Neotopia [Review #7]. It only has 47 pages as of this writing, but at least it gave us a little history about the protagonist before giving us the action. This thing doesn't even go that far, nor does it have nearly the quality of artwork to help me overlook its flaws.

Lazy-Ass Summary
Art: 2.5/5 Not entirely bad, but GAS plus blurry special effects equals not that great.
Story: 1/5 If you squint hard enough, you might find a semblance of one.
Humor: 1.5/5 It kinda parodies itself, unfortunately. Otherwise, not much humor attempted here.
Action: 2.5/5 Look at this scene, apparently, he felt like ripping off the Cartoon Network's version of Justice League as well, where superheroes are punched through conveniently placed skyscrapers without any damage to them or anyone inside.
Characters: 1.5/5 "For the last time, I'm not Dante! And stop calling me a Mary Sue! So what if I hang out with a bunch of androgynous Hunters who feel the need to slaughter evil things for an unknown reason?"
Overall (not an average): 3/10
Evil stuff: Plenty of simluated blood product and violence.
Final Thoughts: What's there to say? This webcomic sucks. Just thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that "ScreamSin" can draw passably or this would be one of the many sprite comics that seem to pop up every 5 minutes on DrunkDuck.

In other news, does this mark the return of Dr. Haus to both of his regular readers? That is unknown, but I had written some of this, and viewing it again gave me the inspiration to finish it.

We shall see if this marks an actual comeback.

UPDATE (9/21): Oh noes! Some guy on the internet doesn't like me! Whatever will I do?

Hiatus will (hopefully) end soon.

Hiatus

2006-08-21T12:51:00.000-07:00

I apologize to the both of you still reading this blog, but The Webcomic Watchman is officially on hiatus until further notice.

Ain't that a bitch?

2006-08-11T09:11:00.000-07:00

Just two days after my new computer seems to have been fixed, the damn memory fails again. So it looks like it'll have to be replaced entirely, along with the review I was cooking up on a seperate Word file. Note to self: save a copy online.

Apologies...

2006-08-08T17:59:00.000-07:00

Shortly after the receptionist returned, Dr. Haus had to fight a rogue antivirus program on his newest computer. With luck, there will be a review tomorrow.

In other news...

2006-08-04T12:22:00.000-07:00

My receptionist has plans to attend that gathering in Baltimore called the "Otaku Convention," or "that whiny bitch that Solid Snake has to deal with," though others refer to it (and him) as "Otakon." He asked me if we could reserve a table, and I was forced to shank him in the thigh with a syringe for asking such a question. As if I could afford reserving a table in a convention center for some of my target audience. Next thing you know, people will be expecting me to update this blog on time!

So anyways, for the few of you still reading this, and the fewer of you going to this thing right now, my receptionist is planning to crash this conference on Saturday and possibly Sunday as an "attendee". He'll be the tall guy with glasses and a little facial hair. You should be able to narrow it down from there. And if you don't see him, then blame the Otakon people for not reserving a room just for me.

Review #15: A Modest Proposal

2006-07-25T12:31:00.000-07:00

Why God? Why did I already use my alloted DBZ caption when it would've made more sense here?

Title: Ninja Spirit
Artist: River Daniels
Collective: Blackie Dog Studios (not really a “collective” so much as a self-run studio)
Genre: Action with a dash of comedy and a pinch of romance
Updates: Twice a week (usually)
Link: http://www.ninja-spirit.com/

Dear Alfred R. Kahn, Chairman and CEO of 4Kids Entertainment,

Tell me, are you in the market for another animated series that you can run straight into the ground whilst translating it for the under-18 American consumer? Do you want an even bigger share of the licensing moolah that normally goes to those “other” companies? Well, look no further than Ninja Spirit!

I know, some young intern might ask you something like, “Why would we want to pick this show up? It’s just another cartoon about ninjas!” Well, after you finish firing that dumbass for daring to question your unholy wisdom, listen to the rest of my proposal. This comic already has plenty of what your company looks for in a potential animated series:

--Stereotypical characters with funny names, including, but not limited to: Yuki Misaki the all-around good guy, Tom Brisket (no, not that Brisket) the jock, Dave Btwys-Y-Cawr [sic] the nerd, Johannesburg “Joe” Lockhart the closeted loner, Hello Kelly the cold-hearted bitch, and Key Lime “Keylie” Pitrowski the quiet girl.
---(Between this and my last review, I’m still waiting for someone to name their villain Dastardly Macaroni Salad or Doctor Snidely Evilton, so I can finally pick up a scalpel, drown my inhibitions in bourbon and then proceed to hunt down those responsible for thinking up these names.)

--A ton of action and special effects, with the bonus “Dragonball Z Syndrome” (or DBZ-S for short) you already have in One Piece and Shaman King, so you don’t need to think about complicated things like plot development.
---(For the few of you who don’t know what DBZ-S is, it’s basically a way for the artist or writer to extend fight scenes longer than they should go on, without any character actually dying or even suffering lasting injuries except in rare cases. And even then, he or she might still be quickly brought back to full strength through some deus ex machina later on.)

--People shouting out attacks in non-English languages (though you can easily switch them to more American-sounding names, lest you be accused of “insensitivity”).

--While we’re on the subject, the whole story is set in a fake, generic, Japanese sounding town (Kawasaki), despite the fact that this comic could’ve been set in southern California and nothing would seem conspicuously out of place! Hell, just give it a generic, fruity sounding name, like Orange City or Fairweather Town. Your audience won’t care!

So not only will you pick up a potentially profitable franchise, but your editors will have some of their work already cut out for them! Of course, this cartoon does contains some icky things like blood, bad language, violence, gay jokes, a few high-school romance scenes and other items that will prompt a few bible-beaters somewhere to spam the FCC until they come down on the TV station displaying this cartoon quicker than our President’s lips on Joe Lieberman’s face. But that didn’t stop you from editing a substantial portion of your series’ content before. After all, US kids don’t read anymore! You could probably cut out half the story that exists and your target age group will still eat this shit up like John Madden at an “all-you-can-eat” buffet!

And the merchandising opportunities! Think of the money you could get from making Tenko plushies for Wal-Mart, or selling special edition Ninja Spirit action figures and toys inside McDonald’s Happy Meals! Those are just some of the many ways to make money and compete with those bastards at ShoPro/VIZ who hold the Naruto license.

I just ask for a modest 20% cut of the profits. For his effort in making the franchise you will be bastardizing until he disowns it in shame, Mr. Daniels can have $20 from the profits made as well. If you need to contact me, my receptionist’s contact info is attached. I’ll be awaiting your response.

Sincerely,
Dr. Haus

Lazy-Ass Summary
Art: 3.5/5 (Coloring is decent, with some awesome effects during the fight scenes. However, the occasional animated .GIF panels might throw off some people.)
Story: 2/5 (As I said before, this comic has a case of DBZ-S. The story is your standard “find the magical item and train to defeat the evil dude” plot with some predictable twists in between the fight scenes.)
Humor: 2/5 (Starts out funny, but then undergoes a slight transformation, suggesting that Mr. Daniels might have acquired a slight case of “Cerebus Syndrome” by the end of chapter one.)
Action: 4.5/5 (If you thought the action in Naruto was well choreographed, this comic is for you. This thing has action by the ass-load.)
Characters: 2.5/5 (Maybe he was just playing around with the characters at the start of Ninja Spirit, but this cast of Power Rangers rejects takes itself way too seriously).
Overall (not an average): 6.5/10
Evil Stuff: Lots o’ violence, some blood, cursing, gay jokes (though those taper off after the second chapter).
Final Thoughts: The webcomic equivalent of what they refer to in the movie biz as a “popcorn flick”: it’s a fun ride, and it gives you an excuse to chow down on some popcorn (or whatever staple of food comic readers prefer), but at the end of the day, there’s just nothing quite award-worthy about it.

UPDATE (7/26/06): The Doctor apologizes to Mr. Daniels the few of you who already saw this post, but the art score has been edited to better reflect my original views. I originally meant to give it a 3.5, but something probably screwed up when I was transferring it from Word to Blogger's posting thing. However, the overall score still remains the same.

If you have any complaints or conspiracy theories, blame my receptionist.

Review #14: In which Dr. Haus attempts to be snarky...

2006-07-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

Goku, transform into Super Sai--oops, wrong cartoon!

Title: The Planet Closest To Heaven
Artist: Jill Fredrickson
Collective: DrunkDuck
Genre: Supernatural/Drama/Sci-Fi
Updates: Twice a week
Link: http://www.drunkduck.com/The_Planet_Closest_To_Heaven

(The following style of review was somewhat inspired by The Rude Pundit.)

Let us say—and why not?—that you are a high school sophomore boy going on your first date with another sophomore girl you just met. While she may not be the fantasy girl you see in your dreams, she’s an incredibly good looker with a nice voice and a little deeper than most other women you’ve seen. As you sit across the table from her, ordering a couple of sodas to start off the night, she decides to tell you a story.

You start off listening intently at first, but as she rambles on, and the story just seems a bit incomprehensible, your eyes start glancing around the restaurant, wondering if maybe you should’ve worked up the nerve to ask out that surprisingly hot freshman girl who’s sitting just a couple of tables away with a couple of her friends. Your date, noticing your lack of interest, then suddenly throws in something completely random in her story, watching your expression as she raises her voice ever so slightly while saying something like, “and that’s when a weirdo with spikes in his back came up to us.”

You immediately refocus your attention back to your date, stammering out something like, “I’m sorry, please continue. That sounds fascinating.” Trying not to glance at that hot girl or one of her friends, you listen as the story suddenly picks up, even introducing a joke about how this one blond kid got totally bitchslapped and was never really the same afterwards. But then, it hits another long spot where nothing interesting really happens. And your eyes wander back to that hot girl and her friends, who are now ordering their appetizers as you wonder where the heck your waiter is with the sodas you ordered. Your date, seeing your eyes wandering again, tries to throw in something else to regain your attention. But this time, you don’t even notice. It just feels like the story is going nowhere.

A few minutes later, as the sodas arrive while you subconsciously begin undressing that hot junior girl with your eyes, your date sees the look on your face as she finally hits a stopping point in her story. She takes her ginger ale and tosses the contents of her glass all over your shirt and onto your lap, angrily wondering why you haven’t been paying attention to anything she’s said, and have you been staring at that other girl for the past ten minutes? You try and stammer out the few details of the story that you remember in a half-hearted attempt to soothe her anger, but it all just becomes a blur. Obviously, your attempt fails as she screams that you just don’t get it and if you can’t pay attention to her for a few minutes then why should she expect you to commit to this relationship? Fuming, she storms out of the restaurant and calls her friend to pick her up, while you’re still sitting there dumbfounded, wondering what you did to deserve that treatment.

Now that we've dispensed with our tale, let us get down to more serious matters. As far as the drawing goes, it’s pretty well done as the comic progresses towards the later strips, with an interesting use of charcoal to set the mood in the background. However, a few of the chibi-ish panels seem to detract from the mood that Ms. Fredrickson is trying to set up in this comic. The little furry thing, Pepe, even provides some comic relief. I even like how the artist hasn’t bound her comic into either action or comedy genres, like 95% of comics on the “internets” do these days.

But as far as the plot goes, I think the artist wrote herself into a corner and has trouble getting out. After going through about 10 chapters, she still hasn’t explained much about the setting the characters live in, or even about the conflicts the characters have. Something about a “Village of Three Black Circles” and how they had to leave a metropolis because of plague. She never bothers to elaborate on that part of the story, or even why the “Nameless” and “Faceless” characters decide to attack the schoolhouse, or why the people of the village all harass this girl named Starla, then yell at her, then cheer her on in such a short time.

Admittedly, Jill does make an attempt to summarize the plot of her comic so far. But by looking at the summary, it seems that at least 7 chapters could’ve been cut from TPCTH and nothing important would’ve been left out.

Like the boy in my story above, part of you might wonder if you should’ve listened to your date’s story as you head to the bathroom and make a half-assed attempt to dry off your shirt. But another part of your brain will answer that maybe it isn’t your fault for giving into temptation, but her standards were too high for a man like yourself. And hey, even if things didn’t work out between you and your date, you can always ask that other girl out tomorrow.

Lazy-Ass Summary
Art: 4/5 (Backgrounds have a nice dark feeling, and the fire scene was especially emotional, but the main characters look kinda generic.)
Story: 2/5 (Deep set-up, but never quite moves forward.)
Humor: 2.5/5 (The furry little animal provides some comic relief, but the chibi scenes are a bit out of place).
Action: 2/5 (Not much, but the action scenes that do exist are decent)
Characters: 2/5 (Putting aside the corny names like Speedy McNee and Scout, I'm still not sure what exactly it is that the main protagonists are supposed to be doing, or the significance of the Danireans.)
Overall (not an average): 4.5/10
Evil Stuff: Mild blood and violence
Final Thoughts: As I've said before, good art will only take your comic so far until you need some good writing to back it up. Hopefully, as time goes on, we'll see more about the world the characters live in.

Review #13: "Holy Impossibility, Batman!"

2006-07-10T22:32:00.000-07:00

"Snake eyes! Ha! I'm so clever."

Title: Divisible By Zero
Artist: Giando Sigurani
Collective: DrunkDuck
Genre: Comedy/Politics/Gaming
Updates: Unknown
Link: http://www.divisiblebyzerocomics.com

With this strip, it appears that five out of the past six reviews I've done involve comedy in some way. And about three of those past four in the comedy genre have ranged from "decent" to "OH PLEASE ALLAH SAVE US FROM THIS MONSTER!"* As I read the first few strips of DBZ, I was prepared to place this comic in the latter category. But as I soldiered on through the archives, the art got somewhat better, and so did the humor.

There are a few recurring themes in between the one-shot strips, such as the stealth action heroes (featuring Solid Snake, Sam Fisher, Agent 47 and Batman in the same room) and the Political Spectrum Ninja Association, with the liberal ninja who fights with spoons, a conservative ninja who fights with some stretchy object and a gray "moderate" ninja who just eats pie.

And as for the rest of the strips, they're pretty hit-and-miss. Some of the humor seems inspired from Mr. Sigurani's life, while others are just completely random (like a Chick-Fil-A chicken nugget containing the secret to universal peace). Perhaps if he updated a bit more often, future readers would have something to look forward to. But being a one-shot comic with an uncertain updating schedule is not quite a recipe for success.

Short review? Yes. But most of the important points have been hit. Without further adieu, let's move on to the lazy-ass summary.

Art: 3/5 (Has a slight Matt Groening feel to it, but I've seen better).
Story: 1.5/5 (As I said, it's mostly one-shot strips aside from a few recurring themes)
Humor: 3/5 (The humor is mostly hit-or-miss, and the humor in many of later strips depends on your political preference).
Action: 3.5/5 (Plenty of slapstick humor to be found, and some of the action scenes with the Political Ninjas are surprisingly well done)
Characters: 2/5 (Outside of Sigurani's self-insertion, and the political ninjas, you probably won't remember the characters)
Overall (not an average): 5.5/10
Evil Stuff: Mostly cartoon violence with some occasional blood.
Final Thoughts: Sigurani's strip contains some original humor, but just not enough to make Divisible By Zero bookmark-worthy.

(*My apologies to any religious readers who were offended. Please don't firebomb my house.)

Update (7/14/06): Apparently, two days after I reviewed Divided By Zero, the "Political Spectrum Ninja Association" aspect of this comic was selected as a semi-finalist in Platinum Studios' Comic Book Challenge. If I may paraphrase a line from The Colbert Report, obviously, it was all my fault. My "average" review of Sigurani's work must have thrown him into such a rage that his angry aura somehow transported via his submission to the people judging this contest that they had to let him go to the next round.

I would wish him luck, but as a reviewer, I make an effort to stay impartial. Besides, to paraphrase Stephen Colbert again, you don't win by putting down other people, you win by berating your own team, maybe even physically abusing them or throwing a chair onto the basketball court a la Bobby Knight. If you don't have a team, then I'm sure Jesus' General will lend you his "Terrible Spatula of Retribution" and you can do it to yourself.

Review #12: Podonk-adonk

2006-07-01T10:57:00.000-07:00

(Not to be confused with badonkadonk)

Title: Podunk U
Artist: Bob Quaintance
Collective: DrunkDuck
Genre: Comedy/School
Updates: Unknown
Link: http://www.drunkduck.com/Podunk_U/index.php

The good Dr. Haus has learned a valuable lesson: When you offer to review someone's comic by request, there's always someone out there who will take you up on that offer. So I finally decided to get around to this comic.

When you first look at the comic, you might take note of the touches of MS Paint in the artwork. Excuse me, when I said "touches," I meant to say, "just about everything." I felt a big urge to hit the X button in the upper-right-hand corner of my screen upon seeing such woefully-generated art, but as a doctor, and a person who decided to review the comics whether I like them or not, I pressed on.

Perhaps there is something to be found in the story? Well, a guy goes to college...and that's about how far it's gone. Granted, it hasn't even hit 40 strips yet (as of 7/1/06), but there's been little character development. Yeah, we have the insane dude, Charlie, with his own short sword (affectionately referred to as "Old Stabby"). Oh, and there's one kid who seems compelled to speak in l33t. Look, this may have been funny back when Megatokyo was new, but now, it's just freakin' annoying.

As for the rest of the humor, he seems to hit most of the usual suspects: Star Wars nerds, drunkenness, video games, Dragonball Z...c'mon, we've heard this shit before. You can't tell me there's a way to introduce some freakin' originality into your script? I'll admit, there was one strip that did make me laugh, if only because I once dabbled in the supermarket business. The good Doctor is into both stupid and intellectual humor, but this comic doesn't quite fall into either category, nor does it try to distinguish itself.

Art: 1.5/5 (Barely better than a sprite comic)
Story: 1/5 (Guy goes to college...and that's it. Doesn't bother to talk about the college, what the main character wants to do in college...this could've been set in an apartment in Brooklyn and nothing would've changed)
Humor: 2/5 (You've probably heard most of the jokes by now)
Action: 1/5 (A little, mostly involving Charlie killing someone)
Characters: 1.5/5 (Outside of the usual stereotypes, there's not much unique about these people)
Overall (not an average): 2/10
Evil Stuff: Mild cartoon violence.
Final Thoughts: Beats out The Avatar for Worst Comic I've Reviewed (so far), but at least The Avatar's been getting better recently. The Doctor hopes that someone will put this comic to sleep.

2006-07-01T07:47:00.000-07:00

If anyone feels like dropping a comment here, I enabled it so anyone can post.

Apparently, the greatful NJ Huff, creator of Emergency Exit, has seen fit to give the doctor a "shout-out" after witnessing my review of her work from back in March. Thanks a lot, NJ. Now people will be expecting the great Dr. Haus to keep this thing updated.

But as it is summer, and I have found a paying job for the moment, I might just be able to do a little better in terms of keeping reviews on time. Stay tuned.

Do keep in mind that I am accepting requests. Simply drop me a line, and I'll get to it if I have the time. I just ask that you have at least 30 strips in your archive and that the comic in question not be a sprite comic without a damn good reason.

2006-06-29T19:23:00.000-07:00

After some consultation, it has been decided that these dialogue reviews (see below) are fucking stupid. So unless some particular inspiration strikes me, I'll try and tone down the narrative.

Review #11: You Bastard!

2006-06-25T23:17:00.000-07:00

(Please bear with us as the good doctor tries to add a modicum of professionalism to this blog that he is hardly professional about.)

Title: The Bastard Swordsman
Artist: Dan "The Bastard" Glasl
Collective: None
Genre: Action with a pinch of comedy
Updates: Monday and Friday
Link: Click the pic above

"So, Dr. Haus, this comic is called the Bastard Swordsman, right?"

"Yeah."

"But the main character is a woman. Wouldn't a more accurate title be 'The Bastard Swordswoman?'"

"Maybe the creator wasn't referring to her specifically."

"Who else could he be referring to? That guy who bares a resemblance to Shan-Yu from Mulan? That drunk dude who doesn't even have a sword? Or is this another one of those comics where the main character magically had his/her gender switched and doesn't know why?"

"Does it really matter that much?"

"It should matter, dammit! After 51 strips, I still have no freakin' clue where the story's going, or even if it exists! Something about an orphan girl named Faith who travels around in a sports bra trying to kill people with a big sword for some unknown reason."

"Okay, so the story's a little light..."

"A little? I learned more from the cast page than I have from the comic, and that ain't a good sign."

"...what about the action?"

"Ah yes, some interesting action, back in the day when shouting out the name of your attack before doing it was considered cool. What's with that 'Southern Cross' technique, huh? Why can't she do an 'Eastern Crescent' strike? Or a 'North Star?'"

"Buddy, you're expecting way too much from this comic right now. Just go to sleep."

"Hey I'm not done here! And what's with that catgirl? Does the world really need another comic with those, even if she does have a pyromaniacal twist? Hey, what are you doing with that gun?"

(insert "pfft" SFX)

"I knew this tranquilizer gun would come in handy. Nurse, we got another case of heightened expectations. Charge my 'deluxe' price package to his credit card and tell him to come back in a few months."

Art: 4/5 (Very nicely detailed, though the coloring is a strange choice and the drawings edge close to GAS-sy*.)
Story: 2/5 (Not much to speak of. Needs some work)
Humor: 3/5 (It has its fair share, from slapstick to dialogue)
Action: 4/5 (Pretty damn good so far, but just a few steps away from spectacular)
Characters: 2.5/5 (Interesting twist on the ~~catgirl~~ "Mueney," but the rest of the cast needs some work)
Overall (not an average): 6.5/10
Evil Stuff: Plenty of blood and violence, sometimes slapstick, sometimes realistic.
Final Thoughts: I've seen better than TBS, but it could use a little more time to mature. Something to look at if you're a fan of No Need For Bushido.

*GAS="Generic Anime Style"

Review #10: An Unfortunate Stigma

2006-06-16T16:37:00.000-07:00

Title: Otenba Files
Artist: "Bazabat" (real name unknown)
Collective: None
Genre: Romance/Anthromorphic
Updates: About 2-3 times a week
Link: http://www.otenbafiles.com

I think Bazabat has found the right formula to make her comic a success.

Yes, it is a sneaky, lowbrow formula that caters to the lowest denominator of webcomic reader. And no, I won't deny that I indulge myself in her comic as well as a lot of her other readers have probably done (and one may have done with the artist personally, so I hear). You (either the artist or the one reading this review) might find it unfair for me to characterize it this way, but that's what it is.

What? You want me to spell it out for you in plain English? Okay, fuck the cryptic language. Otenba Files is goddamn yuri with a storyline on the side.

The story starts off with a tall, androgynous, hot-tempered psychic girl named Krisko (or just "Kris"). Apparently, she's an unknowing pawn in some war between the forces of good at a psychic school and the forces of evil, represented by an ominous sillhouetted, anthromorphic gentleman. She also plays a sport called "Dranball," which Bazabat describes as, "A type of futuristic rugby/American football mixed with psychic cardplay [sic]."

And that's where it all goes downhill:

In the following chapters, we are introduced to the stereotypical team consisting of the huge dumbass (Koda), the little whiney bitch (Juppy), and the chain-smoking angry badass (Tamka). They fight, they yell at each other, the female members go off and get fucked (either in flashbacks or in current time), and then they do it all over again. The cast has expanded, but the characters haven't really done much to advance what little plot exists in this comic.

As for the romance shtick, you gotta wonder how many women has Kris slept with? And how easy are these people? The romance in the story doesn't really seem to be an end to which Kris strives for, but more of a forced means of showing hot yuri instead without any real context. If that's how Bazabat wants to present it, fine. But she should stop trying to pretend that the comic is anything more than that.

On the other hand, if she doesn't want her comic to be seen as just yuri scenes with a plot on the side, then she should remedy the situation quickly, because the unfortunate stigma of "pr0n with a plot" is sticking to this comic already.

Art: 5/5 (Even though Bazabat uses nothing but pencil, the art has progressed incredibly well)
Story: 2/5 (little substance, and the romance feels more forced than it should)
Humor: 2/5 (Some, but not a lot)
Action: 3.5/5 (Ehhh, it's good with only pencil. Nothing spectacular though.)
Characters: 3.5/5 (A little cliched for my taste, but showing some development)
Overall (not an average): 6/10
Evil Stuff: HAWT YURI SECHS (consensual and non-consenual)! Oh, and some blood, some violence, moderate language.
Final Thoughts: +2 to score if you want some yuri. -3 if homosexuality turns you off (I see you, Jerry Falwell!). If you don't care about either (oh, I believe you), take a look, but it ain't bookmark worthy just yet.

"Where Are They Now?" #2: Evil Juxtaposed Quite Eternally

2006-06-11T10:58:00.000-07:00

Today, we take a look at another fallen webcomic that may yet rise again. No, it ain't RPG World. Don't bother asking me that.

The comic we shall explore today was entitled Eternal Juxtaposition, the creation of Kevin Wadlow and J.L. Brown. It was an interesting comic set in a fantasy world with elves, bog monsters, magic, dark forests, what-have-you. The main hook of the story was a boy who would transform into some sort of blue furry demon named Eferii at night. The main character of the story, Eferii seemed to have practically no morals at all, even in his human form.

One quite humorous episode appears near the beginning of the story, where a muscular, shirtless man walks into a bar, ranting about how some evildoer destroyed his village, and how he vowed to stick multiple knives in the person's back for each person killed. Eferii then mutters to a woman (and, possibly, the reader) about how heroes these days are a bunch of muscular idiots, spouting catch-phrases, announcing their presence without thought as to who might be around. And in the next scene, the hero is shown with every single knife he carried planted into his back.

If my description is faulty, it's because I'm drawing largely from memory. The website (http://eternaljuxtaposition.whymestudios.com) has since gone under. I remember one scene where Eferii ends up travelling with a female companion with an emblem on her forehead, and the corpse of some royal elven guard that Eferii revives halfway through the story, not to mention one off-screen tentacle raping scene.

The main problem with the story was in the pacing. The characters spent more time than they should've going through one forest, eventually stopping at a village, and then ending up back inside the forest. At times, it seems that Brown & Wadlow skipped a few scenes because they were running out of ideas for transitions or where to put the characters next. The creators had a small fight with each other that spilled out onto the main page at one point. And then, the comic just...stopped. They might bring it back, or they might not. Let's hope it does.

Review #9: While We're Talking About Ninjas...

2006-05-16T18:25:00.000-07:00

Title: The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
Artist: Chris Hastings (with inking done by Kent Archer)
Collective: ~~None~~ Now with Dayfree Press
Genre: Comedy/Action
Updates: Mon-Wed-Fri
Link: http://www.drmcninja.com/index.html

"Oh great, another fucking ninja comic! Lemme guess, is this the one where a bunch of kids get together to save the world from the slowly escalating power of evil over the course of several enlightening adventures?"

"No."

Hold on, a manga about some douche wanting to avenge his former master who got killed cuz he's a pussy?

"No. And you're thinking of Frank Miller's Ronin."

"So what's original about this strip?"

"He's a doctor. He knows science."

"Oh really? Then explain how he can be fighting old-fashioned pirates with a portable electric system, wrangling velociraptors, and turn frozen shamrocks into makeshift shuriken? This shit isn't scientifically possible!"

"Michael Crichton would say otherwise."

"The same guy who created State of Fear, a fictional book that Republican politicians cite as proof that global warming is bullshit despite several years worth of research by actual scientists?"

"I didn't say he was right, I just said he'd disagree with you."

"Whatever. Why is this dude named Dr. McNinja anyways?"

"Chris claims that he used the character in some forum battle over on the Something Awful forums, and he somehow transplanted the idea over its own comic."

"Okay, you've got 30 seconds to show me what's original in this comic."

"You just said it a moment ago."

"What?"

"It has a ninja doctor who fights pirates, velociraptors, Paul Bunyan, stereotypical Mexicans, and plenty of more crazy characters like that."

"Fuck that! I can just read Plotless Violence! Screw you, Doctor Haus!"

(insert door-slamming sound)

"Hey! You forgot your Viagra perscription!"

Art: 4/5 (Nice inking, but the backgrounds are a tad inconsistent)
Story: 3/5 (Well, the story of Dr. McNinja being a descendant of Irish ninjas is a bit hokey, even if it is funny. Oh, and if you haven't read the comic yet, don't read that last sentence)
Humor: 3.5/5 (Pretty good, but some of the jokes are predictible [i.e. the "Ninja vs. Pirate arc])
Action: 4/5 (Whether he's throwing a clipboard at a Mexican on a raptor or slicing a pirate in the shoulder with a frozen shamrock, the action looks pretty sweet.)
Characters: 2/5 (Outside of the McNinja family, most of the characters are little more than fodder)
Overall (not an average): 7/10
Evil Stuff: Plenty of cartoon violence and blood.
Final Thoughts: Initially, it's one of the funniest comics on the Internet. However, the humor slows down a little as you progress through the strips. Still, this comic is bookmark-worthy.

"Where Are They Now?" #1: Guns, Swords, and old-school stabbing.

2006-05-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

As a special edition to The Webcomic Watchman, I've decided to also showcase a webcomic that I thought was very awesome, yet has disappeared. Unless I can think of a better title, I'm calling this the "Where Are They Now?" review section.

Today, we look at one that might've been, yet never truly was. It was called Ninjastyle, drawn by Jet Paine (likely a psuedonym, though I never really bothered to ask). With the 20 strips it had, it featured a very detailed, late-1800's Japan where a cowboy from Texas (you know, that place in the USA) had come to meet with someone for a reason that would be revealed later. The cowboy gets attacked by ninjas with masks, and then saved by not-evil ninjas. Then the story switched to a day of training that went awry as one of the trainees had an attack of conscience and helped free a prisoner only to find out she was decieved. That's kinda where it ended. The comic had a nice Samurai Champloo feel to it, and I really wanted to see more, but alas, it was not meant to be.

Jet decided to focus more on his one-shot gag strip that he called The Happy Mercenary Co. It featured references to life, movies, and whatever else popped up at the time. The last strip I think he made for this one was a comment about that crappy horror movie, The Cave. After that, he simply disappeared, and the domain www.happymercenary.com followed soon after.

Where is Jet now? We may never know, but hopefully he'll come back and continue his amazing artwork for Ninjastyle one day...

~~UPDATE: I just checked out the above URL for the hell of it, and the site seems to be back up! Perhaps Jet is planning to make a comeback? Further news as bulletins warrant...~~

UPDATE #2: I haven't seen any action in awhile. If I can dig up this guy's E-Mail, maybe I'll have a more definitive answer.

Review #8: ...AAAAAAAAAAAAH!

2006-04-28T14:24:00.000-07:00

[Note to both of you reading this: the Doctor finally found another webcomic he decided to review. However, whilst digging through the archives of this comic, the strain of randomness he found was so intense that his brain temporarily imploded. I, Dr. Ben-Jamin, a.k.a. the subconscious mind of Dr. Haus, shall be taking over the reviewing duties until we can get his conscious mind back in working order]

Title: The Avatar
Artist: James Firkins
Collective: None
Genre: Comedy...I think
Updates: Mon-Wed-Fri
Link: http://www.the-avatar.com

If it weren't for a certain Flash animation that appeared on Newgrounds, neither I nor many people would have heard of this comic at all. But I did see the Flash cartoon that Mr. Firkins finished in honor of making 200 strips of this...masterpiece.

This cartoon has a little bit of everything: its own political news network, athiests, ominous people, terrorist plane hijacking, nuclear toast, and the list goes on...

The real kicker of this comic is this fellow, "Sir Godfrey of Boullion." He seems to play the lovable retard of the comic, though it is unknown whether any of the characters really like him or not. Seriously, just try reading multiple strips featuring this character. It made Dr. Haus' brain implode, the sheer random retardedness of Godfrey will cause the same reaction within your own skull.

Hell, the entire comic has almost reached Family Guy portions of randomness in its attempt to make the audience laugh, except Family Guy does it better.

Art: 2.5/5 (Meh, nothing special, though earlier strips are a little hard on the eyes)
Story: 1.5/5 (Wait...there's a storyline? +.5 points because one might be starting as of this review.)
Humor: ?/5 (see Final Thoughts)
Action: 2/5 (nothing really exciting action-wise, except as a means of slapstick humor)
Characters: 2.5/5 (With a few exceptions, Mr. Firkins doesn't bother to give these characters unique traits).
Overall (not an average): 2.5/10
Evil Stuff: Plenty of cartoon violence, one bloody scene, humor might make brain implode.
Final Thoughts: Dr. Haus was slightly amused when he cruised through the first few strips, but then The Avatar's particular brand of humor took a turn for the worse when he saw that the comic had trouble deciding whether to go along the one-shot gag route (like Joe and Monkey [Review #1]) or making a few storylines and throwing in jokes derived from the plot (like The Adventures of Dr. McNinja [to be reviewed]). Instead, you, the reader, get the worst of both worlds. The good Doctor recommends that you do not read this unless you are heavily intoxicated or you think that Family Guy is too complicated for you.

Let us all hope that Dr. Haus will eventually recover soon.

"WHY THE HELL HAVE YOU NOT UPDATED?"

2006-04-15T13:31:00.000-07:00

Calm down, dear fellow, and let me explain something.

Whilst the Doctor does dabble in the webcomic world, he prefers to concentrate on looking for a paying job to replace his last one when vampires broke into the local blood bank and framed him for the crime. Also, he has been involved in editing/writing for other projects, most of which do not pay but he is obligated to do for various reasons.

Ergo, the webcomic reviews will keep coming, but unless you feel like paying me or my morale shoots up unexpectedly, don't expect this thing to update with much consistency.

If you want to read a non-illustrated "progressive novel" by yours truly that tries to update at least 2-3 times a week, go here.

Review #7: Generic Name, Serious Strip

2006-04-04T18:16:00.000-07:00

Title: Neotopia
Artist: David Coacci
Collective: None
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Updates: Almost weekly
Link: http://www.davidcoacci.com/neotopia/index.html

This guy's only pumped out 36 strips, but it only took a third of that time until the "neo-elf" started slicing and dicing through an automatic turret and plenty of guards in a way that makes your jaw drop all the way to the floor in amazement.

Though Neotopia is a bit of a generic name, I'm willing to look past it as Mr. Coacci has built one hell of a strip with a solid foundation (provided you're willing to read some of the background material he wrote up). I just couldn't pass up the sight of seeing an elf in a Sam Fisher-esque suit.

Speaking of sights, the artwork in this strip is just fucking awesome. Fully-colored panels all touched up with some computer-generated animation, the quality is so good you'd almost think this was like a "cine-manga" that they sell in bookstores.

I can't really say much more about this strip. In the first few strips, we are introduced to Allen Gatehold, a mercenary who carries a big freakin' sword for reasons unknown, and the unnamed "neo-elf" who is slicing and dicing through people to retrieve information, though her client and her purpose are not yet revealed. However, if you have enough patience to wait through the strips when more of the story will be revealed, then this is a very good comic.

Art: 5/5 (Best...Artwork...Ever)
Story: 2/5 (Still too vague, but needs more time)
Humor: 1/5 (Not much to be found)
Action: 5/5 (Oh, Hell yes)
Characters: 2/5 (See story)
Overall (not an average): 6.5/10
Evil Stuff: Claims to be "for Mature readers," but I haven't seen much to warrant that label yet. There is some cursing and a little blood and guts spilling out during the action sequences, but there may be mature stuff coming down the pike. Who knows?
Final Thoughts: As it stands, the comic ain't much but some kick-ass action sequences. However, it has a solid foundation, and plenty of room to blossom into something truly awesome.

Review #6: Like Megatokyo, but 60% more funny...and not in Tokyo

2006-03-25T08:16:00.000-08:00

[For those of you viewing this in the archives, click the title at the top of the page to see my more current work, if you are so inclined]

Title: Emergency Exit
Artist: NJ Huff
Collective: Comic Genesis
Genre: Comedy/Action with a pinch of soap opera.
Updates: Currently updating Monday-Saturday, but that may change soon.
Link: http://www.eecomics.net

I wasn't sure what to think when I first stumbled over this comic. It looked like your standard "roomies go on wild adventures, hilarity ensues"-type strip.

As I scanned through the archives one boring day, I found a lot more under the surface. It started out as mostly one-shot gag strips, and then transitioned into some story about recovering magical artifacts for a short Chinese-looking man named Bubba Miyagi using a cupboard in Bob's apartment that can transport people to alternate dimensions. Okay, the story isn't that great.

Why compare this to Megatokyo? One of the biggest webcomics out there today (and the first webcomic I ever discovered a few years ago)? When MT started out, it was a gaming joke comic, one you could have a laugh at Largo's paranoia in seeing zombies or Piro's attempts to get a girl. And now? It seems to be an angsty soap opera with the humor occasionally popping in to get the child support check after the bitter divorce.

But back on topic: Eddie, one of the main characters of Emergency Exit, is just hilarious on a different level than Largo, without needing to know much about videogames or the jargon therein. This dude steals parking cones, has a deep hatred of chickens (for reasons unknown), and is somehow able to make things so awesome with his coolness enhancer (similar to Largo's ambiguous "cool thing") that he somehow gains a new vest and can summon a powerful hammer out of thin air (one would think that this "hammerspace" law would only apply to females from various anime, but what do I know?).

Bob McKile plays the more serious foil to Eddie's craziness, the Piro to Eddie's Largo. Like Largo, he keeps trying to find love, and also find sanity in a world that seems to contain little of it. Unlike Piro, he seems to be sharing a body with a demon named "Nefarious" that causes major pain and suffering, including one scene where Bob tries to cut himself.

The comic gets even bigger when you have a girl who wields a "Zapper" (a.k.a. that light gun for the NES classic, Duck Hunt) as a real weapon, a mailman who has a monocole and a pirate hook, a green-haired gamer who can talk to a female cat named "Fred" (strangely, both of them play a mean game of Super Smash Brothers), and many, many more. Despite expanding the cast so widely, NJ Huff gives a good story for most of these characters, enough that you might find yourself caring about them.

Art: 3.5/5 (The coloring is quite good)
Story: 2.5/5 (They try to put a story in there, but it seems to be missing a few parts)
Humor: 5/5 (How many times are you going to hear the phrase "Pocky Sword" in a comic?)
Action: 4/5 (Mostly as a means of slapstick humor, but even when it's serious, it's very good)
Characters: 4/5 (Surprisingly deeper than you'd think).
Overall (Not an average): 8/10
Evil Stuff: Some blood, plenty of slapstick violence.
Final Thoughts: If you wondered where the funny of Megatokyo went, look here. If you prefer more intellectual humor, then you might wanna go elsewhere.

Review #5: Wait, the clown is serious?

2006-03-19T11:12:00.000-08:00

Title: Clown Samurai
Artist: Quinn Fleming
Collective: WebcomicsNation
Genre: Crime/Drama
Format: Ongoing serial
Updates: *knock knock* Hello? You still there? (unknown)
Link: http://www.webcomicsnation.com/qsamurai/clownsamurai/series.php

By just reading the title, you might think that this could be a very hilarious cartoon. A clown who doubles as a samurai? Maybe he makes swords out of balloons and uses magic powers to make people laugh?

But then when you read it, you find out an actually serious cartoon, involving guns, blood, the mob, and a main character who keeps his clown facepaint and clothes on.

The story centers around Utamaro (or just "Maro"), a guy who lives in Brooklyn, was born and raised outside London, and has family from Japan. He appears to have read the hagakure. That seems to be where the "samurai" part ends.

Utamaro is a clown who hasn't made any kid laugh in three years. One day, he stops for a drink at a bar in Brooklyn after making a kid cry at his birthday party. Somehow, the bar is owned by a prominent mobster, who takes "Maro" in the back of the bar and gives him an offer to join their group. As a clown, he is able to infiltrate the home of another mobster whose daughter is having a birthday party of her own, and shoot him in a fierce firefight.

After two chapters and change, we still don't know much about Utamaro's past, why he considers himself a sort of modern-day samurai, and where he learned to shoot people with such amazing speed. I also don't exactly know why the mob would trust a disgruntled clown to "off" one of their rivals in the first place.

The one thing that sets this comic apart from the others is the art. A whole comic has a huge film noir feel to it that you will either love or hate.

Of course, the one thing that really hurts the comic is the fact that it takes Fleming months just to post one new strip. Despite frequent promises of getting a semi-regular schedule, he just has trouble getting enough together for even one strip.

Art: 5/5 (Like I said, I absolutely love the noir style, but others may hate it).
Story: 2/5 (It's missing too many pieces, but it has the makings of something good).
Humor: 2/5 (A little humor in the fact that a clown can shoot people in his enormous shoes and keep smiling, but this comic is actually serious.)
Action: 3/5 (A clown "samurai" shooting people with guns. Think about that for a second.)
Characters: 2/5 (I'm trying, but I just can't wrap my head around these people.)
Overall (not an average): 4/10
Evil Stuff: Blood, moderate violence.
Recommendation: I really wanted to like this comic, but under all that stylized art, there's not much substance. If you really like noir style art and story, then read the stuff that's there. Otherwise, don't.

Review #4: Onward Bound

2006-03-15T12:28:00.000-08:00

Title: Onward Bound
Artists: Darrick Chen and Dustin Baker
Collective: Panda Rage Productions
Genre: Fantasy/Western
Format: Ongoing Serial
Updates: Two pages per week
Link: http://www.onwardbound.net

This comic looks a lot like a story I tried to write once, involving the decline of magic during the Industrial Revolution or something like that. But this isn't about me, this is about Onward Bound.

The setting appears to be a smorgasboard of different themes. It's set in an Old Western canon, yet the protagonist runs into a spellcasting mage, a sheriff with a metallic, steam-powered arm, and likes to smoke a slow-burning Dwarvish tobacco.

The story so far involves a woman named Serrada Blue, a real talented gunslinger who has come to a town called "Ramshackle." After just seven or eight strips, Serrada pulls one of the most awesome moves I've ever seen in webcomics on the corrupt sheriff guy. I won't ruin it for you here, but it is a very exciting twist.

I can't say much more about the story, as not much has happened, but Serrada seems to get into more Wild West showdowns than Calamity Jane in the next 70 strips, including two fights with the sheriff with the steam-powered arm, a trio of gunmen, and even an Elvish guy who can block bullets and shoot zappy bolt thingies with his magic. How will Serrada excape this one? Only time will tell...or the next update.

But I'm sure that this comic will keep going up in value if it can just flesh out the backstory of Serrada and add some more memorable characters into the mix.

Art: 4/5 (Very good, but the backgrounds during the fight scenes could use a little work.)
Story: 3/5 (Has potential, but not much to say right now other than a series of fights.)
Humor: 2/5 (A little bit, but you probably aren't reading this for the humor)
Action: 4/5 (Lots and lots o' action here, and it looks pretty kick-ass too)
Characters: 3/5 (Interesting mix of characters, but the bad guys feel too generic)
Overall (not an average): 7/10
Evil Stuff: Moderate violence, some blood.
Recommendation: Definitely keep your eye on this comic.

Review #3: The Hero's Handbook

2006-03-07T12:51:00.000-08:00

Title: The Hero's Handbook
Artist: "HHB Bookmaster" (real name unknown)
Collective: Comic Genesis
Genre: Fantasy/Comedy
Format: Ongoing serial
Updates: Weekly, on Fridays for the most part
Link: http://theheroshandbook.comicgenesis.com

The genre of fantasy webcomicry is so cluttered that it's hard to break out of the mold of the usual stuff. Herein, "HHB" tries to break out of that mold by adding a comedic twist, kinda like Adventurers or RPG World. So far, the comic has about #55 strips down (at the time of this writing), a fifth of which are filler, so it's technically still got room to grow. Nevertheless, there are definitely some problems apparent in this comic in the early stages.

1) Too many Deus Ex Machinas. I know this comic is a parody and not a straightforward fantasy comic, so some pointless humor and plot devices are acceptable. However, clustering them all together within a short span of comic pages is just lazy in terms of storytelling. In a span of 13 strips, Lute breaks out of jail (with some help), conviniently finds the "Hero's Handbook," and spots nearby weaponry to fight the evil bandits.

Plot devices, especially in humorous comics, are like Old Bay seasoning: sprinkle a little on your seafood dish, it'll enhance the flavor. Sprinkle a little too much, and it makes the entree hard to eat.

2) Is there even a fourth wall here? Sometimes, it looks like the comic is a movie where the actors screw up their lines. Other times, the actors in this story wonder how the convinient plot devices appear. Is this supposed to be a parody of a fantasy story, or a parody of the acting of a fantasy movie, what with the self-insertion by the artist to make snide remarks at the Darth Vader-wannabe for falling asleep during his cue? Pick one side of the fourth wall and stay on it for the story-related strips.

3) Another carbon-copy fantasy hero? C'mon, we've seen enough white, blond-haired kids in fantasy comics to fill a convention center.

Though I suppose this can be turned into a plus if the beginning of the story is any indication: that the hero hasn't been torn from his parents due to war, disease, or poverty, and his family is actually quite well-off, unlike most heroes. Finally, someone found this angle of fantasy stories and made fun of it.

Art: 3/5 (A little blocky at times, but otherwise a nice, cartoony atmosphere.)
Story: 2/5 (Started off well, but too many convinient plot devices lately)
Humor: 3/5 (Good, but not great. Though the conspiracy that all heroes are born thanks to instructions from a book could be a good story.)
Action: 2.5/5 (Some fighting, but nothing that really stands out except for a unicorn bursting through a wall.)
Characters: 2/5 (Mostly two-dimensional, generic looking hero, evil guy who somehow forgets his accent...needs work.)
Overall (not an average): 4/10
Evil Stuff: Cartoonish violence
Reccomendation: Come back in a couple of months, but for now, there are better comics out there.

Review #2: Edge the Devilhunter

2006-03-02T17:31:00.000-08:00

Title: Edge the Devilhunter
Artist: Sam Romero
Collective: WebcomicsNation/Comic Genesis
Genre: Action/Supernatural/Cyberpunk
Format: Ongoing serial
Updates: Weekly…I think.
Link: http://edgeknight.comicgen.com (Romero warns the site may be moving soon)

Edge the Devilhunter is a very unique webcomic…so unique that it may be hard to pin down the exact motif of the story. We have Jack, a pissed off young “Nexthuman” who wakes up one day to find he has been involuntarily drafted to fight a battle for Lost Heaven as the “Edgeknight” to stop Hell from unleashing the Apocalypse upon Earth. He’s given almost god-like powers, including the ability to snatch bullets out of the air and flick them back at their shooter. His only restriction is that he can’t kill any humans.

However, Jack constantly does things his own way, eventually pissing off people on all sides of the ethereal coin. Jack is constantly warned that if he doesn’t listen to the orders of Heaven, then God will have no choice but to start Earth over, a la Noah’s Ark. Even so, the people of Heaven consider him an outcast, and the denizens of Hell are trying to take his head.

Romero pulls no punches in his strips, and apparently expects none to be held back. EtD gives voice to some of his politics, envisioning a futuristic America where the government is controlled by faceless corporations, American highschoolers are drafted to fight the never-ending War on Terror, and “NYPD Inc.” has a way of tracking down those who dare dissent from America’s government. Part of Jack’s own battles are with the government itself, but Jack himself does not exactly strike me as revolutionary. He’s certainly capable of kicking ass, but doesn’t seem to have many long-term goals in mind other than staying alive.

Because the politics of this strip are quite visible, it may turn off some of the more…conservative readers of webcomics, but that hasn’t stopped Romero from going strong with this comic. The action is quite amazing, but so many characters and plot twists have been tossed in that it’s a little hard to jump in without some context.

Art: 5/5 (Very well-done, massively detailed. The reader won’t miss a thing)
Story: 3/5 (I can sympathize with some of the politics, but the main plot is a little hard to follow. It seems like Jack makes fewer enemies with Hell than he does with the NYPD.)
Humor: 2/5 (Man, ~~Ronald Reagan~~ Donald Deegan is a giant dick…literally. However, Jack needs some better one-liners. Of course, you probably ain’t reading this comic for the humor.)
Action: 5/5 (When Jack is dodging bullets or slicing someone with his sword, it just looks so awesome you might cry)
Characters: 3/5 (Jack, Elvy and Aryel have some depth, but a lot of the other characters are coming off as two-dimensional.)
Overall (not an average): 7.5/10
Evil stuff: Lots o’ blood and gore, uncensored swearing, non-sexual and sexual nudity, sexual innuendo, small bit of racism (but only from the characters).
Recommendation: I like this comic, but whether or not you will depends on how much mature subject matter you can stomach. If you can get past that hurdle, welcome aboard.

Review #1: Joe and Monkey

2006-02-27T16:46:00.000-08:00

Title: Joe and Monkey
Artist: Zach Miller
Collective: Boxcar Comics
Genre: Comedy
Format: Gag-a-Day with occasional continuity
Updates: Mon-Fri
Link: http://www.joeandmonkey.com/
[Full Disclosure: I bought a copy of Totally Boned: A Joe and Monkey Collection.]

Ahh, what a simple concept: Take a delivery guy named Joe, a talking monkey, and a robot with a compulsion to steal everything (hence the name Kleptobot), and throw them all in the same part of Minneapolis where hilarity will inevitably ensue.

This is a pretty good comic overall. The jokes are simple, yet solid for the most part. The art is pretty well drawn, nothing that will make your eyes pop out in rage or delight. There really isn't much bad you can say about this comic, other than some of the jokes may go over the reader's head, or the days when the joke becomes so simplistic that you just can't laugh at it no matter how hard you try.

After about 481 strips (minus a lot of filler and guest strips, granted), it's possible that Zach Miller would be suffering Jim Davis syndrome, and run out of ways to portray the same three characters in the same context. However, perhaps the reason why I and many others keep coming back to JaM is that Miller is both willing and able to take more risks and show the cast not just in their stereotypical roles. Joe may be an idiot most of the time, but he isn't afraid to pick up the megaphone when he needs to make a political statement, and he knows how to use a katana too! Monkey is pretty smart and plays a good character foil to Joe, but he isn't afraid to help Joe out in a pinch. Kleptobot may be the "evil" character of the story, but Miller actually lets him win some of the time, adding even more humorous opportunities.

Summary:
Art: 4/5 (Very good, but nothing special)
Story: 2/5 (A few story arcs and references to past strips, but mostly gag-a-day strips, not much continuity.)
Humor: 4/5 (Pretty funny, yet simple. Though some in some strips the punchline is too obscure, or just too simplistic to laugh at.)
Action: 3/5 (Some hilarious slapstick humor, like the aforementioned "Wanna Katana?" strip or Joe shooting Monkey with NERF balls)
Characters: 3/5 (Generic "Talking animal smarter than dumbass human" pairing, but the Kleptobot is a real nice touch.)
Overall (not an average): 8/10
Evil Stuff: Cartoon violence, some swearing
Recommendation: Definitely one of the funnier comics on the "Internets." Go read it. NOW.

Hello y'all

2006-02-27T16:43:00.000-08:00

This is my attempt to add yet another voice to the already large pile that is the world of webcomics. I'll be doin' some reviewin' here when I feel like it.