Hope This Comes Out Right

(Picture from Fuzzy Knights. Click on the picture to see it within the context of the website. Really. This is one picture in a series.)

There have been a few comics dealing with the recent terrorist attack on London (admittedly not as many as there were for 9/11, but it's still touching) this is by far my favorite of the ones I've seen. It does a good job of mixing humor and intelligence to give the message that terrorism just doesn't work. In fact, in most cases, it weakens the cause these people are fighting for.

There are many people out there that think they can get what they want by causing fear. That doesn't work in today's society. There are too many people out there. There is no threat that will get enough people in the world to agree with you for your cause to work. I understand that some people are unsatisfied with the way the world turned out. I am, too. But blowing things up is not going to convince people to change.

Good job Noah. You said it better than I ever could

Considering what's happened so far, a Lewis Carroll reference makes sense

(From Fallen Angels Used Books. Click on the image to see it within the context of the website.)

I really like where this Sylvester story is going. He's proving to be a very interesting character, even if he is a little bit passive.

In this comcic he just got done beating up a couple of goblins or whatever with an umbrella. It was a neat fight because he was using classic fencing stances while doing it.

It's also obvious that Sylvester is very well read, as many novels are referenced within his story. The other stories didn't do this at all, I think. It's great to see that as each character takes the helm from the previous and picks up their story the style completely changes. I can't wait for Paula to get a turn. I'd like to see evidence that she's not as single minded as she seems.

For now, Fallen Angels Used Books is going to my top 5

She would need superpowers if she delivered pizza everytime someone ordered

(picture from Questionable Content. click on the image to see it within the context of the website.)

Jeph Jacques does a good job of aping everyday conversation and coupling it with the wit we all think we have. In a way that makes his comic funnier because it seems so familiar even if we haven't been in some of the situations the characters get into. He also is good at taking weird situations and making them seem normal. Pintsize is a good example of this. After you get over the idea of a talking robot computer, you sort of except him as the real thing because everything in this world seems normal, even if it's not.

Look at this comic. It features a superhero ordering coffee. Pizza Girl has been in the comic before, but she was there for one panel then left. Here Faye is trying to figure out if she's for real, and not having an easy time doing so. The funny part of the comic is they're not treating it as anything out of the ordinary. It just normal.

I do like the idea that the enemy of Pizza Girl is Chinese Delivery man. It makes since. I wonder what he'd look like and what his powers would be.

That's it. This comic is going in my top 5.

Wait. It's already there.

In that case, Jeph Jacques gets a buffer.

A tasty tasty buffer.

Enjoy

No True Reviews for a While

I really want this site to be a review site, where I take comics and break them apart over their entire run, but I won't be able to do full comic reviews for a while. The reason is I'm currently reading through the archives of many different comics in order to bolster my reading list as well as to find new comics to talk about. I'll still be talking about single comics though, and putting different comics in my top five. I'm planning to be very fickle with that. It's the equivalent of a biscuit on Websnark.

Because Pain is Funny, or Something

(Image from Partially Clips. Click on the image to see it within the context of the website.)

I've become a big fan of comics that couple great writing with questionable art, or rather, no art at all. Partially Clips does this really well. It's intelligent humor, and sometimes you have to think about it. sometimes he misses, but when he hits, which is most of the time, it's great.

Take this comic for example. This is what Robert Balder does best. He takes a clip art and creates an absurd situation out of it, usually dark, but I like it that way. The archives are definitely worth a read.

I'm normally against filler art, but..

(Image from Ozy and Millie. I can't find a link to this image, so you might have to just click on the link for the site to see it.)

This one just spoke to me. I saw the sign Millie was holding and I started giggling for quite some time afterward. This was in character for the strip, it featured a joke that was funny and it appeals to me on a base level.

That's it. This comic is going into my top 5.

Now That it's Finished: 1/0

(All pictures from 1/0 by Mason Williams. Click on the pictures to see them within the context of the site. )


One of the things I want to do with this site is honor comics that had a definite end to their story and actually reached their goal. It's a hard thing to start a webcomic in the first place, and finishing it is something that's almost unheard of. Sadly, most comics when they finish are just left out there, forgotten. I want to remember these strips and the acheivement that the author made. I'll tend to be more lenient with my judging on the finshed strip. Mostly because I can't complain about missed updates.

1/0 is a comic strip experiment that started out simply enough, but soon grew into a complex world where many characters lived and interacted. The strip starts out with a creator named Tailsteak. What separates this strip from many others is that that characters talk to the creator and acknowledge his existence. Therefore there is no fourth wall. Although the characters started out as simple archetypes, they soon expanded into complex chracters with thoughts and emotions that seemed separate from the author.


The strip itself starts off rather tentatively. You can tell the author was trying to have fun. The first thing he does is openly steal a character from another strip. After talking to this character for a while, he decides an action needs to be taken.

He decides to declare war on another strip, with disastrous results. However, the time the strip really starts to pick up and becomes a force unto itself is with the introduction of Junior. Junior is an eyeball that came from one of the other characters named Ribby. He does everything he can to work against Tailsteak and succeeds quite a few times in annoying the author. A lot of comics seem to have mascots, personalities that you associate with the strip. Junior is the mascot for 1/0. Even though he's a one-dimensional character with a single joke, he makes the world work.

After Junior was introduced, other things started to fall into place. Other characters came quickly, a landscape was made, and characters started talking about their existence. This is where 1/0 gets interesting. All the characters know they are in a webcomic and have been created by this author, so the question of whether or not they truly exist is entirely debatable. There are many different viewpoints that come from the characters.

Also the fact that they all know they are in a comic leads to some very good jokes about their state of being. One such joke happens when they decide to explain what a comic is to one of their companions.

Tailsteak also deals with the concept of atheism by making it possible for characters to build a forth wall if they want to. When the forth wall is up, they can't talk to or hear Tailsteak, but the people around them can. The forth wall is shown to be up by a four in the corner of wherever the forth wall is. It was first put up as a gag, but then became a viable plot point.

After the world gets started, the characters then start building the world for themselves and try to figure out what the rules of the world they live in are. Since Tailsteak is the writer of the comic, he also has control over what the characters do. Even though he promises he won't do anything that's unexplainable, there's still the possibility that he can. The characters are very aware of that and mention it several times, to the point of protesting for consistent physics.

However, the characters do have some fun on their own. One example of the things they do is when they have an impressions contest to see who will get a hat. This, of courrse leads to other things, but it's fun to watch them make references to other comics.

1/0 is a fun comic and worth reading. It's finished so you can take as long as you want, and I still enjoyed it as I was reading it. That's it for this strip, I think. Hopefully, I'll get better at these.