I feel the need to apologize to you, dear reader(s?). Immediately before and during my absence, I went through a number of life-changing events whose effect on my productivity I severely underestimated. I got married. I moved 1,500 miles. I spent some time unemployed. Then I got a truly horrible job. Finally, I got a better job, but the hours still suck. Regardless, I am now in a state of something that almost resembles stability, so if I'm ever going to resume this puppy, it ought to be now.
Unfortunately, I also fell behind in reading, so with my schedule of work, errands, menial household jobs, and webcomics, the latter has had to take the backseat, and it took about two weeks just to catch up to the current entries of the comics in that sidebar to the left. That was quite a bit of doing.
So. Things that happened in my absence that I'd like to briefly mention before it's back to business as usual.
Menage a 3: Starting to let me down. Sophomoric boob jokes have taken the front seat, and the character-based humor has almost completely vanished. It throws off the dynamic that both of the other two main characters have a crush on Didi.
Dr. McNinja IS NOW IN COLOR! OMG YAY!
Schlock Mercenary is coming out with a new book. Go support the comic!
Sluggy Freelance hit 11 years. Filler is still as crappy as ever.
Perry Bible Fellowship put out a new strip. Who'da thunk.
Kris Straub has cemented his place as one of the awesomest webcomic artists on the web by launching his THIRD concurrent webcomic: F Chords. It's good; read it. Also, if you haven't yet, check out his other two comics, Starslip Crisis and chainsawsuit.
OddFish hung up the humor for a few weeks to do a really neat sci-fi story arc. It started here, and it's worth checking out.
Speaking of sci-fi story arcs, Dresden Codak finally finished its "Hob" storyline!
El Goonish Shive is now updating semi-regularly again. Also doing more of that fun stuff with magic and monsters again. I was just about to give up on it.
Oh, and Jet Packs and Time Machines came back!
That oughtta do it. See you all later.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
The Don't Make 'Em Like That Anymore #1: Rice Boy
Calvin and Hobbes. The Far Side. Bloom County. What do they all have in common? They're all household-name syndicated comic strips done by visionary artists. They're all also retired. Retiring a comic, either in print or on the web can sometimes give the whole project a sheen of fresh enthusiasm that never fades. Or maybe it's just a chance for the artist to bow out before his project gets a chance to get stale. Whatever the reason, it seems to be happening with increasing frequency in the web world. Just last week, Minus ended. But a month before that, Rice Boy ended. The latter was a serial narrative, and had a clear ending po
int, more like a graphic novel than your average webcomic, so its end should come as no surprise, but nonetheless, I'll be starting They Don't Make 'Em Like That Anymore, my series of retired webcomics, with it.
Rice Boy
by Evan Dahm
http://www.rice-boy.com or http://riceboy.jho-tan.com/
This little guy on your right is Fone Bone. He's
the star of Jeff Smith's epic serial Bone, which ran from 1991 to 2004, during which time it won ten Eisner Awards, eleven Harvey Awards, six Grammys, the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize, and a Congressional Medal of Honor. Except not those last four. The National Cartoonists Society named 
it Best Comic Book, and in its collected 1300-page omnibus form, it's widely considered to be the best graphic novel currently in print. Why am I talking about Bone? Because it's got a lot in common with Rice Boy, whose title character you now see on your left.
See, Fone Bone and Rice Boy are both simplistic-looking characters thrust into epic adventures in their respective elaborately-drawn fantasy wo
rlds. Whereas Bone actively tried to combine the jokey comic-book format with a Tolkein-esque fantasy world. Dahm isn't as interested in telling jokes; he just navigates Rice Boy and The One Electronic (T-O-E, to his friends) through their bizarre world, populated with Dali-esque creatures and bizarre characters, each with their own strangely compelling idilect. "Well, Cal and I are... agents of God, or something like that," says T-O-E in an early strip. In a later strip, an incidental character, after being introduced grandly as Bor the Very Large, answers a question with "Pfft - I dunno. ... He's pretty lame."
T-O-E alone is worth your time. Such a unique character design can't go wasted, a
nd T-O-E dominates this comic. A 3000-year-old Machine Man who has been sent by God, or at least what's left of God, to find the one who will fulfil the prophecy, T-O-E has about him a sense of the noir. Maybe it's the air of mysterious toughness about his character. Maybe it's the purple trenchcoat. Or maybe it's the random black-and-white image (which might be Frank Zappa in one frame and Charles Foster Kane in the next) that serves as his face. Or maybe he's just plain cool, and there's no reason to delve too deep.
I can't talk too much about the substance of Rice Boy's story, because the questions are set up early, and very quickly we find ourselves in spoiler territory. I will say that there's some epic fantasy stuff going on. There's a Chosen One type deal going on, as well as an ancient prophecy to be fulfilled or neglected, and Dahm has set it up such that the entirety of the world he's created hangs in the balance. But a large portion of the story is the quest of Rice Boy himself, and as such, is somewhat picaresque, giving Dahm time to really show off this elaborate world and all its crazy creatures.
Rice Boy ran from April 2006 to May 2008, totalling 439 comic-book-size pages in full color. If you read the whole thing and find you're still not satisfied, you're in luck, as Dahm has just started the follow-up project, Order of Tales, which takes place in the same universe.
NEXT UPDATE
The Perry Bible Fellowship has nothing to do with Bibles or fellowship at all. Though it's rather amusing to think of someone who clicks on it expecting something of the sort. I'll be talking about it tomorrow, on The Webcomics Digest. Wooooo.
int, more like a graphic novel than your average webcomic, so its end should come as no surprise, but nonetheless, I'll be starting They Don't Make 'Em Like That Anymore, my series of retired webcomics, with it.Rice Boy
by Evan Dahm
http://www.rice-boy.com or http://riceboy.jho-tan.com/
This little guy on your right is Fone Bone. He's
the star of Jeff Smith's epic serial Bone, which ran from 1991 to 2004, during which time it won ten Eisner Awards, eleven Harvey Awards, six Grammys, the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize, and a Congressional Medal of Honor. Except not those last four. The National Cartoonists Society named 
it Best Comic Book, and in its collected 1300-page omnibus form, it's widely considered to be the best graphic novel currently in print. Why am I talking about Bone? Because it's got a lot in common with Rice Boy, whose title character you now see on your left.See, Fone Bone and Rice Boy are both simplistic-looking characters thrust into epic adventures in their respective elaborately-drawn fantasy wo
rlds. Whereas Bone actively tried to combine the jokey comic-book format with a Tolkein-esque fantasy world. Dahm isn't as interested in telling jokes; he just navigates Rice Boy and The One Electronic (T-O-E, to his friends) through their bizarre world, populated with Dali-esque creatures and bizarre characters, each with their own strangely compelling idilect. "Well, Cal and I are... agents of God, or something like that," says T-O-E in an early strip. In a later strip, an incidental character, after being introduced grandly as Bor the Very Large, answers a question with "Pfft - I dunno. ... He's pretty lame."T-O-E alone is worth your time. Such a unique character design can't go wasted, a
nd T-O-E dominates this comic. A 3000-year-old Machine Man who has been sent by God, or at least what's left of God, to find the one who will fulfil the prophecy, T-O-E has about him a sense of the noir. Maybe it's the air of mysterious toughness about his character. Maybe it's the purple trenchcoat. Or maybe it's the random black-and-white image (which might be Frank Zappa in one frame and Charles Foster Kane in the next) that serves as his face. Or maybe he's just plain cool, and there's no reason to delve too deep.I can't talk too much about the substance of Rice Boy's story, because the questions are set up early, and very quickly we find ourselves in spoiler territory. I will say that there's some epic fantasy stuff going on. There's a Chosen One type deal going on, as well as an ancient prophecy to be fulfilled or neglected, and Dahm has set it up such that the entirety of the world he's created hangs in the balance. But a large portion of the story is the quest of Rice Boy himself, and as such, is somewhat picaresque, giving Dahm time to really show off this elaborate world and all its crazy creatures.
Rice Boy ran from April 2006 to May 2008, totalling 439 comic-book-size pages in full color. If you read the whole thing and find you're still not satisfied, you're in luck, as Dahm has just started the follow-up project, Order of Tales, which takes place in the same universe.
NEXT UPDATE
The Perry Bible Fellowship has nothing to do with Bibles or fellowship at all. Though it's rather amusing to think of someone who clicks on it expecting something of the sort. I'll be talking about it tomorrow, on The Webcomics Digest. Wooooo.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
The Minus Touch
Minus.by Ryan Armand
http://www.kiwisbybeat.com/minus.html
"It'll be updating every thursday until I suddenly stop!" It was there the whole time, just to the left of the little newspost that accompanies every Minus, and sure enough, Ryan "Rezo" Armand is true to his word. His weekly strip was a gorgeous watercolor about a young girl whose hair changes color every week and who is also omnipotent. Last Thursday, Armand gave us a triple-update, followed by this little block of text:
3/7/08- Thanks for reading.
Because the comic just ended. I was thinking about announcing it last month but then I remembered the blurb I made about the comic ending suddenly when I started it.
And then some administrative crap about prints and whatnot.
I loved Minus. The watercolor-on-15"x20" illustration board style gives the comic an old-timey feel, something like Little Nemo in its aesthetic and imaginative scope, which makes it all the more effective when Minus does something disturbing, like the wanton destruction an omnipotent child would be capable of. In this strip, she pretty much murders the balloon salesman. In this one, she destroys a house for no reason. But the style and personality of the strip convey an innocence that belies its dark side.
Of course, that never stopped cute little moments like this one:
or this:
Maybe I'm throwing in my examples a bit ham-handedly, but Minus was a truly unique voice that spoke for itself. It was a member of the Koala Wallop collective, alongside Dresden Codak, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, and two other ingenious discontinued comics: A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible, and Rice Boy. Most of the strips on Koala Wallop have their own unique visionary art style and quirky humor, and Minus was no exception.
In 2007, Minus was nominated for the Will Eisner Award in the category of Best Digital Comic. It was up against Phables, Girl Genuis, Bee, Shooting War, and the eventual winner, Sam and Max. Stiff competition, but it's pretty safe to say there was nothing else in the list of nominees quite like Minus. In fact, there's really nothing else on the Internet quite like Minus. She leaves quite a vacuum in her absense.
Minus used to update weekly, but it's over now, so it won't be updating any more. On the other hand, there's no better time to read (or re-read) through the archive! Go ahead, it's still waiting for you.
NEXT UPDATE
I'll be kicking off They Don't Make 'Em Like That Anymore, my second series of daily updates, this time about great webcomics that have been retired, ended, or otherwise discontinued. Starting Monday, here on The Webcomics Digest.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Ball-Point Pun
[Apologies for the lateness of this entry; turns out that getting married and moving were a bit more exhausting than I'd imagined they'd be.]
Odd-Fish
by Nobby Nobody
http://www.odd-fish.net
Lately I've been writing transcripts for a strange little webcomic called Odd-Fish. Why? I dunno, the humor just clicks with me. The comics are fun to read, and the transcripts are fun to write, and the style I write them in seems to m
esh with the aesthetic to the comic. At least I hope it does.
The average reader, noting Odd-Fish's affinity for puns and lack of subtlety, might be a bit surprised to find that Phillip Blackman – aka Nobby Nobody, the artist/author – is from Suffolk, England. Who says that all British humor is dry?
“Dry...” oh dear Lord, he's rubbing off on me.
Odd-Fish is something of a spin-off from Nobby's other project, Biro-Art. A biro is, for the uninitiated, what they call a ball-point pen across the pond (so called after its inventor, László Bíró). That's right. Ball-point pens. All this delightfully intricate art is done with naught but ball-point pens. It gives the scenery and the characters a level of intracacy that I just don't see in any other webcomic I read. It all builds into a visual feast twice a week: the crosshatching patterns, the shadows, the anatomically-correct sea life, and of course, the facial expressions.
I know I'm like a broken record, but facial expressions can make or break a comic. Done well, they can make lame jokes funny. Done poorly, they can make funny jokes fall flat.
See here? The Shakespeare and banking fish puns are kind of funny, if that's what you're into, but what really makes the comic is Howard's expression as he cocks the shotgun, or slaps his own forehead in the last panel.
Or there! The gross-out humor of an octopus filling a pen with his own ink is pretty funny, kinda maybe, but again, it's Howard's expression that turns an "eh" joke into a funny one. Clicking through, you may find yourself chuckling at the jokes, but it's that gorgeous biro art that'll keep you clicking through. It's magnetic.
WARNING! WARNING! IMPENDING PUNS! Let's start with our two main characters, a pufferfish named Howard and an octopus named (of course) Lovecraft. They're friends with a rather unlucky manatee named Hugh. Yes, Hugh Manatee. Lovecraft watches hentai for the tentacles, and loves Internet Prawnography. When they're not cracking fish-related puns, the Odd-Fish gang engage in some seriously surreal humor (sometimes involving tiny tinned zebras), reprise some jokes that are older than most of the readers...
or sometimes, get just plain zany:
But if you think you can handle it, you're in for some of the best artwork on the 'net.
Odd-Fish Updates most Wednesdays and Saturdays, misses sometimes, and is often late for larger or particularly intricate strips. It's presented in glorious biro black-and-white, with occasional spot-coloring. Check it out!
NEXT UPDATE
Minus just ended. I'm going to wax nostalgic on it for a bit, and tell you why you should read through the archives. Wednesday, on The Webcomics Digest! See you then!
Odd-Fishby Nobby Nobody
http://www.odd-fish.net
Lately I've been writing transcripts for a strange little webcomic called Odd-Fish. Why? I dunno, the humor just clicks with me. The comics are fun to read, and the transcripts are fun to write, and the style I write them in seems to m
esh with the aesthetic to the comic. At least I hope it does.The average reader, noting Odd-Fish's affinity for puns and lack of subtlety, might be a bit surprised to find that Phillip Blackman – aka Nobby Nobody, the artist/author – is from Suffolk, England. Who says that all British humor is dry?
“Dry...” oh dear Lord, he's rubbing off on me.
Odd-Fish is something of a spin-off from Nobby's other project, Biro-Art. A biro is, for the uninitiated, what they call a ball-point pen across the pond (so called after its inventor, László Bíró). That's right. Ball-point pens. All this delightfully intricate art is done with naught but ball-point pens. It gives the scenery and the characters a level of intracacy that I just don't see in any other webcomic I read. It all builds into a visual feast twice a week: the crosshatching patterns, the shadows, the anatomically-correct sea life, and of course, the facial expressions.
I know I'm like a broken record, but facial expressions can make or break a comic. Done well, they can make lame jokes funny. Done poorly, they can make funny jokes fall flat.
See here? The Shakespeare and banking fish puns are kind of funny, if that's what you're into, but what really makes the comic is Howard's expression as he cocks the shotgun, or slaps his own forehead in the last panel.
Or there! The gross-out humor of an octopus filling a pen with his own ink is pretty funny, kinda maybe, but again, it's Howard's expression that turns an "eh" joke into a funny one. Clicking through, you may find yourself chuckling at the jokes, but it's that gorgeous biro art that'll keep you clicking through. It's magnetic.
WARNING! WARNING! IMPENDING PUNS! Let's start with our two main characters, a pufferfish named Howard and an octopus named (of course) Lovecraft. They're friends with a rather unlucky manatee named Hugh. Yes, Hugh Manatee. Lovecraft watches hentai for the tentacles, and loves Internet Prawnography. When they're not cracking fish-related puns, the Odd-Fish gang engage in some seriously surreal humor (sometimes involving tiny tinned zebras), reprise some jokes that are older than most of the readers...
or sometimes, get just plain zany:
But if you think you can handle it, you're in for some of the best artwork on the 'net.Odd-Fish Updates most Wednesdays and Saturdays, misses sometimes, and is often late for larger or particularly intricate strips. It's presented in glorious biro black-and-white, with occasional spot-coloring. Check it out!
NEXT UPDATE
Minus just ended. I'm going to wax nostalgic on it for a bit, and tell you why you should read through the archives. Wednesday, on The Webcomics Digest! See you then!
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Oracle Fixation
I'm gonna talk a little about John Solomon. Then I'm gonna talk a little about Dominic Deegan.
Like me, John Solomon keeps a blog. Also like me, his blog is hosted on
Blogspot. And futhermore, like me, his blog is about webcomics. As far as I can see, there's one major difference between John Solomon (other than the fact that he spells his name wrong): I actually like webcomics.
It comes as something of a surprise when someone I know sees this website, still in its throes of infancy, and refers me to his project, Your Webcomic is Bad and You Should Feel Bad. It's already happened more than once. Apparently, some folks saw that I did a writeup on Sluggy Freelance, and, having read John Solomon's scathing review of the same, figured I probably hadn't seen what he had written, else I would have seen the light and known better than to include Sluggy in my Required Reading series. (It's commonly known that on the Web, there are no disagreements; only mistakes.)
There's only so much I can say about Solomon's review of Sluggy. He has his opinion, and I have mine, but I will say that I love about Sluggy pretty much everything he hates about it. I'll also note where, in his review's penultimate paragraph, he whines about Sluggy Freelance's longevity: "I really can't comprehend why webcomic jerks cannot simply end things. Why can't they say to themselves, 'I have told all I can tell with these characters. Time for something new.' ...What makes your amateur-hour shit worthy of going on and on until nobody cares anymore?"
Some people are like that, too. Where do they get off, living to such obscene ages? Who lives to 70, right? I can't comprehend why those stupid septagenarians cannot simply end things. Why can't they say to themselves, "I've lived a full life, I've done all I can, it's time to move on." What makes their medical-drama shit worthy of going on and on until nobody cares anymore? Dammit, gramma, just up and die already!
...
Anyway. Solomon's least favorite comic on the whole entire Internet is called Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire, and it's one that I strongly considered including in my Required Reading list. It's by a fellow named Michael Terracciano, but these days he pretty much only goes by Mookie. I ultimately decided not to include Dominic in my first series because it's been suffering some pacing issues in the last year or two which have made it hard to recommend with a straight face. More on that later, since Solomon isn't talking about the last year or so. He's talking about the whole thing, start to finish, which he's made abundantly clear with his FOUR (1, 2, 3, 4) blog entries, all on the subject of how much Dominic Deegan sucks. He's written and shared via the Internet 7,897 words all on the subject of how much he can't stand Dominic Deegan. He even did a parody comic called Dominic Durgan about how awful the source material is. His 4th blog entry about Dominic Deegan is ostensibly about his own parody of it, but he can't get his hands dirty without talking about his favorite subject, which is, of course, the reasons and extent to which Dominic Deegan sucks.
I actually like Dominic Deegan... most of the time. A friend of mine put it best: "Mookie tricked me. I thought I was getting this little gag-a-day sitcom about a seer with really stupid customers, and I wound up getting this fantasy epic." I feel pretty similarly. I wouldn't have started reading Dominic Deegan if someone had told me that it's about this all-important seer who must serve as basically the savior of his era to rescue his plane of existence from the forces of Chaos...
I'm getting ahead of myself. Just start with the first week. Check out, from way back in 2002, the second-ever Dominic Deegan strip:
Later on, things get a bit more serious:
John Solomon doesn't like it when a comic does things like this. His complaints that Dominic has failed to develop over the years belie one of Dominic Deegan's best traits: it spent the whole first five years or so developing. The characters evolved into more serious versions of themselves as events demanded, and the world Mookie's been building keeps expanding as the story progresses.
The problem becomes evident when you take a glance at the archive page. Dominic Deegan's first real "epic" storyline, "Visions of Doom," took 140 pages and just over half a year to complete. He followed it up with an even more intense arc, "Ecstacy and Evil," which took another 150 pages and another six months. After a brief romantic-comedy interlude, he continued with an even longer, more intense arc, "The Storm of Souls," which brought in the big-purpose stuff by threatening the entire planet. This arc took Almost 250 pages and was the focus of Dominic Deegan for a little over ten months. Mookie decided to back off and give his characters a little well-deserved rest by focusing on a comedy-heavy story arc about a rock concert, but then came back with a storyline even grander in scope than "Storm of Souls": "The War in Hell" threatened all planes of existence in Dominic's universe, spanning eight months and another two hundred pages. "The War in Hell" ended in October 2006, and since then? Well, it seems to me that Mookie doesn't know quite what to do with his characters now.
As I post this on Wednesday, June 25, 2008, the current story arc has Dominic on a world-travelling cruise. It's interesting world-building, but there's little conflict. Before that, he was dealing with a buildup of stress from his new professorship that was causing him to boil over... the story was ill-paced and seemed to draw the same conclusion several times before advancing - Mookie seemed to be treading water.
I hope he has a plan for the future of Dominic Deegan. I really do. During those epic moments, it managed to captivate me like very few other works of fantasy can, building a vast and consistent set of worlds for the characters to inhabit. But these days it feels like the characters have done it all; where else is there to go? Dominic Deegan: Space Oracle? Dominic Deegan Meets Frankenstein? Dominic Deegan Does Dallas?
Alright, that was too far even for me.
Dominic Deegan: Oracle For Hire updates daily, with breaks for conventions, and is in full color most Sundays.
Your Webcomic Is Bad And You Should Feel Bad updates whenever John Solomon feels like updating it, which is never, because he hates you anyway.
NEXT UPDATE
Penned punning undersea creatures never looked this good! Odd-Fish gets the Webcomics Digest treatment, Wednesday! (Postponed due to wedding.)
Like me, John Solomon keeps a blog. Also like me, his blog is hosted on
Blogspot. And futhermore, like me, his blog is about webcomics. As far as I can see, there's one major difference between John Solomon (other than the fact that he spells his name wrong): I actually like webcomics.It comes as something of a surprise when someone I know sees this website, still in its throes of infancy, and refers me to his project, Your Webcomic is Bad and You Should Feel Bad. It's already happened more than once. Apparently, some folks saw that I did a writeup on Sluggy Freelance, and, having read John Solomon's scathing review of the same, figured I probably hadn't seen what he had written, else I would have seen the light and known better than to include Sluggy in my Required Reading series. (It's commonly known that on the Web, there are no disagreements; only mistakes.)
There's only so much I can say about Solomon's review of Sluggy. He has his opinion, and I have mine, but I will say that I love about Sluggy pretty much everything he hates about it. I'll also note where, in his review's penultimate paragraph, he whines about Sluggy Freelance's longevity: "I really can't comprehend why webcomic jerks cannot simply end things. Why can't they say to themselves, 'I have told all I can tell with these characters. Time for something new.' ...What makes your amateur-hour shit worthy of going on and on until nobody cares anymore?"
Some people are like that, too. Where do they get off, living to such obscene ages? Who lives to 70, right? I can't comprehend why those stupid septagenarians cannot simply end things. Why can't they say to themselves, "I've lived a full life, I've done all I can, it's time to move on." What makes their medical-drama shit worthy of going on and on until nobody cares anymore? Dammit, gramma, just up and die already!
...
Anyway. Solomon's least favorite comic on the whole entire Internet is called Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire, and it's one that I strongly considered including in my Required Reading list. It's by a fellow named Michael Terracciano, but these days he pretty much only goes by Mookie. I ultimately decided not to include Dominic in my first series because it's been suffering some pacing issues in the last year or two which have made it hard to recommend with a straight face. More on that later, since Solomon isn't talking about the last year or so. He's talking about the whole thing, start to finish, which he's made abundantly clear with his FOUR (1, 2, 3, 4) blog entries, all on the subject of how much Dominic Deegan sucks. He's written and shared via the Internet 7,897 words all on the subject of how much he can't stand Dominic Deegan. He even did a parody comic called Dominic Durgan about how awful the source material is. His 4th blog entry about Dominic Deegan is ostensibly about his own parody of it, but he can't get his hands dirty without talking about his favorite subject, which is, of course, the reasons and extent to which Dominic Deegan sucks.
I actually like Dominic Deegan... most of the time. A friend of mine put it best: "Mookie tricked me. I thought I was getting this little gag-a-day sitcom about a seer with really stupid customers, and I wound up getting this fantasy epic." I feel pretty similarly. I wouldn't have started reading Dominic Deegan if someone had told me that it's about this all-important seer who must serve as basically the savior of his era to rescue his plane of existence from the forces of Chaos...
I'm getting ahead of myself. Just start with the first week. Check out, from way back in 2002, the second-ever Dominic Deegan strip:
Later on, things get a bit more serious:
John Solomon doesn't like it when a comic does things like this. His complaints that Dominic has failed to develop over the years belie one of Dominic Deegan's best traits: it spent the whole first five years or so developing. The characters evolved into more serious versions of themselves as events demanded, and the world Mookie's been building keeps expanding as the story progresses.
The problem becomes evident when you take a glance at the archive page. Dominic Deegan's first real "epic" storyline, "Visions of Doom," took 140 pages and just over half a year to complete. He followed it up with an even more intense arc, "Ecstacy and Evil," which took another 150 pages and another six months. After a brief romantic-comedy interlude, he continued with an even longer, more intense arc, "The Storm of Souls," which brought in the big-purpose stuff by threatening the entire planet. This arc took Almost 250 pages and was the focus of Dominic Deegan for a little over ten months. Mookie decided to back off and give his characters a little well-deserved rest by focusing on a comedy-heavy story arc about a rock concert, but then came back with a storyline even grander in scope than "Storm of Souls": "The War in Hell" threatened all planes of existence in Dominic's universe, spanning eight months and another two hundred pages. "The War in Hell" ended in October 2006, and since then? Well, it seems to me that Mookie doesn't know quite what to do with his characters now.
As I post this on Wednesday, June 25, 2008, the current story arc has Dominic on a world-travelling cruise. It's interesting world-building, but there's little conflict. Before that, he was dealing with a buildup of stress from his new professorship that was causing him to boil over... the story was ill-paced and seemed to draw the same conclusion several times before advancing - Mookie seemed to be treading water.
I hope he has a plan for the future of Dominic Deegan. I really do. During those epic moments, it managed to captivate me like very few other works of fantasy can, building a vast and consistent set of worlds for the characters to inhabit. But these days it feels like the characters have done it all; where else is there to go? Dominic Deegan: Space Oracle? Dominic Deegan Meets Frankenstein? Dominic Deegan Does Dallas?
Alright, that was too far even for me.
Dominic Deegan: Oracle For Hire updates daily, with breaks for conventions, and is in full color most Sundays.
Your Webcomic Is Bad And You Should Feel Bad updates whenever John Solomon feels like updating it, which is never, because he hates you anyway.
NEXT UPDATE
Penned punning undersea creatures never looked this good! Odd-Fish gets the Webcomics Digest treatment, Wednesday! (Postponed due to wedding.)
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Administrative error
It has come to my attention that anonymous comments were blocked. They are no longer blocked; anyone can comment now. Sorry for the inconvenience.
The Twitter Pen
Hey, before I start, I might as well plug my new song up for consideration at Songfight. Have a listen, and toss me a vote, if it's your kind of thing. And now that the Shameless Plug portion of our review is over...
The Bitter Pen
The Bitter Pen
by brian
http://www.thebitterpen.com/
I've noticed a lot of webcomic artists started using Twitter, and even embedded in in their homepages. Republic Domain even did a whole comic about how addictive it is, before disappearing into the ether (hmm...). It's been called “micro-blogging.” A few random examples:
Jeph Jacques, of Questionable Content, writes: “Nathan Fake how do you make your music sound like cotton candy”
Alina Pete, of Weregeek, writes: “Getting together costumes for SLARPcon this weekend. I can't wait to try out my steampunk outfit!”
David “Walky” Willis, of Shortpacked!, writes: “I like things!”
It's not quite blogging, really; I doubt anyone would mistake a Twitter post for a blog entry, most of the time, but there's something blog-like about these short snippets, and most Twitter users seem to update more often than blog users. I assume because user Twitter doesn't take up as much time as writing in a
ANYWAY. My point is this: Doesn't this look a lot like an illustrated Twitter post?
And this?
And this?
Let me get one thing out the way before I keep going. I actually like The Bitter Pen. A lot. It's clever, makes me think, and amuses me five days a week. I recommend it. I think you should read it. But it's one of the few comics I read that I really do think would be completely successful with all the art excised and the text converted into an old-fashioned blog.
So I raised the question at the end of the last update: what's the difference between a webcomic and a blog? The answer is obvious. Art. And by “art,” I really mean “layout.” Because, let's face it, Brian's crappy little drawings don't say nearly as much as the comic to your right. I wouldn't want to read someone's blog if their entries were just simply “AAAAHHHHHHHH!” (I mean, seeing Cathy in the paper every once in a while is enough, thanks.) But the orange background and the way the text illustrates the emotion it's trying to convey, though a bit facile, makes the whole package more appealing.
And so it goes for the whole comic. More often than not, the entire day's comic will be a telling vignette framed by some device (an iPhone, a priest's vestments, a car's bumper sticker), or if no such appropriate device suggests itself, then presented alongside a crude self-portrait. And yet the text appeals me in some basic way. He's wry and witty, and it takes about ten seconds to read.
The Bitter Pen updates every Monday through Friday, and is usually in color, but who cares, since the pictures barely matter anyway?
NEXT UPDATE
Who is John Solomon? I mean, other than a bitter man whose mommy didn't love him enough? I'll be taking on the ultimate hater, Wednesday on The Webcomics Digest.
P.S. Leave a comment telling me how much of a sellout I am.
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