Given that American society has slowly started to accept gay marriage (which I have no problem with; if marriage is a religious institution, then the government has no right to make laws concerning its legality, and if it’s secular then religious beliefs should not influence who can or cannot marry), it was inevitable for gay marriages to crop up into webcomics. Still, I must admit I was rather surprised to see Namir Deiter’s Gabby’s girlfriend Joan ask for Joan’s hand in marriage. Part of this lies with Gabby’s personality; I always had the feeling she was only dating Joan because Joan was insisting. I’m not really sure if we’ve even seen any moments of intimacy between the two girls. Though when you consider Isabel Marks has a tradition of pairing off her characters (with only Blue and Joy of the old cast having avoided being paired off), I suppose I should have seen this coming. And there is always the remote possibility Gabby will say no… if only because she’s not sure of how she feels. To be honest, I think that would make for a more interesting story than to just pair the spares once more, but I suspect they’ll be the next to succumb to the matrimony bug that keeps biting ND cast members.
Namir Deiter
January 26th, 2012Evil Inc.
January 25th, 2012
Imagine for a moment that after an ill-conceived wish, someone you were dating or married to forgot that the two of you had ever been together… and then went on to sleep with someone else. This is the basic concept behind the latest storyline in the superhero parody comic Evil Inc., with Captain Heroic having forgotten his marriage to Miss Match, and it has left me feeling decidedly cold. Part of this lies with the fact that I have strong opinions concerning the sanctity of marriage… and while Heroic may not “remember” his marriage, he has cheated on his wife. And yet the fact he’s sleeping with another woman (and a superheroine at that) doesn’t faze Miss Match in the least.
Okay, sure. Miss Match is a villain, though as far as villains go she’s not particularly villainous. What’s more, we’ve already seen in the past that their relationship isn’t built on a firm foundation; when Heroic unknowingly was flirting with her alternative-reality counterpart, she was about ready to leave him. And yet now, he’s out-and-out cheating on her and that doesn’t matter in the least. There’s no jealousy. There’s no anger. There’s a brief moment of wondering if letting this continue would let him be “happy” before the typical joke of it being her duty as his wife to destroy his happiness. But that’s all.
I will admit that Miss Match’s ill-conceived wish was responsible for this mess to begin with. But ultimately, she made the wish when backed into the corner by another villain (who she’d thought of as a friend) who was threatening to reveal her marriage to Heroic unless she handed over a dangerous artifact to her. So there’s no blame. And likewise, there’s no point to this. Instead, we have a massive derailing of both Match and Heroic’s characters and for no real reason. Unfortunately, the artifact has vanished, so Brad J. Guigar can’t even just “wish away” this storyline, and pretend it never happened.
Namesake
January 24th, 2012
While I normally don’t care much for webcomic chapter covers (as I’d much rather see the next page of the story rather than a splash page), I have to admit I was taken with the cover page for chapter eight of the fantasy webcomic Namesake. Given that much of the story has focused on the adventures of Emma in the Land of Oz, it’s only natural that the page would focus on these aspects, and a natural progression to depict Emma and her companions similarly to how Dorothy was depicted in the original “Wizard of Oz” story, though Emma has been claiming for a while that she’s not a Dorothy (as one of the oddities of Oz is that most of the humans that visit have been named Dorothy and share a kinship of spirit with the original Dorothy).
Our Not-Dorothy has been joined with a crew as eclectic as the original who sought to visit the Wizard in the Emerald City; while the Scarecrow has stepped back into his old role (if older and wiser than he was the first time), the Tin Woodsman’s grandson, Warrick, has taken up his axe as he seeks to restore Oz and rescue Ozma. Amusingly, the Cowardly Lion is being represented by a rather nervous Munchkin, Agha, who much like the Lion has shown far greater courage than she realized she possessed. There’s even room for a Toto of sorts in the story with Warrick’s father (a shape-changing wizard currently in the form of a winged gumdrop)
The page itself is both artistic and disturbing in its depiction. Given the state of Oz (with its inhabitants having started to age once more after Ozma went missing several years back), having the four heroes travel along a path the color of decay makes some sense. The background image of Ozma, facing away and with a gaping hole in her middle, is likewise reminiscent of the decay of Oz itself… with Ozma herself the missing heart of Oz. It’s an interesting touch, and helps tell a story in and of itself. Interestingly, Emma’s companions are looking to her, perhaps for guidance despite her being a stranger with no ties to Oz. Given that print comic covers often have little to do with the story within, it’ll be interesting to see if this page will have any bearing on the story as a whole.
Original Life and Real Life Fiction
January 23rd, 2012
For the last couple of months, a significant chunk of my time has been vanishing into the ether. This time thief has struck tens of thousands during the same period of time, disrupting productivity and sleep schedules across America. Its name: Skyrim. Naturally, anything this popular would inevitably become the topic of numerous webcomic one-shots, if only to help explain away late updates and the like… but two in particular stand out, if only because of their timing (in that they happened within days of one another).
The first was Friday’s Original Life comic (though to be honest, Jay Naylor started things out a week earlier by introducing the dragon Spike from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic to a Nordic Dragonborn looking for a dragon soul to add to her collection. Okay, it was more chasing the kid sister off the television to play computer games, but it was a fun nod to both popular genres. Besides, Naylor’s glimpse into elements of Skyrim continues a tradition of the comic’s characters playing various games, including Mass Effect and Skyrim.
But what’s especially amusing about the glimpses we’ve been given of Skyrim is how much it strikes to the heart of various oddities. For instance, we have the eating of food in the middle of an armed conflict to replenish health, the inane quests from people too lazy to walk up several stairs to make a delivery (and paying hundreds of gold for this – laziness pays well it seems)… or even the… side effects of the Amulet of Mara (and let’s face it, in real life dating would be sooo much easier if something like this existed). Sure, these comics have had little to do with Original Life… but they’ve still been fun.
The second is a slice-of-life webcomic called Real Life Fiction that defies easy classification. Although I suppose you could call it a combination insanity/gamer comic. Unlike Naylor’s comic, RLF bounces from topic to topic like a hyperactive squirrel hooked on caffeine (which may be ironic, seeing that the main character has a squirrel perched on her head at all times). While the first comic didn’t make any sense to me (seeing that I have no idea who Garrison Keillor is or why Robin would associate him with the god Talos from Skyrim), the second comic on the Dwemer (or Dwarves) was delightfully twisted.
As anyone who’s played the game is aware, the extinct Dwemer (often called Dwarves by the humans in the game, despite the fact the Dwemer were in fact subterranean elves) had a demented interest in death traps and various torments. In fact, this rather delightful group enslaved some of their brethren who begged sanctuary from them and twisted them into a species that, despite the disappearance of their tormenters, wants nothing more than to wipe out every surface-dwelling creature in the world.
The game never does quite explain what happened to the Dwemer. Thus, in the tradition of gamer webcomics everywhere, RLF takes a stab at this mystery by suggesting the death traps that litter Dwemer domiciles in fact became so lethal that they wiped out the Dwemer race when they tried to do such ordinary chores as taking out the trash or checking on the laundry. The last panel, with the hardened warrior staring in shock and horror at the murderous washing machine busy mangling his laundry while charging him, just rings true somehow.
In an amusing twist, a ways back Real Life Fiction also poked fun at MLP:FIM by suggesting the series could “ponyfie” classic literature stories, such as Frankenpony or the Scarlet Cutie Mark. Though considering the series has already paid homage to I Love Lucy, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Besides, the longer a series runs, the more likely that it will attempt to adapt a Shakespearian play at some point. So ultimately, RLF may have been prescient with its suggestion.
Darths and Droids
January 19th, 2012
It’s kind of odd, but I’ve found I’ve not been able to get into the most recent storyline for the photo-movie rescript webcomic Darths and Droids as I did with previous issues. This is weird seeing I was originally looking forward to seeing how The Comic Irregulars would modify this most classic of the Star Wars movies, but after a little thought it dawned on me what was wrong: I had grown so used to the characters used in the previous three episodes that this new cast were strangers to me that I had no sense of attachment to. The lone exception to this, R2D2, was “run” by a power-gaming twit who I never felt any sympathy for and thus had no sense of attachment to.
Perhaps part of it also lies with the fact that Annie (who is running the character of Leia) doesn’t particularly sound like the Annie of old. Her “voice” seems slightly off-kilter. Of course, some time has passed since the end of Episode 3 (with aspects of the computer game “Dark Forces” being integrated into the comic’s past from the sounds of things), so we’re also starting part way into an ongoing story without a sense of what’s going on. The jump, combined with an entirely new cast of characters, has created a sense of distance between me and the comic.
No doubt with more time the comic will start to make more sense. Once I get used to Annie playing Leia and Jim playing whatever character he rolls up after his current character, Captain Antilles, bites the big one facing down Darth Vader I’ll become more invested in the characters and their story. Undoubtedly, Jim will end up playing Luke, which might make things a bit weird seeing that we know Luke and Leia are siblings; the real question would be if the players remember this tidbit. Though I must admit it would be hilarious if Luke and Han were switched at birth without anyone knowing….
Girl Genius
January 18th, 2012
Today I saw something that I never would have, in a million years, have expected. I saw the Pirate Queen Bangladesh DuPree reduced to tears. And this wasn’t tears of pain, mind you. We got to see the most gleefully homicidal character of the fantasy steampunk webcomic Girl Genius, a woman who giggles when she reads the definition of the word “sociopath” and considers them to be weak sauce, crying in Gilgamesh Wulfenbach’s arms as she explained to Gil how she’d searched for Gil’s father in the wreckage of the hospital… and was unable to find him anywhere. She was unable to save him… and she tried.
Of course we all know it’s likely that Klaus Wulfenbach is still alive, and likely a prisoner of the Other (the antagonist who waged war on Europe 18 years prior, and who had briefly possessed her daughter Agatha). Phil and Kaja Foglio have played this close to their vests… but in all likelihood the reveal on Klaus’s location (and condition) will happen at the end of Volume 11. In a way it’s disappointing; I know that Klaus won’t take his domination by the Other lying down. He’s already shown the ability to subvert the Other’s control, if only in small ways. It would be amusing to watch how else he thwarts the slaver wasp nestled in his gut.
(If I can indulge in a brief aside, the Foglios actually foreshadowed this years back in a made-up Heterodyne story. Not only did they have Klaus infected by a Slaver Wasp… but they also showed Klaus being freed of its influence. Of course, back then we didn’t know that the Wasps (or normal Slaver Wasps at least) couldn’t infect Sparks… but that doesn’t limit the foreshadowing aspect of this tale. And it gives me some hope at least that Klaus can ultimately be saved. He’s entirely too fascinating a character to be sacrificed as the right-hand man of the Other – or, to use a TV Tropes term, the Other’s Dragon.)
DuPree’s reaction to Gil (and to the loss of Klaus) is rather telling of Klaus himself. This man managed to win the loyalty of a bloodthirsty maniac… to the point that she follows Klaus’s orders without thinking. But what’s more, she ran back to the hospital to save Klaus. It tears her up that she failed him. When you consider how self-centered she is, the fact he managed to earn such loyalty in her says something about the physical charisma of the Baron. Oh, he wasn’t one for big speeches or the like. He was a rather quiet man when given the chance. But he led. He inspired. And somehow he captured DuPree’s loyalty. And that’s no small thing.
What’s more, her breakdown was well depicted… as was Gil’s reaction. I mean, he’s shocked to see DuPree break into tears this like. This is a woman who has no moral compass, no sense of wrong. Part of this may be the sense of helplessness here (and indeed, her threat to kill Gil in the final panel for having made her cry is quite indicative of her hatred of being helpless. This is a position she never wanted anyone to see her in, and Gil caused it. He’s a dead man, alright). What’s more… the final panel says so much. It’s not just the others calling him Herr Baron. When Gil takes DuPree into his arms and absolves her of blame… he becomes Baron Wulfenbach. At least until DuPree kills him, that is.
Quick note…
January 18th, 2012Just as a heads up, there is a review for Tuesday currently up, below the SOPA “red-out” sign on copyright violations, and it’s of a comic I’ve not reviewed before. I don’t want people to see the SOPA thing and not bother reading the actual review because they don’t realize it’s there.