Monthly Archives: April 2008

Sodium Eyes

Posted on April 29, 2008 by | Leave a comment


One problem with gaming comics lies with tremendous number of comics of this genre, all struggling to gain the attention of readers. In an effort to stand out, gamer comics often utilize some sort of hook to draw readers in. In this, Sodium Eyes is no different from its peers, using a coterie of attracting young attractively-drawn ladies who are into computers and gaming. Or in other words, good-looking female geeks, drawn in the manga art-style (complete with one girl with light green hair). In fact, in the 36 updates to date, we’ve not had a single guy appear in the comic. Fortunately, while cute, the ladies of SE aren’t drawn provocatively and appear to be more intellectual than sexual, keeping the comic from being too exploitive.

Unfortunately, for all that the ladies of SE are drawn nicely (and surprisingly avoiding that often-abused hook, fanservice), there are some artistic issues with the comic. The primary problem I have is excessive and unnecessary use of Copy-and-Paste. It’s obvious that Alfred Lam can draw. When he puts his mind to it, we can have multiple panels of the cast done simply and elegantly enough. Unfortunately, CaP is frequently used as a time-saving measure with little attempt to hide its use through shifts in viewing perspective or the like. As a result, legitimate uses of CaP (such as “frozen time” instances) feel unnecessary, like Lam is copping out rather than taking the time to draw the characters and story.

Much like most comics, SE also suffers from a lack of backgrounds early on (though SE utilizes color gradients to try and disguise this fact). Surprisingly enough, backgrounds (and foregrounds) start making an appearance fairly early on. Rather than rely solely on hand-drawn backgrounds, Lam uses featureless clip art to show such things as tables and the like. While this use of CaP is actually fairly inventive, it does unfortunately result in this world feeling rather empty; outside of the four heroines of the comic, and an overheard conversation on a commuter train, the comic is quite empty of other inhabitants. Much as with the adults in Peanuts, the rest of the world remains unseen and often unheard.

This results in a lot of focus being drawn on our four heroines. And while I might find tremendous amusement in Miya owning a coelacanth named Secant, we haven’t really learned much about these girls. Lumina is the child-like member of the cast, attracting birds and butterflies, and being unable to insult others, while Miya seems to delight in taking others down a peg. Neiko is more of a loner and technogeek (with enough spare components to build a new computer for Miya), and Kaela… well, she’s dependable and cares for the others but I honestly can’t say much about her. And that’s really the problem. The comic is character-centric, and the characters don’t have much personality.

The comic starts out as a series of shorts, and hasn’t really developed an actual storyline per say. While the wordplay between Miya and Neiko (and the results of Miya “winning” a verbal insult contest against the other girl) lasted for a couple of months, there’s no real sense of any plot or reason. And that’s a shame; rather than use the female gamer geek concept as the foundation for an imaginative and unique plot, SE relies on the old bag of tricks used by so many other Penny Arcade clones. If it weren’t for the fact the cast is comprised solely of women, there’d be nothing to differentiate it from so many of its peers. Hopefully, Sodium Eyes will outgrow its flaws. Until it does, I can only recommend it to those gaming geeks who like to fantasize about attractive gamer girls who haven’t already been snagged by their more assertive brethren.

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Sailor Sun

Posted on April 23, 2008 by | Leave a comment

The use of talking animals in stories goes back a long ways. Often these animals are used to impart words of wisdom upon the protagonist of the tale, acting in some ways like the voice of God. If you believe the religious claims that humanity is inherently a sinful creature (as per Christian lore), then animals, who never partook of the forbidden fruit, are closer to God than man… and if gifted with speech thus can speak for God. However, often these animals just act as a source of common sense if the protagonist is particularly ditzy or apt to do foolish things… and a source of comic relief when the protagonist has a less comedic role.

While I’ve never particularly liked the talking cat Teri from Sailor Sun (and indeed in an earlier review stated a desire to launch the cat out of a trebuchet), just recently I had a revelation as to what Teri actually represents. Teri is a mentally-challenged talking animal, making it a first for webcomics as far as I know. The cat exhibits signs of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (he’s easily distracted, has difficulty focusing, poor short-term memory, and is incredibly impulsive), and a mental level that… well, if he were a lightbulb people would be taking him out of the socket and replacing him.

Of course, you do have to wonder as to how much of this is due to his upbringing. While Bay tries to discipline him, we’ve seen Honey on at least one occasion helping this frantic feline with his pancake fix (though not successfully – for all her book smarts, Honey seems to lack a few skills in terms of cooking, or at least following instructions on package mixes). Indeed, I can envision Honey begging her mom (Bay) to buy Teri at a second-hand pet store (one of those shady places where the ferrets are more than half snake, and fish with three eyes or with lasers attached to their heads swim alone in massive fish tanks) and insisting “I’ll take good care of him, I promise!”

Naturally it’s Bay who ends up having to feed this foolhardy feline, whose crimes include flooding the apartment out of a desire to get some fish, calling pizza parlors in an attempt to get pancakes delivered to him, and just generally tearing up the apartment. No doubt every time Bay and Honey head out, there’s a little voice in the back of Bay’s head going “Oh dear God, I wonder what that little brat is going to do this time. I’d lock him in his carrying crate but Honey insists it’s cruel to lock him up. But these repair bills are killing me!”

It’s funny. I, who normally love cats and feline inclusions in comics, hate this cat. Perhaps it’s because Teri is the avatar of Wacky Hijinks, a trope given flesh and fur. Or maybe it’s because for all the times we’ve seen this furry menace, he’s used as comic relief in a comedy. There’s been no real chance to see any actual character development for Teri… something this latest story is changing with Teri ending up loose (and lost) in town.

This latest comic caused something to click in my mind, making me realize that this feline isn’t just a source of stupidity and idiocy, but is something more. He’s an evolution of sorts for a traditional trope, a shift from the talking animal to a more human animal. Whether Teri actually has ADHD and other mental issues, or is just a victim of wacky hijinks remains to be seen… but for once, Teri’s actually making the comic interesting to read.

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Craving Control

Posted on April 22, 2008 by | 1 Comment

If there’s one thing that is sure to turn me off from a comic, it’s an over-indulgence of wacky hijinks. Normally, the hijinks are enough to pull me out of a comic and tossing it in my “read later, maybe” pile. And in many ways, Craving Control fits that bill. However, I found myself unable to pull myself away from this train wreck in progress, and found myself truly amazed at the sheer balls of CC’s writer and his portrayal of Lalia, a rather buxom redhead with a… considerably out-of-control eating disorder. And by disorder, I mean she eats a lot (and must also have a monstrously high metabolism in that with all she’s eaten, she claims to have gained 18 lbs. since the start of the semester).

Okay. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the most politically-correct of people. Hell, I despise the whole political correctness shtick and feel it’s an insidious form of censorship. But there were times when I cringed at the situations CC’s author put Lalia through… such as ripping out of her dress during a party, and in the process knocking out some guy she was trying to hug. I am not making this up. Nor am I exaggerating when I mention she later squirms (with bloated belly in the way) out of a window, snagging a power line (and pulling it loose) to swing to relative safety while gorging herself on stolen candy.

So not only is Lalia a pig (and one that would mesmerize Garfield), she’s a thief. Nor is food-theft alone in her crimes – at the same party she rummaged through someone’s closet for clothes to replace her torn dress, and then hid in that girl’s stuffed animal collection when she heard the girl returning to her room. I freely admit to lacking the imagination to think up of a hijink so wacky and so idiotic as to encompass this feat. Oh, and the power line mentioned above? It causes a fire. People get hurt. And she looks around in amazement and a coitish little “Did I do that?” on her lips. (Naturally enough she gets away scot-free.)

The comic suffers from an odd form of schizophrenia, at times desperately trying to be a comedy and other times veering over the line to a light-hearted drama. This perhaps is one of the problems CC suffers from. It doesn’t know what it wants to be when it grows up. Add in a decided lack of character development (among both Lalia and the secondary cast) and a plot that has a character pregnant with an idiot-ball (warning, that TV Tropes link sucked 3 hours out of my life tonight), and you are left to wonder just what it is about the comic that is worth reading.

Of course, seeing that fat people and white people are the two remaining topics that it’s safe to ridicule, it’s plain to see why our protagonist is a food-indulging busty redhead. The writer gets to combine beauty (relatively speaking) and gluttony into an attractive package to ridicule, and get away with the insults to boot. If you don’t give a damn about story, and enjoy comics that create caricatures that poke fun of others, then CC may very well amuse you (though with its intermittent update schedule, you might quickly lose interest). But if you aren’t as easily amused, or enjoy a good story to build upon your comedic tropes, then you’re better off giving Craving Control a pass and moving on to a comic that puts actual thought into its humor.

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Tangents: Year in Review

Posted on April 21, 2008 by | Leave a comment

I must admit when I started writing reviews three years ago, I didn’t really have any idea where I was going with this. I started Tangents as an alternative to Websnark… which I felt was ignoring comics that deserved reviews (primarily story comics). But those early reviews sucked, and it took a while for me to find my voice. Since then, I’ve tried several times to branch out and make Tangents into something more than just another review site. Each time I’ve failed.

At its core, Tangents is about comic reviews. It is here where the main success of Tangents has been, and it’s where I’m going to focus my attention. This means that projects such as my guest-review contest and the world-building project of Tangential Worlds are coming to an end. Perhaps if I’d worked things differently or had more time to focus on these projects, these ideas wouldn’t have faltered and died. But there’s no point looking back at “could have beens” and failed prospects.

One area where I’m thinking of making some changes in the reviews lies with the current review format. While on the surface the concept of short “Secant” reviews seems a viable means of saving time and condensing the content of the reviews, it has become increasingly difficult to find inspiration for the reviews. While this has led to my reading dozens of new comics to find new ground to cover (and I must take a moment to sneer at the people who criticize me for having read and reviewed so many comics… it is the duty of reviewers and critics to review a wide variety of books, movies, and the like, and failing to do so is a sign of laziness and a lack of professional pride), I’ve found difficulties in writing reviews even for new works.

The Secants were originally intended to be a brief glimpse into a moment of a comic. They were meant for scenes and for momentary glimpses of characters. They were not meant to be reviews in its entirety. That is what the Tangential reviews were meant to offer… and in an odd twist their positions were reversed. Recent Tangential reviews have been character pieces and webcomic commentary, instead of reviews. I intend on changing that (though I will endeavor to keep the reviews fairly short, if only for my own sanity’s sake).

Another thing that readers may have noticed is that the tone of the reviews has shifted to be a bit more critical. I will admit that my associates Steve Anderson and Brett Hainley are more than partly responsible for this; they do not pull their punches when reviews are concerned. If they see something that doesn’t work, they talk about it. And while I might not speak negatively of the cartoonists themselves… I know how much cartoonists put themselves into their work. They take every negative comment to heart. If I’ve said something about their work that they can’t stand… it’s not an attack on their soul. It’s just that I feel the work can be improved… and indeed, needs that improvement, both for the readers’ sake, and the cartoonist’s.

It’s the duty of critics to warn the readers about what they feel is bad, and also to tell the cartoonists where they’re weak… and how to improve their craft. I’m not always right. What I dislike, others may enjoy. But there are some basic aspects to storytelling, art, and site design that are keys to a decent comic. Plot failures can wreck the best drawn of stories. Artistic flaws can pull attention away from the most imaginative of stories. And a badly-designed website with poor navigation and problems even finding the comic itself can keep people from even reading the comic in the first place.

Tangents needs to return to that venue. And I need to find what I’m writing to be interesting… else I’ll just put out half-fast reviews that don’t really tell you what’s going on or give you an idea of just what it is about the comic that led me to review it. Hopefully the shift in review style will help me do that.

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Casey and Andy

Posted on April 18, 2008 by | Leave a comment

There are many reasons why comics go on hiatus. One reason can lie with cartoonist apathy, which can happen with older comics that have run for a while and in some cases may be approaching an ending. Often the cartoonist has grown tired of the same old characters and the same old situations and wants to move on. There’s little but loyalty to readers and determination to end something that keeps the cartoonist from just throw up his hands in disgust and walk away… sometimes quitting comics entirely, and in other cases starting up a new comic with fresh new ideas that weren’t possible with the old strip. It was this that led Casey and Andy’s cartoonist Andy Weir to pull the plug on his comic’s last storyline and start work on Cheshire Crossing.

However, C&A’s fans refused to let their comic die, and started an e-mail campaign to get Weir to restart work on the final C&A storyline. After a year and a half, their efforts panned out, and Weir started updating C&A on a weekly basis. And it’s been a long road indeed; C&A started out as a gag-a-day strip, and has deep roots in that tradition. Still, as C&A grew in length, the lure of shorter storylines grabbed a hold of Weir and dragged him into the hazy world of continuity and character growth. And whether it poked fun at science, religion, or the characters themselves, most readers could find something that would be of interest. Indeed, the comic is quite rereadable, and can be a most enjoyable read.

Unfortunately, not all comics can thus be resuscitated as C&A was; some comics falter due to legal reasons and others because the creative team behind the comic broke apart for a variety of reasons. (The Tangents webcomic partly fell apart because my own ideas of the comic’s direction and presentation conflicted with my co-writer’s ideas. Looking back, I should have listened more to my co-writer.) Perhaps part of what helped in C&A’s resurrection was the length of time spent away; absence makes the heart grow fonder, or at the very least dims the less enjoyable memories. Whatever Weir’s reason for revisiting his first comic, I’m quite glad he did. C&A deserves the ending Weir had planned… to go out with a bang (much like it began), rather than the silent whimper of permanent hiatus.

Addendum Report: C&A has wrapped up. Unfortunately, I feel that ending was perhaps less of a bang and more of a whimper than I’d have expected. Part of this lies with how the ending skimped on Satan and Andy’s relationship, which was left somewhat in the air. Weir didn’t even give fans one last pic of Satan to remember her by, which (considering how significant a character she became in the comic) leaves me feeling like the ending was rushed. And in some ways it was, in an effort to wrap everything up by comic 666. But if you’re fans of the rest of the cast, you’ll definitely want to catch up on what happens with them.

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Anywhere But Here

Posted on April 10, 2008 by | Leave a comment


Of the three newsprint comics most often cited as inspirations by webcartoonists, Bloom County has aged the least gracefully. Part of this lies with the content area; Berkeley Breathed would often delve into (at the time) current politics and events that lose much of their humor without the context of what was going on when the comic first ran. Thus I’m watching recent updates over at Anywhere But Here, a comic inspired deeply by Breathed’s works, and worry that Jason Siebels risks walking down the same road to context oblivion.

Of course, there are some significant differences between the two comics. For all that Bloom County pushed the boundaries of print comics, it was lacking in a strong sense of continuity. Instead, Breathed would skip from daisy field to daisy field, picking short storylines at each before being distracted by something anew. Siebels, on the other hand, has a vision… and knows the fate of our Nameless Protagonist. The beginning and ending are mapped out. It’s just the details of the journey that remain apt to change. That, perhaps, is why I see adding U.S. Presidential election humor as starting on a slippery slope.

Looking back at ABH, especially before Siebels rebooted the comic and started fresh from the start (rather than smack-dab in the middle as he initially did in 2005), this is actually something he has done several times, though the one that stands out in my memory is with Hollywood celebrities rather than U.S. politicians. Fortunately the “situational humor” works, whether Siebels inserts Hillary Clinton or creates his own generic politician to fill her shoes. I still wonder though if adding contextual humor for a quick laugh is worth muddying the waters for a deeper and more meaningful story on down the road.

Addendum note: ABH has succumbed to hiatus due to real life concerns (including a pregnancy and needing paying work. Hopefully ABH will return next year, maybe with a buffer to help deal with the occasional hiccups that webcartoonist dads suffer from.

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Fanboys

Posted on April 9, 2008 by | Leave a comment

I’ve not actually read a lot of gaming comics. This might seem surprising, considering that Penny Arcade has inspired countless thousands of fans to dabble in the dark arts of cartooning before finding what little bit of their life has been sacrificed in the vain pursuit of readership and pointless laughs. The field is so cluttered that even the use of various gimmicks rarely helps gamer comics stand out from the dross surrounding them. Into this vast wasteland of mediocrity comes Fanboys, which combines several tropes in an effort to stand out.

We have two guys and a girl living together, each of who plays games from one company platform. Oh, and they almost never change their outfits (to the point that the girl continues to wear a long-sleeve hoodie in the middle of sweltering heat). Naturally enough one of the guys is an obnoxious jerk, while his friend is cheerful and fairly clueless, leaving the girl to fill the middle niche of the decent intelligent one with just enough mixture of cynicism and optimism to be actually interesting. As with so many of its peers, Fanboys started out as a series of one-shots and slowly grew to incorporate continuity and occasional short storylines. And if not for one thing, Fanboys would sink into the morass of other gamer comics with nothing to differentiate itself: Sylvia’s preferred gaming platform is the X-Box 360.

That’s right, the cute gamer chick is into Microsoft. In an amusing twist, later on Lemmy (who only played Nintendo) ends up “cheating” on his system by trying Sylvia’s 360… without realizing that she’d decided to try out his DS. They start dating as a result. Fanboys suffers from several flaws, such as frequent use of CaP and comics that often rely on idiocy. However, there’s a certain spark to the characters that kept me reading through the archives and adding the comic to my reading list. If Scott Dewitt would start to branch out into more storylines and less idiocy, then Fanboys would emerge from its peers. Until then, it’s just another gamer comic, though one worth reading.

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