To put it simply, CaD is a gag-a-day strip (or gag-twice-a-week, seeing that the comic updates on the days that the Nicky510 site doesn’t, allowing Crow to update essentially five times a week). As such, it doesn’t have a regular cast of characters (despite the similarity of the various blonde girls who show up in various advertisements) and no real theme. Crow will visit a variety of topics, from global warming to politics to squirrels on coffee to efforts by early man to make various discoveries such as fire, domestication of animals, and the like, all for comedic effect. The jokes don’t always work (and there were several that made no sense at all to me), but with the variety of content, it’s not difficult finding something to amuse.

The content isn’t the only thing to vary. The art will shift from black-and-white to color to greyscale, and from crisp artwork to stuff that honestly looks like it was tossed together quickly just to get an update up for readers. I mean, I feel horrible saying this, but it’s true. Even if CaD is just a filler site meant to increase updates and give readers a reason to visit the site daily doesn’t mean that the art and jokes shouldn’t be of the same quality as the mainstream comic. In short, Chuckle-a-Duck is one of those (usually) single-panel joke comics that doesn’t require much thought or need. If it’s your thing, then it’ll be a fun hour or two to get through the archives. Even if it’s not, the comic’s Random Update button should keep you amused for a short while.

Thus I must admit I was rather amused by the latest update of the surreal small business webcomic Ginger’s Bread (which focuses on a young Swedish-American who started up her own bakery after going a while without regular employment), when Ginger overheard a couple of “bros” who’d had a bit too much to drink and were talking about going “queer hunting” to “beat [the gay] out of them.” Naturally, this didn’t go over well with Ginger, as she has a decided dislike of stupid people (and is good friends with a gay man). Interestingly, Ginger went a different route from her normal use of physical abuse to beat the stupid out of people (though she might tend to reserve that for people who hit on her) and instead married them.

I kid you not. She got their names, wrote out a marriage certificate, and bro-married them. Now, while she claims she’s ordained, she very well may have been BSing. I’m fairly sure even if she were ordained that the marriage certificate wouldn’t count unless she was a notary as well (though that is always a possibility). And when you step away and take a disinterested look at it, the whole scenario is fairly silly… until you get to the last panel, when one of the two guys says he supposes he should kiss the bride and puckers up toward his suddenly-glassy-eyed drinking compatriot. It was a fun twist to the joke, and also helped Ginger herself grow a tad by moving behind her hit-first-and-then-think mentality. Hopefully this won’t be the last time we see her thinking before she hits.

Critical Miss is an amusing look at computer gaming and video game reviewing. The initial comics focused on video game reviewer Erin Stout, a young lady who was cynical enough to realize her reviews were lies and misinformation that the gaming industry insisted on being posted. Sadly, after around 40 updates cartoonists Grey Carter and Cory Rydell decided to focus more on ridiculing various games instead of the cast they’d slowly built. I’m not sure if this was because they were running out of story ideas or if they’d just been distracted by various games coming out, but I do find it an unfortunate change of pace.

This isn’t to say that the comic started to suck once it shifted focus away from storytelling and into one-shot gags about various games. Nor has Erin and crew been abandoned during this time; they are often used as characters in the gag strips, and on occasion we get a short storyline on various events (such as the e-commerce program Steam going down, resulting in the lamentation of gamers who relied on it). However, even when the comic does focus on Erin and associates, it tends to avoid the computer game reviewing that was a core part of the early comics.

There is one rather intriguing storyline going on of late, concerning ongoing hallucinations that Erin’s been suffering after being in a car accident. Well, I say “hallucinations” but when Erin tosses an imaginary antagonist out of the car, the truck behind them bounces (though that could very well be Erin’s imagination kicking in here). I’m not exactly sure what’s behind her issues (as nothing physical was found), but it’s been interesting watching her slowly cope with insanity while trying to fit in with the real world (well, as real as being a video game reviewer can be… though I’m one to toss stones seeing that I review webcomics).

To sum up, Critical Miss is a gaming review comic that enjoys poking fun at not only the variety of games out there (both directly and through its cast of characters), but also at the very concept of reviewing video games. While game commentary comics have become the majority of strips, I’ve found that the comics focusing on Erin and her friends tend to be more enjoyable to read, at least for me. What’s more, non-gamers can still enjoy the comic; I’m only a casual gamer myself and understand most of the references in the comics. Further, unlike Penny Arcade, the comic can be enjoyed without reading the cartoonists’ blog posts, which I consider a big plus.