Crowning Moments

TV Tropes has an entire page dedicated to the concept of the "crowning moment."  This is the moment where a character or series or, well anything, reaches the pinnacle of greatness in some field or another, and you never forget it.

Webcomics have them too, all the time in fact.  This brings me to Aptitude Test, a weekly comic that I for some reason keep on the T-Th rotation.  Should change that.  Anyway, the comic's most recent chapters have partially revolved around Rina's campaign for class president.  It is a highly unconventional campaign, with no real goal besides, as she says it right before the debate, talk and don't stop.

Really, though, Rina never wanted to win.  She just didn't want her rival, Cheryl, to win.  Thus why she developed a plan, a plan named Angela.  Bookworm Angela is smart, quiet, insightful and a secret superhero, and probably the best suited to be class president.  Rina convinces Angela to run, but how that works out isn't revealed until the debate.

Where she declared she wanted a moon colony.  Ah Newt Gingrich, your campaign will never be forgotten now (even if the rest of the public already has forgotten it).  Things came to a head with one strip, this one in fact.  The next two show the last steps of Rina's plan:  To use Cheryl's own personality against her, while at the same time propping Angela up.  Rina's counter questioning of Cheryl's accusation against her practically burned Cheryl's campaign in the water.  It was a great moment, a crowning moment for Rina, showing how skilled she is at manipulating others, especially those she doesn't like.

It ends with Cheryl claiming clam, bookworm Angela is as crazy as Rina, and with that, she basically lost the election.  A great moment in the comic, a great moment for Rina.  Of course, the next couple strips show that Rina is not invulnerable, if perhaps a bit ignorant of the things she says.  But that's another story.

Good crowning moments can make a comic more than just good, but they are very rare.  Off the top of my head I can think of Tagon in Schlock Mercenary giving his life to save his people, and Meji's speech at the end of Errant Story as being about the same, but I can't really pick them out myself.  Honestly, just go check TV Trope's page on Crowning Moments of Awesome for more.  There are a LOT of them.

Until next time kiddies.

Nothing this week

Blame it on laziness if you will.  Also on Champions Online which did a major update last weekend and kind of ate all my time.

That said, I did do one neat thing this week:  I went to Barnes and Nobel and happened to find a copy of Kawaii Not's newest book in the store.  This is awesome as I have seen only two other comic books (White Ninja and Cyanide and Happiness) in stores.  I have also seen an art kit by the author of Timescapes, but that's it.  I bought Kawaii Not Too and I hope to see more webcomic books in store soon.

Until next week kiddies.

Newspaper Comics #9

The last Newspaper comic review was focused on Get Fuzzy, a comic I promptly said was like a webcomic, with the edge taken off.  I stand by it, it is very much like a lot of webcomics I read, such as Out At Home, which has a similar feel, though as a webcomic it still has its edge.  Get Fuzzy isn't the only webcomic style comic in my paper.  There's at least 2 more, and the one I'm going to talk about today is 9 Chickweed Lane.

I'm not going to tell you it is like a webcomic, because it IS a webcomic.  That edge is still there, sharp as ever and is a delightful addition to the army of zombie and legacy comics that dominate the funny pages.  Or it would be if it wasn't stuck in amongst the classified ads.  Why is it there?  Well, a while ago they did a storyline about one of the characters as she was during World War II.  To add to the atmosphere, they made the comic black and white.  There are no black and white comics in the funny pages of my paper, so they pulled it from the funny pages because, well, they're dicks.  The comic is in color again, BTW, but it's still in the classifieds, buried amongst ads for used cars.

This hasn't stopped the comic from being it's own thing, if anything it's enhanced it.  There is something very, adult about the comic.  There's implied sex throughout, adult situations, the jokes, even the weird ones, aren't made for children to understand.  That might be part of the reason the comic hasn't returned to the funny pages either (this region is so backwards, honestly).  There's no outright nudity, no porn (soft or otherwise), and no violence either.

Artwise, the comic is good, and the artist has a lot of skill in drawing bodies.  Often there will be entire pages devoted to showing a single position of one of the characters (two of the main characters are ballet dancers) or of the cat who's owner I'm not clear about.  Faces, however, are all, well, pretty much the same.  Especially the females who all have the same structure for the head and face, which often makes identifying them difficult, though clothing helps a great deal and when it's in color, the color of the hair helps as well.  The guys don't suffer nearly as much, but they often feel far stiffer than the ladies, and when stripped of things like beards and glasses, they also look pretty much alike.

The stories though, are not alike, or even similar to many I've come across in other comics.  The first one that I remember reading is when about a nun and a priest who fell in love, left their church and had a baby.  While I'm sure this story has been out there before (it would almost have to be), I don't recall ever seeing it in a newspaper comic of any kind.  Especially not in a paper in this shockingly conservative part of the country.  The story set in WWII featured the grandmother character (when she was young) acting as a spy and falling in love (and getting pregnant) with a German prisoner of war.  The most recent story, currently has the granddaughter confronted with the fact that she is pregnant and. . .

Suddenly I see a pattern here.  Probably just happenstance, honestly, as there have been other stories that don't involved people getting pregnant, these just stand out because how often do stories like this actually show up in comics?  I know Blondie did it, they wouldn't have kids otherwise but that was 50 years ago, and has For Better or Worse done it, but recently?  Within the last 20 years?  I can't think of one.  9 Chickweed Lane did 3 in the last 6 years.

And it's not taken lightly, or as if the entire thing is a joke, though small jokes are made.  It's serious, life changing, life shattering things.  At the same time, they continue to live.  The most recent story does feature the main character, a ballet dancer and model, becoming pregnant, but there's also some evidence that she's about to be fired from both jobs.  Her life will completely change, and she only knows half of it.  When the other shoe drops, it will hit with a shattering thud.

The comic will change, and change hard.  What happens next, I don't know, it's a comic that can't be predicted as easily as the rest of the comics.  Get Fuzzy will still have Bucky and Satchel next week.  For Better or Worse is almost in zombie mode at this point.  Even one of the other quasi-webcomic newspaper comics is reasonably predictable.  9 Chickweed Lane is not, and that's part of the fun and interest it holds for me.

So there it is, a webcomic in print form.  I hope it's not alone (there is another that is kind of a webcomic).  It should be noted that 9 Chickweed Lane does have a spinoff/cousin that IS a webcomic, Pigborn.  I have never read it, and likely never will.  After all, I have the print version, and that's good enough for me.

Next time, um, I'll do something.  Until then kiddies.

Beyond Imagination

In my last batch of new reviews, I covered the comic Twilight Lady and while I loved the most recent story (The Indwellers), earlier chapters were, um, less great.  There are many reasons for it including the stilted Poser (a 3D imaging program) art of these early chapters.  The real problem though, is one I've dealt with myself.

I love creating things, universes, ships, and characters, and I like pushing the limits of what can be created.  Specifically, I set out to create the most powerful human character that could ever be imagined.  Yeah, I'm a touch ambitious.  So much so, I actually had to sit down and define what the limits of imagination were so I could get beyond them, only to discover that no individual can get beyond their own limits of imagination.  That said, my character was beyond MY imagination, which is weird but not the point.

The point is I succeeded in my goal, but discovered very quickly that I had a serious problem:  I couldn't USE the character.  Effectively, there was nothing that could actively threaten this character, and any action taken against them or their 'loved ones' could be easily undone.  Stories, of course, need conflicts of some sort, but with my character, there wasn't any.

This is the problem in Twilight Lady.  The Lady really has few if any direct threats to her.  So few, she might as well not have any at all.  Thus it is hard to create a proper story for her, and more importantly, hard to create a reason for her to CARE.  Creating a reason for her to care is the downfall of the comic, as it forces an idea upon her that she might not really have.  When I said my character was beyond my imagination, I mean I can't imagine WHAT that character can imagine or thinks.  The Lady is in that same realm, but they've tried to put thoughts and imagination on her.

Now, I said in my review I preferred the most current version of the Lady, one restricted to the body of her "shield."  Why?  Because it does the same thing I had to do to make my character useful:  Force a limitation.  In my case, I either had to remove most of the power from my character or actually make the story about before that character gained all that power (an origin story if you will).  This makes the character much more likely to care about the immediate situation, and this is exactly what happens to the Lady.  Once she's restricted, having her care is far easier, and more believable.

Still, the problem with the Lady didn't stand out greatly until several pages were dedicated to her monologuing to herself.  Her motivations were laid bare, and her desires became keen and obvious.  Mystery of what she wanted was what made the Indwellers chapter so interesting.  Once the mystery was stripped away, I became disenchanted with her.  The worse part?  The last few pages have had the other characters speculating on her motivations.  It's good, written properly from their perspective with the information they have.  But we know they're more or less wrong, so what was the point?

With my character, in the origin story there is an antagonist (not villain) who commits a series of actions that are strange and are not explained, so much so that even his last action in the story remains an in universe mystery.  AKA:  I do not know why he did it.  It gives rise to a lot of in universe speculation and makes the character much more interesting.  What's more, my character, later on, hints that they might actually know why he did it.  This pushes the character beyond me and makes even me wonder what was found.

With characters as powerful as these, mystery is required, and stripping it away ruins the character a bit.  The good news is that skipping those early chapters of Twilight Lady doesn't effect the understanding of the most recent chapters, and thus the mystery is maintained.  Frankly, I'll probably be ignoring most of the early stuff (not all of it) so that I can more easily enjoy the comic, but it will still bother me.

And someday I might actually release the origin story of my character, which if you hadn't noticed I haven't even told the gender of yet.  But not today.

Anyway, that's enough for this week.  Until next time kiddies.

Retrospective: Errant Story

Errant Story ended last week.  I've already written a Not-So-Wild Review on it, so go take a look, but I think I'll go over the ending a bit instead, then the epilogue.

The comic ended with a hell of a fight.  As I said in my full review, they really didn't get into too many fights, so when it ends on a big shebang like it did, it made the whole thing rather special.  The main cast all got their moments to shine as well.  Jon got to be useful while magic and time mages ran around making him look like he was powerless and standing still.  Plans were made, implemented and succeeded.  And Ian got beat down in a way that was unexpected but fitting and sad at the same time.

Two things stand out in that fight:  One is how Poe laid out how Ian's final end would come, and a careful reader (not me, I had to reread it) could pick up on what was coming, an almost literal Chekhov's gun, though I suspect that it should have popped up MUCH earlier to really count.  At the same time, though, it was a great way to do it and I appreciate it.  The second is that Ian's defeat actually combined two concepts Jon and Sarine used in their final fights.  I wrote in my review that I always fear characters having the same personalities, but it turned out they started thinking of solutions the same way.  I think it was because it wasn't grand or powerful, but simple and logical, and that won in the end.

Meji's speech to the elves is also one of the best moments of the comic for me.  It's a threat, a blatant one, but one that was tempered by the fact that she really didn't have any reason to kill all the elves, at least at that moment.  It's her maturity coming through at that moment, and showed she had most certainly grown form the little devil girl who wanted godlike power just to graduate.  Of course, she had already made the mages who ran her school look like fools by then, but it was solidified there.

The epilogue, though, proved that Errant Story was NOT Meji's story.  Or Ian's story.  It was Sarine's story.  She opened the comic, and she closed it.  She was tortured by the past, about a life she could save, a love she couldn't have, and finally, by the end, she found her peace.  Sarine was telling the story.  Thus the epilogue is perfect in it's nature and structure.  Epilogues are hard, as so many people have different ideas on how such things should end (see Battlestar Galactica), but I don't think anyone will complain about how Poe ended his comic.  I sure won't.

The future of Errant Story is, well, reruns. Which I think is a good thing.  I hope they get the Errant Tales stories going, but I can wait for now.  I'll still be reading Errant Story despite the reruns, after all 11 and a half years is a long time, and I kind of want to retread old ground.  Maybe I'll have something more to say on it in the future.  In the mean time, comics like Gunnerkrigg Court and Does Not Play Well With Others will have to take up the slack.

That said, there is a piece of good news this week:  No Rest for the Wicked is updating again.  One comic dies, and another rises again.  That's a good day in my eyes.

Until next time kiddies.

Post Hangover Wild Webcomic Review

Oh, it is the greatest mix up that you have ever seen, my father he was orange and my mother she was. . .

A WILD WEBCOMIC REVIEW!

Yes, that's right, a new batch of reviews. Have you been missing them?  I know I have.  So what do I have for you?  Well, let's take a look.

226.  Skullkickers - With a title like that, you would expect a comic full of action and violence.  And you'd be right.  Skullkickers isn't really much more than that either, but it does it very, VERY well.  Most of the comics I review are side projects, either by students or actual artists trying to stretch their muscles.  This comic is a professional comic up and down.  It updates on time (since the beginning of the year) has multiple people working on it (an artist, a line artist, a colorer, a letterer!) and is just a very slick creation.  It's good, very good.  It's completely worth reading at this point and likely will remain so for the foreseeable future.  I highly recommend this and will be following it for a while.

227.  Makeshift Miracle - I didn't notice this at first, but now looking at it, Makeshift Miracle and Skullkickers share something in common:  The same creator, Jim Zub.  AKA:  Same level of quality, though not the same artwork or story.  If I didn't see the name on the comic, I wouldn't have noticed they were so similar.  Makeshift Miracle actually feels like a manga, which I don't read so that should say something.  It's quiet though, more internal than the visceral Skullkickers.  There's also a genuine mystery here and one I'm actually interested in seeing resolved.

228.  Anhedonia Blue - I debated with myself whether I should even bother reviewing this comic, as it's been dead since last year, and even then there wasn't much to it.  There is another comic by the same artist (I think) out there, and I may do that one later, but I'm pull comics from my future read lists, and this was one.  Alright, for what little is there, is it good?  Well, it's not bad, but it could be better. It's the classic "supernatural powers suddenly manifest" type stories, and it starts off well enough, but then slips down a bit.  Then the zombies show up, but they're not standard zombies. About that time, it starts getting interesting, and then stops.  I think the problem is direction, as in there really wasn't much to it start with, and it seemed kind of aimless.  Maybe there was a plan, but once it got to a point where the plan should come out, it stopped, so I don't know for sure.  Probably not worth the very small amount of effort to read, but if you want to see a comic aborted at an early stage, this would be a good example.

229.  Twilight Lady - Where Anhedonia Blue tried to do the secret supernatural power thing but stalled out, Twilight Lady pulls it off well.  Of course, it also has gone out of it's way to annoy me, for the button that says "first" does NOT take you to the first page of the comic, just of the current story.  Imagine my annoyance when I sat to write this review and discovered I had missed 90% of the comic.  The worst part?  The rest of the comic actually lowered my appreciation for the strip as well.  Not because I had to read it all, but because, well, it's not as good as the most current story (The Indwellers).  I think I'll need a whole article to go into detail why, but I suspect if I had read this comic from the very beginning, I wouldn't have liked it as much.  I will recommend the most current chapter, but only read the rest of the comic if you REALLY want to know what the backstory.

230.  Out at Home - And now for a comic that has nothing to do, at all, with the other comics.  This is a pure daily gag strip.  It would be just as much at home in the newspapers as on the web, though it would likely lose a bit of it's edge if it did.  It features a goofy, but well intentioned dad (who is also a filthy rich former baseball player), his two kids, their friends and a variety of wild hijinks.  It could almost be like a wacky animated sitcom on Fox (who would cancel it after a season, because that's what Fox does).  After the rather dark Twilight Lady, it was nice and refreshing, and I think will sit on my read list for some time to come.

Well, that's enough for this week.  If you missed it, Errant Story ended this week, so next week, retrospective time!  Until then kiddies.

Review Criteria

For a blog called the "Wild Webcomic Review," there haven't been a lot of wild webcomic reviews lately, has there?  Well, the reasons are many fold, but mostly because it takes time to read through full archives, and I've been really distracted as of late (Champions Online and Star Trek Online have eaten way at my time, stupid MMOs).  This week is more of the same, so today, I'll cover what I look for in a comic when I review it.  These are more guideline than a solid criteria, and I'll try to list out comics that either are an example or a counter example.

The first thing that stands out for my is the website.  If I have to dig deep to get to a comic, I really get turned off.  Confusing things, like the way Supermassive Blackhole A* was a comic built from videos are very annoying and unpleasant.  The worst thing is having broken archive links, like Count Your Sheep.  That was so frustrating that if the comic wasn't as good as it was, I likely would have slammed it hard.  The website should be easy to navigate, with the comic taking front and center, or if not front and center, it's one click away.  Organization of the site is as important as anything else.

The art comes up next usually.  This is harder to judge as the art style of comic can change radically between the first comic and the current comic.  College Roomies from Hell is a great example of this, so I don't judge a comic on the early art if I can avoid it.  I do look to see how the art evolved over the life span of the comic, however, and if it improves, I make note.  I look more for style fitting the comic theme and direction.  I also look for distinction.  I want to be able to tell which characters are which, which environments are which and so on.  Lack of distinction can confuse a comic for me, like Prophecy of the Circle, where I wasn't QUITE able to tell who was who.  As long as I can easily identify them, I'm usually happy.  That said, there is a line where bad or lazy art will drive me away.

Figuring out the point of the comic usually comes next, and that can change over time.  Drama, adventure, epic, daily jokes and experimental all can be used to describe the various comics I've read, and most comics fall into one or even several of those categories. More often than not one will evolve into another, like how Sluggy Freelance went from a daily joke strip into a long term adventure/drama piece and even now has some hints of being a bit of an epic going on.

Once I have the gist of the strip, I start looking at the story/humor of the piece and see if it stands up. Story based comics should draw me in, encourage me to read further and look toward the future as to where everything is going.  They also shouldn't throw in random asides without purpose and actually DO something rather than wander around.  Comics that are complete (a rarity) should show a full story, resolve points that SHOULD be resolved while leaving enough room for the reader to imagine the future.  I'm also looking for logic failures, poor explanations, bad set ups and Mary Sueisms, though I am willing to give on each of those if they're done in a way that isn't distracting.  Humorwise, I want the jokes to be consistently funny, well structured and natural by the universe that is created.  If they're at least funny, especially if it's funny. Failure to be funny can ruin a comic for me.

With the story and humor I look at characters.  I'm looking for good characterization where it's required, and consistency in character, as well as growth as the comic goes on, where it's required.  Not every comic character needs to grow or develop, so I take that into account.  If I don't see much development when there should be development, that's a strike against the comic.

Finally I take the comic as a whole into consideration.  Did the various elements work together well even if, individually, they weren't that great.  Then I compare them to other comics I've read that are similar and judge whether it's worth continuing to read it.  After, of course, I see if the comic is still updating.  That's happened a few times.

When I sit down to write the review, I try to see if other people would like it as I have tastes that are a little different than others (I like Hudson Hawk, for example).  That's harder than you would think, and comics that I find uninteresting often get longer reviews as I explore whether another reader might like them.

And that's about it.  So what's up for next week?  Well, maybe a new batch of reviews.  Maybe.  We'll see, until then kiddies.