Newspaper Comics #11: Wizard of Id

Over the years I've collected various books with newspaper comics in it.  I've got the Complete Far Side books, massive tomes that bend my bookshelves with their sheer weight, a half dozen Garfield books, and an old book of Peanuts comics.  But one of the odder ones turns out to be the first published book a comic, which is wild considering it's been around since 1964.  And of all things, it's the Wizard of Id.

Id was originally the product of the work of two men, Brant Parker and Johnny Hart. Hart is basically known for one of the great old zombie comics, B.C.  I likely won't ever talk about B.C. because, well, I don't read it.  Parker, however, is the main force behind Id, until he died, so Id is kind of a zombie too.  As I've said before, the line between zombie and legacy is very fine, and as of late, it seems it's leaning more toward legacy, but for a while, it was a zombie, just going through the motions.

Of all these older comic reviews, it's really rare I actually get a chance to read the earliest strips.  I've read early Garfield strips (old Garfield is a strange beast, literally), and seen some early Family Circus strips (but only a few), but most of these really old comics are pretty much forgotten.  Having not just some of the early strips, but an official collection of such strips is actually quite a treat for me.  Whether they are the first strips or not is hard to say (I suspect they are), but it is still something to have, and then to be able to compare it to the modern strips thanks to Go Comics (and not my local paper) makes this review kind of a no brainer.

The modern strip is very much a standard comic.  Setup, joke, punchline arrangement is normal and the gags only occasionally link up with current events.  I won't call it a bad comic, it isn't, but it does feel very generic.  It has gotten away from the worse of it by focusing more the Wizard himself as of late, as if the Wizard was always the focus of the comic that they had gotten away from (it's not BTW).  New ideas are good for these kinds of comics, it did wonders for a lagging Garfield which is now actually readable after a decade of mediocrity.  Still, it's very much a "staple" comic, one of those strips that just appears in the funny pages but no one remembers when or how it got there.

Those early strips, though, feels much lighter.  It's still an old newspaper comic, strips rarely follow one another in any form of continuity, but there is a great sense of "let's try this and see if it works."  I get that feeling from a lot of young gag strips, and it's here too.  It's weird how refreshing it feels in this early work, and how I would happily read this comic even now.  Don't get me wrong, I don't HATE the current version of Id, but I'd love this version more.  It's rawer, has a much sharper edge than the current comic.  Not that it's particularly sharp, of course, it's still a newspaper comic, but there's a lot more implied death here.  The King does NOT take anything, more than willing to order the execution of children for simple games at the drop of a hat.  No, I'm not kidding on that either.  He is a tyrant, through and through here, where he only KIND of a tyrant in the modern strip.

Are these changes bad?  Well, yes and no.  No, because I really like these early Id strips, they feel like, well, some webcomics I've read.  Yes because it's still being published since it debuted in 1964.  Softening the edges off made it appeal to a wider audience and kept it in the papers for decades.  Did it make the comic weaker?  Yeah, it did, but some changes worked out in it's favor.  For example, the King has COMPLETELY changed from his original version which was more akin to a playing card king and thus more distinctive.  The artwork as a whole became smaller, probably as the space for comics shrunk over the years.  They're still identifiable between the versions, but you can tell there's a difference there.  The personalities, though, are virtually unchanged, so these are the same characters.  And there is a solid core of them, unlike Beetle Baily and it's mountain of characters, there are relatively few in Id and they each have there own roles to play.

Wizard of Id is a pretty generic comic any more.  Nothing special or great about it, but nothing godawful either.  Occasionally it's quite funny, but usually it's just a passing glance.  It's a shame, given it's edgier roots, but even those roots aren't THAT edgy.  There are worse comics out there, and there are better.  The only real thing I can say about it is that it's a great example of people working together to create something new, even if Parker went on to run the comic alone.  Beyond that, it's there, and that's about it.

Next time, I have to do some touching base.

Breaking the Character

The Dreamfall review had me thinking about characters.  Specifically of April Ryan, the protagonist of the original game and her change from stressed out art student to damn near suicidal rebel in Dreamfall.  It's quite a departure, so why did they do it?

Well, it's character growth, kind of.  Character growth is a catchall term for development of characters.  In essence, it's about taking a character's beliefs, ideals and dreams and challenging them.  The character grows by facing the challenge and either reinforcing their beliefs, changing them, or abandoning them all together.  This is a complex process and many characters often don't completely grow throughout the course of a single story, but they often do enough that one can see where the character should be going, and that's often enough.

What happened to April, however, is an extreme method of character growth.  Breaking a character is NOT character growth in and of itself, but it is a possible step.  Instead of merely challenging a character's beliefs, it actively destroys those beliefs.  Think of it as instead of just daring a character to prove their faith in a random god, to taking that god, showing it to them, then cutting it's head off in front of the character.  It's brutal, and can radically change the character in unexpected ways.

This is what happened to April.  The root of her destruction was planted at the end of The Longest Journey, the very end, but that wasn't necessarily the moment things broke down for her.  As the character is reintroduced into Dreamfall, only hints as to what happened in the 10 years between games are given.  If anything, it's more general than anything else, but the result is obvious:  the perky art student has been turned into a hardened killer.  The thing is, and this is a key point with broken characters, that perky art student isn't completely gone.  Some of her are still there, but they're disconnected and clogged, and almost doesn't fit with the hardened killer at all.

On the webcomic front, there's a couple of characters I can think of that have been broken.  One is from my go to comic for these things, Torg from Sluggy Freelance.  The character that started the comic is certainly not the one that's currently running around, but it's more than that, and it comes back to the story That Which Redeems.  In it, Torg is pulled in to save the Dimension of Lame from an invasion of the Dimension of Pain.  The result is something Torg isn't used to:  He's the most competent man in the room.  It wears on Torg throughout the story, especially as Lame versions of his friends are put into increasing danger and he does what he can to help them, alone.  Then, Lame Zoe is killed, and Torg breaks.

It's no secret that for most of the comic Torg has had a kind of crush on Zoe, they've gotten pretty close at times as well throughout up to this point (with only situations and Oasis being in the way).  Losing a version of Zoe, not even his Zoe, just a version of her, took a heavy toll on Torg.  He really wasn't the same afterwards, pushing his Zoe further away and getting far more serious than he should.  When his Zoe disappears and "dies," (it's complicated), he points himself to denial, and focuses on his plans.  The eventual result will be the version of Torg in the 4UCity storyline, a much harder, much more willing to sacrifice lives to meet his goals kind of guy.

The other webcomic character is Thomas from Between Failures.  Like April, we don't see him break, but we are introduced to him as a broken character.  As I said in my original review, I didn't like him much, but grew to like him as the comic progressed.  Why?  Because he's in a rebuilding phase of a character.  Only hints are given to exactly what happened, but unlike April there's no baseline to build his original character from.  Only now, as the current storyline brings the character that triggered Thomas' destruction back into the story, will answers be given.  This will be the next step in rebuilding Thomas' character, something that started with a kiss.

Rebuilding the character, that's the goal of breaking one.  If there's no rebuild phase, then the destruction was wasted.  None of these three characters has been rebuilt, yet.  April was still in the process of being broken (her last act in Dreamfall does it).  Torg has been built up again, a bit, but he's got a long way to go, and Thomas is probably the furthest along toward being rebuilt.  What will these rebuilt characters look like?  Hard to say, but often they'll share traits between their original forms and their broken forms as well as more mature traits.  What will fix them?  Torg, I think, is admitting his love for Zoe to her will probably do it.  Thomas, I suspect, might be more confrontational, and April will have a much longer journey ahead of her than behind.

Breaking a character is not to be done lightly.  It WILL change them, and many people will hate the change.  In the long run, if done right, the character will be better for it.  It will make for a much more interesting story.  After all, old Torg doing the Minion Master story wouldn't have been half as interesting, and having April being the same girl despite the changes to the world around her would have felt out of place.

Well, that's enough for now.  Until next time kiddies.

Taking this week off

Not sure on the next article and I need a bit to recharge.  Plus, the nice weather is staring to come in, so I want to enjoy it a bit.  I'll have something next week, I hope.

Not Comic Review: Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

I really should have had this category all along given I've done a few of these now.  The other day I sat down and finally played Dreamfall:  The Longest Journey.  I've owned the game for about 6 years at this point, and I never installed it.  Initially it was because I couldn't run it, later, I just found other things to do.  So I finally sat down and finished it and I'd like to talk about it a bit.  And I'll be linking to Let's Plays of these games because I like links, though I encourage a playthrough first.

DREAMFALL:  THE LONGEST JOURNEY

Before I get into this, I need to talk about the original game, The Longest Journey.  TLJ is on of my favorite games of all time.  It's an old school point and click adventure game, kind of like Grim Fandango.  The adventure follows a girl, April Ryan, who discovers that there is more to the world than just the Earth we know, that it's all in danger of being destroyed, and she has a role in saving it.  The story isn't all that special, honestly.  Kind of a standard heroes quest sort of thing, but not quite.  What really drew me to the game was the world it created.  Or worlds as the case may be.  It drew me in and stuck with me.  I mentioned last week that I've written a few fanfictions in my time, and one of them, the only one that went very far, was for this game.  So I REALLY liked the game.  The game ends with the world saved, April's destiny not quite what she thought, and her stepping into a portal leading her somewhere.

Dreamfall is a half sequel.  Since the original game was wrapped up pretty well, with very few, if any, loose ends.  As such Dreamfall is free to build practically from scratch in the same universe.  New game, new main character, new story, all that kind of stuff.  We'll get to the story and characters in a moment, let's talk about the actual game itself.  From the perspective of game play, this is not a good game.  It's not godawful, but it's not good.

At it's heart, Dreamfall is an adventure game like TLJ before it.  That means puzzles, but compared to TLJ, the puzzles in Dreamfall are a complete joke.  This is kind of on purpose from what I've read, as there were a few puzzles in that game that were so convoluted as to stop people from getting very far.  Hell, one is damn near infamous.  So they made Dreamfall easier.  That's fine, but they went a bit too far.  On top of that, they provided a couple of mini-game puzzles that were shockingly underused, to the point of silliness.  At best, the two games are used a grand total of 6 times in the entire game.  Maybe it isn't so bad, given that the game is paced much quicker (it's shorter for sure) and the mini-games only work for effectively half the game anyway, but I still feel they were underused.  Otherwise the puzzles generally hand hold the player through them.  Only a couple of times I got stuck, either due to the hint not being all that clear or the camera not helping me see the issue (and then there was the music puzzle, I hate those and look them up instantly, I'd be terrible at Loom).  Of course, Dreamfall doesn't just have puzzles, and this is where things start getting odd.

Dreamfall has a combat system.  This is an old school adventure game with at COMBAT system.  And not something like out of Secret of Monkey Island.  No, there is actual fighting, with potential of loss in this game.  It's stiff, hard to perform, and as sporadic as the mini-game puzzles.  There are maybe 5 battles in the entire game that HAVE to be fought, with two optional fights that can be done via another method, which I'll get to shortly.  It kind of makes sense from a story perspective, but it's so clunky and underused that it surprises the player and results in a lot of button mashing for each fight.  It's not strictly hard, but it feels awful and really kind of drags the game down.

And then there's the third gameplay element, stealth.  Yeah, a stealth mechanic is in this game.  It kind of works, but I've seen it done better (actually I've seen all three done at the same time better, I'll get to that).  From a story perspective, again, it kind of makes sense, but it also adds undo stress, especially when it's combined with a puzzle.  Oh, and more instant death, how wonderful.  It works, not well, but it works.  It just feels, well, not great.

Combined with odd controls and a poor camera, this should be a complete mess of a game.  Want to see a game that does all these things together and does it well?  Go try Beyond Good & Evil.  It does everything this game does, but does it right and makes it easily a superior game.  Of course, it's not perfect in those regards, it just does it better than Dreamfall by miles.

And yet, this isn't a bad game as a whole.  Why?  It all comes down to the story, which is pretty good.  Very good actually, and one that is a bit deeper than one could expect for such a game.  The original game drew me in with a world, but not so much the story.  Here the world is established, for the most part, and so the story had to take charge.  It came through, except for the ending, as it were.

In many ways, I'd compare this series to Star Wars, the original trilogy (prequels don't count).  Like the original Star Wars (call it A New Hope if you must), TLJ is a complete story, with a solid beginning and end.  There's a journey, hints of a greater purpose for the lead character, etc, etc.  Dreamfall falls much more in line with Empire Strikes Back.  There are two active stories going on here, one for each world.  These stories cross each other at important parts, but for the most part are independent and about the growth of the characters.  What's more, the story does not end on a positive note.

The separate stories makes me wonder if the writers could have written them completely apart.  The crossing points between them have little effect on the two stories as they develop, so much so if there were no crossing points, only a little bit of work could break the two completely apart.  I do suspect for the larger tale, the crossing points are important, and will be necessary in the next sequel.  This indicates that there was a great deal of planning involved in the creation of the story and game, though leaving a bit of a cliffhanger was disappointing.

This planning is also reflected in the overall theme of the game.  That theme is actually spelled out in an interview, and I won't go into it here (go play the game first to see how it works).  The fact that there was a unified theme, despite 2 separate stories and 3 main characters, makes the story that much stronger, though one wouldn't necessarily notice the theme in playing, I certainly didn't.  I suspect that the writers didn't necessarily plan to reveal the theme as they were creating, hoping the game would reflect it a bit better.  I think one could suss out the theme with enough diligence, but sadly a lot of us, including myself, can't read that much into things.  The extra bump helps me appreciate what the writers were going for, and I better understand why certain events happened as they did.

And the best part of the planning, is that there are few continuity gaffes in the game.  In fact, I can only recall one that was pretty blatant.  Otherwise, every action either had a consequence or was mentioned.  My favorite, on watching the Let's Play I linked, is at one point there is a choice to fight or sneak around a particular bad guy.  When it's mentioned later, the dialog reflected the choice quite clearly.  I was very pleased with that, and it wasn't the only time such a thing happened.

The writing as a whole was quite good.  Dialog flowed quite well, despite some stiff, and probably poorly directed, voice work.  There's a bit of fun in some conversations, just as in the original game (where there was a LOT more dialog).  Choices were pretty clear, but sadly sparse.  The last couple of in game chapters were actually devoid of choice or options, which made me a bit sad in the long run.  I get why, any dialog options would have all been chosen or gone over the same territory anyway, but I would still have liked some control.  Though my favorite encounter is when two of the main characters meet just randomly on the street and strike up a conversation.  The fact that the game lets the player choose the direction BOTH sides take in the conversation is quite amazing, and I enjoyed it and would have loved to see more of that kind of thing.

So overall, the game is, well, good.  Perhaps not great, and certainly not one of my favorite games of all time.  The gameplay is bad, but there are moments with the story and the direction of that story that elevate it far beyond where it should be.  If the gameplay had been better, more in line with Beyond Good & Evil (whose story is far more pedestrian in comparison), it easily could have been incredible.  I'm glad I finally played it and will remember it for some time, but I don't think it'll have such a strong influence on me as TLJ did.  Or maybe it will and I just haven't felt it yet.  Have to wait and see on that one.

Until next time kiddies.

The Fine Line of Fanfiction

Ah, fanfiction, that nebulous concept that is the domain of people who want to be more than just the audience of their favorite stories.  I've written a few in my time, I won't comment on the quality, but let's just say, not great.

In many ways, fanfiction is a great way for young writers to flex their writing muscles.  In other ways, they're the worst kind of vanity projects, often resulting in self insertion and magnifying the worst aspects of the piece they're based on.   Young artists, likewise, will copy their favorite character designs or styles, giving that pen a good workout, but they also tend to emphasis specific assets they find most appealing (I'm talking about boobs here kids).

As a general rule, fanfiction isn't that good.  Of course, fanfiction can easily become official, after all I'm fairly certain the future Star Wars Episode 7 will be a piece of "fanfiction" that becomes official.  Once out of hands of the original creator, it's fanfiction.

There are a LOT of fanfiction comics out there, but I really don't read many.  They just don't appeal, and I think a lot of the issue is the classic issues of fanfiction as a whole.  That said, when something is done WELL, I pay attention.  That doesn't happen often.  But what makes a good piece of fanfiction?  Well, it comes down to knowing the source material, but not adding the unnecessary.  Exploring beyond the source without making breaking it.  It's hard to do, very hard, but there are a few comics that do/did it quite well, for very different reasons.

The first, is Legend of Zelda:  El Rey.  It's Zelda, it has the standard Zelda characters, mostly their Ocarina of Time incarnations, but it's not quite what Zelda.  They are familiar, yes, but not what is expected from them.  Zelda isn't a damsel in distress or a wise ruler, but a stuck up drunk.  Gannon seems far more reasonable than he ever should be and Link, well, he's about the same, but filled with a lot of self doubt and guilt.  They have made these characters their own while still making them similar enough to know who they are.  The story takes them down a different path, and while there are similar elements, it is a different adventure, with additional characters from other Zelda games (and at least one Final Fantasy reference).  This is what I call doing a fanfiction very, VERY well, capturing the nature of the original while telling a new and very interesting story.  It also doesn't lose much as many of the events that happened prior to the story are the same as the source, building a new story on the old foundations.  That alone makes me curious what the specific change was that twisted the world it's new direction.

What happens when the source doesn't have much in terms of foundations to begin with though?  The result is something more like 8-Bit Theater.  As anyone who played the original Final Fantasy will know, the original game didn't have that much of a story.  The player characters were nameless cyphers that could have been anything.  So 8-Bit turned it into a comedy.  Talk about influence though, even today, the personalties that were created for this fanfiction comic have come to dominate the sprites they were attached to.  With so little to build on, it's surprising how filled the comic became by the end, with a dozens of different characters, convoluted plots and wild antics.  It took everything that was great about those old games, and made them about as funny as possible.

Somewhere in the middle sits No Rest for the Wicked.  On one hand, the characters and stories it's based on are pretty well established and well known.  On the other, there's plenty of room in those characters and stories to expand and play with.  The real trick is the melding of all these very different stories and worlds into a single piece, and building on the concepts of the characters already in existence to create a greater story.  It's fanfiction, for sure, based on the original fairy tale works, but it takes them in a new, unified direction.  I covered most of this last week, so I won't go into more here, but know that I think it fits right in with the other fanfiction pieces listed here.

Of course, there is one other branch of fanfiction I won't cover today, the parody.  Maybe some other time.  Until then kiddies.

Not So Wild Review: No Rest for the Wicked

When I started these Not So Wild Reviews, I intended to do them in the order of how I collected the comics.  And then I found this:

No Rest for the Wicked, Chapter 1:  The Moon Rolling in Her Grave

This is the first chapter of one of my favorite comics, done as a motion comic.  There's another comic that had this happen to it, but it was only one strip and I have reviewed it yet.  So in the meantime, let's talk about

NO REST FOR THE WICKED

I'm not big into fairy tales, I know of them, but I know Andrea Peterson, the artist and author, is very much into them.  She knows them quite well, the core versions and such.  There's even a list of links to the stories on the website.  While other comics might refer to these classic stories, she adds knowledge to it, gravitas and a bit of reality.  I also suspect they are much closer to the actual stories then what you might see out of Disney.

ART

The art is very sketch book.  I mean, I could see these pictures, especially the early strips, done in someone's notebook.  It's not bad, not at all, it just feels that way.  As the comic goes one, the art improves, at it must, but it always remains "sketchy."  Great art?  No, but it hits the right points.  Characters stand out, it's easy to identify them at a glance, backgrounds are interesting and well built, and actions are fluid.  From a sequential art stand point, it's more than competent and quite well done.  Many other comics would beat it out in the art department, but it's not bad by any stretch.

SETTING

I don't usually talk about the setting of comics because, well, it's unnecessary in most cases.  Does it really matter that it's implied that Sluggy Freelance takes place in New Jersey?  No, it doesn't.  But for No Rest, the setting IS the comic.  This comic takes place in a literal fairy tale world.  There are kingdoms, vast tracts of wild forest, and not much else from what I can tell.  It's a strange world yet the characters seem very at home in it, which they should be.  They're aware of the issues with this world (including strange old women, witches and curses) and deal with them as they come.  Their relationship with their world is constantly there, to the point that their interactions with each other sometimes take a backseat to it.  It's even hinted that the world is quite vast, but has a literal end, as evidenced by a pilfered atlas which has a page marked "The End," just as all fairy tales do.  This makes the comic kind of unique amongst other strips that might take a similar route since knowing even the basic rules of the setting is vital to understanding character motivations, the jokes, and even the overall plot.

CHARACTERS

A princess, a cat and a woman on the edge of sanity go looking for the moon could easily be the start of a fairy tale on it's own.  As it is, they are reinterpretations of classic fairy tale characters.  November is the princess from Princess and the Pea, Perrault is Puss in Boots, and Red is Little Red Riding Hood (or Red Cap, the things you learn from this comic).  Aside from Red, they aren't far off their traditional mark, November sleeps on dozens of mattresses and has an allergy to peas, for example.  Red is more a post-tale version of the character, one that has gone through significant stress and kind of cracked.  Their motivations aren't strictly hidden, but not laid out completely.  This is not a quest to save the land, that's incidental honestly.  November was told finding the moon is the only way she'll sleep again, Perrault is in it for the chase, and Red, well, I think her reasons are the most enigmatic.  Each has their qualities without being wholly dominate in one or the other.  Red is the muscle of the group, but is smart enough to see through deciptions, Perrault is the brains, but sometimes overthinks things, and November is innocent and fragile, but far tougher than one might initially think.  A fourth member was added in the last couple of chapters, but her presence seems more incidental at this point, and I almost think there's something off about her actions at this point.

PLOT

From what I can tell, the goal is to basically rattle through a lot of different fairy tales, having our central cast meet players from each one and have it lead to their final goal.  This means taking the actual fairy tales and turning them in odd ways so they seem more natural and real, and possibly linking them closer to the original source than normally would be.  At the same time, I think Andrea has taken a few liberties to make some of the tales that much darker than they normally would have been.  The call back to Hansel and Gretel being the prime example of this (and yes, that one grew DAMN dark).  Given that the original fairy tales are dark to begin with, this is pretty damn disturbing.  The result is the pacing is compartmentalized as each tale is partially retold and represented in new and interesting ways.  I hope this continues as they make their way to the end, though I wonder what other fairy tales might be tapped for this.  1001 Arabian Nights perhaps?  Hard to say.

OVERALL

There is always something about this comic that makes it stand out as one of my favorites.  The characters, the setting, the story, the jokes, all make this a comic I want to read and love very easily.  What hurts it is the abysmal update schedule.  There are usually months between pairs of pages, which makes the wait a strain.  At one point, well over a year had passed between updates and I thought the comic was dead for sure.  I dropped Zap! for having regular, weekly strips because of pacing, so why does No Rest get a pass?  I think because it makes every effort not to waste time.  A single page can easily draw one back into it and make it feel like not a beat was missed.  Zap! couldn't do that.  Still, a slightly more regular update schedule could easily move this from being a favorite to being a must read.  As it stands, the comic is more a brief stop on my weekly run rather than a comic I check obsessively.  I wish it was otherwise.

Time to move on to the next thing.  Make sure you check out that video, it's totally worth it.  Until next time kiddies.

Wild Webcomic Review 170 - 174

Well, this is it.  I've been reposting my reviews since I started this blog over 3 years ago, and this is the last repost.  Considering I've added another 60 comics on top of this in those 3 years, I feel almost like I've been slacking.  Because I have.  Still, I've done a lot more things that I always wanted to do, and I'm planning to do more.  With that said, enjoy the last old review.  I'll have to think of something to add my current thoughts to the new review batches, but that will come later.

June 01, 2009

170. Sandra and Woo - This comic reminds me of Calvin and Hobbes. Not so much in art style like Sinfest, but more in tone and the way it flows. Don't expect it to be Calvin and Hobbes, it isn't, but it is its own thing, and it works pretty well. It's young (only about 8 months old), but I think it could easily become memorable.

TODAY - Still a pretty solid comic.  Is it memorable?  Probably not, but good nonetheless.  Worth reading and I've kept it on my read list for a while now, and probably well into the future.

171. Sister Claire - This is a silly comic. Mostly in concept, but in execution as well. It's fun and I imagine anyone who grew up around nuns (not me, BTW) will probably find this much more entertaining than the rest of us. Hard to say much else, but I think it's worth a look in most cases.

TODAY - I'm still not sure what to make of this comic.  It's not what I initial thought it was, a kind of parody nuns and such, because now there is magic, half cat people, witches, statues that are fighting robots and a Nun Fu.  This comic got odd really quickly and kept being odd.  I want to see where this is going though, and I keep reading.

172. The Best Band in the Universe - Here's another reminder comic, this time of Scooby Doo or something like that. The space van looks like it. But there is an issue: All the characters in the band are male. Go ahead and read it and you'll see why this is an issue. Once that gets out of the way, it's not too bad, if not updated recently (March was the last one). I think that's kind of a shame, with a title like that, it could be pretty memorable.

TODAY - Dead and gone.  I hate when that happens.

173. The Meek - The main character is naked. And is female. I know, I should have saved that for the end, but at least those of you who left are reading the comic, and you should. The art is great, the story, though still young, seems well written and I'll be following it for as long as possible. And since she's naked, so will you.

TODAY - Hey, that naked girl?  She's wearing pants.  Just pants.  And the comic has been on and off hiatus rather randomly, mostly because the artist is doing pay jobs and making money and living.  Good for him!  He deserves it, but I'd really rather he come back into this story.  It got pretty dark at a few moments, with a several great characters, but the stalling out due to pay work has made me sad.  Come back soon not so naked girl.

174. Zap! - Comics change over time, some for the better, some for the worse. If you come in at the wrong point, you can easily be turned off on even the best comics. For the first 250 or so strips, Zap isn't a great comic. It's not terrible, there's just nothing of interest there. Then, with a somewhat climactic fight scene, the comic dynamic changes and it shifts from being merely ordinary to something really good. If I had reviewed it before that point, I would never have gone back (well, probably never). As it stands, it will slip into my schedule, a comic that finally found its tone and style, after 250 some strips.

TODAY - I dropped it from the schedule within a year.  Mostly it was a pacing thing.  One page a week is a pacing wrecker, and it became easy to lose my place there.  The comic was better then when it started, but it was so slow, it wasn't worth following any more.  Just a brief look at the most recent page shows the art is still quite good and I think the story must be moving along nicely.  I may have to revive my re-review project and give it another shot.

And that's it.  It's now been over 10 years since I started reading and review webcomics in a sporadic fashion.  The first 7 years have now been reposted on this blog that took the last 3 and more into the future.  Hopefully I'll actually do some more reviews.  Until then kiddies.