Okay, I spent the last two weeks taking on some pretty bad webcomics, but I feel no satisfaction. Today I'm going to take down a webcomic that is better regarded. Why? Well, it is my nature. My target is Flipside...another comic with lesbians, although, unlike Misfile or Angels 2200, at least it comes by them honestly.
Let's start out by saying something positive: the art is actually pretty damn good. Oh, sure, it's that same sort of anime-inspired stuff that seems to be the dominant look in webcomics, but at least this guy does it well. So, there you go, I'm not just some asshole that spends all of his time making fun of others to make himself feel superior...I only do that most of the time.
Okay, the biggest problem with Flipside is that it's characters kind of make your head hurt. The main character is a jester named Maytag, a character who is magically able to solve every problem without violence. An evil sorceress about to kill her? Maytag can talk her down in one page or less. An angry band of thugs about to beat the shit out of her? She'll just decide the fight is over. A monstrous cannibal locking her up in a cave? Maytag will not only prove that the cannibal was just misunderstood, but also offer to be a food source. Incidentally, I believe that makes Maytag more Christ-like than Christ, because when Jesus offered his body and blood, he didn't mean it literally. (Also, that wasn't even the first time she dismembered herself in order to defuse a situation.)
I think that Maytag is supposed to have character flaws, but I think they exist more in theory than in fact. She's supposed to be a nymphomaniac, and thus someone who's unable to maintain any sort of healthy relationship, but it's never actually shown to be a problem. In fact, that panel I linked to in the last sentence, this is the page that comes directly before it. I'm only harping on this because it seems like one of those flaws that authors give their characters so that they can say, "See, she isn't totally perfect." Except, if it's a flaw that never is shown to have any ill effects, is it really a flaw? The closest the comic comes to addressing it is in this sequence, but seeing as it's followed a few pages later by this, so that doesn't really count.
There's also the viewpoint character, Crest, whose role to remind the audience how awesome Maytag is. There's also Bernadette, who I guess is supposed to be torn about how her girlfriend is inevitably going to cheat on her, but well, since Maytag may be the most chaste nymphomaniac in history, that's really kind of a non-starter in terms of drama.
As for the plot...I don't know. Most of the time it seems to want to trend towards high fantasy, but then occasionally you end up with subplot about how Bernadette wants to join a group of knights, but she's a lesbian and they hate gays, and that's rather jarring. That said, the pace of the plot is probably best described as glacial, in that I believe the characters have been traveling towards the same town for about three years now.
In summary, Flipside is probably better than either Misfile or Angels 2200, but it's not really good. Actually, I'm probably being a bit hard on it, as far as webcomics go, it's actually rather well-crafted, but it ought to be better, especially since the creator is willing to ask for money from the audience.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Webcomics of the Apocalypse: Angels 2200
Sometimes, an author has an awesome idea for a story, but just can't quite execute it....and sometimes both premise and execution suck. Angels 2200 is one of the latter.
Angels 2200 is about of group of rookie space fighter pilots fighting against a nebulous threat in the mildly dystopian future. Oh, and since almost men on the Earth have been killed, they're all teenage girls. Now, at this point, you're probably saying to yourself, "Oh, it's a comedy," and you'd be half-right, I mean, it's clear that parts of it are supposed to be funny, but most strips seem to fall more on the dramatic side of things.
Part of me thinks that the entire premise is just a really elaborate background for "hot" girl-on-girl action, and while that does occasionally happen, it's clearly not the main focus of the book, which is a rather uninspired story about evil government conspiracies, and low-octane battles in space that are even less exciting than I've made them sound.
And the characters, God help me, the characters. Well, the main character is your typical young, fresh-faced innocent about to face the horrors of war, who also happens to have painful phonetically-transcribed French accent. Also, there's Whiskey, the firey red-head from Ireland who exists as part of a contest to create the least original character in all of fiction. There's also the bitch, the ditz, and I'm probably forgetting a few other characters.
Finally, there's the art, well, there are two types of art in this comic, and neither is good. First is your basic anime-inspired art which is used for most scenes, it's not really good, but I've seen worse, I suppose. Then, for some unknowable reason, the space combat scenes are rendered in 3-D, which, again, isn't particularly good, but isn't completely terrible, either.
Ultimately, Angels 2200 is kind of impressive, in a certain way. It seems as if every single aspect of the webcomic hovers between "not good" and "awful", creating a comic that is consisently bad, but not so terrible that it's particularly fun to mock.
(Note: While researching for this review, I learned that there is actually Angels 2200 fanfiction, and, only being mildly suicidal, could not bring myself to look at it. Still, I must give credit to the authors for making a comic that people like enough to write fanfic about. On the other hand, this news does make me question what kind of loving God would allow such a state of affairs to come to pass.)
Angels 2200 is about of group of rookie space fighter pilots fighting against a nebulous threat in the mildly dystopian future. Oh, and since almost men on the Earth have been killed, they're all teenage girls. Now, at this point, you're probably saying to yourself, "Oh, it's a comedy," and you'd be half-right, I mean, it's clear that parts of it are supposed to be funny, but most strips seem to fall more on the dramatic side of things.
Part of me thinks that the entire premise is just a really elaborate background for "hot" girl-on-girl action, and while that does occasionally happen, it's clearly not the main focus of the book, which is a rather uninspired story about evil government conspiracies, and low-octane battles in space that are even less exciting than I've made them sound.
And the characters, God help me, the characters. Well, the main character is your typical young, fresh-faced innocent about to face the horrors of war, who also happens to have painful phonetically-transcribed French accent. Also, there's Whiskey, the firey red-head from Ireland who exists as part of a contest to create the least original character in all of fiction. There's also the bitch, the ditz, and I'm probably forgetting a few other characters.
Finally, there's the art, well, there are two types of art in this comic, and neither is good. First is your basic anime-inspired art which is used for most scenes, it's not really good, but I've seen worse, I suppose. Then, for some unknowable reason, the space combat scenes are rendered in 3-D, which, again, isn't particularly good, but isn't completely terrible, either.
Ultimately, Angels 2200 is kind of impressive, in a certain way. It seems as if every single aspect of the webcomic hovers between "not good" and "awful", creating a comic that is consisently bad, but not so terrible that it's particularly fun to mock.
(Note: While researching for this review, I learned that there is actually Angels 2200 fanfiction, and, only being mildly suicidal, could not bring myself to look at it. Still, I must give credit to the authors for making a comic that people like enough to write fanfic about. On the other hand, this news does make me question what kind of loving God would allow such a state of affairs to come to pass.)
Sunday, November 8, 2009
....And Speaking of the Apocalypse
By the way, when I started working on my Misfile review, I was going to make a joke about the generally shitty nature of webcomics proving that corporate entities are ultimately the only thing saving us from ourselves. I only bring this up because I decided against it when I learned that FOX planned a entire night of Seth MacFarlane shows. Thus, I have concluded that whether executives meddle with creative types or not, mankind is completely and utterly doomed.
Incidentally, my generation can only blame themselves for this turn of events. You see, when we were all in our early-to-mid teens, Family Guy seemed like a good show...and since it went off the air, it kind of idealized our memories of it, even though Adult Swim brought it back. And so when Family Guy was put back on the air, it seemed awesome. Oh, how wrong we were.
I don't think my heart will be able to take it if it turns out that Futurama always sucked and I just hadn't realized it all of these years.
Incidentally, my generation can only blame themselves for this turn of events. You see, when we were all in our early-to-mid teens, Family Guy seemed like a good show...and since it went off the air, it kind of idealized our memories of it, even though Adult Swim brought it back. And so when Family Guy was put back on the air, it seemed awesome. Oh, how wrong we were.
I don't think my heart will be able to take it if it turns out that Futurama always sucked and I just hadn't realized it all of these years.
Webcomics of the Apocalypse: Misfile
Webcomics where men turn into teenage girls are really popular nowadays, and I'm not quite sure why....also, I'm not quite sure I want to know. It's probably Japan's fault or something.
Anyway, there are a ton of these webcomics out there, each an abomination against the human spirit in their own way. But since I decided I didn't want to commit suicide this week, I've decided to only take a look at one of them. And, as a sporting man, I choose to take on the mightiest among them, Misfile.
Begun in 2004, Misfile is the story of two high school students whose lives have been altered by... (come on, inner strength)...an angel getting high on pot and making a rather literal bureaucratic error. Anyway, one of them, Ash is now a girl and must learn to live as one until said pothead angel can fix the situation. Awesome.
Now, I haven't read many of these comics, but from what I understand, there are a number of tropes that these sort of comics are required by infernal law to invoke. There's the admission that a dude trapped in a chicks body would play with herself, there's a discussion on the proper use of bras, there's going into the girl's locker room, there's the use of boobs to control the minds of men...and so on....for over 1200 pages. Also, there are mind-shatteringly bad moments of supposed "humor." Fuck, let's be honest, just like every other one of these fucking transformation comics, it's just a flimsy chain of fanservice episodes that people mentally construct so that they don't have to come to terms with what they're spending their time reading. And in those rare instances where the strip tries to actually be funny, you'll wish they just did fanservice.
Actually, this comics does have exactly one other strand of story besides the adventures of the chick-who-was-a-dude, and that is the amazingly dull world of low-stakes auto racing. Sure, auto racing can be exciting...I guess, but this isn't. And it isn't an isolated occurrence.
I'm pretty sure there's an ongoing story, but it's been five years, and there's been essentially no forward movement. I guess occasionally some angels show up and say something ominous...or just dick around with the characters for fun.
As for the characters...well, you've Ash, the boy-girl, Emily the girl who is ambiguously attracted to Ash...and there are some angels and some other people, and I can't bring myself to care enough to finish this paragraph.
As for the art, well, one of my inspirations for this unfair and unbalanced attack was reading that Misfile was "notable for having above-average artwork." Yeah, I suppose given the utter dreck that populates most of the internet, it does have relatively nice artwork but, to paraphrase a Simpsons episode, while it has technical proficiency, it has no passion, showing no improvement over the five years it's been around, and having your typical derivative anime-wannabe style....well, except when his sense of perspective craps out.
Anyway, the larger point I'm trying to make is that this comic isn't very good. The art is competent, but that's the high point of the comic. It's well-written, but only by the standards of other gender-changing comics, and that's like saying that a serial killer who killed only four people is a pretty non-violent guy by the standards of serial killers. If you absolutely must read a a comic where a boy changes into a girl, perhaps because you lost a bet, or because of some sort of punishment from a higher power, then I suppose you could do worse than Misfile, and, my deepest condolences if those are, in fact, your circumstances.
Anyway, there are a ton of these webcomics out there, each an abomination against the human spirit in their own way. But since I decided I didn't want to commit suicide this week, I've decided to only take a look at one of them. And, as a sporting man, I choose to take on the mightiest among them, Misfile.
Begun in 2004, Misfile is the story of two high school students whose lives have been altered by... (come on, inner strength)...an angel getting high on pot and making a rather literal bureaucratic error. Anyway, one of them, Ash is now a girl and must learn to live as one until said pothead angel can fix the situation. Awesome.
Now, I haven't read many of these comics, but from what I understand, there are a number of tropes that these sort of comics are required by infernal law to invoke. There's the admission that a dude trapped in a chicks body would play with herself, there's a discussion on the proper use of bras, there's going into the girl's locker room, there's the use of boobs to control the minds of men...and so on....for over 1200 pages. Also, there are mind-shatteringly bad moments of supposed "humor." Fuck, let's be honest, just like every other one of these fucking transformation comics, it's just a flimsy chain of fanservice episodes that people mentally construct so that they don't have to come to terms with what they're spending their time reading. And in those rare instances where the strip tries to actually be funny, you'll wish they just did fanservice.
Actually, this comics does have exactly one other strand of story besides the adventures of the chick-who-was-a-dude, and that is the amazingly dull world of low-stakes auto racing. Sure, auto racing can be exciting...I guess, but this isn't. And it isn't an isolated occurrence.
I'm pretty sure there's an ongoing story, but it's been five years, and there's been essentially no forward movement. I guess occasionally some angels show up and say something ominous...or just dick around with the characters for fun.
As for the characters...well, you've Ash, the boy-girl, Emily the girl who is ambiguously attracted to Ash...and there are some angels and some other people, and I can't bring myself to care enough to finish this paragraph.
As for the art, well, one of my inspirations for this unfair and unbalanced attack was reading that Misfile was "notable for having above-average artwork." Yeah, I suppose given the utter dreck that populates most of the internet, it does have relatively nice artwork but, to paraphrase a Simpsons episode, while it has technical proficiency, it has no passion, showing no improvement over the five years it's been around, and having your typical derivative anime-wannabe style....well, except when his sense of perspective craps out.
Anyway, the larger point I'm trying to make is that this comic isn't very good. The art is competent, but that's the high point of the comic. It's well-written, but only by the standards of other gender-changing comics, and that's like saying that a serial killer who killed only four people is a pretty non-violent guy by the standards of serial killers. If you absolutely must read a a comic where a boy changes into a girl, perhaps because you lost a bet, or because of some sort of punishment from a higher power, then I suppose you could do worse than Misfile, and, my deepest condolences if those are, in fact, your circumstances.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Incidentally, Stargate Universe Sucks
Okay, Stargate: Universe has been on the air for a while now, and I feel confident in saying that it isn't very good.
Oh, I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at some point, jamming together the premise of Star Trek: Voyager, the 'dark n' grittiness' of the new Battlestar Galactica and the backdrop of Stargate. Well, it must have sounded good to someone.
Anyway, I have the feeling that people are probably going to look back at Battlestar Galactica the same way that comic book fans look at Watchmen. A great story, but also something that ended up spawning a decade of painfully grim imitators that almost destroyed the entire industry...okay, I don't think that the entire sci-fi industry is going to implode, but you get my meaning.
Tonight's episode, "Earth," is about a risky plan to get the crew of the Destiny back to Earth and end the series after five episodes. Lamentably, they fail. But in the meantime, some other characters get to go to Earth via a body-switching machine and go out drinking/having sex and then talking about their feelings. Here's a basic rule of thumb for science-fiction to follow: for every scene that involves two characters talking about emotions, include at least one gunfight, because if you aren't, you are tragically misunderstanding your target audience.
Actually, that's not true, if you do a great job developing your characters, maybe, just maybe, you can get away with an episode that is 95% talking, but SG:U's cast of characters isn't...you know, good. There's the Amoral Scientist! The Gruff Commander! Lieutenant Prince Hal! The Nerd-Who-Could-Be-You! The Hot Chick! Sergeant Psychopath! Thrill as the Nerd realizes that the Hot Chick would rather bang a jock! Gasp as the Gruff Commander questions the morality of the amoral scientist! Recoil in horror as Sergeant Psychopath threatens bodily harm to several more members of the team!
I don't know, I guess the show is still getting on its feet, so I should be nicer, but...well, I can't change who I am. Oh, if the show turns out to be a critical success, I'll look like a complete tool, but well, in that event, the imminent ending of days will be more of a concern.
Oh, I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at some point, jamming together the premise of Star Trek: Voyager, the 'dark n' grittiness' of the new Battlestar Galactica and the backdrop of Stargate. Well, it must have sounded good to someone.
Anyway, I have the feeling that people are probably going to look back at Battlestar Galactica the same way that comic book fans look at Watchmen. A great story, but also something that ended up spawning a decade of painfully grim imitators that almost destroyed the entire industry...okay, I don't think that the entire sci-fi industry is going to implode, but you get my meaning.
Tonight's episode, "Earth," is about a risky plan to get the crew of the Destiny back to Earth and end the series after five episodes. Lamentably, they fail. But in the meantime, some other characters get to go to Earth via a body-switching machine and go out drinking/having sex and then talking about their feelings. Here's a basic rule of thumb for science-fiction to follow: for every scene that involves two characters talking about emotions, include at least one gunfight, because if you aren't, you are tragically misunderstanding your target audience.
Actually, that's not true, if you do a great job developing your characters, maybe, just maybe, you can get away with an episode that is 95% talking, but SG:U's cast of characters isn't...you know, good. There's the Amoral Scientist! The Gruff Commander! Lieutenant Prince Hal! The Nerd-Who-Could-Be-You! The Hot Chick! Sergeant Psychopath! Thrill as the Nerd realizes that the Hot Chick would rather bang a jock! Gasp as the Gruff Commander questions the morality of the amoral scientist! Recoil in horror as Sergeant Psychopath threatens bodily harm to several more members of the team!
I don't know, I guess the show is still getting on its feet, so I should be nicer, but...well, I can't change who I am. Oh, if the show turns out to be a critical success, I'll look like a complete tool, but well, in that event, the imminent ending of days will be more of a concern.
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