Bardsworth is a pretty benign comic, I suppose. But, as it is a comic where the villain's evil plan is to corrupt the main character by convincing him to double-major in wizardry and bard studies, I can't help but attack.
The plot, ah, yes the plot, the main character is a kid named Mike, as you might expect in a story like this, is a complete and utter loser who just happens to be the chosen one. Luckily for him, he finds a portal to another universe or dimension or whatever and decides to enroll at the eponymous magical university. Anyway, it's quite a culture shock for young Mike, as well it might. Anyway, he gets a bunch of friends, and the main villain kind of sits around ominously announcing that he has evil intentions for young Mike. And...I don't know, that's really about it through around five hundred strips. No really, it's taken four and half years for Mike to enroll in magic college and get through a semester.
I think the problem that I have with this comic is that there's no real conflict and I don't think it's meant to be a straight comedy strip either. I mean, I guess there's a main villain, but he doesn't do anything. I guess there could be relationship drama, but the comic seems to go out of its way to pre-empt it. Oh, wait, there is an arc were Mike is forced to confront his hatred of theater people, now, you might think the author is trying to make a riff on fantasy characters having tragic pasts or something, but this strip makes me think it's being played straight.
Besides Mike, there other characters include, Old Man Wizard, who is old, wise, and all of those other things you'd expect of such a character. There's the villain, Rayner, who hasn't really done anything evil yet, but has evil facial hair. Oh, and there's Mike's love interest. Now, I know you're thinking, "Oh, let me guess, she's an Elven princess." Well, fuck you and your cynical nature, she's just the heiress to an Elven duchy, asshole. There's also a fairy who plays some part in the theoretical corruption of Mike, and some other ancillary characters that I can't bring myself to care enough about to discuss.
The art is....okay. It's not particularly good, but, for the most part, it's good enough, and I give it bonus points for not falling into the anime-inspired trap that afflicts so many webcomics. That said, the story really isn't good enough to carry this webcomic by itself, and so adequate art really isn't good enough for Bardsworth.
Bardsworth kind of sucks. It's not completely awful, but well, when you put together mediocre art and the least-exciting use of a fantasy world in human history, you're not apt to end up with anything good. That said, maybe something will actually fucking happen in the story and change my opinion of it, but, as a general rule of thumb, if nothing has happened in five hundred comics, nothing is ever going to happen.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Webcomics of the Apocalypse: Las Lindas
Going over the past few reviews I've done, it occurs to me that I've been relatively nice as far as the vitriol-fest that is the internet goes. But, people don't come to this blog to...well, people don't come to this blog at all.
Where was I?
Oh, yeah, today I'm going to fight a comic that is actually worthy of the millenarianist title that I give to these reviews. Today, though it may kill me, I will review Las Lindas.
Las Lindas is awful on a number of levels. As a practical matter, I could probably simply point out the quasi-pornographic rendering of an underage furry, and call it a day. But, as I am a man of courage, I will point out the other flaws in this webcomic...which is kind of like saying that the Hindenburg's air conditioning system sucked.
Anyway, Las Lindas is the story of a bunch of furries banding together to save a small farm from...I don't know, bankruptcy, I guess. The main character is a she-cow (I have no idea if that's the right terminology) named Mora who begins the comic by blackmailing a young cat-dude into slavery.
The other characters include some man-cow who ends with Mora, an oddly chaste bunny-girl, two cat-girls who exist in order to round out the cast, and some weird nano-technology spirit thing that makes the idea of a bunch of people working on a farm make even less sense than it already does.
Finally, there's the villain of the piece, Alejendra, apparently, who will stop at nothing to shut down Las Lindas. Her devilish schemes include offering to buy Las Lindas at a reasonable price, and then later retracting that offer. Oh, she also plans to legally purchase the farm after Mora's genius slave-and-vagabond labor plan doesn't pan out....and that's where an already bad comic gets downright weird.
Just as Mora is about to lose her farm...where the work was all done by hand, a spaceship lands. Some sort of galactic higher-up shows up and offers an awesome deus ex machina deal whereby Mora can keep her farm if she wins some sort of farming contest. (By the way, it's amazing how well the reaction of the villain matches anyone's reasonable response to this situation.) In a shocking twist, Mora manages to sort-of win the contest when said galactic higher-up changes the rules. And once, again, the villain manages to sum up exactly why that is such a shitty resolution. I can't decide if the authors have wildly misjudged their story, or are self-aware. Then the characters go shopping, and accidentally kill the spirit-thing....and that's about it.
There's also a clumsy attempt at world-building, explaining how furries came to live alongside humans after they blew up our planet, which is nice of them, I suppose. Actually, I don't understand the setting of this comic at all. They work on a farm, but there are spaceships and shopping malls and nanotechnology, and you'd think that if you had that technology, a small family farm wouldn't be particularly viable. It probably gets explained in the spinoff comics, but I really, really, really don't want to check, as one of the comics is called "Breasts are the Best" and my spirit just can't take it.
Okay, let's wrap this up by talking about the art, because that really gets to the heart of the matter. I guess the art isn't bad, in that I think it's well-done from a technical perspective, but seeing as the art is that of a bunch of overly-endowed furries...
You know what, fuck it. If you want to see furry porn but feel compelled to justify your curiosity by claiming that it's integral to the plot of a story, I guess Las Lindas might be your cup of tea. Although, in that case, I'd suggest you either come to terms with your furry-philia (Note: there is probably a proper term for what I'm describing, but, again, my spirit), or look at normal porn.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that if you really, really, really, need to whack off to a bunny-girl, there are probably faster ways to do it.
P.S. I originally thought that this review would be funnier, but it just turned out to be depressing and miserable. Sorry.
Where was I?
Oh, yeah, today I'm going to fight a comic that is actually worthy of the millenarianist title that I give to these reviews. Today, though it may kill me, I will review Las Lindas.
Las Lindas is awful on a number of levels. As a practical matter, I could probably simply point out the quasi-pornographic rendering of an underage furry, and call it a day. But, as I am a man of courage, I will point out the other flaws in this webcomic...which is kind of like saying that the Hindenburg's air conditioning system sucked.
Anyway, Las Lindas is the story of a bunch of furries banding together to save a small farm from...I don't know, bankruptcy, I guess. The main character is a she-cow (I have no idea if that's the right terminology) named Mora who begins the comic by blackmailing a young cat-dude into slavery.
The other characters include some man-cow who ends with Mora, an oddly chaste bunny-girl, two cat-girls who exist in order to round out the cast, and some weird nano-technology spirit thing that makes the idea of a bunch of people working on a farm make even less sense than it already does.
Finally, there's the villain of the piece, Alejendra, apparently, who will stop at nothing to shut down Las Lindas. Her devilish schemes include offering to buy Las Lindas at a reasonable price, and then later retracting that offer. Oh, she also plans to legally purchase the farm after Mora's genius slave-and-vagabond labor plan doesn't pan out....and that's where an already bad comic gets downright weird.
Just as Mora is about to lose her farm...where the work was all done by hand, a spaceship lands. Some sort of galactic higher-up shows up and offers an awesome deus ex machina deal whereby Mora can keep her farm if she wins some sort of farming contest. (By the way, it's amazing how well the reaction of the villain matches anyone's reasonable response to this situation.) In a shocking twist, Mora manages to sort-of win the contest when said galactic higher-up changes the rules. And once, again, the villain manages to sum up exactly why that is such a shitty resolution. I can't decide if the authors have wildly misjudged their story, or are self-aware. Then the characters go shopping, and accidentally kill the spirit-thing....and that's about it.
There's also a clumsy attempt at world-building, explaining how furries came to live alongside humans after they blew up our planet, which is nice of them, I suppose. Actually, I don't understand the setting of this comic at all. They work on a farm, but there are spaceships and shopping malls and nanotechnology, and you'd think that if you had that technology, a small family farm wouldn't be particularly viable. It probably gets explained in the spinoff comics, but I really, really, really don't want to check, as one of the comics is called "Breasts are the Best" and my spirit just can't take it.
Okay, let's wrap this up by talking about the art, because that really gets to the heart of the matter. I guess the art isn't bad, in that I think it's well-done from a technical perspective, but seeing as the art is that of a bunch of overly-endowed furries...
You know what, fuck it. If you want to see furry porn but feel compelled to justify your curiosity by claiming that it's integral to the plot of a story, I guess Las Lindas might be your cup of tea. Although, in that case, I'd suggest you either come to terms with your furry-philia (Note: there is probably a proper term for what I'm describing, but, again, my spirit), or look at normal porn.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that if you really, really, really, need to whack off to a bunny-girl, there are probably faster ways to do it.
P.S. I originally thought that this review would be funnier, but it just turned out to be depressing and miserable. Sorry.
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