Another Tilly Comic!

The next page in Tilly and the Difference Makers, of course because my Comicgen site STILL isn't working. Enjoy!

Angst is a Five Letter Word...

Angst is a Five Letter Word is a humor-driven comic created by Joshua Tompke, also known as Evil Chihuahua. Angst is about, well, Joshua Tompke , living out a fantasy life in anime webcomic form. Updates are erratic at best.

The art for this comic improved dramatically from the first to the very latest update, and that in itself impressed me. Excellent use of shading and coloring effects only enhances the anime style, which works really well with the oddball storylines. I would like to see more variety in the "camera angles" used, to make the comic flow a little better. When all of the panels in a comic have the same perspective, it can be a little static and boring. Why not spice it up a little with some over the shoulder, or a shot looking down at the characters, or any of a number of other perspectives? Also, and I know he mentions this in the comic, but a little more use of females could possibly attract more of them to the comic. All in all though drastically improved art from comic 1.

I don't read a lot of anime, and I'm not particularly sure Chihuahua is trying to have an all anime comic here, but from what I've seen and read it mimics it quite well. By that I mean a lot of anime seems to be wacky and not make a lot of sense storywise, and I get that from Angst for the most part. There aren't real meaty stories here, just odd half-stories about potatoes and winged shoulder creatures that don't seem to really go anywhere or have any big payoff. Could all of the filler(which there is tons of) and delays in updates be a factor? I know it can be hard to get storylines going when you don't focus a lot of attention on the comic. I just wish people who did webcomics would keep up their schedules. I know there is life outside of webcomics, but don't tease your fans with a pic that says "sorry about the lack of updates, more coming soon!" or something to that effect. Sorry. Back to the storylines. Ahem. The one big storyline that was supposed to continue had no payoff whatsoever. It was quickly tied up and gotten rid of because, in the authors own words, "Seriously, I was getting pretty sick of all this story." Not too much enthusiasm for his own comic, huh? I will admit though, I at times have gotten tired of doing a story that seems to drag out with no end in sight, so I can understand it, but I wouldn't let the readers know. Anyhoo, I do like the one-shot humor more than the storylines here. They can be quite amusing, especially the rare ones about Josh trying to get a girl. More of those please!

Less filler, a more consistent update schedule, and better written storylines mixed in with the gag comics would get Angst back on the right track. I did like it, but I'm not sure it's my cup of tea. Or saki. Or whatever else you anime types drink. I would say give it a read, especially the second half, as it improves by leaps and bounds as it progresses. Give Angst a chance, and you just might get rid of yours.
I give this comic...

Yet another Tilly comic!

I have no idea what's going on with Comicgen. I still can't login to my comic site at all, so here is July 13's Difference Makers comic. Enjoy!

New interview time!

Hey all, I've been feverishly working on a brand spankin' new interview for your eyeballs, and after weeks of emailing and instant messaging back and forth, here it is! Okay....actually I just emailed the questions and got the responses back in about a day, but it still took a few minutes to type. It's all for you, people! Quirky webcomic duo Bear and Kitten took the time to spill their brainmatter all over these questions, so please take a second to check out their answers. Read on!

1.Thanks for doing the interview. Okay, so first of all tell us what inspired you to create the characters of Bear and Kitten.
Kitten's original idea was to make a comic about an immortal bear that worked in an office. But that's been done so many times we opted to add a kitten and just wing it.

2. So there are two of you who do this comic. I was wondering, do the main characters represent you? And if so, which represents who and why?
I (the writer) am Bear and Kitten (the artist) is Kitten. We pretty much model the characters after ourselves. It's safe to say theres a little kitten in bear and bear in kitten from time to time. If you follow. Cause we date. Sexually.

The online personas are really only there cause thats how we started and now it seems weird to give our real names. I promise you we are normal people and are not furries. Honest.

3. How do you get the ideas for your comics, your writing style, etc.
The writing process involves a little moleskin notebook, a box of wine and 2-3 hours of prep time. We drink the wine, kitten holds the book and takes dictation as I spout nonsense at the television or cats or at her. Most of the jokes come from random nonsense I have spoken aloud. Other times I am just walking around or driving a car and I think of something funny and write it in the book.

The second step involves us lying sober in bed reading over the nonsense I shouted throughout the week. I then try to work it all together into some sort of coherency and then kitten says it isn't funny and then I rewrite it.

After about 5 to 6 minutes of rewrites I tell her it is good enough and she can kiss my ass.


4. Who does the drawing and what or who influences your style?
Kitten is the artist. She went to school for graphic design and not sequential art or animation, so she tends to draw it more like a poster than a comic. A lot of the inspiration comes from movies, and you'll probably see some life drawing and art history sometimes.

This is all I could get from her. She is super shy and won't respond to things.

5. Is this a hobby or are you two in it for the fame, glory, drugs, and loose men/women?

It's more of a way for us to continue using our creative sides whilst working dead end, brainless jobs. We'd love to see it take off and make us internet famous and whatnot, but we're fine with just having something to do twice a week.

6. If you could do a webcomic with any other webcomic creator, whom would it be and why?

We want to do a photo-comic featuring Chris Onstadt. Actually, if you've ever worked on a comic (or any other creative project) with another person you realize how important it is to have the right partner. I personally wouldnt want to work with anyone else but Kitten.

7. Thanks for the short but sweet interview. One last question: why should people check out Bear and Kitten?

We can't tell anyone they should read our comic. There's some people who probably shouldn't read our comic as it wouldn't be for them. However, if they don't give it a shot they'll never know.

Blip and Radar...

Hi. So there's this webcomic called Blip and Radar, and it's done by this dude named Blake Gallagher. It's basically the tale of a couple of creatures that look like a cross between weeble-wobbles and the ghosts from Pac-Man. It's essentially a gag strip of the face each other and say something sarcastic variety, which isn't a bad thing if done right. This little ditty is updated weekly, as in every Friday.

The art doesn't seem to be trying to say much, but even photofiltre takes a little time and effort to work with, which I'm guessing is what Blip and Radar uses. It took me forever to do one panel using it once, so I can appreciate that. I would like to see what the comic would look like using traditional methods though. There's not a lot to say about the art other than it's simple and brightly colored, and the characters are pretty basic blue and yellow blobs with eyes and a mouth, kinda like someone poured a bag of Skittles in the panels. With such simplicity in the art, I would expect pretty good writing and characterization. Read on.

The writing here is very gamer oriented, which I'm not. I play a couple of old games, but in-jokes and game references make this comic automatically have a narrow audience. Well, there are lots of gamers on the internet....anyway, I think expanding the joke base would give people who don't sit on the couch playing Gears of War all day while eating Funyons something to enjoy. Maybe those people get the jokes, but I don't. Other than the game jokes a few of the others worked, but the characters have yet to really show any personality other than saying the F word and being angry.

I'm not too sure about this comic. It's not crude enough to be offensive, and it's not nice enough to be family friendly. I would have to say that if you like games and talking about games and joking about games and wearing boxer shorts with games on them, you should at least give Blip and Radar a once over. But if you want something a little more meaty, look elsewhere. I give this comic...

Fleen has dropped a mention of my chimptastic little review site! Check it out and browse all of their cool and interesting articles, all sure to make you curl up by the fire with a hot mug of cocoa in your jammies! If you didn't get that remark, don't worry, neither did I!

Another Tilly and the Difference Makers comic!

Yes, Comicgen is STILL screwing up, so I'm putting up tomorrows Difference Makers comic here until they buckle down and fix the site. Enjoy!

Saturday's Tilly comic here!

Since Comicgen is doing it's usual crapola(well, usual since about a month ago), I decided to put up tomorrow's comic here for those few who need their Tilly fix. Maybe a few new readers will be made by this too? One can only hope. Enjoy, and hopefully Comicgen will stop yanking my chain and get repaired soon. Here it is!

Electric Retard...

I had a hard time deciding whether to review this comic or not. I came across it on Comicgen, and felt strongly compelled to inform people. Another part of me was thinking that if I did review it, I would be giving the comic free publicity, which in my opinion isn't a good idea. I finally decided to go ahead with a short review and hope people don't enjoy this kind of thing. On with the review.

Electric Retard is a comic, or should I say a hate filled near-abuse of free speech, created by some guy named Eric, about nothing more than people getting maimed, shot, run over, shooting themselves, and raping people. Wheee. Updates, in his own words, whenever he feels like it.

Art this isn't. Retard is drawn in MS Paint, crudely. One thing it has going for it is that you can tell the people are people, cars are cars, penises ripping through peoples heads are penises ripping through peoples heads, etc. Yeah, I'm stretching to find something good here. Maybe a new artist is in order, if the comic was worth drawing. It's a colorful world that all of these evil masochistic monsters inhabit, and I can't tell if it's there to provide a contrast to all of the darkness of death, or if the guy just doesn't have any shading or coloring skills above the equivalent of an eight year old.

If I were an evil satanic perverted person lusting for mindless violence, then I would have to say this is great writing. Also if I were a Jew hater, I would find this comic amusing. But I'm neither of those things, so the writing is about as entertaining to read as the back of a tampon box. I simply cannot fathom what would bring a person to write this sort of schlock other than for 100 percent shock value. Why is Hitler ripping a grandma in half with his manhood? Why are dead bodies being dumped on a school? Sick.

I felt like taking a shower and scrubbing this comic off of me after reading it. Eric pushes the envelope of violence without any reasoning or conscience. He even admits it was kicked off of the internet by one host, only to unfortunately be put back up by another. I can only ask that everyone steer clear of this comic, which isn't worth a second of your time. But I know that some will check it out only to see what all the fuss is about. If you do, leave comments to let me know if you feel the same or if you have a different opinion. I'm going to go scrub my brain with some bleach.

I give this comic...
0 out of 12 monkeys. If I could have found a picture of monkey poop, I would have used that.