Of Noobs And Men..

Of Noobs And Men, created by Evan Hodgins and updated on Tuesdays and Fridays, is for all intents and purposes a gamer humor comic. Lots of game references and game company references and game ad references and game system references....games. The question is can it entertain someone who ISN'T a big game fan? Read on...

I've reviewed many a webcomic, and seen many artistic styles represented. With that being said I don't believe I even know WHAT style is being represented here, so I'll just say it's Evan Hodgins and leave it at that. Now, his "style" seems to be a junkfood and Nickelodean induced surrealistic hodgepodge of game scenery and photoshopped backgrounds of things on fire. You'll see distorted versions of characters from games such as Mario, Halo, Bioshock, etc. Sloppy art seems to be par for the course, but I can't tell if it's on purpose or if the artist just isn't very good. The coloring resembles paintings on a canvas, which at times looks pretty cool but at others just looks messy. The overall art does improve slightly as the comic goes on, but not enough for me to say it's really good. I would have to say mediocre at best.

The writing is what got to me. Too much game talk, even for a gamer comic! How much Warhawk info do we need? The writing style seems mostly to be: guy buys game; guy plays game; guy makes sometimes funny but usually confusing comic about said game. I really didn't care for the "Confused about this comic? Click here" underneath each update. If every single comic needs a detailed explanation, you've already sapped any humor from it. Funny should be simple, not complicated. On the one foray into superhero territory, the six part story falls flat on its face. It read like Evan just wanted to finish the story because he lost interest. Not a good sign for the comic. One glimmer of hope early on was the second comic. It was funny, and I didn't expect it after the horrid first one. If he had continued in that vein, there might have been a decent comic here, but as of right now things are looking bleak.

Of Noobs And Men will only appeal to hardcore gamers who don't mind weird haphazard art and confusing writing. So basically most gamers will like it. If you aren't part of that crowd I highly doubt you'll be interested in this one. Much work is needed to branch out and attract a decent sized following outside of the Xbox Ps3 Wii camp. I give this comic...