Review: AT-43...

Tracy Constantine has decided to grace us with a second comic now that A Gunfighters Life is done, and came up with AT-43. What is AT-43? A comic based on a table top miniature strategy game I've never heard of. But I'm no role player, so of course I wouldn't know what it is. I'm going to have to review this as an outsider to the AT-43 world. So how good is this webcomic? Let's dive right in...

Right from the start I can tell the style of Tracy from A Gunfighters Life. And I'm sad to say that it hasn't changed at all. What I mean by that is the same problems I had with the other comic I see here as well. It's nice and brightly and professionally colored, cleanly drawn and in a decent style, but lifeless. The characters almost always have their hands at their sides, just standing around with this bored look on their faces. If you were at some kind of war, wouldn't you be prepared to fight, eyes wide open and ready to fire at a moments notice? I know I would. These guys just seem ready to take a nap. And on the rare occasion that they do fire, it's so stilted that I think my grandma Bessy could take out an entire army before they pull a weapon! Oh, and the backgrounds are usually just black or a dark shade of blue or something to fill space. War. Dilapidated buildings. Shrubs to take cover behind. Cars on fire. Or whatever they drive or fly. That's just what I picture when thinking about war. Don't get me wrong, I like the style, just not some the flaws I mentioned.

There really isn't a story to be told here, as it's based on a strategy game. If you want to know what's going on you have to read about the world of AT-43 on his website, which I didn't want to, because I'm about webcomics, not role playing in somebodies basement(Don't hit me!). So, I'll talk about the jokes. Basically what we have here is a failure to communicate. With the average webcomic reader. If you're a player of this game I have no doubt you'll enjoy the injokes, but I found it very "inside". I get that it's a war game, and I should be able to enjoy for that, but I just didn't. I didn't find it that funny, although I have always had a soft spot for jokes that involve characters thinking that they are safe only to show the bad guy standing right behind them. The problem with that one is that it's used to death in this comic. I saw it over and over. Once with a missile, and about three or four times with the bad guys. Without setting up the comic with some backstory(because most people aren't going to want to read the "about" stuff), the jokes just aren't going to register as well. Maybe an issue 0 or a prologue can be added. Give us some meat so we'll be able to enjoy it as a stand-alone story or it's going to appeal only to players of the game.

AT-43 is an okay webcomic, and does stand atop a pretty large pile of worse comics, but needs a lot of work to gain some sort of following outside of the game. It basically needs a sense of self. Get us some backstory and characterization and maybe this one will have legs. As it is I'm not going to be following Tracy's newest offering. Perhaps I'll check it out again in a couple of months to see if any tweaking has been done....

I give AT-43..