Friday, March 27, 2009

Review: Freshly Squeezed...


Hello again readers, Jack is back with another semi-professional review! Today we have Freshly Squeezed, a webcomic by Jesus Navarro. That's no longer updating. Darnit. Maybe I should have read the "about" section before going through all of this trouble. Note to self, prepare more next time! Well, he requested a review, so I'm going to go ahead and do it, seeing as how I've already written up some notes and read the strips. Here we go. Freshly Squeezed is basically a humor comic with lots of random things happening, which I will get more into in a minute. Okay, minutes up.

Art: Quickly scribbled(and probably cut and pasted a lot, by the looks of the character models), blocky MS Paint-style art, with nary a background to be seen. These characters obviously live in some sort of white vortex, devoid of even a couch to sit on. Or a line representing the ground. Loud primary colors are used also, so wear sunglasses. That's about it on the art front. Not much to talk about.

Writing: I'm sorry to say it, but the few guest strips about zombies are the funniest ones. Because they have a joke in them. When will comic creators understand that randomly exploding characters does not a joke make? And how about those random acts of violence, like, say, here, or here, maybe this one, and right over here! Makes the heart grow fonder with every quart of blood spilt, doesn't it? Man, what's the next generation going to be like....he should have just named the comic Al GORE, with a pic of the environmental activist standing by his decapitated head. Maybe "An Inconvenient Bloodletting". Bleh. Okay, okay, it wasn't completely bad. There were a couple, like this one, that were decent, but a few nickels and dimes in a jar full of pennies doesn't add up to greatness, or even goodness. Less death and more time spent on punchlines would have upped the quality. Not much in the way of writing at all here, just excuses to blow heads off in the name of comedy. Or at least at an attempt at it.

Freshly Squeezed is just a series of exploding heads, suicides, murders, penis jokes, and swear words, sloppily written and drawn, for the viewing pleasure of a few that like their comics a bit on the depraved side. Strip 64 sums it up perfectly. At least Jesus doesn't pretend to be doing Shakespeare here.
I give Freshly Squeezed...
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Thursday, March 26, 2009

Build-Your-Own-Comic Contest!


The creators of Bitmap World are having their second annual Build-Your-Own-Comic Contest. It's extremely easy to make the comic, and you can have the finished product submitted sooner than the time it takes Garfield to eat a lasagna. For the millionth time in his strip. Yawn. Prizes include coffee mugs, tshirts, and Bitmap World art. Neat stuff! Why not take a few minutes to enter the contest? You've got nothing to lose, and a coffee mug to gain! Who doesn't like coffee? Go there now!

Family Webcomics!


Need help deciding what comics you want your kids reading? Family Webcomics is a site, well, here's the description, straight from the site itself:
Family Webcomics is a new information site containing listings, reviews, and a variety of related content. With over 12,000 webcomics on the internet featuring a wide range of material from all-ages to porn, it can be difficult and time-consuming for a parent or educator to weed through all of the offerings and find strips suitable for their children. That's why this site was created. FWC provides a place where you can not only view webcomic listings, but evaluate their content based on an extensive list of content elements and attributes.
So if you're looking for a family oriented site that's easy to use, then this is the one for you. Go on over and start searching!

Monday, March 23, 2009

Top ways of getting out of having an actual joke.

So you have a comic, but you run out of ideas on how to finish a strip. Hmm....well, you could do like a lot of other webcomic creators and use one of these handy scenarios I've conjured up, using Gothy and Dizzle to make the points. Enjoy!
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Not being one to dignify what Dizzle says, which just so happened to be something about how he "Eyeballed a hoochie with a rump like what he saw in a meat market once", Gothy punches him, showing a lack of respect for the bewildering story. Next, please.
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Instead of responding to Dizzles story about how he got his "crunk on", nothing is said for about four cut and pasted panels, giving the impression that what Dizzle said wasn't worth a response.
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Here we see Dizzle unleashing a veritable sea of flatulence into the unwanting face of Gothy. This gag is commonly used as a last resort in the more lowbrow of webcomics. It can also be combined with a "pull my finger".
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The use of the insult as a last panel can be dated back as far back as original Popeye comics, where Popeye first told Olive to "blow him down". The insult isn't really a joke, as it is more of a statement about the person it is being told to.

So, I hope this has been useful to you. Perhaps you have some of your own to share?

We have a milestone!

Dave Buist has let it be known that his comic, Taking The Bypass, has hit SIX YEARS as of April 1st! That's a pretty good number, isn't it? Heck, some people are lucky to make it six months. Congratulations, Dave! And to all you readers, take a look at his comic some time, won't you?

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Me am back!


Sorry, felt a little bit like Bizarro for a sec....anyway, hi. I'm working on a little article about cliched bits used in webcomics more times than Chuck Norris has scissorkicked a minority bad guy, so hold on just a little while longer. In the meantime, maybe you have something you would like to say? Maybe....gimme some milestones people. Has your comic reached one hundred strips? Has a major character died? Have you decided to end your comic? Let me know, and give me the links, and I'll put em up. Simple, right? Okay, I'm out, but just remember, I haven't left, follow me on Twitter to know what's going on, and congratulate me on having a fiance. Okay, thanks for reading, stay tuned for a major upswing in updates, and have a great night, day, evening, whatever!

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Happy Birthday!

Modern Love is celebrating it's third year as a daily webcomic! Head on over and check out the comic I referred to as "a well drawn and written comic that will give you something more to think about than the usual gamers, furries, or people getting kicked in the nuts".