Review: Kidd and Geezer...

Sorry no review last week, but as I've mentioned on my other sites, and possibly on here in the past, my computer used to belong to Fred Flintstone, and being the kind human being(except for to his wife. Seriously, was that emotional abuse or what?)that he was, he let me buy if off him for a few seashells. Now it barely works. I think it's about fried. Anyway, I'm going to attempt to whip up a review today, so here we go!
Kidd and Geezer, by Frank Zieglar, centers around Geezer, an old dude who lets Kidd, a college guy, live with him because he needs the money. And as it states on the site, "The gender gap is guaranteed". Nice tagline, I must say. Anyhoo, The comic updates on a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday schedule. To the ratings, Robin!
ART: 8
I liked the art in Kidd and Geezer because it's simple, yet distinct. Every line has a reason. There wasn't an overabundance of sloppy scribbles used to just fill in space like a lot of comics do, just clean, neat, three panel comic art. The comic starts off in black and white, which I liked just as much as the color comic it becomes. I almost wanted it to STAY in bw for the nostalgic factor of reading the daily newspaper comics when I was a kid. Ah, but that's just not to be these days..
WRITING: 6
Well, we're promised a gender gap, and for the most part, we get it. It's fun to see how different these two characters are, and how they each handle the situations they come across. But for some reason I just don't buy Geezer as a totally convincing old dude. He's just not crabby enough for my tastes. He's almost always smiling, he doesn't have hair growing out of his ears(maybe this should be in the art section of the review), and he just doesn't seem that annoyed most times by Kidd's naive(or is it dumb?)ways. Maybe I'm being picky, but I've been around a LOT of seniors in my day, and they almost always seem to get irritated rather easily at the younger set. I know that's not true of all oldies, but that's just my opinion on the subject. I suppose if he WAS that mad all the time, it wouldn't make for a funny little innocent webcomic, so I can understand why he's a bit toned down. Now Kidd, on the other hand, seems more like a bubbleheaded thirteen year old girl to me, with his innocent ways and dimwitted nature. Neither character has any real bite, which left me feeling a little underwhelmed. Also, although the comic has some decent cute strips, a lot of them just had no relevance, like the writer was just running low on ideas. The "Kidd starts a webcomic" strips also seemed like a quick way to do some easy, light on artwork fillers as well. Now you're probably wondering why give the writing an above average grade after all that? Okay, with all that said I still liked the writing generally speaking. There were more decent ones than bad, and the comic is good for the younger set, which I haven't reviewed that many of recently. Not all webcomics have to be completely adult oriented. While I didn't really laugh while reading it, I was charmed by how "nice" it was.
ORIGINALITY: 7
You don't see a lot of comics out there about a senior citizen becoming friends with a college kid rooming in his home, so for that reason it's pretty original. Other than that it's a three panel newspaper style comic, which isn't. Original.
WEBSITE: 8
The website has a nice blog which I enjoyed reading underneath the strips, a random comic button, an about page, an extras page, Twitter and Facebook links, recommended reading, and a link to Frank's diet and exercise blog, Big Fat Blog, all in a nicely designed package. It was easy to maneuver and also easy on the eyes.
TITLE: no score here, just wanted to mention that I like the name of the comic. It's catchy, and seeing a comic with that name is what made me want to check it out. "Kidd and Geezer? How in the world will they get along? I have to click!" Nice.
OUTCOME:
Kidd and Geezer was a nice change of pace for me in the review department, because it was a clean, family friendly comic with no shock value or grossness to speak of. While I did find it to be kind of middle of the road, and sorta vanilla in its humor, you won't do wrong by giving it a read. It could be just the break you need from all the manga and gratuitous violence out there today. And stay off my lawn.