New contest over at my comic, Captain Ahole!

Hey people, if you like entering contests, and you like to draw, well, this is for you. Captain Ahole is having a contest! All you have to do is draw Cap and Scoot doing some everyday, boring activity. Whether it be mowing the lawn, going to the grocery store, or mopping the kitchen floor, whichever is most original and funniest will win. There will be prizes for first, second, and third place, too! Head on over to Captain Ahole to find out more, and to enter! It's going to be fun, trust me!

Comic Dish reviews Slaughter Lake!

Hey people, if you haven't been listening in to The Dish podcast over at Comic Dish, then you're missing out. Shane(or Draxenn) and company do a great job of being informative, without being annoying, about what's going on in webcomics, along with reviews and general chatter. They even review Slaughter Lake, which I recently reviewed, on the newest edition. Do yourself a big favor and head over to give it a listen. You'll be mildly glad you did!

Review: Mr. Stickman.

Jacob Harding and Daniel Blythe, or Team Stick, have rained down upon us Mr. Stickman, the comedy webcomic that updates every Wednesday. I'm going to keep this one short, because there isn't a lot for me to really get into detail about, and I have a couple of Hot Pockets cooling down in the microwave. Okay, so the creators decided to ask for constructive criticism on a webcomic forum that I frequent, and I couldn't help but take a gander myself, and what I witnessed, well....here we go.

The title itself will most likely make the majority of people cringe, but stick figures don't necessarily mean that you're going to get a crappy comic. Cyanide and Happiness is a great example of a funny comic, with bare bones art. There are plenty of others out there. The point being that you can have simplistic art, but great writing and funny jokes can move mountains. Mr. Stickman MIGHT be able to topple an anthill. With the help of a strong gust of wind. The characters seem to know that they are in a comic, and that's about as original as this comic gets. I will give them credit for the fact that the writing is decent enough in that I can understand it, it's just that the situations the characters find themselves in aren't funny. Funny is pretty much up to individual taste, but I really don't think you're going to find a lot of people who find this comic to be a hoot.

The art here is really, really bad. I'm not one to be a harsh critic, but I wonder how old these two chaps are. In my head, they are maybe twelve and thirteen, trying really hard to get their comic off the ground, and thinking all the while that it's so awesome. Well, sorry dudes, but this is pretty bad stuff. Try much? Put some effort into it, instead of making a terrible strip and then apologizing for how bad it is. How can you do a stick figure comic, and then have trouble drawing a decent stick figure? Man.....to be honest, I was extremely frustrated when first reading these strips, because they could easily be much, much better. Small things, such as Separating the panels, erasing messy lines from the background, creating something akin to a word bubble, instead of the sloppy blobs encompassing the dialogue....simple things. Please, try em sometime. It will only make the comic better.

In closing, try the comic if you want to have a lesson in what not to do. Or, better yet, give them some constructive criticism in the comments box under each comic. Maybe they will take some of this to heart and try to improve. We can all use improvement. Only Mr. Stickman needs major surgery, or it's going to die a slow, painful death.
I generously give Mr. Stickman...

Review: Last Resort!

Last Resort is the webcomic brainchild of one Rachel Keslensky(who also happens to have volume one available here in book form). The comic is a web-14 rated, cyberpunk-furry-fantasy, all rolled into one(here's a short primer on furries, if you don't know what that term means). It's basically about a galactic reality show where convicts and criminals try to survive being killed. I hope that description does it justice. If not, well, blame Rachel, as that's straight from the "about" page. Resort updates every Sunday, which it tells us all nice and boldly, right up at the top right of the home page. Now, with such a nice website welcoming us to give the comic a shot, is it worth all the effort she put in? Continue, faithful (hopefully) readers....
First off, I really liked the premise for this one. While we have seen the same type of idea in movies such as Death Race, from 1973, and The Running Man, featuring the Governator, from 1987, none have featured furries, or various alien species like Last Resort does. So that added layer made for a more enjoyable take on the idea. I also thought the writing was very well done. This is a more long form story, and those types of webcomics tend to lose my interest faster than a goth-lite chick attempting to describe the cultural importance of the movie, "Twilight". But, much to my relief, Rachel has a nice handle on the written word, keeping the story entertaining, and the characters personality-stuffed. Artwise, I saw a vast improvement no more than five pages in, with the coloring especially moving up the ladder by leaps and bounds in the current strips. Interesting character designs and page layouts abound, although the character movements seemed to be a bit stiff. Action and fight scenes could have been given a much better flow, to make the pages more exciting to all four of my eyes.
To make a long story short, this is a good webcomic. Plenty of pages to keep you busy, and plenty of story to sink your furry teeth into. With a little tweaking in the action scene art, this one could go places. Well, maybe a few more places than it's already been. P.S. I know I said I don't count the website design into the rating, but it's a doozy. NICELY put together site, with plenty to look at. Okay, enough about that. I give Last Resort....

Don't forget Captain Ahole....

Hey, did you forget that I have my very own webcomic, about the misadventures of the spiffiest superhero there is? With updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, without fail, you'll always get your fix of flying doofus with super strength. Lemme know what you think! Captain Ahole!

Review: Bipolar Billy.

Bipolar Billy is a three panel humor strip about Billy, a bipolar dude who spouts random, weird bits of knowledge in different emotional states every Thursday. Artwise, nothing changes from strip to strip. We always get three panels of Billy standing there, looking like something a ten year old on antidepressants would draw with crayons while waiting for his mother to come out of the therapists office. Billy has a different odd expression in each panel, to represent his changing mood, but that's it. I know it's a theme, and sometimes that can work in favor of the comic, but I got tired of seeing the same three pics every single strip. It does wear thin after awhile. And if you aren't enjoying the art, you better hope to high heaven that the jokes draw you in, right? Ooookay....The jokes are just wonky enough to make you think "ha, that's weird", but that was it for me. Personally, I tend to like the weirder, off color humor, but without the art part of the webcomic, I don't think I would keep coming back to see future updates. I did read a pretty good bit of them, just to see what crazy thing Billy would think of next, but would I bookmark it? If you read, say...this one, and like it, then I say go for it. But there isn't enough "meat" here for me to keep coming back. Now, just remember, this is based SOLELY on the comic strip itself, not on any blogs or extras on the site. I comment on the comic, not the website design or various bonus material. Well, in closing, if you like black humor, and don't mind that the art is exactly the same for every "strip", then give it a shot. There is some promise here. Otherwise, I give Bipolar Billy...

Guest Art Extravaganza over at Adrastus!

Well, today is the start of the "Guest Art Extravaganza" over at Liz Staley's giant robot epic, Adrastus. Between each chapter of her comic is usually around 2 weeks of guest art to give her time to breath, and prepare the next chapter. Maybe after the current chapter of my comic I'll try that out. Seems like a good idea, don'tcha think? Oh, and lookit that, today's guest art is by me! Head on over and see the guest art, and while there, READ HER COMIC. It's actually very good!

Review: Slaughter Lake

Josh Rogers, of Captain Mushface fame, has decided to deviously concoct a slasher/horror comic called Slaughter Lake for all of us adults to grimace at. Grimace at in a good way, that is. This basically r-rated comic brings me back to the glory days of movies like Friday The 13th and Halloween. It has the tone down perfect, tossing in all the excessive violence, cliched young adult cast, and nudity that you always expected when you would gather together your friends, slip in the vhs tape, and break out the trusty ole bong and.....wait, maybe that was just me. Forget that part. Excellent and detailed art, quick pacing, and funny b-movie writing had me smiling while viewing each page. Heck, I even like this more than Captain Mushface(sorry, Josh!). Now, I'm pretty sure it's just a one-shot kinda project, but here's hoping that there will be a dozen sequels. The one negative, and I don't even know if I can call it that, is that the comic doesn't have any originality to it, what with everything here being a staple from different slasher flicks, but it was no doubt what Josh had in mind. Just remember before checking this one out, if you can't handle nudity and really gory violence, opt out. With that said, Slaughter Lake easily guilty-pleasured me into a...

Review: Neutron City Comix!

Danny Limor brings us Neutron City Comix, about the usual cast of weirdos you see who hang out in a comic shop. Maybe not EXACTLY the usual cast, but all the stereotypes are there. Well, I thought it was....okay. I liked the fact that it was pretty much an all ages comic, as I do sometimes get tired of all the sex, violence, and cursing in other strips. Decent muppet style character designs, and nice coloring. The jokes relied a little too heavily on talking to the audience, which I don't really care for, but for the most part they were charming. It would have been nice to see more than just the upper torso of the characters, but oh well, whaddaya gonna do. There are only 36 strips as of this review, so there is all sorts of room for improvement, and time for it, so no worries. All comics evolve and either get better or worse, so we'll see where it goes from here. So how many chimps does Neutron City Comix get? For all around nice art, and non-offensive-ness, I'll go with a:

I've decided to start reviewing again!

Yep, I'm going to do "reviews" again, but they will be different than before. Now it will be a rating and a quick blurb about what the comic is about, and if I liked it or not. More of a "Joe the Plumber" review style, instead of attempting to sound smart and technical. If you like it, cool, if not, well, remember, it's just my opinion, and that's all that it is. Okay, later!