I love webcomics.
Not much of a surprise there to be honest, I mean here I am trying my hardest to create one (I’ll leave the measure of success of that up to you good people…all five you). The following are my thoughts on a few webcomics that I frequent in my morning webcomic perusal.
PVP – Scott Kurtz
I’m sure most of you have heard of PVP and Scott Kurtz. PVP is up here on my list because it’s one of the first webcomics I started reading once I had regular access to the internet. My comic “Halls” owes a lot to PVP and it got me excited about drawing comics again (I was in a bit of an artistic slump at the time.)
A quick overview of the comic: PVP centres around the day-to-day happenings and misadventures of the staff of PVP magazine (a fictional video games magazine). Cue pop culture references aplenty, a big blue troll and a homicidal panda and you have PVP.
Hanna Is Not A Boys Name – Tessa Stone
Now I’ve only recently caught on to this little gem and I already LOVE IT! Hanna Falk Cross (who seems to look like me, only ginger and with spiky hair) is an inept paranormal investigator aided by his zombie mate “…” (he has no name…he forgot) and a cast of supernatural drop outs. In her own words its “Sugar-coated horror comedy” and I think that suits the comic to a tee.
It’s relatively early days but the story is shaping up nicely there’s enough intrigue without getting too cliched although there is a little danger as both Hanna and “…” seem to have mysterious pasts but from the writing so far I’m confident this is a danger that will be avoided.
Now for the REALLY impressive part of this glorious bit of comicry: The layout. That might seem a bit weird but Tessa doesn’t seem to confine herself to the standard square panel, another square panel oooh rectangular panel that other comics seem to do (myself included, my own layouts are DULL). Here is someone who clearly thrives off experimenting and having fun with the medium and it shows.
Least I Could Do/Looking for Group – Ryan Sohmer and Lar Desouza
I’ve included these as one because I am a lazy man and would probably end up repeating myself anyway (this is another couple of comics I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of anyway). First off you have Looking for Group to thank for Cyril being dragged kicking and screaming into the likes of SdA and other OCT’s (and of course me finally reviving The Pig’s Ear.)
Ryan and Lar are the true workhorses of the webcomics world. Not only is Least I Could Do updated every single day, in full colour with a big shiny Sunday strip but Looking for Group updates twice a week too!
Least I Could Do centres around Raine Summers, womaniser extraordinaire and those closest to him. Another comic choc full of references to pop culture (can you see a trend in what I like?) but also manages to throw in a moment to make you go “Daaawww!” (I dare you to try and not feel warm and fuzzy with the interactions between Raine and his niece Ashley.)
Looking For Group seems to originally have been a WoW parody but over time has developed into so much more. There is a real epic story happening here about Cale An’non’s rise to (possible) greatness. However far and away the greatest thing is Richard the Warlock how you can make a homicidal zombie wizard man thing so cuddly and lovable I can’t quite work out.
Starslip – Kris Straub
Starslip is very interesting for a number of reasons. The first and most obvious is the distinctive art style although my only problem with it is that everyone looks very much the same. The second is how Kris handled the revamp of the strip. Rather than simply alter his art style he managed to work it into the canon of the strip. One of the major plot points of the strip is that “Starslip” drives get you across the universe by putting you in an alternate universe where you’re already where you’re already there. It turns out that there are a lot of problems with this and I won’t go into details (if you want to know go read the archives!) Due to a war with the future and the dangers of starslip travel (again…archives) the main cast are sent to another dimension where starslip drives are decommissioned several years before the events that occur in their own dimension and so TADA! The events so far are not quite done away with, Vanderbeam and co still remember these events and certain things have changed in their new universe. One moment that sticks in my mind is when Ensign Holiday finds out that in the new universe she was engaged but of course she has no memories of this.
The other major draw of Starslip actually has nothing to do with the actual strip and a lot to do with why I’ve suddenly written a HUGE blog after months of bloglessness. It’s that Kris Straub often blogs about varying interesting subjects. Now I don’t just mean “I went to the coffee shop today” (although he does of course blog about that sort of thing occasionally) but more often than not its about some weird science article, an interesting observation in science fiction or recently a comparison between 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010: The year we made contact.
So those are my thoughts on a few comics I read every morning (there are a few more but this is getting pretty long). Excuse the poor grammar (God I hope I spelled grammar correctly) but I’m a little rusty with words that aren’t hovering over peoples head. If you’ve got any thoughts on any of these comics or some others then by all means voice your opinions!