Mega-Comics One is the central site, moderated by the content algorithms only known as Curators. Curator Sci-Fi and Curator Comedy are two of the most powerful judges but one cannot discount Curator Drama, known for their brutality and exacting gaze. Beware the Curators. Beware. Don’t get caught with “Adventures of God” or “Dr. Frost,” lest you incur their wrath. Lesser punishments are found for having “Alethia” and “Get Schooled” but lesser to a Curator is really not that different.
All this and a less terrible “2000AD” homage in this week’s issue of The Webcomics Weekly.
Adventures of God
Episodes 13-22
Written by Matteo “Teo” Ferrazzi
Art by Corey Jay
Reviewed by Devin Tracy Fairchild
The next nine episodes of Adventures of God, episodes 13-22 do not disappoint. More classic God and Lucy hijinks ensue causing this reviewer to laugh out loud on more than one occasion. Episode 13 opens with a business meeting equipped with charts depicting a steady rise in worship of God that leads to a classic wager between God and Lucy. Next we have a crazed Noah enforcing a strict two animal per ship policy with a shotgun. God then drunkenly dreams up an awkward scenario where man has become God through science.
This section is perhaps even more hilarious than the opening episodes. God watches with popcorn as two Medieval armies face of against each other both claiming He is on their side. God and Jesus watch a movie that turns the old adage “The meek shall inherit the earth” on its head. A text message God is writing on the sky as a message to humans goes hilariously awry because of autocorrect. Jesus is perplexed by the activities of furries. Issues of commercialism and corruption of church authorities are also explored.
Jesus seems to be the classic chill hippie. A loving, forgiving, messiah to God’s capriciousness, and drunken megalomania. However the hippie/tyrant dynamic in “Adventures of God” is still unique and nuanced. Many stories and even satires and parodies have gone this route but Adventures of God does it in a way no other story has and is just as tender as it is irreverent. Even in the short, traditional comic strip format with a fresh four or five panel satirical story each week, that you don’t necessarily have to read in order, there is still plenty of character development and running gags that don’t seem to get old. The extended jokes seem to age well like your favorite fermented beverage, be it from grapes or grains or miraculously brought out of simple water, like in one of the panels during this batch of strips.
The art is pretty consistent from the first few issues and not much has changed since then, but consistency is sometimes hard to find in comics. Not a lot of intricate details are shown, but then again that type of thing is not necessary and may actually take away from the simplicity of the strip. But through this ride you grow to love the characters even more, particularly Lucy and Jesus, but you even start to feel for the alcoholic Deity that dominates the pages of this inventive strip. At this point the reader begins to feel more comfortable and at ease with the characters, but Teo and Corey are still able to surprise us and keep us on our toes. This comic is consistently funny and there are no throw away gags leaving a bad taste in your mouth. It also refrains from being needlessly cruel, which is a pitfall of certain other satirical cartoons, (I’m looking at you Family Guy.). They still don’t pull any punches but they also don’t beat a joke into the ground. (Ahem…Family Guy.) They’re clever without being too cute. Stay tuned for further reviews.
Alethia
Chapters 7-14
Updates: Tuesdays
By Kristina Stipetic
Reviewed by Mel Lake
As in the song by “The Flight of the Conchords,” the humans are dead. If you’re reading this, maybe it’s not the distant future and the humans aren’t dead quite yet. But in the all-robot world of “Alethia,” they’re certainly not around to explain why the world works the way it does.
Continued below“Alethia” starts with a robot falling to the ground with no memory of who she is or what happened to her. Eventually named Jun, she decides to travel across the robot cities, called “factories,” seeking knowledge and correcting the problems she finds. Sometimes Jun’s efforts have fatal or tragic consequences to the robots who live and work there, however. The factories mirror issues in our real world and society, and Jun cuts through the excuses or lies the robots believe to maintain the status quo in a way that feels scarily relevant without quite crossing the line into preachiness. For example, one factory only works because one class of people goes through painful labor to produce resources for the next generation while one class does not. Robots are born into this factory with a 50/50 chance of having a hard, painful life, which Jun finds unacceptable.
Stipetic’s artwork in “Alethia” is stunning. It’s consistent across the chapters available so far, and I’m having a hard time deciding if the character’s expressive faces or the dreamy, cyber-punkish settings are my favorite. Many of the landscapes look like dreamy dystopian watercolor paintings. And though the characters are all robots, their designs are completely unique. Jun looks like Motoko Kusangi from “Ghost in the Shell” crossed with Eve from “Wall-e,” but each factory has its own unique style of robot species that look completely different from Jun. The current arc is about the factory of robots who make movies, and like the human actors and actresses they emulate, the robots are tall, willowy, and full of grace.
Each chapter of “Alethia” is self-contained, but I highly recommend starting from the beginning and following Jun’s journey through the early factories before starting the current arc at Chapter 7. (And I promise I’m not just saying this because the earlier chapters contain the backstory for a cute robot who is also named Mel. I promise! She’s really cute, though.)
Alethia is a breathtakingly beautiful, complex comic that I’ll be thinking about for quite some time. Some readers may find the world a bit inscrutable, but the gorgeous artwork and intriguing world-building more than compensate for any confusion to me. I’m particularly invested in Jun’s story and though I have a feeling her journey with Mel may not always be a happy one, I’m along for the ride.
Dr. Frost
‘A Solar Eclipse Between Two People’ (1) – (6)
Updates: Saturdays
By Jongbeom Lee
Reviewed by Elias Rosner
“Dr. Frost” has never been afraid to approach its characters’ complex psychological problems head on, delving into what makes them tick, rarely shying away from the darker aspects of each case. This might be one case where that darkness threatens to overshadow all else, and for good reason; this is the case which, presumably, caused Dr. Song to start hating Frost. With that hanging over our heads throughout this entire arc, Lee starts to set the stage for a tragedy in the making, one which keeps you guessing, dragging your mind into the darkest, most troublesome places it can go. It’s amazing how with just that one bit of pre-knowledge and some clever framing, he can guide you into assuming that one thing is going on while the opposite is true without it ever feeling like we were being intentionally misled.
The main thrust of ‘A Solar Eclipse Between Two People’ is between Frost, then grad student going by his given-name Nam-bong Baek, alongside Seon Song, who is also a grad student with him, and her sister Seol. Seol has been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and is seeking a new councilor and settles on Frost, who is himself struggling with whether or not to try counseling, having only done clinical & academic work prior to this. One might think the driving force is then the conflict between theory & experience but that’s less important than, as usual, the people involved. Lee weaves a tangled web of relationships, interactions, and desires in order to explore Seol’s BPD and Frost’s limited understanding of people in the real world. It’s meaty stuff and we’re only halfway through.
Lee’s art continues to impress me with his balance of tense action and quiet drama. He’s come a long way from those early chapters and I think this arc is where it matches the ambition of his story. It’s a shame, though, that Seon is less a person in her own right and more an accessory to these two in this arc. She still has her own wants and choices but they’re either about Frost or her sister and rarely about what she wants external to those two. Perhaps because this is Frost’s story, that will always be the case but I hope we get more in future instalments. For now, we’ll have to see how this case closes out, with the looming threat of a tragic end getting ever closer and a character who will say anything to get what she wants. Be warned, I suspect it will only get darker from here.
Continued below
Get Schooled
Pages: Episodes 1-3
Schedule: Sundays
Written by Yongtaek Chae
Illustrated by Garam Han
Reviewed by Michael Mazzacane
What do you know another Korean webcomic set in a high school with an eccentric spin. Unlike previous series like “Garden Club Detective Squad” or “The God of High School” the eccentricity of “Get Schooled” isn’t a playful spin on a genre by putting it in a high school. Instead, it’s a brutal, verging on nihilistic, strip centered around institutional failure and a muscular (both metaphorically and literally) view of how to keep brat high schoolers inline. There might be some stuff lost in translation, but “Get Schooled” reads as “Judge Dredd” like satire in the best way. The setup is a dystopian scenario for teachers, wherein they are stripped of their disciplinary abilities and are no longer able to command the classroom. The odd part is the powers they are being stripped of is strictly corporeal punishment, which being an American hasn’t really been a thing over here for a good while. That loss of authority leads to the brat kids terrorizing teachers and students alike until bodies begin to drop. “Get Schooled” is a deeply cynical strip when it comes to authority and power, showing it to be self-reinforcing and self-centered, which makes the setting of a high school, a space traditionally thought of as selfless and all about collaboration, somewhat fascinating.
“Get Schooled” begins with a content warning in each episode, the first episode in particular warns of self-harm being depicted as a student commits suicide and another attempts it later in the episode. There is also a consistent language warning. I wouldn’t say the series “earns” the first depiction since it is purely a spectacle for plot to move on, the second instance at least has some build up. That lack though further cements the transgressive, exploitation, tonality created by the series. You just can’t take it too seriously.
All seems lost until Hwajin Na of the Teachers’ Rights Protection Agency shows up, a rare official who can get tough on those kids. Except his toughness is spanking a bully and mocking him in a viral internet video. The violence that is depicted in these opening episodes is at once horrifying and comedy.
“Get Schooled” isn’t for everyone. Putting content aside for a second, Garam Han’s art is largely serviceable, clean and efficient but not evocative of much real emotion despite the excess of it all. There are a few bright moments of using the medium for comedic effect. It has my normal complaints of excessive gutter spacing, which impacts the general flow of the strip. The content of this strip is exploitative, with that tonality the levels of irony at play are all at the whim of the reader. I can’t quite make heads or tails of it, yet. This isn’t a great strip, but it has a setup that is a punch in the gut and that has my attention. It’s so absurd it makes me want to check back in a few weeks and see what happens, which in the realm of Webtoon is a win.
