It’s that time of the week again! Time for The Webcomics Weekly to check in with all our old friends, Oscar, Ink, and the Tackleford crew, and to welcome some new faces (and one returning one.) Say hello, stick around a bit, let the spooky times build, and see what our crew think.
Bad Machinery
October 19, 2009 – October 27, 2009
Updates: Completed
By John Allison
Reviewed by Bodhi
Victoria et ultio – motto of Tackleford City Football Club
In this installment of John Allison’s “Bad Machinery” we get a little bit of everything. Schoolyard bartering and treachery, football club board meeting and the first strike of Bad Luck to name but a few. The last is going to be a running theme this chapter.
Allison’s panel structures in these updates are pretty basic. Mostly we get six panels per update and the backgrounds are a bit samey, although a few contain Easter eggs. But that can be ascribed to the pressure of having to upload an update per weekday. Of all his web strips I think “Bad Machinery” benefits from having the best of his lineart and coloring, though. Each main character is dressed in eye-catching warm colors and Allison uses outdoor and indoor lighting to great effect to highlight the mood of the proceedings.
Allison’s trademark humor is in full force here. I had a lot of fun seeing what exactly Jack’s fantasy vision of the Military-Industrial Complex is. We finally get to meet the boundary-testing Mildred Haversham and Allison absolutely nails the introduction. Allison also gives some great lines to ambitious lithium baron and Tackleford football club owner Kropotkin but saves his best joke, as is becoming a rule, for Lottie.
Next time we meet we get to see just how bad this Bad Luck is.
Charlotte’s Patrons
Episodes 1-4
Schedule: Every Second and Fourth Friday of the Month
By Jindo Dog
Reviewed by Michael Mazzacane
“Charlotte’s Patrons” isn’t like many of the comics I’ve reviewed for this column. Strips for the series are sub divided into their own strips, each being roughly three to four panels long. The overall strip on Line is narratively linked while these embedded strips function almost like acts in an episode of television. In the first strip, ‘Racha the Unlucky,’ we deal with the arrival of the witch Racha, followed by her day, and the pay off to everything that’s built. It gives everything a clear comedic structure — strips within strips building off of each other and acting on their own — that makes reading easy and actually pretty funny.
By segmenting larger episodes in this way, there isn’t much difference in paneling. Everything is pretty much a single medium sized rectangle panel with the same gutter space between. This consistency is key to Jindo Dog’s comedic moments landing. If comedy is rooted in the subversion of expectation, the slight deviations that occur in episodes 2-3 stand out more. It builds in a cadence that makes reveals work. When Racha comes into the café in episode 1, she’s drawn entirely in shadow and is clearly shown to be an “evil” witch. That is until you get to the next panel and the opposite is true, she is as they say a “kawaii” trendy witch with bad luck when it comes to plants. That spacing also lets a moment like the positive reaction to what seems to be a terrible day land.
The simple but effective paneling translates to Jindo Dog’s figure work as well. It’s this kind of minimalist chibi style, but figures are taller. There are moments where Jindo will go into more detail on characters, but for the most part everything is kept simple and clean. Which works because of the lack of ambiguity in what emotion is supposed to be presented. This lets moments of dialectic and visual comedy land quiet effectively.
“Charlotte’s Patrons” may not be the wittiest most sophisticated comedy strip ever, but it lands those beats consistently.
Dungeons & Doggos
Pages 68-72
Updates: Fridays
By V Lee Illustrations
Reviewed by Robbie Pleasant
Let’s take another look at the world of “Dungeons & Doggos” to see how the intrepid party fares against a horde/hoard of undead. It’s not often that we get actual combat in this comic, but that’s fine – the joy of the story comes from the characters and their behavior in a D&D world, not the actual combat.
Continued belowAs such, the zombie encounter is ended in a fittingly canine manner. It even uses a bit of quick thinking from two of the three players and is something that would only work in a game where everyone is a dog.
After the combat, the in-comic players get to show off their smarts with a bit of roleplaying. There’s no dice rolling, but we get nice little touches like the “Cleric’s Book of Everything,” and a good blend of fantasy tropes and dog behavior. Being reported to the town’s authorities is one thing, but being known as a bad dog? Now that’s a terrifying thought. It even shows how the dogs have improved as players, using their characters’ skills and resources to their advantage.
The artwork has continued to steadily improve as well. The way the art style shifts between minimalistic and flat for the out-of-character scenes then back into highly-detailed and shaded designs for in-game moments continues to serve the comic well, maintaining the flow while making the shift between players and characters seamless. The characters manage to be nicely expressive in both versions, but there are some impressive in-character designs, such as the massive undead hound they have to face.
Overall, “Dungeons & Doggos” remains an adorable and fun comic for anyone who loves tabletop games and dogs. Considering those are two of my favorite things, this webcomic gets a natural 20 in my eyes.
Flirts in Hawaiian Shirts
Prologue and Chapter 1
Updates: Unclear, appears to be on indefinite hiatus
By Myra Nino aka Mo
Reviewed by Dexter Buschetelli
“Flirts in Hawaiian Shirts” is a delightful title to an adorable creation. Described by creator Mo as her “comic about friendship lesbians and reptilians [SIC]”, it is immediately endearing and entertaining from its introductory prologue and first chapter.
The 80’s aesthetic of Mo’s backgrounds–featuring floating triangles, squiggled lines and dashes, and colored dots–is just one of the many visual and narrative quirks that make “FiHS” so enjoyable. The art is rough, yet soft, reflecting the nature of main character Lucy and keeping the reader engaged.
Tommy the Crocodile (don’t call him an alligator) is a droll but lovable “ultimate wingman”, as he describes himself. His intentionally off-putting but inquisitory pick-up lines and moments like cooking both pancakes and waffles because he hadn’t probed far enough to know the unnamed character Lucy hits on in the prologue’s preference make him a dope to cheer for.
It is unclear when, if ever this series will continue, but much like the series “0717” (also from Tabulit) I reviewed, it would be a shame to not see it do so. The world needs more witty, cute, and captivating adventures from Lucy and her overly-dramatic but unfailingly supportive crocodile (don’t call him an alligator) roommate.
The Lost Nightmare
Pages 2.01 – 2.10
Updates: Completed
By Julia K. (a.k.a. Miyuli)
Reviewed by Gustavo S. Lodi
At the start of its second chapter, “The Lost Nightmare” might be at its strongest yet. When we last left him, protagonist Ink, a small nightmare set to be one day the new Boogeyman, had escaped his castle of residence in search of. . .something. Now, readers start to confirm that the hints included on previous updates do indicate that little is what it seems in this realm.
The art continues to be as beautiful and consistent as before. There is a fluidity to Julia’s art that translates extremely well to the animated style the series aims for. More than that, it is very suited to clearly provide insight into character motivations and feelings: Ink is shorter and rounder, indicating his youth and innocence. The Boogeyman is a slender, darker figure, but with kind features on his face, indicating there is more to him than his obvious demeanor. And one of the creature designs introduced on this update is familiar to fantasy tropes, but still unique in the way it is delivered and executed.
More than the art, what is most valuable on this new chapter is how the plot finally progresses beyond the stereotypical definitions of characters and their roles as first introduced in the start of “The Lost Nightmare.” Halfway through the first chapter, it seemed that the story would go down some very familiar paths; however, towards the end of chapter one and in this entry, it’s becoming clear that the script will explore some interesting questions around identity, role models and expectations. It is an unexpected turn of events that should keep readers guessing as Ink progresses on his journey.
Continued belowAs it stands, “The Lost Nightmare” does a great job of pulling readers in with its nuanced and stylized art, and wisely keeps those readers engaged with characters that are evolving right in front of their eyes, involved in a story that now surely looks more complex than it initially appeared.
The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn
Chapters 13-16
Updates: Wednesdays
By Tri Vuong
Reviewed by Elias Rosner
Act 2 of ‘The Last Soldier of Somme’ begins with a similar frame to Act 1; a bit of historical detail, filtered through Vuong’s dry wit, and then we’re back to the life of Charlie, our boy in the trenches. What makes this opening so interesting, in addition to the mystery of why Oscar is so worried and why’s he’s been transported back in time (presumably), is the ways in which this tale is a unique one to WWI narratives. The focus on the Canadian forces, and the small interrogation of what the Canadian mindset was like at the time, isn’t something we see often. The horrors of trench warfare has been mined for all it’s worth, even though it still proves to be fertile ground. By choosing to drill down into the mind of a young Canadian fighter, and abstracting the horrors, we get a personal narrative that is enriching to follow along with and is chock full of questions that keep my attention.
Tri Vuong’s art once again takes a step up in consistency and richness. The more methodical pacing for ‘The Last Soldier of Somme’ has really helped Vuong’s establishment of mood and environment; you can practically hear the rain hitting the dirt and Oscar & Charlie’s uniforms and the flashback panels are melancholic in presentation, as if there is shame in the fervor for war and in the mindset that to be a man is to fight, even when that “man” is barely an adult. Back on the field, after Charlie awakens from his dream, we’re treated to a little teasing of why Oscar is here and what he’s doing.
By keeping us as much in the dark as Charlie, Vuong also keeps the tension alive, even when the mysterious, red-eyed tankmen aren’t on panel. . .and when they are, they are creepy shadows, befitting the nameless terror that gripped the soldiers in the field. While action supplants horror near the end of this batch, it is still rooted in the greater themes of the work, and of the tragic mistakes of youth.
