Full Reviews of Sarah Zero

of Sarah Zero by Ace Plughead

Ho. I'm back. Here's something I can bite.

Hey, remember all those weird Flash movies from a few years back? Those things were incredibly random, and people watched them over and over again because they'd never seen anything quite like it before. They couldn't make sense out of any of it. They had to laugh. The internet allowed a new brand of humor to form, and it grew popular quickly. Another big thing the internet did was make pop-culture so much more accessible. No longer did people have to look for other people to talk about the latest news events or wait for their favorite TV show to be on to hear about them. The internet allows people to instantly talk about stuff that happened mere hours ago. Internet comedians are getting faster and faster at finding quirky and ironic things in the news and clever ways to make fun of them. It's evident that TV is trying to catch up to the internet, as many shows kids watch these days are filled with random humor and the most current pop-culture references cable TV can deliver, sometimes even broadcast live. Ace Plughead wants to combine randomness and pop-culture to bring us something people will exult over, but he forgot one very important thing: humor.

This comic is a mess, and not the good kind of mess either. You can see where the author tries to make a joke, but you can also see where he fails. The randomness and pop-culture is there, but it's there for no reason. Are those inserted movie quotes supposed to have anything other than a loose, lame relation to the situation? Is there anything funny about Dance Dance Revolution or the "zoom zoom" kid or Donald Trump? They're just there. They don't carry the scene or even make any kind of contribution!

Even when the author does try to make a joke about whatever he's referring to, he fails to be any more funny, witty or clever than Jay Leno (who is kind of a benchmark for how lame pop-culture humor can be). The character development is zilch, and the characters themselves are either pre-set archetypes (bad-ass grrl Sarah Zero), horrible lampoons of other archetypes (the black dude, the anime-girl and the wigga) or incredibly poor caricatures of celebrities (Martha Stewart, George Bush, Various Terrorists). Also, the pacing's incredibly horrible. At first it's just rush, rush, rush to the next scene. Then Sarah falls out of a plane forever while a bunch of random characters do random, violent and mean things that don't make any sense and are still not funny.

The art is ugly too. It's angular and distorted, depicting scenes that are hard to decipher and not fun to look at. Prevalent as well are depictions of as many references as he can find. The pacing and tone of the story also gets in the way of the pages having any kind of cohesion. As the strip goes on, the pages become enitrely too wordy, filling the page with approximately a third of word bubbles, and this is supposed to be action-packed without much of a plot.

My recommendation for the author is to start over. There isn't much of a plot to sacrifice. Randomness can work. Pop-culture can work. For them to be humorous, however, he must be able to put them together and comment on them in a way that people haven't thought of before. Everyone's heard at least a few Michael Jackson and Martha Stewart jokes, and this guy is writing those jokes. This is the internet! Tread new ground! If he has enough courage to use the F-word online, then he can certainly tell us what the Neverland Ranch has in common with McDonald's.

(Find out yourself)

Review by Cobra Thu Apr 21 2005 06:26 PM

This is a textbook example of why writers are an essential part of webcomics. I saw the first strip and I thought, "wow, this may be a really good webcomic, neat original art, the beginnings of what could be a cool story, lets check this out" unfortunately, I acted on that impulse, and to merely say that the other comics were not as good as the setup would do a disservice. The other comics WERE AWFUL! The art while still good could not begin to stem the immense failings of the writing.

The comic consists mainly of pop culture references and a story that simultaneously goes too fast and to slow, character development is muted at best, and jokes, either fail, or are incomprehensible.

Let me show you what I mean, the fifteenth comic Sarah Zero 015 - Ohhhh YEAAAHHHHHH!! features as the joke the kool-aid man jumping out of a wall near the street race two of the characters are participating in (why they are street racing, that i have no idea) why the kool-aid man pops out of the wall, no clue, it might have been funny the first time it was done this millennium, but Family guy did it, Penny-arcade did it. And for both of them, it at least made sense, and was moderately funny. Instead, here it is random, and pointless a pop culture reference, that is as empty and bland as the comic itself.

Now, can the use of pop culture references make a good comic? why, yes they can, on the kool-aid man angle, we look at one of the recent Applegeeks and see the exact same pop culture reference, however, here it works, as opposed to being tepid and dull. Applegeeks Issue 187 | Oh Yeah! a pop culture reference used to enhance a comic, rather than just exist.

now, back to Sarah Zero (although switching from Applegeeks to Sarah Zero is depressing) Sarah Zero gets just that recommendation from me, zero, while I did enjoy the art, this was a perfect case of the import of writing in a comic. If your comic doesn’t have an at least decent script, no amount of art will cover that flaw.

Review by Zen l33t Tue Apr 19 2005 06:25 PM

I beg to differ from previous reviewers.
Remember that it is a comic. Therefore, you must treat it as an ongoing, robust, well laid out graphics that want you yearning to see the next episode. Way to go "Ace Plughead", can't wait to see #200 and beyond.

Review by Hoylesworth(Critic at Large) Sun Aug 07 2005 05:39 PM

These are the most biased reviews I think I've ever read. Webcomics are a growing process. Therefore critiquing a webcomic's pace, especially a story-based comic is really just digging. To say things like "This is a textbook example of why writers are an essential part of webcomics" is complete slander and honestly offends me. Good for this artist that he didn't sell out and get lazy to have someone write his own jokes and storyline. Shows a lot more passion than 90% of the rest of the comics on the web nowadays.

Now here's a REAL review of the comic:

Sarah Zero is a popculture online comic done by graphic designer, Stef aka Plughead. Stef does the whole comic himself from start to finish which is rare in webcomics as of late.

Art : The easy-going almost elastic-like character style of this comic is very complimentary to it's storyline and pace. Something I found really interesting is how the characters seem to stretch and contort according to their situation and emotion. Truly an interesting take on things. The style is very unusual and the use of mediums is unique, something you don't see to much in webcomics anymore. There are times when the art almost seems to take odd forms but not without reason. I also really like the bold line approach but that may just be my personal bias thumbsup On top of all this art Stef draws cars with awesome precision but also keeps them in style. Probably the epitome of the medium twisting goodness of Sarah Zero can be seen in the first page. This epic shot seems normal enough until you start looking in extreme detail to the pile of junk on Sarah's desk. On it you see everything from a H2 to a pack of Midol to a pencil colored remote control - I've honestly never seen anyone pull this off so well as far as blending goes. Had I not looked really hard I would have never as a reader's eye realized those things were out of place. Sarah Zero plays with several different artstyles and coloring methods in the beginning which brings a little shock to the eye upon switch but as a webcomic these things are to be expected in the beginning. The inking style is superb and shows that the artist has artist background. The comic eventually moves solidly to pencil coloring which is a rare medium in webcomics. The photo backgrounds occasionally take the comic out of place and don't blend too well but in most cases they seem to work just fine, bring out the characters and their situations without trying to detract with intracate surroundings.

Character Design : Such a unique style goes behind each of the characters. While slightly typical (and typical not being a bad thing considering the comic's aim and purpose) the characters' designs are all unique and fitting to the characters' purposes. There are occasional consistency errors throughout the work but I honestly wonder if fixing them would detract from the easy-going style of this comic.

Story - The story is what snagged me in from the start. I personally have my head in the sand as far as pop culture references but every little poke at society was witty, well placed, and easily understood. There are fun and exciting twists and turns and while some things seem unbelievable they all seem to fit in this interesting twist of fantasy and realism. The writing is just as sharp yet elastic as the art which is probably what makes this comic so interesting and unique. Very tight. There are some odd ins and outs throughout the story that make the flow a little hard to follow and the story is slightly unfocused. This comic seems to not know whether to go gag-a-day or story but that's the only real flaw I've seen.

Site : I could see the graphic designer behind this site right from the start. The site design is intricate and while flexing several of it's typical design element muscles it doesn't over do itself. The only problem I saw with the site design is the fact that it doesn't feature the comic as a typical webcomic site would. It's just an add-on to another site and that's painfully obvious. Not necessarily a problem since Sarah Zero isn't the focus of youareoutofcontrol.com but it does leave the comic a little out of focus. The site does load quite slow on some connections due to the size and design. To sacrifice quality for bandwidth is something Stef might consider.

Sarah Zero is an extremely fun comic with free flowing art and unbinding storyline. The best term for this comic would have to be 'infinate canvas' as the comic seems to have no limits. Very few newer comics have capitivated my attention and excitement like this one. The comic has got to be the most enjoyable and fun comic I have read to date.

Review by Juno Blair B. Sun May 01 2005 02:43 AM

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