Webcomic Book Club Full Reviews of Sacred Pie by Philbob Shaw

Well... this was going okay, it really was... The plot leaves something to be desired, true. The art's nice and clean, at least, with a definable style. It works... the writing may need a bit of help... Just... Don't mix in random Flash in a strip-based comic. Ya seriously throw the mood. Anyhow... formalities: Art Perhaps the best part of the comic, it holds together well. Unfortunately, it's missing a lot. Were it not for the colored panels interspersed, I'd never have figured that Sid was black... Then there was Chapter 6. I think I might go claw my eyes out over that one... so... averaging it out... 2/5 Storyline ... it's not exactly the most profound, if I may put it that way. Most of it is exceptionally contrived, especially someone being able to figure out a ship's controls the first moment they saw it. There were moments that I thought things were going to start making sense, but then suddenly the entire strip decided to take an abrupt 270. However... there is obviously a plotline going on, twisted as it may be, as the temporal shifts indicate. There are numerous fourth wall references, the early comments about not making the cut even as "heroes in an independant comic" being one of the more notable ones. Overall, a 3/5. It's a decent plot, but it could stand work and development. Flash Well... it exists, so it must be included. On my system, the preloaders seemed a bit borked, although present. The early animations had little value for the strip, but the War series seems to be the first major experiment in them. The actual Flash-art looks in-tune with the rest of the strip, but in my opinion could have benifited from a bit more use of the line tools that Flash offers. The War series strips are a bit short for my taste, although they do contain about as much action as a single page would for a regular strip. The ever-present fourth wall issues aren't at all glossed over in these, as War4 illustrates. Though music and sound effects are well used in them, the preloaders don't function at all on my own machine. I'll have to test on different browsers to be certain, though. *checks* Nope. Fortunately, I've learned to overcome this by doing something else while waiting for my modem's activity icon to die down, like type up parts of my review. 2/5 for the Flash section... the art was acceptable for moused input, although that's not all that good. Audio synch wasn't up to snuff, for my standards... it just disrupted the flow of the comic. Overall, I give Sacred Pie 3/5 tails. The plotline is kinda fun, but not enough to make up for the total... ungh. Review by Krinele Fullin Mon Jun 14 2004 04:37 AM

Hoo boy. This, friends, is an example of a comic that's bad. It's just got so much going against it that it's not worth reading. It's filled with amatuer art, cheesy dialogue, crummy plotlines, rip-offs galore and plot twists by the dozen that don't have any real impact. And it has one of the worst titles in all of webcomicdom. But let's get to the meat of the whole thing: Art This is how my brother used to draw. Ten years ago. It's obvious that this guy read a lot of comic books growing up, particularly X-Men and some Image comics here and there. The style reeks of Rob Liefield, as seen with the improbable postures, jumpy fight scenes, attention to detail only when necessary and the strange phenomenon of characters only having one visible foot. The problem is that without decent inking or coloring the art looks even more bland than Rob's. Not something I'd be proud of. Story Some guy with three sacred objects gets attacked in a space bar, opens a portal to the room of three losers and subsequently dies. The three losers put on the three sacred objects, get into a whole mess of trouble in some space station, then escape in a small spacecraft. At that point they receive a transmission from some Twi'lek rip-off to come to his home planet, at which they become the chosen ones to protect the galaxy using Satan's objects. Over the course of a few strips they are trained to become super-warriors and all that. Then Maur attacks, etc. (I'll let you find out the rest). The problem is, we're given no reason why those three losers were discovered by the Twi'lek dude in the first place, or why they accept their duty to find the sacred objects so quickly, or why these three losers are entrusted with the protection of the fickin' GALAXY when there are obviously more qualified people to do so. The best explanation is found here, but it seems so much more like a cop-out than anything else. The big plot is that these sacred objects were created by Satan and now he wants them back in order to be free from Hell. It's just like every other guy who's played Xenogears or read Preacher in that they think they can create a story involving God or Satan and it will be deep and neat. Note to would-be blasphemers: Don't write a story about God and/or Satan if you don't know the story behind it. (Hint: The Bible) Characters Bob, Sid and Roonas are the three dudes who are entrusted with the sacred objects, and they're just losers who were sitting on a couch before that. Aside from Bob freaking out when they first enter a portal, they don't really seem that phased by the fact that they're in space in the future. Their personalities are very interchangeable, but they all seem to be pretty dumb. The other characters are plot devices, so their personalities are not important. Action BLAM! BLAM! SLASH! SLASH! STAB STAB STABBITY STAB! GRAB TOSS THROW BURN WHOOSH! PEW! PEW! WHACK! BUDDABUDDABUDDA! FWEEEEEEEEEEE! DISINTIGRATE! POKE! Rinse and repeat. Not as exciting as I make it sound, though. The action is horribly repetitive, and more often than not they start fights by jumping like Wolverine (OH NOES IS IT ANOTHER RIP-OFF?) Rip-Offs Rips off Marvel and Image comics in general, Star Wars at least twice, DC Comics' Lobo in more ways than one (who does Maur remind you of?), He-Man and even old Snickers commercials. Great googly moogly, thats a lot, but I'm sure there's more. Pokey Monsters Not funny at all and totally unnecessary, this seems more like a Buttlord rip-off than a legitimate spoof, seeing how it so TOTALLY puts down that horrible anime. Yipee! Fart jokes! Retards! The thing the creator doesn't get is that if you want to do offensive humor, you have to have some sense of comedic timing, punch and creativity, which the parody lacks all of. RETARDAZAR? While I'm a guy who doesn't offend easily, I just have to say that laughing at retards solely because of their disability is not cool. That doesn't mean you can't have fun with them, but at least be a little creative. If I were going to make a funny situation involving a retarded person, I'd have him control a giant mech or something like that, give him a little sense of empowerment, not just laughing at him because he's retarded. Timmy and Jimmy from South Park are a good example of retards being funny but not just because they're retarded. War This chapter is fully animated, and it's bad. The action is boring beyond ho-hum, the voices have no emotion put into them, the lip-syncing is bad, the pacing is really slow and it ends with Bob accidentally killing himself in a cave-in of his own creation. At least the comic doesn't ride the cliche train all the way, as the black dude is still alive. But then Bob can be saved. Yay. See this little flag I'm waving? It's for you. Overall This is BAAAAD. It's just a guy trying to write one action scene after another, not bothering with things such as pacing or character development. Who needs that anyway? All those are good for is giving the creator time to realize that his ideas are unoriginal bunk and that it would be better just to start over and try something new. This comic could have been interesting, but the creator chose boring fight scenes over building actual tension and giving the reader any reason to care about the characters or situations. Would I recommend it to anyone? HELL no! Review by Cobra Thu Jun 10 2004 07:13 AM

Art: Sacred Pie's art is... pretty okay, I suppose, and it improves quite a bit in the later comics. Early on the scenes look extremely two dimensional and the perspectives can be quite out of whack, particularly the action scenes, which I have a beef with. I have to say that I didn't like the execution of the action and dramatic panels. The artist liked to use side-views early on, which doesn't suit a good action shot. Nonetheless, there isn't a lot wrong with the art. I just didn't like the style very much. Plot and Writing: The story is basically about a bunch of guys obtaining sacred objects and having to save the world, the usual over-dramatized ultimate quest. It's generally technological in nature, though there are some mythical overlays. It's a bit of a mix between a serious drama and a comedy, albeit a rather poorly done one. Reading through Sacred Pie, I found myself saying 'Huh?' several times. The beginnings of Sacred Pie sometimes make no sense at all, and can be very confusing to comprehend. I'm still not sure how an advanced alien being would know what an oompa loompa is, nor why Lucifer would need mechanical yet sacred aids, nor why Sid, Bob and Roonas would so readily accept the sacred objects. Explanations in the strip itself sound like major cop-outs, as if the writer had just thought up the storyline as he went along. The dialogue sometimes gets extremely cheesy, though to it's credit some of the punchlines are well delivered. I have to admit that I did not read through the entire Sacred Pie Archives, though I did force myself to read most of it. I simply did not find the story very compelling. While it does appear to pick up in later strips, I was too put off by the earlier chapters that I couldn't be bothered to continue. Characters: There are... a lot of characters in the strip. But it's quantity without quality. Sid, Bob and Roonas, as far as I can tell, have zero character history aside from what goes on in the strip itself. They don't seem to have parents, or previous engagements on earth, or even siblings and relatives and friends outside the three of them. Not to mention they all have very similar personalities. Not many characters in the strip are very endearing, either, and a majority of them are common stereotypes with little variation. Misc: On a side note, I felt that Sacred Pie's system of navigation was downright horrible. Nothing but a whole page worth of nearly-bare links. Clearly, a point against them for presentation. Overall: I didn't find Sacred Pie to be very enjoyable, though there were some rather interesting bits. It's horribly cliche and stereotypical, with very little in the way of original thought. And the use of a religious explanation is bound to offend a couple of Christians. It was like they were trying to emulate Neil Gaiman but didn't do too well. Nonetheless, if you like lots of action and fair science fiction, you'll probably like Sacred Pie. Score: I give Sacred Pie 4/10. Review by Reticence Thu Jun 10 2004 02:59 AM

Art: The art for "Sacred Pie" is...well, it's all right in most regards. It does improve as the comic goes on, though it's hard to see. The best aspect are the fight scenes....they're overdramatic, but they look good and usually flow well. That can be hard for a comic to do right. However, all of Chapter Twelve is done in Flash instead-and most of the time, it's a chore to wait through (the voice acting isn't that stellar either, but they can't afford to hire professionals, and it's good for an amateur effort). Aside from those two points, nothing to write home about. Story: In a word: silly but taken seriously. Our main characters have a portal open in their room (their status is never explained), and they immediately use the same portal and get into major trouble. Sound improbable? Well, not as much as you'd think. The fact that they accept it so soon is strange....but not the fact that they screw up as soon as they enter a new place. Basically, that's how most of the plot in "Sacred Pie" goes-it doesn't suspend disbelief enough, but you can almost accept it. With the exception of one major plot point, where one of the characters is killed in a truly disturbing and sad way....and then it's ruined. I won't say how, but it was just ruined. Characters: Lots of characters, not a lot of characterization. The very nature of the story throws them into "good" and "evil" categories, and only a few get to occupy a grey area, such as Sirmo. Sid, Roohas and Bob have some interesting flaws, but not much else to make them interesting. Writing: Okay.... First off, I wasn't pleased with how the whole thing started. A dead man shows up in the room of these three guys, and it takes them 5 minutes to go through a strange portal to an unknown place. Then they manage to escape and get trained in how to use their new equipment, and become masters of unarmed fighting. This is the roughest part of "Sacred Pie", and I slogged through it. It's interesting to note that despite their 'mastery', they don't seem all that skilled in later fights. After that point, things become more plausible-until we have to deal with a HORRIBLE parody, which throws things off-track. And then there's time travel to deal with, which never ends well. After the story finally gets clear of that, it gets to another interesting point, hits the major plot point that was previously mentioned....and then, as I also mentioned before, it's ruined. Doesn't recover for a while, either. As you can probably see, "Sacred Pie" goes up and down quite a bit. Small touches can either be very good (like the fact that the smoking main character can't find cigarettes for three months, because he doesn't know where to look in space) or very bad (English is NOT the simplest language to learn by any means). Right now, it's at an interesting point, since it's centered on Sid, Roohas and Bob...and when it focuses on those three, Sacred Pie does better than any other time. However, I don't know when it will change again. Overall: "Sacred Pie" is like a rollercoaster of quality. It can dip down and become almost unreadable, or rise up and be quite interesting. The sum total right now is a 4 out of 10....hopefully it will stabilize soon. Review by Benor Wed Jun 09 2004 07:51 PM

Visitor Reviews & Comments

Ha! I love this comic. If your looking plain old fun you'll love Sacred Pie. These guys dont want people to buy their comic, its entirely online. It is like a ongoing project for them. They are not in it for the money or fame. There are some comics that are abosloutely majestic, but are only updated every few weeks, but Sacred Pie is a lenghty epic, updated weekly. You meet new characters all the time and there is literally a universe in this story. I love Sacred Pie Review by Supernova Sun Jun 12 2005 04:04 AM

I'll admit that SP is indeed a rollercoaster of quality, but it manages to stay interesting for the most part. There is infact ALOT to keep track of and the story does tend to change direction often, but again it maintains a close distance to the main plot. The art does indeed get better in the later chapters. P.S. I feel that comment about comparing the art to Liefields is way out of wack. Bob's style is completely different and better from Rob's. Review by Random browser Thu Aug 26 2004 05:52 AM

The art does ok especially now, compared to other comics. The storyline seems pretty fresh as it goes along. It's not another "A Day in the Life of the artist" deal, it's not a remake of old classical mythology besides involving Christianity, it's not about a high-schooler who's a powerful mage in his sparetime. I like the dialogue, the characters change overtime, and it's pretty fun. I seriously laughed when I first saw Retardazar. While they do have a good amount of talking it never weighs down the comic. The characters are not invincible and it's not all about comparing strength between the bad guy and the hero like DBZ or various other fighter comics/whatever. Peace Review by Will Educated Tue Aug 24 2004 05:16 PM

I say this in defence of Sacred Pie and all Pie-heads THIS COMIC ROCKS Thank you Review by Total Pie-head Sat Aug 21 2004 03:43 AM

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