Webcomic Book Club Full Reviews of When I Am King by Demian.5

"Welcome to Salen Writes a Previously Missed Comic Review. This time the comic is... 'When I Am King'. Its a short comic that covers the problems of 1 King, and 2 days of hectic, bizzare, and somewhat offensive nature." "Ok, so we have a comic about a King, and some of the characters he runs into during the 2 days of 'problems'. The problems consist of having his loin cloth eaten by a camel and his crown lost, and not being able to prove to his guards who he is. And then he goes on a quest (not really but it sounds better than saying he goes into town) to get some new underwear." Art: "This isn't quite a sprite comic. The reason its not is it doesn't utilize sprites, per say, but does utilize a lot of prerendered elements in somewhat of a similiar fashion as you'd see in a sprite comic. On the plus side, it is clean, and also there's a lot of other stuff done to spice up the artwork, such as movement. Thats a plus." Characters: "There really aren't that many. There's the King, the two guards, a camel, five children, a shopkeep that looks like Elvis, two ladies, and a bunch of bees and flowers. None are really explored into in much detail, since no one actually 'talks' in the comic as much as just has speech bubbles you might sort of expect from The Sims." "Then again, this comic seems not so much as to be worried about character developement as just being silly and crude." Plot & Writing: "Like I said, its the story about a king trying to get back to his home, and hopefully get some clothes while he's at it. Otherwise, the plot isn't what you'd call involved." "Writing though, well, tends to go from being Silly, to being 'Crude', and then doing both at the same time. Really. Thats it. Personally, while the humor was there, sometimes I just really felt the crudeness was just there to try and spice up the comic. I didn't really care for the crude humor. Yeah, it was sort of funny, to begin with, but it just seemed to drag on after a while. But I guess you're gunna have moments like that when a comic is mostly revolving around a king without any clothes on." Overall: "I guess I should say... I didn't particularly care for the comic. The good news is it was short. The bad news is that the vulgar-ish humor just really didn't do anything for me, after a while. It was nice to see the whole comic through, but I really couldn't say I'd wanna read it again. And I really wouldn't recommend this to anyone either. Its ok. But just." Score: 5 Bees out of 10 Flowers (Mostly because the comic was nice and short). Review by Salen Stormwing Sun Mar 28 2004 02:11 PM

I've come to realize that a really important aspect of reading and reviewing webcomics is the "time spent/entertainment received ratio". It's not so much an issue with reviewing movies (another passion of mine). Most movies are roughly the same length (or at least within a standard 90-180 minute range), so the issue is all about the quality of the experience much more so than the time investment factor. With webcomics, I've spent anywhere from 20 minutes on a stand-alone title to 20 hours reading several years worth of archives. I bring this up as a prelude to my review of "When I Am King" because it delivered a lot of entertainent for the relatively modest time commitment. Was this the kind of strip that would ever be a personal favorite of mine? No. Would I give it my highest recommendation? No, but for 30-odd minutes I was in Demain.5's universe and found the trip to be a satisfying ride "When I Am King" was extremely well designed and executed. There wasn't a line, shape or color that felt out of place or haphazard. The design was simple but sophisticated and often beautiful. There was no dialogue and the tale unfolded like a silent cartoon done with hieroglyphic-like characters. I've complained in other reviews about how pointless the "infinite canvas" scrolling was. Here the use of the canvas was completely effective. Most of the strips involved long horizontal scrolls, but the few times the strip scrolled vertically, it made perfect sense given the content, and also looked amazing. The use of 3D art to represent a transcendent experience was also terrific. The story was very simplistic and served more as a framework to explore elemental emotions and drives like love, jealousy, passion, anger, humiliation, determination and transcendence. If you must know the story specifics, it will come off fairly ridiculous in synopsis form, but here goes: *SPOILERS* An Egyptian king has his loincloth eaten by a camel and the camel falls in love with him. The king tries to buy new clothes from an Elvis-salesman (another "king"), but gets beaten up by a gang of kids who laugh at his missing pants (like a scene from a really bad nightmare everyone's had a variation of). The king later eats a cactus and has a mystical experience but returns to reality and vomits. In a key sub-plot, one of the king's two guards, who happens to be well-endowed, frolics in the flowers with two sexy babes until the giant bees return home. The less-gifted of the two guards is depressed and jealous, being left out of the party with the babes. But all ends well when the king retrieves his loincloth from the camel's ass and learns to appreciate the beauty of a simple flower. The depressed guard learns to appreciate the oral skills of the camel. You really can't go wrong with this strip. You may not love it or you may find it a tad too vulgar (in a silly way), but I can't imagine anyone feeling that it was a waste of time. The presentation glides along smoothly and if you allow yourself to get into the spirit of things, it's kind of a kick. Review by The Phantom Critic Fri Mar 19 2004 10:31 PM

"When I Am King" is...well...it's something. Art: The art for "When I Am King" is strange and simplistic. The people are either round or square objects, with simple lines for limbs. I would want more detail, but there are a LOT of panels in each comic, even before we see animation appear. The transition to computer animation was an interesting change, though. Characters: Well, we have the king....two guards, an amorous camel, two women, bees, a rock star shopkeeper, and 5 annoying kids. None of them really get any personality, though the king has a motivation-to get his underwear back and return home. Beyond that, they felt quite random. Story: Story? What story? This was more of a journey than a set story-interesting, but hardly a gripping chronicle. On the other hand, seeing the misadventures of the king was quite amusing. Writing: "When I Am King" has a lot of interesting moments, and I liked the flow of the story-all of the king's difficulties were pretty rational. There were a lot of penises, though, and it almost became boring. I'm glad things ended when they did, since I was almost losing patience. Strangely enough, I felt this comic had too many panels....rather than building up for the last one, some of them seemed to drag the individual comic out. Overall: It's hard to accurately describe "When I Am King". I would call it a surreal journey, and leave it at that. But I give it 6 out of 10, regardless. Review by Benor Thu Mar 18 2004 06:19 PM

'Deeply weird.' Two words to describe this webcomic. You could also toss in 'lurid', 'bizarre', and 'humorous'. Yet I don't think I can settle on any single way to define this creation beyond it's just very, very strange. It occurs to me this is a comic of many themes. Amongst them, balance, comeuppance, and humility. So amidst the weirdness, there is an underlying story. It's just difficult to casually label it in a review. When I Am King has no text whatsoever and as a result, everyone is quite nameless. It's a straight forward story possessed of about sixty entries, give or take a few extra mini panels for the hallucination sequence. You can read it roughly in an hour or so. The layout varies in direction of the panels, or how they're arranged, but it's nothing too different, particularly if you've read The Spiders or Morning Improv. There's an occasional use of Flash near the latter half of the story which works nicely enough in context. The art... well, it's not supposed to impress you. It consists of rounded geometric shapes forged into sprite like images, with perhaps a healthy dose of mouse work put in. Don't come here to be impressed with art. It's to show images, and nothing more. In a sense, I can respect that. It tries to tell a story without the fluff of talented imagery. Colors are mainly earth tone and set the background for the apparent egyptian setting. What does work well within this is the expressions and reactions the characters have. It's all implied obviously, but it comes off clearly. Visual artists could take a hint from the simple functionality of this webcomic's graphic presentation. I've seen plenty of trendy art that's too ambigious looking to discern what someone is expressing, let alone what their gender is supposed to be. When I Am King succeeds on the K.I.S.S. ideal. Concerning the plot, I can't really do justice to it. The story is indeed very linear, poking in numerous comedic or embarassing situations. This isn't really a deep tale from what I gathered, although there's a degree of symbology involved. More, it's just a very bizarre single shot of one king's day of having his sense of humility crushed to pieces (amongst things) while side characters engage in their own mini-storylines with various prat falls. There's a psychotic camel (a real scene stealer), maniacal children, guards with issues, two women who have nothing better to do than get laid each day... it's a very strange stew cooked up here. In some ways, When I Am King is like a car wreck. You can't easily look away from it. One of the things I didn't like here is how the humor gets very juvenile in short order. This webcomic loves gross out humor and 'Home Alone' painful groin shots, not to mention immasculation. This kind of takes away my liking of the design for it a lot. I would liken the comic's protagonist to being related to Tom Green, if that make's any sense. Or at least, the direction of the comic seems it would be sponsored by him. When I Am King gets ridiculously crude too much for my tastes. Given, such moments can be quite funny. But there's just an excess of them. The ending parts with the camel... I could rather do without them. The homophobic humor/insults in the beginning also occur as being pretty tired by this day. Originally, I wasn't going to give this comic a very kind score. It just didn't sit well with me after I finished it. But thinking about it as a whole, I've lightened a bit on it. When I Am King is a comic that is not easily compared to much else. I think if I did read anything similar to it beyond this point, or it continued further, I wouldn't like such subsequent pieces. As a stand alone, it was interesting. I give When I Am King a 4 of 10 stars. It's a strange mix of avant garde juvenile Ren and Stimpy style content. Again, very strange this one. I don't outright recommend it, but if the idea of lurid oddness possibly appeals to you, go for it. Again, it only takes about an hour to sit through. Review by Kajamir the Giant Sat Mar 13 2004 12:26 PM

If you think I was too harsh in my last review, then all I have to say is I'm not sorry. Let's leave it at that. My next webcomic to review is a tricky one. It has no text, a bizarre, yet easy-to-follow visual style, a short length that makes it easy to read in one sitting and lots of penises. Get used to it, because you'll be seeing a lot of them. Art The art is very clean and simple. Backgrounds and characters are detailed enough so you know what you are looking at. The characters are represented by lines and elipsoids representing their body shapes. This level of detail is good, because if it were any more detailed, I'd probably be grossed out. The penises don't really look like penises, but you know what they are, and that's the way it should be. During the first chapter, motion is represented by double-headed arrows to show the petting of an animal or the swinging of a penis. In the second chapter and onward, motion is represented using animated GIFs, which work much better. Layout For the most part, the comic goes from left to right only. Some people have a problem with this kind of thing because it forces them to move the horizontal scroll bar (Oh, the AGONY!), but I find that if I just continuously hold down the right arrow, the comic moves along at a nice pace. In the later strips the comic scrolls vertically as well, usually during dream sequences. When you read the comic, there is no toolbar, so there's no pressing the 'back' button for you. This comic is meant to be read linearly in one sitting by clicking the red arrow at the end of each comic. In the unlikely case of getting lost there is a little button below the 'next' arrow that lets you go back to the archive (wuss). Story This is a story about King, Guards, Camel, Bees, Ladies, Kids, Clerk and penises. King decides to go out for a morning stroll, meets Camel. King pets Camel, Camel eats King's robe. Enter penis. King tries to go back to temple, but without his robe, Gaurds turn him away. From then on, King tries to buy underwear from Clerk, gets shunned by Kids, sleeps alongside Camel (who's in love with King), eats some psychotropic plant and has a drug trip, and finally gets his robe back when Camel poops it out. Meanwhile, Ladies have sex with Gaurd with the bigger penis. I won't spoil the ending for you, but everyone does get what they deserve. The story is pretty straightforward. It's funny and keeps you guessing at what will happen next (although I guessed right most of the time). Some of it's a little gross, but the art style keeps the disgusting details to a minimum. By the time the third chapter rolls around you won't even notice King's penis. I started caring for King when he was really down on his luck, and I even cared for Camel (even though she got him into this mess) when she helped him through bad times. Every character has a basic personality that doesn't need to be incredibly deep. The personalities correspond to the events that happen, and that's all there needs to be. Overall Some people may glean some kind of higher meaning out of this comic, saying that it's a lesson in humility or showing us that we don't need to live in material wealth. Some may call it an allegory to The Emperor's New Clothes. I just think it's a funny story with lots of penises. I'd recommend it to anyone with an hour on their hands and a good imagination. Review by Cobra Fri Mar 12 2004 09:04 AM

Visitor Reviews & Comments

I read 'When I Am King' a long while ago, originally when it wasn't complete. I found this site while on the search for it again. Honestly I felt that it was carnal at parts, but I could totally forgive it of its vulgarity because of what this comic is. This comic is one of the original journeys by webcomic artists into an infinate canvas- and one of the only that I know of that actually worked. It floored me, the first time I read it, in how revolutionary it is to the world of comic art. The way he uses time and movement in the layout of the panels, and later introducing animation makes it stand out like no other. Just the pacing of the humor from panel to panel makes it all the more enjoyable. I was totally grounded by his dream sequence. How he was able to run off the linear panels and fall- now scrolling vertically- then be caught and flown away, man, that was beautiful. It's why I went looking for it again. I love this comic, it is so worth the read. Review by Chiparoo Mon Jun 06 2005 05:52 PM

Just a note to Tamashii...By all means, I'd enjoy to hear more opinions on these things whether I agree with them or not. Most of the regulars have left, leaving us a bit short-handed. Review by Cobra Mon Feb 28 2005 10:32 AM

I don't have an "account" with this lot. I only stumbled upon this site yesterday. However, I have read many reviews of the webcomics here. First off, it looks like Cobra is the only one that I agree with across the board. Everyone else seems to be way off (with regard to my opinion of the comic reviewed) or seems to have missed the point of the comics entirely. This one, "When I Am King", is one of those webcomics that seemed to garner poor reviews all around. Except when Cobra reviewed it. Ok, obviously many of you are so offended by the human form that it is clear you think -your own body- is the most horrid thing sharing the same oxygen as the rest of us. Not to mention, it offends you so much you can't tear your mind off the subject long enough to see the bigger picture (or the little animated .GIFs for that matter). Lighten up, you prudes. Yes, there was some sexually explicit (and implied) moments in this comic, but it made for a rather humorous story. And it certainly wasn't gross or overdone. And the art... bottomline, this is some of the best design that I have seen in quite some time. The layout and presentation for each of the comics (not just "When I Am King") is some of the most innovative and striking examples of comic design I have seen to date. I won't go into too much detail, but it is a visual treat that is the very concept of what a "comic" (or sequential art) should be. Words shouldn't be required. In "WIAK", the reader can understand, follow and appreciate the entire story without having to read anything. Bravo! Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed viewing this webcomic. It was beautiful and well thought out. I would highly recommend this to anybody and everybody (and certainly those that aren't ashamed of the human form). If you have the time, read it. Get some culture. Review by tamashii Thu Feb 24 2005 04:56 PM

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