Full Reviews of Catharsis

of Catharsis by Jennifer Boeke

Art: The art for "Catharsis" starts off pretty primitive; Baxter is a particular example, since he looks like a pillow with a head for a long time. Rremly doesn't start much better; he looks like a strange dog with wings at the beginning. Gwen, on the other hand, looks fully realized when she first appears, and then gets minor adjustments. Tennibrook...not so much. It takes a while for her to look like a younger Gwen.

Characters: Gwen is interesting, if not all that exceptional-of course, considering how many strange things the others come up with, this makes her exceptional for the comic. Tennibrook, while she can be a nice interlude, can also be annoying after a short time-and I think we should have gotten a formal explanation of her function LONG before we actually did. Knowing she's Gwen's inner child made manifest makes it a little easier to understand, at least. The dust creatures add quite a bit of weirdness, though not as much as Rremly and Baxter. Rremly is always guaranteed to make things interesting, if not actually funny...but Baxter changes from being terminally grumpy to a mini Rremly, in my opinion, and I don't like that. He's just more conscious of the consequences, even if he doesn't care.

Story: Unfortunately, the story behind "Catharsis" isn't that impressive. Most of the time, we see gag-a-day strips or short storylines. And when they go for a longer story, it usually fizzles not long after starting. The best stories, in my opinion, come from the short interactions where Gwen tries to understand Rremly's brain-and fails.

Writing: It has some good moments, but most of the comics make me smile rather than really laugh. That's not a bad thing, really, but I do wish there was more to it. I was also struck by some of the comparisons between Gwen and Rremly, compared to Tennibrook and Rremly-the positions were almost completely reversed between these two, and that just annoyed me.

Overall: I enjoyed Catharsis, but most of it seemed rather tame, and some of it was disappointing. I'd like to see wilder schemes from Rremly, and a little bit more of Gwen's wild side...maybe outside of Tennibrook. If Gwen can see Rremly, after all, she has to be unusual herself. 6 out of 10.

Review by Benor Sun Mar 07 2004 02:07 PM

Catharsis is a very low-thought webcomic involving some zany antics, some good lines, and some generally amusing scenes.

It's not a comic I read to think or to experience a good story. I have Kagerou and Jack for things like that. I read Catharsis because it makes as little sense as it does. It's a nice change of pace from everything else, in my opinion.

The artwork has definitely improved over time, although I willingly admit that the strips can be a bit wordy at times. You even get the occasional one that falls flat, but that's going to happen in any webcomic.

There is no definitive plot, per se, and I don't think that Catharsis seriously suffers because of it. The very name of the webcomic says it all. It seems to me that this is all about expressing ideas and emotions within a person. 'Airing them out', so to speak. Don't expect for it to always make sense, because it's not really 'for' you. It's for the author, and I'm happy just to tag along in case something interesting or particularly nonsensical ambles on by.

I give Catharsis Eight and a Half out of Ten. Good strip when compared to itself and what it is. When compared to other webcomics, it would almost invariably rank lower. Ah, well, such is life and perspective.

Review by Xenix Thu Mar 04 2004 07:31 AM

"Another week, another comic, as reviewed by Salen Stormwing. This week, Catharsis. A loving story about a girl, her pet dragon, and a squirrel with a bad attitude."

"Catharsis isn't very serious, nor does it handle hard hitting issues. It's actually probably a lot closer to the sort of comic you might expect to read in your local newspaper. You don't have to really start from the beginning to enjoy the comic, but it doesn't hurt either."

Artwork: "While the artwork starts off fairly plain in the beginning, it does change some as the comic continues, and with the addition of color, its not a huge leap forward but it doesn't really hurt either. Plus, colors are nice to see, if just because it lets you see things in colors. Yeah, that'll indepth reviewing at its finest." Salen facepalms and sighs.

Characters: "Well, lets see, you have Gwen, who's your not-so typical working girl, with a tomgirl 8-year old alter-ego. Weee. Then you have Rremly, who's her dragon, but to everyone else he looks like a dog. Did I mention he's not exactly the smartest egg in the nest. And then you have Baxter, a squirrel who ends up being the cause of many problems for Gwen, or maybe just one really large headache."

"Then there are dust bunnies, cute guys, and work, and other things like that. If you've read the Sunday comics page, you'll probably have an idea on the interactions that happen."

Writing & Plot: "Remember what I said about typical Sunday comic interaction? Thats about the same here. I guess I'm not sure how to really explain it. There are a few things that do follow a plot arch, every now and then. I found it entertaining though, but then again, I read 50+ comics a day, I'm not exactly picky about what I read."

Overall: "Don't ask me why, but I like this comic. Its cute. Its not very serious. And I find it entertaining. I guess in the end, you should read the comic for yourself, and see if you enjoy the light humor. If you don't, there are plenty of serious comics for which you could read."

Score: 7 3/4 Wild Cherries out of 10.

PS: Sorry this review is so short. I don't feel well currently. x_x I'll do better next week.

Review by Salen Stormwing Mon Mar 01 2004 12:37 AM

A review of Catharsis
by Kajamir the Giant

I don't have much to comment on concerning this webcomic. I left it after a short time feeling it was rather unremarkable in any manner, and there was no compulsion to read the breadth of it. Catharsis is sort of cute and soft, but isn't too interesting. It has a superficial resemblance to Shaw Island in design, but without the ersatz wit.

The art isn't anything to celebrate here. While it tightens up a bit and gets colored in later, it seemed lifeless (by watercolors, I assume). The designs fit the style well enough, but failed to stand out short of the cuter things.

The set up in general seems formulaic too. While Gwen's a little different than most character leads by design, her dragon and squirrel were nothing memorable. Read: Doofus comedic sidekick and foul natured short critter. I think it would have occured better to me if the dragon and squirrel were absent, and the comic had more to do with Gwen's self of regression. As a comedy based webcomic, Catharsis didn't evoke a single chuckle. It does have that newspaper syndication blandness to it.

In general, I couldn't find anything worthwhile to get into here. It's not my particular taste of a comic, although I don't think it's necessarily bad, just unamazing. If someone's looking for a non-edgy or soft natured comic, you might like this. But as a whole, it's too dull for me to recommend otherwise. I give Catharsis a 3 of 10 stars.

Review by Kajamir the Giant Fri Feb 27 2004 09:11 PM

"Catharsis" Review

Summary
"Catharsis" is a "newspaper funnies"-style comic strip concerning the day-to-day exploits of a 20-something woman Gwen and her pet dragon Rremly . Most of the humor seems intended to stem from Gwen's eye-rolling frustrations with the difficulties of living with a goofy hyperactive dragon who does stupid things.

After about 50 strips, there was an odd switch and Gwen transformed into her "inner child" and it's the dragon who was frustrated by the dumb things she said. An irate squirrel named Baxter showed up occasionally to add a little spark to the proceedings but was usually in hibernation.

At around strip 100, Gwen interacted more with other characters and worried about work and dating issues. But this marginally interesting path was soon abandoned for surreal adventures under the coach in the realm of the dust bunnies (with Gwen as an adolescent).

At the time of this review, there were 473 strips but I stopped reading at strip #225.

Writing / Characters
Not a whole lot happens story-wise in "Catharsis." All there really is to this strip is the claustrophobic daily dynamics between the characters who aren't particularly charismatic or fresh. No one had an interesting or humorous take on life to make their company worth investing time in. Here's a fairly representative early strip
http://www.catharsiscomic.com/strips/111402-225533.jpg

On a technical level, the strips were often very wordy. If there was a clear comedic point to the strips then it would be more apparent where to trim for efficiency. But I think there is so much talk because the strips really don't have a point other than the intended charm of the characters chattering back and forth.

Art
The artwork improved marginally over the course of the strip with a more consistent use of color and stronger line work, but even at its best, it was never particularly accomplished. I enjoyed the sequence involving photographs of clay versions of the characters, just because it was different.
http://catharsiscomic.com/archive.php?strip=052203-174753.jpg

Overall
While there is a certain sweetness of tone that comes through in "Catharsis", there's not much else to recommend it. If it's any consolation, my reaction to the vast majority of published newspaper strips would likely be similar, so I may just not be the target audience for this kind of comic.

Review by The Phantom Critic Thu Feb 26 2004 02:06 PM

"The comic centers around a woman named Gwen and her pet dragon Rremly, though more characters were eventually added. One such additional character, Aya the ninja-kitten, was adopted from a comic known as Neko the Kitty. As far as fans have been able to determine, this is the first instance of a comic strip officially adopting another comic's character." more...

Read Full Review by Wikipedia contributors at Wikipedia Tue Jun 15 2004

Intro- Catharsis, while not as flashy as other comics, or as "hard hittig" on political/racial/ect. issuse is an intresting comic none the less, because it lacks the above mentiond things, which seperates it from the maglam of pretty-much-lets-all-make-the-same-political-joke comics that seem to be the norm.

The Cast-The cast consists of several character that at first seem to be thrown together, yet after several strips, the pieces fit, each character filling a specific nitch.

The Plot-Mostly a plot-a-day stlye, with some forays into longer plotlines, yet if inspected some thread on conecttion exsists between strips, suggesting a bigger plot arch, this becomes clearer around the later comics, and very clear in the 900 mark on.

The Art- The first few are loose and very doodle like, later the the artist style develops, giving it a distinctive style, that is rather different then the geniric anime geniricness (redundant I know) that seems to get unnaturaly large fan-bases (ie. megatokyo). The color is light and pleasing to the eyes, the style loose and easy to follow.

Over all- The comic is a fresh change from the plain, politicly scathing comics that have over saturated th comic world. It rases the bar for comics to be original and not what the fans tell the comic to be. A good diverstion and change of pace from the sespool of anime "inspired" blandness that has seemed to have takken over.

8/10

Review by Mr.Mister Tue Dec 13 2005 10:37 AM

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