Webcomic Book Club Full Reviews of The New Adventures of Death by Dorothy Gambrell

Visuals: Style- This comic has a very good sense of style. You get the feeling that the drawer already knows what he wants the comic to look like, and is done with experimentation. It is easy to tell the characters apart visually (except maybe the potatoes), and Flow- Everything is neat. There is no excessive detail, but everything that is needed is there. The comic follows a standard panel progression, so there is no confusion caused by an unclear time line. Plot: Greater- The plotline of The New Adventures of Death is very... strange, if it exists at all. The entire comic is an exercise in weirdness, but not overly so. What happens makes little sense to us, but the characters take it in stride. At least they understand what is going on, I hope. Situations change wildly from story arc to story arc, with no connection between. Focused- All of the characters seem flat, and there only purpose seems to be to carry the humor. The humor, however, seems to consist of putting the characters in stranger and stranger situations, and them acting normally to it. While I find the occasional strip funny, they do not appear with any sort of regularity. Final Thoughts: This is not the kind strip I would seek out to read. The humor is shallow and hits rarely, but it is still capable of making me chuckle. It just comes across as vanilla. Final Grade: C Review by Taua Boswell Tue Jan 13 2004 03:39 PM

Art: The art was good, overall. Nothing flashy, mind you, but it got the job done. The style is fairly distinctive, as are the characters portrayed by it. There really isn't a huge amount to say about the art - it didn't particularly draw me to it, but neither did it repulse me as did that of Hutch Owen. Characters: Well, the characters aren't a particularly mmemorable bunch, mostly fitting into some generalized stereotypes. The most unique thing about them is who they are, and the author manages to make that into another ho-hum detail. Then again, in a comic strip like this, the humor, not the characters, is usually what stand out most. Story: Well, there wasn't much of a coherent storyline to sink my teeth into, really. As for the humor, a lot of it appears to be hit or miss, and for me, most of it...missed. Overall: Well, this strip just wasn't for me. It wasn't bad, mind you, or particularly frustrating...just a sort of general feeling of, "I'm sure there's people that would find this funny...I'm just not one of them" while reading this strip. For a strip like this, humor is usually the saving grace...and for me, it just wasn't present. A 3/10. Review by Luthorne Thu Nov 20 2003 09:16 PM

You know, I didn't exactly find "The New Adventures of Death" funny. I didn't dislike it, but it just didn't strike me as all that amusing. Often, in any comic, there will be one or twelve strips that just aren't really funny, or are off-the-wall enough to just be interesting. It's a little weird to see an entire strip like this, though. The art is clean, and I like the way that I can follow a story. There isn't much in the way of plot, mind you, and what there is isn't all that entertaining, but it is interesting. I think that the very nature of how the webcomic is sort of blasé is what makes it interesting to me. I don't think I'll continue reading, but it was a nice little side trip in the journey of webcomics. I know my review is short this week, but things have been piling up and I'm hoping that Thanksgiving Break will clear up some of that nonsense. I doubt it, though. In all, I give "The New Adventures of Death" a Four out of Ten. Interesting, but not all that entertaining. Review by Xenix Thu Nov 20 2003 07:37 PM

A review of The New Adventures of Death by Kajamir the Giant Our third selection from Modern Tales is a colorful comedic strip about a wimpy down-on-his-luck skeleton, and just about anything else. The New Adventures of Death has but one real focus aside from it's perpetually unfortunate pile of bones protagonist. It's near entirely random. As a personal taste, if there's something I don't like beyond clip art in comics, it's randomness. It feels incredibly lazy. So, perhaps someone who enjoys the concept of randomness might like this more. I can but roll my eyes and groan tiredly. The layout seems to follow suit with the randomness well. There's panels that just seem to be made to be as pointless as possible. This felt somewhat unsatisfying, and several times I wondered if I was supposed to read the panels in a different order. Maybe a little more substance would have been nicer. Things are usually set up with some idea of a story, but it just veers where it wants to from there. As such, I can't really comment on anything concerning plot or what not. And since I don't care for random content, there's a large gap here that can't appeal to me. This reminds me of Commander Kitty's overwhelming attempts at being cute. If it can't get you with it's one shot hook, there isn't much else to have it stand out as a desirable recreation. While I didn't care for the theme or writing within, I thought the art was rather cute. Ares has got to be the most adorable war god I've ever seen. Colors are bright and cheerful, pleasant to behold. The images are mainly PG in nature, like grown up Weebles. If there's anything I thought could be helped here, it's that more expression could be used. However, in the case of Death, a simplified skeleton head would indeed be hard to give emotion to. The New Adventures of Death isn't the most random webcomic I've had the dubious pleasure to read in my time. In some obscure corner of the 'net, there's an Earthbound themed sprite comic called Chicanery that dwarves this selection in sheer random insanity. To be my usual blunt self, I don't like randomness for the same reason I don't usually care for unoriginal image clip art comics. It just looks like you could put up anything and no one could tell the difference. I can't get a feel of talent in things like this. And in the case of randomness, the stories might as well be written by sugared up preadolescents. I don't understand why the young crowd finds things like this humorous. Maybe because some people aren't too inspired, other people expect something similar. I don't know, it's just an theory. My sentiments made clear on this 'style', I give The New Adventures of Death a 2 of 10 stars. Again, not quite a feather in the cap for Modern Tales, sadly. I had expected something a bit more discerning in what they were to feature. Maybe we're just touching the bottom of the barrel thus far. Review by Kajamir the Giant Wed Nov 19 2003 04:52 PM

The New Adventures of Death is....random. That's the easiest way to sum it up. Art: The art is tolerable; it's simple, but also clean. I feel the artist could put more detail in, and has chosen not to, so the comic is easier to draw. Characters: Aside from Death himself, this is a rather strange mix of characters. Ares and Anubis have appeared, but they are the only ones that stick out, aside from our 'hero'. Everyone but Death kind of floats by, just appearing for the story and then fading away again. I'd probably like the characters if they stayed, but only Death is constant...which may be a subtle comment. Death himself is usually down on his luck, though the reasons aren't explained very well. Story: As far as I can tell, there isn't a main story; each of the separate archs are self-contained. On the plus side, this means that characters can be reused...but it also means that there's not much of a pattern to the comic. Some of the individual strips were very funny, but the stories just left me confused at the end. And since I enjoy situational humor, I don't think it's an issue of 'not getting it'. Writing:The writing for New Adventures is well reflected in the stories...it's random. Aside from a few individual comics, it feels very abrupt and absurd. On the other hand, New Adventures doesn't try to excuse this, so I'm more forgiving. Overall: The New Adventures of Death is like Hutch Owen, in that it takes nothing away; the archives are rather short, and it ended before anything could grate on my nerves. However, unlike Hutch Owens, it doesn't have any attempt at a story, which actually frees it in a way. For a somewhat pleasant romp through non-sensical stories, I'd recommend New Adventures. I give it 4 out of 10. Review by Benor Mon Nov 17 2003 06:46 PM

"Welcome to another round of 'Salen Reads Too Many Web Comics'. This week, Salen reviews 'The New Adventures of Death'. Dook!" "Trying to describe this comic is a bit hard, but that probably has something to do with the very random nature of the comic. The main character is 'Death'. No, he's not really THE Death, but just some skeleton-person. Whatever... It works." "The story itself is just mostly a collection of 'interesting things' that happen in and around Death's 'life', or the insanity one would call a life anyways. Not really a story at all. There are a few story archs that do go into quite a few pages, but inevitably, the comics will go into a different direction, as soon as the story arch ends." "I liked this comic though. It's cute in its own little way. The humor is sometimes hit and miss, and the comics sometimes seem mostly to be situational humor, even if in not in a 'normal' way. The best example would be the first few comics, where Death is working on making dinner for his guests who will be showing up, and the potatos he was going to cook decide to hold Death and his friend at knifepoint so they can escape, even though the potato can't even hold the knife." "Its bizarre. Its not really a comic that seems to WANT to make sense most of the times. In some ways, it reminds me of the old Rein & Stimpy show, but with less grossness and just more randomness. And maybe because of that, I could laugh some at what was going on throughout the comic." "Artwise, the comic is pretty simple, and doesn't really grate you mentally to look at it, so in that aspect alone, I like it. Partly the art helps to complement the absurdness of some of the situations. I can't really say much more on this. If you want realistic art, or stuff with high detail though, maybe you won't like it though." "Characters, yup, got lots of them. But not so many that you have to worry. Most characters seem to show up for a specific story arch, and are then disappear, although some, such as Ares, Anubis, and the potatos seem to be repeating characters, even if only on occasion. The characters act... well... bizarrely. Between barking cakes, and a whole myriad of other things, some characters just seem to be there to try to blend into the wierdness that is the comic." "Plot, we don't need no stinking plot! Err, ok, maybe a little, but usually it contains itself to each story arch. So I'm not sure you'd be able to unify all the different elements of plot from the story archs, since it seems that there is no way. But in each arch, the name of the game is 'wierdness'. And usually making the wierdness of a situation seeming fairly normal to those in the scene seems even more common. Perhaps I'm over thinking this though, and the comic is just trying to be wierd for the sakes of being wierd. And I can handle that. Like I said, the comic is sort of 'situational comedy'-like, and so being wierd with the comedy seems to be what it does a lot." "Writing seems ok, but like the plot, its wierd at times. But thats probably because of the plot. Not much to report here. The comedy is ok, if somewhat hit or miss at times though." "Overall, I liked it. Its bizarre, and it doesn't really make a lot of sense, and the humor can be hit or miss and thats probably the only thing that will discourage folks from the comic. I could actually see reading this comic more, if I didn't have to pay for it, but I'm not really sure I'd pay for a subscription just for it though. Still, in the grand scheme of things, I've enjoyed the comic, and it made me laugh at times, and for me, thats important." Score: 6.75 Shinies out of 10. Review by Salen Stormwing Mon Nov 17 2003 08:22 AM

After "Hutch Owen", "The New Adventures of Death", now makes two comics in a row that are broadcasting on some alien-humor wavelength that I just don't channel. I've created a new bald spot from all of my head-scratching on this one. Perhaps the creator is going for an obtuse sophistication to impress New Yorker magazine submissions editors. The concept involves a milquetoast version of Death (in the form of a sad sack skeleton) shuffling about in assorted contemporary, historical and surreal scenarios. The comics consist of loose (very loose) story premises involving non-sequiters and abstract characters with an occasional semblance of narrative and perhaps a rare punchline (when Death feels like throwing the reader a bone). Some of the strips contained brief moments of amusement. In "Blind Date", Death goes out on a date with a type-font (Helvetica) and the couple is then visited by her ex-husband. "Research Mode" had a punchline that was actually mildly amusing. Though much of my joy probably came from my exuberance over finally comprehending a joke ("I got one! I got one!"). In "24 Hours of Death", Neil Armstrong delivers a line about academic requirements that was comical, given the set-up. But even with these few examples, I'm really stretching to find something positive to say. The drawings were simple, clean and pleasant, but not exciting enough to make up for the writing. Comics, though an art form, are also, at a more basic level, a form of communication. And "The New Adventures of Death" just failed for me at that basic level. Review by The Phantom Critic Sun Nov 16 2003 11:31 PM

Offsite Review Summaries

"Is Death a popular guy? Does he have lots of friends? Does he enjoy his job of collecting the souls of the newly deceased and ushering them to their final reward, or does he secretly yearn for something that makes him feel better about himself? These might be, and sometimes are, the issues covered in Dorothy Gambrell’s Modern Tales strip, The New Adventures of Death." more... Read Full Review by Matt Trepal at Comixpedia Sun Oct 26 2003

Summary Reviews for this title | Submit a title for review | Title Index