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Yeah, I'm kicking myself for not getting into this one sooner. It's got something that speaks to me, but I'll get into that later.
First off, Shaw Island is a very basic webcomic. Simple drawings, a lot of sarcasm, gaming, and geeks who just can't get the girls. The most apropos comic is the one where the crab fishes Zeb out of the water and says basically "Aw, throw him back before he starts talking about games and how he's invisible to women." This isn't anything you haven't seen before on the internet. It's not anything that I would call original.
And yet, it makes me want to come back and read it. The surreal (and spot on) commentary of the hamsters and crabs makes a perfect foil to the anime/video games/young male angst of the rest of the comic. To me, the whole thing smacks of "Clerks", just not in New Jersey. There's the same self depricating sarcasm, the oft deep looks into life, and a bevy of quoteable quotes.
"Balls-schmalls, it's ovaries you gotta watch out for."
The art, though simple, has certainly improved. He's got the style down, and he uses it well. I was never put off by the character designs or any of the other art. It simply took a backseat to the well written dialogue.
A warning, again. This also isn't a comic for kids. Yu watch any "teen" movie, and you're likely to find much worse content...what you won't find is the intelligence. Some people just might not get a lot of the humor in the comic. You don'y have to be too familiar with the internet, anime, gaming, but you should know all of the stigmas that come with them. Be warned, if you are a gamer or a geek, you'll be laughing at yourself.
In the end, this, to me, was a geek/gamer comic that turned out to be much much more. I liked it. And I'll be back. |
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Wed Jan 29 2003 08:23 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by The Phantom Critic:
By far, the best sequence was the rumble between Ferrah and the jealous anthro-fox. The incident that set up the jealousy was well done, there was genuine suspense leading up to the battle, the fight itself had imaginative combat sequences, and it directly involved most of the main characters in an interesting way. Best of all was that it paralleled a believable high school incident but upped the ante to take it to the level of The Veil universe. The whole strip should be constantly playing off those kind of high school/Veil parallels. If the entire strip had been as good as that sequence, I could have forgiven a lot of the poor artwork.
You've got my agreement there, as well. It's also a good example of the aforementioned pacing in the fight scenes. Very well realized. I can see lots of possibilities for more high school/the Veil clashes (anyone remember Teen Wolf?)...but the series...up to the point I read...stopped with them about to go out to Alaska, which completely removes the story from the more grounded reality...and into this almost too fantastic world of the Veil. Too quick, too soon, in my opinion. |
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Mon Jan 20 2003 12:11 PM |
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The character bios were critical for me. I have trouble following who's who, especially when so many of the girls look exactly the same.
But anyways...onto my opinions.
I'll agree with Pingu. I had this distinct sense of been there, done that. I mean, how many anime/furry fans are out there doing comics? It seemed like a direct rip-off of Werewolf, though I admit I don't know the WhiteWolf games that well.
The art is typical manga fan art. The character designs are clearly inspired by anime and manga, but like most "American" manga that I see, the flow of panels is just all wrong. Forget text size. If I can't tell where to look next, I just get frustrated. It doesn't really improve, either. It's always hit or miss from comic to comic. The art does improve as it goes on, and you can tell the artist has been developing his skills.
Story wise, like I said, it's slightly derivative, in my opinion, but still entertaining. It was also surprisingly violent and adult. This is no kiddie comic, that's for sure. There's slight nudity and some pretty bloody scenes. There's also a smattering of rough language.
The balance between drama and comedy was right on. That alone kept me reading, as well as wondering when I'd see the Vamp PI's again. Better than Team Rocket, those two are. Of course, my favorite character was the one-shot O'Leary the leprechaun guidance counselor...but I'm weird, eh?
Basically, I enjoyed the comic for what it was. I'm fairly interested in the developing relationships...and boy are there a LOT of them. Plus, there's copious amounts of cheesecake. ^_^;;
All in all, not bad. It's worth a try.
My choice for the next week is Shaw Island. It's been recommended to me a couple times, though I've never got around to reading it. I hope this fits the criteria, Mr. Pitch. I don't spend much time on Keenspace, so I don't know what's out there. (I would have suggested Mariposa Revelation, but I wasn't sure if May would like that.) |
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Sun Jan 19 2003 01:27 PM |
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