Webcomic above

[ZOMBIE USER 7833]

Sawdust!

It's like Dilbert, only more realistically drawn, and it takes place in a saw mill! I saw Sawdust way back in the day, before it went on all this "hiatus" hooey, which it just recently came back from, and it's quite the humorous strip, without question. It does a great job of playing up the comedy inherently found in the "cutting up trees" workplace, and does so within a contiguous plotline. If your looking for well written comedy, Sawdust has got it in spades! (or perhaps in mohogony...)

The art? Well... do not read Sawdust for the art, it's good enough so that you can tell what everything is supposed to be, that's about as good as it gets. The characters at least look consistent throughout, and the poses themselves can't be faulted, there's always seemed to be something just a little bit off about a lot of the proportions. Can occasionally be slightly distracting, but the writing offsets the vast majority of that.

Also the inking, lettering, and greyscale coloring work very nicely. The only suggesting would just be to work on improving proportions and the like over time, which is bound to happen regardless if you keep up the strip. Sawdust is good. I like it.

[Saganaki]

Ah, ARG, a comic I've been reading since it was about a month old. My, how time flies.

Okay, now that the initial fawning is done with, let's get to business, shall we? I'll try to focus more on the current state of affairs than on the older strips.

First- Art. The drawings have evolved since the outset, and I must say that I like the style that's come about, and the shading effects in today's comic are quite well done. The use of colour is appropriate, and works in a way that I can't manage in my own strip. That said, the gradients you use for backgrounds leave it feeling sparse at times. An object or two in the background would be a nice touch, though not somethng for every comic.

Second- Writing. If anyone reading this hasn't read ARG yet, go now! It's one of the funnier webcomics out there, in my opinion. The humour rarely seems forced, and "'masticate' means 'to chew'"

Next- Site Design. I like most of it, namely the tile effect that you overlap between the title graphic and the background. This does, however, make it difficult to read text that isn't on a solid colour. The archive (or ARGhive) navigation buttons are slightly confusing, especially for someone unfamiliar with the Webcomic medium.

Other than those trifling issues, I love ARG and everything it stands for.

[Cindermain]

D'oh! Too slow on Kari + Doug!

I'll review taiwanimation, then...

[Taiwanimation]

Kari & Doug:

Humor: Every few ones there's one that's really hilarious, but a lot of the rest is too overused in fantasy comics.

Art: LIke the coloring. Also, I really like how you do the speech bubbles where they are semitransparent. It's legible and it lets you see the art behind it. Which brings me to my next point. The Linework needs improvement though, especially the background, as it is so visible. There's no need to make it too complex, just make it good.

Story: The story's elements are much too overused and could use some originality. HOwever, it's good that you have a rapid pace to it.

[THECapedCaper]

Taiwanimation. Interesting. Humorous, it's got really great art. I'd recommend this comic to anyone who's interested in seeing something new and completely different.

Was that good?

[Cindermain]

Taiwanimation = Good Read!

Humor - The humor is very good, with each gag holding its own from strip to strip. My only complaint is that at some points it seems a bit 'canned' for my tastes. They do seem to flow nicely when read in order, however, and hold their consecutive arcs very nicely.

Art - VERY distinctive style, not a copy of someone else's (a rarity nowadays). I especially like the character and location panels at the very beginning. The colors are wonderful! The site itself is a bit distracting, with the bright colors distracting the eye on the black and white strips, but it does work well with the content!

Story - The storytelling is very nice, and though some panels could have flowed a bit better (20020908 for example...I was a bit confused at first as to how the 'TV remote' caused the cell phone to fritz), however those occurrences were few and far between.

Overall, a really good strip!

[Sortelli]

NARF! Cinderblock is MINE! I just found this comic yesterday and I've already swam through the entire archive like a gleeful otter. Review in progress!

Overall impression: I love it. No, I LURRRRRVE it. I'm going to be reading this one for a long time. Part of me is a nut for cross-cultural stories where people from different worlds try to adjust to each other without the usual heavy-handed HUMANITY FEARS THE UNKNOWN AND EVERYONE DIES melodrama that often gets thrown in. There are plenty of gags and plenty of foreshadowing, and that mysterious smoking monkey seems pretty sinist -fzt- there's a cool smoking monkey.

Art: The art is excellent. I thought this from the get go, but on a second read through I see how it has developed since it started. There's a lot more effort going into these panels than usual. Otaro's unique anime look doesn't make him out of place and lends itself to some great gags. The aliens are the best... maybe because they sorta remind me of Marvel's old Sleepwalker or maybe because they aren't ****ing "Greys".

Story: Behind the gags there are plenty of things going on that I can't wait to find out about. Like if that poor dude in the shadows ever gets a freaking lightbulb... and if he and the monkey smoke the same brand of cigs.

Characters: An alien foreign exchange student, college buddies, a smoking monkey... it's a winning combo. Woot!

Text/Dialog: It's neat and easy to read, 'cept for a few times when the white balloons were on a light background and it got a little harder to see where they stopped. The dialog itself is witty and keeps the story going.

Site Layout: Cheater, from the bottom of your page it looks like you got someone else to do it for you. *heh* They did a good job.

Miscellaneous: Great, great, great comic. Where has it been all my life?

[Cindermain]

Elf Only Inn - don't take this wrong Sortelli, but DESPITE your review of my strip...

...I REALLY ENJOYED IT!

Art - OK, the drawings were technically cut-and-paste, and I really do dislike the notion of it when used in excess. However, you did obviously draw the originals you made the cut-and-paste-art from (quite well, in fact), and change it as the story requires to great effect. Plus they ARE chat icons, so they really SHOULDN'T CHANGE...the art is great!

Story - This is frickin' HILARIOUS. The misadventures of an 'Elf Only' chat room...I love the concept! I mean, I recognized EVERONE THERE from simply surfing various chats. The archetypes are all there, you've really nailed it. I read them while I was at work, and started roaring at my desk...here's what happened;

Co-Worker: Hey, what's so funny?
Me: This! "I have eight nipples!"
Co-Worker (not getting it): O...kay...*freeeeak*!

I was concerned about this being a niche strip when I first read it; only appealing to chat fans. I was really glad to see that wasn't the case!

Text/Dialog - Very easy to read, I enjoyed the whole 'McDonalds' storyline, and I REALLY liked the Goths..."Homoerotic Disco Werewolf Sex" had me rolling! Now my wife teases me by referring to my eight nipples. It MUST be true comedy when my WIFE likes it.

Site Layout - VERY nice, I was actually thinking of changing the layout to something like that. I think I need to talk to my wife...she designed my last one.

Miscellaneous - I have only ONE COMPLAINT...when are you going to go daily? GREAT STRIP! MUST HAVE MORE...having withdrawls...it hurts and stings!

[Cindermain]

HIGH SCHOOL RPG.

Humor - The humor is very good, and there seems to be a lot of promise in this strip. I can see it getting better as the strip goes along, flowing more smoothly as it progresses. I really liked the dig at the 1-800-COLLECT!

Art - I really can't comment on it, I mean, it IS a sprite comic. That's my only major complaint. You don't want to think of the creative process being hampered by competition and unfair comparisons, but in reality there are a lot of spite comics out there you're competing with for readership. I dunno, it needs something to make it stand out from the crowd in this respect.

Story - The storytelling is good, and flows nicely from strip to strip. This, I think, is the strongest part of your strip, the way you work the storyline and humor together to make a cohesive tale. I liked it!

[Hardware]

Still not sure about the origin of the name, but here goes:

Cinderblock

Overall Impression: I like it. The characters are easy to understand, the artwork is good, and it doesn't take itself to seriously. (ie - lightbulb guy).

Art: Very well done. It's clean and consistent, the coloring is balanced, and the shading, when used, doesn't come across as out of place. You did a good job with character design, the faces are really expressive, and the environments are good.

Story: Interesting. Because of the joviality of it all, I wasn't to worried in it getting stuck so much in the story that it wouldn't be funny anymore. It kind of reminded me of sluggy in that respect. Sure there are serious moments, but they are outweighed by the not-so-serious ones.

Characters: Really like George. Lightbulb guy and the extra thugs are good too. Kind of positive/neutral on Jake. As far as Otoro, I agree with the doctor on his diagnosis - I'd like it if he was toned down. Don't know enough about the headmaster or the smoking monkey to decide on them yet. There are still motivations to be shown, so I'll have to see how development goes.

Text/Dialog: No problems here. Easy to read and follow.

Site Layout: Clean and easy to use. I really appreciated the importance of your friend to you because of the tribute, good job.

Miscellaneous: You are doing a really good job with your cartoon. (Congrats on the Sluggy fan art win by the way) As far as web cartoons go, yours is close to professional-looking, both art and writing-wise. You really didn't need the fan service in May, I personally think it detracts from the direction your comic has been and is going. Haven't really seen it again, so I'm hopeful. Other than that, you can expect another regular reader, if you're a regular updater.

[ZOMBIE USER 10963]

Love it, the end.

And now, to the "full of details" review.

I really do love Anthropomorphic Hardware, even though I call it "Hardware's Comic" for short, because that A word is long and I have no idea what it is. It's an interested concept that reminds me a lot of PAL from Real Life, but this time, the computers are the star. The art reminds me of clip art on Word (is it?), which is cool and kinda retro, but it can start to get old fast.

One of the major problems I have with the comic is the motion. The screen and the other thing (forgot the name, sorry!) stay in the same place, every comic. They look to the left and the right every so often, and usually it's for no reason. If there was anyway to make them fall down stairs, then try that. Or anything to get that off that desk they're on. I mean, they can go adventuring somehow at some point. They aren't plugged in. Forget the swords. Or duct tape it on their sides.

You stopped putting yourself down and breaking the 4th wall a lot, which is excellent. You also stopped using that blue thing (I'm horrible with names) as a last resort joke on the last panel, which is also good. Printer = good. The writing could stand to be a little better, but I like it as is. It's fun to read. I think the only real complaint I have is the whole images moving thing.

And don't worry, I'll always know it as a Neo-Deconstructionist comic.

Grade overall: B-

[Cindermain]

Well, since no-one else is doing one, and I am an attention whore, I call Paragon Fishing!

Paragon Fishing

Humor - Good humor on this! The current strip shows a lot of growth compared to the first strip. You seem to be finding your own voice rather easily without having to rely on a lot of setup as you did on the first few strips. I do like the gags, especially the psycho girl Red. I could see you could doing an alternative/gothic mini just with her in the future.

The humor is definitely the strongest part of the strip!

Art

[Randomaxe]

I call Cinderblock.

Also, and unrelated, I too would subject myself to multiple forms of degradation for a fan art page.

Cinderblock

Art: Hoo, boy. I only wish I could draw like this. It's got a very comic-book feel to it, but it's not overly-realistic. The images are clean and crisp, and easy to look at. Not excessively detailed, but certainly not simplistic. Facial expressions on the characters come across clearly enough that it would be easy to get a rough idea of what's going on even if the text balloons were missing. The layout is nice, and it's clear that the artist isn't afraid to take liberties with the concept of "borders", sometimes laying text across multiple panels, occasionally allowing characters to break out of a panel, or modifying the style of the border for dramatic effect (as in the last panel of the 9/13/02 comic). I like.

Content: Excellent. I don't often get into story-driven comics (Sluggy being the only exception to date), but what I've read of Cinderblock makes me want to continue reading.

Characters: Um... three men and a monkey. I don't think anybody can complain about that. Seriously though, the characters seem well thought out, which is important for a serial comic.

Site design: No complaints here. I really dig the Cinderblock logo at the top of the page. If I had to pick out something to complain about, it would be that the navigation buttons seem a little out of place. They don't feel like they fit with the rest of the page. But that's minor.

Overall: Sweet. Given the quality of the art, if this strip can maintain an interesting story, it will easily replace Sluggy as my serial webcomic of choice.

[Taiwanimation]

Random Axe of Kindness

Rating: ***

Ordinary people of the world unite! Down with Big Coffee and Big Software! If you got a lot of beef against certain parts of the U.S. corporate-commercial complex like 99% of the world, here's a great comic to read.

There's more than that though, there's also the every day jokes of all types. However, some of them are a little wordy, though I still came out with a 33% laugh rate. Your results may vary.

The art's heavily recycled, but that's OK as this isn't one you read for the pretty pictures, rather for the humor. The upside is the smooth cleanness of each strip.

Black and White, MWF since May 2001

[ZOMBIE USER 8124]

As far as I can tell, fanart just kinda mysteriously shows up in your inbox with no rhyme or reason. You don't need to murder for it, or nothin' like that. (Of course, if you murder the right people....)
Ahhh! Nevermind me!

*slinks off*

Oops, I should review Random Axe!

*slinks back*

Letsee...

Layout: The layout is nice, smooth and clean. No complaints here! Of course, you mentioned that it's brand new, so that would probably be why.

Comic: I like your use of greyscale, your text is easy to read and the characters are well-drawn, and even consistant. I like the goth guy (does he have a name?) and Tyler. (what <i>is</i> Tyler???) Gripes? Just one. Sometimes the jokes fall short, or resort to previously used resorts to humor (such as Tyler and his "musical talents") But then again, it could just be me. however, I found the comic about the tip jar to be a riot, because I really don't understand the point either.

All in all? I give Random Axe of Kindness a solid "A".

(feels like we're back in school! ^_^)

[ZOMBIE USER 8124]

Oops, you weren't there before, Taiwanimation! ^^;;; Gomen ne!

[Ratbert]

Awww, and I was gonna review Random Axe of Kindness too...(which is pretty good, by the way)

So I guess I'll review Post Sex Clean Up, no matter how dirty and how much I would probably never have read it before.

Art: The art is nice. There are soooo many manga comics out now - but few of them really get it right. But this one does it right, it's cute and has it's own style. It doesn't look extremely professional (not as if I'm one to talk), but it's still very nicely done. I also like the fact that it's in color, at least sometimes.

Substance: So far it looks pretty focused, but I can't really say I'm a huge fan of that kind of stuff. But at least it's not a real smutty comic like so many of them I've seen, this one has some taste at least. Still, while I haven't found it extremely funny at least, I have to say a lot of it's really cute and there's a lot of decent humor in there.

Overall, I can't really say I'll read it too much, just because I'm not really into that style and such...but I'll read the archives and check it every once in a while because it's still a nicely done comic with a lot of style.

[Bliss]

I've loved PSC since I first was introduced to it, even though most of the time I don't understand it. Anyway, review:

Layout: 8 Certainly the most obnoxious point that I can find. The front image is always compressed to me. (Running at 1024 x 768 or something like that) I >can< click to enlarge it, but it seems kind of un-necessary with all that other space to the side. Why is it like that Yanagi?

Art: 9.5 Certainly beyond anything I'm capable, very clean, very pretty, very imaginitve ..ahem, costumes on the girls. I can't imagine how you keep coming up with them. Lots of skin. Pretty, but not overly pretty boys.

Characters: 10 Alot of different girls and boys to keep things interesting. A very nice cast.

Story: 8 Humorous and catchy, PSC keeps me around to find out what's going on next. I'm not always sure where something's leading, or if there's even a point to the arc, but sometimes that's exactly what draws me back.

Pie: 12.3 Pie is yummy.

Overall: 9ish I really like PSC, in concept and in execution. I wish it were updated more often. Also, I think there should be more sex. It's sometimes teases me and makes me read hard.

[Zuri]

I'll give it a go here..

Dunno if you wanted a review, but I thought I'd review Hanashi.

Layout: A unique if very simple design. The very up and downness of it reminds me very much of asian text. The comic is also very strangely narrow, giving it a very distinct look. Personally I like a lot of white space and I found the layout refreshingly simple and quick to load.

Art: It isn't the worst I've seen, but it isn't the best either. Sort of middle class artwise IMO. The typography is my only real serious problem. Its very hard to read.

Characters: Hard to say a lot about them, as there hasn't been much info left about them. You've got your cool guy, his somewhat lesser sidekick, the love intrest(?), the pain in the ass, the forgetful and clueless boss, the old guy ( but hes only 25!), and of course the mini mart employee.

Story: It vaguely reminds me of Clerks ( which I did like BTW ), kinda reads that way to me. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense as the story really hasn't been that strongly established yet. There are some things floating around that could be story points, but there isn't a strong unifying factor giving the story a definate direction yet.

Overall Impression: It could potentially be intresting, the layout is rather cool, but it needs to establish the characters a little better as well as define what is going on in the plot soon. They typography could be improved as I found it rather hard to read the small Times font that is currently being used. May i suggest a font choice from blambot.com? Digital strip or letter-o-matic reads very nice on the screen at a smaller point size.

Final rating: 3 out of 5 stars.

Zuri
______________________________
Shifters ~ http://shifters.keenspace.com

[Chascraw4d]

Hmm. Shifters.

Well, it's currently one of my favorite comics so I'm not sure how aobjective this will be, but here goes:

Layout : The site is simple and effective and appears to resize nicely. The comic is emphasized nicely and the color scheme fits the overall mood and setting. The basic site navigation links (first/last/prev/next) are a bit understated, particularly on the front page. I sometimes lose track of them when I get to involved in the comic. (Perhaps placing them both above and below would help, particularly for people reading at lower resolutions).
The comic layout is very well done. You make very good use of complex compositional techniques and the story flow is generally very easy to follow.

Art: Very good overall. The early color work tended to demphasize the quality of your line work and gave a somewhat mediocre impression. When you switched to using a sharper cel-style method of coloring it complimented your work better, although my personal preference is for your black and white work. Character designs are very good, and your anthropomorphic forms are amazing. That said, I do have a slight issue with hairstyles, particularly bangs. You tend to use one or two particular styles to death (particularly the long v-shaped anime bangs - the fox-girl is the only female character I can find who doesn't have them). It doesn't kill the character designs, but it does make it hard to distinguish between characters sometimes (particularly when they're in their school uniforms) and seems incongrous with the 'fashion-concious' cyberpunk setting you're proposing.

Characters: Good, likable characters with believable interactions. You do a good job of setting up a number of tradtional relationship patterns and the motivations of your main characters are believable and interesting. By contrast, a lot of your supporting cast seem like paper cutouts, but on the whole the character work is good.

Setting: Just a side note here. Most material in the genre you're writing in tends to be oversaturated with influences from Anne Rice and White Wolf games. While I love vampires, werewolves and other supernatural creatures, White Wolf's settings tend to bother me. You have a very fresh approach to the genre which I much appreciate. One aside comment though. You describe the setting as a futuristic/cyberpunk environment, yet I don't get this impression from the writing or artwork at all. Except for the bum with the TV strapped (implanted?) to his body, the setting could be entirely modern.

Story: Excellent story, obviously thought through and planned ahead. One problem with a lot of webcomics with continuing storylines is that they're still written on a daily basis, which tends to ruin pacing and kill a lot of the dramatic impact. It's nice to read something that's written as an extended story should be written.

Overall impression: As I mentioned, this is one of my current favorites. The art is good, the writing is good (and hopefully will stay so with the change of writers you have coming up) and the setting is well-thought out and interesting. You obviously have a specific direction you want to take the storyline, which makes me a lot more inclined to keep reading.