The Doctor gets caught in a Paradigm Shift
Easy review this time, and right to the point. Was the comic bad? No. Was it for me? No. Why? I’ll tell you in 3 easy points:
1. Anime. I don’t care for anime/manga, or the style. Over sized eyes, hair that does really strange things and SPEED LINES really don’t have a big place in my heart. They also don’t have a big place in my head, since they usually make it spin. I think it was because I was forced to sit through Akira as a kid or something. Was the art bad? No, not at all - actually it was very clean and crisp, and well detailed. It just isn’t art I like to look at.
2. Cliche. Cliche abounded. “Petite yet smart-assed and can kick yours for you, too” female cop paired up with typical straight man partner. I could watch edge of your seat drama like The Closer and get my dose of that, thank you. That’s just for openers. I’ll let you find out the rest.
3. Storyline and exposition. Not bad, not a bad thing in and of itself - just too much for me. It may be that I’m more of a Garfield or Peanuts type, or just that after the 300th page I tend to wander a bit, but I’m not a tremendous fan of deep, involved story lines in a web comic.
Now, you’re probably thinking I’m going to give it a bad score. You’re incorrect, in this case. The comic itself is well done, and the art is good. The fact that it doesn’t appeal to me simply because of style isn’t enough for me to rate it badly. This is one of those “If you like that kind of comic, read it!” types. There wasn’t any horrid language that I saw, nor anything else that would make me want to warn people away from it. On the basis of the artwork and story, I give it 4 stars, even if it isn’t my particular cup of tea.
Note, however, that saying “it’s not my type of comic” isn’t a cop out to avoid saying anything negative, either. In this case, the negatives dealt more with my personal taste and not with things inherent in the comic itself. Rating: 
Paradigm Shift
by Dirk Tiede
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/dirktiede/ps/series.php?view=archive&chapter=10435
review by the Doctor
(5 votes, average: 4.4 out of 5)
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July 5th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Heh. You don’t like manga, I do, and you still gave PD a better rating than I did. For some reason, I find that really funny.
July 5th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
I know - it probably looks funny to most people reading it!
Actually, when I do a review I try not to let personal tastes such as “I like that style/don’t like that style of comic” affect the rating. For a comic to get a low rating, it has to have things in it that, to me, are generally objectionable, i.e., crudeness/vulgarity, trite or unimaginative humor, overall poor artwork or seeming lack of quality, overall non-family friendliness; things like that.
My dislike of manga/anime comes from every bloody artist in the WORLD seeming like they are all doing that style. It’s overload, I tell ya!
July 6th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
[…] like the folks at Comic Fencing got ahold of PS this week with mixed results (2.5-5 stars, depending on the reviewer). I have to admit, I do find some of their critique to be […]
July 7th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Homogeneity in artistic styles doesn’t bother me so much since Western artists aren’t immune to falling lock-step with popular trends. It was not too long ago when mainstream comic artists were all aping the Jim Lee/Rob Liefeld/Mark Silvestri Image style. Nowadays, the art is easier on the eyes, but now everyone from Greg Land to Brian Hitch seems to be aiming for the photorealistic look. (Try drawing like Rob Liefeld nowadays and you will be “Bad Art’d!” everywhere.)
It’s true, there are too many artists who fall back on the manga aesthetic because everyone else is doing it. But there are things the manga style does well that other styles don’t. I think it does a better job at conveying wordless action sequences, for instance. (I have a copy of Dark Horse’s Star Wars manga on my bookshelf, and honestly I think it conveys action better than the actual movie.)
Manga itself desn’t mean the surrender of one’s own style: there are many stylistic differences between a Rumiko Takahashi work to Akira Toriyama to whoever it is that does Berzerk. The part that annoys me is probably the same thing that annoys The Doctor: just drawing something with big eyes labels you a trend follower rather than a creator. But, you know, if you can come up with that special something something, then all is forgiven. Keenspot’s Remy Mokhtar and Owen Gieni are among the few artists drawing manga-style webcomics that I can confidently say are trying something unique and distinct.
July 9th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
I wonder, Larry, if part of the “fall into the trend” thing isn’t also that it depends on what you grew up on as much as what the “big companies” are publishing currently. I would think that lots of the manga-style art currrently on display is by people who grew up on the anime of the 80s as an alternative to the more drab American animation. Of course, the teenagers drawing in the various manga-styles now are being influenced by what they’re reading now — but how will their own styles develop / change over time? Look at how drastically Bill Siencewicz’s art changed from his early “New Mutants” work, for instance, to the far more abstract later stuff. Then there’s Mark Texiera, whose style completely changed once the Image aesthetic you mention took hold.
July 9th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
To clarify - I suppose it also depends on the type of anime. Technically, “Thundercats” was considered anime, as was the “Transformers”, and I absolutely loved the shows!
Perhaps I should more say that the anime trends as shown with what I call the “Sailor Moon” type drawings - overly large eyes/pastel colored and/or pointy hair and/or out of proportion bodies, sudden, unexplained facial changes or giant sweat drops appearing - that kind of thing - are of the kind I don’t care for. It may be nothing more than the fact that to my mildly autistic mind (and yes, that’s true - I do fall within the spectrum of the disorder) those types of changes are jarring, and that may explain it well. I don’t know.
I definitely can’t agree that animation done in the US of A was “drab,” however. Consider shows like He-Man (Filmation, California) and Thundarr the Barbarian (Ruby-Spears, California) and I believe they would hold their own against anime of the same time period. American animation and stories tended to be lighter in nature, as opposed to the often dark and VERY brooding world of a lot of the Japanese done stories. (Akira, anyone?) It may be nothing more than just a difference in style.
If nothing else, they were at least something you could watch without feeling like your head was going to explode from all the speed lines! (Or maybe it was the moral lessons - I’m not sure)
July 9th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
I’m currently reading “Understanding Comics” by Scott McCloud, and he has a very good argument that the “Speed Lines” were incorporated by the Japanese from Western comics and transformed into an art form.
July 10th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Then when that’s confirmed, I’ll throw rocks at us as well as them!
July 10th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
I know I’m late to the party here, but I wanted to agree with Larry’s statement that anime and manga convey anything wordless better than a more American style. It struck me when I read it because I hadn’t realized that’s part of what I like about anime. There are bits I don’t like - like the tear drops to the side of the head, nose bleeds and the like.
And thank you for confirming that Mark Texeira changed his style during the Jim Lee years. I recall a very scratchy, rough style that was suddenly just gone one day.
I was also tempted to crack open my copy of Understanding Comics just so I could give our dear old Doctor a page number to froth at.
July 10th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Nah, no frothing here. Remember, though, I’m not a pen-and-paper artist like the rest of you - and I also have a fondness for old-school cartoons and styles. Anime, I think, when all is said and done, moves too fast and loses me. Also, my exposure to a lot of anime has been along the “Akira” line, which tends to be FAR too bleak and dark for me.
Then there’s the whole drops on the side of the head/head suddenly turning huge and/demonic thing, and the like.
Hence my attempt to clarify what TYPE of anime I may have been thinking of.