When I became a reviewer for this page I had visions of providing insightful commentary on well drawn, well scripted and well thought out comics. With the notable exception of Lackadaisy, however, most of them seem to fall into one of three categories:

1. Terrible

2. No imagination

3. Rehash of the same tired formulas that have existed since Grogg the caveman said “Ug! What up with thaaaaaaaaat?” way back in 50000 BC. And yes - that’s a direct dig on Seinfeld, who to me is about as funny as having my teeth forcibly extracted with a hammer and chisel.

Reality, when it set it, was a harsh mistress who insisted on laughing at me as I groaned and slogged my way through our latest review - Applied Living. I couldn’t really say it fell into category 1, and only partially into 2, but 3 seemed a pretty good choice. Unlike my eternally neutral and yet well respected colleague, Delos, who talked about the cast page and described the characters in detail as part of his peerless prose on art, I can sum it up pretty well in about…oh…3 points. (1) Voice of reason is one character. Voice of emotion and/or “fun loving spirit” is the other (read that as ‘the straight man and the VERY obnoxious wannabe cool character’ and you’re pretty well on the beam), (2) standard sitcom formulas and situations, altered only slightly enough to not be sued for copyright infringement by just about any show out there, and (3) WAYYYY too many attempts at depth and symbolism.

My main complaint? It tries too hard. It strikes me as yet another comic trying to be very intellectual and speak to all the different levels of consciousness, our struggles in life and all the other psychobabble bull…patties that you get in any standard philosophy course, instead of just being ENTERTAINMENT. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but when I sit there either scratching my head or saying “oh, come ON….” as I read the comic and wonder if the artist is getting paid more for using big words or phrases, it’s not something I’m going to be coming back to. I kept picturing people sitting around a coffee shop snapping their fingers while someone read bad poetry. Don’t ask me why.

The gags, I guess you’d call them, were generally not amusing, at least not to me. Too many of them seemed to revolve around one person being obnoxious to another and it somehow supposing to be funny. Some of them, such as the one entitled “Necktie Remedy,” simply made me want to reach into the comic and choke the “fun loving spirit” character on his own glasses, the insolent whelp! Having worked in the retail industry, and being a person who respects the dignity of others, few “jokes” make me smoke worse than the “I’ll be an obnoxious moron because I’m a customer and you can’t do anything about it” ones. I’m also not the kind of passive-aggressive “I won’t confront you but I’ll get my revenge another way” characters you see in this comic, either. Were I the “voice of reason” character, I’d have put the “fun loving spirit” guy out the window some time ago and never missed him.

The art? Well, overall that I will definitely say that it wasn’t bad. It was clean, the detail on a lot of the strips was pretty well done, and at least the artist looked like they were putting some thought into it when they drew it. That’s more than I can say for most of the anime….I mean manga….I MEAN….other webcomics out there. The pupil-less eyes, a’ la Little Orphan Annie kind of threw me, but hey - at least it didn’t look like they copied and pasted images from South Park in their comic! That has to count for something!

Overall, not a comic I’d recommend to someone looking for a light comic to simply enjoy, and also some language issues on occasions so I couldn’t really call it family friendly.

And that’s my review. Rating:

The Doctor

Applied Living

http://applied-living.com
written by Shaun Meyers
art by Dave Olson
review by The Doctor - the genuine article you might say
(3 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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