Here’s the good news: over the course of its 600-plus page archive, the art on Been Better improves. Creator Jimmy Purcell’s characters begin to look less flat and more rounded, and he becomes far more adept at coloring each day’s entry in ways that help, rather than hinder, the art.

Here’s the bad news: for whatever reason, it took a long time for each individual page to load, so I had to skip the middle third of the archives in order to get this review done on time. So, I can’t tell you exactly when you’ll notice the art improving, just that somewhere between page 200 and page 550, it does.

There are lots of autobiographical comics out there. Some, like the classic newspaper strip “For Better or For Worse,” are only loosely based on the real family life of the creator. Some, like the increasingly popular webcomic “Allan,” are almost too devoted to “keeping it real.” “Been Better” is somewhere in the middle. Purcell retains his friends’, family’s, and coworkers’ real names (and we can assume the visuals are at least decent caricatures of what these people really look like), but he allows the strip to move into “what if” territory fairly often – especially when dealing with the customers at his various jobs over the years (as, for instance, here).

Here’s my problem: it takes a long time for us to be introduced to Jimmy’s friends by name, and either the “bios” page really is completely empty or there’s a glitch in my connection. The early strips are drawn and written in a way that implies we should know very well who these people are and what their relationship to Jimmy is. The woman I assumed was Jimmy’s mother because of strips like this, he later addresses as Cindy which strikes me as an odd way to address your Mom – unless she’s your older sister or step-mom. I’m still not sure who she is, since I had to skip that large section of the archives. A functioning cast page would have helped. (Whoever she is, she’s obviously formidable. I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of the alarm clock with her around.)

Purcell does attempt to keep the comic humorous, rarely straying into deep sentimentality although there are occasional doses of late-teenage-angst, especially early on. The usual pop culture and topical commentary works its way in (is there a “slice of life” strip anywhere on the web or in print that doesn’t touch on those topics?), as with this recent strip about the Olympics. There are some strips that have straightforward punchlines like this one. Unfortunately, there are a good number of strips that just didn’t elicit any reaction out of me at all – not a laugh, not a groan, not even a sympathy chuckle.

One of the artistic touches I did like is that Jimmy’s glasses tend to function with the same expressiveness as other characters’ eyes. Sometimes, this puts just the right emphasis on a reaction, and sometimes it can be a bit disconcerting, as with the Olympic strip mentioned above.

Overall, I’d give Been Better a healthy 3 stars. Yes, it could have been better, but it could also have been so much worse. Rating:

Been Better

http://beenbettercomic.com

by Jimmy Purcell
reviewed by Anthony R. Cardno

(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

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Been Better has the tagline “barely based on a true story.” It sure seems like a mostly true story to me, though. There is a lot in there about his girlfriends and the fear of clowns. There is also the rare political statement and a good number of strips about personal failures and disappointment at work.

Within the first few comics, the first job shown is Jimmy working in a caricature booth. Something confused me about that - it’s a minor point but I’m getting nitpicky in my old age. I’ve done live caricatures and I even have the same unfolding easel that is shown. So what’s bothering me? I’m really not sure why the artists shown are wearing aprons. Why do I make a fuss about aprons? I suspect these aprons are uniforms and each caricature is a unique product of both the artist and the subject. It’s a personal thing whereas uniforms are decidedly impersonal. But you can relax, dear reader. It all works itself out.

Fitting the title of Been Better, Jimmy gets laid off from doing caricatures. He eventually he finds work in a camera shop, where it is shown as a dead end, waste of time job. I didn’t find that job full of interesting or humorous moments. Later, Jimmy gets a job in a theme park so there is a little more humor potential there. He is shown driving a boat and doing some other, different things. That’s an overview of what actually happens in Been Better and we’ll come back to the overall assesment of the comic. First, an announcement.

Been Better gets one full extra star just for hating the creepy King as much as I do for the same reasons. That is also Been Better’s first color strip. All of the strips before are black and white with tones. There are are few black and whites after the King, but eventually it becomes all color. Later strips are just flatted and don’t look quite as good, but the color looks better than not.

Many comics have mostly side views and end up showing what basically amount to talking heads. Been Better has some variety with angles that you don’t typically see. The drawing is done in a cartoon style with very little in the way of … what’s the word? Not warping…exaggeration. The only things exaggerated are the eyes and mouths of the characters. The style stays pretty consistent right from the start.

Some of the word balloons are a little squished but they are readable for the most part with a few exceptions: The hand lettering (like here or here) is very difficult to read. The font changes a couple of times - I suppose that during the making of 600+ comics there are bound to be some adjustments and changes. I can live with that. (It’s quite an accomplishment to have that many comics completed.)

Something in Been Better’s diary sort of approach worries me for the artist’s sake. There were a couple of girlfriends that were all drawn basically the same way with the same look and hairstyle. I suppose if they looked similiar it can’t really be helped. Ace/Aubrey (the most recent girlfriend in the comic) has curly hair and a icon’d shirt to help with that. On the side, I am not sure how later girlfriends react to seeing the artist pining over past girlfriends. I think that might offer some personal difficulties, which I suppose is in line with the theme of the comic.

You see, Been Better reminds me of the newspaper comic The Born Loser. You can find funny bits here and there but the overall theme is sometimes-tries-but-is-still-a-loser. This is perfectly reflected in the jobs the character has had. (This is not meant to be a reflection on the barely-based-on-a-true-story job choices of the artist) but they have that Burger King feel to them: no real future, no hope for lasting success. That fits the theme quite nicely and likewise, the main character risks very little that is powerful or compelling. All of this limited how much I could enjoy Been Better. After reading about half the archives, I found myself skipping ahead to the more interesting sounding comic titles in the archive. Rating:

Been Better
http://beenbettercomic.com
by James Purcell
Review by Delos Woodruff
(No Ratings Yet)

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The original review for this comic was a bit more lengthy and went into detail as to why I simply didn’t like or enjoy this comic. That was, however, before I ran across the blogs (and you know who you are) in which the artists and fanboys of some of my other reviews are whining and moaning about how horrible my reviews are, how I’m an idiot because I don’t see things their way, and other assorted complaints of the “flame him for daring to express a negative view” variety. To them, I guess I don’t know what to say except “Tough darts, guys - don’t read my reviews, then.”

However, despite the risk of giving someone else’s fragile ego a boo-boo, The Doctor has rolled up his sleeves and written a new and improved review, complete with short words so no one strains their brain power. I’m sure after this one my write ups will go back to their old selves, so no worries.

I didn’t like the comic. The humor wasn’t of the type that makes me laugh, since I usually prefer gags and topics that haven’t been done to death as far as jokes go, or at least ones that aren’t so out there that you have to be in the know to get them. (The strip in which Jimmy calls various girls comes to mind; one is watching bees pollinate flowers and the other is sitting next to Bigfoot) I also felt the subject humor wasn’t original or even very imaginative, dealing mainly with the main character’s inability to deal with girlfriends, other friends or his own inept geekiness. Same basic formula as pretty much any recent sitcom, but this also had the main character cut from an Al Bundy (Married with Children) type mold, too. Some of the subject matter was a bit adult, too, and so I’d be cautious about letting kids read it. Therefore, I didn’t give the comic a high rating. I also know, however, that I am not God, and so I encourage you to take my review with a grain of salt and read the comic yourself, if you so choose.

Good place for a personal note as a reviewer, too, I think, on behalf of other reviewers: A review, unless done by a professional (which I am not, as I have stated many times) who critiques on a professional level and about professional points (such as use of color, shading, line work, etc.) is primarily an opinion. Since it is an opinion, it’s allowed to be different than those of other people. If you are the artist and don’t like it, then don’t create web comics and then ask review sites/people to review them. If you’re a rabid fanboy, accept the fact that others will have a different opinion and don’t waste time flaming them. You only make yourself look idiotic, and I suspect hurt the comic itself in the long run by driving people away.

I’ll step off my soap box now, and close by saying that hopefully none of what I have said will pertain to the creator of this web comic. I suspect that Mr. Purcell will shrug and say “Oh well…he didn’t like it,” and go on. At least, I am hoping he will. I would hate to think that my opinion bears such almighty weight that it would discourage someone from doing something they enjoy.

I give the comic one star. Rating:

The Doctor

Been Better
http://beenbettercomic.com
by James Purcell
(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

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Wackiness sensor overloaded - disengaging. No, seriously. Even when the strip deals with normal, everyday situations (which is 90% of the time), we get wacky, over the top reactions. Crazy! Zany! Utterly impossible to relate to! Who talks like these people! Wait, that was a question!

Been Better, by Jimmy Purcell, seems kinda like an autobiographical or diary comic of a habitually smug guy with glasses. I have no idea what he has to be so smug about, though. Actually, most of the people in this comic seem smug, even when they’re the brunt of the punchline. Or clearly about to be the brunt of the punchline. Maybe not always just smug, too, but also kinda, erm…”knowing”?

The comic has an overall “newbish” feel to it, which, frankly, could be easily avoided. We come in on the comic with a D-rated site. Garish kindergarten colors line a terribly blurry and bespeckled title (just a poor scan job, but geez) followed by an equally blurry navigational bar. The blurriness is exacerbated by the perfectly clean drawing to the right-hand side and the sharp subtitle in (erk) comic sans. If I seem to be picking on this title image a lot, it’s because I had to look at it so bloody much. You have to scroll down past it and the navigational bar to read every single strip, and then have to scroll further down to click on the “next” button. As a daily, I suppose, not so absolutely terrible, but for those of us trying to get through the archives it was teeth-grating. And to be completely honest, no, I did not read through all 600-some pages of this strip. I could deal with about half of the archives, and this was over the course of a week.

We’ve got ourselves another newspaper funnies layout. The artwork can be rounded into three stages, more or less, through this comic’s three year career. Despite the Comic Sans, stage 1 was the most bearable. It’s legible, has pretty nice inkwork, and some gray fills to make it stand out. Then Jimmy had to switch to color. This, Jimmy, was a bad plan. You got lazier with your inkwork so that you could use the fill tool, didn’t you?  You also switched to hand-lettering, which I’d normally approve of, except that in the same stroke you switched to shrinking your images. Yes, it’s the “hard-to-read” complaint again. At some point, he fixed that, so I won’t go on about it, and created stage 3. Gradients. Oh, joy. Gradients, far more than dodge and burn, are the easiest tools in photoshop to misuse horribly. And nothing says “poorly done” like the gradients in these later comics.

All of this…silly mistakes. This Jimmy guy can, in fact, draw. He pretty consistantly draws wacky ZOMG cartoon expressions. He even does it in ink. Why he clutters it up so tastelessly, I don’t know. But that’s the package.

On to the content.

Be forewarned that I am without an American sense of humor. Perhaps this is due to being born near the nation’s capital. Even so, I usually try to factor this in and be fair but…seriously. This comic was such a pain for me to read. The jokes themselves are about Jimmy and co. being jerks to everyone, especially to those Jimmy must deal with while at work. Now, I understand. Some costumers can be serious pains in the butt. Sometimes the most therapeutic thing in the world is to sit down and draw a comic of you saying exactly what you wanted to say when you instead smiled and said “Have a nice day” so that you wouldn’t get fired. But most of the customers in these strips are just a bit spacey, or maybe confused or lost and totally don’t deserve the treatment. Maybe that’s Jimmy’s master plan: he goes after the weak and insecure ones rather than the customers that would be likely to complain to his manager. Now, maybe I just don’t get it. Or maybe I’ll just take this crew as another reason to steer clear of California. One star for you, Jimmy, but only because you can in fact draw cartoons. Maybe that’s what you’re smug about.

(Disclaimer: I address Jimmy a lot in this comic. I don’t know Jimmy the real person at all. It’s more meant to be directed at Jimmy the character that I just read about in 300some comics. I am also on vacation with my mother, so didn’t spend very much time on this review, and for that I apologize.)

Reviewed by Sly Eagle

Rating:

(2 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)

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We’ll be taking a look at Been Better. Why don’t you take a look at it too?

The basic information you need on Muddle Creek: Oslo, Squig and six more repeating characters make up the bulk of the comic. Their descriptions on the cast page tell you a little about them but mainly summarize the humor they are usually involved in. It gives you a vague sense of what the comic is about.

What’s the first thing you really should know about Muddle Creek? It tries hard to be funny. That is with good reason because it takes a lot of work and editing to produce good humor. You can see the effort but Muddle Creek is a little off in left field.

One example from a couple of years ago is where one of the characters, Squig, has a strange hat - (I’m not sure why) it’s a soda cup. Another character asks him if he ever drinks out of it. He responds by asking “Do you ever drink out of your hat?” The punchline doesn’t match up for me. The next comic fares a little better. The first two panels work together but the punchline didn’t pay off.

There is hope. The very next comic has a great punchline “Elmo says luminol doesn’t lie” IS funny. (That needs to be on a shirt, by the way.)

The Muddle Creek comics that seem to work the best have those slice of life topics. I think the character designs and style of dialog fit that concept very nicely. Here’s another comic about names. See? There is hope. In particular, the rule is that the more panels in a particular strip, the better the comic is.

There is growth and improvement over time. Take the art - Muddle Creek starts off with pure black and white line, later adding dark black areas and sometimes a grey background pattern. You can see that the artist often trying new things to improve his art. Another good point is that the characters are quite varied in appearance and each has a fairly solid personality. And when background detail, color and a little shading is added it really brings a lot of life into Muddle Creek. The color gives each strip an emotional tone and makes it more enjoyable to read.

That begs the question - will you enjoy reading Muddle Creek? There is a certain twistedness to the comic. The more abstract comics may require a more unusual sense of humor to fully appreciate. It might even require some mental work. If you think you have a strange sense of humor, I’d say you should look it over and see if it appeals to you.

For the rest of us, the slice of life topics can be amusing. As the comic progresses, Muddle Creek is leaning more toward multiple panels and slice of life story arcs. In that case, you might check in on the comic once in a while. Rating:

Muddle Creek
http://muddlecreek.com/
by Jerry Benedict
Reviewed by Delos Woodruff
(3 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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