Better late than never.  Sorry I’m a few days behind posting this.  The usual poor hotel internet connections and a few other personal issues (it’s amazing how much time advertising your new novel takes up!) slowed down my process of reading through this comic’s archive, which as others have noted is quite lengthy.

First of all, congrats to John Rios on keeping this strip going in one form or another since 2001.  I know plenty of cartoonists who juggle a full time job, family life, owning a house and doing a classic three-panel gag comic (not me personally, mind you, because I can’t draw to save my life) and they find it hard to maintain a consistent update schedule for the strip when the rest of life presses in.  There is something to be said for bullish commitment.  And Rios obviously likes the fan base (“really cool indie readership,” he calls it in the FAQ) he’s developed over the years, another important trait in a creator of any kind of art.  I’m much more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to an creator who likes and respects his fans.

What do I like about Dead Days?  The art, especially as it has developed in the last year or so of the strip.  The hard angles and somewhat vague backgrounds give this strip a bit of a distinctive look from what we’ve been reviewing here.

I also think it’s a little creative (even if that creativity was born out of the author’s sort-of laziness) that the two main characters do not have names.  There’s the brown-haired one and the blond haired one, two “typical college guys” — not fratsters, not jocks, not nerds, just average guys.  Okay, maybe a little less than average, considering how long they’ve been in college and they’ve only just discovered how stoves work.

What don’t I like about Dead Days?  It’s a gag strip, but I’m not laughing.  I tried, honestly.  I think I did smile a few times (once, towards the end of the archive, when the characters once again show how aware they are of being in a comic, could just as easily have been a shot at certain genre television shows in which the characters go seven seasons without doing much more than changing their uniforms or the length of their hair).  Maybe a slight chuckle.  Now, I will admit that while Dead Days doesn’t work for me, it will probably be hysterical to many of you.  I base this partially on the truth that my sense of humor tends more to the punny than to the potty, and being a college comic there is plenty of potty humor.  I also asked a couple of the college students I know to take a look at the comic, and they found it far funnier and more “real” than I did.

So I’m going to give the strip 3.5 stars … for the art (which I liked) and for the fact that at least two other people I know liked it more than I did. Rating:

Dead Days
http://www.deaddays.net
by John Rios
reviewed by Anthony R. Cardno
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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