“A telephone survey says that 51 percent of college students drink until they pass out at least once a month. The other 49 percent didn’t answer the phone.” - Craig Kilborn

Rating:

This week’s review is ‘Dead Days’ by John Rios. It’s about two college roommates. They do the sorts of things you’d expect from typical middle-class north american twenty-somethings. They eat junk food, they play video games, they drink beer, they avoid work, they try and date women, often unsuccessfully.

This comic has been online since 2004 according to the archive. According the the FAQ, Rios started drawing Dead Days for the college paper when he was in college in 2001. He has since graduated (class of ‘04) but keeps doing the comic for his loyal community of readers because he loves cartooning. That’s an impressive achievement. It’s also a very looong archive. I didn’t manage to get through the whole thing, but I swooped down and sampled from various periods in the strip’s history.

It reads very much like a print comic strip. I can see this in a college paper, and it would be head-and-shoulders above the majority of comics in that market. The art is very professional. The character designs are solid. All-in-all, a very well-done little strip. There’s one big problem for me. I didn’t laugh. I didn’t even break a smile. I read a lot of these, just to make sure I wasn’t reading a dry period or something. But, no. It was exactly as funny as Garfield. I like the drawings, but the fact that it’s black and white doesn’t help matters. Again, if you consider this to be a printed strip, then the B&W makes sense. But even Garfield did colour strips in the Sunday edition.

I’m glad that the comic has a loyal following, and I’m sure it would do well in any college paper. It’s all about the context, I think. If I was sitting at a bus stop, and I was looking for something to read, I might snicker at one of these strips. But sitting at my computer, where I have access to such a wide variety of comics, all competing for my eyeballs, Dead Days doesn’t hold its own. I’m not a big follower of gag strips anyways, even when they do make me laugh. Sinfest, Unstoppable, XKCD, and Perry Bible Fellowship come to mind as examples of strips I check in on every now and then.

I would have found this hilarious when I was younger. Jim Davis does very well with Garfield. I bought up all the Garfield collections when I was in Jr. High School. I read them until they were dog-eared. I memorized all the jokes, and told them to my friends. The subject matter of Dead Days is a bit more ‘mature’ what with the sexual and alcohol references, but the gags are about the same.

‘Dead Days’
by John Rios
reviewed by Crackwalker
(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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This comic reminded me of a few guys I know. Guys that are not in college (be it by completion or not attending) and living with their mommas while they still haven’t found a real job. They’re looking, they say, and if you ever saw them say so without their faces towards a screen with a remote, controller, or keyboard at hand, you might believe them.

They’re not real nerds. Nerds fixate. Nerds connect to a fandom or genre and devote their lives to it. These guys don’t have the attention span for something like that. They just latch on to whatever’s in front of them at the moment. Unless, perhaps, it’s either not pop culture or it’s R Kelly.

I think, if they read this comic, they’d enjoy it immensely. They’d probably prattle on about how good it was…long after you’ve given them every polite hint you know of that you have no idea what they’re talking about and you’d rather not fix that.

Fortunately, they are not reviewing this comic. Unfortunately, I am.

Intelligence Cleaner Agency, by D. Bethel (I’m presuming there’s only one actual person behind this comic), is one of those Big Idea comics that seems to fall just short of coming together. The Big Idea is that the ICA is the secret agency whose job is cleaning up after those pesky other secret agencies who should have a hard time keeping themselves secret due to a penchant for blowing things up. The website goes for the “immersive” experience by having the comments be from the main characters point of view and the whole set-up brought to you by the conceit that due to the Patriot Act, the ICA is being forced to make their files public and has chosen to do so through a comic. No, it doesn’t quite add up, and that, unfortunately, is the real theme of ICA. The characters have “dossiers” and the storylines are broken up into “declassifications. While this all gives the site and comic its own identity, it never manages to seal the deal, leaving most of the big ideas floating in the weight of their own merit and never tying the package together. It doesn’t help that the site itself is cluttered and confusing.

In the same vein, the stories tend to be half-baked and never quite pull together. We follow Agent Eben07 and his partner Ninja Dan (seems the surefire way to make your story more appealing is to add a Japanese character - failing any real idea of what makes a character Japanese, a “ninja” will do) on a series of missions to clean things up. For the most part, we have to accept the unexplained or elaborated upon mission as the plot device to keep the story moving (or, even more cynically, as the excuse to have a “story” in the first place). They are occasionally joined with the token female agent Janester who is, uh, very token. It has entered my mind that these missions may perhaps be references to movies I’ve not seen and video games I’ve not played. I’m going to assume there are jokes here, and that since I’m not up on James Bond or Metal Gear Solid, I just don’t see them. However, I have seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the storyline involving that did not amuse me in the least, even though I got the references. A reference for reference’s sake won’t get a chuckle out of me. I suppose the spontaneity, rather than the applicability, is supposed to be funny. But because it absolutely is not applicable, my brain draws a big old “Does Not Compute” and I proceed to stare blearily at the inanity of it rather than balling up in stitches like my br–I mean, those guys I know would.

What I can glean from the story is that the ICA was founded by Eben07’s ancester Abel, a man who is easily and unexplicably 300 years old and who has recently left the organization. Abel wants Eben07 to help him “clean up the ICA.” The rest doesn’t seem to relate. Perhaps the intelligence was cleaned out.

The art did not fit the tone of the comic. I’m not sure why, but it felt disjointed to me. Maybe this was because while the story was so random and spastic, the artwork was a decent example of action cartooning. Not a great example of comicing, though. Don’t expect anything exciting from the layouts other than some where the order is hard to follow. This is plainly PS7, maybe CS. It suffers from a couple PS quirks, actually. One, the panel lines tend to be blurry - good old stroke on the center line with, I’ll guess 3 pixels. I’d suggest stroking inside or outside. For some reason, that seems to clean up the blurriness once you compress the file. Same thing with the bubble lines - try using 2 pixels instead of 1. That one plagued me for a year. The other problem is the over-sharp font. I’m not sure what’s causing that, as it doesn’t happen on about half of the comics. Both these things should be fixed to match the linework. All things told, I have no major problems with the art, but I’m not feeling inspired by it either.

As a final thought, I have to wonder why Eben07’s weapon of choice is a plunger-gun. A mop would be so much better.

I’m going to give this one 2.5 stars because I know there’s an audience for it and I know it probably delivers for them. May God bless and keep them both far away from me.

(A final note for clarification: The Geek knows a great many little things. The Nerd knows one thing that is Great to him.)

Rating:
“Intelligence Cleaner Agency”
http://www.eben07.com/
By D. Bethel

review by Sly Eagle

(3 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)

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Calamities of Nature is about the absurdities of life and ourselves. Politics, world events and regular gags are mixed together for a very enjoyable blend.

The art is serviceable and fun to look at with its broad crosshatching technique. Likewise, the colors are handled very well in the way that they are combined. They nicely round the figures and scenery out. Look at this mountain range; it wouldn’t be the same without color.

The characters have a nice range of personality. Aaron (the one with the headphones) likes to vent about those odd things we see in the world. Alp is the mad inventor with the read and green hat. Ferdinand (Ferd) has the baseball cap and is the kind of character who does things on impulse. Harold is the nice guy who is also sort of a loser. We can identify with all of them at one time or another.

I found Calamities to be amusing sometimes but not always. For example, the current story topic of soda preferences was good fun. However, this is a popular and successful comic so my preferences may not be the right standard to measure by. It’s worth checking out even though I’m only going to give it two stars. Two stars represents an okay and functional comic but does not stand out to me. Rating:

Calamities of Nature
http://www.calamitiesofnature.com
by Tony Piro
review by Delos Woodruff
(2 votes, average: 3.5 out of 5)

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Calamities of Nature, by Tony Piro, is probably the most uninspiring comic I’ve reviewed for the fencers yet. So, for me, this’ll be a short review.

Four loserly funny animals with one-word personalities live in…I guess modern America. And go on statically-drawn wacky adventures, which generally involve…one character being dumb and the other one being sensible to no avail. The, uh, adventures tend to be things we’ve all seen before. Repeatedly.

It’s like current Garfield, only stretched out over nine panels and lacking a punchline. Seriously, most of these comics have no punchline. They don’t even try. When the characters aren’t standing around not being funny, they’re standing around not being socially aware. Hint: if you’re trying to push social awareness, try saying something that not everyone in the media is already saying. The most exciting thing about the comic is it’s anti-Christian sentiment, and even that is just parroted from other general anti-Christian sentiments (and only exciting because supposedly, as a Christian, I should feel mocked), complete with lack of realistic example…or punchline. Has this guy ever had an original idea in his life? I mean, he makes an entire story arc based off of a guest strip. Wait…this one might come close… The mad scientist stereotype isn’t completely clueless! Haha, get it? No?

Oh, there’s art, isn’t there? Pretty flat and colorless for being in color with 2-tone shading. Again, nothing Garfield hasn’t already done. It’s not bad, it’s just not good either.

I have no idea why this comic is called “Calamities of Nature.” But do I think all the characters should be parrots. Then there’d be self irony. Intentional, rather than unintentional. The evolution of the horse exhibit? Are you serious? Even hardcore evolutionary scientists admit that that chart is propagandist bunk and intentionally misleading. Notice how it shows ONLY the forleg canon and hoof for each species, a tooth, and an artist rendition? Yeah, there’s a reason for that. It’s called “the rest of the skeleton.”

Uhm, I give it a star for being a comic on the web? But that means I need to give a star to the grass I’m watching grow… Fine, I’ll give it two stars because he actually drew it himself and the site’s decent.

Rating:
“Calamities of Nature”
http://www.calamitiesofnature.com/
By Tony Piro

review by Sly Eagle

(5 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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Ok, I’ll say it straight up front, so there are no misunderstandings -

I didn’t “get” this comic. What’s more, for my own reasons, I didn’t particularly like it, either.

I read it, and in some cases I re-read it, and can honestly say I didn’t crack a smile or find things that really made me laugh. Was it because the comic was horrible and I was constantly cringing? Not at all. On the contrary, the art was good (although to be fair it looked like a meeting between Walt Kelly’s Pogo and some of the cast from Bloom County - that kept throwing me off), and I didn’t see anything that would make me caution children or the overly-sensitive to not read it.

Still - I didn’t laugh. There’s usually three reasons for that not happening; (1) The humor is either terrible or sophomoric or (2) It’s extremely metaphorical or “in the know” kind of humor, or it’s (3) the same old, tired, “trying to be with it and socially relevant” humor that we’re buried in every day. I think, in this instance, it’s numbers 2 and 3. I’m not really an “in the know” kind of person when it comes to the current trends, etc., when you get right down to it. I also don’t like most of today’s political/sociological humor, namely because it’s overdone, overused, and at this point has become mostly trite, in my opinion. (Perfect example - the comic used with this post. Like we haven’t seen the “evil cops abusing black people” jokes about a thousand times? What’s the point? Or perhaps comic # 67 from April 21, 2008 - tried and true “loud, obese woman with cart full of high fat products” - one of them says “Pig” - that’s subtle, right? Let’s see, “Obesity in America” comic? Come on. Imagination, anyone?) The current line of strips is, apparently, making fun the foibles of being a “connoisseur” by having one of the characters become a “soda connoisseur.” Ok, perhaps a little funny, but after 3 and more strips, kind of drawn out.

Maybe I’m old fashioned, but does anyone else remember comics - even ones that spoke on social issues - using that little known trait of “subtlety” instead of the now used traits of “I’ll slam this RIGHT IN YOUR FACE so you can’t possibly miss my meaning,” coupled with “I’ll copy the same jokes/gags that most other comics of my ilk do, but I’ll change a word or two”? What kind of commentary must that be on the perceived education level of the readers?

Overall, not a bad comic, I guess - just kind of predictable and, for that reason dull, to me; definitely not one I’d re-read. If you’re a fan of that kind of humor, though, then I say in fairness, give it a read and make your own call.

The Doctor

Calamities of Nature, by Tony Piro

www.calamitiesofnature.com

Rating:

(2 votes, average: 3.5 out of 5)

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You know, I like aliens as the protagonists of stories. And I like robots as the protagonists. And I even like pirates most of the time (I mean, really, what’s not to like about Johnny Depp and Errol Flynn? But I digress.). I also like all three categories as the antagonists of stories. I’m also a fan of time travel stories and we all know how much I love random pop culture references. What bothers me is when two or more of these things are thrown together just to be able to say “hey, kids, look! Robots! Pirates! Aliens! Time Travel! Random Family Guy-like pop culture references! All in one place!”

I hate to try to figure out the intentions of a creator – unless they tell you themselves in an interview why they did something a certain way, you can never really know (and don’t get me started on the whole sub-genre of literary analysis that says you can’t actually understand a work of fiction until you’ve ferreted out every possible worldly thing that influenced the author during the writing of the work. Bleh.). However, to me “Robots” feels like a mish-mosh of anything that could possibly lure a reader in, including more than one reference to the classic TV Show What’s Happening!!! (The answer, by the way, is Dwayne Nelson, not Rerun. Perhaps Oscar is reading a mis-printed Trivial Pursuit card.) The comic really does include everything but the kitchen sink. And given time, I’m sure that will turn up as a robot alongside the chest of drawers and pop machine.

There are some very nice pages, art-wise, like this doomsday scenario. And the art does seem to get smoother, less rushed, as the story progresses. The more recent pages seem to feature heavier, more defining, inkwork.

Overall, while the creators may be having fun tossing everything they can think of into each page, I wasn’t having fun reading along. To paraphrase The Doctor, your mileage may vary. For my own part, I’m going to have to give this two stars. It just didn’t pull me along. Rating:

Jonah and Jeremy Gregory’s “Here There Be Robots”
http://randompiratecomics.net/webpages/robots.htm
reviewed by Anthony R. Cardno

(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)

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