I could go on about this comic’s incredible use of cutting edge humor, incredible art and hysterically funny gags, you know. I could, but I’d be lying. I am convinced after reading it that “Muddle Creek” is aptly named, primarily because you have to muddle THROUGH it to try and finish the never-ending archives.

With all apologies necessary to any fans and especially to the author, I have to say that this comic can be summed up in one word - DULL. I began at the first comic and after about 3 weeks worth of slow jokes, obvious jokes, boring jokes, and then ones that were worse, I literally said, out loud, “Does it get any better?” and jumped ahead to the later comics. Sad to say, it didn’t. The art is bland, the conversations stilted and predictable, and the cast is pretty much the same assortment you’d see in something like Dilbert.

I don’t know what power Bloom County had over the world, but it seems like an inordinate number of webcomics are trying hard to cash in on their style, rather than going their own direction. This one, unfortunately, is no exception.

I finally gave up more out of a sense of self-preservation than anything else, and came here to write the review.

If you like a comic that tries hard to be Doonesbury or Bloom County, then read it. Note that I said “tries hard.” It seems to be yet another attempt at a socially conscious, hard hitting comic that when all is said and done should be bottled and sold as a cure for insomnia. However, on a positive note I saw nothing that would make me warn people away from it or make it non-family friendly, though. So I give it 2 stars.

And that’s my opinion.

The Doctor

Rating:

Muddle Creek
http://muddlecreek.com/
by Jerry Benedict
Reviewed by The Doctor
(2 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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Here I am, with my big debut as a Comic Fencer…and of course it’s reviewing a comic I can’t say I liked. At all. Darn it.

So, Muddle Creek, by one Jerome Benedict. My first impression picked up, as it always will, at the site. Not a bad layout, per se, but not the most user-friendly either. The graphics could be a lot cleaner, and the navigational buttons are a bit incomplete and unintuitive. The archives are just mean - you have to search by calender, and you can’t bookmark individual pages. Which made me a little grumpy as a reviewer, since I can’t link to these individual pages for my examples either.

The comic itself is done in the classical newspaper funnies format and sticks to that format like superglue. The art, well, when I started at the beginning of the archives I easily marked up a list of comic “don’t”s that this comic did. Of course, by the time I got caught up to the last couple months, Mr. Benedict had stolen a lot of my fire by correcting most of these major errors. Well, gymnasts and figure skaters are scored on the presentation of their entire routine, not just the last few seconds, and I don’t see why comics should be any different. So, let’s bring up the deductions:

No-no no. 1: Fonts. Free fonts all over the internet. They’re so much fun that you want to use them all, right? Well, don’t. One easy-to-read font is all you need. Breaking out of it for a good “GYAAAAAAAAA!” is great for emphasis, and in some cases, using another font for large, impressive creatures or gods or sommat works well. But for the first few years of archives, Muddle Creek tended for different fonts for different characters every different strip. Unless you’re trying to showcase what’s available on free-fonts.com, I really don’t see the excuse for this. Furthermore, a lot of the fun and funky fonts were at a tiny sizes. Making me lean squinting towards the screen is not an effective way to convince me to read your comic. Stepping away from the lettering and into the speech bubble itself, Muddle Creek also suffered from poor bubble placement. This comic is hand-drawn, scanned, and the bubbles are added in the computer. Nothing wrong with this method except it seems that the panels were not plotted out to actually have text in them. As a result, the speech is often banished to the far corners of the panels. More often than not, I read the row of text bubbles above the panels, and then the row below. Which, of course, was out of order. The line-work, while regular and complete enough, is plain and not at all dynamic, and doesn’t draw the eye in the correct reading order, which is the only way you could really get away with this kind of text placement.

Mm, which brings me to the line-work - looks like ink on bristol. Nothing wrong with that, except let me give you a small hint about black and white comics: Black on white, please, not fuzzy gray on white. My technical guess at what’s happening here is these are raw scans with no contrast adjustment compounded by the fact that what we get to view are gifs. I don’t trust gifs and the random over-sharp and over-blurry of lines, both original ink and computer additions, is a prime example of why. These are further compounded by gray and newsprint fills… Muddle Creek, I guess, for muddled gray. What the heck am I looking at here? And why do I care? Page after page of this, and my eyes just glazed over. This was somewhat improved once the comic switched to color, but it’s still dull, boring, poor contrast choices with the color.

Not that I’ve ratted on the presentation, on to technical merit! Wait, this is a comic…let’s call that “content.” Supposedly we’ve a cast of characters that work and live in a small town. It’s a good thing there’s a cast page to tell me so, as I wouldn’t know that these regular lumps were actually characters and not strawmen from the actual strips. (And apparently “Molly” and “Mouse” are the same person - the nickname wasn’t explained in the strip, but I guess I can feel better for thinking they looked similar.) Although there are a couple brief attempts at “storylines,” there’s only the barest of continuity from strip to strip. I guess that only leaves the jokes as possibility for content.

…uhm…huh. Jokes. Kay. Now, given the average American comedy, be it movies, sitcoms, whathaveyou, it could be safe to say that I have no sense of humor whatsoever. I did not laugh at a single one of these comic strips. I kinda smiled at that one that I copied up there, because I still feel bad for that poor Trix Rabbit…wait, that has nothing to do with this comic? My bad. I could leave this at “this comic isn’t my kind of humor” except that some of the “humor” got me ticked. Specifically the “girls are immature and behave badly” jokes and the “religious people are stupid” jokes. They weren’t really jokes, as there was no crafted punchline or painful truth. The situations were just presented to me as “jokes.” Maybe this is that bizarre “random is teh funniiie” bull?

So, I guess my final verdict for the comic as is will be go muddle through something else. But I’ll give 1 and 1/2 stars, as it did in fact fix the text/font and speech bubble placement by the current strips. Now it just needs to fix the contrast issues and actually be funny. Oh, and I’d suggest trying more than a handful of stock facial expressions. Rating:

Muddle Creek
http://muddlecreek.com/
by Jerry Benedict
Reviewed by Sly Eagle
(2 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)

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The first thing I looked at was the sparse cast page. There is a little data on two characters and for the rest it just links to their first appearance. It struck me as a good way to throw readers into the comic.

GC is set in a huge (and I mean vast) factory in England. There is a well lit bridge across a deep chasm to a dark forest. Then it starts getting odd.

Weird stuff abound such as extra shadows. In the “school”, there is a room labeled “no spare robot parts room.” By chance, they find an abnadoned part of a library with a secret compartment to a maze with no dead ends. The main character sleeps on Bunk 30, which is not 30th in the room. It’s 30 bunks high and reachable only by ladder.

As a parent I was not liking that at all. Maybe its an English thing or inside joke or something.

There are a lot of things like these. Like a dream that goes on and on, only to get stranger at every turn. Speaking of strange, let’s look at the main character.

It’s a little girl named Antimony, who is weird in a morose, glum way. She grew up in a hospital and her mother died. That’s a good partial explanation for her personality but she strikes me like she acts a lot older than grade school age. It is like she’s trapped in this little girl body, resigned to another decade of aging until she’s grown up. She also knows how to pick locks, speaks several languages and some martial arts. That’s a lot for a ten year old. The other characters have their secrets but lack the depth of mystery that Antimony has.

The story reveals itself slowly, mostly through dialog. There is always something happening but it always get resolved with a conversation. Nothing ever seems to have a final consequence. It also seems like you never know all the details for a given character or event. There is probably something you don’t know that really matters.

The art has a certain style which has good contrast, line and color work. It doesn’t have a lot of extra detail but it does provide a clear visual. One thing; the big eyes of the characters became a little disturbing after reading a sizable portion of the archives. I’m not sure why I got that from GC.

Overall, there’s something about it that’s not quite right for me. I have a solid sense of dissatisfaction with it, although it’s hard to describe what is causing it. Perhaps what I am getting most from it is a subtle but seething hostility. Mix in a little despair and frustration tempered by a quiet resolution.

That’s very strange, isn’t it? As I tried to figure out why, I decided to research things. There’s an interview on Comixtalk in which I found my answer.

The artist is seemingly fond of horror. He read a line of books by Alfred Hitchcock when he was younger and One of his first comics was about Freddy Kreuger and Dracula. What that lends itself to are many elements used or mentioned that I just don’t like. I’m just not a horror fan.

(Remember Dash’s teacher from the Incredibles? He was insanely sure that Dash was tacking his chair? Imagine me ranting away in that same tone of voice:) Please note that there is an element named the same as the lead character Antimony. It is metal deathly toxic (like arsenic) and one of its poisoning symptoms is depression. The alchemical symbol for Antimony looks like an upside down version of the symbol for female, as well. There is more, but I’m pretty convinced that the name of the main character was no accident.

GC is a well done,original work and does not have a predictable story, but it is definitely too dark for me. Rating:

Gunnerkrigg Court
http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/
by Tom Siddell
review by Delos Woodruff
(5 votes, average: 2.4 out of 5)

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I have tried to rewrite this review many times and no matter how I do it, it never seems as honest as this one. So here goes. I didn’t like this comic, really, at all, nor would I recommend it to others to read. Why? Here’s why:

1. It has all the earmarks of a Harry Potter knock off, for one, complete with spooky locales, scary people (two she ran into in the library looked like zombies with eye sockets instead of eyes, or as though their eyes had been torn out) and bizarre happenings. All I could think of as I read it was waiting for someone like Snape to show up, or Nearly Headless Nick to come by and make a joke and then go off again, or a book to scream in Harry Pott….I mean, sorry…Antimony’s face. I was surprised she wasn’t named Hermione, to be honest. The comic also was very dark, much like the Potter books became. There is real, concrete evil in the world - I don’t need to be immersed in it in a webcomic. That was a definite turn-off, just as something like The Care Bears is a complete turn-off at the other extreme.

2. Characterizations - The characters themselves seemed like contrivances, honestly, in the way in which they were created and seemed to develop. (Read that as “unimaginative”) Antimony reminded me way too much of Daria, a character from the old MTV days who I simply could not stand in any capacity. If you don’t know who Daria is, look her up and you’ll see what I mean. Never smiles, you can almost HEAR her speak in that flat monotone, and you get the feeling she tolerates the people around her who aren’t as “with it” as she is. I kept having the urge to reach into the comic and slap her and tell her to get OVER herself. I can’t help but wonder who it is that actually identifies with a character like this? Her “best friend” is every bit as bad, not only being the obligatory anchor for Antimony but having all the earmarks of also being a romantic interest, (oh, yay) as is the “guy who turns into a wolf and still talks” - standard inclusions for stories of this nature.

Suffice to say just once I’d like to see a happy, well adjusted person in one of these comics who still has odd things happen to them instead of the typical “smarter than everyone else/out of step with everyone else” character like they have here. Contrary to popular opinion not every intelligent or learned person is either (a) totally out of step with reality, (b) a complete social pariah or (c) cynical and depressed sounding because the people around them are just SO un-intelligent.

3. Far too much of the supernatural/mystical/mythological stuff to even make for an enjoyable read. One comic in particular has her talking to one of the beings who supposedly come to take any and everything away that die. I believe they are called “psychopomp.” (I hope I get geek bonus points for knowing that, or something) As expected, almost no one else can see them, and so that makes her “special,” somehow, rather than the horrified person she’d be if she REALLY saw supernatural entities of the kind described here. In the beginning of the webcomic she gets an extra shadow, and then - surprise! - it starts to talk to her. Of course, she takes it in stride and helps the shadow out. Excuse me? Fiction or no, isn’t that just a bit of a stretch to expect people to swallow? She didn’t even bat an eye, as though this stuff happens all the time. It smacks of shoe-horning to get to a desired point, rather than good storytelling that brings you there with the characters. Kind of a “Even though it makes no sense at all, I’ll have her just ‘oh well’ the extra shadow so we can get rolling.” Sloppy.

4. The overall background and coloring was drab, and then some. If depression were expressed as a comic, this would be it. Can you imagine actually ATTENDING a school like that? God help you. I have yet to see one, myself, and pray no one would ever send their child to such a dreary, dark place as the school depicted here, fiction or no. It makes me wonder, at the risk of being offensive, just exactly what issues the author is dealing with, themselves.

I’m sure there are people out there who think that this comic is just the living end. To me, it’s yet another send off of established stories, mediocre art work and a comic that tries FAR too hard to be something symbolic, heavy, and dramatic.

I give it 1 star. Rating:

The Doctor

Gunnerkrigg Court
http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/
by Tom Siddell
review by the Doctor
(10 votes, average: 1.9 out of 5)

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Ah, young adulthood. It’s a time of indecision. It’s a time of dreams. Your brain box is filled with all the facts, figures, and statistics accumulated from years of college education, and you’re ready to share your heartbreaking genius to the ignorant, unwashed masses. The world is your oyster, ready for you to pry it open with a rusty knife and feast on its meaty goodness. The young men of Applied Living are typical examples of these post-adolescents who are both rebelling and adjusting to the inherent conformity of a modern capitalist society.

The cast is anchored by Dave, the brown-haired one, and Shaun, the blonde-haired one with the goatee. The first page establishes them as friends since childhood… though I don’t know why, since it’s never brought up again. The first order of business is unpacking, or trying to get your roommate to unpack. Afterwards, they meet a guy with a glowstick, try to get jobs, and set things on fire.

I should warn you, I’m making this comic sound more interesting than it really is.

Remember when Seinfeld marketed itself as The Show About Nothing? Seinfeld has nothing on this comic, which really IS about nothing. And after reading this comic, I know why: actually writing something about doing nothing is an exercise in boredom. As an aside, the comic may actually be attempting to mimic Seinfeld’s trademark humor. One of the strips is entitled “Seinfeld-esque.” If this is so, then it’s in vain: Meyers cannot get the cadence and rhythm to construe anything the resembles a joke.

Take the dialogue, for example. Your Honor, Exhibit A:
“Well, if my theory is at all veracious (and I admit that it is a bit vicious), then you’re probably on the verge of a heart attack. I’m more prepared than a participant of the Cold War.”
“I wasn’t aware you were in contact with an arms-dealer.”
“End of the hall. The guy basically runs a reincarnation of Vulcan’s Forge.”

And for a more recent example, Exhibit B:
“So… your brother seems to be smiting Shaun with the Bible.”
“No, that’s just Mike’s personal manifesto. The Art of War, The Prince, and a Couple of Anti-Prohibition pamphlets ‘re-envisioned’ as a comic book.”

I’ve read this line several times. I have concluded that if I heard one of my friends say this to me in real life, I would 1.) roll my eyes, and 2.) decide to no longer be friends with this person ever again, especially after their back end has come into contact with my steel-toed boot. Because this isn’t humor. This is nerd blabbering. Yet this is the sort of humor that Applied Living apparently provides in spades. (The term “humor,” of course, being used in a purely theoretical sense, since I can say with total, utmost confidence that there was not a single panel in this comic that made me laugh.)

There’s also a recurring theme where Dave and Shaun create a comic strip that mimics Calvin & Hobbes. Only — GET THIS, GUYS — Calvin is an actual Calvinist (if not John Calvin himself), what with his belief in predestination and all. Clever, witty, and oh so random, am I right? Not necessarily. Hasn’t every Calvin & Hobbes reader — which I would like to imagine are more sophisticated than the average comic strip peruser — at some point made the Calvin/John Calvin connection? I mean, it’s not like Bill Watterson took great pains to hide the origins of their names or anything.

The above are only a few examples of the many bits that, to me, fell so flat that they disappear completely when turned sideways. However, humor is indeed subjective. There may have been a point in my life which I like to call “Freshman Year in College” where I might have laughed at Applied Living. Ah, yes … Freshman year: back when you thought Oasis really was the second coming of the Beatles and reading James Joyce was considered the pinnacle of human enlightenment. It’s that awkward time when you’re too old for knock-knock jokes, yet too young to grasp the subtle nuance of a good “Yo Momma” joke. Maybe I would have found the non-sequiturs — which include multiple clones and a talking flame that resides in Dave’s imagination — uproariously funny instead of just embarrassing and tedious. Hey, Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show has a fanatical following for some reason, so I’m not ruling out that there’s an actual audience for sub-par humor. Rating:

Applied Living
written by Shaun Meyers
art by Dave Olson
http://applied-living.com

review by Larry Cruz, a.k.a. El Santo

(3 votes, average: 2.33 out of 5)

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I had originally written a rather middle of the road review, thinking perhaps that because of my dislike for anime/manga I may have been a little harsh on the comic after my initial read. However, after seeing some of the other reviews I realized that it wasn’t just me, and so I feel a bit more confident in going back and editing my review a bit. Respected colleague and fellow reviewer, El Santo was concerned that the girls drawing this thing were young and didn’t want to be too harsh - I say “If you ask to be hung out as a target, expect to get some fire.” I figure it will be good for at least 10 years of the artist going through the typical “no one understands my work” angst, and I will have done my job. Maybe the angst will stop this thing from being perpetrated on the world any further than it has been already. (I’ve already been ripped apart on other blogs for my reviews, according to our esteemed moderator - I’m going for 2!)

Antics is an appropriate title, since the comic seems to revolve around just that - the antics of two girls who look like they either (a) need to go home so they won’t be late for homeroom tomorrow, or (b) are the most mentally/physically underdeveloped women the world has ever seen.

The overall comic is, to put it frankly, very poor, in my opinion. The art looks unfinished and sketchy (and I’m being generous, there), with little or no proportion, rhyme or reason, or even color to make it look like anything other than pages published out of a beginning art course. Done primarily in a flat, dull grey, you almost get the feeling you’re looking into someone’s dream, or perhaps seeing it though the eyes of the colorblind. All of the standard anime touches are here, like some kind of odd cross between “Pokemon” and being outright cartoon-like, and making it very hard on the eyes. I’ve never, in my 38 years of life, seen anyone who could make their faces contort the way these people do, nor have I seen anyone with hair that goes up into two 45 degree angles and then slopes down on either side of their face. And the eyes - are all of these people nocturnal, or what? They’d burn their retinas out in a heartbeat if they went out in the sun with eyes that big!

If you want to draw in the style, then at least learn HOW before you hang your work out for all to see.

The characters are, to be kind, dull and uninteresting. Stereotypical and dull-witted is what I would say if I wasn’t trying to be kind. Oh, that’s harsh, you say? Well, let’s see… the comic shown with this post, I believe, says it well. I’ll paraphrase what the characters are saying:

“Well, damnation, this has been a dull day.”

“Yeah, but you know the artist will throw in some hackneyed plot device any second now.” (POOF!) “Oh look! A swirling portal of energy that no one on God’s green Earth has ever seen before! It could take us right to the 10th level of Hell but hey! there’s pretty boys in there with no clothes on! LET’S GO THROUGH!” “

Hey, that sounds like a great idea! Boys are always fun! (giggle giggle)”

A sterling example to all the feminists out there, let me tell you! But…I digress.

Ok, first of all, boys/men as a general rule (and a matter of grammar, too, I believe) are handsome, not pretty. Usually “pretty” boys are a different, lesser breed altogether, so let’s get that straight RIGHT now. (Think of ol’ Tom “We’re all infected by aliens!” Cruise and you’ve got your pretty boy right there) With the exception of girls using the term on television sitcoms (I overheard it when I wasn’t too busy trying to claw my eyes out) I have never heard a boy described as pretty in any manner other than a derogatory one. Although to be fair, the way they drew the “boys” in this thing they look so much like girls themselves that I guess you could call them pretty. (shudder) Androgynous anime art (Alliteration, anyone?) - makes my skin crawl.

Ok, rant over, and back to the characters.

Can you say “stereotypical brain-dead teenage girls?” I knew you could. From their giggly demeanor to their vapid, wide eyed expressions, they fit the bill every time. What makes it even more laughable is the fact that earlier, the two girls were engaged in the typical “Oh that guy is such a low life” “Oh golly, yes, but he’s so CUTE!” conversation that is part and parcel of every show since Growing Pains. One girl’s name is “Ami” - now, when last I knew it was spelled AMY, unless of course you’re drawing heavily on the “totally overused Anime/Japanimation naming system ™ ,” in which case it’s Ami. With her friend being named Lys, I seriously expected one of them to turn into Sailor Moon, for pity’s sake. Of course, waiting on the other side of the portal is the incredibly handsome stranger (who, of course, is an anti-hero and provides the much needed romantic fantasy fulfillment of the girls in the story) and the story rapidly degenerates into a bad copy of Beverly Hills 90210. At that point my brain gives me an ultimatum - stop reading this or I’ll torment you with memories of this stinker FOREVER. So I stop reading.

The plot, if you can call it that, is something to do with gods, other realms, fate controlling your destiny, and of course these two girls being the focal point of it all. Yeah…that’s about what I said, too; “What, again?” I mean, sure, if I needed the universe saved, I’d choose two girls who haven’t progressed beyond the 10th grade “he’s hot and that’s all that matters” criteria for partners. (rolls eyes) Of course, this whole thing seems to be one overused collection of tropes, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

Come on, people. Can we have at least a passing nod to that lost art called “imagination”? This stuff belongs on the Disney channel line up for the afternoon, right after Hanna Montana, don’t you think?

So what do I say to you, the unwitting victims of this travesty of the art called the webcomic? I say that if you like your humor on the unimaginative teenage level, your art poorly sketched and your story so replete with gaping holes in logic that it could be an original series Star Trek episode, then read it. If you don’t, or like me, you didn’t like teenagers even when you were one, I say run, screaming, and do it NOW. I’d rather spend an hour in the Multiplex (See my review of the same) than read any more of this. That should tell you something. Rating:

And that’s my review.

The Doctor

Antics
by Katherine Taboda and Kristina Foster
http://antics.comicgenesis.co

(3 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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