At the risk of becoming the grumpy old “I don’t like anything”curmudgeon of this merry band of reviewers, I have to again admit this comic just didn’t work for me. It has some promise, but the execution is lacking.

It’s the story of Ami and Lys, two high school girls who get sucked through a rift in spacetime (conveniently located in a dark room in their school) and end up in a dimension that looks and feels a lot like every other fantasy setting we’ve ever encountered. While the story is short on the stereotypical ogres and elves (so far), there are elemental goddesses and the shirtless men who do their bidding as well as a band of shirtless “knights” (I didn’t notice them doing anything particularly knight-like, but the narration says they are), a friendly inn-keeper (JayJay, young and female, somewhat bucking tradition there), a shady-acting man (Dannon, who possesses green glowing magical powers … or are they shadow powers? It seems to change as the storyline progresses), and some sort of secret goings-on that involve a band of men who want to possess Ami and Lys.

The writing definitely needs work. The concept is there, but the pacing is all off. Scenes that need greater explanation go by with almost no narration or dialogue, while other scenes are too long for what the creator is trying to accomplish. People who hate the tv series LOST because characters often fail to ask obvious and important questions will be aggravated by this comic, in which the main characters wait until chapter five to ask the most obvious question. (The pacing does improve somewhat in the most recent posts.) The dialogue is often stilted, and sometimes filled with non-sequiturs. For instance, the dialogue on this page is completely disconnected from the out-of-character moment on the next. It seems, like the half-cat nature of the main characters, to be inserted simply because the author thought it was funny, without regard to how it plays in the larger context.

Oh, and did I mention that, for no reason readily apparent in the story, when the girls fell through the rift they turned from fully human into half-human/half-cat? Yep, they gain cat ears and tails. Other characters have to point the change out to them (characters who didn’t know them before they came through the rift, so why would they feel the urge to point this out?) and although other characters admit to having fallen through similar rifts the girls seem to be the only ones who have been affected this way.

The art is also sketchy in a lot of places. On pages like this I’m not really sure what’s supposed to be happening. But then there are pages like the title page for chapter five, and this close up of Dannon that are very well done.

Overall, I’d give Antics two stars more for it’s potential than for its actual execution. Rating:

Antics
http://antics.comicgenesis.com/
by Kristina Foster
reviewed by Anthony R. Cardno
(4 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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Antics begins with a metaphysical origin story. The four elements came together and life was created, but so was death.

Life was the goal and result of a united effort between the elements but now death seeks to unravel all that work. The story then shows a girl ignoring her alarm clock and waking up late.

The linework is very light and almost has a sketchy quality. Antics is mostly streaking greys with bits of white. There are no word balloons, but there are smudges with white lettering serving the purpose. Overall, the effect is very dream like and moody. It does also make it very hard to follow what is going on. Let me give you an example from the opening comics:

There are two girls in a high school setting in Ontario, Canada. They look very similiar to me, but they have different hair styles and one is named Ami while the other is Lys. There’s a boy named David who tries to show one of the girls a little attention but the other gets upset. Then, not too much later one girl is falling through the air and complaining that the other girl is sleeping. She falls into water and starts to talk with the mistress of the sea. It continues on, but there are more events and conversations like that.

You see? Many comics later, there is a brief explanation that one of the girls fainted and got very cold. This was, in fact, all some kind of dream. Almost immediately after that is another transition for the other girl who began talking to some other strange entity. There is a lot left unexplained.

The themes that I’m seeing revolve around being left alone and having your decisions made by someone else than yourself. I would say decisions forced by circumstance but in Antics, almost everything is alive. The girls are stuck in a dream world.

Something I did like is that, in later comics, Antics has some unusual panel splits. There are designs like this one that leave some panels open. This helps with that dreamy mood that’s being maintained. Other artists accomplish the same thing by leaving a lot of empty space around odd sized panels. This might be a potentially useful technique for the comic artists reading this review.

Overall, I found Antics hard to understand. There is a more recent comic that explains enough of what has been going on that it makes sense (up to that point.) The storytelling focuses mostly on conversations so you don’t see much in the way of physical movement between places or obvious story and character progress. My confusion might be, in part, due to not being able to grasp the feminine sensibility of the artist. It does seem as if the artist knows what story she is telling and the art fits the mood. I give Antics two stars. Rating:

Antics
by Kristina Foster
http://antics.comicgenesis.com/
review by Delos Woodruff
(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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No Need For Bushido by Alex Kolesar and Joe Kovell
reviewed by Anthony R. Cardno

The Moderator pretty much said it all in his “next up” piece:  it is colorful, it is full of oriental culture, and it is somewhat in a manga/anime style.

I have to be honest, I had a hard time working my way through this.  Creating a comedy-action-drama, as the creators describe this comic, is not easy.  For instance, I think the movie version of Iron Man got the balance right, but Bushido struggles.  Sometimes the story is too comedic, rife with anachronistic dialogue (for instance, the seemingly requisite-in-web-comics diss of Canada, seen here.  Sometimes it’s too dark compared to what surrounds it (a bloody battle in a forest like this one.  Sometimes it tries too hard for a creative punchline (what exactly IS a “bad hair day’s worst nightmare,”)It doesn’t seem to be able to find a balance.

The characters, at least early on, are as one-note as the art is cartoonish.  The good news is, the art does improve over the 300+ pages of the story – it grows from wide-eyed and round-faced and flat-looking to more streamlined and possessing a bit more depth.  It does pick up more “typical” action-manga stylings as it goes on, and there are some pages that seem reminiscent of the style used in “The Gods of Arr-Kellean” (one of my current favorite webcomics).  The characters also seem to grow – as the creators give them more realistic looks, they seem to lose some of the rougher edges of the stereotypes they represent.    At the beginning, I decided that “Ina” must be Japanese for “selfish brat,” Yori must translate as “clueless simpleton,” and Cho Teko as “Mr. Miyagi.”  By time I reached the 300s, I still felt that way, but not quite as much.  Actually, my opinion of one main character did change early on:  by this page, I realized that Yori wasn’t just any stereotypical clueless simpleton obsessed with the power tools of his day – he’s Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor!

I have to give the creators of “Bushido” an A for effort – they’ve been plugging away at this story for a long time, and they’ve tried hard to improve their art and storytelling.  I also have to give them credit for the fact that the first half of the really did remind me of an old Bob Hope / Bing Crosby / Dorothy Lamour “Road To …” picture.  If Lamour were a loud-mouthed brat, Hope were a clueless wannabe-samurai and Crosby were a blind Chinese swordsman.  If you can struggle past the first half of the archive, you might find yourself caught up in the action and intrigue that develops in the second half of the story.  It couldn’t hold my attention, but it might hold yours. Rating:

No Need for Bushido
by Alex Kolesar and Joseph Kovell
http://www.noneedforbushido.com/
review by Anthony R. Cardno
(4 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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(with apologies to Warren Zevon)

Paradigm Shift

by Dirk I. Tiede

http://www.webcomicsnation.com/dirktiede/ps/series.php

reviewed by Anthony R. Cardno

Anyone who reads my book reviews on my own blog knows that I’m a sucker for a good mystery. Or even for a bad mystery. And I definitely have no problem with the “tall and thin / big eyed / motion lines” form of manga – it’s not my favorite art style, but it doesn’t annoy me at all as long as it fits the style of story being told.

Still, something about Paradigm Shift doesn’t work for me. It should – it’s a straightforward police procedural with supernatural or super-scientific overtones. The main characters are Detectives Stuart and MacAllister, partners in the Chicago PD. One mundane case leads them into an X-Files-ish world that possibly contains werewolves and the Chinese gangs. Stuart and MacAllister are not exactly Mulder and Scully though, although they each have their share of secrets. MacAllister has nightmares which are either inspired by the crime scenes or are buried memories of them. Stuart has a background that seems to involve martial arts and black ops training.

The pace of the story is fine – things are developing in a timely manner and there aren’t any real diversions or digressions. Even the subplot – the mundane case that starts the story off – looks like it will eventually tie into the main plot nicely. Even with the good pacing, something just doesn’t click. It might be the main characters themselves. I don’t really believe their cameraderie, and their banter seems forced. Individually, MacAllister’s confusion and Stuart’s zen-like calm are good character points, but they don’t feel fully rounded. It feels like they serve the story rather than the story serving them.

There are aspects of the art that are fantastic. Tiede takes every pain to make the Chicago locales true to life. Panoramic shots of the city, detailed shots of the Lincoln Park Zoo and other real places, all add verisimilitude to the goings-on. Character art is, as I said, that sort of stereotypical “serious manga” look, which does not really detract from the story … except in the visual for Detective MacAllister. She is for some reason burdened with pointy bangs on her head that sometimes extend down to her cheekbones. I find this incredibly distracting, not to mention slightly unbelievable – how many working female cops let the front of their hair flop down in a way that may possibly obstruct their view when they’re on the job? And how many use enough gel to turn those bangs into theoretically deadly weapons?

Paradigm Shift is not a bad comic, but it’s not one I’ll be coming back to frequently to check on the progress. Warning: each individual page is comprised of several “regular” pages, so scrolling to the bottom tends to feel a bit endless. http://www.webcomicsnation.com/dirktiede/ps/series.php?view=archive&chapter=18397

[rating= 2.5]

Paradigm Shift
by Dirk Tiede
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/dirktiede/ps/series.php?view=archive&chapter=10435
review by Talekyn
(5 votes, average: 4.6 out of 5)

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Hmm…

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I read this comic, to be honest. Was it going to be a non-stop run of movie jokes? Was it going to be edgy, engaging in socially impacting humor or biting satire, a la Doonesbury? Was it just going to be witless and juvenile, rehashing the same tired adolescent sex/bathroom “humor” that’s become an inseparable part of most web comics out there? All of the above, or none?

I’m sorry to say that unfortunately, it’s all of the above.

To be honest, I can’t really say the strip is terrible, although I can say that for different reasons I really don’t think it’s very good, but I also can’t say it’s great and I’d go back and read it again, or recommend it to everyone to run right out and read. This one, kids, is going to be more your call than ever. I can, however, give you The Doctor’s take on what I saw and let you go from there.

Some of the comics were funny. I’ll give them that. Two stick in my mind - #23, in which a group of children is surprisingly well behaved in the movie theater, for reasons I WON’T tell you here, and #248, in which every person’s fantasy comes true who has dealt with very annoying children in public. No, I won’t spoil it. Go read it!

The artwork, unfortunately, really wasn’t anything special. It looked as though still frames from South Park were used to design the characters, honestly. I kept expecting some foul mouthed little beggar to appear or someone to yell about someone else having killed Kenny. The gags, as I have said of other comics, is really where the letdown came in.

I couldn’t call the comic family friendly, since as seems to be prevalent these days, the comics trotted out the same old sex jokes (such as the typical “woman hiding under the desk and another worker seeing her” joke) and were entirely too willing to be off color or use crude humor for the sake of a punchline. Other jokes were just obvious, at least to me; the female co-worker talking about sword fight scenes having hidden homoerotic meanings and not understanding why the men liked them (silly me - my wife enjoys a good sword fight scene as much as I do - go figure); the “racism is only funny when a minority does it” jokes - although I give them kudos for touching on a territory most avoid like the plague; the terminally happy, clueless blond (what a surprise) co-worker - I could go on but I’ll digress. Some of the gags were ok, but most really weren’t. Most seemed to be re-hashes of standard sitcom jokes and formulas, except done in the context of a movie theater. Nothing, really, that stuck out or stood out to make this a cutting edge comic, I guess, when all is said and done.

So for all those reasons, I give it 2 stars. Rating:

And that’s my opinion.

The Doctor

Multiplex

by Gordon McAlpin

http://multiplexcomic.com

review by The Doctor

(11 votes, average: 3.64 out of 5)

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Andy Samberg once inspired a country to consume Red Vines and Mr. Pibb in celebration of Chronicles of Narnia. For today’s review of Aimee Chow and Matt Summers’ Tales of Pylea, you might want to go a little downscale: Sam’s Choice licorice and root beer, perhaps. Instead of a dreamworld of magic, Pylea brings us weak sissy fights, absurdly pointless scenes about eating eggs at a tavern, and the world’s least threatening demonic creatures.

You know it’s fantasy because of preponderance of pointy ears and the tongue-twister quality of the characters’ names: F’nor, Gobenhock, L’Shun, and a slew of others that sound like they were lifted wholesale from the Eye of Argon. (Coincidentally, not unlike Argon, this comic is best read in the company of two sassy robots.) Tales of Pylea is a little bit of a misnomer, since it only follows one tale, two at best. The B-story is a trite tale about a scantily clad female elf named Arianhod and her strict warrior training regimen, which — I kid you not — mostly consists of how long you can stay balanced on one hand.

In the main story, our hero, F’nor …

Crow: Isn’t that some sort of Hungarian dish that goes great with spatzle?
Tom: I’d really love to buy a vowel right now.

… is approached by a mystery woman who entrusts him with a relic. In a plot twist that in no way recalls The Lord of the Rings, the MacGuffin holds some sort of ancient power that the bad guys want to get a hold of. Then F’nor gets into a couple of gentle scrapes with aforementioned baddies. I admit I enjoyed these somewhat, but for my own reasons: I imagined the characters spitting out every line with the hyperkinetic inflection you’d find on Dragonball Z. Otherwise, the fight sequences are confusingly paced. I was genuinely caught off guard when one fight came to an abrupt end.

F’nor finds his contact, goes to sleep at the inn, eats tavern food, and finds out that his relic is a sword with a butt-ugly handle. And… that’s about it. Whew! How were Chow and Summers able to cram so much story in only four years? By the way, for a guy who’s supposed to be the story’s leading man, F’nor is as bland as a box of saltines. I’d say he was one-dimensional, but that may be giving him too much credit. There’s nothing much to define him beyond his pretty face, hair to die for, and a skin-tight outfit stolen from the Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. His companions fare worse, and from time to time, I had a hard time telling them apart. (It’s hard to distinguish characters who have boring, lifeless hair.)

And then there’s the antagonist, the vampiric villain Uthnar, who, for some reason, looks like a mulleted Aquaman. I wager that he’s supposed to come off as frightening and menacing. Instead, he comes off as a huge tool. The guy yells every other word he speaks, even when he’s ordering drinks, of all things. He talks in hilariously clunky syntax, making empty threats straight out of a 1980’s Saturday morning cartoon. (Example: “We shall meet again, and next time, the relic, as well as your head, will be mine!”) In what may be the goofiest mannerism of all, he walks around without a shirt. Why? Perhaps his vampiric state requires a greater degree of heat transfer than normal humans, but personally I think he just wants to totally show off his fabulous rock-hard six pack.

It seems strange, though, that Uthnar spends most of the story trying to find out people’s names. (Again, I kid you not.) I guess villainy isn’t all about fun things like looting and pillaging; there a less thrilling, bureaucratic side that the movies never show. Bonus dialogue: “Take the name to the Witchkin, I want ANYTHING and EVERYTHING about this name DIVINED, I want to know WHO he is, WHERE he’s from, EVERYTHING.” Naturally, I enjoyed reading about “The Adventures of Uthnar” more than anything else in Pylea. He’s so campy, pro wrestlers would take this guy aside and ask him to tone it down a notch. But, you know, that’s also like saying I enjoy acne more than I enjoy cholera.

The art is fine, but nothing spectacular. It’s a manga house style that’s indistinguishable from other wannabe manga artists. (Compare that to anything done by webcomic contemporary Remy Mokhtar.) I think Chow and Summers were aiming to tell an action packed fantasy story that’s easily accessible. A sort of Lord of the Rings with all of the trappings but none of the encyclopedic backstory, if you will. But you know, there’s fun and light-hearted, and then there’s cheesy and empty — the webcomic version of a Sci-fi Network Original Series. I’ll let you guess which category Pylea falls in.

Rating:

Tales of Pylea
by Aimee Chow and Matt Summers
http://talesofpylea.com/
review by Larry Cruz

(3 votes, average: 1 out of 5)

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