A funny thing happened to me tonight. While taking some notes for a review of Press Start to Play by Adam Law and Darryl Walker, which recently became a founding contributor to the gaming comics collective, Gamers Pair of Dice, my opinion of the strip evolved over the course of my page and a half of thoughts, good and bad, on this seemingly derivative webcomic (it is, after all, a gaming strip).

Before assembling my opinions, my first impression was that it did nothing new for the genre and so it should be largely ignored by your webcomic pull-lists. However, while putting together bulleted lists, pros and cons, and other forms of constructive criticism, I found that, on the whole, I enjoyed reading through the archives and I even added the strip to MY pull-list. I won’t go into exactly why my opinion of the strip changed (for that, you can catch the full review in the next issue of Zoinks!), but suffice it to say that this change of heart altered my initial perception of the entire collective.

So I went through each strip, and lo AND behold, I found something to like about each one! Here’s a fer instance for each:

Dueling Analogs by Steve Napierski: The art is very well done and the design of the site is one of the best in webcomics. Doesn’t hurt that the jokes can be side-splitters from time to time.

Commissioned by Obsidian: Very distinct art style, with another sharp writer.

Digital Unrest by Chris Simmons: Featuring the best artwork of the bunch, the writing, while similar to every single gaming webcomic before it, is solid enough to warrant a notch on the pull-list.

ExtraLife by Scott Johnson: The only comic I knew of before the collective was formed, it features jokes in the perfect webcomic size: small, easily digestible, and DEE-licious. It also features a very distinct, political satire-like art style.

And as any collective worth its salt must do, Gamers Pair of Dice has already grown by two, welcoming Goblins by Tarol Hunt and Danielle Stephens and ActionTrip by Borislav Grabovic and Uros Jojic into the fold.

Congrats to the new additions and a big HURRAH! for the entire collective. You look to be strong out of the gate and here’s hoping you’ll continue to ride high in the saddle.