Digital Strips Podcast 317 – Review – Loading Artist

loading-artist-img1Happy Digital Strips Day, Digital Strippers! It’s time for that Digital Strippiest of Digital Strips podcasts, Digital Strips! If everybody else is claiming days left and right, who’s to say we can’t do the same? After all, we are the oldest, currently updating webcomics podcast in the world (come at us, bro!).

Do you like webcomics? Good, because we talked about some!

We come back with more comics after the break, but not until I present to you “Jason Sigler, Electronics A-hole.” As always, a sweet video game tune backs our inane chatter. This time, it’s “Spelunking in Space” from Kirby Super Star (15:30), remixed by Hylian Lemon (man, the crew who do music on Overclocked Remix have the raddest names).

As promised, we bring the volume with mentions surrounding this week’s great find:

A slew of mentioned comics does not a bad comic make. Evidence to the contrary is of ample supply in this case, as Loading Artist is a great comic in its own right.

Further inane chatter: Jason takes what he can get, Happy Star Wars Day from Steve’s mom, we put the word “nerd” in front of every possible state of mind and/or being and coming soon to the Digital Strips Podcast Network: Audio Gigolo.

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Digital Strips Podcast 316 – Review – The Line

Sorry for the later post. Daylightsavings has been kicking my butt.

This week is another episode that I couldn’t stop smiling about during the editing process. We had a lot of fun as we discuss The Line, by the very prolific Kevin Church. It’s the story of a high pressure kitchen in a fancy resturaunt and the lives it ruins.

We talk about our favorite “sim” games and how one in particular ruined both of our lives and made Steve super competive with bugs. We then delve into a deep round of things that make us feel good and start with the letter B. Then Jason gets up on his soupbox about how people release their games and Steve gets on his about how people should seek to be entertained reliably.

In “Whatca been readin’ Jason” we talk about The Night by B. Sabo and talk about how horror is in so manythings now that we expect it. I even had some horror in my miniwheats yesterday.

A breif detour into what we like in an about page leads us to the second thing Jason’s been reading, a 24 comic that we both agreed was well done and fun. Maybe even well fun.

Steve on the over hand has been reading Samurai’s Blood, another print comic going web serial, this time with Samurai.

We talk about Strip Search again, which still isn’t as sexy as it sounds like it should be.

During the music we talk about how not having an xBox makes everything worse.

We get down in dirty with the horrible culinary experices that have been Jason’s life. And how ketchup and ham played into it, which leds us well into the food centric comic.

We talk about artist writer combonations where the two sides form more than their parts. And then promptly become unable to think of examples of this.

We wrap up and Steve forgets that there’s not more UPN. It was important at the time

Links:
The Night
Rutabaga
Eric Colossel’s day
Samurai’s Blood
Skullkickers
The Rack
Lydia
Lonliest Astronauts

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Digital Strips Podcast 315 – Horizons Watch – Broodhollow and Muscles Diablo

You know when we talk about both reality TV and Dr. Strangelove in the same episode that we have the makings of something discordant and chaotic. Luckily, we agree on the things that matter. The others, not so important (if you don’t know which is which in that scenario, then I feel sorry for you).

dr_strangelove

Should this feel dirty? Because it feels dirty.

Speaking of disagreeing, it’s time once again for Horizons Watch! We pick two fresh-ish comics and bring them before our two-man tribunal (hush) for judging, mockery and entertainment. Before we get to those more in-depth looks, we have other comics that have crossed our paths recently:

(5:39) The Sundays
(7:26) Rocket Robinson and the Pharaoh’s Fortune

The big news this (past) week was the launch of Penny Arcade’s much-anticipated reality competition series …

(9:10) Strip Search

While Steve has long since sworn off shows like this that don’t involve sweaty dudes rolling around together and 30 Rock parodies, I watched the first episode and came away feeling like it was a show that was produced by a production company (Bionic Trousers Media). More thoughts can be found in the podcast proper. During our discussion, we couldn’t help but pick out one contestant who we’ve previously talked about and reviewed on the show:

(11:03) Skadi

I read an article recently about the purpose of video game reviews in the modern gaming culture, specifically with regards to setting discourse. Many reviewers find themselves tasked with establishing the faults and/or strengths of a particular property and leaving it for the audience to judge whether they are right or wrong. While it can debated whether or not this should be the goal of a critic, it is certainly true that I have set the discourse for this series and the remainder of its episodes will have to work to change that. For me, at least, I hope you will tell us if your experience was different.

One of our featured comics has the word “diablo” in the title, so naturally I picked something from the game series of the same name for our midshow chat.

(15:30) ‘Wet Grass Inspired’ by AmIEvil

Two great comics come over our Horizons this time, both wildly different, and showing how things should be done in comics while also displaying some missteps in their lives on the Web. First up, Kris Straub’s newest comic confection:

(19:34) Broodhollow

If you want a comic that looks like Starslip (a previous, now completed Straub creation) but has a sinister undertone, Broodhollow has what you’re looking for. Protagonist Wadsworth Zane represents the everyman while also possessing demons, both figurative and (possibly) literal. It makes for a fun read that offers just enough mystery to keep you coming back for more.

Our second pick:

(28:02) Muscles Diablo

In the fun and nothing but category, Muscles Diablo stands second to none. Muscles is, as described by creator Pat N. Lewis, “a tough guy with a shady past who punches a lot of things”. No mystery there! The only question we had is why would you host such a great comic on such a terrible template for Tumblr (re-reading comics is a chore, though this may not affect non-reviewing types). We’ve encountered this problem before, and speaking of that, here are the comics that naturally came up in our conversations:

(24:51) Lovecraft is Missing
(24:56) Sin Titulo
(27:39) Epicsplosion (still no idea if this currently has a home on the Web, if you find it, please let us know!)
(30:41) Little League (now JL8?)

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