Category Archives: Reviews

Digital Strips Podcast 248 – Horizons Watch: Free Mars and Oyster Wars (That Should Rhyme, But It Doesn’t)

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Mario NOOOOO!!!It’s a holiday here in America. I really don’t think I need to say that though. We Americans are pretty outspoken about our holidays. I don’t think too many people are caught off guard by any one of them any more (except Mother’s Day, which sneak attacks thousands of men every year). This goes along with the general theme of being American of “non-sublety.” We are not a nation of ninjas, I’ll tell you what.

Anyway, it’s time for another episode of Digital Strips Horizon’s Watch. This month we bring two more quality up and comers to the Brotherhood of Web Comics for your approval. First we do Free Mars by Dave Pauwels and Nicolas R. Giacondino, a grungy, flowing and epic tale of the rock and roll and the revolution of Mars. Next we go back in time to the days of Reconstruction, wood ships and piracy with Oyster War by Ben Towle one of those neo-oldschool comics that I love so much.

We also talk about Mario and video games in general for a bit. I share a little life lesson I learned about eavesdropping on old people and Jason raves about having a Mac.

We then hear the first of our Mario themed songs, “Pipes” by Seventh Epic.

We then go to news. Jason mentions a couple new comics. Bucko and Cochlea and Eustachea (Jason couldn’t say it properly so I can’t find it, if you can translate his babbling into a link, let me know EDIT: Link now present and working. You’re welcome. – MIDNIGHT). Then we talk about Kate Beaton, Meredith Gran and Carly Monardo take on “Strong Female Characters” and about how I apparently don’t know enough dirty words.

We then hit the latest book releases from Scenes from a Multiverse and Imagine This.

The mushroom popping tunes continue with “Monstrous Turtles” by Zircon.

We finally get in to the reviews, giving both comics the what for. We also mention Spacetrawler, Ellie Connelly and Rigby the Barbarian. We talk a lot about scope and how some stories don’t have a good sense of it.

Sorry, I’m wrapping this up. It’s about time for me to celebrate the birth of my nation by eating pancakes in the park. God bless America. And pancakes.

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Digital Strips Podcast 247 – Review: The Ghosts of Pineville (Pick Your Class)

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OK ladies and gents, I’m back in charge of the editing/posting for a month or so, which means that you’re not going to get the luxurious, weak-kneed posts you’ve been getting from that namby-pamby Jason fellow. No, I’m going to hone you into a finely tuned Web comic loving machine with my spartan style of hard love.

We reviewed a Web comic, you can listen to it here.

Done.

Ok, that may not be enough, even for me.

Curse you Jason, curse you and your stupid face.

This week we charge straight into the haunted house armed with nothing but a flash light as we review The Ghosts of Pineville by Sara Turner. It’s a timeless little jaunt into the world of small town kids and fighting small town ghosts in the big city. I actually just found it while desperately searching for something to review and my love for spunky kids and standing up to the undead pulled me straight to it.

We start out this episode talking about one of the greatest things to ever happen to mankind, Team Fortress 2 going free to play. I’ve been playing for years and am beyond thrilled that more people could soon be playing (hit me up on Steam if you ever wanna kill some dirty REDs together. I’m “Fish in a Barrel”). I try to recruit Jason to the good, color-coordinated fight and we get into a discussion about what kind of gamers we are and what kind of game related media we enjoy. A challenge was thrown down to see if Jason’s pick, the folk at Giant Bomb have the same depth (not breadth) of knowledge as Steve’s champion, Mr. Day9. You can join in the fun too.

Keeping with the TF2 theme, our first song break is “Cap My Point” by EnigmaEvocative.

We then get into the news, recapping all the news posts that have magically reappeared on the Digital Strips home page. Strips mentioned include:

Not Invented Here (8:15)
Tiny Cartridge (9:15)
Max Over Acts (9:45)
Eldritch (10:45)

We then hit you with a second TF2 song, Mmph the Way You Mmph by mymapagainstyourcash (I love Internet names).

Finally we get into the review. We talk about the art and some of the cool ways the story could go. We don’t hold back on spoilers but there’s not any major stuff to spoiler. If you only want to read things completely fresh, you’ll want to go ahead and read the comic yourself before coming back. Throughout the discussion, we also mentioned the following comics.

Northworld (21:45)
Hereville (22:15)
Templar AZ (22:15)

Thanks for stopping by, just a reminder we love feedback in all its glorious forms so don’t be shy.

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Digital Strips 239 – Horizons Watch Sfeer Theory and 14 Nights

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I’m super sorry that this show is 3 days late. I’ve got family stuff coming out of my ears and other body holes right now and as much as I’ve tried to avoid it, my real life is effecting my Internet life. You know how it goes.

Anyway here is the latest episode, full of Steve and Jason growing as people. This was a hard show to make, because it was so different from the everything else we have ever done. It’s a good thing though, it’s important for us to not make poop jokes for a while.

This week, through honestly no planning of our own, we ended up Horizon’s Watching the first two comics featured on our show to be heavily based around homosexual love stories. Sfeer Theory and 14 Nights talk about life and love in ways two uber-immature nerds normally don’t talk about in a podcast but we sure try.

Tune in to see how we do.

We also talk about several other comics, I didn’t make not of where in the podcast we mentioned them. You can still check out the links at your own pace.
Valve Comic
Chronoillogical
Cynide and Happiness
Toothpaste of dinner
Portal Vids
President Ackerman Vid
Much the Miller’s Son
Smooth and Natural

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Digital Strips 236 – Review : Remind

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Happy Birthday to me boy and girls! It’s time for another fun filled episode of Digital Strips. This time we tackle Remind, by Jason Brubaker an epic tale of love, betrayal and cats in powersuits.

We start out as we often do, quickly off topic as we discuss the greatest of all heroes, the Ghostbusters. We then wander aimlessly about movies/TV/spoilers and Jason’s flaws for about five minutes.

After that we start hitting Web Comics. We get all sciencey, the only way we know how, by talking about XKCD (7:00) and the awesome radiation chart that he made to help put the nuclear events in Japan in perspective. I love talking about this comic, because it makes me feel smarter than I really am. We also chat about the changes at Superfogeys (7:30) with Mark Lapierre formally of Boxcar Astronaut.

We also briefly mention Achewood (7:45) and it’s current Hiatus. Not much more to say, no matter how hard I’ve tried, I could never get this comic. We also talk about the art theft that seems to repeatedly happen to Jess Fink.

We finally get in talk about Remind at about 14:30. We talk about its art style, its story, its characters and about how it could have been a horror story if it studied hard and but it’s mind to it. We compare it to two of our favorite comics Rice-Boy (15:45) and Lovecraft is Missing (22:15).

It’s a good time and not one to be missed by any cool guy or girl with an interest in good comics on the Web.

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Digital Strips 235 – Book Club: Templar Az, Chapter 5

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Holy friggin’ butt monkeys. Steve is updating on time. Take that past performance!

This week we jump back on the smelly Greyhound and head South to Templar Arizona for the final episode of Digital Strips Book Club dedicated to this comic. We discuss what’s happened in the story, what that means to the characters and most importantly, what that means to us as readers.

But before we get all AP English on people, we start out talking about the comics that has stood out to us this last week.

Twilight Monk – 2:45 We reviewed this comic and couple months ago, but thanks to our “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, Trent Kaniuga just barely found out. He posted a nice note with his link on his site and it made us visibly blush and verbally gush for a couple minutes.

Realm of Friggin’ Atland – 4:45 It’s back baby. The long months of waiting for the return of one of my top 50 comics (which is quite the honor given how much time I waste spend reading web comics) is back and of to rip roaring start.

SuperFogeys – 5:45 Jason worked the system to see a future episode and he brags about it.

Listen Now – 9:00 A listener sent in these comic and I found myself reading it so I tell people about it.

During the break I sneak in a plug for our new side project. It’s still a baby but we love it.

We then jump into the real show. We talk about the comic, it’s huge list of character that seems to be slowing in growth and the sudden jumps, which are not getting any less sudden. I discuss my theory that this story is actually more of a play story structure than that of a comic. Then we jump into the characters, which ones have grown and improved and which ones bore the butts right off of us. Then we give our final thoughts over all.

Next weeks show will be about Remind so check that comic out and let us know what you think. We’d love to read some comments from the listens in the show.

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Digital Strips 233 – Review : Billy the Dunce

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I’m back cool guys and girls and bring with my the 233rd episode of Digital Strips (now the question is, what did you get me?).

We waste no time (well no more than usual) as we get right back into the swing of things reviewing a comic that brings much comicness to the table. I’ve been holding back waves of web comics criticism for the last month and I and just aching to get it out. Billy the Dunce by Jason Week is the first comic to step up to the torrential downpour of opinion that wells up side me. Is it comic enough to stand up to the task? Listen and find out.

Oh and I guess Jason is in this one too. Proving he knows way too much about Full House.

Show Notes (now with time stamps)

News Section
Bun bun – 6:13
Oatmeal – 6:26
Not Invented Here – 6:39
Kate Beaton – 7:00
Perry Bible Fellowship – 7:04
Strewth – 7:10
BattlePug – 7:22

This Weeks middle song id
Frets of Fury by Vertrexguy

Review starts at 14:00
ChickenHare 16:03
Hereville , Pigtails and Potbellies, Bean, Snowflakes 16:45
Faraday the Blob – 17:15
Looking for Group – 17:45
Imagine This – 23:00
Sinfest – 28:15

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Digital Strips Episode 232 – Review – RatFist w/ Guest Co-Host Lucas Turnbloom

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The good thing about doing only largely positive critiques is that our address book is full to bursting with names of enormously talented creators who are extremely eager to chat about the world of comics on the Internet. This week, I dialed up Lucas Turnbloom, the man who has crafted memorable, whimsical characters for Imagine This and 4G. And, according to our chat, it sounds like he has at least approximately 32, 458 more ideas bouncing around in his head.

… nope, make that 32, 459.

But before we explore these ideas, there are some news items, some Herdy Gerdy, if you will (and you will, at least until Steve gets back and tells me we can’t). Among the news items I’m cleaning up:

Once the business side is tended to, I take a few moments to ask Lucas about his beginnings in the biz, as well as his take on the convention-going side of being a responsible, responsive comics creator. We also delve into the divide between the new guard and the old, the differences that separate traditional creators from those who more readily embrace change and go with the Interflow. Sadly, we stop just short of solving the whole crisis. Ah well, maybe next time.

During our chat, we mention the following comics:

Leading us between segments is none other than Lucas’ own brother, whose band, Mrs. Magician, has a new 7″ dropping on March 1. This song, “The Spells” (31:28), is one of two songs on that record, so enjoy it more than once and stop by the band’s site to pre-order your copy to have forever and ever.

On the other side, Lucas and I peek into the shallow but rich waters of a comic that has blown up across the Web these last few weeks:

Also mentioned:

Like Molly and the Bear before it, this comic comes to us from one of the aforementioned old guard, or at least, older guard, a man whose portfolio more than speaks for itself. With credentials this solid, it’s hard to really critique the work before us, but with coloring this horrid and a story this agonizingly trite, you have to say something.

No, not really. This is a great start to yet another exciting comic, and it’s on the web, so it’s free! You can’t ask for more than that, but we’re also throwing in some conversation about that very comic, also, for free. All because we love our Digital Strippers.

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Digital Strips Episode 231 – Review – Yellow Peril w/ Guest Co-Host Rosscott

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Co-Host Month rolls on in Steve’s absence with a creator I’ve actually met, face-to-face, mano a mano. Rosscott is responsible for those hilarious play-on-word strips you’ve seen over at The System, featuring characters that hail from such renowned places as The Door to the Bathroom and Just Outside the Bathroom.

As I found out in our first interview segment, he also helped create the growing comics phenomenon known as Super Art Fight (13:50). Part pro wrestling (sports entertainment?), part artist’s studio, this battle sounds intense, hilarious, and most of all, ridiculously fun. Head over to SAF’s YouTube page for just a small taste of the raucous, inventive experience that awaits you.

With SAF at his disposal, Rosscott has encountered many names in the world of comics, making the list of name drops in that first segment quite long, but entirely worth mentioning:

Things take a turn for the dirty, but in name only, as we break with The Missionary Position’s “The Big Sleep” (21:00). In the second review segment, we take a look at a comic that Rosscott himself brought to our attention:

This comic plays exaggeration into the genre of journal comics pretty well and creates an atmosphere that is instantly familiar to all Northeastern dwellers and graphic designers alike. To the rest of us, it’s just a humorous, fun romp through what may or may not be a true person’s story. Either way, I enjoyed getting to know Kane (pronounced kah-nay, so you know he’s not a girl, apparently) and the gang and I think you will, too. Another comic mentioned in our critique:

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Digital Strips Episode 230 – Review – Molly and the Bear w/ Guest Co-Host Brock Heasley

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We’re kicking off Digital Strips Guest Co-Host Week with a man who needs no introduction, but gets one anyways: Brock Heasley!

Though I do a terrible job of it on the podcast, I will gladly link to all of Brock’s online work, a portfolio that is sure to grow exponentially over the next few years. Watching his depth and creativity emerge since The Superfogeys began has been a joy, one that is now quickly and easily possible through the joy of delivering comics via the Internet.

If you like introspective thoughts behind the creation of a work of art and conversations with those who craft these stories, I hope you will at least be entertained by my attempt. After Thee Oh Sees take us to the break with their guitar-riffin’ romp, “Crack In Your Eye” (23:00), it’s time to get to what Digital Strips does best: a review.

The strip, and yes, it is very much a comic strip, that Brock and I took a look at exudes a timeless feel that is as deceptively simple as it is intelligent in the way it appeals to the kid in all of us.

Comic strips rarely have the life that Molly and the Bear does, but coming from a seasoned professional who has worked on the very best that Pixar (culling from our childhood dreams since Toy Story first dropped into our laps) has to offer, we’d expect nothing less. Truly, the characters in this strip look like they’ve jumped right off of a storyboard sequence for their next animated short.

Along the way, Brock mentions another children’s comic artist that brings incredible life to everything he touches, Mike Kunkel, most specifically his childhood daydream adventure:

It’s interesting having two artists of the visual leaning working on the critique and Brock comes up with some insights which are details that I wouldn’t have given a second thought about. It’s deep, it’s fun, and it’s well worth a listen or two.

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Digital Strips Episode 229 – Horizons Watch – The Adam and Twilight Monk

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Two up, two down! Horizons Watch is at its best when Steve and I pick diametrically opposing forces and pit them one-on-one against each other. Seeing eye-to-eye on matters doesn’t make good podcasting. Now tearing someone’s opinions and preferences to shreds? That makes for a good listen! Of course, we don’t pick crap around here, so both of these comics are good enough to warrant a good discussion and discuss we do.

Before we actually talk about any titles, Scott McCloud blogged recently (2:43) that there are too many great comics coming to the web to keep track of. I simultaneously agree and disagree, Scott.

The first comic we mention is …

Unfortunately, the context we put it in this time around is in terms of delayed updates. Jon took a little time off to see to his affairs and though I want that next SFaM update as soon as I can get it, I’m glad he stepped away to do what needed to be done.

There is nothing that earns my creative respect more than watching a creator take a small cast of characters and really open them up to a larger world, one that can be expanded upon and developed further.

Sinfest is the best online comics example of this that I can think of, even though Steve thought of it first. The storylines are funny, sweet, poignant, and adventurous and the characters exist in a world that feels real, playing off one another in ways that are both hilarious and touching. Truly an inspiration for anyone hoping to take their established creation to the next level.

And it wouldn’t be an episode of Digital Strips if Steve didn’t mention his favorite comic:

I’d say the latest storyline is a can’t-miss, but really, the entire archive is can’t-miss, so go read it and Steve promises to stop mentioning it. Cool? Cool.

A brief mention, but deserving nonetheless:

And at precisely 13:26, Steve admits that my show notes and infinitely superior. This is not the hand of skillful editing talking, it’s just the truth.

Thanks to the Art Boys Collection for their song, “A 1 Freedom Voice Of My Soul” (14:11), which takes us into the second segment, where we enter Thunderdome! Our first competitor:

I really hope this comic sticks around and takes our, and any other criticism, to heart, because there is great potential in this work. It’s visually really rough now, but some polish and technique development could make this an amazing comic. Best of luck, Matt!

Steve’s pick realizes it’s potential from the beginning, even if it’s not my particular cup of tea:

It’s got some fantasy, it’s got a hint of manga, and it’s quite nice to look at. The archive is really shallow but what is here thus far makes this comic one to keep an eye on. Our discussion also brings up The Bean (29:09), as the two share some similarities in terms of style.

Our final mentions come courtesy of the guest hosts I have lined up to assist me in the coming weeks while Steve is in flagrante delicto (that means “out of the country”, right?). They are, in no particular order:

And if you’d like to stick around afterwards, we discuss the comparison between Lady Gaga and Ke$ha, the fact that watching Jeopardy automatically qualifies you for senior benefits, and the why I can’t just seem to let a sleeping segue lie. Enjoy!

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