Monday, November 07, 2005

Webcomic Recs

Grayling by Arborwin.
Stuff that's wonderful: Pretty much everything. The art is unlike any that I've seen before- very sketchy and kinetic. The characters and plot are detailed and well thought out; this comic also has some of the most in depth worldbuilding I've seen in any sort of story, comic or otherwise. The story itself is told largely in flashbacks, covering several thousands of years of history.
Stuff that might tweak other people: There's lots of the gay, and the early art is fairly generic-anime. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, and sometimes the angst will make you want to cry.
My opinion: I love this comic immensely; it's been my favorite for a while, and the storyline is winding down. I'm happy because I want to know how it ends, but on the other hand, no more Grayling makes V a sad cookie, indeed.

Nine Swords
The good: Goregasm! It's a vampire comic with nasty vampires- none of those sad, angsty Anne Rice bloodsuckers here, thank you very much. And it isn't just about vampires- it's more of an adventure-punk story than a gothic angstfest. The art is excellent, the characters are awesome, and the world uses a more original take on the vampire thing than most. The setting is a sword-and-sorcery-and-cyberpunk sort of thing, which sounds strange but actually works quite well. It also has eye gouging and very pretty violence.
The not so good: It updates maybe twice a year, which is frustrating when the plot is so full of twisty backturns and the like.
My opinion: Mmm, Riley is pretty when he's breaking things and being a bastard. I just really, really wish it updated more often.

The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
The good: Frickin' hilarious, and the art is quite good.
The not-so-good: Uh...gratuitous abuse of McDonalds and Paul Bunyan?
My opinion: It's about a doctor who's a ninja, and whose secretary is a gorilla. It's silly, and wrong on many, many levels.

Sand & Stone
The Good: It's cute, involves demons, crazy goth girls, spazzy boys, Amazons, tiny dragons, and lots of good bad jokes. The run down: a couple of teenagers get pulled into a rescue mission to save a girl from the clutches of an evil Prince of Hell. Things don't quite go as planned, and shennanigans ensue.
The not so good: Can't think of anything, actually.
My opinion: I just found this one and chewed through the archives in a couple of hours; it strikes a good balance between excessive silliness and seriousness, and I'm loving the characters. They're snarky, and I can't resist snarky characters. Also, Char and Vlad are hot, in that elongated and pointy and evil sort of way. :)

Hm. Those are actually all I'm reading right now, aside from The Bunny, Order of the Stick, and Penny Arcade- but everyone reads those (or ought to), and they're strips, not sequential art. I've just gotten out of the habit of reading webcomics, which is a shame, I suppose. I used to waste so much time on them...now I have to find other things to waste time on, and that can be quite difficult.

Any non-strip comic recs with good storylines, art, and/or characters would be welcome- so long as they don't involve elves. We hateses elves, my precious.

2 comments:

Lynn said...

Hello! This is Lynn, who does Sand & Stone. I stumbled upon this link and saw your rec of S&S. Thank you very much! I'm glad you like it, especially the part about balancing the humor and solemn bits, one thing I was striving for when I started this comic. Glad someone notices! As well as them demon-boys. (*grin*) Thanks again!

Thetoymakers said...

Sand and Stone is my favorite weekly comic. It's funny and meaningful... and then there is Vlad....

Awesome!

Marilyn

www.thetoymaker.com