Dark, Brooding, Mentally Disturbed-Man

Webcomics I recommend part 3: The Non-Adventures of WONDERELLA

October 9th, 2009

I know, without any updates to DBMD-Man over the last couple of weeks, you just don’t know what to do with yourselves. Where will you get your funny superhero webcomics until DBMD-Man resumes??? (which will happen soon, really…) Never fear, I now present my next webcomic recommendation, and it is about a bazillion times funnier than this one: THE NON-ADVENTURES OF WONDERELLA by Justin Pierce.

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Look, we all use the phrase “LOL” a little too much. Not me, I never use it, but you know those damn kids. But how often does something actually make you Laugh Out Loud? When was the last time a comic strip made you? This comic makes me Literally Laugh Out Loud (“LLOL”?) virtually every single time. Seriously. I have made the mistake of looking at this comic at work and had to hide behind my computer monitor stifling laughter for extended periods.

The premise: Wonderella is some kind of Wonder-Woman-like superhero who is the child of some kind of amorphous glowing Godhead entity and her mother, the WWII-era Wonderella. She lives in a world populated mainly by female heroes and villains, though she also runs into a wide range of real, fictional, and pop-culture figures. A “superhero” in name and costume only, she’s apathetic, entirely selfish, rude, crass, an alcoholic, and maybe a little racist too. Basically, one of those raging id characters that everyone loves, like Cartman from South Park.

wonderella-clip-moth

Some of the best things about this comic: No on-going story at all. Every one-page episode can be read alone. There are references to what has come before, and it’s even funnier if you know the characters a bit, but you don’t have to. The voices. What? Voices in a comic strip? Yes, this comic showed me that I have been completely overlooking the potential for dialogue text to show expression. With the use of different fonts and simple tricks like italics, bold, and caps, you can really hear the dialogue in this comic and it makes it so much funnier.

But again, the Number One best thing about this comic is that it’s flat-out hysterical. It was basically impossible to pick a few of the best moments to highlight here, so I really just grabbed a few panels almost at random. As on eof the best examples though, I’d like to point you to this strip, “Bad to the CLONE,” wherein every single panel got a laugh out of me. This one is Futurama-level funny, where every line of dialogue has the power to crack you up.

Okay, hopefully I haven’t hyped it too much and you’ll still find Wonderella as great as I did. Maybe I should add some negative remarks. Well, it’s occasionally “offensive” I guess. A few rare jokes are obscure or nerdy enough that I didn’t get them. But seriously, Wonderella: highest possible recommendation.

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└ Tags: funny, recommendations, superhero, webcomics, wonderella

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Are you drawn to dark, brooding men?

September 17th, 2009

Had to share this unintentionally hilarious Google search juxtaposition. These are results 3 and 4 under a search for “dark brooding.” (That’s right, I’m number 4!)

dbmd-man-google-results

Ha! I wish they allowed comments on that link #3 article. And by the way, if you’re interested in a minute of distraction, you can go read it. At first glance, it would appear that the letter-writer sounds pretty rational and seems to have a decent grasp on their situation, while the “advice”-giver is bat-flipping insane.

His advice includes: “without getting into a lot of detail, let’s just say that in my own therapy I do some talking to certain creatures who aren’t literally in the room” … ummmm… [backs away] “I made contact with this victim/martyr avatar within me, this diminutive devil of failure and quitting … He is allied with feeling as well as chaos. He is of the soul, of the earth and pain …” [sound of door slamming, tires screeching]

My first thought was: THIS PERSON IS GETTING PAID TO GIVE ADVICE TO OTHERS. Then I looked at something else the guy wrote and realized it’s self-consciously nutty, a kind of anti-advice column. Sort of like a hippie version of Chris Farley’s van-dwelling character from SNL, you know?

Also googling-related, Google’s Analytics tells me that one of the top search terms that sent people to this site was “how to look like dark brooding look.” Seriously. I sure hope those people found what they were looking for! I can’t really imagine a better dark and brooding look than all-black boots, gloves, cape, mask, and underwear on the outside of the pants.

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└ Tags: advice, brooding, cary tennis, dark, google, insanity, mentally disturbed, therapy

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other webcomics I recommend, Part 2

September 8th, 2009

My next recommendation: Heroes, Inc.

That link takes you to the first page of the first chapter because this webcomic is a coherent story done in comic-book format.

As far as I know, there aren’t too many webcomics trying to do what Heroes, Inc. is: create a serious and thoughtful superhero story.

Here’s the summary: The story takes place in an alternate history where Germany won WWII. The Allies had some super-hero/super-soldiers on their side, but apparently that didn’t help. (yet to be revealed exactly what happened) In the modern day, some of those superheroes, who are old but not as aged as if they were normal people, are helping a corporation to create new super-people. These characters also happen to be actual public domain characters from the comic book Golden Age.

I chose an action page to paste above, but really this is just as much of a talky-thinking comic. The backstory is well thought out and is gradually being revealed along with the present-day story. The tone and dialogue aims to be as realistic as possible given the subject matter, similar in some ways to the Watchmen.

The art matches the tone well and is perfectly suited to telling this story, using a more muted watercolor look and - I’m guessing here – lots of photo reference. The photo reference is actually not my favorite style and sometimes the characters can look sorta stiff or a wee bit “off.” (Please note that any critiques of someone else’s work should not be taken as an assertion that my own is any better) But this is minor, art-class-critique nitpicking. The main thing here is the story and the art always works in its favor.

This comic is on a hiatus right now, but that’s actually the best time to jump in. Heroes, Inc. is paced as a comic book, with 2 issues complete. So it’s best read in issue-sized blocks and could seem a little slow when read as it updates. Go to the site now and you get 2 free issues of a cool comic book that will probably leave you wanting to read the rest of the story. It certainly feels like there’s a 6- or 12-issue story arc here and things are just getting started.

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└ Tags: heroes inc, recommendations, super-hero, superhero, webcomics

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director’s commentary 40-55

September 3rd, 2009

Time for another installment of no one’s favorite feature: the director’s commentary! Some webcomic artists seem to like adding some commentary along with each strip, but I prefer to let the strips stand on their own, then compile my thoughts in one of these posts periodically. Read up through strip #55 – potential spoilers ahead.

In fact, 55, the most recent strip, is definitely one of my personal favorites. I like the pacing, the straight-faced set-up, and how odd it is. I’m also happy with how the underwater effect turned out. I did make a small change though – shortly before this was going to post, I noticed that my dolphins had no dorsal fins! It’s so easy to grab photo reference now, with Wikipedia and Google image search, so I confirmed that I was right and then added in the fins. I’m sure my dolphin anatomy is still really off, but it’s better at least.

I also thought about changing the underwater-guy’s symbol. (he still has no name) When I first drew this I was somehow oblivious to that fish-shape being such a strongly associated Christian symbol. So I thought on this for a bit, but then I decided that underwater-guy probably wears that symbol on his chest BECAUSE he is such a devout Christian. It’s just a coincidence that he can breathe underwater and talk to dolphins. This has never come up, but maybe I could do a new strip about that.

Going back to strip #40, I altered the art a bit in that one too. Originally, the punk had a liberty spike mohawk, making it basically impossible to tell what was happening in the panel where a safety dart sticks in his head. Hopefully it’s a LITTLE more clear now. I always thought this scene was pretty funny, but I don’t think anyone else ever got what I was going for. DBMD-Man is supposed to be proud of himself for proving that “safety” darts can inflict harm. I probably should have drawn him with a smile instead of a frown in panel 3.

Like most everything else that goes on in Chapter 2, that scene is based on events in the Dark Knight Returns. If you are following this comic but haven’t read that, and absolutely refuse to do so, you could look over the Wikipedia entry here, which will explain most of the parallels. (don’t look at it if you DO intend to read Dark Knight Returns) I’ve been calling this a “parody,” though it’s not really a parody in the Mad Magazine sense. Neither is the comic in general. I guess part of my approach is to point out the silliness of the source material by making events LESS absurd, rather than MORE absurd. How would the events from Dark Knight Returns (or comic books in general) play out in a slightly more realistic world?

By the way, the female Gee-Whiz Boy talks like this because the DKR Robin (and the punks) talked in some kind of invented, Clockwork-Orangesque future slang. (I really like how DBMD-Man’s “huh” expression turned out in panel 2 of that strip) She doesn’t always talk that way, which I figure is because she’s intentionally doing it to be cool and sometimes forgets. One of the changes that actually took the most time was coming up with Gee-Whiz Girl’s line in this strip. It used to be a phrase straight from DKR, but I wanted to make it slightly different and maybe funnier. So yeah, I spent a rather long period of time deep in thought coming up with “pogo balls.” This is my life.

I like how the talk show events played out, but I have to admit that strip #47 would make absolutely no sense if you hadn’t read what came before.

That brings us to the introduction of Really Good-Man in strip #52. I actually had strong regrets about bringing in this character who actually had real super-powers. Up to that point the comic was just about crazy people in costumes, which I kind of liked. I suppose I could try to ret-con an explanation about his powers all being trickery and illusion, but then I did also put in the guy who can talk underwater and later there’s will be an alien… I guess I’m stuck with this stuff.

We’re still missing a strip where Really Good-Man actually first appears, which I intend to insert when I find it, and actually I just realized that I should have left an extra number for that strip! I think I’ll have to renumber these… I hope that doesn’t screw up the links.

And that brings us up to date! Thanks to anyone who actually reads through these lengthy ramblings.

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The best is yet to come.

August 24th, 2009

Seriously. I just dug out chapters 3-5 of the DBMD-Man strips, large chunks of which I have not looked at in years. Some of it I had completely forgotten! I always felt that things got better as this comic went along, but at the same time I remember thinking that the events got more “down to earth” and crazy, wacky things stopped happening. Actually, I was just forgetting lots of the crazy stuff that I had put in!

I also noticed how much better the art got! In fact, I know I missed a comic strip update this last Friday and I was thinking about tossing out a batch of new ones at once as a consolation, and so I could rush ahead and get into the later strips. (I decided against it, a steady publishing schedule is probably smarter) Sometimes the art in a strip will make me cringe, but I’m sure anyone has that reaction to some pieces in their body of work.

The message here is: stick around people. If you like what’s you see now, I think you’ll really like what’s coming up over the next several months.

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Webcomics I recommend part 3: The Non-Adventures of WONDERELLA

Are you drawn to dark, brooding men?

other webcomics I recommend, Part 2

director’s commentary 40-55

The best is yet to come.

Chapters

Links