Friday, October 24, 2008

Hey there once again, everybody. It's 12:30 as I begin this entry: it's time for lunch, and it's time for webcomics.

At Starslip Crisis this week, Cutter and Holiday have been watching their favorite show: the 21st-century crime-drama, Concrete Universe. Frankly, I didn't get a lot of laughs out of it. "Concrete Universe" tends to be a one-note joke, as the show's writers' tenuous grasp of 20th-century history results in anachronistic technology and slang. I mean, sure, there's another level there where it parodies the inaccuracy of our own "historical" films and TV, but it's just the same dang joke over and over again. Nonetheless, I chuckled at the punchline to this strip. It would seem that, whatever else may change, ham-handedly "clever" television dialogue is a timeless phenomenon.

Also this week, the judges over at the WebComic Readers' Choice Awards have selected their winners! You can check out the website yourself and see how your favorite comics placed, and maybe get introduced to a new comic. Particularly interesting is that to celebrate Angie Kurokami's first-place victory for "Best Supporting Character," Multiplex creator Gordon McAlpin produced an Awards-Ceremony acceptance speech comic in which Angie thanks the readers for their support. It's pretty neat, and it captures all the traits that make Angie such a strong supporting character.

Also over at Multiplex, in a reference to recent news of Don Cheadle replacing Terrence Howard in Iron Man 2, apparently Franklin has been recast as well. But wait, now there are two Franklins? It must be a time warp! The whole thing makes a nice balance to the heavier Religulous storyline of two weeks ago, and plus it's really amusing.

Also, Dresden Codak's Hob Saga reached its final installment today. I'm still a little unclear on what actually happened toward the tail end of the storyline, and the final comic has done little to clear up the muddled plotting that preceded it. Still, it at least sorta brings things full-circle thematically, and ends on a light-hearted tone reminiscent of the Hob story's beginning. I do think DC is at its best when Aaron Diaz is doing unpretentious intellectual weirdness, and of course I'm interested in seeing what's ahead for DC now. Hopefully it'll be either a return to form or a more successful experiment. We'll see.

And finally, let's close out with miscellaneous humor from Thinkin' Lincoln, F Chords, and The Book of Biff. And:

Real Life Corner
about Real Life the webcomic, not about life outside of the internet

In Real Life's current extended storyline, a visit to supergenius Tony Flansaas intended to fix the plot hole in X-Tony and X-Greg's home dimension has met with unexpected complications: namely, the appearance of Tony's arch-nemesis, the Government Agent, accompanied by a clone of Tony. Last week, the clone engaged Tony's base's self-destruct sequence, and this week, everyone hurries to escape. Well, almost everyone. I'm not going to give it away, but rather than a cliffhanger, today's strip ends with a big twist. Does this mean what I think it means? Is Clone Tony not the only casualty from this catastrophe? Next week, we'll find out.

read this week's RL installment
start reading the entire story arc from the beginning

Aaaaaaand we're done. Check back on Monday--maybe I'll say a little something about Rice Boy, or maybe review another chapter of Jump Leads! Until we meet again, have a good weekend, everybody.

2 comments:

Peter said...

Let's not forget the beautiful job Greg Dean did with the artwork in the final panel of the Oct 24 comic! I was particularly struck by it, anyway.

Unknown said...

"...but the resolution of this episode's conflict did remind me I was reading a humor comic"

True enough, but I'm glad they did. If they had carried on the way they were going, it would have been just all too familiar and ended up just a series of cliched situations.