CHECK THIS SHIZ OUT!

Not to be outdone, I’ve decided to put together MY OWN set of awards. Now, I’m no Washington Post in terms of readership, but I do have a statistic that works in my favor. Of all of the “news” that the Washington Post has spat out in the last… however really long time it’s been going on… less than 0.1% of it has been about webcomics! Friends, 100% of my news has been about webcomics. And this is clearly the NEWS THAT REALLY MATTERS! (I’m thinking about using that right there as a new tagline, in fact!)

While I don’t have time to like, compile lists of webcomics for each category, or whatever, it’s probably more fair anyway because you can just write in your own vote. I mean if you want to vote that stupid Cow-Goddess shit in here, YOU CAN! It won’t win but YOU STILL CAN! And that’s the kind of FREEDOM that you only get from H!L!C! and not some crappy Washington Pist or whatever.

Please copy and paste this list into an e-mail, fill it out, and send it to:

heylookcomics@gmail.com

So on with the show!

This is a comic that I don’t hate with every fiber of my being:

This comic is like, cool. Or whatever.:

I think the dude or chick that does this comic is not that bad:

The characters in this comic are, you know what, just, whatever:

Fuck t-… look. Comic, dude.:

Comic that has the most readers who would vote for it in a bullshit poll:

My comic, which if I have one, I filled in for all of the above besides the last one:

Guys THANKS! I will totally love to tally these responses by next Whocaresday! Can’t wait to post the results!

I’m writing tonight about something that I am naming “silent crossovers”. Just so we’re clear:

-A normal crossover can be defined as characters or something recognizable from another webcomic (or, more generally, another ‘universe’ already established separately) appearing in a different webcomic (or other universe whatever). I’m on the fence about listing different universes made by the same author as crossovers… I mean, they are kind of, but they don’t capture the feeling I’m looking for. A real crossover should involve the characters being drawn into canon storyline by the (different) author of the other webcomic, and having it be a big thing. A stellar example would have to be the Ultimate Final Civil War Invasion Crisis Thing from Least I Could Do. Though I mean, that takes the concept of “having it be a big thing” and running as far as possible with it. Anyway, then we get to what I just said I excluded…

-Same author crossover! An example would be John: Examine Problem Sleuth Poster (though I can name about, oh, I dunno, four million from MSPA alone. LOOK, THEY ARE FLASHING RED). This is any kind of reference to past work, be it directly with characters or indirectly with little in-jokes, though of course if the character goes on to become a member of the NEW cast and it turns out that really this story is just set ahead in time from the last story, it stops counting. Even if you brought them back from the dead.

-A guest strip is also something! But this should be more obviously differentiated… it is done by artist A, for artist B, and appears on artist B’s website. That last part there is the big difference. I am not going to link you to an example of a guest strip, so if you’ve never seen one, YOU MAY WANT TO START READING WEBCOMICS HUH

So what do I define as a silent crossover? Basically, it’s a normal crossover, except it’s not designed to draw attention to itself. With a normal crossover, to get full enjoyment, you’d have to read both comics to know the characters, but with a silent crossover, if you had never read the comic it was referencing, you would perhaps never even know there was a crossover going on at all. Not to say it doesn’t add another layer of enjoyment, but it’s completely unnecessary for understanding’s sake.

I had been considering writing an article on this subject for some time, so when David Willis of Shortpacked! snuck some characters and a setting from Questionable Content into the back of the strip and a whole Twitterized friggin’ EVENT started happening, I couldn’t resist. After Jeph Jacques read it and posted a link, with a sarcastic note about how Willis stole his characters and whatnot, a bunch of people responded via the Twitternets and apparently did not understand sarcasm!

“way to not ask Jeph Jacques, douchebag.”

“he’s still technically copying because there’s NO CREDIT GIVEN.”

“I understand he’s your friend by he should have given credit, wither on the art or a disc. Believe me I’ve seen some shit :(“

“I am going to hunt down that motherfucker where he lives and spear him through the heart!”

I admit I may have made one of those up, but my desire to sift through the MASSIVE amounts of tweets @jephjacques and @shortpacked is waning like a… waner. Anyway and then the whole thing turned into a wonderful fake feud that you’ll just have to read yourself, complete with images. <-NSFW!

Of course, it was pretty obviously fake, and reading the feud was pretty funny. It is a rather obvious statement that webcomic creators have senses of humor. But this is a great example of using networking and the magics of the internet to further promote your webcomic. Granted, QC and SP! are both, y’know, pretty big already. But no matter where you are, everything helps. They were obviously not conspiring behind the scenes like “put my characters in your comic and we’ll stage a surprise fake fight and people will laugh and WE WILL GET HITS MWAHAHA” (though that’d be cool too), but natural human interaction is enough of a selling point here. Like I’ve stressed before: if someone likes a comic, they will be interested in the author. Use it!

Off the top of my head, I can think of a couple other silent crossovers…

-Willis himself linked this in his history tonight.

-From Sluggy Freelance, Gwynn has family from General Protection Fault, though I can’t find the link to the Sluggy comic… sorry!

-This Gunshow features some strangely familiar characters…

…man, I know there are more out there, but my brain is totally blanking! Link some for me, please?

You can, however, follow me on Twitter. BAM!

Love Me Nice!

1. You mean your plan to drive to the gas station and flash your girly bits at the attendant? Yeah. I have my doubts.

5. Time to pollute the city’s water supply… with killer bees!

8. By the way, careful with that pile of pillows at your feet.

Ready for the answers?

1. The witty Dewey Defeats Tarzan!

5. The spectacular Buttersafe!

8. The insightful Edmund Finney’s Quest to find the Meaning of Life!

Since it’s likely that y’all don’t read those three comics, since nobody got the quotes, you should definitely do yourself a big favor and check them out. I guarantee that you’ll like at least ONE of them. You gotta like those odds.

Also, I might be going on hiatus for a little while. We’ll see what happens. I hope you’re following Homestuck though, the end of Act 2 was amazing- I swear I watched it six times this morning.

Later!

John Dies at the End is the best book ever. There is no better book that you will ever encounter in any reality, in any dream, in any state of mind, than John Dies at the End. I used to have favorite books and a good range of books I’d rank from 1-10. Now I compressed all those books to 1-3, and John Dies at the End is a 29 n that scale. If you like living, or not living, you will enjoy John Dies at the End. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Let me give you some comparisons:

If this book was an action hero celebrity that accumulated a lot of tough rumors, it would literally erase Chuck Norris and whoever else from existence before they were even born, and not only be the most awesome, but the only.

If cold is bad and hot is great, this book is Hell. Hell on Earth.

On a scale of one to ten, you will have ten nightmares after reading this book. And that’s before you go to sleep.

If this book were a penis, and God had given it a penis of it’s own, it’s penis would be larger than your penis. Women: this applies to your boyfriend, but doubly so.

I will post spoilers to any quotes people couldn’t find in a couple days, if there are any left. You’re close, guys, almost there! Furthermore, I will update again once I’ve finished reading John Dies at the End nine or ten (dozen) more times.

Did I mention how good it was?

I’m going to list 15 quotes taken straight from webcomics around the internet right down here. Your challenge? Tell me what webcomic it’s from!

I will also say that it will have been a vaguely recent comic, in the last year-ish or so. And there are no repeated webcomics, but there MAY be repeated authors/illustrators or something. Answer in the comments… if you’re up for the challenge!

Ready… and… GO!

1. You mean your plan to drive to the gas station and flash your girly bits at the attendant? Yeah. I have my doubts.

2. Please remove genitals from floppy drive and hit ‘Enter’.

3. Kontsfack? But I never even submitted my portfolio, why would I get a letter from them?

4. We’ve been lured out and engaged by a white van advertising high-value supplies, only to be disabled and cut down by a heavily-armed military unit.

5. Time to pollute the city’s water supply… with killer bees!

6. What’s up brah? We just put some bros in your games, dawg!

7. A transporting gun?! Everyone needs that!! I’ll buy five!! I’ve never met you!!

8. By the way, careful with that pile of pillows at your feet.

9. I’m not convinced the locals are the architects of these old cities. In fact, they don’t seem capable of anything more than collecting junk.

10. I’m guessin’ somethin’ horrible happened to her and it left like a residue. That’s how come she drinks. I mean I’m not a doctor or nothin’.

11. Again, sorry about the attempted murder thing!

12. The hamster on the treadmill inside my chest needs his water bottle refilled. He’s a thirsty little guy!

13. Look, just don’t wander around on your own. Go back to your tents and we’ll wait for this to blow over.

14. What? You can see me?! Well that was a waste of five hundred million dollars.

15. but then when i think back maybe there are times when it seems like you know some things? like maybe you know more about a thing than you are telling me? i dunno.

ANSWERS

If someone has figured it out, I’ll list the right answer below here and say who found it first. If you don’t want to see the known answers yet, don’t click More!

Alright, the answers, you asked for ‘em.

Webcomic (First correct guesser)

1. ??

2. Bigger Than Cheeses (Allen)

3. Anders Loves Maria (Emmeline Grangerford)

4. Dead Winter (Allen)

5. ??

6. VG Cats (Damien)

7. Rob and Elliot (Mark)

8. ??

9. Dresden Codak (Damien)

10. Overcompensating (Damien)

11. The Fancy Adventures of Jack Cannon (Emmeline Grangerford)

12. Questionable Content (Aqua Trenoble)

13. Gunnerkrigg Court (Damien)

14. Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (Shannon)

15. MS Paint Adventures / Homestuck (Victor Cardona)

Way to go so far, guys!

Final Edit: Time’s up! Look for the answers to the three that nobody got in about two posts.

…*throws away a box of business cards*

Anyway, I thought I would direct your attention to the comments section of that post, so you can check them out! There are probably like at least 20 more contributed by fans, and most of them are really good. (I don’t know what you guys mean about #17 though. It’s totally there.)

In a little while, I’ll probably make some article that’s like… 20 MORE Tips for Webcomic Beginners or something like that, and I’ll use the ideas you guys and gals give me! I might not use the same wording though… that’s okay, right? That’s cool with y’all? I’ll give you guys credit for sure, but you see, the thing is, I just like writin’ them myself. Then again, if I can’t think of a metaphor more awesome than yours, well, we’ll see!

If you don’t have any tips in the same format I put ‘em in, you can chip in with simple ideas, or things you’ve noticed that irk you about webcomics in some form or another, without putting it in the form of a tip! Everything’s good here. Please feel free to make more comments there, or on this post. And even once I make the second article, feel free to keep going. And thanks a bunch- with your help, we’re well on our way to the Nobel Webcomics Blog Prize!

This is a link to The Fancy Adventures of Jack Cannon!

So basically, Jack is this homeschooled kid, and it’s his first real school experience. Things seem pretty backwards, as a little gang of nerds led by a lead “hacker”, Craig, are basically in control of the school. Then Jack comes along and beats them all up. Twice. (More than twice, but “twice” sounds more dramatic.) There is a bunch of action and high school drama type stuff, mostly with his friend (and possible romantic interest?) Angel and her friend Cin. We’ve also been introduced to a vaguely secretive type of intelligence organization, and it’s crazy operative Max Facepuncher, and also Jack’s parents; his father is a tough and gruff type figure, while his mother is a playful but violent source of much of Jack’s ability to beat people up. Only when he has to, of course!

As always, I’m going to start off the review by talking about the layout. It’s a WordPress/Comicpress thing, and I have some problems with that layout style in general, which will be a separate post sometime! The title image is nice, though it doesn’t take up half the space it COULD, horizontally… not like that’s a huge deal or anything though. The update schedule is in the title of the page, which is a crafty place to sneak it! Yeah, basically I like it. For a Comicpress layout.

I like Jamie’s comments underneath the comic! They are short and not ranty and enjoyable to read! This is a good thing. He is doin’ stuff right. With the trend of creators getting Twitter accounts for their characters, Max Facepuncher has one; also there are some forums that are moderately active, so the comic is getting some sense of community! That’s GOOD! That’s a really great thing to promote.

God, I hope this review doesn’t sound ridiculous, I’m still hung-over. That being said, let’s get to the COMIC!

The art in this comic is pretty wild. At first it was distracting, but eventually I got used to it and came to like it; aiding this was, of course, Jamie getting more used to drawing the characters and that sort of thing. The art starts off pretty good and gets slightly better, though there’s not a lot of development, which is fine. Taking a look around, though, and we see that he was at THIS level back in 2001, so he HAS come a long way!

The colors are also very vivid, vibrant, and… vdynamic. This isn’t a big deal for much of it, but sometimes, experimenting with color is more effective than just turning the saturation knob higher. If I would have one thing to suggest to Mr. Anderson, it would be to fiddle around with color themes or the like. It always struck me as clever, for instance, how Evan Dahm of Rice-Boy uses a layer of one or two colors to do shading and “unify the color of the whole page.” This is totally a nit-picky thing though, and the fact that it’s basically the best I’ve got for criticism is really kind of a compliment.

I also don’t like how the noses are drawn, as little arcs super close to the eyes, but I think that’s just a personal irritation. Noses are not like that! But little anatomical correctness isn’t exactly a big top of the list thing either.

The storylines were really strong at first. The build-up with the Craig thing was awesome, and that whole fight was good too; the school invasion was also really great. The Mega Intelligence stuff going on right now is rather slow, however, but hopefully between Jack and Max it’ll pick up again soon. The comic is pretty consistently witty and funny, and has a good sense of comedic timing as well; it also uses the Rule of Cool to good effect.

Jamie lists Dr. McNinja in his links and I’m pretty sure it shows; I get the same vibe of awesome action from a lot of it. This isn’t a bad thing, however, as if you read McNinja this won’t come off as any kind of copying; rather, it’s more like, “If you like Dr. McNinja, you will most likely enjoy this too.” His parents are easily a cross between the good doctor’s parents and Dominic Deegan‘s parents (at least when that comic was good), and it’s a pretty good dynamic. I think I’d like to know more about the father’s past in particular, but really, any strip with them in it is normally really funny.

The high school drama stuff is fun and different from a lot of stories in that Jack doesn’t have any secret identity. Finally! I love the secret identity stuff too but it’s nice to see some variety! I would probably like to see more students, and maybe a couple more teachers, become characters, just to flesh out the school a little more. Angel and Cin are both pretty solid though, and Angel is totally hot.

The Fancy Adventures of Jack Cannon is a super webcomic full of energy and punching people! I would definitely recommend it to my friends. The art could be a little tighter, but hey, besides that and Comicpress, that’s really all I can think of to say bad about it- especially since it’s easily arguable that the style of the art is partly responsible for the energy and quality of the comic. Anyway… I am eagerly awaiting the next mess of things that Jack will inevitably get thrown into, and hope it’s just as funny, even more dramatic, and… soon!

(If you really want to know why I had the hiatus, it’s because the CIA doesn’t let me blog while I’m on missions.)

While I was gone, I got linked to by The Webcomic Beacon, and also linked to by The Gigcast. I was also linked to by The Floating Lightbulb, and I believe he took it seriously at first- oh man! I didn’t see the original post but it’s alright dude, it happens, kinda funny really :P Lastly, I was also linked to by Webcomics.com. Like… wow. Thanks a lot you guys! I appreciate it!

In any case, I’m gonna get back to it! Now let’s see if I mean “get back to blogging” or “get back to hiatusing”…