Ahahahahahahaha Oh Man I Slay Me
This is the second post from Contestant #7; the assignment was to review one comic from a list of three randomly selected from the backlog of sites submitted by creators to Fleen for review. I, your humble editor, have not read the comics in question.
I apologize in advance for the pun at the end.
Have you ever had someone tell you a joke that was just a little bit funny and you were about to say so but then they burst out into hysterical masturbatory laughter? That’s precisely the vibe I get from Tommy A.
The guy obviously puts effort into his comic and so like Contestant #9 I feel like a dick saying these things I’m about to say. His site sucks. There’s no dancing around it. There is no ‘first’ or ‘last’ button anywhere in sight, and he’s got a script which disables right clicking in IE. So you’ll either have to go back through the comics one by one, or pull the links out of the source code; either way, it’s frustrating and it’s going to repel readers who are used to simple, easy interfaces.
The comic sometimes has its moments, but there are too few to warrant a regular read, and some of the punchlines make me want to horribly maim myself. The writing throughout, besides the horrifying punchlines isn’t great; it’s not bad, but it definitely isn’t good. Recognizing that he is Dutch and doing an admirable job of translating, humour is still a difficult thing to understand in another language and he’s not quite there yet. So if you speak Dutch, which I don’t, maybe give his other comics a read through; I saw Batman in there someplace.
I do enjoy his art style.
As it stands though, I don’t feel it’s worth a second look for a while, and it definitely won’t be one I check daily. Perhaps in about 6 months he’ll have found his stride; he’s only about 40 comics in. Until then, I can’t recommend this strip.
This strip gets a Tommy D Minus. >_<
This is about as wrong-headed a review of Tommy A’s work as there could possibly be. His work isn’t about punchlines; it’s more akin to James Kochalka’s American Elf, and it’s terrific at what it does.
Reviewing a slice of life strip in terms of gag strips is just flat-out stupid.
By Gordon on 04.26.06 4:12 pm
Yeah! How dare you express your opinion!
By I Agree With Gordon on 04.26.06 4:47 pm
His work IS about punchlines. Take the latest one; it was an excellent ‘slice of life’ strip until the last panel. “The fact that I’m too lazy to fix my flat tire has nothing to do with any of this!” His strips have inserted sub-par gags all the time. If he’s not aiming for humour, he’s going about it wrong.
Anyways, I’m sorry I offended your sensibilities. How stupid of me.
By Contestant #7 on 04.26.06 5:13 pm
My problem is not that #7 expressed his or her opinion, or, really, that I disagreed with it, but how #7 expressed it:
“The writing throughout, besides the horrifying punchlines isn’t great.” WHY? How are the “punchlines” (which are not punchlines) so horrifying? “It’s not bad, but it definitely isn’t good.” WHY?
Even the positive statements aren’t adequately explained: “I do enjoy his art style.” WHY?!
This is not what critics do. They don’t just say THAT they like something or not, they also say WHY they have formed those opinions. And if they do not, or if their work is based on fundamentally wrong assumptions, it’s a bad review.
By Gordon on 04.26.06 5:18 pm
I linked examples for every statement I made, which I thought were good enough explanation. I’ll work on that in the future. Thanks for the criticism
By Contestant #7 on 04.26.06 5:25 pm
When you reviewing things, the ideal is to explain your opinion clearly enough that people don’t need to read or view what you’re talking about in order to understand what you’re talking about. I mean, if the work is speaking for you, then why are you reviewing it at all?
But anyway. Apologies for the “stupid” remark, by the way. That was uncalled for. My sensibilities get overheated sometimes.
By Gordon on 04.26.06 5:52 pm
Yeah!
By I Agree With Gordon on 04.26.06 7:07 pm
There’s only so much a fella can do in a 300ish word review.
(o0oh it rhymes… the opening lyric to my concept album on webcomics? stay tuned…)
By Contestant #9 on 04.26.06 8:23 pm
Don’t listen to Gordon. Gordon doesn’t know what he’s talking about. This is the best written review so far in this competition.
By Charles on 04.26.06 9:32 pm
contestant #7 molested me once.
(more than once)
By contestant #5 on 04.26.06 10:47 pm
You liked it.
By Horus on 04.27.06 1:17 am
I’m going to have to agree with gordon. If you state an opinion, you have to defend it, and not by linking to an example. What might be an obvious occurance of crap to you might not be an obvious occurance of crap to someone else. Some of what you linked to weren’t obviously horribly bad punchlines (some of them weren’t even punchlines, as far as I could tell). (I also believe Eric Burns wrote something about this as advice to critics fairly recently, in case that lends any extra sway to this idea, what with him begin worshipped as a criticism god and all.)
By Matt Buchwald on 04.27.06 7:19 am
>.> shhhhh morus. shhhhhh.
By contestant #5 on 04.27.06 9:16 am
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