I promised yesterday that I’d give you all some sweet, sweet Jesus lovin’. So without ado, here is my review of Leave it to Jesus: The Adventures of the Living Christ.

I found this site when snooping around online comics. The title caught my eye because my love of Jesus-based comics knows no bounds. I jumped to the site not knowing what to expect, and what I found was more satisfying than Wolverine making that ‘shinck” sound when he utilizes his retractable claws.

It opens to a warning page, stating that the humor is crude, offensive, and riddled with foul language. This only fueled my desire to see what this comic possessed. I clicked “enter” and was greeted with a nicely polished web site with clear links, a clean layout, and an all black-and-white format. Of course the author, Dan Hetrick, has a daily blog at the bottom of each comic, which is fairly common these days.

The comic itself is comprised of superimposed images into a four-panel comic. These images include Jesus (of course), Elmo, a surly bottle of Robitussin, Evil Nixon, and a character named Heather who suspiciously looks like a blurred image of Darth Vader. The comic usually parodies or pokes fun at social events, such as (more…)

I discovered Witty Comics by accident when I was doing some research for work. It fell into my lap, this giant time waster, and I’ve decided to share it with as many people as possible so that they too can feel the joys of time wasting and procrastination. In college, procrastination becomes an art form, as you get older it is the yard stick to which character can be measured. How good are your excuses?

There are people who can make the most beautiful art structured with clever characters and jokes that are funny. For the rest of the 98% of us out there, we live to serve, to read and devour our very favorite stories from the people who spend their lives giving us free fun. On the remarkable days when we’ve got ideas but not the heart or the talent to reproduce them, we’ve got Witty Comics, which allows people the briefest glimpse of comic stardom in cut and paste glory, much akin to Dinosaur Comics and Red Meat. Except that they are good at what they do, and we aren’t.

To use Witty Comics, you pick two stock figures, a background and then fill in the word balloons with whatever punch line, political commentary, 4th wall explosion you want. If you log in to the site you’ve got the option of saving the comic. There’s a handy list of freshly created funny by all the other would-be comic creators out there. What in the world do a random lot of people find funny? Not surprisingly, there’s an enormous amount of phallic jokes to be made. And if our egos hadn’t had enough yet, there’s a handy rating system. There are no hard feelings though, everyone sucks here.

What kind of funny did I create? Well, probably nothing anyone would actually laugh at. It was sort of cathartic; cheapest therapy I’ve ever needed. Give it a try. Who is worthy of your funny ire?

I know I’ve been on a video game kick lately. This is due to E306 wrapping up not to long ago, and me still trying to digest all the scrumptious video game tidbits that were shoveled down my consumer whore of a mouth. Anyways, I was reading my weekly VG Cats, and decided that I should take a moment to share this video game comic with you.

I’m sure many of you have heard of or read VG Cats. It is listed in the side-scroll of links on this here site. But, as I said, my video game high hasn’t finished burning its way through my veins just yet.

I prefer VG Cats to numerous other video game-related comics because the artist parodies actual games, not the gaming culture. The artist takes likenesses of his two cats, Leo and Aeris, and places them in scenarios involving various video games. The art is colorful, crisp, and resembles a cartoonish style one would expect from a video game comic. The humor is sharp and plays well against most of the bloody scenarios that video games have to offer.

To show you how much I’m in like with you I’ve decided to give you a taste of the sweet stuff in the form of Resident Evil: Toronto, evil Star Wars droids, and the most wonderful stoner game ever. So feast, my friends, on this web comic smorgasbord of delight, and come back tomorrow for some sweet, sweet, Jesus lovin’.

My feverish haze is making it difficult to write this post, but I’m sure the pain killers are playing a major role in impeding my writing abilities as well. Whatever the case, here is my review on “Faking Life”.

“Faking Life” is the continuation of Emo, both written and drawn by Nate Lee aka: N8 Dog. The main character of the strip is a psuedo-autobiographical version of Nate, pursuing a fulfilling life after college. If you want the back-story of Nate, I suggest going through the Emo archives, since that comic focused on his college career. “Faking Life” started on March 13th of this year, which makes it a rug rat in the adult world of web comics. Luckily for Nate, he’s been through the usual newbie pratfalls with his other comics.

Nate is now stretching his artistic boundaries by dabbling in flash animation. I applaud him for pushing himself, since many artists get stuck in one particular style or medium. This is a solid comic with an artist who contains copious amounts of potential. I’ll be keeping my eye on “Faking Life”, simply because it has captured my attention like an ancient monkey-god working at Starbucks.

It is a very big deal when a Webcomic comes to a purposeful end. Many comics just taper off into non-existence because the artist no longer has the time or the will. So when a creator makes it a point to bring their comic to an end, even though it’s because they want to move onto different things, it’s commendable. Creators might be doing this work for themselves, but they’ve brought us along for the ride. So with that, I give you a fond (and a little disturbing) farewell over at My New Mommy.

Dig into the very lowest scrapings of what makes us human and you’ll find soap opera-like stereotypes that make up the width and breasts of the cast of My New Mommy. When a middle aged man wins the lottery and his wife dies, why not marry a Vegas stripper? The kids remain unconvinced of her mommy-hood, but that’s nothing compared to the guy with the gun. Turns out I’m a little late to the party for My New Mommy. Owen Dunne’s wrapping up its run starting May 22^th with the last 6 strips.

With the closing up of MNM, The Beevnicks are jumping in to fill the gap. There’s even a nice grin and nudge transitional nod to My New Mommy to kick things off. There is dark and sleezy humor here and at least one character I absolutely love to hate.

The last comic Dunne ended was Nippleshine Manor, a vulgar, obscene and depending on your disposition, hilarious comic. It has some vague resemblance to British nobility and eccentric old people but mostly it just makes you feel dirty. Why can’t more people learn how to use “Fecal Saturnalia” in a sentence? NM is not for the easily offended. Or people with classic good taste.

What I learned about Dunne from the comics over at You Damn Kid! is that not only can he write familiar, believable kids but he writes agreeable, dysfunctional grown ups as well. Dunne is one of the few comic writers that I think could write fiction as well as he writes comics.

My one complaint is that navigating the site and all the comic archives is maddening. There is no rhyme or reason to it. That being said, the range of funny this guy can do is nothing short of amazing. But all of his comics and characters are not universal for everyone. If you don’t like the shock value of Nippleshine, try a little home grown You Damn Kid!. It’s a web comic buffet over there.

So here’s me on the road for work during a week when not one, but two different webcomicky books should be arriving at my home, just crying out for review. Woe is me. I suppose if I can’t read the new books, I can at least point you towards Stripped Books, where Gordon “Multiplex” McAlpin pays homage to The Book in a series of nonfictional documentary projects.

When something book-related occurs in the greater Chicago area, McAlpin does a multi-page comic about it — a reading, a release party, a speech, all are fair game for McAlpin’s recounting of the event. Most amazingly, McAlpin adjusts his own artistic style to match that of the author or book in question. Thus, Jon and Lane go to Barnes & Noble! looks like The Stinky Cheese Man, Perseopolis 2.1: The Story of a Signing looks like Marjane Satrapi’s award-winning autobiographical works, and Stephen Mitchell on Gilgamesh looks (to me, anyway) like the very naturalistic art of Eric Shanower’s Age of Bronze comics (okay, Greece and Troy, not Uruk, but close enough).

Stripped Books is on hiatus at the moment so that McAlpin can concentrate on Multiplex, but he promises it will be back — in any event, he’d pretty much have to wait for something bookish to happen before he could draw it, wouldn’t he? So if you’re an author in the Chicago area, do something so he can document it for us! In the meantime, check out the past events; there’s some good stuff there, and it’s well worth an afternoon surreptitiously browsing at “work”.

I’ve mentioned in the past how it’s unfair to judge a blossoming new comic during its early stages of life, even when the creator may be brave enough to request a review. Well, I’m about to blatantly ignore my own advice by telling you about a very youthful comic that’s just riddled with the aged.

Chris Jones could doodle on a napkin with a sharpie and I’d covet it. There is something delightful in the very round and emotive characters he draws. The comics and illustrations he works on animate with whimsy and quirky neurosis. He could do a comic about hanging out in a waiting room and it’d be entertaining. And to my good fortune, he has.

His newest work, Grumps, follows the mocking world of two old men and their zany nursing home exploits. He shows that in old age there are still hot nurses to chase and paw at, there’s always time for drugs and swearin’ and every adventure must be shared with your best friend. With every wrinkle and every sagging breast I’m convinced that nursing homes are the hippest place to be. Man, being old looks like a riot.

Even the website itself is professionally done. There’s an air of sitcom influence to the masthead. Even the layout and fonts seem expertly chosen to promote a specific look and feel. I get the distinct impression that Jones probably knows his way around marketing his work and that having a complete package, right down to the background color, can make all the difference in the world. This comic may be new, but it’s going to look amazing in book form.

Note: Because of the way the Grumps website is set up, I cannot link to any specific comic page. Don’t be shy though, go over and check it out.

I’ve been casually watching Moose River for a while now with only a small but genuine interest. I like comics like Moose River because they are not birthed from Adobe Photoshop and their simple hand drawn look takes on a life and atmosphere of their own. Written and drawn by Phillippe Van Lieu, it’s strangely entertaining, though not quite addictive.

I am especially interested in Phillippe’s news posts as they chronicle his growth as a comic artist as he navigates the medium and the business. He talks about his own short comings and the complications that arise as a new up and comer. He deals with reviews and criticism with acceptance and admirable compromise. I like being able to follow his own story – beginning with the excitement of a new comic, then flustered excuses about his updating schedule, then taking responsibility for his creation, adding a little bit of doubt, and finally emerging with a new adaptable excitement ready for the next stage of the comic’s life. It’s impressive on its own merit.

Some of the comic is not as impressive as Phillippe, but only by a little. I like his hand drawn work as much as clean, digitally colored work. I like how the background color cues us into story focus changes. I even like the shameless use of stereotypes. I do not like, however, the hand drawn dialogue. The poor handwriting holds this comic back. Few people will be willing to get passed this amateur look to discover a fun storyline. Few will even stay on the site long enough to notice there are characters to care about.

Hey, on the plus side there’s swearing and nudity, and that always sells.

The slow marriage of video games and web comics have brought about wonderous bundles of joy. Such strips as Penny Arcade, Ctrl-Alt-Del, and Little Gamers have all contibuted in developing this new genre of web comic. Personally, I love the fact that two of the greatest loves of my life have combined into one super-mech of hilarity.

That is why today I’ve decided to mention Dueling Analogs. This strip is a nice slice of video game related humor; complete with bright artwork, industry know-how, and the edge that a comic needs to be noticed these days. This strip is certainly worth a look over, especially if you are in love with video games and crude humor.

I know I am.

I’ll do whatever the hell I want. You heard me. I think I’ll review Ruhopty!, because Liam does whatever the hell he wants with his comic. If he feels like having reoccuring characters, then he’ll have them. If he feels like those characters get him no where and stops drawing them, who are we to judge?

He’s the creator, and he plays web comic god to those in his strip. He switches up the art style without notice, and without apologies. He’ll decide one day to write about a killer duck, and the next he’s warning kids not to run with Uranium. Don’t tell him what to do/think/feel or he’ll send Todd after you.

What I got out of this strip besides a craving for chicken-ade is the feeling that Liam does this comic for his personal enjoyment, and if others are entertained then all the better. He truly loves to draw, and makes dutiful effort to sharpen his skills. He chooses random humor over a story line, a recent decision made in his last post. This shift in format has created more of a web comic-blog, instead of the typical story-line driven, three panel strips found almost every where else.

This may not be the best that the inter-web has to offer, but at least the author is doing whatever the hell he wants.