Mysteries and hysteria

I don't know why but against my better judgement I really like the Minus strip on Kiwis by Beat, there's a childish simplicity here, it's like Counting Sheep done right, with lots of magical realism added to spice things up. It's a hard genre, the 'childlike simplicity' gig because it can often devolve into mere simplistic whimsy. Instead of going down this track some of the comics here are laugh-out-loud funny.

There's also the sadness present that is implicit in a lonely childhood that Ryan Armand truly understands. Boundless imagination is on display here and frankly you don't get this feeling from a lot of webcomics.

The use of shade is interesting as well, the colours aren't really copperresque intense but within its metier it works. It's filled with lots of pastels swirling around on a white background so there's no colour overload, just a softness floating on the screen.

(Audio Accompaniment: The Grates; Gravity won't get you high, heh, all that high-spun energy, florid colours and punky shouting, perfect.)

My MegaTokyo dilemma

I'm unsure as how to grade this latest strip from Megatokyo. This is either the Lovegirl mafia's first open move or Gallagher has really warped with the consciencespace/realworld continuum and decided to finally go buck wild on us. I think it is really the first option though, the world in which Megatokyo functions works in two streams, Largo's sci-fi Zombie/Zilla hyperactive world and Piro's introspective romantic comedy world. Gallagher hasn't ever fully melded these two streams together and I don't think he intends to do so. The inclusion of the CEA Sera into the real world would completely change the dynamic of the comic and make it far more chaotic, so I'm eagerly awaiting what this all means.

Some old School humour
Usually I try to stay away from printcomics on Zhi but I think that Barnacle Press is a good portal of old American comics that anybody with an interest in the artform should check out as a part of their visual education. (Unless you're a lame gamer freakazoid who drools out Leetspeak and other sub-vocal mangled rubbish.) As my childhood comic background is in TinTin and Asterix; it's a good eye-opener into the basics of American sequential art.

Now, milquetoast from The Timid Soul is not a word I have often used before but I think it will be now. The American Heritage Dictionary lists it as part of an ongoing osmosis between comic culture and general pop-culture:

The first instance of milquetoast as a common noun is found in the mid-1930s. Milquetoast thus joins the ranks of other such words, including sad sack, from a blundering army private invented by George Baker in 1942, and Wimpy, from J. Wellington Wimpy in the Popeye comic strip, which became a trade name for a hamburger.

Now if only 'sad girl in snow' became part of the general lexicon, then that would show me that webcomics have truly engaged with the general public's imagination.