Drawing

Just a short post to vent some frustration here. I'm not a good artist. If I try and draw anything more then a stick figure, it turns out horrible. Even my stick figures aren't that good. But I wish that I was a good artist, because, from time to time, whether its because of something I saw, something I read, or just a random flash of inspiration, I think of this absolutely amazing and beautiful thing to draw. Of course, whenever I try and draw something, it ends up looking absolutely terrible and I give up.

I was reading a forum, and one of the posts brought an image to my mind. A young angel looking girl, with one wing broken and dragging on the ground, crying, in a cage. It was one of the saddest and most beautiful things I had seen, in my mind. When I tried to draw it, I got a sketchy outline of a cage, and a stick figure girl. Drawing is one of the greatest gifts a person can have, and if you do have it, you should cherish it and nurture it. And if you happen to make an image of a crying angel, I certainly wouldn't mind seeing it....




-The Mysterious Penguin

Damn pieces of junk!

Welp, I managed to fry my main laptop's hard drive, so I can't boot onto that and get my wonderful list of webcomics. BAH. I do have a backup, and a new hard drive is on its way, so barring any random catastrophes, I should be back posting soon enough. In the meantime, If anyone does read this, and has any webcomics they would like to recommend to me, go ahead and leave a comment!

-The Mysterious Penguin

Axe Cop - He's a cop. With an axe.

Axe Cop is a webcomic that has become a bit of an Internet sensation. Written by the artists 5 year old brother, it proves that age is no detriment to quality, or at least Internet loldom. It follows the adventures of a superhero cop, who has an axe, called Axe Cop. The story is often confusing and strange, the characters are hilarious, and the art is of high quality. It also makes absolutely no sense. I could probably find more plot by throwing some Alpha-Bits (that was such a great cereal) in the air and seeing how they land.

AND IT WORKS.

You will read this, you will enjoy this, and the twisting plot will only make it better. It updates very often, and remains possibly the craziest webcomic I read.


-The Mysterious Penguin

Applegeeks - The other side's comic

Applegeek's is a webcomic by two Macintosh loving geeks. It tells the story of the wacky hijinks of Hawk and his friends. Hawk is a genius, who has created a robot from his Mac, and has somehow come into possession of a talking Apple IIe. The current storyline involves him accidentally travelling back in time with the Apple IIe and a rather demonic little girl who reminds me a bit too much of the devil-girl from Yu-gi-Oh the Abridged Series (episode 20). Also included in Applegeeks is the AG lite feature, a smaller, black and white comic that is much more silly and much less continuous.

AG has been around for quite some time, and is now on its 3.0 addition. The artwork is really quite good, not going for the highly realistic look, but having a look slightly reminiscent of anime (it is NOT anime, I simply can't think of a better way to describe it). If you are an Apple fanboi, then go read this comic and get off my site.* If you want a pretty damn good story and rather good artwork, give this one a read. The antics of Hawk, Jayce, Gina, Eve, Alice and the evil teddy-bear girl (aka Ashley) will at the very least keep you entertained for a few hours, if not for several years.


-The Mysterious Penguin


*I kid, Microsoft, Apple, Android and even Linux users are all welcomed and hugged

METAPOST

Sorry, no review today, got a major test. Expect a new review up on Monday at the latest.

-The Mysterious Penguin

The Swedish One: Anders Loves Maria

Anders Love's Maria is not your average webcomic. Created by Rene Engström, it tells a complete story that I will in no way reveal. While the translation to English is not always perfect, there were very few times when it was not readable, and it was worth the effort to understand it in any case. This graphic novel no longer updates, as the story is finished, but if you want a really good read, I highly recommend giving it a try. He is making it into a fleshworld book, which I for one am going to pick up as soon as its done.

The art style in Anders Love Maria is rather unique, and probably actually has a name and following and history and all that jazz, but I don't know much about art so I couldn't really tell you that. What I can tell you is that the art-style makes the story even more engaging, and draws you into a world that is very similar to ours, but just different enough.

While trying not to give away any spoilers, I can say that the story is highly mature, real life scenario based, and funny in surprising and unexpected ways. The story jumps around a bit from place to place and time to time, but remains followable. If you do go and read this all in one go, don't be surprised to be sniffling at the sudden ending. Lots of thanks go out to Ray for introducing this one to me.

-The Mysterious Penguin

The first Comic! Girls Don't Play Games

 **Note, comics will be reviewed in the order they are in my bookmarks**

Girls Don't Play Games is a comic that I only recently discovered, but is keeping my interest fairly well. It's part of the typical gaming webcomic, except that this one is written and drawn by a female gamer. While it doesn't really feature long story arcs (at least, not yet), it does have continuous characters. I'm not really sure how much of the comic is based on real life events and how much is made up, but GDPG certainly keeps your attention, with very bright colours and an art style I don't think I've seen before. Many of the comics focus on various games and other gamer related things. The author is an avid gamer and cosplayer, and frequently features her family and friends in this comic. Although she does draw her boyfriend as a salamander. Or is it a newt....

-The Mysterious Penguin

Webcomics! Get Your Webcomics Here!

So, as you may or not know, I read a LOT of webcomics. The list currently stands at 63 different webcomics. This is just a small fraction of the webcomics on the tubes, and some of the most famous and well read ones aren't even on my list.

The precise definition of what is a webcomic can be argued over for days on end (of course, the same can be said for anything on the Internet). Personally, if it contains an image and/or text, and considers itself a webcomic, I will consider it a webcomic. I have webcomics that are drawn with incredible talent, ones that are stick figures and even one that is just starting up by some pretty cool people I know that is drawn with marker on a white board. To give me something to do over the coming days, I'm going to be posting short reviews of each and every one of these 63 webcomics. Some reviews may be more in depth then others, and as a disclaimer, please remember that these are webcomics that I personally like. I make no guarantees that you will enjoy them, that they will be safe for work, funny or updated. That being said, I hope that you will take some enjoyment out of reading my reviews and find at least a few new things to read this summer.


Good luck, have a good summer, and enjoy!

-Mysterious Penguin