12/25: There's No Such Thing

Finished Terror Island. That will be a fun one to keep up with.

From Terror Island I got a link to a parody review site, which also linked Isotown, which an interesting comic where the author goes and builds a town, step by step, in MS Paint, complete with random happenings and commentary. At this point, he even has an animated video of the first 135 strips in quick succession. A novel idea, well worth checking out.

I've also taken a liking to Erika Moen's comic diary. Careful, its not always safe for work. (Hardly ever, actually).

Finally, I read a large chunk of College Roomates from Hell. Now, normally, when I say a large chunck, it means i've started at the beginning and read forward. Here, it means I started in 2003 and read to the current, skipping a few years of archives. The reason I did this was because it was the only possible way I was not going to quit the comic completely. I still have to go back and try this methodology with Goats.

You see, CRFH is not for a casual comic reader. It's not for most readers in general. You really have to have a certain tolerance to read it. The art is not a draw, even in the later strips. The art is damn near unbearable at the beginning. Art isn't a necessisty for me though, as is evident in my liking of the early Sluggy Freelance archives or simplified strips like F8D or Irregular Webcomic.

What it doesn't have that is a necessity is humor. The lack of humor wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't a humor strip. In fact, the only thing that kept me reading once I started about halfway through is that it has some fairly involved characters and narrative.

But the humor just isn't there.

After reading the mid- to late strips, I went back and started to read from the beginning. The early strips rely wholly on hijinks to entertain you, and all it comes off as is quaint and cliche. With a new respect for the characters, I was able to tolerate them a bit more, but still - I just couldn't bring myself to continue reading it when there were dozens of other comics on my bookmarks that I hadn't gotten around to yet.

So, yeah. Check out Terror Island, Isotown, and DAR: A Super Girl Top Secret Comic Diary, but I'd suggest staying away from CRFH unless you don't have anything better to do.