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From today’s Penny Arcade:

Second star to the right-- nah, better not go there...

Ah, I remember what happened last time someone named a star after a woman…

Am I the only one who made this connection? I bet...

You know nothing bad can happen when your setup is practically a Junji Ito story’s first act!

No, no, no, don’t go on! Come back on the point! Answer the man, we want to know!

WHY IS HE A CAT?!

This is a question I’ve probably seen in most reviews of VG Cats, and for a good reason: there’d be no difference in VG Cats if the characters were not cats.

I really want to know now.

The Good

Cecilia’s face just doesn’t match her speech. Her eyes… they don’t look panicky. Her mouth isn’t wide open or displaying any sort of desperation. And yet… I think this actually works in favor of this strip. I mean, she is clearly doing this out of pure routine, so would she even be invested in this exercise in futile questioning? Probably not. Hence, accidentally matching indefinite expression!

The Bad

Now, the problem comes when the text is so ambiguous the image should be complementing it, and yet ends up being as ambiguous as it is, leaving you even more confused. And so there are two possibilities here: one is that the joke is that Shepard is being straight serious and the bathrooms are indeed the telltale sign of a civilization of machines, and that’s one lame joke after this buildup; or the joke is that Shepard is being sarcastic, and this is a really flimsy excuse when the whole ship is designed exactly like the other ships that pertain to organic civilizations, which is also pretty lame.

But really, what face is that?

The Ugly

BWUUUUUH?

What is this? What the heck? Can you even DO this face? I’m really asking this, if you can do this face, please take a picture and send it to me, it would make for one really interesting post!

Addendum: Is this going to be a feature? I don’t even know…

As a comic reviewer, I think this is the sort of shotgun joke that’s easy to do and easy to get right, but also too easy to miss. Usually it starts comparing two things that aren’t related — in this case, cultists of the Lovecraftian ‘verse and geeks — and each iteration displays a certain thing that, seen from a certain manner, are actually the same.

It all depends on how forced you are in your comparisons, really, and things usually head South when you try to add more things to the list because, say, you need to have two columns but have an odd number of items. Which brings me to what really bugs me about this dual panel in particular: as a gamer, I find it very annoying the assumption that violent video games generate violence.

For example, I don’t enjoy pelting animals with other animals via slingshot in real life, but I play Angry Birds alright — actually, I don’t, but just because I think it’s an overrated reuse of a simple game mechanic that already gave what it had to give.

I wouldn’t stake junkies to a wall with a spear gun, but I just adore Bioshock and its sequel.

And I do not defend the practice of killing peaceful creatures 10 times your size or even bigger just because you have a magic sword and a dead girlfriend that needs to be revived, but I still think Shadow of the Colossus is one of the best games of all time.

Joke comparisons aside, I defend that video games and role-playing games are the place where you can do these things that you can’t do in real life, either because it’s just plain impossible or because it is impossible for moral, ethic or even plain law-related motives. For example, killing bad guys. Or being the bad guy.

Which is why I call this “an otherwise good comic that just HAD to rub me the wrong way, didn’t it?” Saying that for geeks “human life has a very low price” because they play FPS — also: not all geeks play FPSs, duh — is like saying people support a comeback of the Middle Ages just because they enjoy historical fantasy.

(…you did read the subtitle of this blog, didn’t you?)

Amazingly, Matthew continues to be funnier and more talented than most gaming webcomic authors — webcomic authors, indeed — even when sick. Only my best wishes for that guy.

And… that’s pretty much what’s of interest in the world of webcomics this April’s Fools. I literally don’t rememeber anything else from other comics I read, Webcomics United did have another gremlin infestation(I need to come up with a better ploy for next year ) and deviantArt is fun actually as heck this year. I think dA’s April’s Fool pranks are like Star Trek movies, they’re alternatedly bad, then good.

Anyway, I really need to write some reviews, including Gunnerkrigg Court, False Positive and the much deserving Leftover Soup, but alas… things ain’t getting any easier of late.

So, something. For the time being. At least to try and keep the spammers out.

XKCD again. For a change.

So, as you might remember, Randall “Look at me, I’m a nerd just like you, love me!” Munroe made a cute and rather boring 1000th comic with this little remark:

“Wow, just 24 to go until a big round-number milestone!”

Besides making me confused as to why “round-number” was hyphenated, this comic was, of course, yet another moment of gratuitous nerdity on the part of Randall “nerd-pandering like a boss” Munroe. But, looking at it from another point of view… it was expected. And, at the very least, he did give us a milestone pic. But it made me curious: so, what is to come? What does Randall have in stock for the great 2^10 milestone, I wonder?
[Read more →]

This is Shepard we’re talking about. The one from Mass Effect. The one whose game is almost exclusived featured in gaming webcomics for a “Shepard sleeps with anything, and I mean anything, wink, wink” joke — one of the few webcomics I saw doing anything else with Mass Effect was written by a woman, GEE, I WONDER IF THERE IS A CORRELATION THERE.

So, Shepard, sex symbol of the gaming world, plus candles, plus wine, plus pantyhose, plus Engie-Tan, Jo Pereira’s very own sexpot mouthpiece.

Yea, Jo might want to wash those controllers before playing that.

It’s been a while folks!

This is for two reasons.  The first, and most obvious is that I am a lazy and unmotivated contributor; this is a surprise to no-one.

The second is that only recently have I aquired acess to functioning IT equipment.  It’s funny how you get used to the little quirks and tricks of your computer as time goes on; until one day you’re heating up some quail’s eggs for the byzantine ritual for getting your CD drive to open.

Usually by that point you try to salvage some dignity from the process and replace your computer.  By which I mean that no combination of arcane chants and blood sacrifice will get the numbers engine to rise from its slumber; leaving you no other option. [Read more →]

The world of webcomics is filled to the brim with bastards. I call that the “Webcomic Protagonist Syndrome”, a degenerating personality disease that makes one become a self-centered, borderline autistic, completely oblivious to social norms human being who is unable to cope with the simplest problems of life… and sometimes it has the side-effect of having you still be loved by your peers. You know who I’m talking about, you probably can name a few examples from the top of your head right now.

In summary, it is of the nature of webcomics to be prone to becoming self-fulfillment fantasies for their authors, and the degradation of their characters into assholes that never get to deal with the consequences of their stupid actions. And that annoys me. I love a magnificent bastard as much as the next guy, but these guys are not magnificent. Therein lies the problem.

So I must say I was quite overjoyed with Tyson Hesse’s move in recent Boxer Hockey:

Ah, the refreshing sound of a hand wrapped around an a-hole's trachea...

Besides reminding me the big guy’s name (it’s Billy!) this gives the impression that, yep, Chip is getting some back for that whole “selling out the game” deal that tops his overall webcomic asshat behavior as “the sarcastic guy”.

Yes, please. Let’s go on with that. That and the Hockey. Come on, it’s been a year since the last game of this crazy sport ended!

No love at all...

Katie hates Miranda Lawson. Really, really hates the woman. For reasons I barely understand, but might have something to do with the sparkles. Or the constantly protruding butt. I don’t play Mass Effect, really, so I cannot quite assess, but can hate that reaches animated levels be unjustified?

…Well, it can. Alas, Miranda, you shall have to seek for love somewhere else…

"Shepardo-kun"... It's for absurd things like this that I still read Nerf NOW...