Two geeks and a -Nedroid
by AeKae
Since you’re all still reeling from the news that Carl ‘Ugly’ Wheeler is retreating into some deep dark crevice of the earth, returning only in deepest night to steal children for food and sexual pleasure, now is an excellent time to talk about the charming and subtly built comic that is Nedroid.
I’m pretty late to this show (I started reading Nedroid last year sometime) so I’ve not browsed the entire archives. Just the start, the most recent, and anything 400 presses of the random will get me. This is my excuse if I accidentally tread on the toes of the fandom by omitting the striking Frank Millar-esque story about Beartato’s dark past as a crack dealer. Nedroid was a pretty difficult comic to get under the skin of and see ‘why’ I think the way I do about it. This is because it’s an excellent example of doing more with less.
Let’s look at Reginald- debatably the ‘main character’. He’s a narcissist, immature, insecure, inane and innocent. Reginald is also excellently visually designed;
The first panel is taken from Reginald's second appearance in the comic, the second is from a more modern Reginald.
The old Reginald looses his feathers, his beak changes shape, his head becomes more bulbous and his eyes enlarge.
So what?
Well I’ll tell you what- every single one of these changes represent s a move to a more ‘childlike’ character design. A bird without feathers appears more human; expressive, large eyes and a bulbous head are classic features of newborn children; and when featured in other contexts evoke a ‘cute’ or ‘immaturity’ response- we see these features and our minds think ‘child’ (This is played strongly in many cartoons) . The curved beak that old-Reginald sported is faintly parrot like, hooked and large. Beaks of this kind are tools and weapons. New Reginald’s beak is smaller (makes his head look larger) and looks much more like a chick’s; It’s even drawn in the style children often draw birds’ beaks. Every single feature changed underscores and highlights Reginald’s immaturity as a character. He is a giant bird-fetus- his design conveys his character.
Maximum signal, but only two bars of REGINALD
Beartato on the other hand, is an ideal foil for Reginald, at least visually. Squat, massive expressive mouth, beady eyes, stuff like that. Whereas Reginald tends to express himself mostly though posture and body movement (since uh, yeah) ; Beartato is all about facial expression. Since that’s all he is. A massive bear-face bisected by an excessively wide mouth. All this isn’t to say that Beartato is totally formal and straight laced, just more so than Reginald.
A really cool thing that Anthony’s done is transmit the roles of the characters to us though posture. Reginald is almost always viewed side on- whereas Beartato is viewed head on. Reginald is the instigator or the active half of the duo (looking forward or at his target), whereas Beartato is the passive or reactive half- (receiving state). I don’t know if this was intentional, but it works well.
Oh, and Harrison is a shark in some kind of spacesuit, and that’s awesome too.
Enough about specifics though, the style of Nedroid as a whole bleeds Crayola brand non-toxic charm- (where possible) broad chunky strokes are used in the line work, and rather than adopt a formal looking grey colour scheme he’s gone for a relaxing baby blue scheme- both give the style a “ages 3+” feel.
Whenever he's offscreen Beartato's practicing for his role as the 'bee stuntbear' in the new winnie the pooh movie
This is great- because it meshes really well with Nedroid’s ‘feel’ as a comic- Big Broad Strokes Humour which wraps itself round fanciful and cartoonish themes.
The structure of the jokes in Nedroid are normally of the “one-two” affair, setup/subversion.
Yeah sure, it’s older than roads and perhaps even chickens, but it’s extremely robust. Anthony has a good feel for timing and an excellent feel for just how far he can push surrealism before the jokes break.
This is where the style and substance of Nedroid bleed together-
I am a liar and eveything I say is a lie
the chunky abrupt jokes work so well because Nedroid digests so well, the art is bold and distinctive without being overpowering, so the comic tends to be read ‘faster’ than more visually complex efforts. When the punchline hits you the impact is greater because of the sharper snappy delivery. There’s no hanging around after the payload’s been dropped either; Like a roguish seaman from a faraway land, the comic strip enters and leaves our life quickly, but with flourish and style.
I keep talking about ‘charm’ and ‘innocence’ and stuff don’t I? I GUESS I’d better explain why! And why it’s important. The content of Nedroid revolves around subject matter that we associate with our childhood, and manifests in a number of motifs. Whether it’s Reginald and Beartato (or that dashing fellow Buttfranklin) playing with cars, making snowmen, hanging out on trampolines, jumping to the moon or being best buddies 4EVA, there’s a strong undercurrent of playfulness and carefree attitude. Indeed, only the perennially responsible Harrison seems to have a job, or a car, or any actual life at all.
The enthusiasm of the dynamic duo ‘float’ the tone of the comic. You get caught up, your pace quickens and you’re already smiling before the KILLAH BLOW. It’s pretty well known that if you’re a receptive audience you find things funnier. The tone and the charm that I’m talking about in this review is essentially a wedge that Anthony uses to open you up and prep you for laughs.
Of course, it’d be unfair of me if I didn’t mention the times when Nedroid is wickedly dark- though it’s not often.
I wonder how the first bearshark came to be?
If people pushed me to make complaints about Nedroid to satisfy their mis-understood idea of ‘balance’ then I could say a few things. The first would be that I find Reginald’s Howard-The-Duck-esque romances slightly unnerving. But maybe I’m just bigoted and it’s perfectly okay for uniformly blonde young ladies to seek relationships with a naked bipedal bird who has self-esteem issues.
(Am I a racist? Tell me in the comments)
I’d also like to see more Harrison Adventures, because Harrison is awesome.
OH YEAH- legitimate complaints- WELL occasionally jokes come fairly close to repeating- (two comics about Reginald being unable to get out of bed come to mind) though this isn’t nearly a common problem. Sometimes the comics try to play entirely and utterly on Reginald/Beartato just chilling and doing their thang- which sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t.
If I’ve held your attention this long, you can probably guess how I feel about Nedroid. If I haven’t, then you’re only cheating yourself by skipping ahead. Go back to the start and read this review again, twice.
I love Nedroid (and I’m not the only one)- It’s an oasis of silly and fun in a medium that’s all too often obsessed with appearing ‘edgy’ and ‘nerdy’. Nedroid isn’t perfect; it’s not an ideal all webcomics should aspire to.
But it does do what it does extremely well, likeable characters in an upbeat and simple world.
To be needlessly cryptic; you can’t live on cake, but it’s still damn tasty.
————————————————————
Since Carl ‘Screamin’ Wheels’ Wheeler has just announced he’s throwing in the towel for now I guess now is a good time to ask you guys if you’d want me to do the same. I enjoy posting here, but if you guys don’t want me to keep posting then I don’t mind setting the yoke fully on Mole and Tim’s shoulders and joining Carl in his pedo-cave.
Tl;dr SHOULD I KEEP POSTING???!1!!
OF COURSE the floor is also open to suggestions of what I should review next (if anything at all), improvements to my writing style, my dress sense, and the usual habitual trolling
18 comments
Because Carl hasn’t posted a whole lot here, I think it’s fair to say you guys have made webcomics.me what it is, which is “something well worth reading”.
You should definitely keep posting if you’re enjoying it!
Oh hi!
“He is a giant bird-fetus”
I like Reginald’s older design better, though. I’m not exactly a fan of the strip(mostly cause haven’t read it much), so that must mean nothing.
Oh, dang, you beat me to it!
“Beartato is all about facial expression.”
A claim that derives from interesting analysis, but the fact that I’ve never seen Beartato change his expression in the ten- twenty or so strips I’ve read undermines that claim. As I see it, he’s as much “corporal expression” as Reginald is.
“But it does do what it does extremely well, likeable characters in an upbeat and simple world.”
I can like that.
So, seeming you’ll probably continue posting here anyway(soon enough the comments will arrive to assure you of that, I bet), I’d suggest you to review the works of Aaron Diaz(“Count Your Sheep”, “Wisdom of Moo” and “No Day For Magic”; not “God Mode”, though, that thing’s history is pretty messy).
Also, you should wear more red. It conveys self-confidence!
You actually missed the joke on http://nedroid.com/2011/02/grilling-weather/
Look at how many fingers he has.
Bearshark is my single favorite webcomic page ever. That’s all I gotta say.
Oh, also, keep reviewing and stuff, they’re good reads and we enjoy your opinions.
My block has been cocked. I’ll admit- there *is* a joke but it seems generally incidental to the fact Reginald is acting with eyes bigger than his stomach.
ANYWAY beartato does alter his expression (more than reginald)-
Whereas Reginald’s features seem pretty much frozen in place, beartato has a wide mouth, which means Anthony has more leeway when it comes to making subtle but noticable inflections
(a bend in a long line is more noticable than a bend in a short stubby line)
tl;dr COZ MATHS
Your link to xkcd is screwed man! Anyways, YES, keep reviewing, I thought this review was your best one, but the rest were very good too! I like that Mole kinda hangs around and does a weekly round-up while you post less but go for full comics reviews. It’s a good balance. DON’T RUIN IT.
I really enjoy nedroid a lot but never really analyzed why I had liked it so. I feel that buttersafe follows nedroid’s form of humor with less importance on that childhood nostalgia and more of an importance on subversion of expectations, incidentally buttersafe is my favorite webcomic of all time.
i don’t even read that many webcomics and yet i’ve ended up reading webcomics.me. why on earth would you stop just because carl faced the inevitable reality that he simply doesn’t enjoy blogging anymore, whether it’s about xkcd or webcomics in general? if you can get admin control, and i can’t see why carl wouldn’t reply to an email from one of you asking for it, don’t even change site. why should you? we all come here….
“Like a roguish seaman from a faraway land, [the comic strip] enters and leaves our life quickly, but with flourish and style.”
Thanks for that sentence, I think I’ll use it from now on! Just have to replace the bracket with the current subject of my admiration. :>
Nice review in general. I must say that when someone posted the strip which you described as “unnerving”, I immediately fell in love with the comic. For many of the reasons you’re listing here, really.
I have to disagree about Reginald’s baby-like eyes though – to me, they look like big empty eyesockets, and not cute at all. You know, like the “lead singer” of the Gorillaz, or that one girl from Gunnerkrigg Court.
He’s still adorable, though.
And you guys still owe me a couple of reviews for future favorite comics of mine which I don’t know yet, and comics I already know but pay too little attention to, so no bailing!
Diesel Sweeties and White Ninja might (!) be good examples. I don’t know!
I feel this loosely relates to the issue of expressiveness.
http://nedroid.com/2010/02/a-man-of-many-moods/
Bit of a lampshade hanging, I guess.
I DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS POSSIBLE TO ANALYSE REGINALD’S DESIGN SO THOROUGHLY. I HAVE TRULY EMERGED OUT OF THIS WITH NEW INSIGHT.
Harrision Adventures was fantastic, I still hold hope it’ll continue since it updated months after I thought it’d died, and then it did it again. I am the definition of futility!
While I don’t always agree with your viewpoints (and perhaps because of that), I would like for you (and Mole) to carry on. Both of you put more than enough thought into your posts to deem this page functional and worthy of attention.
Okay so I corrected a few spelling errors and also fixed the XKCD link. This is because I am a terrific fanny and do not understand how wordpress works.
David & paint, Iirc there’s a Nedroid where Reginald talks about “something in his eye” and riffs off the idea that they’re haunting empty pits- and well spotted, I did link that in the review I think? yeah.
They’re alsop two examples of a webcomic artist being self referential while not sucking immensley (If I wasn’t topless right now this would be a video call).
I’m glad that you guys find my opinions interesting and worth discussing, so I’ll carry on with updating massively behind schedule and updating with posts riddled with dead links and typos. If I didn’t I’d have to find another outlet for my interprative drive- like giant novelty bonsai trees.
You probably did, but I completely missed it. It’s times like this I’m gld I have no shame whatsoever on this site.
This was a great article, and my first visit to webcomics.me
If this is your last-ever post, I will be extremely disappointed.
This was a great and extremely thoughtful review. I believe the creator of the comic made a comment on twitter about it, saying you think about his comic even more than he does! I certainly don’t see that as a bad thing.
If you plan on doing more reviews, I’d love to hear your thoughts on my favourite comic, Gunnerkrigg Court – you seem very insightful and it’d be cool to hear an analytical viewpoint on it
Yeah, you totally missed the grilling joke. There is not a single Nedroid comic that is not funny.
I understand that I’m really late to the party here. I just found this blog, read a little, and decided to look if there was any post about Nedroid anywhere, as it’s my favorite webcomic.
While I agree with most of what you said, I interpret the general style of the comic differently than you. You say it’s a fun, childish naivety fest with only a handful of dark moments scattered here and there. I say it’s a nihilistic, surreal world where the tools of childishness are used with frightening precision to deliver a unique flavor of existential horror.
Also, you didn’t mention the subtle but brilliant use of language, despite posting the (in my opinion) most triumphant example. In the final panel of the thanksgiving comic, note how there is no punctuation between ‘Beartato’ and ‘Let’s’. Look at what this does to the phrase in the context, and let the excellence overwhelm you.
Leave a Comment