Webcomic Above You 2014 Review and Discussion

[JSConner800]

The Blade of Ashur seems important, but in a lot of ways it really isn't. I intentionally leave a lot of questions unanswered, even important ones. For example, the sword's use and purpose remain undiscovered in order to present it as a relic of the Golden Age of Sorcery, a lost time that remains poorly understood. Sometimes I leave loose ends for the hell of it (like the queen's ultimate fate). I like my stories to retain unknown elements, rather like real history. I understand that doing this sort of thing leaves many frustrated, though.

While it's true that there are a lot of unknowns in recorded history, I think that telling an engaging story is difficult to do when you leave out too much detail. It creates a sense of "so what?" (by the way, this is something my story has been accused of as well). You certainly don't have to explain everything - in fact, it's probably best that you don't. But if you're superficial or evasive about too many story elements, then you get the "so what?" syndrome. If I had an easy solution for you, I'd tell you what to do about it. All I can really do is provide some food for thought, so hopefully that helps

I like goofy comedy a lot, roughly as much as I like tragic melodrama, so I put both elements into my stories. I guess it's kind of like the way Bollywood films try to provide value for money by giving the audience a bit of everything (romance, action, songs, drama, etc.). Obviously, this is like mixing oil and water to you and a lot of other people, but I like doing things this way. Besides, if I did a more serious story, I'd really have to change the art style.

That's an interesting comparison. Bollywood hadn't crossed my mind while reading the comic, but I can see what you mean. And there's an audience for that. I suppose I just wouldn't count myself among them *revs up hypocrisy engine.* The art style is certainly suited to the wide range of tones and emotions at play here. I think it could work with a more serious story, but it's working well with what you've got.

Thanks for the kind words about my drawings! It's kind of interesting that you liked my art and didn't care for my writing; usually, it's the other way around.

I'm very tough on writing because it's what I do, and I'm pretty easy on art because it's not what I do. If you're a better artist than I am, then there's a decent chance I'll like the artwork. Also, you've sidestepped my two artistic pet peeves in webcomics - bad coloring and samey character designs. For some reason those two things bother me, possibly because they're so prevalent. As I said, your characters are all very diverse, and you don't even have colors to fuck up in the first place

Yeah, they didn't actually all wear those Smurf hats in real life.

Well, apparently everything I know about history is a lie then

I suppose I didn't make this clear, but while Book II as a whole is a self-contained story, the events of Part I: Gordium will work in tandem with subsequent chapters, even if Kusatara and Humati's story looks like some unattached side attraction right now. Some things will never be elaborated on, though. Sorry about that!

Yeah that wasn't really clear, especially not with the way Part 1 ends. I'm glad you're gonna go back to it, because at the moment nothing has been resolved. Maybe some eventual closure will smooth over the stuff that'll never be explained? Only time will tell.

[RobboAKAscooby]

a bunch of stuff

I'll definitely keep reading and let you know when all is said and done.

[IVstudios]

THANK YOU IV!!

No problem. I hope the review was helpful.

IV I'm having that weird glitching problem again trying to read your site

Thanks for letting me know. I've completely deactivated my cache plugin, so let me know if that does/doesn't fix the problem and if the site loads to slowly without it.

[Terotrous]

The Webcomic Police by LibertyCabbage and others
Reviewed by Tero


The Webcomic Police is a webcomic reviewing blog maintained by a few different reviewers. Some of them are cartoonists themselves, though the site is not particularly academic or technical, the reviews are kept fairly short and the content is squarely aimed at readers of comics, not writers.

The first thing that immediately jumped out at me is that the site itself is difficult to navigate. The main page shows a listing of the last 10 comics they've reviewed, as well as some subscription links and links to articles with recent comments, but there's a very glaring omission here: There's nothing you can click to just get a big listing of all of the comics they've reviewed. You can search for a particular comic by name if you know exactly what you're looking for, and by using blogger's tagging system you can filter the comics by genre (though this is not accessible from the main page, you have to find a review that has those tags first), and a ratings-based search is available, but in every case you only get 10 results per page and you may have to page through a lot of comics to find what you're looking for. I would definitely recommend setting up a page that contains a listing of all the comics reviewed along with their ratings and a listing of popular tags to use for searching.

The next thing that deserves mention is the theme of the site. The first page has kind of a fun theme, it's set up like a police website, the comments section is called "concerned citizens", bad comics get put on the terror watch list, their links are listed as "fellow crimefighters", and so on. Unfortunately, the theme ends the moment you leave the main page, the concept does not extend to the reviews themselves in any way. This seems like a shame to me, I think you could easily extend this concept to reviewing, for example comics could easily have a "rap sheet", listing their biggest "infractions" (site is hard to navigate, artwork lacks backgrounds, too much cut and paste, etc), and then the final score could be a "sentence" (not guilty, 6 months with time off for good behaviour, 5 years with community service, life in prison with no chance of parole etc). It wouldn't really change things all that much, but it would help make this site feel distinct from other, similar reviewing blogs.

Speaking of which, the style of the reviews is really pretty standard. Most reviews start with a short introduction, then the comic is graded on site design, writing, and art, generally with a few specific examples linking to the comics in question, before a final conclusion and a review score. I was slightly disappointed to see that despite the presence of several cartoonists on the staff, the reviews don't really delve into the technical side of cartooning or offer much inside insight into the cartooning process, but I suppose I can't complain too much because there really aren't many reviewers who get into that, it probably puts off the mainstream audience who doesn't really understand it. The Webcomic Police is definitely a site targeted at the comic reader, not the comic author, so you shouldn't expect the kind of nuanced analysis and constructive criticism you'd see here. What's present is presented clearly and concisely enough that you can quickly grasp their impressions of the comic.

The actual content of reviews is always controversial, simply because opinions will vary, as a reviewer you just have to try to support your point as well as you can so that people can respect your position even when they don't agree with you. Unfortunately, this is where The Webcomic Police most frequently falters. They seem to try to keep the reviews to about the same length regardless of the age of a comic, so while a review of a comic that has only about 30 pages might be able to go into a lot of depth about pacing, writing structure, and character development, reviews for comics that run 200+ pages feel woefully short and often only focus on a single issue rather than giving you a picture of the comic as a whole. There also doesn't really seem to be a ton of objectivity in the reviews, you can generally tell from the first paragraph whether the reviewer likes the comic or not, which then tells you everything you need to know about the rest of the article. If they like the comic, the flaws will be glossed over or dismissed, while if they dislike it, they'll be the only things discussed (and hilariously, they're often the same flaws).

A great example of this in action is the Twokinds review, which the reviewer labels as Transsexual Pedophilic Furry Porn in one of the most hilarious examples of ridiculous sensationalism you'll find anywhere on the internet. This is the only content of the review, there's no attention given to the plot or anything like that, it's all just about the reviewer's disgust at the mere notion that anyone might find furry characters attractive. In reality, Twokinds is just very typical anime but with furries and there's not really anything even slightly pornographic about it. Then there's the Djandora review, which has furry nudity right on the front page and a link to a gallery of furry pictures that actually contains a lot of porn, but it's seemingly okay here because it's less popular, the issue of sexualizing furry characters is never even brought up, which leads me to believe the Twokinds article is actually just a clickbait article that isn't intended to be taken seriously.

The issue of narrow focus also extends even to comics where they get it right, like Sinfest. They correctly point out that Sinfest is a crappy feminist comic full of inconsistent and hypocritical messages that completely fails to make any kind of cogent point. However, what they fail to mention is that this is so infuriating because Sinfest used to be an excellent and legitimately funny comic that managed to be legitimately heartwarming at points despite being totally raw and offensive, which is an essential part of the overall picture. If you compare this TheBadWebcomicsWiki's entry about Sinfest, there's a lot more nuance and detail to this analysis, where they point out the issues with a lot of specific examples and still find time to discuss what few upsides exist. This is a much better example of how to write a negative article.

Overall, the Webcomic Police basically provides what you'd expect from a reviewing site. It's a decent way to find out about some new comics (though it would be nice if you could find the types of articles you were interested in more easily), but as with most sites you have to take their negative reviews with a grain of salt because sometimes it seems like they're more interested in generating buzz than being objective. I'd definitely recommend setting up that archive page with the list of reviewed comics (or if it actually exists and I somehow didn't find it, make it more obvious), and consider going into a bit more detail when reviewing long-runners.


Bonus review of LibertyCabbage's Video Comic Review Thing:

LC seems to have moved on to posting video reviews of comics, which is definitely an interesting direction that instantly does more to set the reviews apart from others than The Webcomic Police ever did. This review also addresses some of my issues with The Webcomic Police, for starters the review is far longer and more thorough than any of the reviews on the Webcomic Police site, clocking in at about 8.5 minutes, which gives a ton of time to delve into every facet of the comic. I also like that it starts off by drawing a comparison to another comic on a similar theme, as the mark of a qualified reviewer is usually that they can draw relevant comparisons to other works. This relates to what I was saying earlier about The Webcomic Police, where I wished the reviewers would bring in more of their own cartooning knowledge and experience. Even though I haven't read My Problems with Women, LC is able to explain the connection with this comic quite well so it doesn't make the review inaccessible for me, on the contrary it helps the review make a stronger case and feel more complete. LC's forte is definitely when he's doing critical analysis as it's clear he knows the material quite well, the section on anatomy in this review is quite informative and even though the review was for someone else's comic I found it pretty useful.

As for the specific choice of medium, I was against the idea at first, but the more I've thought about it the more I start to see the potential. This first video doesn't really do a lot with the medium, it's basically 6 minutes of LC's face against a white background with a couple cuts to black and one helpful section where he demonstrates posing. However, there's a lot more you could do with a video since you have the ability to combine the content of the review with onscreen images. For example, when discussing a specific comic, as he does several times in the review, the video feed could cut to that comic while he talks about it, so you can instantly see the example without having to look it up yourself (I'm pretty sure that this constitutes fair use). This could also come in really handy when the art is discussed, for example when you discuss the anatomy issues in the comic you could cut from yourself making that pose to an offending example from the comic to quickly highlight the problem.

Overall I think there's potential for an interesting series here but I'd definitely look into more post-production and video editing to really take advantage of what you can do with a video that you can't do with plain text.

[Cope]

Apparently, this thread is cursed.

Cope wrote:The Blade of Ashur seems important, but in a lot of ways it really isn't. I intentionally leave a lot of questions unanswered, even important ones. For example, the sword's use and purpose remain undiscovered in order to present it as a relic of the Golden Age of Sorcery, a lost time that remains poorly understood. Sometimes I leave loose ends for the hell of it (like the queen's ultimate fate). I like my stories to retain unknown elements, rather like real history. I understand that doing this sort of thing leaves many frustrated, though.

While it's true that there are a lot of unknowns in recorded history, I think that telling an engaging story is difficult to do when you leave out too much detail. It creates a sense of "so what?" (by the way, this is something my story has been accused of as well). You certainly don't have to explain everything - in fact, it's probably best that you don't. But if you're superficial or evasive about too many story elements, then you get the "so what?" syndrome. If I had an easy solution for you, I'd tell you what to do about it. All I can really do is provide some food for thought, so hopefully that helps

I like goofy comedy a lot, roughly as much as I like tragic melodrama, so I put both elements into my stories. I guess it's kind of like the way Bollywood films try to provide value for money by giving the audience a bit of everything (romance, action, songs, drama, etc.). Obviously, this is like mixing oil and water to you and a lot of other people, but I like doing things this way. Besides, if I did a more serious story, I'd really have to change the art style.

That's an interesting comparison. Bollywood hadn't crossed my mind while reading the comic, but I can see what you mean. And there's an audience for that. I suppose I just wouldn't count myself among them *revs up hypocrisy engine.* The art style is certainly suited to the wide range of tones and emotions at play here. I think it could work with a more serious story, but it's working well with what you've got.

Thanks for the kind words about my drawings! It's kind of interesting that you liked my art and didn't care for my writing; usually, it's the other way around.

I'm very tough on writing because it's what I do, and I'm pretty easy on art because it's not what I do. If you're a better artist than I am, then there's a decent chance I'll like the artwork. Also, you've sidestepped my two artistic pet peeves in webcomics - bad coloring and samey character designs. For some reason those two things bother me, possibly because they're so prevalent. As I said, your characters are all very diverse, and you don't even have colors to fuck up in the first place

Yeah, they didn't actually all wear those Smurf hats in real life.

Well, apparently everything I know about history is a lie then

I suppose I didn't make this clear, but while Book II as a whole is a self-contained story, the events of Part I: Gordium will work in tandem with subsequent chapters, even if Kusatara and Humati's story looks like some unattached side attraction right now. Some things will never be elaborated on, though. Sorry about that!

Yeah that wasn't really clear, especially not with the way Part 1 ends. I'm glad you're gonna go back to it, because at the moment nothing has been resolved. Maybe some eventual closure will smooth over the stuff that'll never be explained? Only time will tell.

a bunch of stuff

I'll definitely keep reading and let you know when all is said and done.

THANK YOU IV!!

No problem. I hope the review was helpful.

IV I'm having that weird glitching problem again trying to read your site

Thanks for letting me know. I've completely deactivated my cache plugin, so let me know if that does/doesn't fix the problem and if the site loads to slowly without it.

The Webcomic Police by LibertyCabbage and others
Reviewed by Tero


The Webcomic Police is a webcomic reviewing blog maintained by a few different reviewers. Some of them are cartoonists themselves, though the site is not particularly academic or technical, the reviews are kept fairly short and the content is squarely aimed at readers of comics, not writers.

The first thing that immediately jumped out at me is that the site itself is difficult to navigate. The main page shows a listing of the last 10 comics they've reviewed, as well as some subscription links and links to articles with recent comments, but there's a very glaring omission here: There's nothing you can click to just get a big listing of all of the comics they've reviewed. You can search for a particular comic by name if you know exactly what you're looking for, and by using blogger's tagging system you can filter the comics by genre (though this is not accessible from the main page, you have to find a review that has those tags first), and a ratings-based search is available, but in every case you only get 10 results per page and you may have to page through a lot of comics to find what you're looking for. I would definitely recommend setting up a page that contains a listing of all the comics reviewed along with their ratings and a listing of popular tags to use for searching.

The next thing that deserves mention is the theme of the site. The first page has kind of a fun theme, it's set up like a police website, the comments section is called "concerned citizens", bad comics get put on the terror watch list, their links are listed as "fellow crimefighters", and so on. Unfortunately, the theme ends the moment you leave the main page, the concept does not extend to the reviews themselves in any way. This seems like a shame to me, I think you could easily extend this concept to reviewing, for example comics could easily have a "rap sheet", listing their biggest "infractions" (site is hard to navigate, artwork lacks backgrounds, too much cut and paste, etc), and then the final score could be a "sentence" (not guilty, 6 months with time off for good behaviour, 5 years with community service, life in prison with no chance of parole etc). It wouldn't really change things all that much, but it would help make this site feel distinct from other, similar reviewing blogs.

Speaking of which, the style of the reviews is really pretty standard. Most reviews start with a short introduction, then the comic is graded on site design, writing, and art, generally with a few specific examples linking to the comics in question, before a final conclusion and a review score. I was slightly disappointed to see that despite the presence of several cartoonists on the staff, the reviews don't really delve into the technical side of cartooning or offer much inside insight into the cartooning process, but I suppose I can't complain too much because there really aren't many reviewers who get into that, it probably puts off the mainstream audience who doesn't really understand it. The Webcomic Police is definitely a site targeted at the comic reader, not the comic author, so you shouldn't expect the kind of nuanced analysis and constructive criticism you'd see here. What's present is presented clearly and concisely enough that you can quickly grasp their impressions of the comic.

The actual content of reviews is always controversial, simply because opinions will vary, as a reviewer you just have to try to support your point as well as you can so that people can respect your position even when they don't agree with you. Unfortunately, this is where The Webcomic Police most frequently falters. They seem to try to keep the reviews to about the same length regardless of the age of a comic, so while a review of a comic that has only about 30 pages might be able to go into a lot of depth about pacing, writing structure, and character development, reviews for comics that run 200+ pages feel woefully short and often only focus on a single issue rather than giving you a picture of the comic as a whole. There also doesn't really seem to be a ton of objectivity in the reviews, you can generally tell from the first paragraph whether the reviewer likes the comic or not, which then tells you everything you need to know about the rest of the article. If they like the comic, the flaws will be glossed over or dismissed, while if they dislike it, they'll be the only things discussed (and hilariously, they're often the same flaws).

A great example of this in action is the Twokinds review, which the reviewer labels as Transsexual Pedophilic Furry Porn in one of the most hilarious examples of ridiculous sensationalism you'll find anywhere on the internet. This is the only content of the review, there's no attention given to the plot or anything like that, it's all just about the reviewer's disgust at the mere notion that anyone might find furry characters attractive. In reality, Twokinds is just very typical anime but with furries and there's not really anything even slightly pornographic about it. Then there's the Djandora review, which has furry nudity right on the front page and a link to a gallery of furry pictures that actually contains a lot of porn, but it's seemingly okay here because it's less popular, the issue of sexualizing furry characters is never even brought up, which leads me to believe the Twokinds article is actually just a clickbait article that isn't intended to be taken seriously.

The issue of narrow focus also extends even to comics where they get it right, like Sinfest. They correctly point out that Sinfest is a crappy feminist comic full of inconsistent and hypocritical messages that completely fails to make any kind of cogent point. However, what they fail to mention is that this is so infuriating because Sinfest used to be an excellent and legitimately funny comic that managed to be legitimately heartwarming at points despite being totally raw and offensive, which is an essential part of the overall picture. If you compare this TheBadWebcomicsWiki's entry about Sinfest, there's a lot more nuance and detail to this analysis, where they point out the issues with a lot of specific examples and still find time to discuss what few upsides exist. This is a much better example of how to write a negative article.

Overall, the Webcomic Police basically provides what you'd expect from a reviewing site. It's a decent way to find out about some new comics (though it would be nice if you could find the types of articles you were interested in more easily), but as with most sites you have to take their negative reviews with a grain of salt because sometimes it seems like they're more interested in generating buzz than being objective. I'd definitely recommend setting up that archive page with the list of reviewed comics (or if it actually exists and I somehow didn't find it, make it more obvious), and consider going into a bit more detail when reviewing long-runners.


Bonus review of LibertyCabbage's Video Comic Review Thing:

LC seems to have moved on to posting video reviews of comics, which is definitely an interesting direction that instantly does more to set the reviews apart from others than The Webcomic Police ever did. This review also addresses some of my issues with The Webcomic Police, for starters the review is far longer and more thorough than any of the reviews on the Webcomic Police site, clocking in at about 8.5 minutes, which gives a ton of time to delve into every facet of the comic. I also like that it starts off by drawing a comparison to another comic on a similar theme, as the mark of a qualified reviewer is usually that they can draw relevant comparisons to other works. This relates to what I was saying earlier about The Webcomic Police, where I wished the reviewers would bring in more of their own cartooning knowledge and experience. Even though I haven't read My Problems with Women, LC is able to explain the connection with this comic quite well so it doesn't make the review inaccessible for me, on the contrary it helps the review make a stronger case and feel more complete. LC's forte is definitely when he's doing critical analysis as it's clear he knows the material quite well, the section on anatomy in this review is quite informative and even though the review was for someone else's comic I found it pretty useful.

As for the specific choice of medium, I was against the idea at first, but the more I've thought about it the more I start to see the potential. This first video doesn't really do a lot with the medium, it's basically 6 minutes of LC's face against a white background with a couple cuts to black and one helpful section where he demonstrates posing. However, there's a lot more you could do with a video since you have the ability to combine the content of the review with onscreen images. For example, when discussing a specific comic, as he does several times in the review, the video feed could cut to that comic while he talks about it, so you can instantly see the example without having to look it up yourself (I'm pretty sure that this constitutes fair use). This could also come in really handy when the art is discussed, for example when you discuss the anatomy issues in the comic you could cut from yourself making that pose to an offending example from the comic to quickly highlight the problem.

Overall I think there's potential for an interesting series here but I'd definitely look into more post-production and video editing to really take advantage of what you can do with a video that you can't do with plain text.

[RobboAKAscooby]

Rindian ravesite!!!

scooby-doo-scared.jpg (54.38 KiB) Viewed 5626 times

[robybang]

A great example of this in action is the Twokinds review, which the reviewer labels as Transsexual Pedophilic Furry Porn in one of the most hilarious examples of ridiculous sensationalism you'll find anywhere on the internet. This is the only content of the review, there's no attention given to the plot or anything like that, it's all just about the reviewer's disgust at the mere notion that anyone might find furry characters attractive. In reality, Twokinds is just very typical anime but with furries and there's not really anything even slightly pornographic about it. Then there's the Djandora review, which has furry nudity right on the front page and a link to a gallery of furry pictures that actually contains a lot of porn, but it's seemingly okay here because it's less popular, the issue of sexualizing furry characters is never even brought up, which leads me to believe the Twokinds article is actually just a clickbait article that isn't intended to be taken seriously.

(Full disclosure here, I write for the site and I wrote the Djandora review) In the site's defense, the two reviews were written by two different people, which means they'll have two different sets of standards. We could have some sort of rubric or something in place that makes sure we're all on the same page regarding what deserves what score, but even then we could all read the same comic and still argue it deserves three different scores. And as for Djandora, that pinup page wasn't there when I reviewed it and I don't review the artist's other art sites. If they do porn on the side, that's their business and I won't comment on it as long as they don't let it take over the comic I'm reviewing.

[Terotrous]

My post lost all of its links so I'm going to repost it. Hopefully it won't break yet again.

The Webcomic Police by LibertyCabbage and others
Reviewed by Tero


The Webcomic Police is a webcomic reviewing blog maintained by a few different reviewers. Some of them are cartoonists themselves, though the site is not particularly academic or technical, the reviews are kept fairly short and the content is squarely aimed at readers of comics, not writers.

The first thing that immediately jumped out at me is that the site itself is difficult to navigate. The main page shows a listing of the last 10 comics they've reviewed, as well as some subscription links and links to articles with recent comments, but there's a very glaring omission here: There's nothing you can click to just get a big listing of all of the comics they've reviewed. You can search for a particular comic by name if you know exactly what you're looking for, and by using blogger's tagging system you can filter the comics by genre (though this is not accessible from the main page, you have to find a review that has those tags first), and a ratings-based search is available, but in every case you only get 10 results per page and you may have to page through a lot of comics to find what you're looking for. I would definitely recommend setting up a page that contains a listing of all the comics reviewed along with their ratings and a listing of popular tags to use for searching.

The next thing that deserves mention is the theme of the site. The first page has kind of a fun theme, it's set up like a police website, the comments section is called "concerned citizens", bad comics get put on the terror watch list, their links are listed as "fellow crimefighters", and so on. Unfortunately, the theme ends the moment you leave the main page, the concept does not extend to the reviews themselves in any way. This seems like a shame to me, I think you could easily extend this concept to reviewing, for example comics could easily have a "rap sheet", listing their biggest "infractions" (site is hard to navigate, artwork lacks backgrounds, too much cut and paste, etc), and then the final score could be a "sentence" (not guilty, 6 months with time off for good behaviour, 5 years with community service, life in prison with no chance of parole etc). It wouldn't really change things all that much, but it would help make this site feel distinct from other, similar reviewing blogs.

Speaking of which, the style of the reviews is really pretty standard. Most reviews start with a short introduction, then the comic is graded on site design, writing, and art, generally with a few specific examples linking to the comics in question, before a final conclusion and a review score. I was slightly disappointed to see that despite the presence of several cartoonists on the staff, the reviews don't really delve into the technical side of cartooning or offer much inside insight into the cartooning process, but I suppose I can't complain too much because there really aren't many reviewers who get into that, it probably puts off the mainstream audience who doesn't really understand it. The Webcomic Police is definitely a site targeted at the comic reader, not the comic author, so you shouldn't expect the kind of nuanced analysis and constructive criticism you'd see here. What's present is presented clearly and concisely enough that you can quickly grasp their impressions of the comic.

The actual content of reviews is always controversial, simply because opinions will vary, as a reviewer you just have to try to support your point as well as you can so that people can respect your position even when they don't agree with you. Unfortunately, this is where The Webcomic Police most frequently falters. They seem to try to keep the reviews to about the same length regardless of the age of a comic, so while a review of a comic that has only about 30 pages might be able to go into a lot of depth about pacing, writing structure, and character development, reviews for comics that run 200+ pages feel woefully short and often only focus on a single issue rather than giving you a picture of the comic as a whole. There also doesn't really seem to be a ton of objectivity in the reviews, you can generally tell from the first paragraph whether the reviewer likes the comic or not, which then tells you everything you need to know about the rest of the article. If they like the comic, the flaws will be glossed over or dismissed, while if they dislike it, they'll be the only things discussed (and hilariously, they're often the same flaws).

A great example of this in action is the Twokinds review, which the reviewer labels as Transsexual Pedophilic Furry Porn in one of the most hilarious examples of ridiculous sensationalism you'll find anywhere on the internet. This is the only content of the review, there's no attention given to the plot or anything like that, it's all just about the reviewer's disgust at the mere notion that anyone might find furry characters attractive. In reality, Twokinds is just very typical anime but with furries and there's not really anything even slightly pornographic about it. Then there's the Djandora review, which has furry nudity right on the front page and a link to a gallery of furry pictures that actually contains a lot of porn, but it's seemingly okay here because it's less popular, the issue of sexualizing furry characters is never even brought up, which leads me to believe the Twokinds article is actually just a clickbait article that isn't intended to be taken seriously.

The issue of narrow focus also extends even to comics where they get it right, like Sinfest. They correctly point out that Sinfest is a crappy feminist comic full of inconsistent and hypocritical messages that completely fails to make any kind of cogent point. However, what they fail to mention is that this is so infuriating because Sinfest used to be an excellent and legitimately funny comic that managed to be legitimately heartwarming at points despite being totally raw and offensive, which is an essential part of the overall picture. If you compare this TheBadWebcomicsWiki's entry about Sinfest, there's a lot more nuance and detail to this analysis, where they point out the issues with a lot of specific examples and still find time to discuss what few upsides exist. This is a much better example of how to write a negative article.

Overall, the Webcomic Police basically provides what you'd expect from a reviewing site. It's a decent way to find out about some new comics (though it would be nice if you could find the types of articles you were interested in more easily), but as with most sites you have to take their negative reviews with a grain of salt because sometimes it seems like they're more interested in generating buzz than being objective. I'd definitely recommend setting up that archive page with the list of reviewed comics (or if it actually exists and I somehow didn't find it, make it more obvious), and consider going into a bit more detail when reviewing long-runners.


Bonus review of LibertyCabbage's Video Comic Review Thing:

LC seems to have moved on to posting video reviews of comics, which is definitely an interesting direction that instantly does more to set the reviews apart from others than The Webcomic Police ever did. This review also addresses some of my issues with The Webcomic Police, for starters the review is far longer and more thorough than any of the reviews on the Webcomic Police site, clocking in at about 8.5 minutes, which gives a ton of time to delve into every facet of the comic. I also like that it starts off by drawing a comparison to another comic on a similar theme, as the mark of a qualified reviewer is usually that they can draw relevant comparisons to other works. This relates to what I was saying earlier about The Webcomic Police, where I wished the reviewers would bring in more of their own cartooning knowledge and experience. Even though I haven't read My Problems with Women, LC is able to explain the connection with this comic quite well so it doesn't make the review inaccessible for me, on the contrary it helps the review make a stronger case and feel more complete. LC's forte is definitely when he's doing critical analysis as it's clear he knows the material quite well, the section on anatomy in this review is quite informative and even though the review was for someone else's comic I found it pretty useful.

As for the specific choice of medium, I was against the idea at first, but the more I've thought about it the more I start to see the potential. This first video doesn't really do a lot with the medium, it's basically 6 minutes of LC's face against a white background with a couple cuts to black and one helpful section where he demonstrates posing. However, there's a lot more you could do with a video since you have the ability to combine the content of the review with onscreen images. For example, when discussing a specific comic, as he does several times in the review, the video feed could cut to that comic while he talks about it, so you can instantly see the example without having to look it up yourself (I'm pretty sure that this constitutes fair use). This could also come in really handy when the art is discussed, for example when you discuss the anatomy issues in the comic you could cut from yourself making that pose to an offending example from the comic to quickly highlight the problem.

Overall I think there's potential for an interesting series here but I'd definitely look into more post-production and video editing to really take advantage of what you can do with a video that you can't do with plain text.

[Cope]

...okay, so now the thread decided to eat my post that had all the lost messages from page 2 in it. aaargh.

The Blade of Ashur seems important, but in a lot of ways it really isn't. I intentionally leave a lot of questions unanswered, even important ones. For example, the sword's use and purpose remain undiscovered in order to present it as a relic of the Golden Age of Sorcery, a lost time that remains poorly understood. Sometimes I leave loose ends for the hell of it (like the queen's ultimate fate). I like my stories to retain unknown elements, rather like real history. I understand that doing this sort of thing leaves many frustrated, though.

While it's true that there are a lot of unknowns in recorded history, I think that telling an engaging story is difficult to do when you leave out too much detail. It creates a sense of "so what?" (by the way, this is something my story has been accused of as well). You certainly don't have to explain everything - in fact, it's probably best that you don't. But if you're superficial or evasive about too many story elements, then you get the "so what?" syndrome. If I had an easy solution for you, I'd tell you what to do about it. All I can really do is provide some food for thought, so hopefully that helps

I like goofy comedy a lot, roughly as much as I like tragic melodrama, so I put both elements into my stories. I guess it's kind of like the way Bollywood films try to provide value for money by giving the audience a bit of everything (romance, action, songs, drama, etc.). Obviously, this is like mixing oil and water to you and a lot of other people, but I like doing things this way. Besides, if I did a more serious story, I'd really have to change the art style.

That's an interesting comparison. Bollywood hadn't crossed my mind while reading the comic, but I can see what you mean. And there's an audience for that. I suppose I just wouldn't count myself among them *revs up hypocrisy engine.* The art style is certainly suited to the wide range of tones and emotions at play here. I think it could work with a more serious story, but it's working well with what you've got.

Thanks for the kind words about my drawings! It's kind of interesting that you liked my art and didn't care for my writing; usually, it's the other way around.

I'm very tough on writing because it's what I do, and I'm pretty easy on art because it's not what I do. If you're a better artist than I am, then there's a decent chance I'll like the artwork. Also, you've sidestepped my two artistic pet peeves in webcomics - bad coloring and samey character designs. For some reason those two things bother me, possibly because they're so prevalent. As I said, your characters are all very diverse, and you don't even have colors to fuck up in the first place

Yeah, they didn't actually all wear those Smurf hats in real life.

Well, apparently everything I know about history is a lie then

I suppose I didn't make this clear, but while Book II as a whole is a self-contained story, the events of Part I: Gordium will work in tandem with subsequent chapters, even if Kusatara and Humati's story looks like some unattached side attraction right now. Some things will never be elaborated on, though. Sorry about that!

Yeah that wasn't really clear, especially not with the way Part 1 ends. I'm glad you're gonna go back to it, because at the moment nothing has been resolved. Maybe some eventual closure will smooth over the stuff that'll never be explained? Only time will tell.

a bunch of stuff

I'll definitely keep reading and let you know when all is said and done.

djracodex wrote:THANK YOU IV!!

No problem. I hope the review was helpful.

VeryCuddlyCornpone wrote:IV I'm having that weird glitching problem again trying to read your site

Thanks for letting me know. I've completely deactivated my cache plugin, so let me know if that does/doesn't fix the problem and if the site loads to slowly without it.

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

Thanks, Cope. What the heck is going on with the forums these past few weeks? The spambots of the years have been bad enough, must our infrastructure collapse as well? *faints dead away*

[RobboAKAscooby]

Thanks, Cope. What the heck is going on with the forums these past few weeks? The spambots of the years have been bad enough, must our infrastructure collapse as well? *faints dead away*

B-b-but if this place collapses I'll have to find somewhere new to hang out....I'm not good meeting new people...

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

Thanks, Cope. What the heck is going on with the forums these past few weeks? The spambots of the years have been bad enough, must our infrastructure collapse as well? *faints dead away*

B-b-but if this place collapses I'll have to find somewhere new to hang out....I'm not good meeting new people...

Me neither no one else gets me

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

For my review, I'm focusing just on the story of Inhumation itself and omitting the mini-story "Legend of the Ibwa" that runs between chapters six and seven. I did this mostly just to keep my own review focused and maintain some semblance of linearity Consider an official IOU on the Ibwa mini-story, which I have read and enjoyed, and will review at an undisclosed future date.



Inhumation by Carl Schulz


An exhumation is when you remove a dead body from the tomb. I guess Inhumation is when you go in with it.

Inhumation is a webcomic that is easily distinguished from the rest both in terms of its subject matter (surprisingly few comics take place in the afterlife) and its ever-evolving but always unique art style. The story follows Kame, a young woman who dies and finds herself in Hell, as she tries to acclimate to this new "life" and environment. While many of the storylines are pretty standard slice-of-life episodes deep-fried in Hadean breadcrumbs, there are bits and pieces that suggest a darker, more serious reality lurking beneath the surface.

The site is nicely arranged and thematically cohesive. The looming demon-Warden to the left of the content is a constant reminder of the comic's setting. The extra pages are well laid out and accessible- the general archive page is organized nicely, the cast pages are brief and useful, and there's even a page of "chapter recaps" that cutely (and shallowly) summarize each chapter. One thing I didn't care for site-wise is that when you go the archive for each chapter, intuitively I would think the first page of the chapter would be at the top of the archive. Instead, to start reading the chapter you need to go to the bottom of the page to get to the beginning. I mean, I didn't make this mistake every time I went to the archives but it's kind of a weird layout for a comic whose archive has continuity that matters.

On to the story itself: We open with rebellious Kame having a dispute with her parents on her way out the door in the dead of night. The argument comes to a head and she makes an angry escape. She steals away to a Satanic cult initiation in the forest. The ritual's would-be sacrificial chicken flees its captors and Kame goes after it, following it over a street where she is struck and killed by a truck. Given that from this point on, the rest of the comic takes place on "the other side," I wonder if the entire story might have been conceived during a deep meditation upon the old "why did the chicken cross the road" joke.

The art in the comic has come a very, very long way since this first chapter. The wobbly lineart and ambitious yet amateur spot blacks later bloom into a variety of styles and experimentation. Even in the earliest pages, Schulz's handle on visually interesting composition and framing choices is adept and creative. Throughout the comic, the art has an unusual abstract quality that seems to question itself at some points in chapters two and three, but regains confidence in the chapters to follow.

A quick issue to point out is that the comic is seasoned with spelling errors. It's not really something that improves over the course of the comic- the most recent chapters have them about as often as the earlier chapters do. Although the comic never seems to take itself too seriously, these mispellings- which are not typos, as the comic is hand-lettered- take the reader out of the story and disrupt the flow.

The second chapter is devoted to Kame's introduction to Hell's waiting room and reception area. We learn that Inhumation's Hell is a bit like prison, in that your time in Hell is really a limited sentence determined by what it was you did that sent you there in the first place. The "severity" of your Hell level is also dependent on these factors.

The early art's weaknesses are quite apparent in this chapter. For instance, on page 24, the reduced abstraction of Kame's eye in panel 2 kind of fails to convince. There are other instances like this throughout the chapter. It's never so off-putting as to throw one out of the story entirely, and I guess on some level the artistic confusion "works" as a visual metaphor for the panic and worry Kame feels in this new unexplained environment, however unintentional that last point may be. I really like the experimentation with heavy stylization early in the comic because even though it doesn't always look quite right, more often than not it is executed with confidence, and the "practice" pays off later in the comic when Schulz's style really comes out of its shell.

Chapter three is a relatively brief chapter that introduces us to Kame's new "living" arrangement as well as to the second significant character, Claire. Claire and Kame went to high school together, but being a prep and a goth respectively there was little friendship between the two. Claire is a grim, grumpy character and, at least in my opinion, the most interesting. Her character gains more depth as the story progresses. Kame's emotions in this chapter move back and forth between equally childlike fear and childlike stubborn indignance. You can kind of read the whole comic with Hell actually being a metaphor for adulthood or "the real world." It is clear that part of the reason she identified with the gothic subculture is out of a fear of not belonging, a fear of being hurt, and seeking to craft a persona that is tough, unaffected, and stoic.

The art in the first few pages is a little off-kilter. Kame's proportions in particular are pretty warped. Starting on page 54 is a jaunt where the lineart takes on a weird style that looks really out of place compared to the previous art. It's most noticeable in the way Claire is rendered, as even though she is a new character it almost looks like someone else was drawing her on these pages. This happens occasionally in the next chapter but is mostly in this one, as if Schulz was having trouble in the beginning getting her character design to mesh with the rest of them.

In chapter four, Claire takes Kame out to run errands and we meet two young men to round out "the gang," Marco and Theo. Marco's kind of a dick and Theo's a gentle teddy-bear of a guy. This particular chapter doesn't really stand out much on its own writing-wise and when thinking back on the comic I tend to lump it onto chapter three. There is some entertaining dialogue on page 90 that provides a little more world-building. Overall the chapter is primarily dialogue-driven as the characters introduce themselves to one another and discuss how they died and why they're in Hell. The only character we don't hear from at this time is Claire, who even by the time we catch up to the current update in chapter seven has not explicitly revealed her story. I have a bit of a guess what might have happened based on clues that appear in later chapters, but I'll discuss that later.

Considering how short it is page-wise, I have a lot to say about the art in this chapter. For a while, there's a digital screentone/hatching effect being used that doesn't really work well with the organic flowiness of the lineart. It has the effect of making it look like we're watching the characters through some weird early 90's CCTV monitor and it's kind of overwhelming to the eye. It seems to peak on this page and then vanishes, never to return.

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

This is the first chapter where color is used and it adds a lot of visual interest. The color disappears every now and then in the middle of scenes with seemingly no comic-related reason for doing so, and it's pretty clear that Schulz was playing around and experimenting with what he wanted to do. One issue is that when the color disappears, it calls more attention to weaknesses in the lineart. I'll make an educated guess and say that this is around the point where IV either began using a tablet or had switched from and old one to a new one. The presence of aliased lines is noticeable and seems the biggest indicator.

In terms of the lineart, here Schulz returns to a style similar to the beginning of the comic, with heavy use of spot blacks and and wobbly lines of wavering thickness. Some of the interiors, like on page 79, look like barren voids. Throughout most of the comic, one thing Schulz does struggle with is settings, both interior and exterior. The most recent chapters do seem to be head-and-shoulders above their predecessors, though. Page 86 sees the advent of a scratchy highlight-and-shadow coloring style that Schulz used prominently in his other comic, Island Hopping. This adds a lot of depth to the characters. On page 88 is some architecture I absolutely adore. Everything finally looks appropriately lopsided and daunting for a hellscape. The buildings give kind of a Rocko's Modern Life vibe.

There is no chapter title page to designate the beginning of Chapter 5. The first page technically serves as one but there's no text on the image really saying so. It's just kind of weird because every other chapter has one.

Chapter five itself focuses on Kame and Claire at their job at Satan Burger, a suitably named fast food joint. Marco and Theo arrive and hang out with the girls for a while. The atmosphere of the chapter is very teen-sitcom-ish- there's a lot of sarcastic, semi-spiteful banter being exchanged, and we learn a bit more about the characters' personalities as the group dynamic plays out. Claire wears a perpetual frown of disapproval, Marco typically a "douchebag" sneer. Theo and Kame present more gentle expressions, as both seem to value politeness toward people they respect, and care what others think of them.

The mundanity of their work environment is of course an analogy to real-life retail hell, but in actual hell. I love the little detail that Kame's name is misspelled on her own nametag. Page 108 is a good example of the humor of the chapter, and I really like how Claire is definitely afraid of the Warden but also seems pretty bored with the encounter.

On page 113 the characters start speculating about the way things seem to work in Hell. This was an interesting conversation and I'd like to see more like it. All throughout the comic, even though things mostly seem to play out in more or less the way things work on regular earth, there's a sense of a darker undercurrent that I'd like to see explored further. The closest we've really gotten to this happens in chapter six. I mentioned earlier I can appreciate the hell/real-life metaphor, but I have a lot of questions and curiosity about "what's going on," and while I don't expect all of those musings to be answered explicitly, the story is more compelling when the stuff that sets it apart from "life as we know it" gets explored. The most recent chapters are a good step in that direction though, so I think Schulz is working toward digging deeper into that particular mountain.

The chapter ends with the girls back at their apartment, and we see Claire start inching toward some character development as she tentatively yet voluntarily asks Kame to come hang out with her.

There are some points during this chapter where the lettering gets kind of sloppy. It's really noticeable on page 98. By page 104, the lineart is pretty secure and confident, and the stylization makes a beeline toward Shulz's current style. The characters are each distinguishable in shape and expression. There's a return to black-and-white starting on page 105 and it's a stark improvement to the comic's beginning. The hatching is skillfully employed and the compositional arrangement of the pages features much less empty space than before. The layouts in this chapter are delightfully inventive, such as on page 106. Varied point-of-view shots and angles add freshness to what could have been a very dull page.

One strange thing about chapter five is that toward the end of the chapter, the pages stop being numbered and are just given page titles. It's just a weird inconsistency that makes it a little difficult to tell how many pages have elapsed between scenes.

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

I consider chapter six to be the strongest chapter thus far in Inhumation. It runs the gamut from funny, lighthearted pages to the more serious "important" pages later. Claire and Kame each get a little more depth, a new aspect of Hell-Life is explored, and there's some really touching moments as well. The chapter starts off with Claire and Kame getting their paychecks, and then follows them to a flea market where they can spend their earnings. An interesting dynamic between the girls forms at this point. When they get to the flea market, Kame goes wild wanting to buy all sorts of delightful but impractical things and clothes, while Claire knows to spend her money wisely on reasonable purchases. (An anecdote later in the chapter seems to indicate that Claire's thriftiness is something she picked up during her time in hell). This places the two in a pseudo-mother/daughter relationship, with Claire trying to steer Kame toward practicality and Kame excitedly wanting to rebel, a mirror of her relationship with her actual mother pre-death.

The whole chapter is built upon the premise that when you die, certain articles come with you and, as is revealed as the chapter progresses, these items have intrinsic, inherent, and very substantial value. Some characters arrive in Hell wearing the clothes they had on when they died. Others, like Claire, do not. (After reading this page, I thought back to this one, and realized that what I initially read as a throwaway comment on the latter might actually have some significance regarding how Claire ended up dead).

I won't go into exactly what takes place at the flea market, but suffice it to say that Kame gets herself in big, big trouble by almost selling away one of the pieces of jewelry that came with her to the afterlife. Some of the pages involving the demon-looking vendor are really poignant- so far this is the strongest emotional punch put forth in the comic, especially because you don't really see it coming in terms of "characters you expect to feel sympathy for." (Seriously look even his little demon-hair-snakes are sad :' () Things-That-Came-With-You are linked to memories of life, which in turn seem directly tied to what remains of one's humanity and possibly one's ability to be redeemed. Claire shares her own story of how she sold a pair of her earrings. The girls return to the apartment, Kame having learned an important lesson.

Back home, there's more discussion between the girls and for the first time we really see some genuine warmth between the two. The end of the chapter is really heartwarming and we see that Claire basically gets a karmic reward for starting to turn over a new leaf. The implication seems to be that Kame is the first person she's been genuinely kind and caring toward during her time in Hell, and that this is perhaps why, back in chapter 3, Kame was forced upon her as a roommate. It seems like Hell isn't just supposed to be a punitive place but a "rehabilitation" of sorts as well.

One art issue that starts to take hold during chapter six is that hatching and texture effects are often overwhelming or overused. An example is on the page called "Dollars"- it's an interior scene but the hatching on the ceiling kind of blends with all the other hatching and it really screws up the perceivable depth of the hallway.

The exterior and interior shots of the flea market are full of thoughtful detail, though toward the end of the chapter you occasionally get the sense that Schulz was getting fatigued with having to draw them. Luckily the pages that benefited the most from attention to detail were mostly at the beginning of the chapter when energy and motivation was still high. These pages clearly took a lot of time to put together and the result is a really strong, effective setting for the majority of the chapter.

The use of color in this chapter is neat. The general "current narrative" lineart is a dark green or black, Things-That-Came-With-You-When-You-Died are depicted in gold, pleasant memories are blue and unpleasant ones in red. Storylines like this are when Schulz's utilization of more abstract visuals really shine, used to a touching, beautiful effect in panels like the last one here.

I spoke earlier about overwhelming texture- on this page the walls are a good example of the texture being a cacophony over which I can't hear the foreground. It makes the walls look like stucco or "popcorn-ceiling" but it's a little too loud with the smoothness of everything else on the page.

On this page, the Warden, who usually speaks in kind of a Hulk or Tarzan stilted speech, speaks much more eloquently. It got me to wondering whether the wardens are each different "people" assigned to police different kinds of disturbances- are the Wardens just made up of really, really old souls whose humanity was fully gone long ago and who now nobly look after Hell because that's all that's left for them to do?

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

Chapter seven takes an interesting turn in that it focuses on Marco and more importantly Theo, who has remained shyly mysterious thus far in the comic. In this chapter we learn that when a relative dies and goes to Heaven, they get to have a Heaven party, and all of their related dead souls, regardless of posthumous placement, are invited! Hooray! So far Theo's received the invite to his Grandma Gertrude's Heaven party and, at Marco's urging, has asked Kame to be his +1. Before we shift to the party, Marco has some business to take care of with new characters Jerome and Germaine. These two seem to have been in Hell a little longer- they seem a little older than the rest of the cast and to say their living arrangements are more established is an understatement. Jerome is Marco's cigarette source, and Germaine seems to have some kind of mysticism about her- she's always depicted with her eyes closed (or possibly just pupil-less, I can't quite tell with the way it is rendered) which suggests physical blindness or at least altered vision of some sort.

I get the sense that this chapter is going to be a long one, seeing as we're more than twenty pages in and have yet to get to the party. It seems like it's shaping up to be a promising chapter in terms of more world-revealing- I mean, it has to, if we're actually going to be *at* the Heaven party. The premise of a potential romance in this comic is simply too cute and I'm looking forward to that being explored as well. Theo and Kame haven't noticeably expressed particular interest in each other romantically up to this point, but they've been cordial and friendly and I think they each have a positive warmth about them that would be harmonious.

The art in this chapter is entirely comparable with that of chapter six, seeming to hit a stride and settle into stylistic consistency. New effects are still being tried out, for instance on this page. The hatching still varies in terms of its effectiveness. It stands out less on this page and I think the main factor is how much negative space it has to fill. Pages with vast, unbroken swathes of it tend to look unfinished. It will be interesting to see where the rest of the chapter is going to go, artistically and in terms of plot.

And that's all what we're going by so far. Overall, Inhumation is a highly enjoyable comic whose greatest faults seem to be slow-reveal-pacing and occasionally glossing over the fact that it's in Hell. It's delightful to read this comic that started nine years ago and see how much Schulz's art has changed and grown, even through periods where the art faltered- it's great proof that you don't get better at something unless you work on it for a while. The characters are cute and likeable, even the ones who are rotten or grumbly, and the round, chunky art gives Schulz a lot of room for playing around with stylistic shifts from scene to scene. The story unfolds fairly slowly, but the writing itself is entertaining and, despite taking place in the underworld, manages to be funny without being mean or excessively crude.

I look forward to the rest of the current chapter and hope to get more "answers." Mostly I'm just excited to get to know more about Theo and see what happens with Kame at the Heaven Party. I wonder if at some point the story will take a more serious turn. The artful handling of chapter six in terms of writing and visuals makes me hopeful about the comic's potential going forward. Overall, Inhumation is definitely a comic worth keeping up with- is it dimly cheery or cheerfully dim? I guess it depends whether you ask Kame or Claire.

[IVstudios]

Ho-ley crap, that is a giant review.

Thank you so much, Cuddly! I love how much time you took to break everything down. I really appreciate it.

One thing I didn't care for site-wise is that when you go the archive for each chapter, intuitively I would think the first page of the chapter would be at the top of the archive. Instead, to start reading the chapter you need to go to the bottom of the page to get to the beginning. I mean, I didn't make this mistake every time I went to the archives but it's kind of a weird layout for a comic whose archive has continuity that matters.

Yeah, that's one thing that has annoyed me for a long time. It's just the way the WordPress theme I use lays out archive pages and I don't know how to fix it. I specifically selected an option that is supposed to make them go top to bottom, but it doesn't seem to function right.

Given that from this point on, the rest of the comic takes place on "the other side," I wonder if the entire story might have been conceived during a deep meditation upon the old "why did the chicken cross the road" joke.

Oddly enough, I have thought deeply about that joke. Though not specifically for Inhumation.

A quick issue to point out is that the comic is seasoned with spelling errors.

I've been trying really, really hard to get better at spelling, but it's just something I can't seem to do. For pretty much my entire life I've been awful at spelling. I think what I really need at this point is an editor.

The art in the first few pages is a little off-kilter. Kame's proportions in particular are pretty warped.

That fuckin' page! I will never live it down!

The only character we don't hear from at this time is Claire, who even by the time we catch up to the current update in chapter seven has not explicitly revealed her story.

Until you mentioned it just now, I totally didn't realize I never revealed Claire's death-story. Because I did reveal it… on her character bio page from a waaaaaaaaaaaaaay long time ago, and which no longer appears on the site. I like you're interpretation though (as unintentional as it may be on my part), and the real explanation may come up in a future story line so I won't get into it here. But I do like your explanation, if for no other reason than it makes me look smart.

One strange thing about chapter five is that toward the end of the chapter, the pages stop being numbered and are just given page titles. It's just a weird inconsistency that makes it a little difficult to tell how many pages have elapsed between scenes.

That was the point where I switched to using WordPress for the site, which allows for naming individual comic pages. I just bulk-posted the old pages with their page numbers and started giving names to the new pages.

Thanks again, Cuddly. That was awesome and helpful.

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

Luray! You're welcome!

Oddly enough, I have thought deeply about that joke. Though not specifically for Inhumation.

Ohhhhh yeeeeeaaaaahhh I forgot about that! I probably should have reread the blog comic on the sidebefore I wrote the review

I've been trying really, really hard to get better at spelling, but it's just something I can't seem to do. For pretty much my entire life I've been awful at spelling. I think what I really need at this point is an editor.

I mean, if you want, I can point out where the errors are on the old pages if you wanted to give them a scrub-up, but that would be a bunch of small but tedious extra work for you.

That fuckin' page! I will never live it down!

I think we all have "one of these pages." It was just weird because she had like toddler proportions in those two pages but it never happened that egregiously before or since.

Until you mentioned it just now, I totally didn't realize I never revealed Claire's death-story. Because I did reveal it… on her character bio page from a waaaaaaaaaaaaaay long time ago, and which no longer appears on the site. I like you're interpretation though (as unintentional as it may be on my part), and the real explanation may come up in a future story line so I won't get into it here. But I do like your explanation, if for no other reason than it makes me look smart.

Well gee!!

That was the point where I switched to using WordPress for the site, which allows for naming individual comic pages. I just bulk-posted the old pages with their page numbers and started giving names to the new pages.

I had a pretty strong notion that that was the reason behind it. It just made it hard for me to keep notes while I was reading- instead of just writing down the page numbers I needed to refer back to I had to write out the whooooole name

Thanks again, Cuddly. That was awesome and helpful.

You're very welcome! I really enjoy Inhumation and even though I don't always keep up with it as it updates, whenever I binge to catch up on it I kind of fangirl on it. I just reread djra's review she wrote of Inhumation last year and see that I mostly regurgitated a lot of the same point she did but in a more time-consuming fashion, whoops. Glad you found use in it, either way!


~~I killed the placeholder threeead~~

[IVstudios]

I mean, if you want, I can point out where the errors are on the old pages if you wanted to give them a scrub-up, but that would be a bunch of small but tedious extra work for you.

Thanks, but I try to keep a "don't worry about past mistakes," thing for my comics. Otherwise I'd just end up endlessly redoing old pages instead of working on new ones (which is the main reason I've resisted fixing my "that page" page).

Though if you do ever notice spelling errors on any of the newer pages and want to point them out I'd appreciate it. Fixing a recent page is a lot simpler than fixing old pages. WordPress can make organizing old post a bit of a hassle.

[LibertyCabbage]