Thursday, 22 September 2011

Hanna is not a Boy's Name!

Today's Webcomic Review: Hanna is not a Boy's Name! !





Status: CMIA [Creator Missing in Action] 
Updates: None



What's it about?


     Hanna is not a Boy's Name is about this paranormal detective who sucks in his job. One fateful day, a zombie knocks on his door asking to be hired by him! And it doesn't just stop there. They eventually befriend a vampire, face off a siren and many more I do not want to spoil!




My Rating:


Story


     The story is not the usual stories you read when it comes to the paranormal and what not. To tell you the truth, the story itself is pretty basic and simple, what carries it along for the ride is the Art.
       
Art

     The art is absolutely astonishing. Tessa Stone [the creator] has her own style of making comics and breaks away from the norms. It's not the usual 4 panel comic or the comics with white dividers and what not, it's absolutely unique! The way she draws is stylized and the way she colors the whole thing is simply amazing. Every page is just so wonderful to look at.




      This comic has got to be one of the comics back in my high school days that I frequently visited. A while after I went to college, I stopped visiting. A few years later, when I decided to write this blog, I rediscovered it... and to my surprise, the comic stopped updating, and Tessa Stone was nowhere to be found. 


     I found out from her site that she had this habit of abandoning her projects and creating new ones. If that was the case, even if she wouldn't come back to making Hanna is not a Boy's Name [though I hope not], I still want to know what happened to her, coz if she made something new, then I'd be one of the people who definitely want to see it!
     

That's all for now~! Ella blasting off~! XD

-010-

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

Evil Diva

Today's Webcomic Review: Evil Diva !




Updates: Tuesdays and Thursdays [if there are donations]




What's it about?

     In this webcomic's world, angels and devils live together, and each one of them is expected to act their part; an angel must be good, and a devil must be bad. However, there is just one devil who refuses to conform to the norms of socitey, a devil named Diva Beelze.

     Now hearing her name, you'd probably think of some bratty, spoiled, rich kid, but this girl's the opposite. She has unnatural urges to be nice and good. This poses a problem since, as I said before, angels and devils are expected to act their part, and if they don't, they will face consequences.

     Because of this, their grumpy looking counselor, Mr. Virgil, who discovered her good nature and is not an angel or a devil, decided to entrust to her a magical power in a form of a wand [the one she's holding on the cover page].

     An adventure ensues with her angel bestfriend, angel crush, angel arch nemisis and devil family! 



My Rating:

Story


     Well for my ratings, it would be divided into 2, diva as a preteen and diva as a teen.

     You see, for the first half, the story felt light-hearted and absolutely cutesy and sweet. It just felt like something new and enticing to read. However, when the story suddenly switched to a new direction [like 180 degrees] it just felt like one of those generic comics with the teen angst theme. Don't get me wrong, I love teen angst and all that mumbo jumbo, but the thing is, they already had a great thing going for them and they just decided to completely change it! Though I don't totally hate the new story, I miss and prefer the old Evil Diva's plots.

    
Art

Evil Diva Art by Brinson

     This is the first ever Evil Diva art style. As you can see, it's all cutesy and sweet looking just like the story itself. I really love the art and it's what made me fell in love with the comic in the first place...

Evil Diva Art by HollywoodArtChick


     ...and then Evil Diva get's a new artist! I'm sorry to say but it is not really up to par with the 1st artist's drawings, but atleast it's a bit close to the old style. But then...

Evil Diva Art by HAI (?) [not sure on this one but it's another style change]
     ...the art style just completely changes a few issues later. It isn't the worst kind of art style, but the thing is about art style changes, there is something to compare. It's either the art style becomes waaaaaay better than the last one and become more popular, or just get boring and fail to reach the standards of the first one. In this case, it was the second scenario.



     I really hope this webcomic manages to turn things around... I mean this used to be my favorite. It's not just the art direction change and story change that bothered me though, it was also the new policy. Just recently, they started requiring people to donate before they release a new page or update. The fact is, it could be a good way to raise money and fund the site but at the same time, it just feels like robbing the viewers of their money [no offense]. If they want to really raise enough, they should find other ways like actually publishing printed copies or selling more evil diva merchandise. 

     


That's all for now~! Ella blasting off~! XD

-009-

Finally... REST! Though there's lots of work to be done...

     Hello people~! I guess I won't be going to school today so I'll try and make a longer webcomic review. I didn't feel that well yesterday and when I woke up today, I didn't feel so nice either so even though I didn't really get a fever, I felt that I should get some rest anyways since everything's been so hectic these past few days [2d animation: animating those styrofoam bunnies and editing was hell]. Buuuut~! I won't just be wasting the day doing absolutely nothin', I actually have a lot of work that needs to be done like making a the webcomic review, making a script for AVP, making a draft of the print ad for Advertising, drawing characters for our game project in general psychology [we're cool liek that], and thinking up of a theme for our IC scrapbook. 

     Phew, it's a lot but with me home, I can take it easy. I'd be working then when I want a break I could play a few games like this Sandbox of God and Infinite Game Works I just recently got.

     Well, wish me luck in accomplishing all these :)) I hope I could atleast finish half of these and I'm happy~!


     In other news, it has occurred to me that in order to correctly review anything or any webcomic, I can't just tell the pros of the comic but also the cons. With that said, I may also give negative reviews about the webcomics I like, starting with this next one I'm working on.

Monday, 19 September 2011

Kawaii Not

Today's Webcomic Review: Kawaii Not !




Status: Ongoing
Updates: Mondays and Thursdays (according to comixpedia)


What's it about?

     It's basically a comic about these different inanimate objects saying cute and ridiculous stuff.
    

My Rating:

Story

     Well, there really isn't a coherent or plot heavy story behind it, it's just basically like a gag comic, a four-panel joke. It might not be for every webcomic reader, but it's good for a quick laugh or just to see something cute.

Art


     The art is absolutely cute. Again, one of the most important things when it comes to the simple webcomics: it might not be completely detailed, but it has to be CUTE.


     
     This is actually another one of the webcomics I discovered from my high school bestfriend. She seems to like these kind of gag 4-panel comics. XP

     
     Sorry it's short, but I don't really have much to say about it and I don't really feel totally well. 


That's all for now~! Ella blasting off~! XD

-008-

Saturday, 17 September 2011

Today's Webcomic Review: No Rest For The Wicked !


First ever page to be drawn for No Rest For The Wicked


Status: Dead (?)
Updates: Not Active


What's it about?

     It's a story about a girl, a princess to be exact, named November and her problems with insomnia because of the disappearance of the moon. She sets off on an adventure to find out what happened to the moon, meeting a few friends like the puss in boots and red riding hood along the way.
    

My Rating:

Story

     What's interesting about this webcomic is it makes use of different Grimm Brothers Fairytales and stitches them up together to for a coherent plot. I think its one of the most creative stories I've ever encountered. For me, it has that why-didn't-I-think-of-that factor. If you're a big fan of the Grimm Brothers' fairytales, then you'll certainly love this!

Art

     Other people might not totally like the art, but I like how it's absolutely different from other people's style. It actually reminds me of my classmates' style which is pretty cool and similar to it. It feels absolutely original and memorable!


     The comic has not updated since October 23. You're probably wondering why I'm here trying to promote a dead webcomic. It's true that it probably has no more chance of ever being updated, but I really loved this webcomic back when it was alive. I think it used to update weekly until one time, the author just started updating very irregularly and eventually stopped. I kept looking back at it every once in a while in hopes of seeing some changes and what not like how Poring Pelters and Everlasting Wanderers came back alive after months or even years of not updating.

     In one of her updates, I sort of became fascinated to find out that the author of this wonderful manga is a Filipina like me. She once posted about the Ondoy hurricane incident which made me realize she was [or it might also be that she's a foreigner who just happened to live in the Philippines].

     I remember once I showed this to my S.O. and his sister and they fell in love with the story even though he wasn't too fond of the art. His sister got annoyed when she found out it was a dead webcomic.

      It's kind of sad when you find out one of the things you like to check up on every now and then suddenly stops updating or just dies [this sentence is reminding me so much of my pet chick Chocobo who died after 6 days of taking care of her ='(]. These kinds of webcomics make you wonder what happened to the author. Questions like: Is she dead? Will she ever get back to her webcomic? Did she get bored of the story? and so on race through people's heads.

     Though I know it really probably won't update ever, I'm still hoping that one of these days it will.

     I really think there was a trailer of the comic in youtube, but I can't find it. It was either that the creator of the video took it down or it was a different comic. Anyways, if I ever find it, I'll make sure to post it.
   
That's all for now~! Ella blasting off~! XD

-007-

The Noob

Today's Webcomic Review: The Noob Comic !


Status: Ongoing
Updates: Irreggular 


What's it about?

     This is basically a webcomic parodying MMORPGs. It starts off with this geek who buys his first copy of Clichequest and tells of his adventure as a noob. To enlighten those who don't know what a noob is, a noob is basically a newbie or beginner who doesn't know a thing about a particular subject yet, in this case, the game Clichequest. As the name of the game and the title of the comic implies, its all about this noob and all the cliches you can find in any MMORPG from overly used character names to roleplayers and tripping GMs.

     If you're one of those gamers who like MMORPG or experienced playing one, then you're gonna have a laugh with this!
    

My Rating:

Story: The story's pretty funny and kinda nice to get back to every now and then. It makes me nostalgic, specially when I remember my early Ragnarok days.

Art: The art is not the nicest but its not too bad. It has that silliness that complements the story. Still, if you compare the first comic to the most recent one, you'll find that there's a pretty big improvement in the art.


     I found out about this comic from my S.O. XD About the background of the comic, I can't really get that much info, but if you want to know more about the author, you can check the blog. Looking through her blog, I discovered some webcomics that look pretty nice and I might review them in the future.

     You can buy these in print here at Lulu.com
   
That's all for now~! Ella blasting off~! XD

-006-

Changes in my reviews

First of all, I just want to announce that I'll be changing my way of rating the art and story. I wont be using stars to rate them [since it doesn't really make any difference since most (if not all) of the comics I'll be posting will be stuff I highly approve of and would get more than 3 stars most probably]. This time I'll only be giving my thoughts on the story and the art.