Webcomics « Tooned In

(posted to MetaFilter)
Everything is Cuter In Bunny Ears, right? (Almost) every day for the last year, cartoonist/animator Ryan Green has demonstrated how many things are…

Pigeons, Squirrels, Lizards, Tigers, Hairless Cats, Gambling Frogs, Trolls, Other Trolls (I’ll bet you saw that one coming), Gnomes, Dust Bunnies (which, oddly, do not normally have bunny ears), MODOK (yes, I discovered this via that), Moe (no Dok), Unicorns that would otherwise be less cute than unicorns should be, various varieties of Monsters, some famous, some trying to be (via SyFy), Sad Clowns, Evil Clowns, Mustard (especially if you can’t cut it), Oddly Christened Boats, Male Chests, Party Games that are just Wrong, Lucky Cephalopods, Unlucky Cephalopods, Anything Animated From the Waist Down (made ya look!), Trophies, Obnoxious Celebrities Who Are Not Charlie Sheen, Obnoxious Celebrities Who Are, Cosplayers at Comic-Con, Extreme Weather, Ferocious but Fuzzy Fish, Seinfeldian Characters, Various Kinds of Insects, People of WalMarrrr, Double Rainbows, Alien Mimes, Air Guitarists, Cheerless Cheerleaders, Office Rhinos, even Godwin’s favorite guy and his lunch. Even Other Bunnies!!! Even NOTHING is Cuter In Bunny Ears.

One thing I love about the media of comics and cartoons is the ability to identify the stupidity and absurdity in real life and allow you to laugh at them (derisively, of course) instead of rage against them. In this vein, today’s XKCD is a masterful take-down of the gross medical fraud that is Homeopathy, as well as the funniest XK in weeks (I was starting to worry you might be losing it, Randall). Of course, if you are also moronic enough to deny the theory of evolution, you probably won’t get the joke.

As important as the art in a webcomic is, sometimes you can come up with a gag good enough that it can be expressed in dialogue balloons in a pitch black panel. And sometimes you can come up with a gag ‘theme’ that allows you to reuse the same panels with new dialogue over and over. And if you can do BOTH, you have the lazy cartoonist’s nirvana.

Which Jennie Breedon has accomplished in The Devil’s Panties with her “What Not To Say In The Bedroom” theme. Wisely, she has limited these single panels to the weekends, when she usually has other ‘filler’ content, to avoid giving the impression she’s ‘phoning it in’. But when you have comic content that needs no pictures, you know that some @$$#Ø!£ is going to do what I am doing right now:

The Collected “What Not To Say In The Bedroom”

“♫We all live in a yellow submarine♫!”
“So what where you gonna make me for dinner?”
“Look! No hands!”
“I’m a squirrel!”
“I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m over here.”
“Did I mention that I’m allergic to latex?”
“I know “ow” wasn’t the safe word, but I figured it was sorta obviouse (sic)!”
“Passion and spontaneity are all well and good, but you need a shower first.”
“Hi, I’m Mike.”
“Is that guacamole?”
“HONK! HONK!”
“What do the instructions say?”
“Did you wash this after you got it from the kitchen?”
“Inappropriate use of lawn equipment!”
“Think fast!”
“Turn it off! Turn it off!”
“The Internet is watching.”
“Are you KIDDING?”
“♫Autobots wage their battle ♫To destroy the evil forces ♫Ooooof the Deceptocons♫!”
“That explains SO much.”
“I can’t feel my hand.”
“Slacker!”
“♫Gummy Bears, ♫Bouncing here and there and everywhere, ♫High adventure that’s beyond compare, ♫We are the Gummy Bears!♫”
“Taste like chicken!”
“CHAAARGE!”
“…I think I’m STUCK.”
“COLD!”
“I’m offended, yet strangely aroused…”
“Okay, where am I taking this?”
“♫Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down…♫”
“♫Getting to know you, ♫Getting to know all about you…♫”
“The Island’s not through with you yet!”
“No, I’m pretty positive it’s not supposed to do THAT”
“Is that my STAPLER?”
“Hold on, let me draw you a diagram.”
“But I have to PEE!”

Yes, the links were pretty superfluous, but necessary for legal reasons.

As this site bursts forth into full toonishness, there will be a section of links dedicated to webcomics (and the web presence of paper comics) and it will be organized according to update schedule, just as my personal bookmarks are now. Because there is no other way to keep up with the massive-and-growing numbers of comics worth reading (which isn’t just the GOOD ones) on the web.

That said, let’s run this up the wifi antenna and see who logs in…

9PM Pacific/Midnight Eastern (yes, I’m US-centric but even most of the best webcomics from other parts of the world schedule their updates between Midnight and Dawn in the USofA)

This Toothpaste For Dinner business card gag raises the question: “Business cards? Do people still use those?” I, personally, have had neither need or opportunity for business cards in a long time, but long ago when I did, there was a silly video bit with a man saying “Here’s my card” and handing out a card that said “MY CARD”, then saying “Sorry, wrong card” and swapping it for one that said “YOUR CARD”. I thought both were wrong and kept a few cards myself that said “HIS CARD”. Rarely ever got to use them. Nice of one of the purveyors of old jokes to remind me of that.

Okay, Brad Guigar’s supervillian/superhero satire Evil Inc. frequently stoops to punnery, but doing a mash-up of Star Trek (NextGen) and The Godfather (all gens) in service of an extreme groaner is cruel and unusual pun-ishment. (I think I need to point out, here and now, that my comics blogging is NOT Comics Curmudgeonly picking on the lame and stupid in the comics world; I’m blogging about what I LIKE… and I LIKE PUNS. You have been warned.

It’s tough to stay 2010-relevant, even if you were TOTALLY hip just a few web-eons (years) ago. So Diesel Sweeties gives us a Twitter reference, complete with the well-known but barely-tolerated ‘ReTweet’ symbol. Add a wryly-worded tweet pointing subtly to the comic and rstevens wins the Internet again.

So, what does it mean when Scott of Basic Instructions says to his comic strip wife “I never said I wasn’t weird… in fact, I wrote it into my vows,” and I think “I can relate to that.”

Sign of the Apocalypse #472: the often-deservedly-derided Ctrl-Alt-Del comic today is funny and makes a valid point AT THE SAME TIME. That’s why I include even comics I hate in my regular surf-list… just a lot less frequently than he ones I like.

more later…

Tooned In

toon

Category Archives: Webcomics

That’s 137 in Bunny Years

Homeopathetic

Comicking in the Dark

Daily Comic Surf 2010/06/28