2008 Popular Comic That Sucks the Least: Anders Loves Maria
2008 Popular Comic That Sucks the Most: Abandon: First Vampire
2008 Unpopular Comic That Sucks the Least: Kukuburi
2008 Unpopular Comic That Sucks the Most: 10,000+ tie for First Place.
In spite of the name, this blog will focus on the good stuff while only occasionally ridiculing the bad.
Speaking of ridiculing the bad, here's a review I swiped for Abandon: First Vampire. It was posted in an open forum so if the writer has a problem they can suck it. I'll write my own this weekend to replace it. I'm lazy, but not that lazy. Also, reviews of the two Best of 2008 next week.
Abandon: First Vampire is the worst kind of mythological clusterfuck and nerd wankery. The world's most oldest vampire, who caused genocides and wars, is now a cutesy-bootsy lesbian sleeping with a hard ass special forces lesbian? Who is, apparently, lezzin' it up with some kind of museum director? Not to mention all the "Oops, I just pointed my ass right at the reader! Teehee!" shots that are rife throughout the archives, and the fact every female character has big tits.
I'm sure someone else can cover the artistic inaccuracies, like the incredible shrinking sword. Which leads me to ask, why swords? What's wrong with a fucking gun? Even Japan's top vampire-hunting squadrons use guns, and since you seem to be inhaling anime like a teenager huffing paint, I'd assume you'd know that. By the way, that pose where someone pulls down their lower eyelid and sticks their tongue out while winking? No one really does that. Especially not in baka gaijin roundeye webukomikku.
Your plot is as formulaic and predictable as a video game, and a cheap one at that. When moving through your archives I was half expecting to be accosted by quick time events and instructions on how to double jump or reload. There's nothing remotely original about it, nothing that I haven't seen done before (and better), and the constant girly titillation is practically repugnant. Why not just start drawing the strap-ons and degrade into a full blow porno comic? It'll probably get you more donations so you won't have to plaster every page with twenty-odd adverts.
By the way, El Goonish Shive called. It wants its nonsensical, gibberish pseudoscience exposition back. Oh, and way to bust that out of nowhere. Building up false drama and then revealing that they were never in any real danger since the gay guy knows magic~? Poor taste.
Please, for God's sake, understand that a plot is not just some vague idea that craps itself into your brain one evening after getting high and watching Underworld. When I read this damn thing I get the feeling your speed is more a Megaman/Sonic sprite comic that abandons jokes after 18 pages to tell the grim and gritty story of fallen angels and redemption and all that bullshit.
Plus that pre-Sumerian cuneiform? Looks suspiciously like actual cuneiform, if actual cuneiform was just random symbols. I mean if you're going to invoke a real written language, at least do a cursory bit of research on Wikipedia or something. The earliest Sumerian cuneiform was basically one step above pictograms and was dates back to around 3000BC, which means that either humanity is only 6000 years old, creationism style, or you just like putting funny words together without knowing a fucking thing.
You do it all the time as well, basically running established mythologies and cultures through a blender and picking out the chunks you like. Even though myths are some of the most basic storytelling man has known, you still manage to fuck 'em up good and proper. Four pages of text? And apparently the university professor has official stationary that's pink paper with hearts all over it. What the fuck, seriously. Plus all that text? Godawful.
I can't even tell if my eyes rolled more when I read that, or when you busted out the super-moe vampire sister for the gay guy. Or when Hernán Cortés turned out to be a vampire who can apparently overthrow the democratically elected government of a country on good terms with the
Christ Almighty, the thing reads like Buffy fanfiction as written by a sex-starved geek with some serious nerdboner over the honourable katanas of glorious Nippon.
Also what's with the wookies?
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Even with the innacuracies in following the story, I think that sums it up.
