Queer webcomics reviewer, creator of Yes Homo, polearm discourse ideologue, they/them.
http://yeshomo.net
https://www.patreon.com/yeshomo
Sometimes, as I’ve written in the past, a comic doesn’t need to have a high concept or poignant message. Sometimes it’s enough for it to just be fun! But sometimes… sometimes fun just isn’t enough. (I went pretty deep on this one, and as a result, there’s some late-story spoilers ahead.) Monster Pop is fun. It’s a slice-of-life dramedy about monster (and a few human) college kids as they navigate romance and friendship, identity and society. The main characters are lifelong besties George, an extroverted and somewhat reckless cyclops, and Franny, a cool and serious “genius witch”. Supporting cast includes quiet human trans boy Percy, shy gorgon nerd Marina, gregarious argus-eyed nerd Sasha, and uh… Ben. I’ll get to Ben. There’s some cute gayness and also lots of angsty gayness if that’s more your thing and even some angsty straightness for the real freakazoids out there. For the most part…
“Tight storytelling” is a writing buzzword that I use a lot but have difficulty actually defining, so today I’m challenging myself to do so. A tight story, in my mind, is one that feels efficient – no time is wasted on sideplots or other developments that don’t directly serve the main storyline. This doesn’t necessarily mean a completely straight shot from beginning to end, but it definitely excludes the sprawling, twisting threads of most webcomics I can think of. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with sprawling or twisting, nor anything inherently good about an extremely tight story. Many stories need a long time and a lot of characters and arcs to develop satisfyingly, while it’s also possible to overtighten a story to the point where it becomes boring or pat. But when they’re so rare in the field, a well-executed webcomic under 200 pages is a treat. That’s what…
This is maybe an odd one to revisit during a “spring cleaning” period considering that the review is only a few months old, but I ended it on an extremely ironic note and that’s got me to thinking: am I too cynical? So Cio and Allison do in fact kiss, a development that landed relatively shortly after I posted my original review where I dismissed the possibility. And despite my emotional guarding, I did feel something when I read the scene. Way back when I reviewed Spinnerette, I talked about “gay vindication”, the unique emotion you feel when the gay subtext you think you see in a story turns into gay text. But I also felt a bit… sad? Sad that I had closed myself off to the possibility of a real gay payoff, as a way of guarding against yet another disappointment. It’s hard out there for a gay…
Going back and reading these old reviews is something of an exercise in humility. I like to think I’m a fairly professional critic, but that hasn’t always been the case. My Namesake review reads as amateurish to me now; I clearly didn’t have a strong sense of what I wanted to say and instead used the review format to hash out my feelings about the comic, trying to divine some deeper mystery. That’s a weak review, so let me take this opportunity to strengthen it. Namesake is… good. Is that stronger? Okay sure, Namesake is complex, huge, sometimes confusing, sometimes hard to follow. Yes, it has so many characters with so many backstories that it can be difficult to remember what’s going on at times. But all that detail also serves to make it rich, and real, and alive. All those characters are unique and instantly recognizable, even if we…
An addendum for Snarlbear has been brewing in my skull ever since it finished. It’s a terrific comic, a classic in its own time, and I feel like it deserves some parting words. Obviously, inevitably, spoilers below. Snarlbear remains one of the best comics about monstrosity that exist, doubly so because in the end it managed to surprise me. In my original review, I saw Daisy’s character trajectory landing her in monstrous territory: the Rainbow Dimension’s tendency to transform heroes into terrifying monsters was manifesting in her blood, her teeth, her temper. My prediction of her transfiguration was in no small part wishful thinking; I really wanted to see what form she would take. But in the end, it wasn’t Daisy who was changed – it was Flint. From the beginning, Snarlbear’s strength lay in the juxtaposition of the horrible and the adorable, with Daisy straddling the line between the…
