Sunday, November 25, 2007

Terror Island

What did we do?

What did we do to deserve this?

When I ask what it is that we did to deserve this, I am, of course, obviously talking about Terror Island in the context of what we did to deserve this.

What did we do to deserve this?

The sentence is a question. The subject is us, the action is do, and the direct object is this. I admit, it took me a while to figure that out, because deserve is also a verb. These things will slip up your average webcomic reviewer, and make him say things that are not true. But I am a modern-day oracle. You can trust what I have to say, because after all, I did research it.

Back to Terror Island though.

What did we do to deserve it?

Terror Island is clearly what we in the industry call a "gamer" comic. I'm sure you've seen them before, and you're probably chomping at the bit to tell me that you know what I'm talking about. You know, like Penny Arcade (yuck), Powerup Comics and That One Where The Guy Builds Tiny Buildings. This comic is all about games and gaming and what it means to play a game.

Terror Island belongs to a subgenre, though. It is not just only a gamer comic. Terror Island is a sprite comic. I'm sure you saw my friend's review of Eight Bit Darkling. That is the kind of thing. They take characters from games, and without even changing a thing or drawing them, they just use pictures of characters from the games. It's annoying, because the characters are from old games (something to do with copyright maybe?) and they always look super old and dated.

Well, Terror Island must have been the oldest and most dated of all, because the games in Terror Island are the oldest of all probably. They are not even from a computer or a nintendo. They are from games so old that they are played on boards. Games like chess and stratego and the one where you have to buy real estate (Monopoly). Who decided that this is appropriate for a modern comic strip? It feels like it is low-tech. It feels like it is a cassette tape player when all the other gamer comics are ipods. I feel like when I read it I am limited to only listening to one side of a single album, and I can't even choose which song I want to listen to first. I even have to rewind it sometimes.

What did we do to deserve this
?

You would think that the main idea of the comic (there are two gamers who want each other to buy something from the store) would never get old and always be funny every time that you read about it, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty deets (details), you find out that it's actually much worse that anyone could imagine. The ideas for comics are actually really cliche. I think that most of these jokes were actually stolen from King of the Hill (remember that episode where Hank had to get women's pms stuff from a grocery store and didn't want to? Coincidence?)

This is just kind of my little joke. I thought it would be funny to have Hank Hill be sad. You don't need to take this part of the review seriously.

Can't you see it?
Oh, wow, I did not mean for Hank Hill to tell everyone that juicy piece of information! I think that you had all better ignore that, because as an award-winning blogger and critic, I really don't need to have the problem of women knowing that I am single. That would be too much for one man to deal with!

Let me talk a little bit about the characters of Terror Island. You can find pictures here to go with the names that I am giving out.

Sid is one of the characters, and it is frequently hinted at that he suffers from a heart condition, but we are never told what it is. Maybe the clues are buried too deep, but I don't feel like reading into it that much.

Stephen is a character who has changed a lot from the early strips for no reason. I don't know what he is supposed to even be like because he is very inconsistent (example: He is now a czar, but at first he was not)

York is basically the authors trying to be like other sprite comics, but they did not have the same games. He is obviously supposed to be the Sonic the Hedgehog character, but they couldn't afford to make him look like it I guess.

Ally Cs is actually pretty much an inserted character that represents the author.

Omicron was supposed to be the main character at first, but has been eclipsed by other characters who aren't very good. It's too bad, because this character could take the strip into new territory.

OK, so what can Terror Island do to become a good webcomic? Well, maybe it could actually try to be a decent sprite comic instead of a comic that uses sprites from games that are so old. It could even probably keep using the same characters, just with updated sprites.

Please note that when Sid calls Stephen an ugly sack it is not something dirty. It is like a gunnysack.

It was really hard for me to get these sprites, and they don't quite look right, but these are from actual computer games instead of old wooden games, so really, it's automatically better no matter how good the sprites came out. As you can see I also changed it to have some references to the games that it was inspired by. (chess)

So keep on trying, Terror Island. Keep my advice in mind and you might actually have something that I feel like we did something specific to deserve.

Until then, see you later and we'll meet again.

(({}==----Sonty Mick----=={}))

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Keep up the good fight, Mr. Mick. It's about time somebody reclassified some things as sprite comics.

Anonymous said...

You are a sad, sad person if you don't understand the pure genius of Terror Island.

Anonymous said...

Sonty Mick's blog makes Hank Hill sad.

Anonymous said...

This blog is so bad. I can't figure out if he's being serious or not. Whoever wrote this should read up on the definition of sarcasm:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm

Seriously.

Anonymous said...

Once again a brilliant critique of a comic rightly deserving of excoriation. Thanks, Sonty. Your stellar advice clears the mists to expose truth. Keep it up!

And to you, waltwhtmn -- how long has it been since you dragged your gaze from your own narcissistic navel?

Anonymous said...

Eh? How is Isotown a gamer comic?

Mike Podgor said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

that guy who gave you the third attempt reward has a webcomic. you should review it because its bad.

Sonty Mick said...

Did you ever play Sim City, anonymous?

Librarian Russ said...

I think most comics are gamer comics, if you think about it.

Anonymous said...

This has to probably be the most boring review of anything, ever. It wasn't even satirical. It was just nap-inducing.

Anonymous said...

What Walt said.

Ooh, now that sounded like a convincing argument [/sarcasm]

Anonymous said...

Oh! If you really want to make it satirical, try adding "A Modest Proposal:" to the title.

Dag! That is the very definition of satire.

Anonymous said...

Gamer comics are about gamers, or parody games or have characters that are gamers. Isotown has nothing to do with games. Just because there is a game about building cities, doesn't mean Isotown is about games or has anything to do with them.

Anonymous said...

king of the hill sucks
sonty mick WOULD watch that because he thinks [sarcasm] COMEDY [/sarcasm] is stuff that it isn't. When really comedy is stuff that is funny like certain jokes and family guy (but not all of family guy because some of family guy isn't funny wtf)

seriously i am so mad about comedy!

Anonymous said...

The sick monty I think I love you

Anonymous said...

You are more addicted to webcomics than me; impressive.

Anonymous said...

your all gay

Anonymous said...

This review is kinda like going "but lolcats uses no structured jokes, therefore it sucks". You're kinda missing the point of the comic you're reviewing.

Both poorly researched and poorly written.

Anonymous said...

lolcats suck.
I am sorry. The rest of it I agree with.

Anonymous said...

wait, who are all these anonymous people?

Anonymous said...

*sigh*

Not everyone is an artist or fantastic at comedy.

Heck, I couldn't even finish reading this article because you are just so STUPID.

I believe that you are only saying what is "hip" at the moment is good. Really, I'm only 14 and I know that people your age who only want entertainment from the current era that they live in are just completly at a loss of what they're talking about when it comes to old time classics like chess.

You are a LOOSER at coming up with a good excuse to say that anything old is bad. Really.

I'll stop now before I begin to ramble on. What did we do to diserve someone as short-minded as you?

Anonymous said...

ADHD idiots like Sonty who are too dumb to understand humor more complex than a half-episode of Looney Tunes do not deserve to have their thoughts put into words. You are a disgrace to humanity and a waste of good oxygen. Kill yourself.

Anonymous said...

What's with all the annonymouseses? o_@?

Terror Island is funny. Most of the time. The story-lines are so radically odd because radical oddness is funny. Again, most of the time.

Also, that 3-panel with the sprites is lame. Not trying to be rude, it's just lame, predictable, not an example anyone should follow. The guys at Terror Island are having fun with their comic and it shows in their comments, which are sometimes funnier than the comic itself.

Anyway, I don't know why I'm commenting in a year-old post, I should go get a job or something... >_>;;

James Richter said...

I hate you all


all


of


you

Anonymous said...

wow, your example was just so stupid and unintelligent. Terror Island is witty and if you can't get the jokes, go back to school and study literature again.