Sonty Mick: Fanart, awards, literature

This post is not a review. If you are looking for a review, then you should scroll down and look at some reviews. Alternately, you can wait for me to write another review and scroll up. Or you can just learn to be content with the fact that not all blog posts are reviews, and that's sometimes OK. It's sometimes even the best thing that can happen to you.

As a very successful blogger with many, many fans, I obviously get a large amount of fanart on a pretty regular basis. People like to draw my picture. It's what you do when you really admire a person's ability to blog. I am going to use this post to just kind of show off some of the great art that people have sent to me in order to celebrate me and this blog that I write. I am humble when I reveal this art to you.

This little doodle is by someone named Dave. Dave did not tell me if he had a last name or what it was, but that's OK, because he is the only dave so far to send any pictures. There is no need to be confused.
This next piece is a work of real, or "true" art. It comes from a variety of sources and it catches my good side. The maker of this is John B.



You may not know it, but this next one, from Emily Hal. is actually very good. It is very well made.
This one is by Unwinder. It is probably the most accurate version of what my body looks like.

This last one is definitely the bast. It has me looking like I am a god, or maybe a king of gods. I am battling metaphorical webcomic ideas.


OK, that is the end of today's fanart section. Don't go away just yet, though, because I have also won some new awards, and I'd like for you to see them, so you can really get a sense of how credible I am. As you can see, I am a major expert.

This first one is sort of a peace offering from Miles Grover. He might not be so much of my enemy anymore after this, but I still don't think his webcomic is past the point of needing a ton, or even a metric ton of work.

These next awards are all from a person named Kevdude. As you can see, I am not only a good blogger, I am also good at being a human and having opinions/a stylized name.


Those are all the awards I got today. That's a pretty reasonable number for one day. I haven't got any honorary degrees from universities yet, but I'll bet they'll start coming in pretty soon now. After you win tons of awards, people notice you.

The last thing that I need to show you before I go and sleep for a number of hours that is much shorter than eternity is a book that I am working on with a ghostwriter. It is in negotiations right now, so I don't know where it will go, but I have a good feeling about it.

This is it

OK, that's all for today! New review out soon I'm sure!

****(}(([(~~^^^~~SONTY MICK~~^^^~~)])){)****

PS, send all fanart and awards to sontymick at gmail dot com

XKCD

OK, so so far I have been doing all these bad comics and to this day none of them has brought me to my knees. However, when I started reading this comic, which is, in my mind, the literary equivalent of accidentally using your mom's toothbrush, I had a sort of a little avalanche in my head. Nothing too serious. Just a mountain goat bleating too loudly, and causing some ice to crack and fall. It didn't knock over any trees, if that's what you're wondering.

XKCD is sort of like the hive of the internet, as in people go in and out of it, all working toward the same cause, and it serves the useful purpose of providing metaphorical pollen for other comics, or "flowers". At the same time, though, I wish it wasn't a part of the process, because XKCD has stung me a grand number of times. As a matter of fact, I'd like to think that the wounds are still in me. It stings like if you were to loose your father, or maybe be emotionally distant from him.

What does it mean to be human? XKCD tries so hard to answer this, but in the end, it turns out to be kind of a stupid question, because no human would read XKCD. Not even a human who didn't know how to love his son, or a robot that was just discovering how to be human.

Take a look at this strip?

It's apparent from this appalling installment that XKCD can't be expected to deliver. It's like the pizza guy just kind of went slack-jawed and didn't even do a thing. It's like the flower shop had a wilting party.

Sometimes it's a perky situation in XKCD. Sometimes we see ideas fall. Sometimes there is love and romance. But there's an ingredient missing...Oh yes there is. Not all love is romance, and somebody forgot about it. Maybe somebody shoved it screaming into a closet and yelled. Maybe somebody hasn't dealt with their past.

Sometimes when I read XKCD I am reminded of episodes from my own life that haunt me. I'm trying not to make this personal, but I just don't like to look at a comic and remember my first dead pet.

The characters:

Stick man: I can't figure this guy out. He's sometimes so open, but he never actually does any leaping off the page. He tells me things, and he talks to me, but I think it's all a front to justify who he is when nobody is watching. I resent him, but in a way I want to be like him.

Stick man with hat: He feels so distant... He's authoritative and he can discipline, but he has problems. Probably with alcohol and with not feeling the same love that he used to. I think that he wants to move on, but I'm terrified.

Sleeping girl: All she can do now is sleep. There is nothing for her when she is awake.

Velociraptor: The big problem with the velociraptors in this comic is that it is too obvious that they symbolize God. Way to hit us over the head with a keyboard from the seventies.

XKCD is more than a comic. It's a metaphor for a life that is just not working right. It's a sigh. It's a cry out for attention. It's a little boy who was raised by a television, and then we wonder why he lashes out and breaks the neighbors arm, and then he has to visit him at the hospital, but he doesn't want to and he screams until his mother says he doesn't have to go to the hospital but for once she would like to have a normal family.

I want to see a different XKCD.

An XKCD that gives hope to certain people who didn't have the best childhoods.

This is what I want to see:

That's what the real readers want. They want something that will comfort them for things that have happened in their lives. I'm sure that every person in the world can relate to at least one part of that comic that I just drew. Even if your dog didn't die, maybe your mom still yelled a lot. There is something here for everybody.

Now let's compare that with another real XKCD.

As you can see, XKCD doesn't really understand the real emotions. Just the fake ones that we put on. The ones that make us seem interesting, or that provoke a thought of attraction in a woman. This is just the kind of thing that makes us all wish that our grandpa had never done what he did in the garage. It makes us all wish we hadn't seen the things we had seen. It makes us all wish that our mothers had never had to tell us that it was going to be a long time before we could go back home again, because we changed the locks but we're never safe if a certain person knows where we live.

So that's XKCD for you. Flat and not real.

Sonty out.

(((~~$$~~Sonty Mick~~$$~~)))

Eight Bit Darkling

Greetings, mortals! Allow me to introduce myself; my name is Gaius Satiricus, and I will be a periodic contributor to this fine blogging establishment to help out my good friend and fellow genius Sonty Mick. There are so many bad webcomics out there that one man simply cannot be expected to make fun of them all, so I have offered my services to stem the tide of college freshmen and snarky coffee shop 'baristas', lest they overwhelm us all and our society crumbles into the dust like ancient Rome which came before us.

Today I will be surveying the work of one Eight Bit Darkling, a man of limited means and 7th grade artistic abilities. While Mr. Darkling's works are currently few, but to paraphrase Mother Teresa, if that drop were not in the ocean, the ocean would be one drop less. In the ocean of crap before us, this drop is putrid indeed, and one can hardly be blamed for seeking to stem the tributary at its source.

Mr. Darkling's work is primarily sprite comics, a genre pioneered by such luminaries as Neglected Mario Characters and Bob and George. Its chief advantage as a format is that it allows a man with literally no artistic skills to mask this lack of talent by appropriating video game graphics ten to fifteen years out of date. The inauguration of this style of webcomic lowered the bar for access to the medium by removing the "must sort-of be able to draw" requirement, giving the internet one more swollen hive of scum and villainy.

Exhibit one of Mr. Darkling's work is a classic example of the genre entitled "Megacomic". Note the innovative use of sprites from the little-known Mega Man series, which might be described as the village bicycle of sprite comics. Consider the judicious use of capitalization. The choice of 8-bit simplicity over 16-bit sophistication seems to beg for an explanation; a commentary on globalization perhaps? Or is it merely the artistic equivalent of a six-pack and a La-Z-Boy, ham fists roaming to scratch hairy crevices before passing out in the hot, hot sun.

In the interest of providing constructive criticism, I have compiled a few suggestions for the misguided young Mr. Darkling that he may not get from his companions in middle school:

1. Take out Mega Man characters.
2. Although "HUH-WHA" is one way to do a double-take in print form, they are strange bedfellows in a hyphenated construction.
3. Take advantage of spell check. The words "#$%&" and "#$%&ing" cannot be found in any non-Chinese dictionary.

Exhibit two of Mr. Darkling's work is a snippet from a webcomic by the name of Deevolution. This work represents a new level for the author. While Megacomic was 8-bit, this comic is 16. Double the bits, double the quality? Unfortunately as we shall see, a mere increase in bittage is no cure for what nature left out. The charcters seem to speak for the author's subconscious mind. "Do you even KNOW what you're doing?!" one cries, as if to the heavens. His god, it seems, has foresaken him. Another asks "...heh?" Perhaps ironically. I know that's what I was thinking at this moment in the strip. Perhaps Mr. Darkling should consider adding a laugh track to give the viewer some sort of auditory cue as to which sections are considered funny. Visually, there is no indication.

If Megacomic was the caterpillar, squirming and writhing in search of a leaf under which to hide its shame, then surely this is represents the cocoon stage, its hardened shell signifying one step forward yet perhaps also several steps back. What shall emerge?

As Exhibit 3 makes clear, only the most specialest kind of butterfly. Entitled "Digimon Left Behind", this webcomic signifies a departure from the safe, well-traveled harbor that is Mega Man sprite comics onto the international waters that are Digimon Fanfics. A dangerous move indeed, Mr. Darkling. Digimon has shown itself over the years to possess the supernatural vigor of a zombie, limbs twitching as it lurches forward, devouring the brains of American youth. Its stench rises up before heaven.

The selection I have provided you with shows the characteristic elements of Mr. Darkling's style; his fond use of trite dialogue and his gentle caress of the caps lock key. I wonder sometimes about his love of exclamation points (apparently Mr. Darkling 'can't eat just one'). The sexual symbolism is, I believe, obvious. It is subtle touches like these that underscore the homoeroticism that oozes from Digimon's every pore. What red-blooded American boy hasn't looked longingly at the likes of Wargreymon's muscled flanks or Patamon's soft body? Surely Mr. Darkling is no exception.

Our final glance at Mr. Darkling's work is Exhibit 4, a concept sketch for a Digimon Left Behind character. While I admire the author's efforts at actual drawing, this work may be the most unconscionable of all. Pay particular attention to the gothic influences and the stylishly-placed hair clip. Tres metrosexual! The red-colored eyes hint subtly at drug influences in this particular work. The character seems to be crying out for help. While I sympathize with his plight, I can render little assistance.

This last work is the most ominous of all perhaps because it marks a slippery slope for Mr. Darkling. Digimon may seem harmless, but I caution that it often serves as the gateway to other, more dangerous memes. It may not be long until you are the one in the cat suit, Mr. Darkling. It is my unhappy duty to stand today like a prophet of old, standing outside the city gates crying to the people to turn from their wickedness. Turn back, Mr. Darkling! Turn back for your own sake. Turn back, for all of our sakes.

Bear and Kitten

Hello, and welcome back to the award-winning blog of Sonty Mick. I trust that you have all had a very admirable couple of windy days (if there was no wind, then I hope that you didn't try to fly any kites. I am gentle as a lamb, and wouldn't wish an inconvenience like that on my worst enemy (Probably Miles Grover)).

For this, and other reasons, I feel pensive, but also a little bit sexy to be giving all of you a brand new review of a comic that I have read, and that I have found particularly awful. This comic is one that you may not have heard of, so I will tell you the title: Bear and Kitten.

Now I'm sure that warning flags have gone up in your heads right off the bat on this one. How would a comic about a bear and a kitten be interesting??? Well, if you have the talent and experience that I have, it's not too hard to think of a few ways:

• The bear and the kitten could be lovers who are not allowed to wed, because one of them is an arctic princess.
• The kitten could, in a surprising reversal of expectations, devour the bear. Possible ending scene of kitten hitchhiking to Vegas. Jack Black makes a guest appearance.
  
• The bear and kitten are drug dealers in a future where drugs are legal and are sold out in the open with spectators watching.
• Something like Gilligan's Island, but with a sci-fi twist where they are stuck in a small room.
• The bear is an actor. The kitten is a director who tries to pressure the bear into doing comedy b/c the bear looks like Jack Black.
• The bear looks like Jack Black and there are a lot of misunderstandings because the kitten mistakes him for Jack Black.

As you can see, these are all terrific ideas for Bear and Kitten, but unfortunately, Bear and Kitten does not go in any of these fine directions. Instead, it settles for stories like this. What a shame. So much wasted potential. Now nobody else will be able to make any of those other ideas that I suggested, because the title "Bear and Kitten" is already taken. Such a waste.

The kitten in this comic is not a real kitten; it does not leap after a bird that just came to get a bath. It is a kitten that begins to be decorative, but ends when the going gets tough. The bear is more true to life, but in more of an animatronic, banjo-playing kind of way. The kind where you want to take off your hat just to remind yourself what the inside of it looks like.

I've done that before.

If I were a king of a feudal state, and everyone else was in that time period, I would definitely let Andy (the author of Bear and Kitten) be a baron of some kind, not because I like his comics, but because I think that he would be good at that. After all, I did hear him called a "Baron of Webcomics" in a dream. Then later on in the dream I promised myself that it was true.

When I read this comic, I honestly wonder how Jack Black must feel when he's expected to take all these blah movies with OK premises and bring them to life with his energy, and his ability to be like that guy we all know. If there was somehow a Jack Black of the webcomics world who went around starring in all of the webcomics that needed an extra bit of oomph, then maybe more webcomics would be worthy of the big screen.

Can you imagine that? A big screen that instead of movies shows webcomics? Unbelievable! I'd want to see it! You can bet your bargains!

However, since scrolling down is a little easier than scrolling sideways, most really long comics are more vertical than horizontal. That wouldn't really work with the average theater.

You'd need some sort of exra-tall screen.

More on that later...

These characters seem to have serious problems with identifying themselves. I think that if they had to pick themselves out of a police lineup, they'd order coffee. That's not a cheeky way of saying that they have identity problems, that's a promise. And a promise unkept is like an eel that you can't catch. It's like missing dinner because you couldn't hunt eels. It's like crying.

So here's what I think that Bear and Kitten could do to improve: Change the comic. Give it an overhaul. You could even improve it by just adding some simple changes to the whole archive:

(You may have to zoom in to see it all, but it's SO much better.)

And now that I've gotten done with that, back to that tall-screen movie theater I was talking about. This is my vision about what movie theaters will look like in the future:

OK, so the review part of this post is over, I'd like to just let you all know that I won a few awards today. No big deal, you know. Just some awards for being so good at blogging.

The first one is the Third Attempt Award for Outstanding Blogging. I have been hoping to win this award for quite some time now, and I feel like I really deserved it. Here is the plaque that came with the award:


I also won the Outstanding Weblog Reviewing in Weblog Comic Reviewing: Sponsored by Steve Award. It is a very prestigious award, and I am actually the first person in the world who has ever been good enough to win it. I guess that says a few things about my blog... This image came with the award, and it's pretty amazing:

So as you can see, I have been serious all this time when I have said that this is an award winning blog. I am honored to have these awards, and I will add them to my growing collection. I am a very busy guy when it comes to winning awards.

(((~~::~~SONTY MICK~~::~~)))

Thinkin' Lincoln Responds

"Oh no! It looks like I've gotten a bad review from the infamous webcomics critic Sonty Mick! I might as well just throw in the towel right now."

That is the response that I inspired Miles Grover of Thinkin' Lincoln, and that's really the response I should be getting, because I am definitely a person who commands a certain level of respect. I'm not saying a high level of respect, but when it comes to the legions, I've barked an order or two.

Grover, your fear is healthy. It is only through fear that we grow, and it is only through growth that we enlarge. This is what my father taught me back when he was telling me what was good and bad about old comics in the newspaper (thats's right, readers. I come from generations of comic crit)

I'm glad that you, Grover, didn't take the cowards way out and give me a bad latter in the mail, or maybe find out what my ebay ID is and then give me a bad review after buying a mug from me. You are a worthy adversary. Way to promote peace through fear.

=++(((((~~<>~~Sonty Mick~~<>~~)))))++=

The Non-Adventures of Wonderella

Now there are pits that people can sink into, and sometimes people sink so low that they make bad webcomics. I can think of a few examples, and you've probably read a few of my world famous blogs about them. Sometimes, though, a comic sinks so low that it could limbo under a very low limbo stick with very little effort, and sometimes without even trying. Low enough to work on the engine of a car without any jacks. Low enough that if it were a sound frequency it would make a dog bark loudly and then put its chin on its paws.

That low is known as The Non-Adventures of Wonderella. I've seen it before, and I tucked it behind my ear for later, and now it's later and I'm ready to open up a can.

Let's see, what's wrong with Wonderella...So many things...Where to start...

Well the first thing that I noticed was that the characters remind me of an art collector who buys an ancient chariot even though the original makers did not intend to make art. They are all trying to accomplish goals, but we never really see anything surface. It's like they're living in a world that is actually smaller than our world. In fiction, it's important to really create a sense of largeness, and I just don't feel anything here except maybe LARDness.

What kind of jokes will you find in Wonderella? Horrible jokes. I understand that if you don't think that they are bad, that might be a matter of taste, but what if having bad taste were fatal? I guess you'd be doing some deathbed repenting, wouldn't you? You'd probably have a funeral.

In order to write Wonderella, a person would have to get into an accident in which they got run over by a car, and the muffler hit them just right in the head so that they lost their memory for a while, and when they got it back they realized that they didn't like their identity, but then when they tried to build a new life they were ostracized, and to get revenge they made people read this comic.

That's right. I called Wonderella a paradox. I guess we'd better have a funeral, huh?

Jeepers.

I haven't even got to the setting. It's about superheroes. (oooh)

A superhero is a person who has abilities that make him or her more powerful than a regular person. They have the ability to perform amazing feats.

And what's a supervillain? Surprise surprise. It's exactly the same thing, only evil. (whatever that means)

Good work Wonderella. Wow. What an idea. I almost care enough to learn the names of your characters. But I guess I won't, so I guess I won't be crying at your funeral.

The artwork chooses not to even resemble what I would want it to look like at all. It looks like artwork that was made by an undergraduate medical student who thought he'd like to try drawing art, and when he did, he was pretty happy with the results, but later he drove himself to improve, and after a while, he decided he didn't want to be in medicine anymore.

Later in life, he saw someone choking at a bar, and he was going to have to perform a throat surgery of some kind, but he couldn't, because he had given up medicine.

Summary: This comic is so bad, that by making it, Justin Pierce, the author, is letting people die in bars.

And he's not even going to their funerals. (Sorry I keep talking about funerals here, but I went to one last week, and I can't stop thinking about them. How did they get started, anyway?)

Wonderella is, without doubt, one of the best reasons to shut off your computer, and then turn it on again, instead of just rebooting like a regular person would. It's like a bad case of the blues. It's like finding a thumb in a burger. It's like going to the gym, and finding out that somebody deflated all the basketballs.

You just can't get away with this stuff. That's why Wonderella will never be adapted into a bestselling novel. And if that's the case why don't we just call up the coroner, rent a hearse, get an expensive gravestone, sent a note to all the relatives, get out our best black clothes, and have a funeral.

Yes, let's have a big funeral for Wonderella.

Rest in peace, Wonderella.

Boo hoo hoo.

-+((~~~~~~SoNtY MiCk~~~~~~))+-

Thinkin' Lincoln

*blows dust and spiders off of computer screen with glove, and takes a little polite bow*

Hello my loyal readers and thanks for sticking around while I went on an internal journey to find myself (SURPRISE!). Boy, what an eventful couple of weeks it's been, huh? I can smell the history in the air.

What's that?

History?

Well! Here's a historical comic for you. Oh dear! It looks like it's not a very good one, though...

Where do I even begin to discuss what goes wrong behind the scenes of this comic? (before you ask, the behind the scenes is as much a part of the art as anything) It seems like Miles Grover is a guy who just made up some stuff about some presidents and he said, "You know what? I'm going to call it a night!" And then that's what his comic is.

Example

Looks like we've caught Grover with his digital pants down on this one. Wow. What a display of bad ineptitude. This comic could be written by six fourth-graders working in a committee that doesn't work very well together and takes breaks to eat [fruit] snacks. Yes, this is not even truly a comic. It's the ashes of one. It's a burned out husk of a Bazooka Joe misfire that was probably plagiarized from Laffy Taffy and it's obviously for Dum-Dums and Nerds. (Tried to work Twizzlers in there, but couldn't. Sorry!)

OK, all joking aside, you want to know the real problem? This comic just does not stand up to multiple readings. Observe the following panel:

OK, so this is not a bad panel really, right? I mean, you can read this comic, and after you've read it, you won't feel the urge to get up offa that thang and put on some CDs that your brother left in your room by mistake, and that you would never actually buy, right? Of course! But anybody can make something that isn't horrible once. This panel, like all Thinkin' Lincoln panels, overstays its welcome when you see it--oh, I don't know--Nine times?

Do you see what I mean? If you actually read the panel all those times, then you probably hate it by now, and if not, then you were probably using the technique of staring through it rather than looking directly at it. (old trick)

OK, that's all I have to say about the writing, but what about the art?

The art is just heads.

Sound familiar? Oh yeah. Duh. Evolution (see prev. review). Great, it's good to know that these bad webcomic authors have the ability to rip each other off like a bunch of monkeys with typewriters ripping off Shakespeare. Good job, guys. Yeah, real good.

That's enough. I'm drained.

(~~~~~Sonty Mick~~~~~)