Nickyitis

Sometimes a person has extremely bat taste, and it's hard to like that person. It's hard to give that person any of your time, and give them the care that a human being expects to get from another human being. Sometimes that person has such bad taste that you need some gum or candy. That person also has bad taste in Webcomics.

That person also likes Nickyitis, which is a proud comic that announces with great pride that it is a disease.

What happens on Nickyitis? Who is the main character? These are both questions (take a look at the question marks. Those help to identify questions). Nickyitis is a webcomic. Nicky is the main character. These are statements.

Who is Nicky? Nicky is, I suspect, just another person with bad taste. You need to look no further than his bad hair style that he has for his hair. A very extreme version of the "comb over," he has one big black zig zag hair that grows out of the back of his head and is "combed over" the top and front of his head. Does no one realize that this man is bald? I have little patience for baldness myself. I was bald for a time, but as you can see in this picture of me, I have grown my hair out and stopped being bald:

Just look at a few examples of this bad comic, and you'll see what I mean. Right here is an image of two or three cave people who have some very serious problems. Is this a good comic? I sure don't find it good. I just find it a poor version of what might be a good comic. Sometimes no idea at all is better than a bad idea. This has been proven, so I don't have to waste my time proving it.

This comic is about the big fight. Now I am all about violence in comics, as I think that it is an "ingredient" that can tell a larger story, but have you seen this kind of violence before? It is never explained why the characters turn into just heads when they fight. I have always prided myself on having an entire body, even when I am having a sailor fight. This is not a slam against amputees of course.

Amputees, for the most part, cannot help that they are in the condition they are in. They should not be the butt of jokes, and it is somewhat cruel to portray amputation as a natural consequence of getting into a fight.

I find the very first strip very bad. I also find the very latest strip particularly bad. I just don't see what is so good about this comic that is making it so everybody is talking about it. It's not worth so much talk and jaw-wagging.

Speaking of jaws, do you think I would look good if I grew a beard? Here is a picture of what it would look like. Vote about it in the comment section.

Speaking of jaws again, Nicky's doctor has very large jowls. I can't help but think that this makes him a worse character (though the author would probably argue that it makes him a better character. I guess that just goes to show that some opinions are more valid than others). I don't think that the doctor is a very good character, but he could be a lot better if he did not have those jowls. He does not dress very well either. Very stereotypical for a doctor. What's wrong with a sweatshirt or a blue pair of pants (he wears white pants. Everyone in this comic wears a lot of white due to certain limitations).

This comic raises too many questions, and I would love to answer them, but how much time do you think that I have on my hands? Lots? The job of being a very famous blogger is not an easy job to do. Some people might think that it's easy because they have other jobs that they think are harder. They think that writing a blog is as easy as just writing a play, or being a guy who sings songs all day and plays an instrument. That's not me. That's not what I do.

The only time this comic comes close to being good is when there is a situation where someone might flip over at any time and reveal a new secret. That's what really gets me going, is when there could be a plot twist. This comic is a good example of that, because it has sort of a good thing going for it. I'm sure you can see what I mean when I say that the plot seems like it could become unstable and possibly unpredictable in some way.

I suppose that I should come up with some way of fixing Nickyitis to make it better than it is. I guess the best option would be to make the characters stop going on and on and on about worthless information, and actually tell me things that make sense and apply to the characters. Perhaps they could describe themselves so I would know what's going on with them. Like this:

But in the end, Nickyitis is kind of average. This strip shows that there is a good side to everything. This strip shows that sometimes there are more characters introduced later in a comic. This strip shows that sometimes the anniversary is better than the regular days. The primary message, though, can be found here in this comic. The message is that a kid can be a very irritating thing, and can have a zig zag instead of regular hair, and make lots of trouble for everyone, but in the end that kid is still a good character. I can't agree with that, because that is not my upbringing. I don't believe in being a bad kid with a zig zag instead of real hair, because that is just not what I was like when I was young.

Thank you for your time.

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

Achewood

What?

What's that?

What did you say?

You want The Mickster to apologize?

You want The Mickster to apologize for not giving you...

enough blogs?

No.

Stop being a baby.

I will not apologize for not "giving you enough blogs." That would be like apologizing for being too much in love. Nobody criticizes anyone for giving out too much love, or being in too much of it, so really,  I guess the problem is you. You have a problem.

That problem is Achewood.

I'm sure that if you haven't read Achewood, you wake up in the morning with a really good feeling in the pit of your torso area. That is a normal feeling. I think I used to get that feeling, but when I read Achewood, it went away. I had a good feeling that Achewood was giving me. I don't know if you've ever read a little thing called The Constitution, but let me tell you, it has some pretty negative things to say about things that take away my good feelings. This research which took me a long time has lead me to conclude that Achewood is...

OK, let me tell you what this "comic" that calls itself a comic is all about: An ugly bear who wears glasses and tasteless swimwear is probably the president of something. We are never told what he is the president of, we just see him rolling on skates and sitting on a nozzle. I can tell you one thing, he's not the president of the United States, because the American people wouldn't elect a man who absolutely hated the constitution so much without even pretending to like it.

You'd think he'd at least make a show of pretending to like it, but when you have Sonty Mick's Powerful Nose For Sniffing Out This Kind Of Stuff, you can tell that even on a molecular level he is not even pretending a tiny bit. That's politics for you.

Another character is a little smiling bean that wants to be part of a golf course. I don't know why a bean would smile, but believe me, Christ Onstead (no joke, he thinks he's Jesus and that is what he says his name is) has no interest in telling you why it smiles so much. Oh, and because of this strip, children no longer have ambitions.

What other characters are there? There is also a piece of roast beef that turned into a cat. You can really tell that "Christ" Onstead is really running out of ideas.

Also there are some robots, and let me tell you, there is nothing less interesting than robots that are realistically like what robots would be like. Would you want to watch a robot that only knows how to march in a line and blink two lights that are different colors? Apparently that never occurred to Mr. Savior of the Webcomics World (sarcastic).

But I'm getting way off topic here, and it really shows. I need to give you some real facts about Achewood and what makes it tick. Here's a list of themes that come up a lot in Achewood.

• Machines are superior to Americans.
• Most shovels aren't very high quality these days, leading to most people only wanting to dig very shallow holes.
• Loud people should be tolerated, even on the radio where they can cause car accidents by being too loud.
• Nobody can actually be considered an American.
• Everyone has a skeleton (Sonty's note: In reality this is not true of some species.)
• It's OK to do bad things to women.
• If mankind doesn't change their ways, nature will fight back.
• America isn't a very good country, even for poor people.

Now as you can see, this adds up to be a pretty bad message that not a lot of people are going to want to see tought to young people and even some people whose age is hard to determine due to a disease that makes them look the wrong age.  That's right. Achewood is a...

I'm sorry to tell you these things, especially when they probably make you get emotional, but what do I look like, your mom? Only if your mom is really cool, that's all I have to contribute to that discussion of who looks like your mom.

So...What else would you like me to say about Achewood?

What's that? You think Achewood should end forever right now?

OK, let me just press this "end achewood forever" button.

It's right over here.

Just kidding folks. That's just a little "April Fools" joke for you. I don't have a button to make Achewood end for good. I wish i did, but if I got everything I wished for, then I would have a life exactly like my life only there wouldn't be any of the bad web comics on this blog. You know the ones I'm talking about. The ones that I have written reviews of and a few that I haven't done a review of yet.

Achewood never ends. It just keeps on going and going, and if you ask me, that's the worst part. Can you imagine watching a movie that didn't end? I'll bet you wouldn't stand for that. That's why my third main criticism of Achewood is that it is hopelessly...

So what can you do? What can we do to make sure that America isn't ruined by Achewood? What do I want you to do now?

I don't know.

But here's what I think the new, more patriotic Achewood should be like:

It's a pretty good dream. Don't know why I'm telling you though, because I'm the only one who ever gets anything done around here.

(((---@#@#@#--Sonty Mick--#@#@#@---)))

Nintendo Super Squad

OK so I needed to back off for a bit and cool down.

Actually, the thing that I actually needed to do was to just kick off my shoes (could they be cowboy boots?) and just enjoy a good healthy laugh. You see, when I did the thing where I said I was quitting the business, that was April Fool's Day. It was a joke, because if I were to stop reviewing the worst of the worst, then that would be a grim day, and someone who I don't like would probably get elected. Nothing brings out the voters like voting against a quitter.

But I had to stay away for a while (even though I associated great pain with the idea) because if I had let it be a short joke, then my April Fool joke would not be a very good joke. It would be flat. That's not something that I want. That's not something that you want either. In order for me to tell the best joke that could be told, I needed to give it some time to sink in, that way everybody could get stressed about it and maybe that would help them lose weight.

But the fact is, the joke is over and it is time to stop laughing or you are going to look ridiculous when the weather starts clearing up.

Speaking of weather, who knows "weather" Nintendo Super Squad is a good comic?

(Me)

(I know that it is not a good comic)

So what's left after we use process of elimination to eliminate it maybe being a good comic?

IT IS A BAD COMIC

If you don't believe me, then I guess the proof is in the plumbing. And oh boy is this plumbing leaky. This plumbing is so leaky that if you tried to store information about an upcoming Harry Potter book in it, then boy oh boy would you have some disappointed fans as a man in a pinstriped suit rode around in the back of a convertible like in a parade with a megaphone yelling out which characters were going to die, and what was going to happen to Harry Potter.

If you don't think that's leaky plumbing, then I guess you really are a lost cause. Everybody knows that the endings to Harry Potter books are kept very secret.

So what's the big deal then? Why am I reviewing this comic?

Because some foxy lady won a contest, and then didn't try to seduce me (that was a test and she passed.)

Want to know what I really, really hate about this comic? Of course you do! Because you secretly hope that I will agree with what you hate.

The first thing that I hate is this strip.

The second thing is this strip.

The third thing is this strip.

If I were to write out a list of all the things that I hate about Nintendo Super Squad, then there would be a list 102 different things that I hate, and all of them would be strips from the archive of this comic. That's every strip. 102 strips, and I hate every single one.

See the thing that I hate is actually not the premise of the strip, and it's not the characters of the strip either. It's not the art, and it's not the web site, and it's not the way that you know what one of the characters is thinking when his eyes go wide, and you see into his brain almost, and it's not the feeling I get in my bladder area when I read it that tells me I may never urinate again. It's not the style, and it's not the topics, and it's not the obvious right wing bias, and it's not the spelling errors that seem to happen whenever things get hairy. It's not the tone, and it's not all the Freudian stuff, and it's not the smell of an old grandfather clock that wafts out of my monitor uniquely when I am reading Nintendo Super Squad.

What I hate is every individual installment on its own in a unique way.

Can I say why? I wouldn't be much of a reviewer if I could!

I can't tell you why because you wouldn't ever get a chance to explore, and that's bad for your exploring and your ideas about exploring.

I will show you. Through dance.

The first thing I want to tell you is that I did actually do all of these moves. I actually was able to do all of that because I am in shape. Since I had to lie low from blogging for my big joke, I was able to find more time for another hobby of mine; working out. Since I did that, I am now very, very buff, believe me. I thought that I was buff before, but now I have taken a turn for the super-buff. Expect to see me soon in your field of vision because my muscles will be so big that they can be viewed from anywhere in the world.

Secondly, I want to remind you all that dance moves can be copyrighted. This dance is copyrighted, and if you steal it then that is against the law. Do not perform my dance for profit or for any reason at all. The only reason that you are allowed to perform these moves is if you feel the same way as I do about Nintendo Super Squad, and this is the only way that you can express yourself about it.

Thirdly I want to apologize for the fact that some of my moves may have been a little bit provocative. I tried to keep it PG 13, but I'm afraid that some of those moves are very bad for kids. I could not keep it family friendly because my rage at Nintendo Super Squad is very unfriendly to the American family, and I needed to get that one out of my system. If it bothers you, then I know a place where if you mail them an empty envelope, they will send it back to you with a free cigar in it. Maybe that would help in the long run.

Fourthly, I want you to know that this dance is my gift to Nintendo Super Squad (even though I still own the copyright.) Learn from it, or you will be forced to repeat your mistakes.

+-((@@-+-Sonty Mick-+-@@))-+

Change of Format

Hey guys, I got tired of writing the best blog out there, so I'm switching. Now all that I am going to do is post pictures of the United States.

Dinosaur Comics

OK, first of all I need to explain to you all why I have been gone: The primary reason, and I say this from the bottom of my heart, is that I needed to spend some time finding myself. I needed to just get going and get out, and bet the kind of guy who understands who he is. Now that I have spent some time on a small boat, I think that I know who I am.

Everyone should know who they are, because if you know that then you can easily predict what you are going to do next. If you can't do that, then don't come crying to me when you commit a murder, because I'm not going to listen. I'm not even going to pretend that I care about you or your stupid murder that you committed. I'm not even going to listen to the sound of my own fingertips in my ears (Very hard to tune out. The secret: cotton balls.)

OK, another reason that I was not able to blog for a while is that it took me FOREVER to get to the point where I could select a winner for the big contest. The big contest was a contest. The contestants had to try to figure out what the best way was that they could photoshop themselves into a handsome picture. Anyway, here is the winner.


I like this picture primarily because it reminds me of what it is like to stand next to a beautiful woman, which is one of my favorite things to do. If you don't believe me, just consult my personal diary (OH WAIT YOU CAN'T)

The winner's name is Margaret Kelly, and I guess she must be a sexy fox or something because that is what I see here. I will review a comic of her choosing next, but not right now because I'm just mad about one thing that I just have to review of course. I'd say that it was typical, but nothing that I ever do is typical. I make a point of always doing extraordinary things that nobody else would ever do.

Dinosaur Comics.

I am fuming about this, and it is important that you know what that means.

You see, a fume is a stinky smell, and sometimes it is a dangerous smell. Chemicals would be a dangerous smell. Poison is also a dangerous smell, especially if it is a kind of poison that kills you through breathing it. Carbon monoxide would not be a dangerous smell, because carbon monoxide is odorless.

If you need legal advice about carbon monoxide, you might like to try right here.

If you get really angry, you will probably feel the need to do what I do: Exercise. It's a little known fact that when you're angry is the best time to exercise, because there are some brain chemicals or something that make muscles harder and burn fat. That's how I stay in shape, and believe me it works. Anyway, if you exercise a whole lot, then you get something that hasn't been documented in regular science, but as an amateur scientist, I've nicknamed it the "sweat effect."

This is where you get all sweaty.

And of course, when sweat evaporates, you get fumes. I wish I could tell you that wasn't the case, but it is so help me, and I cannot tell a lie.

So anyways, that's the origin of the word fuming when they say that a person is fuming mad.

What am I fuming at? The answer should be obvious. If you haven't got it yet, feel free to take a break and think about it. Maybe do some research. Email me for some good books that you could try researching in.

The answer is Dinosaur Comics. And if you can't see why, then you haven't seen the basic premise of Dinosaur Comics.

The premise of Dinosaur Comics is that it's a comic to see how much crap a man can get away with just because he is tall.

Does that seem fair?

No.

Of course it doesn't.

Everyone should be equal no matter what height they are. It's in the constitution of the United States. Maybe Canadians like Ryan North (the author) could learn a little something from that.

So I poked through the archive, and I think you'll notice the first thing that I noticed: The art, and the way that it is used. See, no matter how good he is at drawing those dinosaurs over and over, and no matter how good he is at getting all kinds of tiny details, Ryan North can't draw a sad expression to save his life. It's atrocious. It's inexcusable. It's enough to make a grown man take a good hard look in a mirror and then go purchase a BMW. (I almost did, BMWs are surprisingly affordable. But I couldn't because I removed all the mirrors from my home. Religious reasons.)

So I guess what we're stuck with is a whole bunch of comics about HAPPY dinosaurs having nauseating happy discussions, and all night long we have to have happiness shoved down our throats. Wave goodbye to life's beautiful tragedies, because Qwantz wants to kill them. Maybe you can hide them, but these big grinning green guys will find them no matter what you do. It's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen, but guess what: I'm not sad about it at all, because I am no longer allowed to experience that emotion.

The Happocolypse has occurred.

What else is wrong with the Dinosaur comics? The answer may frighten you. Did you know that dinosaurs were actually flesh-eating monsters who were gigantic? Did you know that they regularly ate people with their giant teeth? Did you know that the head of a T-rex is ten feet long? Imagine that the T-rex is chasing you: You think that he can't see you if you don't move, but then it turns out that the raptors are on the same team as him, and guess what; They can see you from anywhere in the world. That's the kind of thing that Ryan North is toying with; Unimaginable power. But he treats it like his own pet thing that he found and he can't quite tell if it's a dog or a cat, because his glasses are foggy, and he never really studied up on dogs and cats.

Simply disgusting. It's basic knowledge.

Ryan North's writing is full of questions. That's the main problem with it. I mean, another reason of course is that he sounds like he bought a joke book at a garage sale, and it turned out that the previous owner was a genius who scribbled notes in the margins of every page, and when Ryan North read it, he couldn't tell the notes from the jokes, so he just said the whole thing.

The thing that I like least of all, though, is that awful T-rex character. Has anything ever been so ungratifying as he is? No. No. He is the lamest thing since the other day when I hurt myself. Looking him in the eye is just the worst thing that anyone could ever do, and it makes me want to just punch him. I want to punch T-rex until he begs for me to stop punching him.

There is so much more to be said about how bad this comic is, and why it sucks so hard that it could never stop, but I am just one man, even if the man that I happen to be is exceptional. You won't hear me teaching you the lyrics to any anthems of hate for Dinosaur Comics today, because I can't do it all. But I encourage you all to write your own. Somebody needs to bring down this abomination once and for all, and it's not going to be the president, because there is an election coming up so he is a lame duck.

(((---+++Sonty Mick+++---)))

Fanart and awards + THE BIG CONTEST!

OK guys, I've been stockpiling fanart like it was a resource that Earth is running out of, and it was really time for me to just dump it all in a lake, you know? That's not good for the environment, but circumstances have driven me to desire what I should not; pollution.

Change is a good thing, so for a change, how about if I start with the awards? (too radical?)

Here is the first one. It is called a duffy. I got it from a mysterious person who did not give his/her name but who just dropped it on me and hoped that I would welcome it. Well I guess I did, meaning that this is a time when we can all put our hands together and watch me walk up the stairs of acceptance (the stairs are all labeled with different stages of acceptance. Surprise, pride, desire for greater success etc.)

I did some research about this reward, and I guess it is usually something else, but this one is an exception.

OK, the next one is from an organization that gives out awards. I guess all you have to do is deserve an award and they'll get you one right away.

Next up I have something from a guy online who only gave me his internet name. I will not tell you it because I think it might be from a movie script, and so it might be copyrighted. This guy saw a picture online and he thought "Hey, I could make a really good likeness of you-know-who with this...hmm...maybe I should..."

And this is what he came up with!

OK, the next one isn't really a fanart piece, because actually what I did was I went in and sat for the renowned artist Andrew Stewart. I don't know if it really counts if it's by an actual artist you know? Well anyway this is it, and I'm satisfied with it. It came out as good as I was hoping it would.

THE BIG CONTEST

OK, so this last one was sent in by a fan who wanted me to have a big contest! It has a space for you to add in your own face! Look at how great it is! You can be pictured next to me: A great and famous blogger!


Add in your face and send it to me! LADIES ONLY! Unless if you're a guy you can change the face to make it more feminine. As long as you look like a sexy vixen I will accept anything.

Who ever wins will get the great honor of an original drawing by me, and will be able to choose the subject of my next review!

Thanks all!

(((~~~^^^SONTY MICK^^^~~~)))

Pictures for Sad Children

There are some things that take a true man. Not true in the sense of like he's a man, and that's true. A true man as in: A man who is devoted to truth. A man who seeks after true things. A man who never lies about webcomics, because pulling punches is for true women. No that is sexist. True children perhaps. Pulling punches is for true children.

What does a true child look like? If I had to guess I'd say this:



This is the truth about children. This is what it means to be young and pull punches. If I was a small child, I would not look like this, because I would not wear such a crappy pink robe that looks like it's from a pawn shop, and I would not hold that bear. I would do an experiment with it by letting it go and seeing what happened. It's just clipart, so how do we know the regular laws of physics would apply???

The laws of physics are here for us, but only if we are real objects in real space. I'm sure you've all seen movies or flash advertisements if you spend most of your time on the computer. You'll notice that those worlds are not the same thing. That's what truth is about. Truth is what's real that you can actually experience. Untruth is CRAP. That's what the kind of children that we probably want are the kind that are true?

So what if the children weren't true?

What if instead they were sad?



Seems pretty improbable when I phrase it like that, doesn't it? Yeah, that's probably because I was using semantics. Pretty good, I know.

But yes. If there were sad children then I guess what they would need would be some pictures, huh? Maybe some big pictures? Maybe some small pictures? Maybe even some of the pictures could be upside down because that would be kind of unusual and maybe it would get the kid to laugh.

But no. When children get sad, the only pictures that they are allotted are these. How...sad.

Pictures for Sad Children. It's a comic on the web, and boy does it pack away the laughs in a safe that not even a really good criminal could get them out of even if he had a bunch of equipment and explosives and a glass that he could hold up to the safe and put his ear on the other side and listen to the old clicks as the pins or whatever did whatever they do in order to open.

I think that the author has some jokes, but he's ACTUALLY trying to keep them from us. He's taunting us by showing us that there are jokes and then not telling us them. Here's an example.

It's the kind of thing that would make the children...MAD.



Oh no!

OK, here's a list of just a few things about the comic that make the children mad.

• It's impractical. Does this look like the best way to make a comic? I don't think so.
• It seems like the guy who wrote it is the sort of guy who grows his hair out, and then he waits and waits for everyone to get used to it, and he even gets it on his drivers license, but then when we all accept him as a long haired man, that's when he cuts it. It makes EVERYONE uncomfortable. I mean, just look at this installment.
• No good social networking features on the website. Why can't these sites serve more than one purpose?
• No references. This comic would have been the perfect place to drop a line from Free Willy, but does the author take the opportunity? No! He wants to live in a cultural vacuum! Wow, good idea Mr. I hope you like living with dust.

What is true boredom?

True boredom is when you're on an airplane and you don't hear anything over the intercom for so long that you start to feel lonely.

True boredom is when you are on a tiny planet and you are the only alien who lives there, and the only thing you can do for fun is play an alien game where you have to dare yourself to shut your eyes for certain amounts of time.

True boredom is when you have your own ocean, but boats haven't been invented yet, and you can't figure out how to make one, and you're all out of resources.

True boredom is when you work at a job where you help scientists do experiments to figure out how long a man can think about his own legs in one go.

True boredom leads to bored children.



Pictures for Sad Children is pure true boredom. It's probably one of the main reasons that not as many people read the newspaper these days. I'll have to check sometime. If anybody knows the phone number for one of the most important newspapers, leave it here, and I'll try reviewing it as soon as I get the chance (keep in mind, I keep busy.)

So why don't I like this comic? Lots of reasons. Some of them are private, but there are some public ones. For instance, if I were reading it in public I would feel very strange.

I would feel like I was a cancer researcher who accidentally discovered the ultimate way to cause cancer, and it was the only thing I discovered all year, and my mom was trying to ask me what I had discovered that year, and it was really awkward because my only discovery was one that could kill people.

I also dislike the comic's use of perspective. Why do things always have to be in the distance?

(If it's small in the picture that means it's far away. See here)

I also dislike everything else about the comic. Sonty fans take note: Don't enjoy this comic or you will be disagreeing with your hero!

So put yourself in the position of a child. If you saw this comic then how the heck would YOU feel? This is audience participation! Put your answer as a comment!



[}{{(((--~~--Sonty Mick--~~--)))}}{]

White Ninja Comics

OK so there is going to be something a little different today. I know this might come as a large surprise to a good many of you, but I, Sonty Mick, am taking a night class from community college. Maybe you thought I was too old for college. Nope. You are never too old to get a little more of the good stuff (education). I am hoping that I will become an even better writer from this, and win even more awards.

Anyway, I am taking a class about writing good papers. It is also about editing them and researching them. I have sort of a brief research paper due, and so this next post will actually be my paper! I just submitted it for grading, and I will definitely let you know how it goes. It was hard because I was not allowed to write in first person.




Argumentative Paper
(((==~||~~{Sonty Mick}~~||~==)))
Advanced Composition
12-17-2007

White Ninja Comics is So Bad

Every day days get just a tiny bit longer. You don't notice it, because I think that time gets slower or something too so it's the same from your perspective, but nothing can go fast forever. Famous people have said quotes about that kind of thing, but I couldn't find it online, and I seriously spent 45 minutes in the library and it was a total waste of time.

There has been a pretty good amount of discussion, a decent amount anyway, on what it is that makes a work of fiction a good one or a bad one. Sometimes that work of fiction can even be a comic that may be good or bad (Versaci 34), such as Blondie or Powerup Comics. It may be hard to believe, but the comic could even perhaps be considered a webcomic if it on the world wide web (internet).

It is one of these online webcomics that we must turn our heads to in focus with the lasers that make up the point of our eyes. Only in looking beyond ourselves can we find the rich resources that comics will provide for us on the web. It is on this web, which is like a sea of information, only withoout the sea and with more information, that we will find the topic that requires discussion here: White Ninja Comics.

In this paper, it will be proven through a good argument that by objective standards, White Ninja Comics is to be considered a bad webcomic. It is a bad webcomic for three reasons: The first reason is that the comic is written in a style that does not have literary depth, the second reason is that the comic looks like it came out of a butt, and the the third reason is that the characters in the comic are too hard to tell apart from each other, and most of them are ugly. There are other reasons, but hey, who even cares? I am not getting payed by the word here (that's an old writing joke. I don't need to cite it because I think it's a part of our cultural consciousness.)

First of all, I think that someone had better shed some light on the matter of web comics and and the web in general. The internet is sometimes a difficult concept to understand. What is it? Where did it come from? Well if you are confused about the internet, then maybe you need to understand the extent to which the internet is used. Here is a graphical representation from Wikipedia about how many people around the world use the internet:



As you can see, the internet is a network that reaches all over the world, and people from differrent cultures are able to use it for whatever they want, including comics. Webcomics are just comics that are on this network, and include a lot of different big names in comics. There are even certain blogs that are all about webcomics and whether or not they are good. (Mick)

OK, the first reason that the comic is so bad is that there is no literary depth in the style. There is a lot of information available about metaphor in writing, and it's easy to get bogged down by it, but here are the basics of metaphor: Metaphor is something that is often used in literature and if it is done well then it can be very good. (Polvinen 55)

What kinds of metaphor can we find in White Ninja Comics? In the installment entitled "White Ninja Eats a Dead Man" we see one end of the scale. Here the ninja character is just being himself and just giving you a taste of what makes his world the different version of our world that it is. Do you notice anything about the literary depth here though? I think you will need to look hard, but if you do you will see that there is not a lot. When the officer shows up we are not even treated to an interesting piece of dialog. It is just White Ninja speaking without developing his character.

What does it mean to be human? White Ninja Comics could have answered that question in the episode entitled "White Ninja's Robot Wife", but that did not end up happening. While the comic strip makes an attempt at answering the question by blurring the lines between woman and machine, White Ninja is more interested in eating chicken than he is in giving us a glimpse into the transcendant. It does not answer, or even seriously consider the question of what it means to be human, and this is a major downfall from many perspectives. (Hand 11)

In the episode called "White Ninja's Pig" we get what should be an opportunity to examine the relationship between mankind and the animal kingdom. It is important for a comic to make a good point and this comic does not do that. (Polvinen 113) In this particular strip we get what seems like an ordinary exchange between these guys, but they are really having an exchange that has a lot of tension even though it doesn't seem to be sexual tension. Maybe the tension here is trying to be a metaphor for sex. It doesn't work.

And so as you can clearly see, White Ninja Comics has no literary value at all. Might as well just read nothing.

The second point about White Ninja Comics that needs to be understood is that the comic looks literally like it was drawn with a butt rather than with a hand. This is because the art is so ugly, and because butts are not very good for writing. There are no scholarly sources about how good butts are for writing. It is a field that most scientists are uncomfortable to do experiments about.

In the White Ninja Comic entitled "White Ninja In: Hottie Alert", White Ninja seems to think that a certain woman is hot. Well he must have strange taste in women or something, because the women that we see all drawn up here is not an attractive one. She has saggy boobs. Research online will show you that even if White Ninja comes from Japan (the land of ninjas) then even in his culture, saggy boobs are not considered attractive. It looks like this is a clear instance of the art not living up to what one would expect. (Physical Attractiveness)

In the installment called "White Ninja Doesn't Like to Drink", we see the eponymous ninja is having a cup of flour, which appears to be nice. What is happening in that fourth panel though? White ninja has closed his eyes, and even though this could be considered a symbol of blocking out the outside world, he is actually saying something that he wants to communicate with the outside world. So this piece of artwork is actually misleading, and it actually hurts the argument that some people might make that White Ninja has OK art. (Meskin Par. 4)



Also if you read the rest of the comics you will notice that they are also really really ugly.

So, as outlined here, we are made aware that the artwork in this comic is really bad, and it should not be looked at by anybody. Especially real people like you. Who knows what could happen? Maybe you'd even have to go to a funeral.

OK so the third point that absolutely needs to be made here is that the characters in this comic are too hard to tell apart from each other, and it's impossible to tell which one is which. The most obvious example that I could possibly think of is that there are probably several characters who are white ninjas but they are clearly not the same guy. Like look at the comic entitled "White Ninja Longs to Be Married" and you will see that White Ninja wants some chick to propose for him then it is unclear if he proposes to a guy or if he is just joking. But then in "White Ninja's Wife Gives Birth", he is completely married to a woman who is giving birth.

These two White Ninjas look the same.

There are a bunch of other examples but they are completely boring and if you actually care about any of this crap then you can just go ahead and research it all by yourself because I have seriously done enough research. Seriously, Go see some things for yourself, Don't be caged in by a society that tells you that you need a lid for a sprite when you go to a Mc D's.

In conclusion, White Ninja Comics is very bad, and the three reasons that it is so bad is because the writing has no literary depth, because the art is as horrible as crap, and because the characters all look exactly like clones of each other, and I don't mean actual science clones because they don't always look just like the original (Skipper par. 6). I mean sci-fi style clones.

Thank you for reading my paper.

Works Cited

Bevan, S, and Earle, K. White Ninja Comics. 2002-present. www.whiteninjacomics.com

Mick, Sonty and Satiricus, Gaius. These Web Comics are So Bad. webcomicssobad.blogspot.com/ (Award winning credible source)

Polvinen, Merja. "The Ends of Metaphor". European Journal of English Studies, Dec 2007, Vol. 11 Issue 3, p273-284

Versaci, Rocco. This Book Contains Graphic Language: Comics As Literature. Continuum International Publishing Group. London. 2007

Hand, Elizabeth. "Writing Literary Science Fiction". Writer. Jan95, Vol. 108 Issue 1, p11, 4p

Meskin, Aaron. "Defining Comics?". Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. Oct2007, Vol. 65 Issue 4, p369-379, 11p

Skipper, Magdelina. "In the News: More than Nine Lives". Nature Reviews genetics. Apr2002, Vol. 3 Issue 4, p234-234, 1p

"Physical Attractiveness". (15 December 2007). In Wikipedia, The free encyclopedia. Retrieved December 15, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Attractiveness

"The Internet". (15 December 2007). In Wikipedia, The free encyclopedia. Retrieved December 15, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet

Gunnerkrigg Court

I don't know how I do it.

I surprise myself sometimes.

I've come up with a new review concept today, and I'm hoping that I can kick it off in this post and give you all just a little touch of astonishment as I transcend utilitarian blogging, and actually make it more of an art form. I am going to do this by just writing just a little bit of poetry. Read this poem that I wrote, and then maybe check and see if you can tell what comic I am reviewing today:

She is independent, and she looks
To another place not her own
She is to nature as a man to his loyal dog
Who squats by his side and is uneasy.
Who can give me a taste of this?
Not you.
You can only give me a breath
And that's the breath that dies out
When I see that you are a waste
And I give you nothing.

OK, do you have anything that resembles an idea what I'm talking about? Think hard. There are clues in there.

I'm talking about Gunnerkrigg Court.

Gunnerkrigg Court is a comic that has court in the name, but it's not the kind of court that you would think. Well, I think it's time that somebody took Gunnerkrigg Court to court to have a trial and see if it's a bad comic. Maybe it will even be sentenced to prison.

OK, now let's open up this case. (raps with gavel on circle of wood). Now I know that there are people out there who will tell you things like that Gunnerkrigg is something that mankind should not be ashamed of. Perhaps you've even seen them on an internet forum, or in a booth together at your local pizza restaurant. They might have even looked at you, and you might have even wondered if you knew them. This is normal. A lot of people don't know how to react to certain social situations. That's what they base shows like Candid Camera off of.

Exhibit A: Gunnerkrigg Court is made by Tom Siddell. It's always unnerving to find out the name of the parent behind the name that you already know. For instance: You all know Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, and some of you may even have heard of KFC, but did you know that they are owned by a parent company called "Yum"? It's not what you'd expect, is it? It's kind of a dry feeling in your mouth, isn't it? It kind of makes fast food taste like sand.

Where to start...where to start...

Let's try the beginning. As you can see, this is typical comic fare. A girl and some black shadows. I guess we won't be calling the newspapers and asking them to change the headlines to something about Gunnerkrigg Court, huh? Looks like we'll be leaving this one for the ravens.

Exhibit B: The main character is a girl who is all at once ordinary, tenacious, fearful, understated and on-edge. Wow, nice move, Tom (not). That really works. It looks like he just took a character that would fit into an office comic like Dilbert and then made her younger and put her in a different setting where she didn't have the proper dynamic. Is this the kind of character who you want to see on a mousepad, but not saying something about coffee? I sure don't, and you probably don't either. This is some really good evidence in the case against Gunnerkrigg Court. I have a feeling the defense attorney won't be objecting to that statement!

Exhibit C: The art in this comic is OK, but it never gives me the kinds of feelings that I get when I'm driving alone and I hum to myself softly because I can't be absolutely certain if there's nobody in the back seat, so I don't want to go all out and sing, because what if there is someone, and I just forgot? In the face of this strong evidence, I think that we may need to consider that Gunnerkrigg Court may be very guilty.

Now let's cross examine the witness: Her best friend is another girl and she has dark hair. Why is it that sidekicks like her always have dark hair? I have seen it in at least two other comics, but I don't have time to list them here. Do your own research for once, it won't kill you. It might even give you a good reason to stop off at the library. While you're there, even if you don't like books, they will probably have some movies.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, there is also a living shadow that is alive. That's basically like saying that a child's thimble can be alive, come on, people! Plus there is a robot, which is something that you wouldn't expect in a comic like this, but it has to be there. Whatever. I can't argue with that, because you can't argue with that kind of incompetence. You can only argue against it. ;)

Not that it's uncool to be bald, but robots are pretty much always bald.

Who could ever live in a world like the one in this comic? If this happened in real life, we could all die.

Do you want to die?

Then don't read Gunnerkrigg Court!

I rest my case!

OK, now it's time for the verdict...Drumroll everyone!

Looks like we won't be hearing from Gunnerkrigg Court anytime soon...

And it looks like my job here is done.

Until next time, don't do anything illegal, because the eagle eye of Sonty Mick is always watching!

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

Fanart and letters

Hello all of my many readers, and welcome back to more of Sonty Mick and his amazing blog. I hope that you are all ready on a personal level to just kick back. Seriously, for me, just take off your shoes and give it a rest. No full review yet today, just a quick little post with a few things I've received lately.

First off, I got this mysterious email from a guy. He didn't tell me his name or anything, but I guess that he wanted to be anonymous. He is apparently some sort of man in comics, so I will just present for you this letter that I received:

Dear Sonty,

I stumbled upon your website while looking for old videos of Yakov Smirnoff on the internet, and the moment I laid eyes on it I was transfixed by its brilliance. I don't want to brag, but I am the creator of a popular syndicated cartoon strip. I want to be discreet, so I won't reveal the name, but let's just say that it's about an overweight cat who hates "the mondays."

I'll be honest with you, Sonty: I wish I was as smart as you. Some days I feel like it's all I can do to get by. I mean, can you imagine waking up every day with the burden of coming up with a new idea for a hilarious comic? Now I'm just being silly. Of course you can. You could probably write a better comic in the nude. I don't know why I just typed that. Oh well it's too late to take it back now. Me, I don't know if I could do it without my staff of 57 artists, writers, and licensing business executives.

Oh Sonty, do you ever just feel that you're dead inside? I think for me it happened after my 35th book. I was at a dinner party and instead of asking someone to pass me the coffee I said, "Just hand over the coffee and no one gets hurt." And they all just sort of chuckled nervously and looked around at each other. I realized that I used that line every single time I had ever wanted coffee in my entire life. It was then that I began to wonder if maybe I was born without a soul.

I felt so bad that I excused myself and went home, and I had to run my hands through the little bowl of diamonds that I keep on my desk for at least a minute before the feeling passed.

But enough about me. Sonty, please don't let the pack of gibbering hyenas who comment on your posts get you down. They're just jealous because they are mostly a bunch of bitter lesbians. But I don't need to tell you that. You are like a golden god, come to judge the layers of stinking crap dumped onto the internet every day by the diseased brains of the communists and the pedophiles and the two-bit hacks that inhabit this internet. I say in all honesty I think you would look amazing dressed up and posed like Michaelangelo's David. I only hope I am not judged and found wanting. Sonty, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

Sincerely,

Your Biggest Fan

Now I don't really know where this guy is coming from (I can think of fifteen comics that would seriously fit the description that he gave), but this guy is at least recognizing the need for reform in web comics. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

OK, I also got a new fanart and a new award. Things have been kind of slow I guess. Everybody must think that there fanart is not good enough or something. This is from Lillian Bucket, and so is the award.

This is a pretty good picture. Don't know why I'm blue... Maybe it's a metaphor for the blues, because I listen to the music of different races and bring cultures together...

Now here is the award:

Oh wait, it looks like I have another fanart up my sleeve! I guess you never know what I personally am about to do next! This one is from somebody whose name is Chris.


That's all that I have for you tonight. Don't worry, though. It will not be too long until you can get another fix of The Mick.

(((~~~@-@-Sonty Mick-@-@~~~)))

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----=={}))

Dresden Codak

Just what is crap?

What does it take for a comic to not be good enough anymore? So that we call it a bad comic? How does it have to go wrong? What kind of problems need to arise that make it so bad that we call it crap? It's a question that most people answer without ever being asked. It's a question that takes a mind like that of Sonty Mick (me, for my new readers) to ask and answer.

I can tell you one thing right off the bat: If the comic that is so bad is on the web, then it is called a bad webcomic. That seems like a thing that you would know without even needing to ask, but you'll notice that if I hadn't pointed it out, you probably wouldn't have noticed. Also, it is called crap if it isn't any good.

Dresden Codak is crap.

Now I know what you're all thinking. "But Sonty! Isn't Dresden Codak actually an OK webcomic?

No.

No.

No.

I can see what would make you start out along that line of thinking, but to say that Dresden Codak is actually OK is like saying that if you go out at sunrise, you will automatically catch a fish. You still need a fishing pole, a tackle box, a hook, bait/lures, and some water. It doesn't matter how good the sunrise is. It doesn't even matter if it's the best sunrise in history.

No sunrise can make it so you can catch fish without doing anything. Anybody who tells you something other than that is probably pulling your leg.

Dresden Codak has several problems. One of them is that when you read it, you remember certain tunes that you do not like, and then you get them stuck in your head. This is a problem that I try to avoid. In fact, I will often avoid going to grocery and convenience stores if there is a hit radio single that I hate and do not want to hear. Dresden Codak makes all of that pointless. From reading this comic I am now thinking about that song about beautiful girls where someone is suicidal.

What am I supposed to do with this?

The artwork in this comic reminds me A LOT of back when I used to go to my grandma's house, and I would not want to listen to the grown-up conversations, so I would have to go into the other room and watch stuff on the TV. Often, I would watch blooper and home video shows, and this molded me into who I am today.

Dresden Codak is like those shows, but where are all the bloopers? Where are the guys getting hit in the groin with objects that are moving toward their groins? Where are the dogs who bark too much and pee in the wrong places? Where are the babies who ask their mothers questions about bras in front of company?

They're nowhere to be seen. Dresden Codak just isn't about that kind of thing. The main point of it seems to be to set up your expectations and then not have something funny happen to a person's head. (for instance: hitting the street when a bike falls down)

I have honestly gone through the whole archive and not seen anything that even seemed hostable by Bob Saget.

This installment is the biggest monument I have seen yet to the failure of Dresden Codak. The bear steals the girl's idea, but it does not fall off of a ladder. It does not scream because it is on an amusement park ride that goes upside-down. It doesn't even do a karate kick and split its pants. These things seem like small objections, but if there's one thing that my webcomic reviewing career has taught me, it's that the little things add up. They add up fast, to the point where I don't even want to deal with this anymore.

I will never read this comic again.

OK, so I guess I should probably do something constructive, and tell you all how Dresden Codak could be improved. It is a greatly painful thing for me to do, because every time I see this comic it strikes a hurtful nerve, and I sweat a lot. It's not the kind of thing that I like to admit, especially when my readers put me on a pedestal.

I'm going to try to fix it. It'll be hard...

OK, that was way, way too hard. This comic is clearly definitely beyond repair. I tried. You saw me try to save it, but it could not be done. There was nothing that I could do. Dresden Codak is just too bad. It is just too far from funny. It's just so bad.

It's like if you were on an airplane, and you felt kind of uncomfortable, and you kind of wished that you could get off the plane because you thought that in an hour or two you might feel sick, but you already payed for the ticket and are on the plane, so you really can't. It's like if you were trying to play some miniature golf using your neighbor's window wells as makeshift hazards, and then you broke one of his windows, so you put a ten dollar bill in the window through the hole, and then went inside so that nobody would see you, and then you looked out the window every now and then to see if he was doing any kind of reaction.

That's Dresden Codak for you. Just too disappointing. Just so bad that you can't do anything to fix it.

That's why I don't recommend it. Not even if you are stuck on an island and it is the only part of the internet that you can get to.

The End

(((##)*^*^*^Sonty Mick^*^*^*(##)))