Webcomic Spotlight #3: Kid Radd
Okay, let’s be honest, regular updates were a fairytale dream. Nevertheless, here we have the third edition of Webcomic Spotlight with a rare breed: a finished comic. Not too many of those out there, as many comics are either still ongoing or fall apart long before they reach the end. If they’re even meant to have one. But Kid Radd, a ’sprite’ comic by Dan Miller that is found at http://kidradd.com/, is an especially unique piece of work even among those scant few complete webcomics.
According to the site’s front page “Kid Radd is an animated pseudo-sprite comic that ran from February 2002 until September 2004.” There are two things of note in there that start to set Kid Radd apart from your average sprite comic. First, ‘psuedo-sprite’? What the hell is a psuedo-sprite? A comic either uses sprites or it doesn’t, right?
Well, a look at the above photo would show you the source of the moniker: original characters. With the exception of a few props (Mario Mushrooms served at a diner, for instance) and a cameo or two every single area, item and character is originally created by Miller. Most, pretty much all, sprite comics use sprites borrowed from real games. But since everyone in Kid Radd from the titular hero to the cannon fodder bad guys are new, it stands apart from the rest.
Partially because of the original sprites, partly because he apparently has the patience of a deity, Miller has managed to make many of the panels in the comic animated. This ranges from simple expressions (playing air guitar) to huge fight scenes (an aerial duel between two fighters, filling the sky with energy blasts). The characters thus come off as more alive and the action more intense than it normally would. They also, from time to time, work with a musical score backing them up.*
But there’s one last thing that makes Kid Radd special, and it’s the most important part: the story. It starts off pretty simple, actually. The early chapters of the comic follow Radd, the hero sprite of the fictional platforming 80s game Kid Radd, as he lives through his life at the whim of his player. Since the player is inept at the start and the gaming world borders on the ridiculous Radd’s life is easy fodder for a few chuckles on the reader’s part. But eventually, being part of an 80s game, Radd falls out of the mainstream and becomes trapped in the void caused by the game turning off. Until, that is, someone turns his game into a ROM and puts it on the internet, quickly exposing Radd and his game’s characters to a much wider world than a simple platforming game.
Kid Radd starts off as a comedy, but once Radd gets out into the ‘real’ world outside his game things become much more serious. In a turn that’s surprising in the oft gag-a-day world of sprite comics, the story becomes one that focuses on human nature and the ability to change your own fate. Even when it evolves into the serious, makes-you-think comic that sets it apart, it remains a comic that can make you laugh. The jokes range from video game related (how the hell does a 2D characer get used to 3D?) to the more mainstream (Radd’s often ill-fated attempts to pursue his ‘girlfriend’ Sheena), And all throughout the tale, through the serious debates to the funny blunders, is the rarity that is good character development.
Kid Radd is, impressively, a finished piece of work. There are no more updates, no new panels, no new plot twists to worry about. When you visit the site the entire tale from beginning to end is there for you to read, and as said before that is a rare luxury. While this doesn’t stop a certain bittersweetness at having to leave the characters at the end, it does mean that you can save it to your library (it’s available for download so you can read offline) and enjoy it again whenever you want.
* Kid Radd finished more than four years ago, and as a result the tech that made it is a little dated. Newer versions of Internet Explorer, starting at 6, cannot play the animations. Since most of the comic is animated, IE users are pretty screwed. If you’re using Firefox or you download it, however, you’ll be fine.
