First up is ‘Last Night’, a short two-and-a-bit pager. Despite the fact that drinking makes you forget the events of the night before, beware of those with better memories or restraint than yourselves . . .

Last Night

A cheap apartment living room, with few chairs, a table, and T.V., with a few doors leading to other rooms. Most of the furniture is covered in empty beer bottles. GABE, a clean looking twentysomething-year old in a T-shirt and jeans, sits in one of the empty chairs while reading a newspaper. FRANK enters the living room from his bed room, still dressed like a clerk from the day before. His clothes are rumpled and he looks worse for the wear, apparently having drank the contents of many of the now empty bottles. He plops down into a chair after knocking a few empties off of it.

FRANK

(holds heads in hands and groans) Oh God. I think I’m going to die. Why did I do this to myself? Again?

GABE

(still reading paper, with a cheery tone of voice) Because your job sucks, your boss is a tyrant, and you hate your life?

FRANK

Shut up. I wasn’t talking to you. Why the hell are you so happy, anyways?

GABE

No reason.

(puts paper down on table, smiles at FRANK)

The fact that I don’t drink or have a hangover right now might have something to do with it, though, now that I think about it.

FRANK

Screw you. You don’t have to deal with all the crap I have to. You don’t even have a job. How the hell you keep coming up with your share of the rent I have no idea, and I really don’t want to know. Finding out you’re a hitman or something would just drive me to drink even more.

GABE

Ah, but when you’re the only one at a party who doesn’t drink you hear all sorts of interesting things. And the best part is that you’re usually the only one who remembers them.

FRANK

Oh no.

(finally takes his head out of his hands to look at GABE, horrified)

What did I do?

GABE

Oh, not that much, really.

(GABE leans back in the chair and crosses his arms, and for a moment FRANK looks like he has hope, until GABE speaks again.)

You just went into exquisite detail about what you thought of your boss.

FRANK

Oh shit. Sam was here last night! He’s the worst gossip in the entire frigging company! Everybody and their mothers will know what I said!

GABE

(thoroughly enjoying himself) Speaking of mothers, the things you said about your boss’ mother! I’m telling you, the paint nearly peeled off the walls. And then you got into what your boss did with his dog on the weekends . . .

FRANK

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

(stands up, begins pacing frantically)

He’s fired people for breaking too many pencils! He’s going to can me, I’m sure of it!

GABE

Relax. I made sure Sam got hammered. Odd how he never noticed I wasn’t actually drinking in our little ‘drinking contest’. By the time the others carried him out of here, I’d be surprised if he remembered his own name, never mind what you were going on about.

FRANK

(looks visibly relieved and sits back down) You’re cruel, you know that? Had me worried over nothing. Thanks, though.

GABE

No problem.

(glances over at FRANK, grinning wickedly)

Of course, I could still remind Same about what he heard, job his memory a bit.

FRANK

(having finally started to relax, he jerks upright in his seat, shocked) HUH!?

GABE

Hey, Frank, would you mind covering my share of the rent this month? I’d really appreciate it!

(FRANK puts his head back in his hands and groans)

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.

Alpha Shade starts of in media res, with the young Laura Stone leading her small country’s troops into a war between two great empires. The first chapter is chock full of action including infantry battles, tanks, biplanes, organic flyers, felines with amazing powers, airships, sabotage, attempted assassinations, and (surprise) growing characters. The first chapter ends on a climax and flashes back more than a year before the shooting starts to find Laura and her friends seemingly in our own world, living normal lives. But it quickly becomes clear that the normal world and the world we saw at war are moving closer together each day.

With just a glance at the comic, at least one thing is going to stand out: the art. Each page, published in graphic novel format, looks great, whether it’s featuring a gunfight or a casual meal at a fast food joint. That becomes more true of each page as the comic goes on, and as there are 299 pages so far the art at this point borders on glorious.

The one downside to that great art is long uploading times. The front page of the site has a status bar for the next page in the works, but there really is no reliably determined schedule. This shows in that there are only 299 pages for roughly five years, since it began in 2003. So Alpha Shade isn’t a webcomic you check five times a week. It’s more of a comic you check every month or so to catch up on a few pages.

In addition to the great art is a well-planned and deep storyline. The slow speed in the uploads leaves much to the imagination for the moment, but it is still easy to tell that Alpha Shade exists in a large and detailed world with many characters and factions. And the characters we’ve met so far are all interesting, ranging from the sadistic to the kind and the serious to the goofy. Also, the creators have said in interviews that the script for the story is written out well in advance of pages being published, ensuring that the comic will be going for a long time yet.

However, the comic is not the only thing the Brudlos brothers offer. They also run a podcast, called Alpha Rant. In the Rant they talk not only about the comic they’re working on but also many other subjects, including television, movies, video games, other comics, and more. From time to time they will even do interviews of other writers/artists. There are currently #299 episodes of the Rant, all lasting up to an hour at times.

So, Alpha Shade may take its time as it moves along, but the wait is worth it. Give it a look and see for yourself. And drop by here again for another Webcomic Spotlight in two weeks. Let’s hope the computers don’t try another uprising.

Despite the delay, rest assured that within the week several posts will be made. The Spotlight will return to its schedule, and we’ll also be looking at several plays on the Broadway stage that have caught my eye. See you then!

But it’s not really the same, is it? Summer’s just another busy part of the year now,  usually starting with job searches. Some take extra courses over those three months, some travel, some are even doing internships for their majors. The rest of us, most of us, knuckle down to those job searches and try to find a way to scrounge money together for the next school year, always with an eye on the spare change you’ll be able to use for yourself instead of overpriced textbooks.

Remember the summers when you did nothing, and yet still managed to do so many different things. Camping, biking, visiting theme parks, swimming at the beach, just hanging out with friends and being quite possibly the laziest living being ever. No job, no extra courses, no internships, not a single thing. Summer was your time, when you could do what you wanted. Three whole months to unwind from the school year, and if you had summer reading it got done the last week before school started so that it didn’t interfere with your good time.

The parking lot back in Malden, when I was just a little kid, turned into a war zone each summer. Nobody, kid or adult, could cross that stretch of pavement without getting caught in the crossfire of half a dozen water guns. Water balloons exploded everywhere, creating any dash for cover into a gauntlet. And when we really needed to lay on the watery hurt we hauled out the buckets and snuck up on one another, doing our best impressions of football players dousing their coach after a game.

When’s the last time anybody my age, in college, had a water fight like that? I don’t mean chasing each other around with little two dollar water guns for half an hour, I mean an H2O-filled brawl, the kind where thirty friends are duking it out for hours until they’re completely soaked, mother-starts-talking-about-catching-your-death-of-pneumonia soaked. More than a decade ago for most of us, I’d bet. It’s another casualty in the list of things lost along with the summers of years past, the lazy summers that have succumbed to this disease called ‘growing-up’.

Well, I’m going to see if I can do something about that. Buy the biggest water gun money can buy maybe, invest in a few bags of water balloons. I’ve got a funny feeling I can wrangle up a gang and a car and make a few visits here and there. If not? Three words: lightsaber bike jousting. I may have another busy summer ahead of me, but I think I can manage to act like a kid again for a little while, right?

Sinfest got started way back on January 17th, 2000 and has been running on a daily update schedule ever since, with a bare handful of hiccups in that schedule along the way. Ishida’s art is definitely influenced (although not dominated) by Japanese manga styles, but the writing just as definitely carries a Western tone to it. Ishida has also admitted that the appearance of the main character, Slick, has been influenced by Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes fame, possessing the same unruly blond hair and diminutive stature.

The similarities and influences end there, as Sinfest does it’s own thing to the very last with a quirky cast of characters. Slick is somewhere between “14 and 21″, a wannabe pimp addicted to porn and beer with a career as a beat poet. Monique’s a teenage girl with “many tramp-like qualities, but deep down inside she’s still a tramp”. They’re the main characters, but others include Squigley the chauvinistic pig (no, really), Criminy the bookworm, Seymour the religious fanatic, a devil worshipper, a few angels, and for the moments of cute levity a puppy and cat named Pooch and Percival. Oh, and don’t forget God, the Devil, the Dragon, Buddha, and Jesus Christ. They’re kind of important, yeah?

Sinfest is mostly about humanity itself, with a fair amount of focus put on sex and religion. Despite being a comedy webcomic the strip still manages to make some serious points with its jokes about how society treats both of them, and how the two can affect people. The strip also addresses pop culture, as well as the ills of society in general. And every once and a while it’ll throw a rock in the general direction of the political world.

However, despite the often well-made points the allure of the strip is simply the fact that it is funny. Where else can you see God entertaining humans with a puppet show? Jesus and the Devil playing a game of basketball with Buddha as the referee? A pig debating how to treat women with a religious fanatic? Sinfest is the place for all of these and more. There are also several little ‘features’ within the comic. For instance, sometimes the characters will act out parts in a martial arts movie in “Ninja Theatre”, or perform deadpan “Porn Script Readings”. Whenever its time for just some untainted good cheer Pooch and Percival step up, with Pooch’s unstoppable good nature and Percival’s arrogant scheming mixing very well for a good laugh.

The comic originally started off as a Keenspot comic, but became it’s own creature in 2006. Artistically Ishida has made great improvements over the years; put the 2000-01-17 strip and today’s one together and you can see a marked difference in the quality. Also, after breaking away from Keenspot the comic began featuring full page, full color comics every Sunday. These are sometimes used to wrap up an ongoing story but are also sometimes a self-contained comic (Jesus vs. Devil basketball, for instance).

Despite the long running time there is no need to panic at the size of the archive. While the characters do change over time there is no strict plot to the comic; one can start following it today, never look at the archives, and yet never have to ask themselves what the hell is going on. However, not reading the archives would be a great loss of lots of amusing material, so give them a try.

Despite never making it as an American newspaper comic (rejected 11 times as of last count two years ago), Sinfest has made it into print, self-published in three books so far: Sinfest (2002), Life is My Bitch (2003), and Dance of the Gods (2005), covering the first three years of the comic, although all of it is still available online for free. There is no word on when, or even if, there will be another book published.

So, thanks for reading Webcomic Spotlight! I hope our first subject, Sinfest, has been interesting to hear about and I hope you check it out and enjoy it. Check back in two weeks for the next Spotlight!

Now for the meat of the first post, I figured that I should address something to with the present, and with the aforementioned video games. Yes, you’re going to hear another rant about GTA IV. I apologize if you’re sick of hearing about it, but it’s news.

Grand Theft Auto. Say those three words and chances are people won’t think of the actual crime. Instead, they’ll think of paying a hooker and then beating her to death with a baseball bat to get a refund. Maybe shooting some cops along the way, hopefully not getting too many stars, or else the army shows up. Maybe they’ll just think of porn.

Some people would have you believe that playing a GTA game will turn you into a violent, cop-killing, drug-dealing, rapist. I’m sorry, but I don’t buy that. I’ve played some of the games for a fair amount of time. I don’t own them or really like them that much (they get boring after a while, if you ask me), but I’ve played them. And I don’t have the tiniest criminal record. I’ve never killed anyone. And I’ve only gotten in maybe 2-3 ‘fights’ in my life, all consisting of one or two punches tossed before both parties cool down and realize the stress of finals week is getting to them. Plenty of my friends have played the GTA games, as well as other violent games, i.e. the Halo series. Not a cop-killer among them.

I just don’t believe video games can warp someone as badly as the media watchdogs would like us to believe. A recent study, published in Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do, actually says that violent games “help get [a player's] anger out.” That’s right, stress relief. I can attest to that trait of video games myself; it’s not really right to go slugging people who annoy me, so off I go to beat the data out of some pixels to burn off steam.

However, the people ranting against GTA IV do have one valid point: it’s not for kids. It’s an M-Rated game, intended for people 17+, and that’s who it should go to. What I think needs to be done is that parents need to be better educated on the rating system. Once they know how it works, they can make an informed decision as to what their kids should be seeing. Should there be some law that says the kids can’t EVER touch an M-Rated game? I don’t think so. If the parents think the kid can handle it, let the parents make that call. It’s their right as parents, isn’t it?