Mecha-Simian is another April Zuda comic this one done by: Rich lovatt, gwor, and tinkfan 83. Here is the synopsis: Mecha-Simian is the last survivor of his people. Trapped in a cyborg replica of his own destroyed body with his sentient ship for company, Mecha soars through the galaxy in search of the evil General Karakas and his minions – no matter where they hide. He may not be the brightest banana in the bunch, but what Mecha lacks in smarts he makes up for with heart and determination and some really shiny metal bits. And so, armed with only his trusty blasters, a mechanized tail and a sunny disposition, Mecha will never rest until Karakas is brought to justice!
He may be funky, but he ain't chunky
Mecha-Simian is a light hearted Sci-fi comedy action story that earned a 3/5 stars from me. Nothing in this strip is bad, (all pretty good actually, except for the sfx:) but it isn't my kind of humor or genre. I don't like monkey stories, I just don't like them. Much like zombies stories I'm not in the fan base, or in the audience the creators are going for here. That along with humor not being my genre, meant this story couldn't grab me as much as some of the other comics this month. Their were a lot of things I liked, some things I didn't, but it all pretty much evened out into my rating. I couldn't really like or root for the title character enough, to equal the enjoyment I got reading other Zuda comics this month. If light hearted, wise-cracking, action filled whimsy, has the same effect on you, as Crossed does a gorehound with a porn addiction -you'll love this comic. I would like to see all these creators back on Zuda with a monkey free submission, I'd think that would be cool as hell. What they have to get great praise for is how well they adapted their story to the Zuda format. It is a self contained chapter in a longer story which doesn't leave the reader confused about the direction the comic will go in come screen 9. I also thought the creators here got the right mix of action/ words/ back story/ and future plot points in their story.
Is more fun than a barrel full of monkeys still a saying?
The art right away reminded me of Keith Griffen, nice to know gwor is also a fan. I thought the action fight scenes were particularly good panel composition. Screen 4 especially the last panel, impressed me. You can't draw Sci-fi if you can't draw space ships getting blasted, and gwor had no problem at all meeting that prerequisite. It's a cross between Keith Griffen lately, and his Trencher/Images of ShadowHawk period, this vibe is helped along by the coloring. Tinkfan 83 has another comic in Zuda this month which shows TF can adjust her coloring style to fit the comic being worked on. Good for both comics for getting someone who has the goods. Their is a lot of wordage in this comic, but it's easy enough to read, and flows well. The problem Rich isn't in your abilities at characterization, I think most readers will get what Mecha's about easily enough. The problem is you did such a upfront job on showing us Mecha (the writing is good), I could recognize it really wasn't my thing. My favorite part of the writing was the ship keeping it pithy and snide. I also did like the banter between Mecha and Raban.
How do you say: "the letters are too pale and ghostly" in M.S.L. (Monkey sign language)
Will the letter of this comic please come forward and identify yourself... I don't have a problem with see through letter balloons, or sound effects being used to show a sound either fading out, or fading in. I think it's a nice alternative to really small whisper fonts. I do have a problem with sound effects you can see art through for no discernible reason. I also have a list:
Screen 3 Panel 2: KRA-THOOM
Screen 4 Panel 1: BOOM [this is even more obvious when you have ZKOW's going off all over the page that are not transparent.]
Screen 5 Panel 5: FWOOSH [the other sound effects don't surfer from this problem, and the art was hurt, not helped by FWOOSH being see through so we could see little bits of the robots on their way out the chute.]
Screen 7 Panel 3: KRAK-KOOM
Screen 8 Panel 3: KRA-KA-KOOM [nice explosion art wise, but it couldn't have been that loud if I could see through it.]
Not all the sound effects were see through, so tell me what happened here?
Ray Stevens should do a song about this comic
You know what I liked, and what I didn't, again not my genre go to read. Readers who like this kind of story, it's something more to their taste, will really enjoy it. As it is you impressed me enough to get a 3/5, and have my interest in future non-monkey centric comics you might do.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
RKB - thanks for the honest critique; sorry it wasn't to your taste, but I really appreciate you giving it a complete run through.
ReplyDeleteThe letterer was left of the submission by my error - name's Ama Darwin and I think she did a great job. I actually loved the SFX effects.
Although I can't believe not everyone likes monkeys. ::shakes head:: :)