Since I have no update, and I did spend all Saturday trying to write a review, I shall post this review of some webcomic called Big Fish Comics by bigfishcomics here. It will appear on The Dish Monthly shortly.

I fail at many things, say athletics, being friendly, socialism (that's a skill now), drawing webcomics, many, many things, the list is endless. Everytime I view a webcomic on the internet, the main character is either a pretty boy that loves taking it from his boy lover, a gamer with a passion for games, or some sort of fantasy crap (I hate trees).


(clubbing and everything else.)

The thing about Big Fish Comics is the cynicalism of it all, the girl, who has no name, reacts coldly to everything around her. She couldn't care if her friend's adorable big dog gets eaten by her fish (who does end up eating both her grampa, and her boyfriend) There's a sense of slacker-dom in this comic. This girl lives a boring life and wants something else, something exciting. In essence (I say that to sound smart), she wants something new in her life that shall bring excitement. Case and point, look at the Girl's reactions when she first met her boyfriend, she was excited. Eventually that became a drag, and thus it was another brick in the wall of boring.

Big Fish Comics is a slice of life comic, there is no story, so it's pretty damn simple to jump in. It's the kinda comic that can drag you in with one page and make you read the entire archive.

Big Fish's jokes deserve a quick chuckle, these aren't Perry Fellowship Bible-esque jokes, they won't make you "WAFFLE" (you know, "rolling on the floor laughing") but they do require you to think a little (not much, though.) Is this dry humor? You could say that, it's more like developed dry humor. There's no punchline here (metaphorically speaking), the humor lies deeply rooted inside the actions of the characters. These characters ring true to real life, making it funny (the, "hey, that's pretty damn funny, and it's so true to real life." kinda humor). Although there are a few stinkers in the archive (I can name one). The writing in Big Fish is solid, aside from some comics which just aren't up to par.

It doesn't take much to know the personalities of each character. The Girl is bored with her mediocre life and thus has a bored expression on her face, the Boyfriend tries to hard to impress The Girl and is probably needy. As for the Fish, well, he (or she) likes to eat everything.


(chew with your mouth closed. eh?)

I can tell you one thing, the Fish does excellent work as a bringer of a quick Deus Ex Machima, with the quick killing (read, eating) of the boyfriend and all. The Girl's cold reply, "Chew with your mouth closed" wraps things perfectly. That's the perfect example of Big Fish's cynical humor. Either you like it, or you don't. That's the thing about these slice of life comics.

The art style, as with the humor, you either love it or hate it. There's no mindblowing stuff here. It's a very simple style that flows with cute. It consists of line-less characters and environments, thus it has to rely on colors, which are well done. The characters all have their reactions, and you can, without a doubt, tell them apart. One thing I dislike about the line-less art style is that at times you can't make some of the stuff out, say for example the hands of the characters.

Big Fish Comics is hosted at two places, one at the main site, and the other at DrunkDuck. The main site is made up of Flash and is quite simple to navigate. The flash layout is somewhat out there while still being here, futuristic but still down to modern times. The neat thing is the little animation at the top, it's like an aquarium of some sorts where Fish and some other animals float around.

There's standard webcomic fair on the site, the About pages, the Archive, and one little thing that makes this site a little different, the author (who I assume is hot.) actually has some manga for download. Yeah, manga. That's pretty darn generous of her.

Navigation of the archives is simple. You can either pick from two choices, read the comic front to back, or pick from the list. If you pick from the list, you only get the original .swf file, no next comic, or last comic radio buttons. If you pick the front to back archive, you have to start from the beginning and read all the way to the ending. Navigation of the comic can be better though.


(dress up can bring hours of fun, especially with fish.)

There are few extras on this site, a little flash movie, a flash intro, a flash puzzle (one of the hardest ever, the more I beat it, the harder it seems to get.) and the cream of the crop. A little dress-up game which features The Girl, The Boyfriend, and Big Fish that brings hours of fun. (Looking back, that "beating" thing sounds so wrong... ;_;)

The DrunkDuck mirror is made out of pure HTML, which looks exactly like the Flash site, but works better (navigation is much easier). One thing I noticed about the DrunkDuck mirror is the way the HTML was probably coded by some sort of super-genius that knows a thing or two about HTML. Who made it? I will never know.

So in the end, you either love Big Fish for it's cynical slice of life humor, or you hate it for either a. the gags aren't what make that cold funny bone of yours chuckle, or b. you utterly hate the art style. If you choose either a or b, you are superficial.

Myxo's Score: 88 out of 100.
(cute comic that is lovable, but it depends on what you like.)

This entry was posted by _myxomatosis, on Sunday, December 24, 2006. You can leave your response.