A Fairly Twisted Reality, by Trebor Almasy, is an incredibly flawed comic. If it’s not the art, it’s the writing. If it’s not specifically either, it’s a one-two punch combination of both. Almasy’s art is heavy on the black lines, and his writing is either constructed so consciously offensive that he forgets the punchline altogether, or the joke is so basic and simple that the punchline is hard to find because it’s so obvious.

Critiquing the art is especially difficult due to the author’s insistence on “re-drawing” earlier entries in the archive as “Special Editions” (or “SE’s” in the title of the archived strip). On the one hand, who wouldn’t want to replace the earlier, poorly-drawn-by-comparison-to-the-newer-stuff comics with the updated art? But on the other hand, a typical web cartoonist’s art is constantly improving, so trying to replace earlier art is a Sisyphean effort, as the comics you redraw end up as older art you’ll eventually want to replace again: there’s simply no end in sight. Instead, Almasy is better off concentrating on the latest strips and letting his past serve as reminders of how far he’s come.

Since his old, middle, and new styles are so intertwined, I may as well critique them as they come. Almasy has a big problem with necks, seen prominently in what I assume was his beginning art style. The characters necks are nearly the same thickness as their heads. And yet, he has yet to have a single bodybuilder in his comic. While the neck size improves with his latest style, you can see in his newer comics, the “bodybuilder neck” shows itself when he tries a flat, profile view of the characters.

In other art problems, Almasy joins the ranks of early Christian and Byzantine artists in drawing children as tiny men. That, and I found it interesting that although his art typically his art improves with his later styles, but he did a better job drawing a vagina in his earliest style than he did when he was farther along.

While the art improves along the course of the comic's archive, the writing does not. On the very surface, Almasy’s writing suffers from some really simple spelling and grammar problems. For example, it’s confounding how he spells “Abstinence” correctly in this strip’s title, but not in the strip itself!

But, that instance pales in comparison to this comic. Go on, read the first panel. I’ll wait.

Finished? Good. Almasy? Would it be so hard to do a quick re-read of your own script before you upload the comic? You’re making the dumbest of mistakes, like using “to” instead of “too,” and forgetting r’s for “your.” This is simple stuff!



Spelling and grammatical errors aside, Almasy’s strips come in two flavors: extremely convoluted, or stupendously simple. And then, sometimes the comic comes flavorless, without any punchline at all.

Then, when it's not specifically the art or the writing's fault, there are some severe technical issues with specific strips. Hell, “Johnny Thunder” could be a CSI episode with its biggest problem: the exit bullet’s trajectory doesn’t align with the entrance wound.



There’s only one reason for this… another shooter. Actually, more likely he wanted the bullet to leave between the eyes, but if he did that the bullet would only skim across the top-most part of the skull. But, if we went for the more satisfying “back of the head” shot, the bullet would exit the mouth, which isn’t as picture-esque.

It’s really sad that these techincal problems weigh down these specific strips so much. Take this comic, for example. I like this joke, I honestly do. But in the last panel, with the truck so prominently displaying its logo/slogan, it distracts the reader from the punchline, splitting their attention from the far funnier matter at hand, which is the man being run over. Sure, trucks have logos. But with the way the logo’s so far up in the front of the truck (as opposed to the middle of the truck, which extends past the panel), it’s painfully obvious Almasy wanted to weigh down the strip with another dildo joke.

I could go on and give more attention to more flawed strips in the archive, but I think you get the picture. While it's clear from the archives that Almasy's art is getting better as he goes along, his writing has not improved. Jokes are inherently flawed in their structure and payoff. He has great ambitions in his ideas, but they often fall flat in that he doesn't think out each comic's logistics before comitting them to paper, so to speak. Almasy would be best to read through an archive of a more successful "professional" strip, be it in print such as "FoxTrot," or online like "PvP." While they might be bland to his tastes, their jokes have a very clear structure with a definite set-up and punchline, something AFTR lacks severely.

Midnight Gamer, by Richard Dunn, is a machinima comic that utilizes Sims 2 as its “art,” so to speak. The jokes, although solid in terms of set-up and punchlines, are altogether bland and predictable, the sort of faire average comics churn out their first years. However, the two most noteworthy features of the comic is that it uses Sims 2, and that nearly each comic comes with a half newspost, half commentary blurb.

Using a game’s graphics as the “art” of a comic is only as effective as the person pulling the strings. For every Concerned, there’s a “Half-Life: The Lost Host.” It all depends on how well the author can manipulate the game to execute the writing, and likewise have the common sense to not write past the game’s technical abilities, which is where “Midnight Gamer” has most of its issues.

In particular, panel 3 of this strip is where Machinimation (for Sims 2 in particular, anyway) reveals its shortcomings. In Panel 3, the character is expressing incredible disdain for reading spoilers to a movie. However, the character making the exclamation simply sits placidly with his hands at his sides, with no visible emotion whatsoever. Because there’s such a schism between the two, whatever humorous effect the creator was going for is lost.

Likewise for this comic. Characters are playing cards at the table, but Sims 2 apparently doesn’t have the capability for that. Instead, the author copies and pastes flat images directly onto the comic, either because he doesn’t know how to skew or doesn’t recognize the difference.



As you can see, there’s no sense of perspective. Cards would be flat against the table, not standing upwards at an angle that perfectly faces the camera at all times. I mean, it’s Sims 2, not Doom.

Technical troubles aside, more particularly bothersome are the newsposts (which are more commentary than anything else) that accompany each comic. Commentary’s a hard thing to do: talk too little, and you might as well say nothing at all. Say too much and you either end up explaining (in as many words as possible) a self-explanatory joke, or come off as a self-congratulatory prick. It’s a fine line, really. I’ve only seen a few comics add commentary to their comic, and even fewer do it well.

But, "Midnight Gamer" chooses to, and it falls in the camp of giving background info for self-explanatory jokes. Here’s a snippet of the commentary for this comic (at the bottom of the page), for example:

“I do really enjoy comic books, and yes, I DO know the difference between Marvel and DC.”

This is a trap that beginning webcartoonists fall into. In naming the main characters after themselves and their friends, authors are restrained by how they portray both themselves and their friends in the comic; with a real-life person to base the character off of, they sometimes feel the need to explain away any discrepancies. To relate all that back to the original commentary snippet, yes, we know. We’re sure that you, Richard Dunn, are well aware of the differences between the two comic book companies. Why, that’s such a laughable mistake it sounds like the action of a character… in… a comic strip.

Comics starting off with main characters named for themselves and their friends have a particularly difficult time finding their voice, especially when they try to treat the characters as themselves instead seeing them as actual “characters.” Having the commentary available really lets you see into this kind of mindset because every time you read a joke that’s fairly humorous, you have to read a disclaimer like this:

“This comic came from a conversation with a friend. However, it is not the same conversation, as I’ve changed some of the dialogue to make for a heightened comedic effect.

I hope you will forgive me.”

Other strips’ commentary adds insight to the author’s view of his own comic:

“I haven't actually gotten very many comments, or indeed, any comments, about the strip's lack of focus on gaming, but it's been on my mind.”

… proooobably because you don't have many readers, if any at all. At least, certainly not a large enough number to include the small majority that would contact the author to begin with. That’s a big problem with commentary that addresses a non-existent audience. You make predictions and assertations based on what you imagine your audience will say, but when and if they ever do show up and don’t behave the way you think they will, you’ll probably come off as presumptuous (go figure).

More than that, reading the commentary gives you an idea of the kind of kick using Sims 2 gives for non-artists:

“I am proud of many of the things I have done as the creator of Midnight Gamer, but I do not think anything can surpass Darth Jimmy.”

I think we’ve all played the Sims at this point, haven’t we? You know, where character creation is as simple as choosing a head and a body? I find it rather pompous of Dunn to be so taken by the pairing of the character “Jimmy’s” head to the Darth Vader body. They’re just skins. All you did was put a Sim together, parade it around, and take pictures.

“Midnight Gamer” isn’t immune from its own share of smaller technical difficulties as well. Dunn doesn’t quite have the hang of bubbles, for one. In these three comics (the first panel in middle and the second panel in the latter), the incorrect positioning of the bubbles causes the audience to read the bubbles in the incorrect order.

Typically, in a western culture, people read from the left to the right. Here’s a nifty guide on how to place bubbles in such a situation:



Regardless of which character says it, you’re going to read bubbles “1”, then “2.”

Then, there's logistical errors. This strip is first in the archive, and this is second. However, the first strip is based off a situation that the second explains. Switching their places in the archive would clear up this trouble.

After that, is there a particular reason why the “i” after the “D” is capitalized as well? It seems more likely Dunn can't spot that he held the "shift" key a bit longer than he intended, as the same capitilization trouble appears where he "signs" his name in nearly half the archived comics.

And finally, while this isn't a techincal difficulty, I find it rather odd for "Midnight Gamer" to have a Fan Art section in which the only art is contributed by the creator of the strip. Is he that big of a fan of his own creation? Well, good for him I say.