2011 WEB COMIC REVIEW 43: ROOT ROT COMICS

WEB COMIC: ROOT ROT
CREATOR: DAVID HERIC
ARCHIVE: 3 CHAPTERS OF 12-29 PAGES SO FAR
UPDATES: RANDOM; ONCE A WEEK (UNDER NORMAL CONDITIONS)
GENRE: PARANORMAL, HORROR

Hope everyone had a nice thanksgiving. I'm almost turkey ed out! It took some time to get to this review done but here you go. should be updating my own comic at some point today or tomorrow. Today's webcomic is called is called Root Rot Comics, enjoy! Also I know everyone may not agree with my scores on webcomics but if you look at my system, I am the most fair. If you have a popular webcomic but suck at drawing you will be praised for your networking skills but your art skills will be called into question. I compair you with comics that are similar and in your genre. I draw the line at stick figures or have ass drawn comics however. There will be no mercy if you fall into that category because I have no respect for what you do. I appreciate art in all it's forms... not laziness. If you are a great manga/anime artist I will not hate on you but because that art form almost looks the same as everyone else's work I won't give you 10 for art but a 9.5 is the highest. Okay, enough with this! Let's get on with review.

PROS: This comic could also be a good horror suspense flick. This is a original  interesting story after you really read it.and  coloring style that speaks volumes(He is wicked with Photoshop). The web comic has all the info you will need to become familiar with this comic. The archive is easy to navigate and it works!

CONS" The artist does try to update at least once week but doesn't always. The next update can be anywhere from a week later to month. At least he gives you heads up. There were some misspells that I did see.

LAST WORD: This comic I wasn't sure of at first. It looked good but most horror comics are weird, slow and hard to follow... not this one. Now after reading the whole archive I was very impressed. I highly recommend this one! The best horror comic I have ever come across. I have seen others that look really good but not nearly as entertaining! Also this comic is better then it's overall score would indicate. The writing/spelling, populararty and especially the updating score killed it. Work on those and you should be higher!

OVERALL SCORE: 7.5 CONCEPT: 9.0 Root Rot is a full page comic that chronicles the adventures of Eliot Shakman and Evelyn Graham as they intern at a paranormal investigation agency. Looks like X-files but staring teens that can do amazing things. On the surface it looks familiar but at a closer look a original tale begins to spin. ART: 8.5 I like the art style but he's still growing and improving. The backgrounds are well mapped out but can look little off at times. COLORING OR SHADING: 10 Few comics that  do color can touch this level of eye popping style. David is is great with making the backgrounds give life to a scene.  He may be better then "Red's Planet" creator! I'm sorry but Drowtales , still  does the best coloring and affects on a webcomic I've seen combined with their flawless art. WRITING AND SPELLING: 8.5 A weak point in this comic, I did see a few misspells. The story is easy to follow and none of his scenes seem to drag too long. WEB PAGE LAYOUT: 9.0 I never saw the template he had before but this one fits the comic perfect. All buttons work, all basic info is there. It could be better but it is good enough. Thank god there were no site issues here at least for me. You other guys are pissing me off with those server errors and slow page downloads. ENTERTAINMENT: 9.5 I read the whole archive and each page made me want to see what would happen next. The characters are interesting even if they are a little cliche. POST FREQUENCY: 2.0 Terrible. David does try to update on a normal basis of once a week but this can take as as a long as month. This is a color comic and coloring is harder to do... but once a week is acceptable but nothing less. He does explain what's going on so you at least we know what's going on. POPULARITY: 3.0 This comic has 23 followers and some comments. A page rank of 3 is okay.

2011 WEB COMIC REVIEW 43: SPINDRIFT

WEBCOMIC: SPINDRIFT
CREATORS: ARTIST/AUTHOR IS ELSA KROESE
                      WRITER IS CHARLOTTE ENGLISH
UPDATES: ONCE A WEEK
ARCHIVE: 10 PAGES SO FAR
GENRE: FANTASY

Hey guys I came across this comic by accident but it gave a very good first impression it's called Spindrift! Under normal circumstances this comic would be mini review but I was inspired by what saw.

PROS: The art work almost jumps off the page. One of the new best websites I have seen all year. You can easily navigate this site and no slow page download problems. The story starts with a bang.

CONS: Small archive and only updates once a week.

LAST WORD: Spindrift is good despite being in it's infancy stage, but is off to a damn good start! The creators say this comic has been in production since 2010. The website, art work and story telling are top notch. The once a week update schedule seem to be the only cause for concern. This level of work and thought may off set that. I will keep a eye on this one and hope you will too. The potential to be great is there. Spindrift could have scored higher if it updated a  little more and the archive was bigger.

OVERALL SCORE: 8.0 CONCEPT: 8.5 Spindrift is a futuristic fantasy tale that has different races fighting again st prejudice and the way things are. The beginning does drop a original bomb but I need to see more of this tale to know what it ultimately will be. ART: 10 Elsa has a original well polished style, bravo. COLORING OR SHADING: 8.5 The colors are very good just not great. WRITING AND SPELLING: 10 Charlotte does a excellent job in telling this story and not dropping the ball with spelling or grammar. WEB PAGE LAYOUT: 9.5 A very good  eye popping template! No slow page downloads or anything. The info was easy to find and all buttons worked fine. ENTERTAINMENT: 8.5 It is too soon to tell how good this story is but the first 10 pages bring plenty of drama. POST FREQUENCY: 2.0 It seems the better drawn comics with color can only post once a week "I'm one of them" more post per week would be better. Also the small archive doesn't help. The level of work may make this worth the wait. POPULARITY: 3.5 Not bad. A page rank of 2 for a relatively new comic. Also 294 people say they like this on Facebook. A good start ladies.

2011 WEB COMIC REVIEW 42: INHUMAN(THE WEB COMIC)

WEB COMIC: INHUMAN(THE WEBCOMIC)
CREATOR: H. CARLAIN
UPDATES: UNKNOWN
ARCHIVE: 426 PAGES
GENRE: SCI-FI MANGA

Hi true believes I come bearing another web comic review. This web comic I found the story interesting just had to take a closer look at it. It's called Inhuman(the web comic)...

PROS: A colorful art style I'm not sure if it's color pencil or paint or a combination. Appears to be well thought out story it reads nicely. There 426 pages to dive into!

CONS: Most of the top website info buttons did not work... at least for me. Carlain, doesn't say when they update or how often.

LAST WORD: I like the drawing style of the drawing even though it is not main stream and the panels are nicely done despite it looking hand drawn. This is a decent comic. My only real complaint is the site buttons don't work? I can't access the "the about page" or "archives". Oh well, enjoy the comic.

OVERALL SCORE: 7.0 CONCEPT: 8.0 Another race beings fight and struggle with racism and a oppressive human race that are the villains in this manga sci-fi. This is what I was able to gather. If I'm a little off blame the non existent "about page". The story is still pretty good. ART: 8.5 I like art styles that don't look like carbon copies of everyone else even if they are not as polished. The backgrounds are even cool. The panels despite being hand drawn look all right. COLORING OR SHADING: 9.0 The coloring is done real well with color pencil or marker. WRITING AND SPELLING: 9.5 The story easy to understand and looks like spelling and other grammar have next to no errors. WEB PAGE LAYOUT: 7.0 The website is passable but the fact that some the buttons at the top don't work is down right annoying. The site does respond fast enough when you read the comic. ENTERTAINMENT: 8.0 The story wasn't addictive for me but it kept me turning pages. POST FREQUENCY: 2.0 The don't say and I won't guess. There are not even dates to maybe put together how often they post. Unacceptable. There are 426 post so this comic must update multiple times a week.  To bad they don't say that anywhere for new readers. POPULARITY: 3.0 No PR to speak of. No comments to go by but it does have 97 likes from Facebook and boast a "Comic Rank" of 19. Good enough.

2011 WEB COMIC REVIEW 41: THE OTHER WORLD

WEB COMIC: THE OTHER WORLD
CREATOR:TOBY GARD
UPDATES: EVERY FRIDAY (several pages at a time)
ARCHIVE: 73 PAGES
GENRE: URBAN FANTASY

Welcome to another web comic review. We have a celebrity of sorts on deck.This comic is done by the creator of Lara Croft. It is known as Other World. I came across a year ago but I lost it some where in my favorites and never got around to reviewing it. Then again the I wasn't inspired to review this one right right away... well lets take a look now. In general pages load slow I'm using the Internet Explorer 9 browser which is pretty fast.

PROS: The art looks like a Saturday morning cartoon. The website is well organized and put together. This web comic updates just once week but with multiple pages at once! They claim several pages before Friday. The story doesn't take long until the fist start flying.

CONS:  Navigating this comic is a bit tricky at first. You don't use the normal "first/last"
buttons like most web comics. You click the chapter buttons and when you go bring up the thumbnails the web page may fail to load. Commenting on this comic might be pain when your site info doesn't seem to work when entered correctly.

FINAL WORD: After further reading the page navigation is not too bad. You click the thumbnails at the bottom to move through the pages. There was some lag on some pages but most loaded fine. For some reason the show"all thumbnail pages" option of a chapter made the site load ether freeze or crash. This comic did not jump out at me at first but when I read it I was like this pretty good. The action is well thought out and each panel brings the tension between the characters to life. I couple page ranks higher and this would have been a easy 9.0! Highly recommended.

OVERALL SCORE: 8.5 CONCEPT: 9.0 Otherworld follows the adventures of two very different girls as they peel back the fabrications that have hidden the facts behind the folk tales of the British Isles and beyond. It is a modern day Urban Fantasy drawing on the Celtic myths of the Tuatha de Danann and the mystery of conspiracy theory adventure stories. ART: 8.0 The visual style is cool and backgrounds do breath life into the story. While the work isn't polished the artist does show a unique style to his work. COLORING OR SHADING: 8.0 The shading works it's just not spectacular. WRITING AND SPELLING: 10 Nice work the story flows nicely and easy to follow what is going on. No misspells to be found and grammar looks fine. WEB PAGE LAYOUT: 9.0 This site is well put together. Site navigation is cool and there just enough info to peek your interest of this web comic. This design is simple yet effective. There are some site lags but they are not as bad as some of the others I have come across. The only really knock is the site colors are plain and when I first tried to comment, I hit a wall and couldn't use my info for some reason. It just would not let me sign in? I'll try again but that was annoying. ENTERTAINMENT: 9.0 The Other World does a excellent job at telling a story visually with minimal words. I read like like 3 chapters with no sweat. I should have read this story more in depth a year ago. POST FREQUENCY: 9.5 Updating seven pages a week all at once in one day is boss! POPULARITY: 4.0 A PR of 2 is okay but the 64 comments on the most recent post gave me pause. Those are Wayrift or The 70's The Web Comic levels. Impressive.

FINE ART 5: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM ELISBETH MAY

I have seen plenty photographers work over the years but few beside some billbordes have inspired my emotions like this ones work. Her name is Elisbeth May and she pretty good at not just taking a picture but telling a story and making you feel something at the same time. See what I mean as you Visit her site and see her professional quality work. Hire her while your at it.