Kaijuu's Blog

No, not the song from The Sound of Music, but a small list of webcomics I'd like to visit once in a while.

Megatokyo (updates every Monday, Wednesday and Friday)
Nicely drawn story about two guys which fly to Japan and get stuck there without money or a return ticket. One MegaTokyo day can last serveral dozens of strips; be warned. ;)

Penny Arcade
A blog/comic-something. Where most comics are focused on the comic, with some rant space underneath, PA turns it around by talking about something important on the front page, and having a comic about that particular subject as well. PA is parodied frequently in MegaTokyo by the way.

Misfile (updates on weekdays)
Apparently, there is a Celestial File Depository, maintained by angels, in which everything on this lump of dirt we call Earth is being filed. Organisms with gills living under water under Fish, furry animals with ears, a tail and a certain "Meeow"-sound under Cats and organisms walking on two feet, wearing clothes and driving cars under Humans, and divided into sexes to boot. However, all these things are put in numbers which also may be something completely different when filed into a different cabinet (the number for the length of someones nose can also mean the colour of a beak when filed in the Birds-cabinet)

Now, our main character, Ash, has been male all his life, but due to a misfile, he wakes up to be a girl. The same angel that made the mistake of filing Ash under Girl, lost some papers from the file of another girl named Emily, therefore she misses two years of her life.
He now has to correct his mistake before his bosses spot it, and make it permanent.
Only one problem; he was kicked out...

Funny story, art's not that good, but the artist improves with every strip.

Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki
Another genderbender webcomic about a guy called Yuuki, who buys a DVD of a magical girl-show he's never seen before, but as an avid fan of magical girl-shows, he has to see it.
It turns out to be quite a special DVD; when he pops it into his player, a weird creature pops out of his TV (kind of like the way Ai presents herself to Youta in Video Girl Ai, mixed with the way Kerberos appoints Sakura as the new CardCaptor) and turns him into the -female- character Valkyrie Yuuki.
Yuuki slays her first monster right off the bat (by sheer luck and some supporting hints from aforementioned creature, who goes by the name of Hermod) and changes out of her Valkyrie costume.
You guessed it, he is still a she, and Hermod 's magic isn't strong enough to turn her back into a him.

Applegeeks (updates on Monday and Thursday)
Now, I'm not really a die-hard Apple fan; I would like to have something like a MacBook, but it's not really worth the money in my opinion (this remark is going to give me some hatemail, I'm sure), so unless I have money to burn, there won't be one in my network.
Despite that, I'm very fond of Applegeeks by the way the story is told and drawn, and so it makes the list.

Exploitation Now (finished)
A story which revolves around lawyer/part-time porn star Bimbo Moneymaker and a strange-looking guy (well, he IS a guy, according to the author, but I don't know which species) called Ralph Givememore at first, but later, the story turns to the adventures of genius girl Jordan Kennedy and one of Bimbo's sisters.
Fabulous story, albeit not work safe.
The author started a new story with new characters in Errant Story.

Sabrina Online (updates every month)
Sabrina is a skunk, a die-hard fan of the Commodore Amiga and Transformers, and went online in 1996. The strip has consistent artwork and is fun to read.

Now, I suppose some of the 5 or so readers of this blog ask themselves why Userfriendly didn't make the list. A simple answer; I don't find it particularly funny. It has very funny strips, but just as much bland ones as well. It's kind of like bash.org; lots and lots of funny and semi-funny IRC-quotes, with the occasional gem. Not something you'd visit daily.

And about that movie I mentioned earlier: I basically hate movies with songs in them (opening/ending are OK, though), unless it's there with a function, like a singer in a nightclub, or something that's keeping the main character mind occupied, like Tsukishima Shizuku's version of John Denver's "Country Roads" in the wonderful movie Mimi wo Sumaseba (Whispers of the Heart), by Studio Ghibli.

Cheers, K.

IMHO, for some reason both PA and MT seem to have been dropping in quality lately. Fred's artwork seems to be lacking a certain oomph and Tycho's writing seems a bit tired... But as I said: that's just IMHO. Might just me seeing ghosts.

Re: AppleGeeks. I liked them better when they weren't so serious. I think Haque and Ananth write better comedy than sci-fi action. Of course it's very courageous of them to pursue this avenue.

Re: Apple fanboi... Meh, I'll let it slide :p

If you don't think it's worth the money, then it probably really isn't worth the money. I always say that one should work with the tools that fit one best. :)

And finally: my God! do I love "Whispers of the heart" and just about every other Ghibli movie :D They are so bloody awesome!

Oh, I didn't mean to rag on the three comics though :) Of course they're still awesome... It's just that I thought I noticed a slight trend.