So I was intrigued when a cartoonist named fluffy submitted her* comic, Unity, for review. When a comic starts with a purple-skinned amnesiac thinking in a computer font, you know that what will follow is either science fiction or ergotism. Or, as the case is for fluffy, synaesthesia. (A certain amount of this information is what I’m picking up from the “easter eggs” to be found throughout the comics; a lot of webcomic artists enjoy hiding bonus commentary in the alt-text of their comic images. This can be entertaining or frustrating, depending on how much text is suddenly revealed when you hover your mouse.)

The art of Unity is somewhat variable. At times, there are highly detailed character shots and backgrounds; at others, plucked emus in footie pajamas. From a print publishing standpoint, I’m intrigued by the choice for different characters to speak in different typefaces—a good way to differentiate between characters speaking, but sometimes irritating.

There is a lot of nudity, but when the nudity involves beings descended from the common platypus, there’s not much to be seen (no mammaries, no external privates). Sexuality does crop up a lot in Unity, however. Main character Juni is the neutered virgin-birth clone daughter of a lesbian witch-doctor, while her partner, Sam, is female in anatomy but male in pronoun. This becomes something of a plot hook, as it becomes revealed later that many members of Juni’s species are treated as prostitutes outside of their native lands.

It seems that Juni’s people, being electrically sensitive like their distant forebears, have the potential to recover the information left behind by the ancient creatures who created their world, if only they weren’t so primitive a culture. But it takes a lot of confusion, plotting, counter-plotting, and murder to figure all this out from square one. I have to hand it to fluffy for managing to tie so many baffling story threads into a coherent plot, in spite of the number of interruptions and random art pieces that get thrown in.

One final note: the animated 404 error page is strangely hilarious.

Comic Rating: Three or four recipes I kinda want to try now.

* Fluffy is a bit of an enigma. To my knowledge, fluffy prefers a gender-neutral pronoun, as does the protagonist of Unity. The trouble in this is that it gets hard to differentiate between an it referring to the comic, an it referring to the main character, and an it referring to the cartoonist. In the interest of clarity, then, and because fluffy appears as a human with breasts and a skirt in some of the early journal comics, I will be using her to denote the cartoonist. I offer my apologies to the alternate-gender community, as well as to the American Usage professor who tried to teach me inclusive language.**

**Though even she balked at the use of sie, hir, or coe as pronouns.

So in reviewing Paradigm Shift, by Dirk I. Tiede, I find myself rather disappointed that the paradigm above does not, in fact, shift. About the only thing more frustrating is the fact that Tiede lays each “scene” out in its entirety on one page; this means I won’t be able to link to examples of what I’m going to say, because each reference will be buried somewhere down in the middle and those of my readers on dial-up will cry themselves to sleep. The infinite canvas is at once a beautiful thing and reason for dread.

Setting the story aside, let me take a moment to gush over the art. Like with Multiplex, PS is set in Chicago (imagine the cross-over potential!), and Tiede fills every panel with highly accurate and detailed renditions of local landmarks. This detail isn’t limited to the backgrounds, either. Character outfits and props have every line and wrinkle carefully delineated, and Tiede makes sure to ink in every last hair of every last lycanthropic transformation (of which there are ever so many). It’s little wonder that the comic only updates once a week; he must need half of that just to work out the cramps in his hand.

His proportions are likewise generally spot-on. It’s faces where any sort of problem arises for me, and that’s mostly because the way Tiede outlines shadows makes everyone appear to have kitty-noses. And after a while, main character Kate’s self-satisfied manic grin seems more and more inappropriate to the situations she’s in. But then, given the number of scenes where that smile is the only thing she’s wearing, maybe she’s justified in clinging to it.

A certain amount of the plot is werewolf boilerplate: mysterious deaths around town, could be an animal but it’s too intelligent, someone’s recovering way too fast from deadly wounds, disturbing dreams and irrational behavior point at something being seriously wrong, and oh by the way the spunky girl’s a werewolf. I actually get more entertainment from the characters’ interactions and the detective aspect of the story (a strange admission from someone who’s usually put off by forensic drama), and this dichotomy is only compounded when the spectacularly unsubtle Werewolves In Black show up to drag away or neutralize everyone who’s been even remotely sympathetic to the story.

Speaking as a Christian who has worked in a government job before, with relatives who have been in the military, police, and other government positions, I have to say that I’m particularly irked by all these accusations of religion and governments being massive, well-oiled machines of evil, out to crush the little guy. I’ve sat through one too many lectures from people about how organized religion inspires bigotry and hatred … the day before going to a local church to help with a blood drive, a food bank event, or a community clean-up deal. And after working for the State Parks department … let’s just say that the government isn’t evil. Just inefficient.

Comic Rating: Four outfits a week that girl must have to go through.

The ability to control the main character (within bounded guidelines) is something of the driving force behind What Do You Do. Taking a bit of an example from MSPaint Adventures, WDYD relies on a certain amount of reader input to influence where the artist takes the main character (and, in one instance, a side character narrating a flashback). The artist is just as likely to take serious suggestions as daft ones, although immature ones will be mutilated as he sees fit.

The site design is fun and frustrating at the same time. It’s fun because the pixellated art lends a nice “late 80′s/early 90′s computer game” feel to things, but frustrating in that the sidebars cram in over the main text and comic. It turns out that you can deal with that problem by zooming out on “really low resolutions.”* The site programmer also provides you with plenty of resource screens, in case you forget how things work (which you will).

Now, while I mentioned that openly dirty suggestions won’t be tolerated, this isn’t to say that the artist won’t have his fun when he feels like it. And oh, what fun he has (warning: sound, plus reference to both Benny Hill and the Keystone Kops).

The art itself manages to look both hurried and polished, with the occasional animated moment adding to the charm. And for some reason, I’m occasionally reminded of Charlie Brown (y’know, other than the language).

As you can see, I had a lot of fun reading through What Do You Do. Once the layout issue was taken care of, it was an enjoyable reminder of all the ways that Dungeons & Dragons and similar games can be hilariously abused.** Read it if you enjoy fantasy, comedy, or just messing with the guy in charge.

Comic Rating: Four party members of variable competence.

*Boy, does that ever sting, given that my current monitor is running at 1024×768. I’m old enough to remember when 800×600 started falling out of favor, and I was just as stung to be called out-of-touch back then.
**Yes, I’m looking at you, Alan and Tom.