Meanwhile, over on the pink end of the scale, there’s Nintento’s lovable puffball Kirby, who’s been borrowed as the main character for Matthew Taranto’s Brawl in the Family.*** While a fan-comic doesn’t do much for original characters, Taranto has fun with the characterization: Kirby has a crush on Jigglypuff; King Dedede is malicious, but not that bright (and has an eccentric relative in the neighborhood); Captain Falcon just can’t shut up; Waluigi is utterly befuddling; and personality quirks from various video games are extended to an endearingly silly level.

There isn’t really an overarching plot to BiTF, although there is a certain continuity between strips. Kirby and Diddy Kong remain good friends. King Dedede’s theft of Christmas becomes a pass-through gag. And Meta Knight gets some rather interesting revenge. For the most part, though, BiTF consists of quick little one-shot gags or odd little speculations on Kirby’s diet. A limited spectrum of jokes, perhaps, but it works just fine.

To say the art has evolved since the early days would be a bit of an understatement. Taranto’s basic style has stayed relatively constant, but the art itself has become generally smoother and more practiced (with a shot of color once every five comics). And the occasional homage to other art styles is generally done well. And then on top of all that, he sings (be warned, the page has sound that starts on loading). We’re looking at a talented artist who has fun with what he does, and even if some of the jokes are headscratchers, Brawl in the Family is a generally entertaining read.

Comic Rating: 100 points for that dead goomba, you monster.

* Ye blaguards ain’t foolin’ nobbut wi’ such a tinny brogue.
** As long as I can pinch back because you’re not wearing orange. The portion of my ancestry that goes back through the Emerald Isle is split between Ireland and North Ireland. The combination of Belfast and Dublin in one body leads to some interesting self-conflict, let me tell you.
*** These segues aren’t as easy as I make them look.

I hope you don’t mind the filler image for this week, seeing as I spent the past week doing a lot of helping out with food, decorations, food, singing, and food. Hope the past week was a merry one, and here’s to another good week while I work on getting more things ready.

So let’s take a look at Amu’s World, a photograph comic featuring amigurumi dolls made by Danielle Craven-Slaski, known online as amubleu. I have to admit that using crochet dolls (and a toy alpaca) is a rather cute idea. Amubleu does a good job of posing the dolls for the various actions, and while the facial expressions are added either in Photoshop or with snippets of felt, they’re done in a reliably simple way that doesn’t clash with the dolls.

The writing, done by amubleu’s friend Brian, takes a bit of time to adjust to. Once the obligatory smashing of the fourth wall is taken care of, things settle into an alternation between the semiserious and the honestly goofy. Ninja, a man with a very accurate name from a community of identical ninjas, finds himself having to defend his new home in Amitown from the local variably ineffective gang, but the roots of treachery are deeper than expected.

Because the comic is founded on such an oddball premise, I’m willing to forgive the ninja-versus-pirates retread, as well as the fact that the villains are a trio of bunnies lorded over by an evil panda. Or, for that matter, the alternate hero ninja being Ecuadorean. Or the damsels in distress turning out to be kunoichi.

Even the frequent holiday interruptions and competing deii ex machinae aren’t too much of a hassle when you realize that the whole comic is pretty much a parody of the sort of movies I wasn’t allowed anywhere near as a kid. So far, it’s all in good fun (and I hope it stays that way).

Amu’s World is a world of high drama and high camp coexisting in an uneasy truce. And as long as the two continue to struggle equally, I’ll be more than willing to recommend watching the battle.

Comic Rating: Five shuriken.