Comical Musings

Cut-and-paste comics are a difficult beast. On one end of the range, you have cartoonists playing around with recolored video game sprites (and in some cases not even recolored). On the other end of the range, you have comics that are painstakingly assembled from massive indices of gestures, postures, facial expressions, and backdrops. There are various gradations in the middle, each with their advantages (most often convenience) and foibles (usually monotony); as a result, unless the art is patently terrible, what really makes the comic sink or swim is the quality of the writing.

This brings us to The System, a cut-and-paste comic by Ross Nover. The System makes use of the generic figures that you see on mass-produced safety signs everywhere: the Man, the Woman, the Cyclist, the Walker, and so on. (This would be a good time to point out that the archives are a pain in the neck to try to find your place in. It’s not until Comic 268 that they get titles instead of numbers; before that, you’re stuck clicking and hoping.)

The comics where Nover does his best (in my opinion) are the ones where he plays with what the symbols mean. I’m also partial to some of his pun comics. However, those don’t happen all that often. Most of what you’ll find in The System is a lot of awkward pseudo–punchlines, visits from Jimmy the Murderdog, comics that aren’t comics so much as fourth-wall-breaking excuses for a lack of comic, and scatology. Lots and lots of scatology.

There’s also the dictionary comics, wherein portmanteau words are set up for a quick attempt at a few puns. Or another poop joke. To be honest, sometimes looking for the satire or the memetic repetition is like searching for a needle in a septic tank.

The slogan for The System is, “Comics will be posted until morale improves.” The saying this is based on starts with “Beatings will continue until …” and, well, even Nover admits that the comic is something of a dead horse. And with the hundred-post review comics . . . it feels like a cut-and-paste comic with cut-and-paste jokes.

I still like this one, though.

Comic Rating: Four rounded panels and a load of snark.