Web Comics Day 5: Megatokyo
I don't know why Megatokyo is in my Favorites. I don't know why I still read it.
I'll start this discussion by talking about the art, which to my mind is the only thing Megatokyo does right. This is where the artist, Fred Gallagher, shines. You can tell he puts a lot of work into this - every character is detailed and expressive, and even the backgrounds have a lot going on. There's always a lot of care given to subtleties here. Facial expressions and stances and panel layouts are always very articulate.
And that's about the only good thing I have to say.
The content of the comic is another story entirely. Initially, it had some humor to it. It was never excessively funny, but it could be whacky and inventive. Then things got serious. Dead serious. Boring serious. It's not that I'm opposed to the elimination of comedy in favor of more serious material, but I am opposed to the elimination of comedy without replacing it with anything.
It's a problem of pacing, I think. There's stuff that happens, but it's so long and drawn out and typically unimportant that you get the impression that nothing is happening. Everything seems so static. The characters aren't changing, the character relationships are hardly progressing, story arcs don't seem to have any real substance. It's just this big mess of... bleh... and I look back, and there's not a single bit of it that stands out as memorable.
There's also the matter of how often the comic gets updated. Which might be twice a week if you're lucky. Gallagher is the absolute worst at keeping any kind of regular schedule. Theoretically the comic updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. But if you consider Dead Piro Days, Shirt Guy Dom Days, and days where Piro right-out says that nothing is going to come, you end up with quite a lot of nothing. And it's always a huge disappointment.
And that leads me to this final bit: for whatever reason, I still read this. There's a quality about Megatokyo that can't really be captured - or at least that I can't capture - that compels people to go forward. For all the bad I have to say about it, I still check that site hopeful that Gallagher has put up something interesting. So go ahead and read it. Peruse the archives, and maybe you'll be able to figure out what keeps me reading.
I'll start this discussion by talking about the art, which to my mind is the only thing Megatokyo does right. This is where the artist, Fred Gallagher, shines. You can tell he puts a lot of work into this - every character is detailed and expressive, and even the backgrounds have a lot going on. There's always a lot of care given to subtleties here. Facial expressions and stances and panel layouts are always very articulate.
And that's about the only good thing I have to say.
The content of the comic is another story entirely. Initially, it had some humor to it. It was never excessively funny, but it could be whacky and inventive. Then things got serious. Dead serious. Boring serious. It's not that I'm opposed to the elimination of comedy in favor of more serious material, but I am opposed to the elimination of comedy without replacing it with anything.
It's a problem of pacing, I think. There's stuff that happens, but it's so long and drawn out and typically unimportant that you get the impression that nothing is happening. Everything seems so static. The characters aren't changing, the character relationships are hardly progressing, story arcs don't seem to have any real substance. It's just this big mess of... bleh... and I look back, and there's not a single bit of it that stands out as memorable.
There's also the matter of how often the comic gets updated. Which might be twice a week if you're lucky. Gallagher is the absolute worst at keeping any kind of regular schedule. Theoretically the comic updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. But if you consider Dead Piro Days, Shirt Guy Dom Days, and days where Piro right-out says that nothing is going to come, you end up with quite a lot of nothing. And it's always a huge disappointment.
And that leads me to this final bit: for whatever reason, I still read this. There's a quality about Megatokyo that can't really be captured - or at least that I can't capture - that compels people to go forward. For all the bad I have to say about it, I still check that site hopeful that Gallagher has put up something interesting. So go ahead and read it. Peruse the archives, and maybe you'll be able to figure out what keeps me reading.
posted by Brian Sowers at
1:47 AM
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