What Did I Learn?

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What Did I Learn?

webcomic reviews by Delos Woodruff

A Rusty Life by Johnathon Bigelow

I originally wrote a review of A Rusty Life quite a while ago but most of it seems to have been erased and I was forced to rewrite the review. I didn't remember that ARL started out in March 2003 as a black and white comic with a four panel sqaure layout. Color is added in November 2003 which improves the comic quite a bit. It eventually becomes more of the standard newspaper style strip with color.

It's interesting to see how the dynamics of reading change between the two. There's a longer mental pause when you translate from the upper right to the lower left panel than going left to right panel jumps. This lets you time the punchlines differently. It's also a little less common to choose the four square layout so it was nice to get that different experience.

ARL is usually pretty funny - better than many of the comics in the newspaper. ARL is not afraid to expand the medium, either. There are strips where the fourth wall is broken. You might say the panel borders don't hold anyone in. I also liked how the comic made fun of comics occasionally, such as when it knocked the talking heads you see all the time.

I got distracted there. I wanted to talk about how gags can be difficult to pull off. You have to write the joke, then draw it visually funny too. Everyone has different skill at this, but sometimes the humor doesn't translate well or lines won't cooperate. Many comics build up long, drawn out stories that are just one big joke. ARL has a pretty good short term joke payoff and even works them in long term sometimes.

It was in September 2006 that ARL was redone in newspaper style layout. At that point, some continuity was edited out. While some things were ported over, minor characters were dropped and other things were changed wholesale, I liked that he wanted to redo classic strips in the new format. I found it interesting that a the artist would choose to reboot a gag a day strip. Most wouldn't bother, but it must have been a good opportunity to refocus the comic. You can read all about it on the About page.

That was long ago, in internet time. Where is ARL today? For one, the artist is looking for a new tagline for the comic. I won't go into how difficult it can be to get just the right quote. If you get a good idea, you can contact the artist - here's his request for suggestions. The update schedule has some good points to it from a publishing perspective, as well.

ARL is chugging along nicely, doing the Tuesday and Thursday updates, with extras. Many comics update M-W-F, so this gives a new comic to see on those 'off days.' There have been some gaps this summer in the Wednesday extras due to various things - like being at a con. Another noteworthy thing: the panel borders disappeared around October 2007.The foreground has linework but nothing else. Another interesting choice by the artist. It has quite a 'pop' effect.

What did I learn? This is very well done gag-a-day work. Being funny doesn't always require a complex build up of character and situation. I can only encourage you to enjoy A Rusty Life along with me.

Previous Reviews

Battlegate| Butterfly| Good Ship Chronicles| Evil, Inc.| Madscott| Jefbot| Chronicle| Sheldon| Stardrop| Theater Hopper| Knave| Lullaby| High Moon| Metadawn| Dead Days| PC Weenies| Ask Maridee | Tiny Folk | Gordian Algebra | Starslip Crisis | The Front | Coffee Time Comics | Patches | Little Creature | The Horrible Pirates | Serenity Tales | Crashlander | Girl Genius | This Is Me | Handle With Care | SuperFogeys | Copper | Eskimo Dave | Real Life | Chateau Wonderful | Count Your Sheep | Breakpoint City | Eeekeemo | Boxcar Astronaut | Zip and Li'l Bit | Wally & Osborne | Jump Leads | Dr. Sheep and the Aardvark | Station V3 | Dresden Codak | Lab Ratz | Toyzville | The Boids | Cow and Buffalo | Casey and Scotty | Just Outside | The Pretentious History of Everything | Tia's World | Quirks | Patrick Grey | For What It's Worth | The Sixth Dimension | Max and the Gorilla Goon Squad | Rainbow Orchid | Neko and Neko | Lions, Tigers and Bears | Spacequint | Lessons In Fire Safety | Corrupt Hardware | Enker's Tale | The Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allan Poo | A Rusty Life | You'll Have That | From the Margin | Jitterati

About These Reviews

I love comics and I'm always looking at how I can improve my own work by examining other creators' works. It's such a wildly diverse field that it's not advisable to make sweeping generalizations and ignore special circumstances and subjects.

There's a lot we can learn from one another. And while there are many forums where you might discuss this, I haven't found any lengthy discussion on what we can do to make our comics more successful. There are a few good books on the subject but the aspiring webcomic creator is forced to learn by sheer brute force practice how to adapt his/her personal style to the medium. This is not as efficient as it could be.

Also, there are literally thousands of webcomics but only a handful of places where you can find decent, regular reviews. The focus of my reviews will be on trying to determine what is positive, successful and worth emulating about each comic. You might even get hooked on a given comic you read about here.

You may also wonder where the 'criticism' is and where the negative things about the comics are pointed out. As a matter of fact, I did mention some dissappointing issues with layout and such in my initial reviews. I quickly came to the realization that it's easy for any viewer to know what they like and what they don't. I don't need to call extra attention to the negative. I have, on a few occasions, emailed a webcomic author with a few ideas for improvements but there's no need to make that information public.

I'm not trying to sugarcoat anything, mind you. I just wish to have an open discussion about what good comics do. Hopefully, more voices will join in.