Another one of those nifty Flash comics that can be blown through in around a half-hour. How does this one measure up?
This is a comic done in Flash dealing with 48 four-panel 'vignettes' dealing with various places, things and people in Colin White's classroom. It was done as a school project, but Colin seems to think that it turned out much bigger than that. While I think it's neat, I don't buy into the belief that this is some kind of deep philosophical exposition. I think it's a neat idea about Colin and his classmates acting goofy and giving shallow analyses about various places and classroom objects.
When dealing with Flash and infinite canvas, navigation is an essential thing to consider. Comic readers are used to reading things left to right, then down (or right to left if they're mangaphiles) with panels right next to each other so they immediately see where to go next. With this comic, progression goes in all directions, which isn't too much of a problem, since the reader simply reads whatever panel shows up when they click the latest one. The problem with this comic, though, is that on the low resolution, the comic is so big that sometimes I had trouble finding the next panel. On high resolutions, the letters were sometimes too small to read. The middle resolution seemed to be a happy medium for me, but I would have preferred not having to use the scroll bars too much, and not having to squint in order to see the letters. Otherwise, it was a neat way to present a comic, as the moving panels did do some nice tricks, but it was nothing spectacular, as anyone with basic knowledge of Flash could pull this off.
The art style seems hasty, minimalist, but not unpleasant. The use of unifying colors throughout each vignette works well, but the lack of detail made my eyes wander, not really willing to dwell on any panel. For such a short comic, I would have preferred a bit more detail.
The people he interviews all seem normal enough, just having silly conversations (or just listening to Colin talk) and not really saying anything profound. Unfortunately, due to the brevity of each vignette, we don't really get to know these people, and some of the jokes are lost on me. Maybe if we knew these people better we'd have a better feel for how these people react to Colin.
The vignettes dealing with places were the most amusing for me, as they are just nonsensical, playing on common stereotypes and our general lack of knowledge about the countries, provinces and states around us. Sure, we can't know everything, but I'm sure there are people around that would believe these things if said to them with a straight face.
The vignettes dealing with objects delve into the realm of the surreal, as the objects take a life of their own, sometimes talking, sometimes going on little journeys. They all were slightly funny and/or intriguing for me. While I enjoyed vignettes about the countries the most, I think the ones about the objects were the best-made.
Of course, the length of the comic is not that great, so no matter what you feel about the comic, it only takes a half-hour of your life that you would otherwise spend eating watching crappy Anime, playing a game you've beaten thee times already or masturbating. So give it a look, and if you don't like it, hey, no skin off your back. |
