At the risk of becoming the grumpy old “I don’t like anything”curmudgeon of this merry band of reviewers, I have to again admit this comic just didn’t work for me. It has some promise, but the execution is lacking.

It’s the story of Ami and Lys, two high school girls who get sucked through a rift in spacetime (conveniently located in a dark room in their school) and end up in a dimension that looks and feels a lot like every other fantasy setting we’ve ever encountered. While the story is short on the stereotypical ogres and elves (so far), there are elemental goddesses and the shirtless men who do their bidding as well as a band of shirtless “knights” (I didn’t notice them doing anything particularly knight-like, but the narration says they are), a friendly inn-keeper (JayJay, young and female, somewhat bucking tradition there), a shady-acting man (Dannon, who possesses green glowing magical powers … or are they shadow powers? It seems to change as the storyline progresses), and some sort of secret goings-on that involve a band of men who want to possess Ami and Lys.

The writing definitely needs work. The concept is there, but the pacing is all off. Scenes that need greater explanation go by with almost no narration or dialogue, while other scenes are too long for what the creator is trying to accomplish. People who hate the tv series LOST because characters often fail to ask obvious and important questions will be aggravated by this comic, in which the main characters wait until chapter five to ask the most obvious question. (The pacing does improve somewhat in the most recent posts.) The dialogue is often stilted, and sometimes filled with non-sequiturs. For instance, the dialogue on this page is completely disconnected from the out-of-character moment on the next. It seems, like the half-cat nature of the main characters, to be inserted simply because the author thought it was funny, without regard to how it plays in the larger context.

Oh, and did I mention that, for no reason readily apparent in the story, when the girls fell through the rift they turned from fully human into half-human/half-cat? Yep, they gain cat ears and tails. Other characters have to point the change out to them (characters who didn’t know them before they came through the rift, so why would they feel the urge to point this out?) and although other characters admit to having fallen through similar rifts the girls seem to be the only ones who have been affected this way.

The art is also sketchy in a lot of places. On pages like this I’m not really sure what’s supposed to be happening. But then there are pages like the title page for chapter five, and this close up of Dannon that are very well done.

Overall, I’d give Antics two stars more for it’s potential than for its actual execution. Rating:

Antics
http://antics.comicgenesis.com/
by Kristina Foster
reviewed by Anthony R. Cardno
(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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Antics begins with a metaphysical origin story. The four elements came together and life was created, but so was death.

Life was the goal and result of a united effort between the elements but now death seeks to unravel all that work. The story then shows a girl ignoring her alarm clock and waking up late.

The linework is very light and almost has a sketchy quality. Antics is mostly streaking greys with bits of white. There are no word balloons, but there are smudges with white lettering serving the purpose. Overall, the effect is very dream like and moody. It does also make it very hard to follow what is going on. Let me give you an example from the opening comics:

There are two girls in a high school setting in Ontario, Canada. They look very similiar to me, but they have different hair styles and one is named Ami while the other is Lys. There’s a boy named David who tries to show one of the girls a little attention but the other gets upset. Then, not too much later one girl is falling through the air and complaining that the other girl is sleeping. She falls into water and starts to talk with the mistress of the sea. It continues on, but there are more events and conversations like that.

You see? Many comics later, there is a brief explanation that one of the girls fainted and got very cold. This was, in fact, all some kind of dream. Almost immediately after that is another transition for the other girl who began talking to some other strange entity. There is a lot left unexplained.

The themes that I’m seeing revolve around being left alone and having your decisions made by someone else than yourself. I would say decisions forced by circumstance but in Antics, almost everything is alive. The girls are stuck in a dream world.

Something I did like is that, in later comics, Antics has some unusual panel splits. There are designs like this one that leave some panels open. This helps with that dreamy mood that’s being maintained. Other artists accomplish the same thing by leaving a lot of empty space around odd sized panels. This might be a potentially useful technique for the comic artists reading this review.

Overall, I found Antics hard to understand. There is a more recent comic that explains enough of what has been going on that it makes sense (up to that point.) The storytelling focuses mostly on conversations so you don’t see much in the way of physical movement between places or obvious story and character progress. My confusion might be, in part, due to not being able to grasp the feminine sensibility of the artist. It does seem as if the artist knows what story she is telling and the art fits the mood. I give Antics two stars. Rating:

Antics
by Kristina Foster
http://antics.comicgenesis.com/
review by Delos Woodruff
(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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I had originally written a rather middle of the road review, thinking perhaps that because of my dislike for anime/manga I may have been a little harsh on the comic after my initial read. However, after seeing some of the other reviews I realized that it wasn’t just me, and so I feel a bit more confident in going back and editing my review a bit. Respected colleague and fellow reviewer, El Santo was concerned that the girls drawing this thing were young and didn’t want to be too harsh - I say “If you ask to be hung out as a target, expect to get some fire.” I figure it will be good for at least 10 years of the artist going through the typical “no one understands my work” angst, and I will have done my job. Maybe the angst will stop this thing from being perpetrated on the world any further than it has been already. (I’ve already been ripped apart on other blogs for my reviews, according to our esteemed moderator - I’m going for 2!)

Antics is an appropriate title, since the comic seems to revolve around just that - the antics of two girls who look like they either (a) need to go home so they won’t be late for homeroom tomorrow, or (b) are the most mentally/physically underdeveloped women the world has ever seen.

The overall comic is, to put it frankly, very poor, in my opinion. The art looks unfinished and sketchy (and I’m being generous, there), with little or no proportion, rhyme or reason, or even color to make it look like anything other than pages published out of a beginning art course. Done primarily in a flat, dull grey, you almost get the feeling you’re looking into someone’s dream, or perhaps seeing it though the eyes of the colorblind. All of the standard anime touches are here, like some kind of odd cross between “Pokemon” and being outright cartoon-like, and making it very hard on the eyes. I’ve never, in my 38 years of life, seen anyone who could make their faces contort the way these people do, nor have I seen anyone with hair that goes up into two 45 degree angles and then slopes down on either side of their face. And the eyes - are all of these people nocturnal, or what? They’d burn their retinas out in a heartbeat if they went out in the sun with eyes that big!

If you want to draw in the style, then at least learn HOW before you hang your work out for all to see.

The characters are, to be kind, dull and uninteresting. Stereotypical and dull-witted is what I would say if I wasn’t trying to be kind. Oh, that’s harsh, you say? Well, let’s see… the comic shown with this post, I believe, says it well. I’ll paraphrase what the characters are saying:

“Well, damnation, this has been a dull day.”

“Yeah, but you know the artist will throw in some hackneyed plot device any second now.” (POOF!) “Oh look! A swirling portal of energy that no one on God’s green Earth has ever seen before! It could take us right to the 10th level of Hell but hey! there’s pretty boys in there with no clothes on! LET’S GO THROUGH!” “

Hey, that sounds like a great idea! Boys are always fun! (giggle giggle)”

A sterling example to all the feminists out there, let me tell you! But…I digress.

Ok, first of all, boys/men as a general rule (and a matter of grammar, too, I believe) are handsome, not pretty. Usually “pretty” boys are a different, lesser breed altogether, so let’s get that straight RIGHT now. (Think of ol’ Tom “We’re all infected by aliens!” Cruise and you’ve got your pretty boy right there) With the exception of girls using the term on television sitcoms (I overheard it when I wasn’t too busy trying to claw my eyes out) I have never heard a boy described as pretty in any manner other than a derogatory one. Although to be fair, the way they drew the “boys” in this thing they look so much like girls themselves that I guess you could call them pretty. (shudder) Androgynous anime art (Alliteration, anyone?) - makes my skin crawl.

Ok, rant over, and back to the characters.

Can you say “stereotypical brain-dead teenage girls?” I knew you could. From their giggly demeanor to their vapid, wide eyed expressions, they fit the bill every time. What makes it even more laughable is the fact that earlier, the two girls were engaged in the typical “Oh that guy is such a low life” “Oh golly, yes, but he’s so CUTE!” conversation that is part and parcel of every show since Growing Pains. One girl’s name is “Ami” - now, when last I knew it was spelled AMY, unless of course you’re drawing heavily on the “totally overused Anime/Japanimation naming system ™ ,” in which case it’s Ami. With her friend being named Lys, I seriously expected one of them to turn into Sailor Moon, for pity’s sake. Of course, waiting on the other side of the portal is the incredibly handsome stranger (who, of course, is an anti-hero and provides the much needed romantic fantasy fulfillment of the girls in the story) and the story rapidly degenerates into a bad copy of Beverly Hills 90210. At that point my brain gives me an ultimatum - stop reading this or I’ll torment you with memories of this stinker FOREVER. So I stop reading.

The plot, if you can call it that, is something to do with gods, other realms, fate controlling your destiny, and of course these two girls being the focal point of it all. Yeah…that’s about what I said, too; “What, again?” I mean, sure, if I needed the universe saved, I’d choose two girls who haven’t progressed beyond the 10th grade “he’s hot and that’s all that matters” criteria for partners. (rolls eyes) Of course, this whole thing seems to be one overused collection of tropes, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

Come on, people. Can we have at least a passing nod to that lost art called “imagination”? This stuff belongs on the Disney channel line up for the afternoon, right after Hanna Montana, don’t you think?

So what do I say to you, the unwitting victims of this travesty of the art called the webcomic? I say that if you like your humor on the unimaginative teenage level, your art poorly sketched and your story so replete with gaping holes in logic that it could be an original series Star Trek episode, then read it. If you don’t, or like me, you didn’t like teenagers even when you were one, I say run, screaming, and do it NOW. I’d rather spend an hour in the Multiplex (See my review of the same) than read any more of this. That should tell you something. Rating:

And that’s my review.

The Doctor

Antics
by Katherine Taboda and Kristina Foster
http://antics.comicgenesis.co

(3 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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Whenever a story starts with two friends basically sitting around and doing nothing more than gossiping and staring into space, I start to panic. This is how most terrible fan fictions start. This is how my sister’s unfinished eight page novella she wrote when she was 12 years old starts. And this is how Antics starts.

This is not the only resemblance Antics shares with poorly thought-out stories. For Pete’s sake, the main characters are named Ami and Lys. No, they’re not unicorns or elves. They are, however, school girls. School girls who are transformed into cat girls… after stepping into a magic portal in the most blasé way possible. (Summary: “This portal that just materialized in front of us is pretty! Let’s go in!”) There’s some needlessly convoluted mythology about elementals. And, hilariously, there’s a dreamy anti-hero who goes by the name of “Dannon.” (No word if he prefers his yogurt with fruit on the bottom.)

Antics looks like something lifted out of a pre-teen girl’s Trapper Keeper. Heck, I’m actually having a hard time criticizing this comic because, judging solely from the content of the comic, there’s a very, very good chance creators Katherine Taboda and Kristina Foster, are, indeed, under 18. Perhaps they’re just doing Antics for fun like a free-form NaNoWriMo novel — something not meant to have any rhyme or reason. It seems very unfair to judge their work on the same level as creators who have had training and practice to refine their skills. Yet, they asked for a review, so I assume they’re mature enough to handle scathing criticism.

The characters are as flat as dishwater. In fact, they’re impossible to tell apart in every respect, from personality to appearance. The art is generally unattractive. The pen strokes lack any confidence, and characters tend to blend into their surroundings. The attempts to pretty it up with sparse splotches of color only makes everything look more muddled. The manga “humor” is forced and embarrassing. The plot is an absolute head scratcher. I care very little if Ami or Lys ever make it home or succeed in becoming the right hand woman for Poison Ivy. And the little errors makes the entire comic feel sloppy, like when Chapter Six is incorrectly named “Chapter Five: Seeking Answers.”

Even if you’re a fan of manga, fantasy, and light comedy, I cannot recommend Antics. I encourage Ms. Taboda and Ms. Foster to keep trying. Enroll yourselves in writing workshops. Take art lessons on composition and perspective. Reverse engineer an actual manga to understand what works rather than throwing together collages of flat, uninteresting images. I sincerely hope that you don’t consider this comic to be a crowning achievement.

Rating:

Antics
by Katherine Taboda and Kristina Foster
http://antics.comicgenesis.com

reviewed by Larry “El Santo” Cruz

(2 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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Antics is one of our requested reviews. Look it over and then see if you agree with our reviewers when their reviews are posted next Friday.