Friday - March 11, 2005:
As I dug through the archives of
Filth and Decay by Alex C., I took notes on my first impressions and here are the highlights: During the course of 96 strips, I laughed three times, twice at the same strip. Alone, those are not necessarily bad numbers, but in combination with the number of times I winced, I can’t recommend digging through the archives. There is potential in Alex’s confident line and evolving composition though and it gets close to funny lots of times, but the strip doesn’t achieve it often enough for me to give it a recommendation. Also, artistically, the style's not my cup of tea. I like what Ping Tao's been doing with reviews so I'll borrow a bit and break things down by section rather than paragraph:
The Story:
The strip’s two main characters are rabbits, foul-mouthed rabbits. There are plenty of supporting cast members, largely out of convenience for delivering the next punch line. There’s not much of a story here. Although there are a few strips early on that take a stab telling a story, they literally left the strip at the alter: The rabbits convert in order to help a priest friend until the plot line is left hanging, completely (see strips #30-35). I actually had a bit of interest in seeing where Alex might take this, but alas...
The Artwork:
I can’t really call myself a fan of the strip’s artistic style, but I imagine there are people it could appeal to. It's loose and edgy, sometimes jarringly so.
At times the art feels rushed. In those cases, composition and overall appearance suffer greatly. Although the overall quality of the art has improved since the first few, there are still individual strips that are difficult to look at. To be fair, the rendering and composition are noticeably better in several of the more recent strips (example: #45).
Filth and Decay is heavy on the Photoshop, but not always in bad ways. Some of the background grain remids me a bit of Peter Kuper’s excellent Sticks and Stones. On the other hand, the airbrushing tools are overused throughout, a problem that plagues lots of comics produced using Photoshop.
As already mentioned, Alex’s confidence in his line is a strength. The strips might look better if they were run smaller though. Those thick lines would have an even greater impact. The main characters are severely abstracted while the supporting cast members in recent strips reminds me a little of Sylvan Migdal’s Ascent or Mnemesis, (a little less abstraction).
The Funny:
Here’s where Filth and Decay lost me. There are a few sexist, homophobic and racist remarks made by characters or the strip’s narrator sprinkled throughout the archives (examples: #24, #54 (would have been fine except for the fried chicken comment), #82, #93).
I understand the distinction between authors and characters, but this kind of thing needs to be dealt with using a little more tact. A couple of the remarks felt like the author using the character as an excuse to write some pretty nasty things. They made me want to walk away from the strip completely. I would have if I didn’t promise to review anything submitted.
The rest is a bunch of cute, if recycled, jokes, and contrary to the comments in the strip above, the sperm aren’t really all that vulgar. I just wanted to play with the notion of abstraction a bit in my own strip. The rabbits largely live up to their names so I guess you get what you’re promised, Filth and Decay.
A couple did strips bring the funny. I liked #26, nukes versus 9-11 and I laughed twice at Señor Ninja despite the steroetypical portrayal of Mexicans (#43). It walked the line successfully. I would come back if you promised a week of Señor Ninja, but just for the week.
Thanks for submitting the strip. In fact, thanks to everyone who has submitted their work. At the moment, I’ve got nearly two months of MWF strips backed up so if you submit yours now, don’t expect a review until May at the earliest. Whew. Who knew this would catch on? As always, your comments are welcome.
-Bob Stevenson
