Tag Archives: looking for group

Webcomics: Bonus Chapter – Animated

As I can’t decide which Webcomic I want to present to you today and instead of continuing with the Gamers-theme from the last few posts, I’ll simply introduce you to a few animated variations of the comics I already told you about.

A not funny series

When I „re-wrote“ the first post of this series where I told you about Nichtlustig (Notfunny) the German

one panel Comics by Cartoonist Joscha Sauer, telling the stories of his various characters. These include a Professor, his assistant and their strange experiments; Yetis; suicidal Lemmings, a killer-robot aspiring to become a kindergarten teacher, Mr. Riebmann, who lives in the wall beside his constantly annoyed neighbour and of course Death and his Poodle, who are the not so secret stars of the Comics.

I also mentioned that they had just

finished a successful Kickstarter campaign to animate the Comics as a Cartoon series.

So this of course is the first one I want to talk about – even if this will be boring for those who don’t know German, as they are only synchronized in that language.
With the Kickstarter Sauer wanted to be able to produce a whole series of animated comics, but aimed low and set it up for one episode first. The campaign funded that well that by now two of the six funded episodes are produced, with the remaining four being released in 2017.
As far as I know are the stories for these episodes completely new, even if some parts of it where used in comics before. In the books there are a few episode like narrations instead of the usual one strip jokes, so as a reader you can already get an idea of how quirky and intertwined his stories can be. A few glimpses at the episodes – I’m not sure if they will be publicly available as soon as all of them are finished – and some old animation of the one strip comics can be found on the Nichtlustig Youtube Channel. It is certainly fun to finally have a voice for Death and Poodle and all the other characters. 😀
(And if you’re really into animated German comics, don’t forget to check out the ones by Sauer’s college Ralph Ruthe while you’re at it. 😉 )

Miniaturized Adventures

After I recently talked about Looking for Group and Tiny Dick Adventures in passing it’s creators now released a new project, where the latter got a bigger spotlight.
Starting next Wednesday there will be a 50-60 seconds episode of the so-called Tiny Dick’s Briefs each week, with daily special releases during this (release) week.
Additionally to the briefs with random (new) commentary by LFG star Richard will there also be an animated version of one of Sohmers other comics that I’ll talk about on a different day. 😉
All of these – and old attempts at animations, like a very incredible and hilarious take on The Little Mermaid’s Part of that World, that were originally planned to go into a movie that turned out to be way more expensive than they had anticipated – are available on the YouTube Page of Blind Ferret Studios – the company behind all their works.
I’m certainly looking forward to this.

A cat’s tale

As I’m already talking about animated comics do I feel like a can’t leave out Simon’s Cat. Different to the other two that were (web)comics first and were animated later, was this one animated first before also releasing comic book versions – at least from what I know.
The short episodes about the cat’s antics and adventures are quite adorable and funny and it doesn’t matter that most of the story is carried by music and simple cat noises.
All of the episodes are and regularly updated on the YouTube Page linked above.

Last words

What are your thoughts on animated Webcomics?
Is it something that interests you or do you prefer the written word?
See you around
PoiSonPaiNter
© For the pictures lie with their creators. I merely used them as example of their work and hope that’s okay.

Webcomics: Prologue – Looking for Something

Remember when I told you about the amazing female leads in two webcomics and dubbed it Chapter One? Well, seems like you’ll be getting a belated Prologue today, as one can’t start properly before talking about the beginning…
That and the fact that I really like Prologues….
Anyway, as I mentioned in the Introduction were Fred and Notfunny my „gate way“ into comics and Webcomics in general, but what really got me hooked on reading them was

Looking for Group

(c) Ryan Sohmer & Lar Desouza


The webcomic by writer Ryan Sohmer and artist Lar (Lartist) Desouza tells the story of the elf Cale’anon (the one in the front) who just wants to be a hero, to do good, to help people, but is more often than not faced with decisions he wouldn’t naturally approve of. It’s not helping that the group he ends up travelling with includes the fourth wall breaking, easily bored, over-powered, homicidal and basically utterly ridiculous un-dead Warlock Richard (the one in the upper right corner), the witty and destructive priest Benn’joon (short Benny – in the middle with the staff), her Bloodrage father and scholar Krunch (on the left with the book), the crafty, bardic Dwarf Pella and bloodthirsty panther Sooba (both not depicted).
What makes this story fun is the clashing of these characters and their ways of solving problems. E.g. while Cale is still negotiating, Richard gets bored and just „FWOOSH“es the opposition (aka burns them to crisps with a – red – fire ball).
It basically started as run of the mill parody comic for the fantasy genre, gaming and pop culture in general (it’s filled with references: Lord of the Rings, World of Warcraft, Star Wars, Mary Poppins just to name a few) and turned into something way more epic in it’s own terms. For any new reader it’s a long way to go, but a worthy one.
When I first discovered it through a recommendation in The Forum I didn’t really give it much credit, the art was strange and the story was over the top, but the humour soon captured me – especially Richard’s, he’s so delightfully, well, Richard. The more I read the better art and story became until it reached the standard it has today. Sure there are still story lines that don’t really make sense and I’ve lost track of a lot of side stories by now (I believe I caught up when they were around book 15 and by now they’re in book 36), but I still return to the site whenever there is an update or I want to re-read something old.
Sure Cale is a typical main character, but there is so much thrown into his way that it’s fun again to watch his journey – especially the Archmage story line is incredible.
Sure there are times where the story just doesn’t seem to move on, but that’s a small price for what Sohmer & Lar offer their audience.
By now the universe expanded far beyond just Looking for Group, there are now also NPC stories, telling more about characters that only appeared briefly in the main arcs in tales drawn by different unknown/young/new artists and the Tiny Dick Adventures, where Richard comments on real life happenings – with a twist.
It’s fascinating to see the world that Sohmer created grow, see old story lines come back around and new ones starting. It’s the mix of the (bizarre) characters, the oddities and the seriousness beneath it all that makes this one special.
And Richard will certainly be amongst my favourite characters for a very long time (it is partly his fault that I keep naming characters Richard o.O).

Afterword

I hope you enjoyed this little look into my first long-term-commitment Webcomic. 🙂
Have you read it?
Do you know others with similar themes?
Let me know in the comments below!
If any one is interested: I’ve been eyeing this thing and also been using a LFG wallpaper of Lil‘ Richard and The Bunny – that is seemingly no longer available except as cover art of book 4 – for years now.

For Pony!

PoiSonPaiNter
© For the picture lies with its creators. I merely used it as example of their work and hope that’s okay.