Webcomic Wednesday No. 1
Posted in Webcomic Wednesday by: WarlachG’day y’all.
This is the first of a series of posts I plan on doing in attempt to share my love of webcomics with others. Once a week I’ll take one webcomic, give a short review, a sample comic, what you can expect and any other details that take my fancy.
Like most native creative forms on on the ‘tubes - podcasts, blogs, forums etc - webcomics suffer from a stigma associated with their medium rather than their content, enduring arguments such as “oh, podcasts arn’t really my thing” or “blogs don’t really interest me”.
To me this is like saying you won’t listen to Mozart because you don’t like Delta Goodrem. The infinite canvas of the internet refers more than just to the potential of any one creative piece but rather to the potential of the medium. Whatever your interests - from habedashery to politics, comedy to the brutal slaying of your coworkers - please know: there is something for you.
I’m not going to start with Penny Arcade, Starslip Crisis or Something Positive. I’ll get to the big boys later. For now I want to highlight some of the little nuggets of gold people may not have heard of and so, without further stalling, I present: Webcomic Wednesday No. 1.
Title: Dresden Codak
Author: Aaron S. Diaz
URL: www.dresdencodak.com
So, what is it?
Dresden Codak is a beautiful, single page formatted comic created by Aaron Diaz and detailing adventures in the life of the main character, Kimiko Ross. With a cast that features Tiny Carl Jung (a version of the famous psychologist who’s only a few inches high and responsible for Tiny Dream Analysis), two characters described as ‘possibly nuclear powered’ and Myers-Briggs ratings for each character, you can tell this is aiming for a slightly geekier and more intelligent audience than your average Sunday paper strip.
Diaz himself describes Dresden Codak as “an illustrated celebration of science, death and human folly.” The work is funny, beautiful and often moving. The back catalog currently available on the website lists a number or stand alone pieces, and, more recently, a drawn out story arc. Our (anti?)heroine Kimiko is fascinated by transhumanism, the technological singularity and the future of mankind - but it’s OK if your aren’t yet familiar with the subject matter, it’s mostly explained. Newcomers may become lost with Diaz’s creative panel positioning and the linear flow of each page but if you let yourself be carried along it soon becomes fairly clear.
Not all the Webcomic Wednesday’s will be such as gushing tribute but I can honestly say there is nothing in the Dresden Codak archive I wouldn’t recommend. It was fairly difficult to chose a sample comic, so in the end I chose two:
More Here: Girl Vs Bear
More Here: Summer Dream Job
One criticism, and it’s only because of the high quality of the comic, is that Diaz’s update schedule is fairly random, however he recently posted that DC will now be a weekly comic, making now a perfect time to plow through the archives.
Start at the beginning of the archive and work your way through and I promise you, you won’t be disappointed.