October 2007 - Minus (www.kiwisbybeat.com/minus.html)

All images in this article are pulled from Minus and are copyright © by Ryan Armand

When we're young, we dream of the impossible and often fantasize that we can make the fantastic happen. Dreams take flight and the future is bright and full of promise, adventure and the unknown. Nothing is impossible.

Minus has a similar outlook on life. One key difference, however, is that, unlike the rest of us, she has the ability to make her dreams and fantasies reality. It is never said why she has this ability, but with the flow of events and the overall imagination we see through her eyes, are the means all that important?

Watercolor is the choice medium for this piece, one that shows the fuzzy boundaries between the real world and the one we perceive. The drawings themselves can be wonderfully detailed and simplistic depending on the situation or mood. Overall, the plot is not needlessly complicated nor overly simple. It can be emotional at times and silly at others.

And Minus, through it all, is learning. Learning about the world around her, the world she creates and how people react to both. Maybe we could learn a thing or two as well, just by seeing what she sees.

June 2007 - WereGeek (www.weregeek.com)

All images in this article are pulled from WereGeek and are copyright © by Alina Pete

A new website design demands a sacrifice! It demands blood! It demands . . . a new webcomic to introduce!

Consider this all too familiar scenario: it's a late, cloudy night. A man sits wearily on a bed in a lone room, glaring out the window almost in anticipation. The clouds slowly part, revealing a full moon. Rays of moonlight strike the man, and suddenly he is in agony! His face contorts, and he crumples to the ground as an inhuman transformation begins!

So what is he becoming? A vampire? A werewolf? Tootsie?

In this case, a geek.

Who knew that geeks were possessed to LARP, role dice and play video games every time the full moon beckoned?

Alina Pete, creator of WereGeek, has the situation down pat here. In real life, we often mask these geek tendancies if not in a geek-related field. And, when night comes, we unleash this hidden part of our personality, reveling in the sensations of escaping to another world. Of course, some of us (*cough* Joel *cough*) take it a little too far, but it's all in good fun in the end. Until we get to the hunters.

The hunters seem to want to purge society of geek culture. Their motivation, reasoning and very reason for being has yet to be revealed.

We see the journey of weregeekdom through the eyes of the protagonist, Mark, who's new to the situation. Those of us who are already far down the path of the geek-side snicker as we know where he's going. And those who are like Mark are eased into the situation and provided a few surprises as the comic unfolds. Granted, the luddites thus far are stereotyped as the grown-up version of the kid that stuffed you in a trashcan, but that may change as time passes.

All in all, a good comic that's just getting its bearings.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the sacrifice. Does burning the third edition of Dungeons and Dragons count?