Some perfect moments; Fans!

[kirayoshi1.insanejournal.com]

One of my favorite webcomics right now is Fans!(the exclamation point is part of the spelling) by T. Campbell and Jason Waltrip.  The title involves the Billberg Science Fiction Club, a SF club/RPG community that finds itself dealing with terrorists, alien invaders, shadowy criminal conspiracies, mad scientists and other assorted threats.  The theme is that humanity's greatest asset is its ability to imagine and dream, and that in an increasingly weird world, it's the weird who will rise to the occasion to save us.  You can read it here; www.faans.com. Be warned; there's close to two thousand pages of material thus far.  You thought Girl Genius was a great way to waste time(which it is), wait'll you get a load of Fans!  Plus T. Campbell likes to play with formats; some pages are extra long or extra wide, some stories are done by guest artists with their own unique styles, he occasionally plays with GIFs, and one story even features original MP3 files(his homage to the Buffy musical, I think).

I'm choosing a couple of favorite moments from the series.  Not dial-up friendly.

First, one long(in the vertical sense) page from the series involves a key scene in the life of Rikk Oberf, the BSFC's leader.  A devout Christian, a capable strategist and the best speech-maker this side of Aragorn, Rikk does have a few tragic flaws.  Most notably a sense of responsibility that makes Spider-Man look like a slacker!  In a desperate attempt to save his friends and allies from the new head of the FIB(Fantasmagoric Integration Board, sort of the MIB/X-Files group of the series), the satanic Agent Mist, Rikk reluctantly agrees to work for the FIB without telling the rest of the team, going so far as to make the same deal that Mist made, i.e. to sell his soul to the Devil.  Funny thing happened, though...


Needless to say, the good guys won this one.

My second perfect moment involves Rikk, but centers more on the two women in his life.  Throughout much of the series, up to the end of Book 5, a major love triangle existed between Rikk, Ally Worthington Oberf(formerly Alisin, his wife, a fun-loving goth-grrl who once had a rare terminal disease that almost killed her before a cure was found) and Rumy Tanaka(a Japanese-born aspiring manga artist, martial arts expert and hopeless romantic).  Rikk was faithful to Ally throughout, but Aly often felt unworthy(she had some demons to exorcize in her past), and at one point chose to break it off with Rikk.  During the estrangement, Rikk entertained thoughts of a relationship with Rumy.  But when Rumy's martial arts master died(cut in half by Darth Maul's light saber.  Really.  Don't ask, just read the damn thing!), and Rikk and Ally subsequently reconciled, Rumy was left out in the cold. 

Ally, by this time, came to love Rumy as deeply as she loved Rikk(as she said to Rikk, "Blame my swingin' upbringin'!")  So to her the solution to the triangle was obvious; invite Rumy to join them in a polyamorous relationship!  Naturally there were some bumps in the road; while both Ally and Rumy had slept with Rikk, they hadn't yet slept with each other.  Rumy felt that this 'imbalance' needed to be addressed, so she seduced Ally while Rikk was out of town.  Their initial attempts were less than successful, and Rumy grew concerned for their relationship, until one night when she and Ally were out on the town, only to be attacked by an old enemy...

Comments

[freivolk.insanejournal.com]

The first one is really great.

The second is good, but...äh.....I hope the little girl is about 18.

Now With Less Spelling Fail

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

They're all in their early 20s by this point. Rumiko just has a . . . somewhat realistic but still fetishized Japanese woman's body.

[lonewolf23k.insanejournal.com]

Selling your Soul to God. Total Awesomeness.

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

I want to like Fans! more than I do. Conceptually, it's someething right up my alley.

Its just that certain events and their execution annoy me to no end.

[foxhack.insanejournal.com]

Motto. I really tried to like the series, but frankly?

Both the moments here skeeve the hell outta me.

[filbypott.insanejournal.com]

My only exposure to Fans! was its crossover with It's Walky!, and suffice to say that when your comic's characters come off as even more annoyingly angsty than Willis's, something's wrong.

[tacobob.insanejournal.com]

Three way with a 12 year old? O_O Er.

And what's with bad guys who gad about in armored suits that always have their heads exposed? Lex Luthor is known to do this as well.

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

More like 21. Rumiko is a Japanese woman, and though she's mostly realistic, she's still Ms. Fanservice.

(First panty shot of the comic went to her.)

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

My favorite Fans! moment is . . . wait, lemme see . . . aha! I had saved it to my harddrive, because I liked it so much. Avengers Assemble:

[besamim.insanejournal.com]

Although I'm a huge Penny and Aggie fan (it's my favourite webcomic), I never could get into Fans that much. The first "book" of the series is weak and awkward (in fairness, it was Campbell's first webcomic effort). After that, I've found that Fans veers between straightforward, accessible storytelling and characterization (e.g. I did read through, and enjoy, the arc from which the second "moment" above comes), and "WTF is going on" pretentious experimentation (a common flaw in Campbell's writing overall, even in P&A a few times).

Also, the series was clearly meant for Waltrip's art. The first "I am that I am" excerpt above, is wonderful in terms of writing and layout, but the goofy, overly-cartoony art (by whichever artist that was) spoils it. The last panel of Rikk crying with joy just makes me laugh, which isn't the intended effect.

[besamim.insanejournal.com]

And yes, I just realized I repeatedly left the exclamation point out of the comic's title. Herr Starr in my icon has been notified. :-)

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, I really like early Fans. I remember feeling the same vague sense of discomfort near the end that I do with some of Heinlein's books, though, that somebody let a little too much personal gratification leak onto the page.

Noirsensei says:

[(Anonymous)]

I used to like webcomics.

Then I realized that half of them are filled with 'me and my friends' self-insert characters with ridiculously 'unique' names (Rikk, Alisin, Rumy? That's three strikes in the Spelling World Series, man) and contrived plots ultimately leading to whoever most represents the author nailing (underaged looking) Japanese girls.

...

OK, so I read Megatokyo before it sucked, and now I'm bitter. But this one isn't exactly going to change my mind.

Re: Noirsensei says:

[tacobob.insanejournal.com]

That sounded like me not that long ago. With a few rare exceptions, I really hated web comics as well. Bunch of Mary freaking Sues. All that "There's the wacky guy, his straight laced friend, and -THE- Girl who is in love with the wacky guy and they like (Insert nerdy thing of the week).". Thanks to the posters on this site, I've started to follow some other web comics. These have real pro art, interesting characters and fun storylines.

As for other Web-Comics:

Video game reviewer, Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw on web comics. Not work safe..But funny. :)

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/108-Webcomics

Re: Noirsensei says:

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

Could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure "Yahtzee"'s talking about one particular web comic, B^Uy the way.

Re: Noirsensei says:

[tacobob.insanejournal.com]

Well, CAD and other web comics in general.

[pyrotwilight.insanejournal.com]

OK while kinda cool with God buying the soul I have to say that makes no sense. The whole point of selling a soul is that it's the ultimate corruption. Giving away that which God gave you and such. It doesn't make a lick of sense that God would buy someone's soul.

[katsaris.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

The idea I think, is that every soul ultimately goes to either Satan or God. And that it's our choices and character who determines whether it's Satan or God that gets it. Yes, God gave us our souls -- in order for us to freely determine whether we'll be giving them back to Him.

Mist wanted power, admiration, etc. His choices and character gave his soul over to Satan.
Rikk wanted the safety of both his friends and the world. Despite thinking he was making a deal with Satan, this gave his soul over to God.

[crinosg.insanejournal.com]

I finished reading through this entire series the other day, and I LOVE IT.

Why didn't anyone tell me about it sooner? WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU PEOPLE BEEN KEEPING FROM ME?

Also, although he isn't shown here, Keith can die in a fire. If you've read the series, you know who I mean.