Alaska Robotics

http://akrobotics.com/comics/akrobotics

Genre-  Comedy, "gag-a-day"

Creator-  Pat Race

Other Info-  Full color, no specified update schedule

 

Introduction

 

          Alaska Robotics is a relatively new comic, as of this writing, begun January of 2007.  It has so far only updated 10 times, and is on no set schedule.  It has quirky humor, and seems to feature a set of characters from the author's acquaintance.  I suppose this makes it something of an exaggerated autobiographical comic.

 

          One would expect a very part-time comic of this sort to be extremely amateur.  Alaska Robotics, however, delivers more quality art and solid humor than many long-running webcomics.  It leads me to wonder if perhaps the creator of this comic has had many years of prior experience in comics, but that information is not readily available.

 

Synopsis

 

          A comic of the gag-a-day variety, this comedic comic, so far, has no ongoing plot of any sort.  Rather, it focuses on random events in the cast of character's lives.  Because the characters themselves seem to be based on the author and his friends, one might imagine that these jokes are exaggerated from actual events.  That is unclear.  There is no attempt to reference previous strips in order to understand current updates, and in fact the latest update, titled "Magnetic Poetry," is the first time a robot appears in the comic, and also the first time the regular cast of characters does not appear.  So unless things change in future updates, it looks like this comic is strictly a bunch of stand-alone, one-shot comics. 

 

First Impression

 

          This comic's website is an exercise in minimalism, which is usually advisable for webcomics lest they get confusing.  There is nothing confusing about this site at all.  This comic is actually one of several hosted on the same site, each of which has a small section all to itself.  There is a top menu, previous and next buttons, and a link to discuss each comic in a forum.  Immediately I felt at ease, knowing that I didn't need to think about the web design.  The comic itself appears in the middle of the page, large enough to see clearly.  It's a crystal-clear image without any pixelation or bad anti-aliasing.  The art style is clean and pleasing to the eye.

 

The Art

 

          Having read a lot of webcomics, you usually see the greatest change in style and improvement over the first few updates.  This is the case even more-so when the creator of the comic is somewhat new to comics in general, or trying a new style.  With Alaska Robotics, the look and style of the first 10 updates is extremely consistent.  I highly suspect that either the creator of the comic is not new to comics at all, or has been working in the same style for many years.  If this is not the case, I would be surprised.  Either way, the consistency is a good thing, because the art style is pleasing to look at.

 

          This is one of those super-clean all digital vectored comics that have become so characteristic of webcomics.  That being said, just because the method may be common, the quality of this particular comic is uncommon.  The action is well depicted, the art style works very well with the subject matter, and there's only one noticeable cut-and-paste in the ten current updates.  The art style kind of reminds me of Chris Vangompel's work on Hockey Zombie.  It has the same smooth, vectored look, the same sort of facial hair depictions, and the same round blank eyes.  While Vangompel changes up the line widths, however, Pat Race has chosen instead to keep line widths the same throughout and use more contrasted shading to indicate depth.  It works quite well, keeping the art both simple and making it pop all at once.  Another positive aspect of the art is the sparing use of Photoshop effects.  Many beginning comics throw in effects and textures to disguise their lack of experience or drawing skill.  So far, this comic has only used a few glowy effects, and they are not the least bit overdone.

 

          Distinctively lacking in this comic are decent backgrounds.  The foreground characters are usually simply contrasted against a solid colored background, leaving the reader to guess where the characters might be based upon the action or dialog.  While this does not encumber the jokes to any great degree, addition of detailed backgrounds would improve the overall polished look of the art, and give the reader more of a frame of reference for each set-up.

 

The Writing

 

          The writing in this type of comic is usually going to be hit and miss.  When the author has not nailed down a specific theme for their humor, and the jokes derive from a variety of subject matter, there are bound to be some that fall flat.  With Alaska Robotics, that does not happen very often.  Of course, with only ten updates to view so far, it is hard to make an accurate judgment.  I laughed at most of the jokes.  Also notable is the fact that this comic seems to be written about a close group of friends, yet the author has managed to avoid obvious in-jokes.  All of these jokes are enjoyable to the audience at large.

 

          The humor of this comic is hard to describe.  It's almost philosophical at times, and at times just lighthearted silliness.  There's office humor, roommate humor, and general humor.  None of the jokes are fall down hilarious, but none of them are complete duds either.  Most of all, they just make me smile.  It is a completely inoffensive and sincere comic.

 

Summary

 

          Alaska Robotics is a new comic, in terms of updates, so it's hard to say anything definitive about it just yet.  What is there, however, is far better than could be expected of most new comics.  With clean art, aspiring toward professional level, with a slight bit of improvement this comic could be among the best out there in the smooth vector style.  The humor is mostly solid, with jokes that do not disappoint, but which also fail to meet the standard of some of the more popular gag-a-day strips.

 

Rating and Explanation of Rating

 

60%

 

          This comic gets nearly full marks for its art, taking a slight hit due to its lack of backgrounds.  The writing, while not bad at all, is a little hit and miss and perhaps somewhat vague.  But the main thing I had to mark this comic down for was its update schedule, or lack thereof.  Ten comics in six months does not give this comic much hope of obtaining an audience.  Fortunately, everything I marked this comic down for is easy to fix, given a bit of time, and I think this comic has a great future if the creator sticks with it.