02/04: Cop-Out
I've been on a comic binge lately. I actually finished Machine Flower awhile ago, but wasn't updating the site when I did, so it got buried in my bookmarks. It's a Manga-style comic about a group of young children who are experimented on in order to unlock superpowers. The comic hasn't come far enough to really differentiate itself from similar stories of it's fairly obvious story and characters, but the main character is fun enough to read.
I actually just ran across Axe Cop while i was making today's comic. Since it has only a handful of comics, I finished it off in only a few minutes - the time it would normally take to read was probably quadrupled with the time I spent clutching my side from laughing so hard. If the credits are to be believed, while the strip is drawn by 29 year old Ethan Nicolle, the brainchild and writer of the comic is 5 year old Malachai Nicolle (from reading the blog, it seems that Ethan does some <i>interpretation</i> of the work, but it's mostly his little brother). As explained in his Q&A, Axe Cop became a cop by picking up an axe, walking into a police station, then going out to fight crime. Honestly, the strip speaks for itself far better than I could - take 10 minutes and go read it.
I also read through the relatively short archive of Guilded Age, a quite entertaining fantasy adventure comic. Unusual in it's surprising and successful attempts to subvert normal fantasy comic stereotypes, Guilded Age shows women in practical clothing, makes Dwarves and Elves vicious and feared by man, and has Berserkers that are cool-headed and contemplative. Each character has a backstory - some deeper and some more humorous than others - but each is unique, which of course leads to hilarious schenanigans. It also has alt-text - something I didn't realize until well through the comic.