[Post] Why some strips about strange things don’t suck

Sorry to disappear on everyone for a week. My Spring broke and you know how that is.

In my opinion, one to the biggest drawing aspects to web comics is the niche factor. It doesn’t matter what you’re into, it seems like there’s a web comic about it somewhere.

There are, of course, the standard niches that have been done time and time again, but keep offering quality material of video and computer games, Dungeons and Dragons, movies and entertainment and politics.

Over the last few weeks I’ve come across two new (to me, not the world) web comics that are taking on a niche I’ve never seen done before: Toys. Shortpacked and Twisted Kaiju Theater are the only comics that I know of to use collectable toys as a major source of material. This is of course discounting strips like Alien Loves Predator and Irregular Webcomic that use toys for the art but are about something else.

Shortpacked by David Willis is a strip with a fairly traditional art style and focus of the employees of a toy store with heavy doses of Batman and Transformers. TKT is a photo strip using a seemingly endless supply of Godzilla action figures.

What I like most is when niche strips like these or the others I’ve mentioned can reach beyond and be funny to me a guy who doesn’t really care too much about toys. That, to me, is what separates the good niche strips from the bad ones. Remember that if you’re trying to make a strip that’s hilarious to people who follow the world of competitive eating.

On a different note, I know it’s a sight gag as old as the hills, but someday, when I’m enjoy a beverage of some sort and someone tells me something that surprises me, I want to be like Andy in yesterday’s You’ll Have That.

Share

2 thoughts on “[Post] Why some strips about strange things don’t suck

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.