Louder Than Bombs

Louder Than Bombs is a comic that can be inane, humourous, and even disturbing. You really take your good days with the bad days. It's our take on the world and how we take on the world all while being ourselves, being Louder Than Bombs.

Well then, let me be the first to give Mr. Fantastico and Mr. McFadyn a review.


Writing: 4/5

LTB is writing with a dark edge with a "slice of life" appeal to it. Almost like the kid who yells "f***" aloud in a classroom when the teacher announces that a test is forthcoming – You’re shocked to hear it, but its still kind of funny. What I enjoy about Fantastico’s is his ability to take things in pop culture, whether it’s the music he enjoys, or Tetris (See LTB004), and apply them metaphorically to express a personal story or turn life’s misfortunes into a laughable experience. The general end result is to shrug it off or better yet...laugh it off. From what I read, he’s taking issues of misogyny, AIDS, and more frequently, sodomy, and turning them on their ear. It’s the LTB way of saying, "Don't take life so seriously...It REALLY is just a comic". Still, you have to take the comic in the spirit in which the creators present it because yes, it’s a comic.


Artwork: 5/5

You cannot deny that Louder Than Bombs' art style goes hand-in-hand with the overall in-your-face message of the comic. I read that the artist (Chops McFadyn) has a technique for doing the art in inks, with a knife. There's even a page where they used spray paints, stencils, and a bread clip. Very creative and as rough as it looks, it’s still stylish (LTB030). As you look over their archives, you can see an evolution of their style in each page. The black and white style is excellent and McFadyn has a great grasp on shading and perspectives to fit each story they're telling page-to-page (I enjoy that rendition of Shane MacGowan in LTB026). Like the storytelling, the art has turned to a jagged feel and thus, also the rating of the comic itself, which seems to have switched from "TEEN" to "MATURE".


Overall: 4.5/5

For those looking for something deliciously offensive, while enjoying artwork that's brash with a complimentary style, this comic is definitely for you. Here at DD, the audience for shock humor is endless and LTB could very well find themselves giving people like the legendary LeFarce a run for their money. To the creators' credit, the humor comes with a layout and art style that sets a tone for the title of the comic. Everything works together and there’s no deviation from what these gentlemen are trying to do. Consistency gives you street cred in the comic world and Louder Than Bombs makes it look pretty easy.

Art/Format
I like the use of a vertical panel format with captions on the side. I think it works very well for a webcomic format. I haven't seen a comic formatted this way before, and it is a great design, so big thumbs up for that! The art is very clean and professional quality. It reminds me of editorial cartoons (just the art, not the content, which is a bit too racy for Reader's Digest) The lettering is good, and I like that sometimes he mixes it up a bit. It would be jarring for a story comic, but it works nicely for a strip, and the style is mostly consistent, so it stands out when he changes things. The lettering in some of the word balloons is a bit small and hard to read. And the lettering in later strips, while expressive, is also a bit hard to read.

In terms of personal preferences, I don't really care for the "rubber arms" on characters (as opposed to bending at joints), but I don't think this is a flaw as much as a stylistic choice. Loose movement like that seems more common in animation than in print comics, so it's a little distracting, but because it's deliberate and consistent, it doesn't take much away from the overall work.

Content
Louder Than Bombs is written like a visual journal in first person narration. The content itself is not for everyone. It mostly reminds me of a stand-up comedian's act, lamenting about the trials of dating, crazy friends, and silly gay jokes. That said, I didn't find the vast majority of the comic personally offensive. After the first couple strips (the first being a three-way joke and the second one about AIDS), I thought I wouldn't enjoy it or be entertained by it, but I was happily mistaken. Most strips got a smile out of me, mostly a combination of the diction and writing style (great pacing, excellent word choice) and the expressive art made me happy to read every strip without any urge to skim, skip, or stop. I did notice a couple small typos and grammatical errors that distracted me from the jokes, but for the most part, it's very well written.

Overall, LTB is one worth checking out is you like adult jokes. It has the essence of Comedy Central's late night uncensored stand-up comedy -- but with amusing and expressive artwork.

Writing: 10/10
Louder Than Bombs is mainly about the author and his life, narrated in first person. The humor is very adult and vulgar, sometimes with very disturbing concepts (This one definitely made my jaw drop, haha) and mature jokes. But overall, the comic is very witty and amusing. The author talks about life, love, and happiness, but with a comical appeal to it. It makes you look at life in a more humorous perspective. The author tells you a lot about himself, his friends, and his life, and you're able to relate to him while getting a cheap laugh or two. I gave the writing a 10/10 because, basically, there was nothing wrong with it critique-wise. I loved reading this comic, and it's definitely worth looking at for those who are into adult humor.

Artwork: 9.5/10
The art in the comic has a classic american cartoon style to it, which goes great with the sense of humour that comes with it. The lineart is very clean and professional-looking, and it really catches your eye despite the fact that the comics are mostly in black and white. I had to knock off a few points though, simply because some of the comics were a tad hard to read (This one, for example). Even so, I like how some of the comics are made with a variety of different media (Like here). It's something I don't see a lot of in webcomics and is very creative.

Overall, I obviously wouldn't recommend it to any kids or traditionalist-type people, but for any adult with a crude sense of humor, Louder Than Bombs is a comic worth looking into.

Artwork Is generally very good. Especially for a strip comic. It's done very professionally and I find some of the techniques used like inking with a knife quite interesting.

Humour wise it's usually quite funny. I think there were a few strips that I just didn't get at all. Mostly it's well written, humourous and interesting. It's not the funniest strip ever, but it's worth reading. There are some real gems in the archive.

Also sometimes the layout messes things up, like this I would suggest a more conventional layout.

Overall, maybe an 8 out of 10.

Thanks for all the words everyone! Our comic was up for review for a week with no one reviewing it and I got worried but I really shouldn't have been everyone gave some good constructive criticism.

I'm glad to see people that liked/didn't understand/weren't fond of it. We'll continue to work on comics and evolve along the way. Because without evolution of art and writing, we'd be nothing.

We'd be Ctrl+Alt+Delete!

Ba-Zing!

Lemmie take a crack at it.

Writing
It looks like a real webcomic a friend of mine would try and get me to read, like CtrAltDel or something like that. It's "the other side of life" as if someone were watching over his own life and narrating the things that happen to him. It's satirical humor is well thought up and the dialogue moves the stories brilliantly.

Artwork/Style
While still a little immature, the artist makes a lot out of a little, the page is better than the sum of it's parts so to speak. Some of the lines may be a little irregular but not so much to deviate from the tone of the story. This is the kind of comic that would look much better in color, the all white backgrounds can make it look a little plain.

Overall 8/10
Hope my review helped.

Well...
I've checked your comic...

It's pretty good!!!
I've never really seen diary-style comic here...(maybe I'm just too lazy to ckeck it out)
Your drawing is pretty good.In my point of veiw,good drawing is drawing that don't distract people from reading it.You might think that's impossible,But yes,I did seen few comic with worst drawing I've ever seen but it's pretty popular.
Not you of course.Your drawing feel pretty childish but that can be a concept I guess.To be honest,I've passed your comic few times before but didn't really clicked it because I was little busy with my comic.But now I think iI should read other's comic...

The story,If there is one,Is pretty weird to me.It contain a lot of sexuality...
Hmmm....
It's not my style.But except that,It's better to keep on writing this honestly