That's Comical

A series of comics that both Giveth and Taketh away. It began as comics for friends but since then it has grown to be a weekly love affair of paper and pencil.

I am not a huge fan of comedy strips, they all to often fall flat on their faces due to poor comedy and it becomes a chore to run through them.

With that out of the way I shall get the review underway.

The Art.
Weak, fortunately this is all about the comedy so it isn't a huge factor but it could certainly do with being more visually appealing. That said most of the time it is easy to follow and you can tell what is going on. The art does the job perfectly well it just lacks flair.

The Writing.
It is a little hit and miss but rarely does it fail completely, I found some of the crude ones to be the stronger ones, perhaps that is just me though. I also like the fact that it is very random. It also gets better as it progresses.

A fail.
http://www.drunkduck.com/Thats_Comical/index.php?p=692707

I see what he was aiming for but it just isn't funny.

This however made me chuckle, in fact I like most of the mario pisstakes.
http://www.drunkduck.com/Thats_Comical/index.php?p=631845

Overall.
initially visually unappealing it does get better but the gags hit a bit more than miss and many appeal to my sense of humour.I did wonder if the occasional gag may be offensive more than funny but I can laugh at anything so I am not the best person to judge it on that. It is hard to dislike once you get past the initially unappealing visuals.

4/5

This made me chuckle.
http://www.drunkduck.com/Thats_Comical/index.php?p=693120

At first glance, this strip looks crappy, no doubt about it!
Hand drawn text, often drawn on lined paper, it just looks crappy.

But once you get passed that, the jokes are really really strong.
I initially thought the pages were badly sized. In fact they are PERFECTLY sized. Often you have to scroll to the side to see the punchline, a really brilliant use of the format to keep the reader guessing.

The humour is sharp, imaginative and really amuses me.

I will go on record and say that as of right now, this is the funniest strip I have seen that is updating on DD at the moment.

If you dont have it favourited, you should have. It is an easy on to dismiss but a real treat for people who give it a chance.

A rare comedy gem in a sea of unfunny comics!

That's comical is a funny comic, even though the art lacks detail and can look quite childish at times. Everything that is important within the strips is easily recognisable. The way each important object is drawn in a different color is in my opinion a good way to make it stand out among other similarly drawn comics.
The way the art is made has been quite consistent since the start of the comic and has always looked like something created while being bored during classes. Even the lined paper that is usually used at school is still being used for some of the comics. This comic isn't drawn poorly but it looks lke Erad hasn't put too many thought in the way it looks, drawing it digitally, or just using little more time to clean it up could benefit the comic greatly.
The hand drawn text is easily readable by the way.

Even though the art could be better I am a huge fan of the constant stream of jokes, of which many hit their mark. The best thing about the jokes isn't the punchline but to me it usually is the setting in which it was placed. Examples of unexpected locations and unexpected characters are these:
Food Fight
Did I lock the door?
You're not invited

The penis jokes that return every now and then are funny, and even though most of them are rather standard they still make me chuckle. I recommend thinking outside the box a bit more.

Bigger themes like racism and religion are made fun of regularly, something I can only encourage. It might be wise to concider what it is exactly that you are making fun of, some more narrow minded people could be offended and you might scare people away. That's just my opinion though.

In short, I believe some more attention should be put into the art, even though the jokes carry the comic pretty far it could be visually more attactive, comics are, after all, a visual medium.

"That's Comical" is a comic strip written and drawn by an artist going by the moniker of Erad. It has no set update schedule, but it still updates on a fairly frequent basis. Its format is that of a gag-a-day set-up. In other words, a joke is built up and then executed over a small group of panels and there is almost no continuity from one strip to the next. There are no regularly appearing characters or central themes. "Thats Comical" is only interested in delivering gags without any other storytelling baggage. As result, one's enjoyment of the strip is entirely dependent on the execution of these gags.

By my standards, this is just fine. Erad is a very good gag cartoonist. Some of his strips are hilarious, many of them are good, few are mediocre, and there are almost no clunkers. His pacing is top notch and his ideas are inventive. Not many of his jokes are telegraphed before they're intended to be.

The construction of the strip itself is well done as well. Hark praised how Erad requires the reader to scroll over to the punchline, and I also believe that this is a good method for delivering the strips. The panels themselves are punchy and easy to follow. They don't dump excessive exposition on the reader, nor do they give one too little information. It is no issue at all going through the prodigious archive of "That's Comical".

Like most of the previous reviewers, my main criticisms lie in Erad's art and lettering. Crappy lettering can ruin an otherwise good comic. Erad's hand lettering is legible, but it isn't anything more than that. I would recommend that he either clean up his penmanship or employ an appropriate digital font for his dialogue.

I'll admit that boning up his artistic skills is probably less important than others would make it out to be. Most gag-a-day strips you see in the internet have little to no draftsmanship in their artwork. And, well, the truth is that they don't really need all that much. One can have stickmen deliver punch lines and still have the jokes be effective. It's not like Erad is composing an elaborate narrative to rival Proust or Tolstoy.

At the same time, it's not a terrible idea for a gag cartoon to have better production values. One of the best gag webcomics on the net was "The Perry Bible Fellowship". (Which Erad cites as an important influence on That's Comical) PBF had many examples of terrific cartooning during it's much too brief run. The artwork, which consistently grew in quality with each passing strip, enhanced the gags while bringing in more readers. It was an integral aspect to the strip's success.

Just because you can get away with crude art doesn't mean that you should. At the very least Erad should put some effort into keeping his layouts from looking so messy. A gag cartoon like drunkduck's own "Last Place Comics" doesn't exactly have eye-popping artwork. But, it is cleanly rendered and accomplishes what it sets out to do. There's no reason why "That's Comical" can't do the same thing.

Overall, "That's Comical" is a very entertaining gag strip that is easy to get hooked into. Sprucing up the art and especially the lettering can turn it from a very good comic strip into a great one.

This is my first review so let's how this goes.

Art. 2/5
Definite hit and miss. i really didn't care for it much until i got to the potato and the carrot (matrix). If they were all drawn that good and with no notebook lines the strip would be much more visually appealing. I think it could also benefit from the use of a ruler with the hand written text.

Writing 3/5
Really hit and miss. The only difference is when it misses I don't feel like I waste my time but when it hits, it is hilarious. I know the written text should not effect my opinion of the writing but i can't help to be swayed in a negative direction by it. If you have to hand write it, write it neater and straight.

subject matter 4/5
I love the randomness (if that's a word,well i didn't get a red squiggly line under it so it must be) of the subjects. The first one that literally made me "LOL" was the toilets but i am a sucker for crude humor. Another example was the potato and carrot "matrix" strip whil eit didn't make me laugh, I liked it a lot.

Overall
3/5
To sum this up I would definitely read this on a consistent basis. I like humor and while to me the misses come more often than the hits, the quality of the hits outweighs the misses (if that makes any sense)