Devilbear

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Background


Never has reading a mere one hundred and eighty pages been such a task for me. Usually, I breeze through comics of this length regardless of quality. And yet, this trip into the magical fantasy land called Devilbear I spent with my head out of the window, vomiting at the bad puns and rolling my eyes at the attempts at drama.

Downfall
I actually found the first chapter to be the most repulsive. Please don't misinterpret this comment as some sort of an allusion that this comic shows improvement later.

Story and Plot


The story is awful. The basic plot is about some alternate version of hell reserved solely for plush animals (brilliant premise) that is ruled by a stuffed bear named Bearalzebub (fuck you) and his collection of prostitutes, each meant to represent one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but in reality, they each loosely represent some sexual fantasy or fetish. Bearalzebub spends the first chapter or two brutally torturing unlicensed versions of lovable childrens' cartoon characters, then the next few chapters introducing and gathering more girls for his harem of red skinned whores (not racist; they actually have red skin), and from then on, the plot descends into a mind-numbingly boring story about the tragic and dramatic past of Bearalzebub. These are the only three flavors this comic's chapters come in, and each one of them is repulsive in their own way.

The first part is simply horrible. So "Whinnie the Pooh" has been changed into "Whinnie the Pimp" and Piglet is now his transvestite whore. How exactly is this supposed to be funny? I don't know. Anyway, Pooh then dies and goes to Hell and gets tortured. You would think that this being done to a teddy bear would make it less unpleasant to watch, but it doesn't! This recurring theme where cute animal things get ripped to shreds while screaming in agony and begging for mercy is completely revolting. The fact the comic's writer fails to see this makes me think that he must get off to it or something.

Then there are the chapters that revolve around introducing another shallow fetish target to Bearalzebub's brothel. These are nothing but reasons to add more cheesecake to the story, not that the rest of the comic doesn't have enough of that already. Barely-clothed women seem to be a staple of this comic. The plot either revolves around them or conveniently finds a way to redirect itself to whatever will lead to the most girls taking off the biggest amount of clothes in the shortest amount of time.

Finally, there are the story chapters. The comic has some ongoing plot about Bearalzebub leaving a group of unfunny "Care Bear" parodies for the sake of his love interest. Then she goes kill crazy, he freezes her in ice and goes on to seek justice by running Hell and punishing sinners. Yes, I am serious. Not for a moment is creator Ben Bourbon bothered by the thought that no one could possibly care or relate to this story, that the tragic character that is Bearalzebub is laughable due to the fact he is a fucking stuffed bear, or that this is made worse by the fact said bear has no personality.

Art review


There is one thing that pisses me off beyond anything when it comes to art. I call it "Same Face Syndrome". As the name would imply, it is characterized by all the characters having essentially the same face with only the hair and other minor details to set characters apart from one another. This phenomenon is as infuriating to me as it is common, and although it is more typically seen in web mangas, western style comics are often guilty of this as well. This webcomic disease, like diabetes, comes in two forms. The first is when ALL of the characters look the same. This shows laziness and no respect for your reading public. The second one is when only the FEMALE characters look the same. This on the other hand shows that the writer has no respect for women. Men are allowed to be ugly and imperfect, but every girl is an impossibly curvaceous babe with a perfect face and body. The only girls who are allowed to stray from the artists ideal of beauty are hideous fat girls who only appear in the comic to be demonized or made fun of for their looks. L.I.C.D is most guilty of this, but this comic is a fine example as well.

As I was saying, all of the female characters look exactly the same. You would think that the one that represents the sin of gluttony would be obese, but no, she is slim and sexy. You might think the same about the personification of the sin of sloth, and it seems that Ben Bourbon would agree... sort of. There is a short bit in the comic where the sloth girl has trouble squeezing into her pants because she has grown a bit of a beer belly. A beer belly that magically disappears the moment that segment is over, because God forbid if consistency or appropriate character design should get in the way of her next pin up shot. So the "divas", as they are called, are less representations of the Seven Deadly Sins (original idea there, buddy!) and more a collection of common themes in fap art. Just off the top of my head, I can recall the following examples from the comic: naked apron, S&M, cute girl in T-shirt and panties, sexy business women, gratuitous sauna scene, twincest, and so on. But what does this have to do with bad art? Well, other than being morally deplorable, not much. The art is rather pleasing to the dick eye. It's a bit lacking in detail, but nothing too horrible, although it is funny the way that some characters are SO curvaceous that, in some panels, the artist just goes overboard and draws anatomically impossible big tits and asses. Sometimes, the ass just seems to almost detach itself from the body as the girl's hips virtually dislocate themselves in an attempt to be even more sexy.



Other than that, there is not much to say about the art. It's bland and insipid. In an attempt to incorporate every popular genre into this comic, and fail at all of them, Ben Bourbon also treats his readers to some insanely confusing fight scenes. Furthermore, this comic is a classic example of "The Cute And Cuddly Cast" sin. Just like in "Jack", the art does not fit the subject matter in the slightest. The plot often focuses on death, torture, and drama, and yet, any character that is not a super model is a child's toy. How in fuck's name am I supposed to take any of this seriously with an art style that makes it look as if the animators of Dora The Explorer were called upon to draw a porno?

Writing review


This comic is to story writing what dipping your entire arm into a vat of boiling oil is to cooking. Let's ignore the numerous plot holes and get to the characters. Despite being the main character, Bearalzebub is by far the most lacking in personality. While the other girls at least provide you with something to jerk off to, Bearalzebub only exists as a sad excuse for this comic to have a plot in the first place. He never does anything but scowl at things. He has a tragic past that leads the plot along, but the only purpose of the plot is to give excuses for the already mostly naked girls to get even more naked, like in one part where the two incestuous twins are fighting a third sexy girl for their lives (she might as well be their twin as well since they all look so similar) and decide that the best fighting strategy would be to first take off their pants. Fucking brilliant! Sun Tzu should have dedicated a whole chapter to "take your pants off" in The Art of War.



Then there's the humor. My God is it unfunny. The comic tries to mix some comedy into this mess, but the only jokes all very bad puns. That's it. Just puns. We are treated to pun after pun after pun with no humor in sight. For example, one of the girls names is "Lucy Fur". Ha ha, I guess? You see, this is in no way a joke. It doesn't even make sense. Lucifer was a man and "Lucy Fur" is a woman who doesn't even wear any fucking fur (or much of anything else for that matter). Ben Bourbon seems to be one of those people who do not understand that a pun is sometimes funny when it is the punchline of a joke. It can't just be the joke itself. Oh wait! there is one more kind of joke he is good at! Tacky, unfunny bullshit! Like the Care Bear replicas doing their "Care Bear Stare" by farting, or a dog with three asses. Hi-larious.

More than anything, this comic suffers from obviously being written on the fly. The author starts off trying to write a comedy, then mid-way, decides that he wants a serious story instead, despite the fact the charters are all wrong for it. The plot slowly gets more convoluted as he comes up with more ideas as he is writing. Some parts that are supposed to be long and suspenseful instead feel rushed and dull because he forgets that while it took him and the people waiting for updates weeks to finish those segments, anyone reading the archives will click past them in a matter of seconds. In another part of the plot, some character is introduced and tries to kill Bearalzebub. Her tragic story is exposed and soon after, she is killed without having contributed anything substantial to the plot. I'M SORRY! MY MISTAKE! SHE WASN'T DEAD! She came back, tried to kill Bearalzebub again, AND WAS ONCE AGAIN KILLED AFTER HAVING CONTRIBUTED NOTHING SUBSTANTIAL TO THE PLOT! ON THE VERY SAME PAGE!

So, essentially, this comic is like a beginner's guide to hack writing.

Author biography
There isn't much for me to write in this section. Unlike other webcomic artists, Ben Bourbon doesn't reveal much about himself. These is no "author biography" page (I doubt he would have any credentials to site if there was one), no fan forum (again, if there was, I doubt it would be very active), or FAQ, or anything of that sort. Maybe that's for the best. Many webcomic authors embarrass themselves or reveal themselves to be complete morons as soon as they try to interact with their fans, and judging solely by the material that this man produces, I can make the educated guess that he is probably just as big of a sick fuck as any of them.

The only thing he does expose about himself are some minor details in an interview to which he posted a link on his "buzz" page. In it, he says that he puts a lot of effort into making the comic, even hanging storyboards on the wall and constantly writing and re-writing the comic as if he were working on a movie. It's a shame to see that this man puts in so much more effort than most webcomic artists, and yet THIS is the final result.

Conclusion
There are a lot of things wrong with this comic. It's dull, it's cliché, it's unoriginal, it's perverted, it's poorly colored, it's tacky... I could go on and on like this... and I think I will! It's also sexist, poorly written, plagiaristic, offensive, repulsive, and stupid. The men have no personalities, the women all have the same face and no personalities, the drama isn't dramatic, the humor isn't funny, the suspense isn't suspenseful, the action isn't exciting... this comic only ventures out of the land of mind-numbing mediocrity to travel to the nearby town of utter shit.

Do yourself a favor and don't read it.

Links
The comic