User:ZenForce

Just a comic enthusiast that also writes fiction when my brain is not a chaos of ideas, which is really strange that not happen. -- List of Reviews:
 * Antibunny
 * Darwin Carmichael is Going to Hell

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Rating Summary

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Background
Well, did you ever hear of “Boomer comics”? The ones that always complain about the actuality and the youth always is doing wrong everything, usually in one panel? If both responses are yes, then responds this: Did you believe me if I say that exist the concept of “Boomer Webcomics”? If the answer is no, I present you this webcomic.

Downfall
By looking one page of this you will understand that this never was a good concept in first place.

Story and Plot
"Syd's World is a series featuring the titular character Syd, his mischievous cat Alfie, his family, his friends, and their acquaintances doing many things in everyday life, including playing billiards, bringing up world events, having bonfires, and more." This description is the one presented in the Webtoon page of the webcomic, and there is no better way describes it. Except for two things: first, by how the most of characters talks and acts, you will thinking that this webcomic it's about of some type of hippie community; and second, that most of the "adolescent" characters are cousins of the protagonist.

Art Review
If we call this comic was made for a boomer, one of the reasons are for the art style. Definitely its looks ripped off from a cartoon of '70s or '80s, making it looking outdated and ugly. The author was hand drawing the art until May 2016, although there not much difference truly. Not only were the drawings are still stiff, but the same figure drawings were used over and over again in the same picture, with minor changes for hair and such. For me, the digital format looks like the author draws a pose and later copy paste what he need for his next drawing. Example:



That is the true mark of bad art.

Like emulating that type of cartoons, the objects tend to disappear from one frame to other. Also, the author has a denotable fetish for legs/thigh/feet, because he will use the minimum excuse to have the major quantity of characters with shorts pants/skirts and barefoot, like this or this. Even if is illogical, like this little girl wanting to go barefoot in the snow, and ends up her tight eaten by the cat.

Oh, and good luck trying to differentiate them, because almost every single character has long hair and the same face. The only ones easy to recognize are the cat, the father (since is the only character that has short hair) and these two color characters. Also, the shitty backgrounds and special effects doesnt help to get a better experience.

Conjugations
Before we talk what is written, we have to talk of HOW it was written. For start, in the comic we have two twin sisters that are French that they are apparently protagonist of other webcomic of the author: Weird Stories from Europe. Well, every time they appear, they speak some machine translated French that sounds like the Chinese Bootleg Star Wars. We take of example this panel.

This is what they are saying:

"Françoise: Je m’ennuie de jouer dans un groupe Michele. On devrait creer notre propre groupe. Vous et moi jouons de la guitare pour que nous puissions changer de rythme et de roles en function de la chanson."

"Michèle: Françoise, nous devrions former notre propre groupe ensemble parce que je veus realizer le reve de nos parents de nous avoir dans le meme groupe ensemble. Nous avons besoin de recruter un bassiste, un batteur et un canteur principal pour obtenir notre reve all-girl band va une fois mon mandate avec les fedoras est terminee. Est-ce que ca ressembe a un plan?"

This is the translation of the author:

"Francoise: I miss playing in a band, Michele. We should start our own group. You and I are guitarists so we can change the rhythm and lead depending on the song."

"Michele: Francoise, we should form our own group because I want to fulfill our parents' dream to see us play in the same band together. We need to recruit a bassist, a drummer, and a vocalist to get our dream of an all-girl band going once my tenure with the Fedoras is over. Does it sound like a plan?"

This is the actual translation of the text:

"Françoise: I'm bored (1) playing in a band, Michele. We should start our own group. Thou (2) and I are guitarists so we can change the rhythm and role (3) depending on the song."

"Michèle: Françoise, we should form our own group because I want to fulfill our parents' dream to have us play in the same band together. We need to recruit a bassist, a drummer, and a chanter to get our all-girl band (4) dream goes once my mandate with the Fedoras is over. Does it sound like a plan? (5)"

(1) "Je m'ennuie de jouer" only means "I'm miss playing" in Québec French. In France French it means "I'm bored playing"

(2) Use of singular "vous" instead of "tu" is too formal for sisters.

(3) The original meaning was "We can alternate between rhythm and lead guitarist" but it became "We can change the rhythm of song and our roles"

(4) Bassist and drummer are in the masculine form and singer has a typo

(5) French language uses space before exclamation point and question mark. And everything sound unnatural.

And this is the more accurate translation of the text:

"F: Ça me manque de jouer dans un groupe, Michèle. On devrait créer notre groupe. Nous sommes guitariste, on échangera entre rythme et solo suivant la chanson."

"M: Françoise, on va former notre propre groupe ensemble parce que je veux réaliser le rêve de nos parents d'être ensemble dans un même groupe. Nous avons besoin de recruter une bassiste, une batteuse et une chanteuse pour faire le girls band de nos rêves une fois mon contrat avec les Fedoras terminé. Ça t'a l'air d'un plan ?"

(Thanks MoebiusStrip for the translate and correction of the dialogue)

And we go on with every panel where the sisters appear. But this problem not only appear translation of one idiom to other, the English dialog also unnatural, like this one. Look at this and tell me this is not dialog that will have two cleverbots talking between them. We also have someone talking Japanese, or more like thinking, and almost certainly that also is bad conjugated too. I have the theory that the author is using an automatic translator and pasting the text without check it, but I have no proof of that.

Panels
If you look at the gallery of the author Deviantart, you will observe that this comic started like a one panel comic, like the majority of the boomer comics, but in January 4, 2021 the author changed the format and put more panels per update. What’s the problem with this? Well, he did it in horizontal format. And he published this version of the webcomic in Webtoons, where obligatorily the format has to be vertical. The result?



Cut off panels, that makes them feel incomplete. I don’t know why the author chooses this webpage to host his comic, but definitely it wasn't the best decision.

Ideologies
First of all, in some way most the events feel like it’s happening in a hippie commune. Why? Not only because almost every character has long hairs and an apparently hate for long pants, but also for the things that happen here. Some of these events: The characters replanting trees because orange man left Paris climate accord, they discuss and think about Rush Limbaugh for at least five pages, discussing about George Floyd crime, protesting about climate change (with a reference of Greta Thunberg), etcetera.

And everyone that is not part of their ideology, it will be demonized and converted in extreme assholes. Some examples are: This two color couple that is extremist Christians that they wish hell for Rush Limbaugh; or this two Fundies that they kick the cast from the beach. But being the principal cast also annoying combined with the same unnatural dialogue, this emotional blackmail doesn't work.

Author biography
Nick Granch (gretzelboy89) is US resident born the 5 of December. In almost every account he has it declares himself like a high-functioning autistic, which will explain some of his little dissimulation of his leg/tight/feet fetish in the comic, he even have a Tumblr account dedicated a ‘70s/’80s models with shorts pants/skirts. Since he created his deviantart account, he created other two webcomics: Tales of a Working Band (2011-2020) and Weird Stories from Europe (2013-2020), but since has almost the same characters from the principal comic, there’s not much difference.

His favorite’s subjects to explore in his work are politics, music and religion, among others themes. He confessed in the comments of this panel that he is catholic, demonstrating it with the description. He’s a supporter of the American Solidarity Party (ASP), a Christian SJW political party that, as what is expected, is Pro-Life. The author also use his webcomic to celebrate or protest certain events, like the International Womens Day or the Asian Lives Matter form March of this year. Good form of protest, by the way, use your characters that has the stereotypical yellow skin and that their personality is being loud, angry, ugly and looks alike is something that will appreciate the Asiatic-Americans.

Conclusion
Since I saw for the first page of this webcomic, I knew will be bad. This webcomic is not worth your time, and doesn’t have repair. If you're a tight fetishist, better look in XXX pages, it's more appealing than everything that offers this comic.

Links

 * Webcomic's Tumblr with only the 2021 comics