Freaks N Squeaks
Original review author: | ZenForce in October 2024 |
Webcomic name: | Freaks N Squeaks |
Author: | Patric Lewandowski, AKA The Marvelous Patric. |
Start Date: | Oct, 1, 2002 |
End Date: | Ongoing |
Genre: | Gag-a-day, Slice of life, Furry. |
Defining Flaw: | The character design. Is simply awful, no matter what angle you look it. |
Rating Summary
Background
Wow, just wow. I never, in my life, found out something that instantly attract my eyes to a comic page, in a really, really bad way. Like, I was fast scrolling in r/comics, looking for something interesting, until a wild random page of this comic appears and makes me stop dead, and scroll back to assure what the heck I just saw. Oh, but when I started to enter to this rabbit hole, then I realized about the art is not the only thing that is bad. You've been warned.
Downfall
From page 18 to the first page of the 8th year are the first bad indicator of the comic's intentions. More details later in the review.
Story and Plot
This is basically a slice-of-life about teenager mice living in a human kid's bedroom, with a "little" touch of pop culture and politics. The comic's character list is gigantic, with hundreds of characters, very "The Simpsons" approach about it (I’m not the one defining it like this, is the author that uses the comparison). But the ones we care... Well, we supposed to care, are:
Ginny: One of the main co-protagonists, she is the nerdy, social awkward girl with a very cynical view to the world. Basically, she is Daria, but a little more insecure. She is Janie's big sister, Schmoikel's Girlfriend and Janis's best friend.
Janis: The other co-protagonist of the comic. She is a punky girl, and she looks like the equivalent of Mary Jane Lane, you know, to complete the clone of the Daria duo, but not more far from reality. She is just as cynical as Jane, but she also is more energetic, violent and little more...promiscuous than her.
Al: A 4th grader that is basically the stereotypical kid genius that has a secret lab, and hangs out with the principal duo and Janie. He's usually one of the sources of the problems of the episodes.
Schmoikel: A chill, semi-religious guy, proud believer of Schrewish, which I believe is the mice-ish equivalent of Judaism, and taking into account his appearance and the fact he is from a rich family... eeechhh. He is usually the victim of the consequences of shenanigans of his friend, Chuck. He is Ginny's boyfriend and has a sister called Zipporah.
Chuck: He's the stereotypical loser that will do ANYTHING to become the popular kid of the high school, of course failing epically in the way. He is very egocentric, will not do any favor for his friends unless he believes it will helps in his objective, and will abuse from the generosity of the same every time, especially from best friend, Schmoikel.
Janie: Being Ginny's little sister, she is basically what you expect from a little sister: annoying, loud, impatient, you know the basics. She usually hangs out with Al and Britney, a girl that her personality is say "I don't care" to everything that doesn't concern her, even when she should concern.
Pierre: A stereotypical French mouse that apparently was a human's pet at some point. He is love with Janis, even though the age difference. He's an ex-game shop employee and now an sensei of a dojo. He has an imaginary friend that everyone can see.
Ted: The above-mentioned imaginary friend. He's basically the biggest asshole of the entire comic. He will search any opportunity to mock and hurt everyone that he met, especially focused on Pierre. He's the manager of the game shop where Pierre was fired and also has a dojo just to fuck him up.
Years 1 to 7
Before delving deeper into the review, I have to talk about a topic that will affect the next two sections. Imagine the following: You are a new reader of the comic, so you decide to press the "First" button and start reading normally, until you notice that is missing a page between the 16th and 18th page. It was strange, but you shrug it out and decide to continue reading. Then you see that the story of Al being contacted by the CIA is suddenly ended abruptly and starts a story about Ginny going to ballet classes. That was a mayor anomaly, so you decide to see the number of the pages and press the Previous button, like this you discover the comic jumps from page 18 to page 82. That was a major problem, but you decide to continue a little more to see if this repeats, three more clicks and- Yup, the comic jumps from page 85 to... PAGE 1647?!!! "This can't be real" you probably think, so you decide to enter the archive link to see if it is maybe a bug of the site or something, and you discover that part of the comic is paywalled. How would you feel?
Okay, let's not think badly of this situation. Maybe is just the site bug out, and author lost the digital backups of pages, but since it has physical books, the author decided to photocopy the ones he has and sell it to their loyal fans to preserve them, not? Well, no. Not only the link, but also the item title and description of the shop describe the book like physical and E-BOOKS. Yeah, a digital book, a PDF, that means that Patric definitely has a digital backup, and he can repost them any time he wants, but he chooses not. Sincerely, I believe that there is two ways to see this:
- The author does not have the enough programming knowledge, is too lazy to replace it himself or too cheap to contract another people to repair it from him and concluded that the easiest way to solve this is to sell the PDFs.
- The author deleted the pages purposely to make the E-books more desired and increase the sales, and he left some pages behind or because he didn't realize it, or for makes it look like bug of the site and excuse himself.
And sincerely, I more inclined to believe the second option, since is not the first time I see this happens. Only see Oddity Woods and Neokosmos, they did the wiping without problem or care, and it don’t feel right. I mean, I know he is the author, and the authors have the right to do with their work whatever they want; but if you take of a product that was free for everyone, then stick a price tag on it and sell it to the public that was enjoy it before… I will call it a dick move. Also, the prices are misdealing. In the links the prices are $7.00 and $2.50, but entering in the store all books are $10 each or $15 for both paper and digital. Patric is so lazy that even don't even update the prices in the links. And it looks like from year 6 and 7 are lost media, since the links in the archive of the former is dead and the last... Well, the last it doesn't have a link, is only text. Anyways, since I can't access those pages, it will limit the scope of both the art and writing sections, but I will work what I have.
Note: While I was writing the review, I discovered that from page 2267 to page 2270 are also missing, so more work for lovers of lost media I guess.
Art Review
What I can say that you can’t see and figure out for yourself. Well, two things actually. First, although the art looks really bad, the author has been improving with the time. The first years are the worst ones, since is drawn in a black and white shaky art line, very similar Ed, Edd and Eddy's style but static; inconsistent proportions, little to zero backgrounds or furniture, black dot eyes, stick arms and tails, side mouths, you name it. And if already looks bad in black and white, I won't tell you when is in color. It looks like the author decided to draw these pages lineless, and it looks like he wasn't very good with the watercolor tool.
From year 13 (April 29, 2016), the art style gets straighter, he changed from black dot eyes to white dot eyes (which makes them more... Crazy looking? Soulless? Something that makes them creepier), their limbs and tails stopped being stickman, but conserved their black color, and the backgrounds are more detailed. But there still problems with the characters proportions, the hair of some females has a really strange texture, all the objects that the main characters interact are basically rectangles and squares, and sometimes it looks like Patric forgot to end the backgrounds.
Year 15 (May 19, 2016) I call it "The Sketch Year", because that is what happens here, which makes looks like Patric got lazy, hell, you sometimes can see the head circle of the characters. There not much change from previous style, except their noses are longer; their eye strokes make them look goofier; and that the artist increased Janis's tits size (or at least is what looks like). In Year 16 comes back to the year 13's style.
Mid year 18 (Jun 29, 2020) goes to the "Binary Color Phase", that is basically in colors, but only two colors, one for the background and background objects, and one for the characters and the objects they interact. Have the same style and problems from year 13. Here is where Patric started to use copypaste.
In year 19 (Sep 8, 2021) goes full color, and like before, is has the same style and problems form year 13, nothing more is different. Well, I lie, for some pages the author tried to give the characters more humanoid eyes, but that change is reverted to the black dot eyes around year 21 (Jul 10, 2023, page 2263).
So, like you see, Patric really improves with the time. But sincerely, since he was drawing for over two decades, by force you will get better in your art. And man, sorry if break your illusion, but your character design sucks from the base, there is no way to improve it. Although, this opens the door to the second thing I referenced before: That I believe that the art is so ugly on purpose. I say looking in the archive that apparently the year 10 was posted on a site called Ugly Comics (although the link is basically dead, so there no way to confirm it). So at least the author is self-aware of his drawing skills, so I have no reason to complain about it, not? Well, no. I will tell a secret that may you don't know: When you draw badly on purpose, it shows. Any person, even the ones that consume art just casually, can denote when an artist draw a bad drawing because he/she wants it, from an artist that draw a bad drawing because wants to try something REALLY off-limit of their current skills, and Patric definitely enters in the second category. So this self-awareness is more likely an excuse to use it like a shield from criticism, so I still have a point here.
Writing Review
Let's go with seeing how the comic stars. The first "episode" introduces us to Ginny talking with Janis about wanting to have a boyfriend, then suddenly a guy called Ed appears ask for a date, but she doesn't want it because he is basically braindead, proven by the fact of his idea of first date is eating cheese from a rat trap. So she tries to reject him kindly, but still broke his heart, so to fix the things she asks Janis to talk to him. But before she starts to tell him, her stomach roar, the guy tries to reach the cheese from the rat trap he was sitting and... Yeah, is heavily implied that guy died there, and Janis just pretends that this has not happened, tells Ginny she solved the problem and offers the trap-guy's cheese. Welp, we started really well. A great way to start getting attached to the principal duo, don'tcha?
Next, we have the comedy. The description of the comic in the home site starts like this:
So let's see the satire in pop culture first. The idea of Patric for satire in this headland is, at best, just a reference just for the sake of reference, and at worst, a mockery to the franchise and/or fans of the same. Some examples of this are: Emil, the new guy of Al's classroom and nemesis of the same, looks and acts like a generic James Bond's villain (that here between us, I really doubt his age is less than 18 years); Jesus Christ working like a mall Santa Claus, that around the year he was introduced (2016), Jesus like a character was increasingly common in the dark humor scenario, so this is not even novel or scandalous; Santa like Jabba the Hut, just to make a fat joke; Al using Doctor Who's sonic screwdriver; references to the MCU, multiple of them actually; toys of He-Man scattered randomly around the scenario to remember you that all of this happens in a kid's room; etc. Most of the jokes are very insipid to the core; they are not funny at all.
Continuing with politic satire side... Look, I'm not NorthAmerican, I never put a foot in USA, my native language is Spanish, and since my country doesn't border that country, I don't even care about politics or the problems from that country. So, it will be a surprise to you when I say that I don't find the comic funny, clever or even offensive, but not because I don't understand the context (because is so basic that a little kid would understand), is simply the satire is not well structured. The two best examples that represent this problem are the introduction of Ronald Blump and The Campaign Part 2 saga.
First we have Ronald Blump, and if you haven't realized it, is parody of Donald Trump. He is basically introduced in the "episode" where a friend of Ginny enters in a beauty contest where the aforementioned is the judge, and from there we are shown how egocentric, stupid, pervert, racist, shameless, classist he is, and later the principal duo complains about that pageant. And I don't say that I don't believe he is everything the comic described him, I'm saying that none of the pages has a punchline, and if has one, then is a really bad one. Hell, Patric hates him so much that literally the next saga he was introduced again going to their school, and in the ending of that year, is revealed that he is actually a sentient potato. This is supposed to be funny?
Then we have The Campaign saga, where Janis decides to enter as a candidate for president of the school's student council, just because she wants to beat the actual, unopposed candidate: a really narcissist and rich guy called Tad. In the second part of this saga, the guy decided to do a defamation ad where he accuses her of being Islamic and part of Al-Qaeda. This joke is so tasteless, that I don't believe that the author thought it more than five minutes before start to draw it.
Besides that, it's not like world itself makes sense anyways. Emil is supposed to be from a foreign country but think it for a moment: This isn't a world where humans are represented like anthro rats, this is a world where anthropomorphic rats, of size of actual rats, that lives inside of human's houses. So what exactly the rats in this world consider it to be a country? Another room? Another house? Another neighborhood? Another city/town? The comic never clarifies it and will never clarify it. Also, technically the duo died a time ago. Yeah, at the ending of year 13, the previously referenced Emil's mecha falls over on Ginny and Janis, and we jump to a funeral, then in the next year they reappear again without a scratch. What the hell h- Wait a minute... 1804, 1802... God dammit! Another missing page! Patric, your site is a piece of shit, just like your ability to name characters. Why the hell you named the sister of one of the co-protagonists so similar to the other co-protagonist? You know how many times I mixed up the names while I'm writing this?
Author Biography
There is not much information of Patric Lewandowski, but according to his YouTube channel, besides being an artist, he is also a standup comedian, participated in a Kickstarter of a medical non lucrative organization that looks like they treat mental problems and stress (though for me looks more like a sect), he likes He-Man toys, and has another comic: Anna's Adventure.
In his Indiegogo campaign (where he asked money to get another computer) he says that he worked for a now dead site called Graphicsmash, claiming he had other three comics called The Twisting, Aces High and Fun Factory, the last one had another Indiegogo campaing, but its dead. Here also claims that have a day job in a place called Media Institute that had another Indiegogo that also is dead. How many strange things happen when he is involucrate in crowdfunding, no? Besides that, in his Instagram and Twitter descriptions describe FnS like a "very funny mature audiences comic strip".
Conclusion
So, what we have here? A comic that tries to be satire but falls plain in every aspect, with an art style so horrible that you are incapable to ignore it, from an artist that believes he create "funny and mature" art, with a past of friendship with a questionable valid medical treatment ONG and some deleted crowdfunding's. You do not need to be genius to guess that I don't recommend this comic, especially from someone that worked over 20 years drawing and this is the result:
Links
- The comic's site
- The comic in Webtoon, This version only has 8 pages, and it was quickly abandoned in January 2021, in less than a month.
- Anna's Adventure in Webtoon. I really doubt he drawn this comic.
- The author's Facebook
- The author's Instagram
- The author's Twitter
- The author's Pinterest
- The author's YouTube channel
- The author's podcast in the Apple store... Of course he is an Apple worshipper, these types of people always consume the same stuff.