Krig RAWR
| Original review author: | Long Tom |
| Webcomic name: | Krig RAWR |
| Author: | Tomb Svalborg (writer) and Mirjam Löfgren (artist) |
| Start Date: | May 25, 2012 |
| End Date: | September 3, 2014 |
| Genre: | Fantasy involving dinosaurs and war. |
| Defining Flaw: | Once you get past the webcomic's ridiculous gimmick, the story is random and makes little sense. |
Rating Summary
| Art | 
The artist makes great dinosaur depictions. |
| Storyline: |
This webcomic does not even provide a backstory; we are dumped into a crazy scenario of carnivore and herbivore dinosaurs from different eras at war with one another, and somehow they talk to each other in English and have modern-day military technology. |
| Characters: |
None of the characters are even minimally developed. |
| Miscellaneous Details: |
If you come up with an oddball scenario, at least come up with a reason for its existence. But this webcomic fails to do so. |
| Overall: |
Sometimes weirdness can be amusing or clever, like in The Far Side cartoon. But this webcomic is not played for laughs; we are expected to take it all seriously. And the story itself has events happen and characters do things without explaining why they do what they do. |
Background
Several webcomics were brought up on the BWW forum, and I picked this one.
Downfall
This thing always sucked.
Story and Plot
The story begins at a small building in a combat zone where two dinosaurs are watching out a window. They have modern day combat vests, helmets, and guns, plus some furniture. Explained below the picture is the author's admission that the dinosaurs in the story are from different eras in history, such as Tawas that lived during the late Triassic period and Abrictosaurus that lived during the early Jurassic period. Next page has an enemy dinosaur sticking its face into the window but withdrawing right away. The situation is explained, the war having started five years ago, with the young dinosaur but a hatchling at the time. There is even a calendar in the room, and I cannot help but think of the Ringo Starr comedy Caveman, with the opening credits saying "One Zillion BC-October 9". Yes, this scenario is absurd when you think about it, but we're supposed to suspend disbelief and take the whole thing seriously. But to continue...
The next pages tell the story of how herbivore dinosaurs were forced to allow carnivore dinosaurs to eat a selection of their offspring, to the unhappiness of the herbivores. Unfortunately, this still does not satisfy the carnivores, and they announce they want more herbivore meat. Oops, this ends up going beyond what the herbivores were willing to tolerate. And this starts the war everyone is fighting now.
There is a commanders' conference which is discovered and attacked by the enemy, but the attack is beaten off. Unfortunately Rasa has died in the battle. Back to the present day, General Z tells his young companion to go back to his duty of watching the window.
Now comes the second chapter. This time the story covers the carnivore dinosaurs, with one dinosaur telling a story to its companion while they are guarding a gate. The first dinosaur mentions a victorious "battle of turning points", after which the gate guards are alerted by a noise, but evidently it was a false alarm, and afterward the first dinosaur continues its story. A majungasaurus is being eaten by raptors-or not? Now I see, one majungasaurus has to eat another's corpse. Carnivore rules, I presume. In any case, the general dinosaur has his underling follow him to another group of dinosaurs, and the underling finds himself murdered for food. Did he commit a crime, or was he just unlucky? But the story fails to answer this question. Back to the present, the second dinosaur is betrayed by the first one, who lets a set of other dinosaurs through the gate. Again, we do not learn the motive of the traitor dinosaur.
Never mind, the third chapter starts. This time with a tiny dinosaur, who goes to the building our heroes from the first chapter are in. As it happens, our heroes have to leave and the tiny dinosaur has to stay. So then, our heroes travel through no dino's land and meet up with some pterosaurs as ordered. So now what? It doesn't matter, due to personal problems on the part of the creators, the comic simply stops. They promise they will continue it later, but no webcomic would resume after such a long hiatus. It's as dead as a...doornail.
Art review
I could not save any pictures from the website unfortunately. Suffice it to say that the art is realistic with everything properly done and no errors, and a dark atmosphere with shading and muted coloring.
Writing review
We are supposed to accept the scenario as is. It is a world of various dinosaurs from different eras, and somehow they have modern-day weapons and clothing and talk to each other in English. This is not a parody like The Flintstones, a Stone Age scenario where the caveman inhabitants are clever enough to use various animals and primitive technology to make an approximation of modern-day society. The story has a serious tone and plays itself straight. It might have worked if we had some idea of where all those modern things came from or who made them or how the dinosaurs were able to use them, but this never comes up.
And barring that, none of the characters are developed, so we do not get to know them or why they do what they do. Why did the general dinosaur have his underling killed and eaten? Did the underling do something to displease the general, or was he sacrificed at random? And why did the one gate guard betray its companion and let the other dinosaurs in? We don't learn anything about the characters or why they acted as they did.
Author biography
The webcomic creators are Swedish, as they point out in their comments. Beyond that, one person dropped out to go to college, so the webcomic went by the wayside.
Conclusion
Willing suspension of disbelief only works up to a point. Talking dinosaurs is one thing, but this webcomic goes so far as to have them possess and use modern-day weapons and equipment, which is ridiculous by any stretch of the imagination. And even then, the story consists of random events and random characters with no explanation of who they are or why they act as they do. Beautiful art is wasted on a nonsense webcomic.
