Shayla the Pink Mouse
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Someone (either the creator or the hosting service) pulled the plug on this webcomic. The links in this review are dead. If you want to see more of this webcomic for some insane reason, the Wayback Machine is your best bet. And even that's a long shot. | 
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CODE YELLOW: CHEESECAKE
(MODERATE NSFW WARNING)
The following comic desperately wants to be porn without actually being porn. Contains more fanservice and fetish fuel than any actual sex, usually patterned off of bad harem comedy anime. It may not even have full nudity (at most may contain exposed boobs), but your teacher/parents/coworkers will surely give you some odd glances if they catch you seeing this. View with caution. |
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| Original review author: | The Luigiian |
| Webcomic name: | |
| Author: | Shane Nelson |
| Start Date: | March 2004 |
| Things that are fucking terrible about this webcomic: | Artist can't spell, artist can't write, artist can't do speech bubbles correctly. |
| Genre: | Furry Fetish |
| Things that aren't terrible but could use improvement: | FURRIES, PLEASE STOP DRAWING YOUR TWO-LEGGED CHARACTERS WITH DIGITIGRADE FEET. I will explain why in the review. |
Rating Summary
| Art: | 
It has its moments, but the characters look rigid and uncomfortable most of the time. The artist has since improved somewhat. |
| Storyline: |
What you expect from a porno. Judging it in comparison to other pornography pieces, it's not the worst. |
| Characters: |
For a porno, they can be moderately lively at times and not entirely unlikable. For a pure porno only, though. |
| Miscellaneous Details: |
For a furry porno, not really that horrific. But dammit, the spelling and text bubble construction drive me nuts. |
| Overall: |
Shayla's decent as furry porn, but that doesn't excuse it from simple mistakes in spelling and speech bubble construction. This comic is a key example of how not to construct text bubbles, anthropomorphic anatomy, and many other things. |
Background
Nobody gives a shit if you draw furry porn. If you're just drawing straight-up dog-sex with seven dildos or whatever, most people will just ignore you and move on with their lives, others will bitch about it, and others will masturbate furiously to it. It, like most Internet fetishes, could almost be considered a rather easygoing sort of uniquely stupid "Internet thing," if it weren't for the fact that many furries find it necessary to scream and piss and moan like children when anybody dares attack them. That's probably why nobody who's not a furry has ever heard of Shayla the Pink Mouse. It's just furry porn, drawn by a tame, easygoing artist. Pretty much tame furry porn, believe it or not, or at least as tame as you can get for the Internet.
It's also decently drawn (for furry porn), has some all right characterization (for porn of any kind), and let us not forget that its creator is not a complete douchebag. But that doesn't excuse the comic's glaring foibles.
Downfall
This comic fails in its word bubble construction. The particular disease it suffers from started here, and is featured copiously throughout the comic. If you can't figure it out, let me explain: You know those little triangular-looking things that come out of word bubbles in a comic strip? Yeah, those. They point to what's talking. If you point them at a character's crotch, it means that the crotch is talking to me. Yeah, I know. Creepy.
Or maybe Nelson intends for his Mary Sue-ish Shayla to be talking out her vag. I don't know. I frankly don't want to know. Perhaps, as a Native American, she is one of a rare breed of super-powered Vagina Talkers. That might also explain why she can walk on her paw pads, in that peculiar breed of bipedal motion, known only to furries and zoologists, that is referred to as "digitigrade". I don't know the answer to all of that either. But I do know that, if a guy's trying to jack it to some flat-as-a-board mouse girl, little details irritate. They take away boners. I am angered at this flagrant display of disregard towards a man's boner. And thus you get your ass straight into Bad Webcomics Third Circle of Hell, intended for those poor perverted souls that just can't cut the mustard when it comes to porn.
Author biography
Shane Nelson's name strikes your ear like a thudding hammer. It's a workingman-like name, made partly from a Full Nelson and partly from Shanda the Panda, which could explain the whole tough character+furry porn connection. This strength shows in his Wikifur and FurAffinity accounts, which are devoid of bitching and whining. The guy just generally seems easygoing, which is unusual from furries in most cases.
His (or her, I can't tell) FurAffinity artist profile reads simply "I'm one of those people who not only knows they are going to hell, but is OK with it as well." Good to know. I applaud Nelson for at least not being an obnoxious little bitch.
Art review
All right. The art. Well, the art is OK. I know, Shayla looks creepy as unholy hell, and so do all the other characters. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why not many pornographers use furries as their primary characters. For furries to be anatomically correct and to look realistic, it is necessary that they look disturbing and alien. This comic clearly illustrates this.
In spite of its limitations, Nelson's work is decent and does not completely fail as well-drawn work. Nevertheless, I can still find some good examples of some bad work. Here, Mr. Nelson simply Photoshop filters what appears to be an actual picture of a Ford Mustang into black and white. (Couldn't just draw it yourself, sir?) Here, we find porn lifted directly from Google Image Search, a distinctly Buckleyan move that reeks of amateurism. It is especially amateur considering that your characters are anthropomorphs, and the torsos depicted are clearly human. No, I'm not believing that your characters are actually anti-furries, a group that lives in the furry universe and dresses up in human costumes in flagrant disregard of the social mores of their societies. I think you're just being a lazy fuck. You're clearly better than that shit. Here, we find some of the most blatant copy-paste work I've ever seen. The mother and background are recycled in every image; only Shayla and some mouth movements change. This would be fine in an animated piece, but in this context it's obvious and looks absolutely atrocious. I mean, you're doing furry porn, here, Nelson! It looks bad enough as it is without this copy-paste bullshit. Finally, we find situations where the characters look more like statues than living creatures. Yeah, when a girl is pushing a guy to the floor, she kinda has to look like she's got some motion in her step, Nelson.
Oh yeah, and then there's the digitigrade feet.
LISTEN UP FURRIES:
Your silly little excuses regarding your artwork do not hold water. Yes, I know there aren't really anthropomorphs; I don't care. A bipedal creature can have a tail. It can look like a dog. It can have pointy ears atop its head. None of that shit is out of the reach of evolution to create.
However, no bipedal creature could ever walk solely on the toes of its feet. They would be forced to carry so much weight that the creature would be hobbled within months. Same thing with your unguligrade horses. This is due to the pounds per square inch load capacity on each foot. A quadruped creature can be digitigrade, because it has four feet. Cut that in half and you effectively double the weight load per foot. It doesn't make sense from a bio-engineering sense, and could not conceivably work in the real world without some massive fucking modifications to an animal's internal bone structure, not limited to, but probably including reducing bone size and weight, changing the shape of an animal's spine, and much more. Just put them on the balls of their feet already. It's stupid.
Spare me your obnoxious bitching.
Writing review
OK. For the purposes of this review, we're going to pretend there's only one character, Shayla, and the rest of the creatures in this comic are no different than a common dog. That's because there's only one character that I can remember in any meaningful way, that has any kind of real unique voice or personality. The rest of these things-the horse guy with the huge cock, Shayla's green-furred brother, the raccoon lovers, etcetera-all these characters are as flat as Shayla's chest. And that, Mr. Nelson, is pretty fuckin' flat.
I like Shayla. She's a cutie. She doesn't piss me off. She doesn't have much of a personality, but she's got some. I'm assuming she's your Mary-Sue. If you're a girl, I'm assuming you're a tomboy; if you're a guy, I'm assuming you're either a transsexual or just really, really effeminate. I'm fine with either really.
Thing is, if I were Shayla, I'd feel pretty lonely. I'm well aware that you're done with the whole comic-making thing, and don't really give a shit anyway. I don't care. For the purposes of any future projects you'll do, Mr. Nelson, your characters in this one were boring. It's interesting that you say that Shayla is "the submissive type" considering that she's a tomboy, not so interesting that her brother impregnated two sisters. Bleh. Like that doesn't happen every day of the week. At least from what I've seen, but I guess being a pimp I've seen a lot, so don't take my word for it.
Conclusion
If you'll notice, I didn't treat your comic like just straight up porn for the sake of this review, even though it is presented as straight furry porn. That's because I don't think you're just a pornographer. You, like many furries, are too good at composition and art style to waste your talents drawing spank fodder for lonely men with hairy backs and small penises. Why not open up a bit? Write, draw, do. Make something besides porn. I notice you doing just that in your FurAffinity stuff. Do it more. Fuck the furries, they'll never give a shit about anything you'll ever do after they're done spanking it to your art. Do something higher. Go in the direction you're already moving in. Just make sure your word bubble triangle things point to your characters mouths. It'll do us all some good.
Links
- Wikipedia article on the anatomical structure of the foot. For you furries who insist on drawing your characters in digitigrade, at least do some research.
- Some good information on the right and wrong ways to do text balloons. Notice that the tails are pointed somewhere near the vicinity of the characters' heads.
