Tallyho
| Original review author: | Long Tom |
| Webcomic name: | Tallyho |
| Author: | R. H. Junior |
| Start Date: | February 14, 2014 |
| End Date: | August 3, 2017 |
| Genre: | Non-anthropomorphic furry with humans |
| Defining Flaw: | Considering who the author is, this is a startlingly good webcomic. |
Rating Summary
| Art: | 
Sketchy like the artwork in his other webcomics, but cute, expressive, and animated. Unfortunately the strips are newspaper-comic tiny. |
| Storyline: |
Not applicable, as this webcomic has story arcs but no overall plot. |
| Characters: |
Standard but (mostly) appealing cartoon characters. |
| Miscellaneous Details: |
The old website is gone, but this comic has been moved to a new one. |
| Overall: |
As mentioned in other reviews of RH Junior's webcomics, he can be clever and appealing when he is not trying to push a message. And at least in the first part of the comic, he pushes no political messages. (Politics inevitably creeps its way in, but it is not a fundamental part of the story.) |
Background
RHJ has been cranking out webcomics since early 2000. On his website you can find about thirteen different webcomics, depending on how you count them. To boot, RHJ is well known for injecting his personal politics into his webcomics with various degrees of success and subtlety.
But this particular webcomic is drastically different from the others I've seen. It's about the adventures of a non-anthropomorphic red fox in Britain who is the target of local fox hunters, though they are so inept the fox has little reason to fear them. In fact, the local fox hunters consist of an elderly Basset hound and a psychopathic little boy.
For the record, though traditional hunting of foxes with horses and hounds was outlawed in Britain in 2004, the practice still continues and successful prosecutions are rare.
Downfall
The first half is better than the second half, but the webcomic never actually jumps the shark.
Story and Plot
The scenario is about a nameless red fox being bothered by a local hound, but this hound fails to impress the fox. For that matter, neither does the boy. But as it turns out, the fox learns more about the boy from the dog and finds that the boy is far more impressive than he had originally thought.
As for the fox himself, he does not practice the standard wild predator ways. Instead, this is how the fox gets his food. But how can a wild fox obtain any money? This way.
But even an old dog wants help from a fox. The fox agrees to do so, though the fox does have to suffer for it. Other things the fox does is making trouble at a golf course, raiding a backyard picnic, and maintaining his den of old tires. On top of that, a romance develops between the dog and a wild rabbit. All crazy, but R. H. Junior manages to make it work.
Art review
The original artwork consists of rather crude and scribbly monochrome line drawings, though they are expressive and animated:
The artwork does get a bit more refined during the webcomic's run:
The original strips are dated 2002, so presumably when RH Junior created his website, he posted these old strips and then created a new set to follow them:
The newer strips not only look different, but do not continue the numerical sequence of the older ones.
Writing review
It's a crazy story, but R. H. Junior makes it very amusing. It is not political like Camp Calomine or many others by this author but stays true to its roots of the adventures of a wild fox and his world. Politics does enter some of the later strips, but R.H. Junior is no worse than D. C. Simpson in that regard.
Author biography
An oldschool furry, RHJ is one of the rare right wing libertarian furries - and he is not afraid of reminding you of that, since he does so in nearly every one of his comics. He was part of the original Burned Furs crew, an organization of furries that wanted to purge the furry fandom of degeneracy - the similarities between the Burned Furs MO and how RHJ writes his antagonists, or when he 'parodies' material, are easy to see. He apparently left them again due to a falling out with the leader of the Burned Furs.
Conclusion
Would you believe I showed this webcomic to the creator of a certain fox vixen rock star of some fame in the furry world, and he liked it? Though arguably he would quite disagree with RH Junior's political opinions. The point being that Tallyho is a webcomic the reader can enjoy on its own accord, without the need to be a right-wing libertarian.
RH Junior has shown he is capable of coming up with genuinely funny webcomics that do not depend on politics or social commentary, which is not the case of other webcomics of his that we have already reviewed on the BWW. If he could only do this sort of thing all the time...
UPDATE: The old website is no more, so this webcomic has since moved to a new one. Only some strips are still on it though.
