I don’t mind sharing my biases beforehand—it’s so you know where I’m coming from. I don’t really care who it offends when I profess my disdain for gamer-comix and mangu, because all it takes is a well-done project to supplant that opinion. It may not change my predjudice, but I still give every comic a fair chance before saying, “Meh, gamerz.” Honestly, every genre has great works and total bullshit–usually one changes into the other during a project’s lifespan.  

This would be my first Furry/Anthro comic. For those of you unfamiliar with the genre, it features human-sized were-animals capable of human speech and (often) sexuality.

*Fuck Furries*

Sorry, got a hairball in my throat.

No really, let me deviate for a moment about why people hate Furries. It’s a comical retardation that afflicts .002% of humanity, which on the interwebs equals 1% full. They are the internet’s whipping posts due to their fantasies, which constantly involve fucking skunkgirls or the like. Do a simple google image search to see what I mean. At conventions they wear costumes reminiscent of high-school sports mascots and proceed to get it on. At least the Ren-Fair kids don’t take their fantasies seriously (for sooth, an excuse to get laid!) Born from creepy and failure, it’s become boring and too easy to make fun of them.

With that out of my system, maybe now I can continue.

Here we go: P.S.I.

I’ll shunt aside my bias and take Pessimistic Sense of Inadequacy for what it is, a non-sexual alternate dimension where humans and their jumbo-sized counterparts coexist. It’s a comic that just happens to have a giant rat as a main. As long as he doesn’t fuck anything, I can handle that. The Rat, Ernst, lives with his human roommate, Fes, which I assume makes this another self-insertion comic. [I’ll bitch about those at a different time]

Last July (06), PSI started as a B&W bare-bones comedy. Whether added later or always there, a little caption underneath the comics offers commentary or explains the jokes.

*NEVER EXPLAIN THE FUCKING JOKES*

Hairballs aside, the writing is the strength of this project. While Fesworks (who apparently exists on the interwebs without a real name) has developed from shitty-are-you-even-trying to shitty-art-with-color in 9 months, the writing has remained constant. Jokes usually snark on history, word-play, and absurd situations, making full use of characters’ different senses of humor. Evolved and well-timed, Fes is twice the writer than illustrator. As a whole, it’s clever stuff, even if the art isn’t up to snuff. My main issues there are the roughness of the line-art and awkward proportions–typical newbie stuff. I encourage non-comic practice on reference models, which still works for furries since fur is just a texture. 

So let’s bring it back to the start: Good writing trumps all.

A furry comic, lackluster art, whatever. Being able to pull off enjoyable comedic dialogue in 4 panels is a talent. Fesworks has a bright mind for the voice of his characters. When the odd strip comes that doesn’t make me laugh, I notice—it’s not because the joke fell flat, it’s because he decided not to include it at all. Such natural and simple control over P.S.I.’s tone is an accomplishment a lot of people should take lessons from. As much as the art and font get in the way, this is still a young comic (still less than a year old).

You either will or won’t ever be a great artist, Fesworks, but as long as you keep improving, your icky anthro comic can do nothing but become stronger. Not bad.

P.S. - The big-ass legal rant at the bottom the the comic is hilarious. I’ll do some snarking on this sort of thing at a latter date as well.