We’ve got about 5 more chapters to cover, so let’s not dilly-dally. Chapter 5 starts out with Anne and her toys/friends going to a magical store to help Anne restock on magical junk. But then Emperor Palpatine gives Jason a Genie’s lamp, who manages to make a sexay genie appear! Oh, and they have the balls to remind me about the previous arc… I hate this comic. I really do. Anyway, when Jason’s wishing spree goes wrong, the comic indulges in a little gender bending (with a side order of cheesecake), age regression, transformation, body swapping, people turning into mannequins, and “bimboification”. All of which happen to be actual sexual fetishes. You have no idea how much I wish I were making that up. Anyway, they reveal that the reason for the Genie’s malfunctioning powers is due to the fact that the bottle she had been summoned in is cursed. This could have made for an interesting adventure to fix the bottle and free the Genie from the curse…but the problem is solved literally four pages later. I just…I want to like this comic, but they waste some of the best concepts they have by buggering around with their stupid sexual fetishes. Oh, and more Darth Vader for no reason whatsoever. Yawn. So, Chapter 5 was essentially wasted potential. Next chapter!
Chapter 6 is a slumber party somehow involving a demon . I would have just moved on and let you draw your own conclusions, but I think you people haven’t suffered enough yet. I mean, this page tells you everything you need to know about what you should expect from this comic. And manages to reference Animal House. Which is an R-rated movie. PG-13 my ass…Anyway, the real reason I didn’t just skip this pile of crap is because this chapter introduces Cassie SinCLAIR, an important secondary character who happens to be my favorite because she has the most human-like personality in this entire webcomic. Granted, she is still about as deep and interesting as a children’s wading pool with her atypical “Perky Goth” personality, but I suppose one has to start somewhere. Anyway, boring jokes are made, Jason decides to crash the party, and Cassie summons a demon by accident. When I first read this arc, I was freaking excited. I mean, a demon tearing through town, doing all sorts of unspeakable horrors and wrecking shit up? That was the coolest thing in this comic to date! So imagine how disappointed I was when the demon just transforms people into a bunch of different shit. Just like every other magic user in this comic has done before. Yeah... Anyway, the demon named Unicarn (no, not the horned horse) goes on a less-than-stellar rampage by transforming people into other things. After some mucking about, Anne uses her powers to turn herself into a female version of Unicarn (no, not the planet-sized robot), and they fight. It’s far less exciting than you can possibly imagine. And so our comic ends with Unicarn (no, not the modeling kit brand) being banished to the Phantom Zone, while the comic makes a masturbation joke. And I do not care how much you may believe I am taking that out of context, because when people can find images of people turning into mannequins sexually arousing, anything is possible. Especially in this wank-fest of a comic. Oh, and we’ve also got Darth Vader strangling a furry. Huh, maybe I was wrong about how bad this comic was… Wait, what am I saying? Next Chapter!
Chapter 7 involves Anne screwing up her spell that turns her younger sister back into her older brother… And I realize just how disturbing that sounded. Anyway, magic amulet screws up, and now her older brother Evan is stuck with the mind of a four year old until Anne turns him into a four year old, whereupon Evan regains his mind but not his adult body… And I realize just how disturbing that sounded. Anyway, Evan has a job interview on that day, so they have to alternate between having a sugar crazed man-child and a grownup in a four-year old’s body and… OK, I give up. There is no way to make this arc sound interesting. It is filler, plain and simple. There is nothing I can’t describe about this that you couldn’t already guess. I’m moving on to the next chapter. Um…which one was that again?
God Damnit! Another filler arc! And a two-for-one special, at that! Basically, Jason and Robin go shopping at the mall, while the writers try to make us give a crap about the ongoing “epic” involving some sort of “resistance”. Yeah, the whole thing is summarized on this page. It separates the dramedy aspects from the action-adventure aspects and all it does is manage to show how boring both of these aspects can be made by bad writing. I’ve no more tolerance for this arc. Next Chapter!
Chapter 9.The final chapter for Season One. Oh thank gods I’m almost finished. The story begins with Robin pining his inability to do…anything useful at all. So, he buys a magic book from Emperor Palpatine. Yep, nothing bad about taking books from obviously villainous creeps. Oh wait…never mind. Anyway, Robin has inexplicably been changed into a centaur, Anne’s been turned into a fairy (Tinkerbell variety), and Jason has been turned into…
WHAT IN THE NAME OF HEL IS THIS BULLCRAP?! A FEMALE SATYR?! THERE HAVE NEVER BEEN ANY SUCH THING AS A FEMALE SATYR IN GREEK MYTHLOLGY! AND FOR GOOD REASON! DYRADS ARE ALWAYS FEMALE! SATYRS ARE ALWAYS MALE! THEY MATE TOGETHER TO MAKE MORE SATYRS AND DRYADS! THAT IS HOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO WORK! REMEMBER THAT SCENE IN THAT DISNEY HERCULES FILM? WHERE PHIL IS CHASING A BUNCH OF DRYADS? YOU EVER WONDER WHY HE DIDN’T GO AFTER SOME FEMALE SATYRS INSTEAD? THERE WERE NONE! THIS COMIC’S DEPICTION OF A FEMALE SATYR IS JUST PLAIN WROOOOOOOOOOOONG! WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WROOOOOOOOOOOONG! I HATE THIS COMIC! HATE IT! HATE IT!
YOU PETULANT WRITERS, WHO CONTAIN BOTH THE FOOLISHNESS OF MAN AND MACHINE! YOU THINK WRITING IS SIMPLE?! YOU THINK YOUR SO-CALLED ART HAS MEANING?! YOU THINK YOU CAN ACHIEVE TRUTH THROUGH YOUR WARPED IDEALS OF THE POSSIBILITIES OF MAN AND BEAST?! WAKE UP! ONE CANNOT FIND TRUTH WRAPPED UP IN PRETTY WORDS AND CARDBOARD CUTOUTS! DO NOT HIDE BEHIND YOUR PLEASANT FICTIONAL WORLD OF FRIENDS WHO NEVER WERE, ACTING OUT YOUR LIMITIED FANTASIES WHILE YOU IGNORE THE PAINS AND ACHES OF THE REAL WORLD! TO FIND TRUTH, YOU MUST EXTINGUISH YOUR STAGNANT SELF! TO BRING TO LIFE THE GODS THAT LAY HIDDEN IN OUR SUBCONCIOUS! TO BRING ABOUT A NEW SENSE OF BEING! THAT IS WHY GREAT WRITING POTENTIAL IS SO VALUED! THAT IS WHY IT IS SO RARE! IT CHOOSES ONE WHO USES THE POWERS OF GODS CREATED BY MAN! ONE WHO IS ABLE TO ARRIVE AT ONE SINGLE TRUTH! BUT, THAT IS NOT THE CASE WITH YOU! THIS COMIC SHOULD JUST DISAPPEAR! DO YOU COMPREHEND?! IT SHOULD JUST DIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
Oh, I'm terribly sorry for my unprofessional outburst there. I just have a sore spot when people make really, really, REALLY, stupid mistakes like that. I'll try to refrain from that in the future.
OK, after that... little mix-up of Greek mythos, we find out that the spell that transformed the main characters into mythical creatures is affecting others. I’d give them credit for the imaginative use of mythical creatures, but there isn’t really anything interesting about their choices. Other than cameos of The Sprite from the awesome game Secret of Mana and Sandra from the much superior webcomic Zebra Girl. Yeah, since Anne easily fixes the whole mess using magic (emphasis on easily), I’m just gonna list the mythical creatures I recognized and how they were portrayed.
· Centaurs: Nothing wrong.
· Pixies: Resemble fairies more than pixies.
· Mermaids: Based on Disney incarnation.
· Satyrs: NO FEMALE SATYRS! HOW HARD IS THAT TO COMPREHEND?!
· Griffin: Generally not this humanoid, but I’ll let it slide.
· Sphinx: Smaller than original, but I’ll let it slide.
· Dragon thing: No comment, have no idea what it is exactly. Dragon was first guess, but DnD monster genealogy is ridiculously screwy, so cannot be sure…
· Tanooki: Name is from the Tanooki suit from Super Mario, not the Tanuki. Shapeshifting does not contain magical leaf used in most modern day incarnations. The Tanuki is also a Japanese mythological creature, not a Chinese one. And Mingmei Wu still can’t use grammatically correct sentences. Considering how ridiculously stupid the existence of Mingmei Wu is already, this depiction is probably the best we could hope for.
· Elf: Tolkein-esque, tolerable.
· Gorgons: There were only ever 3, but I’ll let it slide.
· Dryad: More like D&D version, but good enough as is.
· Yeti: Nothing wrong. Not much to get wrong, but still…
· Imp: Looks more like a brownie to me (not the chocolate). I’ll let it slide, though.
· Sprite: Cameo, nothing to add.
· Zebra-esque Demon: Cameo, nothing to add.
· Naga: Technically a cameo, but still too generic for me to tell who it is supposed to be. If compared to the mythos found in Hinduism/Buddhism, it’s missing its arms. If compared to any other mythos, far too humanoid/snakelike to resemble a dragon. If compared to D&D, far too humanoid, aka not supposed to have boobies.
· Balor(?) Demon: Looks like Satan. As good as this will ever get.
· Minotaur: Never gave riddles in the original myth. Presumably based off the Minotaur character from the Batman the Animated Series episode “If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?” which was a robot programmed by the Riddler.
· Cameo of Link from the Legend of Zelda: Doesn’t speak. Like the original. Thank Nayru, Faroe and Din he didn’t. Because if they did….
· Sea Serpent: Nothing wrong, but looks unusually similar to Unicarn
· Drider: Surprisingly accurate, down to the elfin ears. Never seen one with a Black widow theme before…
· Phoenix: Nothing wrong.
So, you’d think this is over. After the big problem has been solved, the arc would be over right? …Wrong. They have a bunch of loose flotsam that is left right at the end just to have new material for later. Ivan sets up an investigation crew to figure out what the hell is going on, Cassie discovers she has magical powers aside from summoning demons , and Darth Vader…does absolutely nothing of interest. Again. So, after all this, what have we learned about the first season of The Wotch?
1. Early artwork looks like crap. People look odd and change their looks between panels even when they haven’t been transformed, backgrounds have the odd tendency to disappear, and they rely heavily on Photoshop. It gets better in the 9th chapter, but the artwork becomes cramped as a result of the detail. Acceptable tradeoff, but only just.
2. Writing is bland and generic, but somehow got really wordy to the point of making the panels really cramped. Most of their original ideas are either wasted on plotlines that inevitably go back to the status quo, or are unnecessary to the plot. In short, they should find an editor. I know it’s the Internet, but really…
3. This comic panders way too heavily to the TF/TG fetishes the fanbase seems to expect, and it gets in the way of the story. Even to the point of creating moments of moral dissonance between the writers and the readers. This is the biggest pain in the ass to reading this comic, and really needs fixing immediately.
Well, I hope this has been an enlightening experience for all of you. I’m just glad to get this comic over with… Oh wait, I almost forgot. There is a second season. Crap…
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