Girl Genius: Crashing Through the Glass Ceiling Face-First

Webcomics are essentially the scum of the Internet. But it's true that not all of them are abominations. From the subsewers of mediocrity arises a few hypermutants which do not immediately offend the tastes of the rest of the mutants on the E-Zone. How do we determine which ones are good? Who the fuck knows. However, I do know what doesn't work, and that's placing the choice of "best turd" in the hands of other webcartoonists.

The most recent choice for "Most Outstanding Comic" is none other than artistic travesty Girl Genius. For those of you wondering what the hell a comic called Girl Genius could possibly be about, the plot synopsis page is not going to tell you a whole lot, since the author got to what I assume was an insignificant plot point (based on what I know of shitty webcomic authors) before giving up on writing what invariably would have been a lengthy and convoluted description of what every single page had contained.

From what I can glean, though, the story is basically your standard Mary Sue character who is suddenly thrust into a high adventure world based on talents and skills she was unaware of before. She has 2 or 3 companions to round out the skill set, and she has some kind of rival and some kind of nemesis to provide varying levels of conflict and is ultimately possessed by an even more powerful force than herself. Basically the premise of every anime ever. Slap a coat of Steampunk paint on it and it becomes Girl Genius.

Despite the uninspired and hackneyed concept, Girl Genius continues to show that it does not deserve "Most Outstanding" anything with its more than sloppy art. The artist, Phil Foglio, has never seen a human face in his entire life. Eyes are not teardrop shaped, though they ARE generally the same size, and heads are not the size of a softball. And most of all, facial features should exist on the actual face, not on a plane in front of or behind the face. Of course there's rarely any consistency between characters, since faces have a tendency to change their proportions in EACH PANEL. Of course this may be a result from not planning out the art very well; as seen in the last two panels, the features are often resized to accomodate the presence of other features at such an angle.

Ultimately, when one decides who should earn the label of "Most Outstanding Webcomic," one should consider whether the artist can draw a character consistently enough to convey the concept that his characters are not made of Silly Putty. The story should be something which isn't lifted from the annals of japan, and the writing (if it is a long form comic) should be conveyed clearly and concisely to new readers. When the winner of "Most Outstanding Webcomic" is a Girl Genius with an IQ of 60, one has to wonder what the comics who chose it are like.