Peter is the Wolf: The Most CONTROVERSIAL Review Yet!

In the Light of a Full Moon, Sarah Hazen Transforms into an Atrocious Webcomic.

There is nothing more reprehensible than a smutty porn comic that tries to pass itself off as something for all ages. Comics often attempt to pull this off by taking their pornographic material, and covering up small naughty bits or just removing completely graphic scenes. Unfortunately this usually results in a second-rate product for general audiences, since all of the creator's effort is being poured into the purely erotic bits. I'm not convinced that a comic can exist where two equal versions exist, where one is for scum-sucking sleazebags and the other is for the more decent population. The odds are very slim. Peter is the Wolf, (from White Lightning Productions) is the prime example of just how unlikely a concept this is. And since furries are being thrown into the mix, the odds are ever-narrowing. NOTE: I will only be discussing and linking the general version of this comic, because the porn pages are so mind-shreddingly vile that I would be charged with war crimes if I inflicted them upon you. You can switch to the adult version (at your own peril) by replacing 'general' in the URL with 'adult'.

Peter is the Wolf (written by Kris Overstreet and drawn by Benjamin "BAR-1" Rodriguez) is, at its core, a tale about werewolfs. Werewolfs, it turns out, are simply the furry equivalent of vampires, which we all know is simply a ploy to seem more mysterious. Furries have an amazingly difficult time separating their professional life from their sex life, so it goes without saying that anything I link, despite being from the general audiences version, is probably not safe to view at work, lest you get fired from your job as an actuary/test pilot/terrible webcomic reviewer. Peter is the Wolf chronicles the adventures of a werewolf, not surprisingly named Peter, who unsuspectingly turns his girlfriend into a werewolf via unprotected sex. Invariably, she turns into a 12-foot-tall werewolfess, and since this is first and foremost a porn comic, her breasts are larger than seven of her heads. Peter, an abnormally small werewolf, has the only crotch in the world capable of calming her and reverting her to her mousy human form.

Yes, that's right, the most common way to turn a ten-ton titan back to a meek, minuscule maiden is through sexual intercourse. Granted, this is a furry porn comic, so I can't say I'm that surprised, but there IS a difference between writing a porn comic for your readers, and writing one for yourself. And if anyone is the intended audience for Peter is the Wolf, it's Overstreet and Rodriguez.

This Guy Knows Something You Don't

Since werewolfs (or lycanthropes, as the most anal of nerds would insist) are indicative of a transformation fetish, this comic is laden with instances of characters switching from their "wolf form" and "human form" frequently, and require the reader to make a mental note of what both forms look like for a character, and realize that they are, for the most part, interchangeable. Seriously, there are pages where a character can switch back and forth about ten times. Since there's no discernable reason for this, such behavior can come off as confusing and befuddling to the reader. Some pages are also peppered with a dramatic shot of someone spying on our pair of protagonists, but this doesn't really bear any fruit, since we have no idea who these antagonistic spies are, what their motives are, or why we should care that our dynamic duo is even being watched to begin with.

As usual, there is nothing great to say about the art. Characters are wildly inconsistent, and that's just when they try to stay on model. When BAR-1 attempts a tense, wide-eyed shot, it only serves to creep readers right out. The intended expression of shock is submerged in a sea of distorted faces and strange viewing angles. The artist takes most of his artistic cues from popular anime characters, but it's obvious that he is more comfortable drawing wolf-men than humans, judging from how skewed his people end up looking. Again, I should not act surprised. The inconsistency of human characters could also be explained by the artist's excessive cribbing of 'manga' and anime sources, since comic characters will often change proportions, but only between different artists. If this artist is trying to emulate this effect, then he is decidedly worse than the ones who draw their comic right-to-left with tall skinny speech balloons, despite the native language being English. If this is not his intent, then a study of anatomy would be the standard prescription.

Yes, It's Very, Very Wrong

There a few other oddities involved with PitW's composition. On several occasions, the creators have felt it necessary to write, in large letters, "SPIELBERG" behind a surprised character. I would hazard a guess that they are trying to indicate a "spielberg moment," but I guess no one told them that a spielberg moment only occurs in film, and not comics. If you can't indicate surprise without referencing an occurrence in another medium, you really have no business making comics. Additionally, there are times when, instead of drawing backgrounds, Rodriguez has decided to simply use photographic backgrounds. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the epitome of laziness in webcomics. Using photographs for backgrounds is like using actual cardboard as the crust of a pizza. No one is gonna like that pizza.

The porn is blatantly obvious when you run into it, even in the "all-ages" version. Because the artist is lazy, he takes a shortcut--scaling the original image so that the "naughty bits" are out of frame, would work if not for one issue. Changes in resolution within an image are painfully obvious, and this kind of scaling creates a massive neon sign that says "THIS IS NOT RIGHT. SOMETHING IS WEIRD HERE." If the creators are committed to providing two versions of the comic, then they should be willing to redraw panels when necessary, instead of moving things around in Microsoft Picture Editor. While the writer could easily pull apart the important stuff and separate it from the smut, it really falls on both creators to treat both versions of their comic with the dignity it deserves. Why bother putting this stuff out there on the web if you're not going to put your best effort into it?

Personally I promised myself I would never review a porn comic, since its goals are generally not in line with my own. But when a webcomic makes an attempt to be both porn and not-porn, it has committed a violation so egregious that deserves ten times as much ridicule as it will ever receive. The use of furries is merely a giant fluorescent target painted on the webcomic, garnering even more ridicule, as it highlights the creators' flaws and shortcomings. Peter is the Wolf is the most condemnable and wretched implementation of a webcomic I have ever been witness to. Sergei Prokofiev is rolling in his grave. Read more→

Menage a Three: Betty & Veronica Give Archie Blue Balls

Sure, porn comics can increase your readership with the amount of horny teenagers, but what happens when you make a porn comic without any actual porn? Holding back might create an air of legitimacy amongst less-than-savvy reviewers, who might convince themselves that since there is no nudity, it's not actually a porn comic. This would relieve a sense of shame the creator might have about making such a comic since it's not really porn. "Pornographers are sleazy, creepy people, and that's not me!" they convince themselves. Well I regret to inform you that you are a pornographer, and you are sleazy and creepy. Blueballing your readers just makes you sleazier, because despite being ashamed of what you've made, you continue to make it, because you just love the attention.

Menage a Three is the tale of a poor virgin nerd whose old roommates turn out to be gay (and boning each other) so they are immediately replaced by two totally hot girls! It takes place in the deepest, darkest, dankest bowels of French Canada, which I guess is the home of the artist, Gisèle Lagacé, and I guess explains the title, a french term for a threesome, used only by pretentious yuppies who want to make sex sound classy. At any rate, the lonely nerd suffers a hilarious quantity of sexual frustration due to the fact that he'd rather read comic books and watch anime (and porn, and anime porn) instead of socializing with actual people and getting to know girls. Uh oh, I think I might have alienated some (all) of my readers.

Artistically, Menage a Three has been compared to Archie, with a hint of anime. It is full of traditional anime shorthand and tropes, like the bloody dork nose, sweatdrops, these bizarre rivers draining from eyes, little child versions of the characters for no reason, scribbles above the head of a frustrated character, the list goes on. Every strip is an homage to the honored Japanese tradition of abstracting every emotion to a mere symbol on the character's face. Obviously Giz knows her audience is primarily anime-loving virgins, some of which can only get off to anime porn, so she has added these elements to make them feel more comfortable.

The Archie influence is more than just in the art, however. Many of the goofy puns and trite sight gags are the kind of junk you would expect to see in Archie comics, except for the porno filter applied later in photoshop. The plots are generally mundane and Archie-esque, such as "Day at the Beach" or "Moving Day" where the biggest conflict is whether to eat chicken or hamburgers. The dialog is cheesier than ballpark nachos, and the characters act about as believably as Keanu Reeves. It's not really hard to put a sexually repressed nerd in a frustrating situation with two girls, so why not try a little harder to do it a little better? I guess the Gizzer isn't as committed to this concept as she wants us to think she is.

The characters themselves are very annoying. I don't mean "oh his flaws are so annoying, why do they put up with him." I mean "who could put up with this guy for more than a minute, his behavior is so irritating!" The large french woman, Didi speaks in Frenglish, often swapping between English and French at bizarre times. Speaking between two languages is a mannerism I have never seen done well, as the authors doing it have a tendency to just swap out words and phrases at random, without really thinking about which ones they're doing or why. A little research into this behavior would go a long way, but it's not really worth it, since it really adds nothing to her character other than "she's french." The scrawny "punk rock" (poser) chick Zii has massive boundary issues, and I find it hard to believe that she has gotten no reactions worse than rolled eyes, a shrug and an "oh Zii!" Her behavior is generally a subconscious desire for attention, and if you know someone like this, you know that attention-seeking behavior is always incredibly annoying. The comic book hypernerd, Gary, is a pathetic whiner who always looks like he's about to break out in tears. His inability to enjoy himself makes him a drag on everyone else and his constant protests make everyone want to leave him at home. These terrible characters are about as compelling as a documentary on French Canada, and they certainly make me wish I could just close the browser so I wouldn't have to read this terrible webcomic. Unfortunately, I have to, for your sake.

Menage a Three is a porn comic, without the pesky burden of actually having any porn. The premise of one sexually repressed guy living with two girls was more entertaining back in the 70s when it was Three's Company. I'm not being facetious, Three's Company is about twenty times better than Menage a Three could ever be, simply because it isn't ashamed of itself. Unlike most webcartoonists, Gisele Lagace has at least some artistic talent, but the fact that she is wasting it on this amalgamation of atrocities convinces me that she has no desire to become a great artist, and prefers simple stories for simple people. The Jizzer has given us a terrible webcomic, and expects to cash in quick with the promise of pornographic content, even though she has no idea of giving anyone anything more than a stray nipple. If you want a compelling character-based story wrought with sexual frustration, there are plenty of better ones out there that aren't just sleazy porn. And if you want porn, there's better places for that too. Menage a Three is simply the equivalent of trying to watch the scrambled channels on your TV. Read more→