Apple of Discord (9 Pints)

Apple of Discord
by Adam Smithee
www.theappleofdiscord.com

Discord,

Discord,

Discord.

What is Discord?

I always wanted to be Tom Baker. Anyway, Apple of Discord is a lot like Little Britain, the BBC comedy that Tom Baker - the best Dr. Who ever - narrates. The show has no real point, continuity or direction, it's just a bunch of short scenes about a cast of recurring characters, mostly unrelated or connected. Little 3-5 minute slices of sublime, surreal silliness, really. Just like this webcomic.

Like all things done in this vein, it has its hits and its misses, but where SNL, Mad TV and the like are often more misses than hits, few of AoD's bits miss the mark. Whether it's the archer and knight slaying webcomic cliches, the irredeemable Horn or even the neon pink Gayzilla, the mind behind the comics is almost always on top of his game, with references from Star Trek to Weird Al to Rocky Horror Picture Show. You may not get all the jokes, but I defy you to not get any of them. What's best is that the humor seems so random and yet is so perfectly placed and timed, it's clear that there really is a method to this madness.

The art is all over the place in terms of style - some strips parody other comics and do a damn fine job of incorporating those others' styles into its own. I wouldn't go so far as to say the art is great as it really isn't trying to be, but it always fits the strip at hand. The given page's theme trumps continuity or consistency in art.

Basically, I hate most comedy strips, especially gag-a-day wannabe Sunday Funnies. They're overdone, cliche and generally unfunny. Smithee seems to agree with me, and has made a fucking hysterical gem of a comic taking the piss out of them. If VG Cats and Penny Arcade are your kind of comic, AoD is out to make you cry.

Cry, little Emo boy. Sweat out those tears.