Monthly Archives: December 2013

Crunchy Bunches

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Title: Crunchy Bunches
Author: W. Scott Warren
Start Date: 2011
Genre: Parody
Update Schedule: Saturdays
Website: http://www.crunchybunches.com

Synopsis:

Have you ever wondered what life would be like in a cereal commercial? You would meet with hyperactive animated mascots who would build treehouses, thwart incompetent villains, and encourage you to become a sports champ by eating their sugary cereal, all part of a balanced breakfast.

Crunchy Bunches takes place in this world, and Munchy is the mascot of the world-beloved cereal which shares the title’s namesake. He’s been in the business for 60 years, and he interacts with other mascots and gets involved in storylines which promote the latest flavors of his cereal.

Recommended Age Group: All ages.

Strengths:

This is one of the most clever concepts for a webcomic I’ve seen in years. The author understands his material well. This comic pays homage to, parodies, and deconstructs cereal advertising all at the same time. The references are numerous and cleverly integrated into the content, providing the look and feel of actual commercials.

I also give props to the art. The expressions are wonderfully cartoony and exaggerated, and the designs properly match what I would expect of cereal mascots as I was growing up in the 90s.

Weaknesses:

As I stated in the synopsis, cereal commercials have weak antagonists by nature, and this comic is no different, so there’s practically no sense of threat in the storylines. I understand why the author did this to play up that particular trope to mimic the style of the commercials, but if you prefer to have grand epics in your storylines, you may feel a bit underwhelmed in this department.

Verdict:

I give this comic a wholehearted recommendation. This comic makes me feel like a kid again and I find the experience thoroughly enjoyable. If you’ve watched cereal commercials as a kid or tried to follow along the silly storylines that General Mills or Post attached to their boxes in order to trick the kids into buying more of their products, then I feel you would appreciate this comic as much as I am now.

Axe Cop Season 1, Part 2 (Also, a few updates.)

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Before I begin my next review (which is in the next post), I realize I’ve been gone for way too long without an update, and I feel I should apologize and explain my long absence. I was dealing with a few things in my life:

1) Computer upgrades. I’ve been using an ancient Dell machine with Windows XP for 10 years, and Microsoft announced that they’re dropping support for XP in April, so we finally had to say goodbye to the old girl. I spent $500 on a new HP case and an extra $200 for Windows 8.1 Pro. It’s a beauty and I love it!

2) Work. I had to find myself a job and I’ve also been working around the house. I’ve had to deal with travel and setting up food and decorations for holidays and family events. So yeah, I’ve been a busy bee.

3) Indecision. I wasn’t sure what to do for my next update. Should I cover one of the many webcomics from my growing list or review the second half of the Axe Cop season, which recently wrapped on Fox? I figured it would be best to settle on the former option while I just briefly summarize my thoughts on the next batch of Axe Cop episodes.

The series continues to be awesome as always, but it’s increasingly starting to diverge from the webcomic. While the first half of the season mostly consisted of adaptations of chapters from the comic, the second half mostly came up with original material, so it now has its own identity. The only exceptions would be episode 7, which adapted chapter 1 and FINALLY brought Dinosaur Soldier into the cast (although it seemed to be a single episode deal; he hasn’t shown up again since then) and episode 11, which explained the origins of Axe Cop and Flute Cop in a more epic fashion than the comic did. Other than that, everything else was original and fresh, so there isn’t much to compare for reference this time around, and that’s why I chose to review a webcomic instead for my next update.

This update post seems to have gone on long enough. I didn’t want to pollute a review with several extra paragraphs of other off-topic material, so I kept them separate this time. See you in the next post with my next review!