Phineus 36 Which Lich is Which? Staff: Barry Linck

Overview: Not much here.

Review: So I just downloaded a file named, “Phineus 36 Which Lich is Which?.PDF” and I have NO idea what I am about to get into. The summary on drivethru just says “Rotwang rises from the dead, with hilarious results!” and I have no idea what’s going on. Let’s get to reading then.

Getting into the book we see it was for free comic book day 2012 and is apparently the sequel to a comic done earlier (sort of).

The art starts off very good but a few sloppy spots show up. I don’t know if it is the minimalistic style (think kind of Genndy Tartakovsky does zombie) that causes little errors to stand out so much to me, but they do. However, that’s not to say whoever drew this black and white comic isn’t downright talented, it just feels like he drew it in one go. We get a lot of linework and it looks like the medium was simply inked paper over some sketch work. This comic has its fundamentals down cold though, no questions asked. Great use of perspective, posing, and framing make this stand out pretty solidly. Makes me want to see a comic where Barry puts his heart and soul into it (pun pun pun).

The lettering is decent (almost professional at times) but we get these occasional errors too. Nothing that makes it unable to be read, just like word breaks of short words, odd letter placement, etc.

The story is, as described, a continuation of something I haven’t read (this is why I normally read issue #1s when I do reviews). The dialogue leaves a lot to be desired. It feels like the author was trying a bit too hard to be edgy and/or modern and it just ends up reading like a lot of swears for no reason. The comic is too short to really develop anything beyond, “I was dead. I am alive? I have a necromantic orb in me! I am a litch! I made zombies”, but I can’t really detract anything for it NOT being coherent (just a little pointless I guess). I won’t rag on it too hard though, I did jump in in the middle of a plot (I assume). I'm not really sure where there was any humor. It felt like the exposition as to why a character was back to life. Heck, the cover was funnier than the comic. Maybe I'm missing something?

Overall I didn't dislike it. There wasn't a lot to like either (art was solid though). I’ll just toss this one on the “Failed too impressed but not their fault” pile. Hey, it's free so give it a read!

Metrics Art: 5/10 (A cut above the rest, few flaws dragged it down) Lettering: 5/10 (Few missteps, professional overall.) Plot: 4/10 (Can't say it wasn't cohesive?) Novelty: 4/10 (I forgot it already)

Overall: 4.5/10 Review From: http://indycomicreview.wordpress.com/