I am pretty sure that this concept is not exactly new. Conversations with the author, dimly remembered, indicate that this has been executed on deviantArt. Forgive me if I do not talk about those, however, for this is a review on Consolers.

Now, Consolers is a webcomic that focuses on video games, and on the history both comparatively antique and modern . While mostly on the Big Three of video games (namely Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo), it occasionally brings up the escapades of other smaller companies and game developers themselves. There is no overarching plot structure, which would have made absolutely zero sense otherwise, but it instead presents various vignettes of the video game industry’s history.

It has run for quite some while, stretching on for four years from 2013 to 2017. However, I have been requested to focus on the 2015 to the most recent strips, which I will do so, though I might occasionally bring up the earlier strips in order to make comparisons or snide remarks, should the mood strike.

Like now.

If one should read this webcomic chronologically, art evolution, ranging from better lines, speech bubbles and anatomy would be apparent. However, it does occasionally carry on the same problems it had in its early stages.

Firstly, what strikes me is the problem of anatomy. This is pretty much the bane of several people, myself included, so I will not be too harsh about this. I might be lying.

Now, there are definite improvements. Zanreo’s grasp of the human body has improved to some extent so as to not create monstrosities such as Atari’s hand in the picture to the left (E.T. Go Away, 20th Oct 2014). However, there are occasional slip ups with the anatomy in the more recent strips – Nintendo, on the far right comes from a strip published on the 27th of January, 2017 (Meeting - part 2) , but her hand, however, reminds me of the frogs that I had to remove from my garden just recently. Furthermore, though the cropping of the image does not show it quite well, her leg seemed to be shortened.

There is, too a perennial problem with stiffness. The figures themselves feel a bit like posable dolls, or a bundle of sticks. Occasionally, Zanreo breaks out of this with a nonstandard pose – by which I mean, a pose that requires the spine to not be straight.  

Another problem is one of perspective and by association, backgrounds. Backgrounds are also rather simplistic, providing little detail save for situations when points are to be made, which are actually effective, for they draw the eye to the figures, who are definitely the main focus of the webcomic. But occasionally…

You get pages like this (Metal Gear Barely Surviving, 19th August 2016 in the above example; Digital Homicide, 26th September 2016 is another one). Perspective. Needs work.

But do not take these as extremely jarring -  these mistakes are do not break the webcomic too much, and if Zanreo continues practicing her skills, more improvement should be seen. Her skill in shading, for example, has improved as time went on, giving depth to the figures, and the usage of panels was rather good.

The character design deserves some mention, however. With such a multitude of video game characters and designs, the companies should rather be pleasing, or entertaining to the eye, and be rather identifiable almost immediately. This, Zanreo excels in. She incorporates several features in each character, making them stand out from one another.

Square Enix is my favourite of favourites and I will proceed to share with you the fanfic I wrote about Squeenix and Y2K zips -  erm. Back to the review.

This is not totally perfect. A few designs are rather bland. EA, for example is presented as what is known online as a dudebro, if I’m correct. It works. It communicates his character as someone with an extensive catalog of sports games, but I feel that it doesn’t communicate the entire depth of EA’s catalogs, ranging from Star Wars to The Sims to cult hit Mirror’s Edge. Perhaps, however, Zanreo has not got around to addressing EA’s nature yet, outside of the Character page.

Sony, however, is rather bland in design, taking the appearance of a black T-shirt wearing man. Other than his emblems, his design does not evoke any questions or make him stand out, which is rather a shame, really.

Speaking of communication, the webcomic itself aims to present video gaming news in a webcomic format.  However, it is rather insular to a mild degree – it assumes that you have an interest in video games (which is obvious, given the name), and that you have some knowledge of the industry’s messes itself.  Now this has lessened to some degree, but I have encountered this once in a while. Take the page Tecmo's Revenge (3rd Oct 2016) for one. I was a bit puzzled about what was occurring until I decided to scroll down and read the comments, which gave me a link to a previous strip for more context.

The writing in the pages and strips themselves is clear and concise enough, and comes off as natural. This is all good. There is also a good use of speech bubbles, but as with everything, it is not totally perfect.

Now, this is really crowded, and gives me the impression of a text crawl a la Star Wars trying to escape this horrendous white circle. If it were up to me I’d have done this: separate each paragraph into their own speech bubble. A mockup is below.

Now this is only one way to create break up such a text wall and arrange them. There are surely better methods and arrangements, but the end result is to actually give some breathing room and connections for the words and bubbles.

Structure-wise, the comic itself is in one word, scattered. This is one glaring flaw of the comic itself – it is not arranged in a logically pleasing, continuous manner, and to confess, one of the reasons I picked on the earlier strips was that the archive positively defeated my efforts to locate any of the  2015 strips easily. The archive itself is arranged in story arcs, but most of the strips are unchaptered. This arrangement defies any chronological sense, but I comprehend why one would do so. However, it does not make for easy reading.

Reading chronologically is also an issue. Some arcs are scattered between dates, with other strips, filler material and whatnot wedged in between. Flow is broken this way, and though no one truly minds brief interruptions, to have 13 pages composed filler material and a midway break is rather distracting. I am referring to the strips between the Meeting pages.

The site itself isn’t too distracting – the background wallpaper is fun to look at, but it doesn’t take away the attention. Its muted colour scheme works in its favor, but the header bar is rather clogged, filled with links to several other sites. A recommendation, if I may, is to condense it into one page of Links, or move them to the About section. It makes for a less cluttered header bar, which takes less attention away from the page.

Disqus, also needs some work. The text is black, making it blend in with the background. Perhaps make the background of the Disqus box itself white. Placing it above the disclaimer bar, in the main box would be a better location too.

The comic as a whole however does not offer too much to be damned to the blackest pits of video game comic hell, which I’m pretty sure exist, and that I’m going there one day to be tormented by loss.jpg and Penny Arcade’s new art. It is actually a rather good effort at portraying the inherent nature of the video game industry as one of constant wackiness hiding under a veneer of straight, no-nonsense professionalism, and shows that despite everything: