I was asked to read this guy's comic called "My Little School" and write a review of it. Two thoughts came to mind, "why me?" and "why not?" My full qualifications for posting a review on the internet are "has opinions" and "can use a computer" which I think are pretty awesome qualifications. The answer to the question "why not" was more complex because I have this code of honour that involves honesty and not being too much of a dick, and here I was getting something for free in order to publicly review it. I just hoped it wouldn't be incredibly bad, because that'd be awkward for everyone involved

So anyway, here's my review of "My Little School" by Pedro Correia!



The art has a few things that I like about it: the character designs are distinct, and the poses are varied (there's actually perspective and backgrounds and stuff going on). However, the art looks very much like it was drawn without constructing how the shapes of the characters work. As a result, character designs are inconsistent when it comes to things like facial shape, things like arms are often formless, and there are other anatomical issues that aren't just the result of simplifying things. The art in the second comic is slightly better than in the first one (I think the backgrounds look slightly nicer as well) but I still have exactly the same things to say about it. Comics don't need to have breathtaking gorgeous visuals as long as the rest is good - Cyanide & Happiness, XKCD and Order of the Stick all manage to be popular webcomics with a stick figure art style. However, their art style is more intentional-looking, and they are also free.

The story is very meta, being about a comic about a school about a comic being made about a school, which causes a war to break out between bad boys and geeks. Sometimes it was hard to follow because of random jokes that were not related to the plot surrounding them. I thought some of the jokes were pretty funny (moreso in the first part than in the second one). It helps that the art is varied, since many of the jokes are visual and wouldn't work if everything was just copy&pasted sprites.

There are some problems with spelling/grammar and things that I think might have been translated poorly from the original Spanish. It would have benefit from being proofread to make sure all the text read smoothly (or proofread once more, if it already was).

Price-wise, I think it's a bit steep. At $3,94 plus $5,99, both comics together have about the same price, and the same amount of pages, as a printed volume of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga, and Fullmetal Alchemist is awesome. Additionally, you can't flip through an e-book's paper or occupy the toilet while reading it (actually I guess you can now that tablets are a thing, but whatever). Of course, this is a very unfair comparison but I don't really have anything better to compare it to.

So, to summarize: I thought it was okay but would not have paid for it myself. But, by spending as much time as I have writing this, have I not paid my dues in time and honesty? I guess I have, but I am also the kind of person who saves up points from llama trading and used those to buy a premium membership at some point, so I guess my time is cheaper than my Euros.