In one of his later comic reviews, former CYD regular contributor The New Meat levels both barrels at a second-rate, second-string furry comic without a single original idea or character. Straight from late 2005 comes "In a Perfect World."
Friday, November 11. 2005
In A Perfect World
In a Perfect World: A comic strip about the Internet
by The New Meat
What a long, strange trip it’s been! We’ve been through a lot together, you and me – from the right-wing insanity of "Better Days" to the left-wing inanity of "Gene Catlowe" to the complete blithering retardation of "Kit and Kay Boodle." But certainly I knew, we all knew, that someday we’d run out of furry webcomics to mock. Someday all the big name comics would have had their day and we’d be reduced to going after small fry. And then, someday, it simply must end.
But today is not that day. Because today we have "In a Perfect World."
Version 2.0!!! Like Windows!
Right up front, I’ll tell you this article will be shorter than my previous efforts. "In a Perfect World" isn’t one of the big names in web comics; it’s pretty much a second-string comic that we’re only getting to now that all the really stupid ones have already been savaged. It isn’t an insane comic. It isn’t patently disgusting or morally offensive, and it doesn’t really have much in the way of the good ole WTF factor. To be perfectly frank, it’s about as bland and innocuous as a webcomic could be. It’s about a bunch of hermaphroditic dragons living on Draconic Drive, England, which is kind of like if I lived on Humanistic Street. If it didn’t involve hermaphroditic dragons, I’d venture to say "In a Perfect World" is dull enough to be an actual syndicated newspaper comic.
Some people have described "West Corner of the Park" as being the furry equivalent of Cathy, and I think I’m on record as saying this is inaccurate. WcoTP sucks because it’s composed entirely of stupid inside jokes making it complete nonsense unless you happen to spend so much time on Furrymuck that you have to shit in socks and hide them under the bed instead of taking bathroom breaks. Cathy sucks because it’s a bunch of so-called wacky observations about a modern woman’s life that are, in fact, neither particularly wacky nor do they really reflect what a modern woman’s life is really like. Cathy is bad not because the humor is obscure but because it’s obvious and generic. Guisewitz (or whatever her name is, I can’t be bothered to check) just latches onto stale old jokes about stereotypical women that have been done a million times before and better each time. (Mom wants grandkids! Bathing suits are not designed for fat people! Men like sports while women like shoes!) "In a Perfect World" is the true furry Cathy, except replace "stale old jokes about stereotypical women" with "stale old jokes about stereotypical furries."
And speaking of furry stereotypes, "In a Perfect World" is a heaping man-sized helping of sad. First off, it’s about dragons. A wiser man than I once said, and I promptly plagiarized, "Dragons are the furries of furries." Furries of most "species" (1) are a mixed lot – you meet some "foxes" who are complete fucktards and you meet some who are decent folks. But dragons are, by and large, always idiots. Most of them are otherkin, for one thing, and take the dragon thing way too seriously. They’re all RAR MY AWESOME AND NOBLE DRAGONOCITY WILL EAT YOUR PUNY HYOOMAN SOUL. Notable dragons include Kajima Frostfang, Pookie (I think), Starblade, and that guy who threw himself out the window in despair that he would never experience the freedom of true dragon flight. (2)
Plus, there’s the fact that these so-called dragons generally have really lame interpretations of their totem creatures. They take a perfectly good mythological beastie that’s all about incinerating peasantry and hoarding gold and turn it into something that sits on its ass playing trendy video games. This is nowhere more evident than in "In a Perfect World."
Speaking of video games, you know how there’s something of a link between furry idiocy and EXXXTREME computer literacy/obsession? Seems like a lot of furries are computer programmers. In fact, I’d say a clear majority of them are, according to some unscientific poll or something I saw somewhere, probably because it’s a profession that doesn’t require any social interaction. Burn!
Being as it’s all about showcasing the boring real-life adventures of a group of furries, "In a Perfect World" concentrates on geeky computer humor at least as much as, say, "User Friendly." Okay, enough of this, let’s look at our cast of characters.
AraKraath Greywulf-halfDragon is the main character and…oh, come on. Look at that name. AraKraath Greywulf-halfDragon. Let’s see – unpronouncable first name? Check. Species specific last name? Check. You can’t get much more stereotypically furry without adding "Kitsunecrystalscrotum" in there. Arakraath also fulfills other important furry clichés by (1) being a hermaphrodite, (2) using stupid fictitious pronouns like "Hir" and "Sie," and (3) being copyright "hir player." Yes, AraKaraath was originally born as a Muck character or something. Naturally, when creating a Muck character, that character should embody all of your uninteresting personal traits. That’s probably why he’s…sorry, sie’s a computer programmer. Exciting!
According to his..er, hir bio, AraKraath’s abilities include: Making Things Go Crunch. I hate this line, because it sounds like the sort of kah-razy, wacky thing that a self-professed funster would find hysterical but would make everyone else in the room just roll their eyes and smile politely. Anyone who would say this line would probably be the sort of person to constantly quote Monty Python or whatever purposely enigmatic thing is "in" with conscious geeks these days, and say things like "Meddle not in the affairs of (something), for you taste good with ketchup!" You know the sort, people who are purposely, consciously "off-kilter." They yell out "Monkeys!" or "Ninjas Ahoy!" randomly because they think it’s funny and weird not because they’re really schizophrenic. I hate people like that. Your parents would call someone like that "a card." I would call them "a jackass."
Here’s a brief run-down of the rest of the dramatis personae, yanked straight from the comic’s cast bio page. Notice how every character’s hobbies include wasting time on some sort of video game system. I’ll bet that was another detail taken from real life. I’ve bolded every instance of dull computer jargon being so integral to a character’s personality as to warrant inclusion in his or HIR bio. I’ve also color coded "wacky funster" phrases, just to clue you in to what I’m talking about.
Residents of 26 Draconic (?!?) Drive
AraKaraath Greywulf-halfDragon
AraKaraath © Hir player
AraKaraath was born in Australia and moved to England after falling in love with hir soulmate Aneirin online. Sie is a programmer by profession and an artist in hir spare time as well as a mum looking after their daughter Wai.
Occupation: Mother, programmer, cartoonist.
Abilities: Can make things go crunch.
Hobbies: playing with Lego and Halo on hir Xbox, collecting shiny things.
Weaknesses: Mozarella cheese, Jam filled doughnuts, 50% off Lego sales.
I don’t think it’s acceptable to use the term "soulmate" except during the active pitching of woo. And you should never admit to having said it afterwards.
Aneirin Greywulf-halfDragon
Aneirin © His player
Aneirin is an English wulf who fell in love with AraKaraath online. They live together is an apartment on Draconic Drive, Bristol with their daughter Wai. Aneirin is an office worker whose job is so boring no-one is actually sure what it is he does.
Occupation: Father, Office worker.
Abilities: Can make PCs and Laptops stop working just by being near them.
Hobbies: Playing Chu Chu Rocket on his Dreamcast, collecting cheese movies.
Weaknesses: Belly scritches, 2 Pound Shops, Clark's Pies.
They fell in love over the internet. How sweet. Are these guys able to understand any aspect of the beautiful and mystical experience that is human life without viewing it through the prism of the internet? What is this love you speak of?? It frightens me! Please dilute through internet first.
Also, what’s a wulf? Is that some sort of swanky English term for Wolf?
Wai Greywulf-halfDragon
Wai © Herself
Wai is the daughter of AraKaraath and Aneirin. She is about three years old and especially cute, inheriting her mother's love for art and her father's love of computer games as well as most of their combined collection of Lego. She goes to Raven Park Primary School with her friends Becky, Jen and Ryal and Jess.
Abilities: Can 'cute' someone at 20 meters, cover a wall in crayon in 2 minutes and can materialize whenever someone mentions 'doughnuts' or 'sweets'.
Favourite toy: Her blue 'Foofer' plush dragon.
Best friends: Becky, Jen and Ryal, Jess.
Phoenix
Phoenix © His player
Phoenix is Aneirin's oldest friend and have known each other since infant school and lives in the apartment below Aneirin and Ara's. He works as the head chef at the 'Grub and Cabbage' downtown.
Occupation: Head Chef.
Tendencies: Cooks amazing things at work but at home, he seem to burn everything.
Hobbies: Loud music, assembling the Ultimate computer, stick insects.
Budger
Budger © His player
Budger is a large, blue and red coffee dragon with pyromanic tendancies. He is our resident source of weirdness, generator of improbability distortions, chief coffee maker and sofa warmer.
Habitat: Any livable sofa, Any wardrobe.
Abilities: Can move from place to place via wardrobes, cupboards, etc, Defy rational laws of physics.
Tendencies: Give pineapples as presents, chases the Postman; unbeatable at any computer game.
Diet: Coffee, Chicken, Ham past its use-by date.
Coffee dragon? What? Another unfortunate trend in webcomics seems to be the character who’s obsessed with coffee, as seen in Gene Catlowe with his Jesus rabbit.
Sphelx
Sphelx © His player
Sphelx is Budger's love interest, a strange little leezard who can usually be found dangling from Budger's maw by his tail or lying beside any warm object such as a computer or the oven. Though unlike most leezards he seems to have a frantic energy which makes him jittery. Probably because of budger's coffee.
Abilities: Stretchable, Sticks to walls.
Hobbies: Dancing Stage Games, 3D Graphics, Killing laptops.
Favourite quote: ^_________________^
How the fuck can "^_______^" be a quote? Outside of a Gonterman fan fic, I mean. Look closely at that list and you’ll see it’s six people living together, most of whom are not related. I know that hippies and college kids often live like this, but this more closely resembles a standard furry fuck commune, illustrated so well in the real life living situations of Jennifer Diane Reitz and Kajima Frostfang, where everyone huddles together amid a tangle of computer wires and Ethernet cables in a filthy, decrepit hovel, pays for their stay in furry porn and scritchies, and commiserates about how the cruel outside world doesn’t understand your beautiful dragon spirit or your anime collection. Another telltale sign? When the residents are all gay guys. Don’t ask me why. I just make up these facts and repeat them.
Residents of 28 Draconic Drive
Arcturius
Arcturius © His player
Arcturius is Ara and Aneirin's close friend and lives next door. He has an interest in collecting gaming consoles, especially retro ones, and has a small museum to the gaming industry in his room.
Hobbies: Collecting retro game consoles, shooting boy racers with his noise-seeking hamster launcher.
Favourite food: Orange cheesecake.
Apollo
Apollo © His player
Apollo is an easy going fun loving person who likes his Amiga and classic age gaming as well as a fun skirmish on a FPS but he never takes it seriously.
Biggest Mistake: Summoning the Lesser Demonic Minions.
Kanmeros
Kanmeros © His player
Kanmeros is an old friend of Arcturius's and likes BB guns and anime and enjoys drawing and reading too.
Occupation: works in a Library with people he doesn't like.
NetDragon
NetDragon © Himself
Net's a computer whizz and a bit of a net addict though he loves rally and cars too.
Occupation: PC repairs.
Hobbies: Modding PCs, running chat servers, watching Rally racing.
Online MUCK Record: four days.
Netdragon?? Netdragon??? When the internet becomes so central to your existence that you’re naming your imaginary dragon alter egos after it, I think it’s time to go outside.
As you can see by the repetition of the phrase "© His player," "In a Perfect World" is also a perfect example of a trend in furry webcomics, nay, in webcomics in general, that must end: Populating your imaginary comic world with a bunch of people you know. Look, it’s simple. Watching some nobody friends of the author going about their boring workaday lives isn’t entertaining. It’s depressing. But maybe people would rather that comics make them feel bad, since that’s the only explanation for why strips like this become so popular. Must be why every cubicle-dwelling yutz posts fucking "Dilbert" strips all over the walls.
The jokes in "IAPW" aren’t obscure in-jokes like in "West Corner of the Park," but rather the sort of mundane daily happenings that might amuse you briefly were they to happen in real life but are just stupid when written down in comic form.
Oh ho! There’s lasagne (sic) in the fridge! Haha! And it’s OLD! Haha! Oh, that’s too rich! Dude, the only way this could get any funnier is if someone were to try cooking lasanga, say, and oh! Oh! Get this! They BURN it! Like, maybe it could catch FIRE!! I’ve never seen that happen ever in any comedy, but wouldn’t that be a comical situation??? Wouldn’t that be just hysterical?? See, you’re normally NOT supposed to burn lasagna, so burning it would be the opposite of what you’d expect – which would be that the lasagna would be tasty and not overdone. God, they should pay me to come up with this stuff.
By the way, how much do you want to bet that the shirtless dragon’s real-life human counterpart does not have a neatly-trimmed goatee but rather a huge scraggly neckbeard? Because someone who spends this much time on the internet doesn’t have time for such mundane routine hygiene; he rises above such petty concerns on mighty wings of firey dragon flame. I’m also skeptical about those well-defined abs.
AHAHAHAH, see it sounded like they were deciding on what color to paint the room, but they were talking about CDs! What a wacky modern world we live in! This joke is so fucking lame you can almost hear the "WAH WAH WAAAAAAH" noise vaudeville comedians and Mexican variety shows use to mark corny punch lines.
What did I say? Computers are life.
Footnotes
1. Yeah, yeah, I know they’re not REALLY different species. You know what I’m trying to say here.
2. See Portal of Evil for many, many, many further details.
