| Original review author: | SinisterTwist |
| Webcomic name: | Girly |
| Author: | Josh Lesnick |
| Start Date | April 2003 |
| End Date | Ongoing |
| Genre | Romance, Comedy |
| Reviewer's opinion: | 5 stars |
| Positives: | Good artwork that steadily improves over the course of the webcomic, nice character interaction |
| Negatives: | Sporadic updating that's almost as bad as the V.G. Cats updates |
| Warning: Plot spoilers follow! |
Story and Plot
As far as story goes, it's pretty random. It's not as CHEESEMONKEY RANDOM SAUCE as CuteWendy was, but you pretty much can expect just about anything to happen. The basic story line surrounds the characters of Otra and Winter.
Otra is a depressed fashion designer who spends most of her days shooting anyone who annoys her off into space (which is pretty much everyone she meets). She meets Winter at random one day, only to promptly get hit over the head with an enormous dildo. Winter then proceeds to follow/stalk Otra around, culminating in her falling asleep on the front lawn of Otra's house.
Now I know some of you might be thinking "Gee, this sounds incredibly stupid". In a way, you are completely right. The premise of it is pretty silly sounding. However, the plot lines do improve, plus part of the comic's saving grace is that it is completely willing to poke fun at itself for being so completely absurd.
As the series progresses, we see the relationship between the two of them grow closer and stronger. The characters become more intricate and more realistic (for the comic), and occasionally Otra and Winter are shuffled to the sidelines so other plot arcs can come to the surface.
Art review
The art was pretty nice to begin with, although it was kind of clunky. As far as webcomic anime-ish art goes, it really wasn't all that bad. Lesnick definitely liked drawing an manga-esque style, but he did try to put his own little spin on it. However, if you compare the original artwork style of the comic to the later quality, there's no question that the earlier style was pretty bad- especially when you compare it to one of the more recent pages that contained animation.
Overall though, the artwork is very good and for a webcomic, it can be considered astounding.
Writing review
The story line is decent enough, although there were a few arcs I liked better than others- such as the Chuy/Autumn story arc, which had the Girly universe's #1 lothario falling for an internet geek girl.
What I think is worth noting is the amount of foreshadowing that Lesnick has put into his work, especially for the last story arc. (The series is currently ending.) The latest story arc has Otra and Winter fighting off evil sidekicks created by a well meaning, yet usually evil mega company. Frequent mention is made to the queen sidekick, but it isn't until much later that it is revealed to be Otra. After re-reading the webcomic from the beginning, I was surprised to see hints of discontent between the pair being thrown into the comic many chapters before this. Even in the current arc I noticed that the longer Otra seemed to stay in the now-abandoned Cute Town (everyone left after the evil sidekicks took over), the darker her hair seemed to get at times. (As the evil queen, her hair is pitch dark.)
Conclusion
This won't be everyone's cup of tea. That much I'm incredibly certain of. Some might not like the randomness of the comic, others might not like the artwork, and others might get irritated at the incredibly slow updating time of the comic- months can go by without a single page update. It's almost as bad as when V.G. Cats updated only 4 times in one year. Lesnick isn't quite that bad, but he's pretty close and that might turn some people off to the comic.
I have to admit, while I like this comic… it isn't one of my top five favorites. Artwork-wise it is, but as far as the story and updating time goes it is probably #6 or 8 on the list.
