Bert and People He Knows
Posted: Tuesday, November 22, 2005
By: Steve Saville
Creator(s): Bert
Publishers: Self Published on the web
From: com
Price: Free
Bert Comic is a straight-forward enough web comic. It's a strip cartoon format utilising a three-frame approach with occasional forays into the extravagance of a six-framer. For added spice the comics appear in both English and Spanish.
The art-work is basic, nothing more than a collection of circles, squares and other related geometric shapes. There is a deliberate lack of detail in the characterization and a complete absence of background detail. The monotony of this approach is broken up with some delightful colour pictures of Bert in a variety of scenarios, my favourite being Bat Bert, that's right Bert as Batman. The overall result is that the strips have a hurried, rough, urgent feel about them It is as if the creator suddenly thought of a funny joke and couldn't wait to get it out to the world.
Detail and artistic splendour be damned, people need a laugh and they need it now.
This does give the strips a certain, winning charm, but the simplistic style does mean that the jokes have to be good, very good, if the comics are to be worth the time it takes to read them.
Fortunately Bert Comic is funny [most of the time]. At times, it must be said, the gag misses the mark and the vital punch line is just lame. Luckily this is more than compensated for by the strips that made me roar out loud. Even better, some of the strips made me call my teenage son for a shared guffaw. Even better again are the strips that made me roar out loud but not call my teenage son because I was afraid that he would find them just as funny.
Yes the best strips on Bert Comic are the rude ones. The ones that centre on watching porn and sexual fantasy and/ or inadequacy, for example here is the dialogue of one of my favourite strips where Bert is talking to his girl friend [not girlfriend] Lula,
I love men who can surprise me.
I have a very small penis.
[Lula leaves.]
Maybe too much of a surprise.
Now that is funny.
Another prime example,
I have a date tonight. Do you want to see a photo of her?
Sure.
Is she hot or what?
Dude she's a dog.
And.
Bert is a geek, he spends too much time with his computer, is clumsy around girls etc. etc. His friends include an unfunny clown and of course Lulu. He is plagued by self-doubt and the feeling that he is wasting his life and so just about every comic-reading male on the planet can relate to him.
My best advice is to take the time to meet Bert [he needs some new friends] but limit yourself to one Bert a day, preferably at the beginning of the day, it's a treat you deserve.
In a Word: Titillating.
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