Doctor Necromantic is a webcomic by Nate Bramble, currenly published either on its own domain or on the website Tapastic (or do they prefer Tapas now? bah! humbug! I'll call them Tapastic much as I will call Wikia Wikia to my dying breath, whether or not they rename themselves Ostrich or whatever). Webcomics, much like print comics, are a wild jungle of mediocrity with the occasional gem, and I think this is one of them.
It concerns a wel-off gentleman by the wonderful name of Dr Olaf Derleth, who decides to take up necromancy as a hobby. Spooky fun ensues in a classic Addams Family or Comedy of Terror vein.
Even setting aside for a moment the fact that I really like spooky comedies, and that this is a very good one, I think the biggest draw has to be the artwork. The watercolor coloring/shading and the “classic” look of the characters, combined with the detailed backgrounds, make for an extremely appealing aesthetic that is too rarely seen in modern comics. Note also that this uses the comic font, the one foolish discarded by IDW lately as you'll recall from the last post. I dig it.
The above strip is representative of the kind of joke usually found, and of Dr Olaf's dynamic with his simple-minded (but in no way Igor-eque) assistant Carl. Most of the comic is just strips of this sort chronicling Dr Olaf's studies into the Dark Arts. The Doctor himself is a fun protagonist, whose acerbic wit, ego, and cynicism somehow shouldn't work with the fact that he is also an incompetent beginner, but, somehow, do.
This not to say, of course, that Doctor Necromantic is perfect. As with any comic strip, some jokes just aren't that funny or tasteful, and some of the attempts to inject a serialized story into the proceedings don't work as well as the author thinks they do.
Nevertheless, Doctor Necromantic is a very enjoyable (and rather quick) read, recommended to all who like both classic comic strips and fun spookiness.
Post-Scripta:
- Is it a coincidence that both this and another, much-better-known gothic-story-parody, Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events, feature an egotistical, cynical nobleman by the name of Olaf with a unibrow? I frankly don't know.
- Yes, this review was rather short, but I don't have much time these days. Still, you can look forward to a review of a much better Disney comic than… what we saw last time… quite soon! And after that, to another, non-comic bit of wannabe-gothic hilarity…
