My Roomate Is a Nightmare | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CID: | 22873 | Subscriptions: | 17 | ||
| Frequency: | Completed | ||||
| Url: | http://www.myroommateisanightmare.com/ | ||||
| Genres: | Comedy, Fantasy | ||||
| Description*: | My Roommate is a Nightmare is an all-ages comic about a fan-girl living in a world where the old gods live and are treated like rock stars. | ||||
* Descriptions are user submitted and might not express the views of the admins of this site, or of the comics creators themselves. | |||||
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Higher percentages are more closely related. | ||||
| Entry Added: | Sat, May 30, 2015 | ||||
| Entry Modified: | Thu, Jun 18, 2015 | ||||
Reviews: 1 Average Rating:
The short version: “My Roomate is a Nightmare” is a comic I enjoy just enough to wish it was better.
This comic starts with a bit of vague lore about gods, then follows a dark-elf-looking fellow who I assume to be the god of nightmares. He enters his bedroom to find a naked satyr boy lying on his bed. The two get close, and just as I start to wonder if I’ve unwittingly picked up a yaoi comic…
… it was all just a dream.
I don’t like this at the best of times, when a story starts with one character for a while, then suddenly switches to our “real” protagonist. This is especially bad when the fakeout protagonist was someone as interesting as the god of nightmares, and the real protagonist is an ordinary girl in an ordinary world. However, I stick with it here, mostly because the art is really, really good. Seriously. It reminds me of Don Bluth films or other classic animated movies from my childhood. The way characters are drawn especially stands out in my mind, what with their big, expressive eyes and smooth anatomy.
So, I stick with the comic and learn what I can. The new protagonist is a slightly chubby, freckled dark-skinned girl, which is a rare sight to see as a protagonist, so that’s quite a plus. She does ordinary stuff: stays up late writing, only manages to finish two sentences (I can relate), wakes up late, grabs a quick breakfast on her way to work, doesn’t pay attention and nearly runs over something. Then, the comic reveals that she nearly ran over…
…a lamia (woman on top, snake on the bottom)?!
Okay. Recap: at first, we were in a fantasy world. But that was all just a dream. Then we’re in the real world, with internet and computers and jobs. But now the real world is a fantasy world? There are lamias? And fairies, and griffons, and centaurs, and the protagonist’s boss is a drider (woman on top, spider on bottom)?!
This all comes to a head at one point when one of our protagonist’s coworkers says that there’s “an interesting queue” forming. The problem is, when we the readers see the queue, I don’t know what’s interesting about it. Is it that all of them are wearing black? Or that most of them are holding books? Or that there’s a dragon in front of the queue, or a cow-person in the back of the queue holding a sign reading “End of line”?
I don’t know what’s interesting in this world, because I don’t know what’s normal in this world.
What’s worse, this comic has played the “Ha! Tricked you! It’s actually…” card twice. I honestly don’t trust it to not reveal that everything was just a dream again, or perhaps some elaborate costume event.
This all is made worse by an odd artistic decision: every page (except the first) is a single panel. I don’t know what they were going for with this, but it really kills the pacing. In most comics, if the protagonist were to 1) brush her teeth, 2) throw on a shirt, 3) run downstairs and 4) grab a muffin while 5) running out the door, then all those parts would be part of a montage of panels on one or two pages. Here? Each of those actions is its own page. This can really slow down reading the comic, especially with a slower Internet connection that takes around four or five seconds to load a new page. Some might tell me that I could load multiple pages with an RSS feed. I would reply that if I have to download third-party software to make a comic more bearable to read, then there’s a bigger problem at work here.
I might sound like I hate this comic, but I really don’t. The artwork is beautiful, and the concept is interesting. There’s a modern world that is also populated by mythological creatures. Heck, some of the characters have been described as a “god” or a “deity.” What does the physical presence of deities mean for this world? How do oddly-shaped creatures like griffons and centaurs and lamias effect things, not to mention the creatures that can fly? Is there magic? Is it restricted to magical creatures? How are normal humans seen in this world? Is the protagonist even a normal human?
These are questions I genuinely want the answers to, and I’ll gladly keep reading, if for no other reason than the lovely art. However, this one does worry me. There are over a hundred pages so far, and the characters in the comic’s banner have yet to interact. There have been no sign of roommates or nightmares, despite both being promised in the comic’s title. While this all is troublesome, I still feel like a bit more refinement could bring this comic’s writing up to the standard set by the art. Go for it, writer. I’m rooting for you.
Well, except for when the satyr was updating his “Faebook.” Bad writer. Go to your room and think about what you’ve done.
This comic starts with a bit of vague lore about gods, then follows a dark-elf-looking fellow who I assume to be the god of nightmares. He enters his bedroom to find a naked satyr boy lying on his bed. The two get close, and just as I start to wonder if I’ve unwittingly picked up a yaoi comic…
… it was all just a dream.
I don’t like this at the best of times, when a story starts with one character for a while, then suddenly switches to our “real” protagonist. This is especially bad when the fakeout protagonist was someone as interesting as the god of nightmares, and the real protagonist is an ordinary girl in an ordinary world. However, I stick with it here, mostly because the art is really, really good. Seriously. It reminds me of Don Bluth films or other classic animated movies from my childhood. The way characters are drawn especially stands out in my mind, what with their big, expressive eyes and smooth anatomy.
So, I stick with the comic and learn what I can. The new protagonist is a slightly chubby, freckled dark-skinned girl, which is a rare sight to see as a protagonist, so that’s quite a plus. She does ordinary stuff: stays up late writing, only manages to finish two sentences (I can relate), wakes up late, grabs a quick breakfast on her way to work, doesn’t pay attention and nearly runs over something. Then, the comic reveals that she nearly ran over…
…a lamia (woman on top, snake on the bottom)?!
Okay. Recap: at first, we were in a fantasy world. But that was all just a dream. Then we’re in the real world, with internet and computers and jobs. But now the real world is a fantasy world? There are lamias? And fairies, and griffons, and centaurs, and the protagonist’s boss is a drider (woman on top, spider on bottom)?!
This all comes to a head at one point when one of our protagonist’s coworkers says that there’s “an interesting queue” forming. The problem is, when we the readers see the queue, I don’t know what’s interesting about it. Is it that all of them are wearing black? Or that most of them are holding books? Or that there’s a dragon in front of the queue, or a cow-person in the back of the queue holding a sign reading “End of line”?
I don’t know what’s interesting in this world, because I don’t know what’s normal in this world.
What’s worse, this comic has played the “Ha! Tricked you! It’s actually…” card twice. I honestly don’t trust it to not reveal that everything was just a dream again, or perhaps some elaborate costume event.
This all is made worse by an odd artistic decision: every page (except the first) is a single panel. I don’t know what they were going for with this, but it really kills the pacing. In most comics, if the protagonist were to 1) brush her teeth, 2) throw on a shirt, 3) run downstairs and 4) grab a muffin while 5) running out the door, then all those parts would be part of a montage of panels on one or two pages. Here? Each of those actions is its own page. This can really slow down reading the comic, especially with a slower Internet connection that takes around four or five seconds to load a new page. Some might tell me that I could load multiple pages with an RSS feed. I would reply that if I have to download third-party software to make a comic more bearable to read, then there’s a bigger problem at work here.
I might sound like I hate this comic, but I really don’t. The artwork is beautiful, and the concept is interesting. There’s a modern world that is also populated by mythological creatures. Heck, some of the characters have been described as a “god” or a “deity.” What does the physical presence of deities mean for this world? How do oddly-shaped creatures like griffons and centaurs and lamias effect things, not to mention the creatures that can fly? Is there magic? Is it restricted to magical creatures? How are normal humans seen in this world? Is the protagonist even a normal human?
These are questions I genuinely want the answers to, and I’ll gladly keep reading, if for no other reason than the lovely art. However, this one does worry me. There are over a hundred pages so far, and the characters in the comic’s banner have yet to interact. There have been no sign of roommates or nightmares, despite both being promised in the comic’s title. While this all is troublesome, I still feel like a bit more refinement could bring this comic’s writing up to the standard set by the art. Go for it, writer. I’m rooting for you.
Well, except for when the satyr was updating his “Faebook.” Bad writer. Go to your room and think about what you’ve done.
