Ben and Zane had a problem. Or rather, they had no problems at all. All their cares had been danced away. Sure, their society was a fractured class-divided race-divided shantytown without access to electricity or felt cleaner, but none of that seemed to matter. The Cartoncasters had each other, they had music, and they had Hawaiian shirts as far as the eye could see. Which was not very far, living in a dark cave and all. Down in Fraggle Rock.

Ben and Zane were enjoying a cheese tour of northern England when they bit into a local sample. Something was...off. The cheese was crumbly, but not in a good way. In fact it felt and tasted like clay! It started moving on its own, just very very slowly. Rather than touch it further with their hands, the Cartoncasters set up a Rube-Goldberg-esque contraption to do away with the dreary dairy. Ah well, at least they still had each other!

In the second part of our in-depth summary of Kid Radd, we follow Radd from his quest to find powerful allies to fight the Moderators up through the dramatic conclusion and epilogue. As the party goes in and out of video game parodies, the author moves between drama and comedy to convey the central themes which are restated, just, so many times.

Read Kid Radd here

It's a Scrambl'd, it's a Bootlegg'd, it's a 2-parter! We're breaking the rules with an animated webcomic that does the same. A personal favorite that found inventive solutions to the problems of the medium and still holds up, in format and in story. Join us as we follow Radd, a video game protagonist taken from his game and put into a world where he has to fight corrupt politicians, violent sprites, and his own programming.In part 1 we go over the major themes of the story, as well as the plot up through Radd's visit to the Seer.

The comic can be found here.

The Cartoncasters held their breaths. They approached each other in the field of battle, in Blood Gulch, but never as they imagined. Zane crept up from behind a protruding rock, shotgun in hand, as Ben boldly charged ahead, pistols blazing. A brief second of hesitation, indecision... then regret. Zane, a Red, and Ben, a Blue - there was only one way this could end. And after the dust settled, muffled sobbing sounds could be heard behind Zane's helmet, as he teabagged the shit out of that dirty Blue.

Ben and Zane were walking through animation, minding their own business, when suddenly space warped around them, transporting them to the land of puppetry. It turned out that the cause of the reality maelstrom was a vaguely racist caricature, one Cousin Skeeter. The Cartoncasters tried their best to figure out a way home, but it was really hard to focus on anything besides that goddamn puppet.