#webcomic reviews

[thewramblingwebcomicreview]

TWWR Round up 06/15/2026 – The Truth Will Only Lead to More Headaches – The Wrambling Webcomic Review

In the comics I'm following this week, sometimes learning the truth can be quite the headache.

Some news announcements in the intro too.

[thatonecomicguy]

My newest review. Follow @zackmorrisonart for updates and more!

[thewebcomicsreview]

Ko-Fi Commission: LeaseBound

Leasebound is a “gender-critical” (TERF) webcomic that attained notoriety after releasing a chapter with hateful depictions of trans people, leading to it getting banned from Smack Jeeves. It’s currently self-hosted on a comic press site without a cast page, archive, or even menu, and doesn’t appear to have a patreon (and likely won’t, given its content). It’s a small enough comic that I wouldn’t normally feel comfortable reviewing it, except that the creator explicitly encouraged me to and appears to be getting off on the bad press. 

The story starts with two characters finding out that they both rented the same apartment because the landlord was incompetent and double booked it.

And this particular landlord doesn’t have any other rooms available. There’s a host of logical objections to this set up, such as

Isn’t this fraud on the part of the landlord?

Wouldn’t a major deception like this void the lease?

Why don’t the women move to some other landlord’s apartment and sue the shit out of the woman who sold them a single apartment and surprised them with a roommate?

How does a huge apartment complex with at least 18 rooms have two people booking rooms that don’t talk to each other?

Is the groundskeeper also doing the paperwork and background checks? You don’t buy an apartment at the apartment store, it’s like a whole process.

Isn’t this just the fanfic “but there was only one bed!” trope taken to an even more illogical extreme?

But that road leads to becoming CinemaSins, so let’s just acknowledge that the premise is ludicrous and all the characters are morons so we can move on with our lives. Anyway, the characters introduce themselves as Jaden and Riley, and casually accept sharing a bedroom. They exposit a bit about how Jaden dropped out of college and Riley never went, and

Uh

RILEY: Sorry- I wasn’t trying to pry. JADEN: All good. Earlier you said you had a “few things” in mind RILEY: Right, yeah! I thought it was be good to set some ground rules. JADEN: You can add’ “more organised” to the list then too. Haha. RILEY: Wait, really?  JADEN: Stories for another time

What the fuck? What list? What is Jaden talking about? Why is there an apostrophe hanging out after “add”?

You know how in PS1 JRPGs the translation would be really bad and sometimes people would just say weird shit that didn’t seem to have anything to do with what was just said?

That’s how Leasebound dialogue reads, bizarre punctuation and all. The add’ with an apostrophe is baffling, but I also like how “Haha.” is it’s own sentence with a period at the end.

 Anyway, the rest of the chapter is about how Riley owns a cat but has to keep it a secret because she doesn’t know if the landlord allows pets and I guess didn’t think to ask when she was applying for the lease.

So, the status quo is established. Jaden and Riley wanted to buy a single apartment but got foisted with a roommate, but they’re happy because that means the rent is cheaper. Personally if I wanted a cheaper apartment and was willing to have a roommate I’d get an apartment with a roommate in the first fucking place but we really can’t keep complaining about how stupid the premise is we have to move on. So Jaden is in the living room and, hold on, sorry

This living room is massive. The kitchen has a fridge, and oven, and two matching sofas. In chapter 2 Riley’s going to fit in a four-seat table in here. This is supposed to be a studio apartment in Downtown City

Y’know, City. Not any particular specific real or fictional city with a name, but City.

And Jaden and Riley, neither of whom have college degrees, are so hard up for cheaper rent that they’re comfortable with the surprise revelation of having to share a bedroom with a stranger. But they’re also in a huge apartment in the middle of a metro area? This living room is nearly as big as mine, and I have three roommates and live in Cheaper Suburb. Why are you buying all this space at City square foot prices if money is tight? Get a smaller apartment, or if you really need the space get an apartment that’s not in the middle of City? The author of this comic is 23, has she not looked into getting an apartment? Bigger ones are more expensive.

Okay, okay, the premise is dumb. Let’s move on. Riley and Jaden make sm-

Why are you sharing a tiny bedroom if your Living room is party sized and has multiple sofas? Why not partition off some of the living room with room dividers from IKEA to make a faux bedroom with privacy?

Ahem, Riley and Jaden make small talk and order a pizza and it takes a long time and it’s not super interesting but it’s supposed to be cute and I can’t really fault a slice of life comic for taking its time. Riley’s worried that her girlfriend won’t like that she has a roommate (Riley why don’t you move in with your girlfriend?), and Jaden gets a call from work that they’re shortstaffed.

They’re so short-staffed that they’re going to send an employee out to go pick up Jaden. Can Jaden not get to work on her own? That seems like the kind of thing that would make her not want to move in to this specific apartment. Why would you move to an apartment that you couldn’t get to work from? You’re in the middle of City, and your job is a big nightclub in City, and City has public transit. You previously did not live in City, meaning you used to live further away from work than you now do. How did you get to work before? Isn’t picking up a Jaden a tremendous waste of an employee’s time? Even if the club is aware that Jaden can’t get in on her own and is willing to bend over backwards for her here, why not “Jaden, we need you at work pronto. Take a uber over, we’ll reimburse you”, which is dramatically easier for all involved? Why is everyone in this comic so fucking stupid?

Sigh

Well, Jaden goes to work, and that leads us off into the infamous chapter 3, “The T is for trouble”

We open the chapter with a bad-faith trigger warning that looks like a real content warning but is actually designed to get trans people really mad as Jaden heads to work and-

Hey hey, Rusty started putting links to her tumblr in the comic pages. Someone was expecting pages from this chapter to go viral, wasn’t she? Was the chapter where Riley and Jaden spend a few pages ordering a pizza not giving you enough engagement? But now that you’re the official #2 Terf Webcomic you get lots of angry people in your tags that you can reblog and be snarky at. Bet that makes you feel powerful. I know the feeling. I built my tumblr following by writing reviews and advice columns for five years, but you went from zero to hero in like a week and all you had to do was say mean things about trans people oh my god I figured it out

You’re Mary. Rusty Hearts is Mary Bradford from Dumbing of Age. You want the validation of the “wrong” kind of people giving you shit. That’s why you made sure all your transphobic comics had links to your tumblr and your getting pizza comics didn’t. That’s why you keep reblogging my ads for my comic that I place in your tags. That’s why you see me post the review and make a response like this

And you know what?

Nah.

I’m not going to include chapter 4. I’m not going to read it. I’m not even going to include chapter 3. There’s nothing that I can add to it that hasn’t been said by a ton of other people. I can post your anti-trans stuff and get the vapors about how bigoted you are, but at the end of the day I’m not the Social Justice Report. I’m The Webcomics Review. And your webcomic sucks. It’s boring, it’s stupid, it doesn’t make any sense. Your premise is ludicrous and quickly abandoned to bait and switch people into reading a political polemic (I did skim chapter four, it’s literally people standing around in a circle talking about how trans people are bad like a terfy Ayn Rand novel). Your characters are all morons in order to get to plot points you want to get to, and your first two chapters are a mountain of pointless exposition and characters being vaguely cryptic about their backstories.Your art is bad not just in that you can’t draw well, but in that you don’t bother to include details to give your world a sense of place, and the details you do include like that luxurious living room actively undermine your alleged story (to the extent that there’s a story at all).

But hey, you got your 15 minutes of fame (and zero patreonbux) from the anti-trans stuff. You got people to read your comic. Good hussle. Well done. Tatsuya Ishida does it better.

Leasebound gets zero genders out of a spectrum.

Like this review? Follow me on patreon, or buy me a Ko-Fi! Or even just read my own webcomic, Saffron and Sage!

[isitwednesday]

In December of last year, we received a recommendation to read City of Cards by @cjjoughin. So without further ado…

Today’s spotlight is on City of Cards by CJ Joughin.

Updates: Once a month Recommended if you liked: Tekken KinKreet, VA-11 HALL-A, Transistor, and Brave New World

It’s hard to describe what makes City of Cards so compelling to read. Even from the epigraph - a quote from Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” - I was hooked on finding out what this new world was. The quote discusses one’s ability to reach enlightenment only through spiritual pursuits, rather than relying on physical senses to be an accurate representation of the world. For a webcomic that exists within a futuristic dystopia where everything is regimented, and your job is pretty much your entire identity, that’s a heavy quote to start on. In addition to this, CJ Joughin art balances between the realistic representation of a person and the harsh reality that these characters live in. At first I was a bit taken aback by how dark the story is - not just the art, but the plotline, the character backgrounds, the overall concept. However, when I sat down to read this work, I just flew through the pages. It’s a compelling dive into what people do to live, the power that they try to grasp even within a system that is attempting to stop them at every turn.

This stark, enlightening look at the everyday world, coupled with the dystopian and sci-fi elements of ID credits, ghostly images, and district regulated areas, makes City of Cards one that is not for the faint of heart but a treasure for those who are looking to sit in the darkness with these characters.

CJ Joughin describes City of Cards as “a retro-future exploration of the capitalist hellscape we all currently live in, filled with the hopes of the people that inhabit that world and the love that keeps them going despite all odds against them” and that is the most perfect summary of this. In addition to this, Joughin’s love for this project is obvious is every panel. Joughin has spent over a decade working on this story, and this is the type of work that we need right now - one that takes the discouraging parts of our own society and shines a light on where we could go and how we can continue to hope for the future.

Read it HERE from the beginning!

Support independent artists! CJ Joughin’s Patreon

[counterintuitivecomics]

The Playful Sci Fi Mystery of Lora Merriman’s The Otherknown, by Laurel Lynn Leake

The Otherknown (2015-present), an ongoing sci fi webcomic by Lora Merriman, is a fun and engaging read with a surprising amount going on under the surface. Now wrapping up its 3rd chapter, it’s established its main players and is poised for a high stakes collision, making now the perfect opportunity for new readers to jump in and devour this first, well-paced chunk in one go. I’ve avoided the biggest twists for new readers to discover on their own, but this analysis will contain some spoilers for Chapters 1-2, so read on at your own risk!

We begin the story from the point of view of Chandra, a young girl traveling with her aunt, the intergalactically famous jewelry magnate Ajupris Lerazmine, as they arrive at an isolated mining facility on the moon of DH-6. ...When the ending of Chapter 1 reveals the answer to [the first] mystery, it only plunges us into a larger enigma that’s both more complex and darker than these opening pages might first suggest.

...One of the first ways The Otherknown explores this darkness is with the strong undercurrent of class struggles throughout the dramatic action of the plot itself. The introductory setting of the DH-7 facility functions as a microcosm for this future world: “little people” like Judd Winsome who must sign decades of if not all of their lives away to make a living and send money back home, their noveau rich boss Demeck who joined A.I.D.E. to escape poverty and gain power in the middle, and the impossibly wealthy and powerful Ajupris, who casually floats the idea of buying out the contract of Chandra’s new friends as a “birthday present” to her. Demeck’s skill in negotiating a good contract for A.I.D.E. could determine whether he lives or dies – and to complicate matters further, he seems to have a long personal history with his off-planet boss, the charming yet ominous Barthélemy Chenu.

Got another analysis up on ROAR, this time for @longlostlora‘s excellent webcomic The Otherknown! Go give it a read at the source link if you like (and then check out the webcomic).

[mangaandwebtoons]

Why You Should Read: Oh! Holy

Looking for a sickeningly cute romance? Oh! Holy, might fill that inescapable hole in your life! This review covers up to Chapter 51.

At first glance, Oh! Holy looks like a small spin on similar romance stories like Kimi no Todoke or Horimiya. The introverted gloomy kid meets the beautiful idol of the class, but then BOOM! they were childhood friends. Following popular Korean trends, the main character can also see ghosts to serve as the main foil that pushes the story forwards.

Well that doesn’t sound very compelling, but Oh! Holy is not afraid to completely flip the script, literally. This story is fast moving and unpredictable. It also manages to be endearing despite it breakneck speed. While Oh! Holy brings nothing new to the table, it overwhelms you with new situations, developments, and twists.

The art is cute and surprisingly consistent since it is the first work we have seen from Ahyun. Distinctive characters and designs makes it easy to root for the characters you like.

There is little to say about Oh! Holy. It knows what type of story it is, and is not afraid to exploit your knowledge of typical romantic tropes to show you a fresh perspective of a over-saturated genre.

[vermillionworks]

In Sarah Nelson’s Daniel, Toxic Masculinity is Vampiric

Over time the metaphorical meaning of the vampire has diversified, shifting away from its earliest existence as a literary representation of xenophobic beliefs. Whatever cultural fear or anxiety va…

This is.......DUDE. Read it. I love it. o__o

[nova8080]

Me: I'm gonna read Killing Stalking.

Best friend: don't do it.

Me: i come from Tokyo Ghoul, Atack on Titan and Parasyte. Ain't nothing scaring a bad bitch like me.

[2 hours later]:

Me[crying]: why is this happening to my baby yoobum? Life is so unfair. That bitch, sangwoo. No, i can't.

Best friend: i told you.

Me: shut up.