by Ali Graham
The logical place for a static visual form of communication (such as online comics) is to make it move, and one of the first to take the step into the world of animation was Tim Buckley’s
Ctrl + Alt + Del. Although an obvious advancement the move was bold nonetheless.
Starting out as an online subscription, with a new episode every month, the animated shorts have been collected, remastered and packaged into a neat little collector’s addition DVD.
The series itself takes Buckley’s successful video game webcomic, with the comedic exploits of Ethan, Lucas, Lilah and Zeke. Unfortunately the four panel comic doesn’t translate all that well to the animated world. It has the elements of the comic – the statement, the set up, the gag and the reaction. The thing it lacks is the timing.
Within animation, as funny as it may or may not be on the page, without expert timing that can only be gained with experience (something Buckley readily admits to lacking the accompanying commentary), it can get a bit painful to consume. The first few shorts chug along in a predictable set of circumstances, with “crazy antics” aplenty, its just all a bit forced. The gags may work in the world of webcomics, but in the five minute shorts it gets a bit lost in translation.
From an animator’s perspective it is quite painful to watch. It’s very pose to pose, with little in-betweening involved. But to be fair, without a huge budget or indefinite amount of production time, you need to work with what you have.
After a few blunderous episodes, the series does pick up towards the end, with a Star Wars parody driven trilogy where the gang take on Jack Thomson and Hilary Clinton to save the world of videogames. There are some witty elements and some fairly good voice acting, but in this day and age of referential programming the bottom of George Lucas’ barrel has been scraped pretty thin.
Its not a total disaster, and perhaps if I was more inclined to spend my days indulging in videogames, I may have appreciated some more of the gags. It’s perhaps harsh to draw comparisons with the likes of Family Guy or Futurama, but when you take that leap into the world of animation, you have to bear that cross.
In terms of a DVD its very nicely packaged, with some nice little bonus features, and an interesting enough commentary track, where Tim Buckley is actually honest about the pitfalls of the series.
My Rating : A noble effort for leading the way into the realm of animation, with some time to develop his screenplay writing skills, and possibly more time to create a longer, more developed storyline that has less of a stale aftertaste, we could see something very enjoyable.
For now Series 1 is best suited for your die-hard CAD fans, and anyone intrigued to find out for themselves. Not necessarily worth the full price tag, but interesting to see what could be the start of the logical advancement of webcomics into animation.
