Capes & Babes, a webcomic by Chris Flick

So, two aliens walk in to a bar disguised as aliens…
No, that’s actually not the set-up of a really bad and tasteless joke, but it COULD almost be the premise behind “Zorphbert & Fred” – a webcomic by Dawn Griffin.

In actuality, “Zorphbert & Fred” is a webcomic about two aliens that just happen to LOOK like dogs – and they look like dogs in order to perfectly blend in to our society and study us from the inside – out. No, seriously.

Even without reading Dawn’s bio on her website, it’s very clear that she’s a dog owner herself. Although I’m sure one could imagine how dogs might react in certain situations, fellow dog (and cat) owners will feel a kinship when they read Dawn’s strips and see the antics the aliens go through in order to perfectly blend in and not give away their “secret”.

Dawn comes from an illustration and design background and you can tell that from the expertly chosen color schemes she chooses in the color versions of her strip. But even when she decides to go “all grayscale”, you can still see her graphic design skills shine through.

I also mentioned Dawn’s strip tonight during the Lightbox Podcast I record with Matt Stout (www.bigsandygilmore.com) in which I mentioned Dawn’s style kind of reminds me of a little bit of Disney, mixed with old style Warner Brothers with a hefty dose of Ren & Stimpy sprinkled in to the mix. Her style is loose but clean, graphic-y but sketchy and she really spends a lot of time with her colors and shading. For an example of what I’m talking about, check out the Christmas tree in the first panel of this strip: http://www.zfcomics.com/comics/the-aftermath/http://www.zfcomics.com/comics/the-aftermath/

With two “dogs” in the strip, it would be real easy to fall into a dog version of Garfield but Dawn doesn’t do that. Instead, “Zorphbert & Fred” reminds me of something more along the lines of Heathcliff on Red Bull but with a touch of heart. Heathcliff could sometimes be a bit too snarky for me but that’s not the case with“Zorphbert & Fred”. “Zorphbert & Fred” is cute but has also has some edge to it – but not in a nasty, snarky way. It’s way more zany than anything else.

I also want to mention Dawn’s website as well since there are some things I like about her site too. For example, I love the outer space background and the custom buttons she has made for the main navigation of the site in addition to the comic strip navigation buttons below the strip as well. This is anything but your “typical” comicpress-generated website. I also like the “Book-o-meter” graphic she has on her left side bar too.

Almost everything fits really well together in terms of website, art, writing and design. However, if there could be two things I would change about her strip it would be her choice of the dialog font she uses and the decision to include blinking Project Wonderful ads right before her blog post. I think the blinking ads are a bit much and can sometimes distract from her beautifully arranged and designed art of the strip. I would much rather her turn off the ability to accept animated banner ads here, but just the animated ones. The static ones are fine and don’t distract from the site at all.

When one talks about dialog fonts, that can always be a bit tricky. Some people prefer digital fonts while others prefer hand-lettering. Likewise, the choice to use a particular digital font can be extremely important as well. Although Dawn’s strip is very easy to read, I think, after long sittings, the use of Tekton as a dialog font can become difficult to read over time.

In fact, given the loose style she shows towards Zorphbert & Fred, I actually wouldn’t mind seeing Dawn try her hand at hand lettering the strip every now and then – just to see what that might produce. Or, in the very least, perhaps experiment with a slightly more traditional comic book lettering style or font. One might argue though, given the fact that the “dogs” are alien, having a more mechanical looking font suits their characters. Still though, seeing what she is capable of doing with sound effects, it would be very interesting to see a hand-drawn styled version of  “Zorphbert and Fred”.

In any case, the choice of dialog fonts is, honestly, a nit-picky one based more on personal style than anything else. It’s certainly nothing that should keep you from enjoying a great little zany strip by Dawn Griffin called… Zorphbert & Fred.

-Chris