Diesel Sweeties is, as artist Richard Stevens describes it, an “indie rock robot romance comic” and that pretty much sums it up.  The comic is in the style of a Sunday morning comic strip, with mostly humor and very little continuous plot.  The cast of characters include both humans (mostly parodies of archetypes of real-life humans) and robots.  The story is about how these humans and robots interact and their lives and romances.  Most of the characters are likable, though not particularly easy to relate to.  This comic is good if you’re looking for a light read.

It’s difficult to review the art for this comic, because it is purposely lo-fi.  One of Stevens’ other descriptions for Diesel Sweeties is “pixelated robot romance.”  The characters appear as they would on a hand held video game, blown up and put in full color.  The art style fits the theme of the comic.

The website is neither difficult to navigate, nor clever.  It has its own online store, character profiles, an about page, extra art, a news blog, and icons for LiveJournal and computers.  One bothersome thing about it is that you have to go to the “info, contact and links” tab in order to get to everything except for the store.

This comic is updated every Monday through Friday.  It is aimed at adults.  Readers should be warned of sexual content and blood.

Rating:  A-

John Allison’s Scary Go Round has gone through six years of evolution, but the current story is a mix between a mystery series and a comedy.  Although there are no outright jokes, Allison has a subtle sense of humor that makes his comic entertaining, even if not roll-on-the-floor funny.  It takes place in fictional town of Tackleford, England (though many of the characters end up traveling all over the world), where the large and widely varied cast find themselves in the midst of several strange and supernatural events.  The comic deals with themes you’d find in a horror movie, but it neither parodies them or allows them to make the comic too dark.  All in all, it is an entertaining, light read and not as dark as Vampirates.

The art has changed drastically from the beginning of the comic.  The first chapters of the comic had a flat, almost paper cutout appearance, but since Allison made the transition to Adobe Illustrator, it has become much more lively and cartoonlike.  Each page is in full color.

The website that it is hosted on is fairly straightfoward and simple.  It is light on the extra features; the main focus is definitely the comic itself.  The main features include a merchandise store, a character profile page, a Q and A from Allison, and links to comics that Alllison has drawn guest pages for, and Allison’s blog.

The comic updates every Monday and Friday.  It is enjoyable by all audiences.  Readers should be warned of supernatural themes.

Rating:  A

Today’s webcomic is slightly different than the previous webcomics I’ve reviewed. It is a doujinshi, an unofficial fan-comic of another series. This webcomic’s name is Grim Tales From Down Below and the series that it is based on is The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, though characters from other cartoons make cameo appearances. It takes place in a future when Mandy and the Grim Reaper have married and stars their two children, Grim “Junior” Reaper, Jr. and Minimandy “Minnie” Reaper. The first chapter features the two sneaking into a forbidden part of Hell where they run into an unfriendly demon. The next several chapters are in the form of a flashback where Junior remembers how Minnie changed from a beautiful young girl into a corpse sewn together and reanimated. The plot itself is fairly dark, with themes centered around death, demons and other such things, though the characters are fairly cartoonish - over-the-top and entertaining. The complexity of the characters is hard to judge at this point because not much of the story has been explained.

Each page is in full color. The style is a mix between anime and classic American cartoons. I find no complaint with it, though the dialogue has become less crowded and more readable since the beginning of the comic.

The website that Grim Tales is hosted on is also slightly different than the ones I’ve reviewed before. Grim Tales is one of several comics hosted on the same website (the others are accessible through thumbnails at the top of the page) and all of the links to the comics’ special features lead to the same webpages. The only exception is the cast page, which only shows the cast of the Grim Tales comic and what series each character originally appeared in.

The comic is updated on Sundays. It is hard to judge the target audience for this comic. Readers should be warned of supernatural and Satanic themes, death, heavy violence and blood (though oddly, there is no swearing).

Rating: B