8-bit Theatre

8-bit Theatre

Brian Clevinger

Fantasy/Comedy
PG/PG-13

There are many sprite comics out there (sprites being, for those that don't know, the 8-bit/16-bit characters from the old NES and SNES game systems), many of which are not fun to read. I've scanned many sprite comics, and most of what I come across involve Megaman swearing up a storm in leetspeak. 8-bit Theatre is not one of these sprite comics. I've been reading this comic on and off for years, and I always wonder why I stopped reading it when I pick it up again.

The whole comic is a parody of the first Final Fantasy game. Our four (sort of) heros, Black Mage, Fighter, Theif and Red Mage, are out to stop the bad guys. The storyline loosely follows the plot of that game (very, very loosely), however most of the jokes have nothing to do with the Final Fantasy world.

This comic is not about the art, although I am sometimes impressed with how the artist can make expressions so obvious with blurry pixels. This comic is about the writing. The jokes are nearly always spot-on, and the timing of the jokes is well done. The humor is my favorite kind of nerdy fun, the kind that can laugh about the idea of sword-chuks being an ultimate weapon. The plot doesn't move forward much, but to be honest the plot isn't as important as the punchlines.

I do have one complaint: sometimes the artist carries on a joke longer than it is funny. But that is very rare.

The comic has been around for a while, but I would recommend reading from the beginning since many of the later jokes work off the character's personalities. This isn't heavy stuff, and it should only take a week at most to get through.