Just What Is An Underfold?

Well, I'm not sure what an underfold is, but I do know that The Underfold is the Webcomic of the Week. Probably almost all of you don't know about it yet, mostly because it's pretty new.

As to why it is called The Underfold, the writer/artist Brian C. Russell, tells me that the name comes from the fact that Sunday editions are printed on index cards with drink labels on the outside, hence the comic is under the fold. Maybe not as clever a name as Dinosaur Comics, but that's just because it doesn't have dinosaur in the name.

The comics themselves are generally formatted the same as regular comic strips. There are four panels and the first three set up the punchline in the final one. What I like about it is that the jokes generally make fun of themselves. Mr. Russell has a firm understanding that legacy strips like The Born Loser, Beetle Bailey, and Blondie have essentially destroyed the usual comic strip punchlines. His strips don't talk about how much it sucks to have a job or bitch about having a boss that acts like a boss. He pokes fun at himself and his own creative process. About how if he doesn't want to draw it, then it disappears from the reality of the strip in the next panel. It's refreshing in a world of the same recycled jokes to have another fresh perspective to go alongside Jeffery Rowland of Overcompensating and Wigu, Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics, Chris Hastings of Dr. McNinja and Wes and Tony of AmazingSuperPowers.

The art isn't as good as some would like, but in the short amount of time Mr. Russell has been posting his comic on the web, the art has improved immensely and I'm sure it will continue to improve(I must say that it is much better than I could ever hope to draw, so he gets a free pass from me).

The only major gripe I have is that each comic is labeled as an episode in a season. I'm not sure how many episodes Mr. Russell decides to have in each season, but if he keeps making new comics I think that this system will become unwieldy even though he does provide a title for each comic. But that is his own system and he may have good reason for using it.

So, I urge you, if you are looking for a new webcomic that doesn't suck and isn't a manga, to check out The Underfold. It may not be the best comic out there, but it's better than pretty much anything you'll read in a newspaper.