{"id":44784,"date":"2025-09-09T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=44784"},"modified":"2025-09-04T13:48:55","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T20:48:55","slug":"awkward-zombie-bone-coda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/awkward-zombie-bone-coda\/","title":{"rendered":"Awkward Zombie \/ Bone: Coda"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

AWKWARD ZOMBIE \u2013 FROM THE WEBCOMIC THAT PARODIES VIDEO GAMES OF ALL KINDS<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Awkward Zombie: We\u2019re Going To Be Rich<\/em>
by Katie Tiedrich
2012, 164 pages (softcover)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buy on Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Awkward Zombie<\/em> is one of my favorite webcomics. Creator Katie Tiedrich writes a comic that focuses on parodying video games of all kinds, with the occasional strip drawn from poking fun at her own life. Fans of video games will find a lot to laugh at here. We\u2019re Going to be Rich!<\/em> collects the first 100 comics originally posted to Tiedrich\u2019s website, Awkward Zombie<\/a>, and is available in softcover or special edition hardcover format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this first volume, Tiedrich primarily writes about Nintendo games like Super Smash Bros and various entries in the Legend of Zelda series, with other games popping up occasionally. If you\u2019re a fan of those games you\u2019ll likely love every panel, as Tiedrich has a great ability to point out the funny logical problems present in these games. One of my favorite such comics makes a joke about the potential difficulties with surfing in Pokemon. Even if you\u2019ve never played a particular game she\u2019s referencing, the jokes tend to be broad enough to understand by more general video game fans. You may have never played World of Warcraft, but if you\u2019ve played any role-playing game you may understand the humor in a large character trying to fit into stolen armor that logically should be much too small for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiedrich\u2019s art stye is perfectly suited to the sort of sideways world parody she excels at. The first couple of comics may seem crude, but they become more refined as the book progresses. It\u2019s kind of funny actually because as Tiedrich develops her own style and the characters begin to resemble each other, she even further exaggerates the physical attributes that make them unique. Being a parody, each character resembles the character it parodies just enough to get the idea, but it isn\u2019t as if Tiedrich is trying to do copies of those characters. She usually makes them even more cartoony than they already are, with fun results (look at how goofy Luigi looks, but it is still clearly Luigi).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing I wish was translated into the book a bit more frequently is Tiedrich\u2019s tendency to explain the comic with a note underneath. She self-deprecatingly references this in one of the comics, but it only pops up a few more times after that. Tiedrich seems to think it\u2019s a hokey device, but those are some of my favorite bits of comedy and I miss them here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If nothing else, it is my hope that you may read this book and follow Tiedrich\u2019s work on her site. She has many more comics available and updates semi-regularly. Fans can even suggest comic ideas on her forum, which she periodically produces. Sadly, We\u2019re Going to be Rich! is the only book she\u2019s released so far, but hopefully there will be more to come. \u2013 Alex Strine<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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BONE IS POSSIBLY ONE OF THE BEST FANTASY SERIES EVER TOLD. HERE\u2019S ITS CODA<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Bone: Coda (25th Anniversary Special)<\/em>
by Jeff Smith
Cartoon Books
2016, 136 pages, 6.4 x 8.9 x 0.5 inches (softcover)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buy on Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you haven\u2019t read Jeff Smith\u2019s Bone<\/a><\/em> series<\/a>, just stop. Stop reading right now, mid sentence, and go pick up his masterpiece. It\u2019s wonderful. Quite possibly one of the greatest fantasy stories ever told. Once you\u2019ve read that and fallen in love with Smith\u2019s humor and characters, then you can appreciate this follow-up that gives you a reason to revisit the Bone Brothers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you aren\u2019t familiar with the Bone<\/em> series, this coda won\u2019t interest you. It\u2019s a companion piece that includes interviews of Smith, an oral history by comic historian Stephen Weiner, and early illustrations of the Bone characters. I found it compelling to hear that Bone<\/em> was a story that almost wasn\u2019t. But through determination, some luck, and careful maneuvering, Smith was able to get the comic off the ground. It\u2019s great inspiration for any independent artist out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the best part about this book is that there\u2019s a new Bone story to be had! The brothers and Bartleby are still in route back to Boneville, when in true Bone fashion things go awry. It\u2019s not a long story, or a deep one, but it\u2019s a reminder about everything that was so great about this series. It\u2019s a little heartbreaking that Smith makes a point to define coda<\/em> as \u201cthe concluding passage of a piece or movement, typically forming an addition to the base structure.\u201d Hopefully we\u2019ll see more from this world, but for now this is a pretty good sendoff. If you\u2019re a completest, you\u2019re going to need to pick this up. \u2013 JP LeRoux<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Books That Belong On Paper<\/strong>\u00a0first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair.<\/em>\u00a0Sign up here<\/a>\u00a0to get the issues a week early in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Issue No. 83<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13684,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[31],"tags":[2398],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44784"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44799,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44784\/revisions\/44799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}