by William G.
with commentary by Stephen Crowley
Sorry if you were expecting a pun about nudity in the title. We ain't that kind of review site.
I'm William G and I'm back again to take a closer look at the webcomics that I think you should be reading. As is the plan with my larger reviews, I invite the artist(s) to respond, add their two cents, and tell us why they do that voodoo that they do.
This month, I'm going to be taking a look at Stephen Crowley's "Loxie & Zoot".
Stephen Crowley hails from Sydney, Australia. He says that he's been drawing ever since he was child, creating his first comic at the tender age of nine about a hero in a cat suit. Going through the typical superhero phase we all went through, he eventually found himself work drawing educational comics. That experience coupled with his attending nudist resorts since his university days led him to create Loxie & Zoot.
Here's the quick summary of "Loxie & Zoot": At the Koala Bay Bares Naturist Resort, a wide collection of characters, ranging from the wacky to the sublime, enjoy their relaxation time sans clothing. Occasionally they have to deal with strange dimensional-hopping women, jewel thieves, and their arch-nemesis Tex Tyler, who strongly desires to shut them down. And when this all happens, wacky hijinks ensue.
Crowley Adds:
A few years after university I landed a job with one of the only publishers
of educational comics - their speciality was realistic comics that
told stories about specific issues without trying to be too preachy
or judgmental (and they were dealing with some pretty heavy issues).
Humour while dealing with the heart of the matter was a big theme
with them and they produced some excellent comics - it was my
initiation into a fairly unique comic genre. L&Z kind of flowed out
of that to a degree. Also, around that time I started reading a lot
more alternative, indie and underground comics.
I can't really say what it is that led me to start a comic about
nudists. I get so many different ideas about so many things! Having
enjoyed several visits to a nudist beach with my university friends the
topic seemed fairly unique and one day I thought it would be a niche
market - I did managed to get a half page cartoon of L&Z published in
an Australian nudist magazine in 1997. Beyond that, I wanted to do a
comic that went totally against the convention of comics of nudists
that presented them all as young hour-glass figured women and chesty
men (with a few dirty old men thrown in for good measure) strutting
about doing nothing much but looking at each other. Usually they were
all strategically drawn from the waist up or in such a way as to
cover genitals/breasts/backsides - and generally they were the butt
(no pun intended) of some sexually oriented joke. I wanted to go
against convention and do something from the nudist perspective and
played against the taboos about nudity and sexuality and stereotypes
of nudists that abound in wider society.
--The Site--
"Loxie & Zoot" (To be referred to as "L&Z" from this point on) is hosted on Keenspace. However, it's obvious that Crowley made some effort to keep his site from looking too much like a stereotypical Keen site. The background is a flat color instead of the repeating wallpaper that seems all too common. There is no tagboard, nor is there a huge box-ad filling up a good chunk of his page. It's all very simply laid out. Title on the top, comic, page links, blog.
While the light yellow background color does seem to compliment the comic's palette, it tends to make the site's visual presentation very bland. There is a wide variety of information on his site about his comic, his purpose, himself, and a very sizable cast list. This is a site that presents it's information with little or no fanfare. Given that Crowley has stated that he wished to show nudism in a matter of fact manner, this lack of flashiness fits the site perfectly.
I'm going to give it a "Does the job" for a grade... If I was grading these things. Maybe I should?
---Writing---
One of the general criticisms I've seen in regards to L&Z is that the writing is somewhat weak. That Crowley is presenting stories that are on par with your average Archie comic from the 1970s.
I'm going to have to disagree, but not because I don't think L&Z is lacking in that cutting edge type story we reviewers tend to flutter around like moths. The writing on L&Z is as pretty far removed from "edgy" as you can possibly get. I feel the subject matter gives people expectations they shouldn't have: Going about your life with your clothes off is pretty daring, so the comic should be too, right? But what you're reading is some fairly pedestrian stuff. Not what you'd expect from a bunch of undressed people now, isn't it?
Crowley's intent is to simply show that being naked isn't really all that bad of a thing. In a way, the comic is almost an evangelical missive for the naturist movement. This is quite evident in the first story, "The Koala Bares".
It feels as if we're witnessing a revivalist meeting. There's music, love, kindness. The characters are open to letting anyone into the flock if they simply let go of their doubts and just believe. And those who do, are healed of whatever self-esteem issues they may have had when first arriving at Koala Bay Bares. A great deal of attention was drawn to the fact that the characters all had varying body shapes, and that none of the visitors need to feel ashamed of themselves.
By the end, everyone who had accepted naturism into their hearts was happy and at peace. Those who didn't remained unhappy. And the "saved" knew that one day the "unsaved" would accept their salvation, it would just take a bit more time and patience. And in keeping with the religious theme, the main antagonist, Tex Tyler was originally presented to us in a dream sequence as the satanic snake to Loxie and Zoot's original biblical couple.
If I had to make a pop cultural comparison for Crowley's writing, I'd say that it was akin to a classic "Love Boat" episode. When someone shows up at the resort, we get a brief bit of character exposition, and then, through the good intentions of the main characters, the visitor's problems are solved. There was no edge, no cynicism, and no anger in the stories. L&Z is a very wholesome comic. The stories lack negativity, and it's that lack of negativity which makes L&Z an exceptional work in the webcomics world.
The following tales, "Frank.Cam", and "Ghost Story", are suffering from being short tales stuck in the shadow of the first story. As a result, it's very easy to overlook them when considering L&Z as a whole. While both of them do keep in with the theme of "Nice naturists vs. shady people" they are not nearly as preaching of the lifestyle. Which is a nice change of pace, but it means they are lacking the effectiveness of the original tale. The current story, "It's A Nood, Nood, Nood, Nood World!" looks as if it will be a more solid read, so we'll have to wait to see how Crowley will handle his creation.
The only complaint that I have about the story-telling is that there are too many characters jockeying for face time. I'm under the assumption that there was a previous version of L&Z that I'm unaware of. The characters are written like they've already been established. This leaves us with a lack of recognition for the characters. The only reason I know that Loxie and Zoot are the main characters is because the comic is named after them. Perhaps, as the series goes on, there will be more depth added, but as for now, the characters are rather two dimensional. But, before it seems I'm ending this section on a negative note, Crowley himself did state that he was approaching his comic as a sort of sitcom. And in that case, depth isn't really needed.
Crowley has managed to do exactly what he intended to do with his comic. And for me that indicates that Crowley has been an effective writer.
Crowley Replies:
In many ways I feel the first L&Z story is very weak for all the
reasons you raise and the latter two (frank.cam and ghost story, or
even 3 hour tour) are much less (if at all) about soapboxing for the
cause of nudism... and yet people rarely refer to them in review (not
that i've had all that many reviews!). I wrote the koala bares some 4
years ago and in terms of naiveness it's pretty stellar... almost to
the point of being embarrassing, the more humourous aspects
notwithstanding. It would be interesting to hear some feedback on
where things might seem to be going post 'koala bares'.
I guess I feel conflicted about what to do with l&z... I'm more a
Simpsons person than an Archie guy, and yet I agree with your
assessment...! The problem stems from the fact that when I started
the whole thing i saw the audience as being specifically nudists
rather than web comic readers (or even comic readers) - so the pitch
of it was different for that reason... it's drifting away from that a
bit. How far I could go with that I don't know.
My only other comment is more of a reflection i had yesterday sparked
by the love boat comment (gotta admit i never watched that)... for a
few months now I've been thinking l&z is a bit of a blend between
Gilligans Island and the Munsters/Addams Family wherein
"stranded/isolated people have to make their own scenarios out of a
limited number of possible scenarios, but also seem to be visited by
a large number of outsiders" equates with the insularity of the
nudist resort and the supposed "social outcasts/freaky people see themselves
as the normal ones" theme pretty much equates to everything else.
---Art---
One of the pleasing aspects about L&Z outside of its general good will, is the art.
Colorwise Crowley seems to put a great deal of effort into making sure that the background coloring does not clash with the amazing variety of skin tones he utilizes. That's not to say that he downplays the background colors or attempts some hackneyed method such as rendering everything except the characters in greytones. Crowley's palette actually compliments the flesh tones, drawing them out while enabling the backgrounds to exist in their own right.
As for the flesh tones, I am highly impressed that he has been able to create such a remarkable variety in the skin of his many characters without any missteps. The skin colors are natural looking, as far as cartoon skin can be considered natural, and everyone seems to have their own skin and hair tones. He is using more than the typical "peach", "caramel", "coffee" tones that we're all guilty of over-using in the comics world, and in that respect, it makes L&Z seem every bit the comic of brotherly love I feel it to be.
While the previously mention backgrounds, as well as the objects, are well colored, they tend to be on the simple side. However, this is a minor complaint due to the fact that Crowley seems to be using his backgrounds simply to indicate setting. The characters interact with their environment well, and don't seem to have any of the various perspective troubles that crop up from time to time.
The real success story of L&Z's art is Crowley's depiction of the human body. And it's a success that probably could only have come about due to the artist's knowledge of the material. Crowley depicts a wide variety of body shapes and sizes in a matter of fact way that is both surprising and pleasing to see. We live in an era where our image consciousness has slipped into almost dangerous obsession. As a result, our fictional characters tend to be idealized to such a degree that they cease to be believable as humans. Crowley ignores that completely. There are fat characters, thin characters, buff characters. Breasts are not sexualized and quite natural, as are the... shall we say... "equipment" on the male characters.
Basically, everyone is not a cut wall of rippling aerobics teachers. And what makes this even better is how none of the characters are made to feel ashamed of the matter.
All in all, Crowley has a pretty solid technique, and while it's not overly flashy, it does do it's job well, for it perfectly compliments the intent of the comic.
Crowley Replies:
Thanks Bill, that's great - you've pretty much pinpointed all my
techniques and motives (whether I was conscious of them or not!!) I
would add that the variety of body shapes also stemmed from my
previous gig with the educational comic publisher I mentioned earlier.
In order to make the comics more realistic to readers (in
this instance, mostly young adults) we generally depicted a variety
of physiques - of course these were all clothed... but it became my
first cartooning experience of drawing overweight characters and so
forth. It then became a template for everything that has followed.
In terms of the colour, again, spot on. I realized that the characters
were all more or less variations on tan or brown or pinkish - which
is a lot of tertiary colour, so I used the more vibrant primary and
secondary colours to balance what would otherwise be an overload of
brown. The sheer number of people I've drawn has helped me improved
my sense of natural anatomy even if some parts need some work still
(notably the feet!)
---Summary---
Loxie & Zoot is possibly the most pleasant comic I've ever had the luck to come across on the web. There is no malice, no hate, and no cynicism involved. The humour isn't particularly sharp, but I feel a lot of that may be due to my own cynical nature. But the comic does make me smile. A warm, "I wish the world really was this nice." sort of smile. I consider that good.
In a medium where the main point of most comics seems to be about finding how many ways you can have two slacker buddies call each other "asshole", Loxie & Zoot is a rare gem. I hope Crowley never strays too far from his current path, for I feel it to be the right one to be on.
Thanks for reading.
