Videogame-themed webcomics are a mixed (and dizzyingly numerous) bunch; for every powerhouse like Penny Arcade, there're a few hundred semi-comedic fan-fictions stapled together from sprite sheets and MS Paint doodles. It's always a relief to find something with some genuine craft put into it. The relatively new Eegra's got craft in spades — artist Patrick Alexander deploys an impressive range of visual styles — but it's also got a glorious mix of old-timey wordplay and visual grotesquerie. Just behold the character model Alexander speculates will appear in Soul Calibur VII. It's one thing to make the obvious point that Soul Calibur is more about T&A than gameplay these days; it's another entirely to render that obvious point as some kind of monstrous T&A slug. Eegra is one to watch, and if it occasionally lapses into familiar "cloyingly beloved children's character is actually a murderous psychopath" gags, it usually does so with so much visual and verbal wit that it's hard to complain. Anyone who can render Pac-Man as a Victorian dandy who finds his meal of dots "ripe as a deb and juicy as the ensuing gossip" has made it into my Firefox bookmarks for life.
