Outed!

One of the webcomics I love is Shortpacked!, which is more or less about a toy collecting guy who works at a toy store. But it's so much more than that because it examines on a personal level the psychology of someone with a passion for a hobby I somewhat casually engage in. So I find it one of those webcomics where the artist is almost communicating personally with me through their work. It's written and drawn by someone who has a lot of geek credibility in my eyes. I've never really met David Willis aside from seeing him at a Transformer convention here and there, but when I read Shortpacked! I get the feeling we're more or less on the same wavelength when it comes to the whole toy robot thing. HE DOES STRIPS ABOUT GOING TO BOTCON.

So recently one of his characters came out of the closet in his strip and I wrote a response at the strip's blog because I thought that was a pretty significant event and it was being overlooked by the readers. Because you see, instead of functioning as a blog about the events in the Shortpacked! comic, the Shortpacked! blog mostly serves as a place where David and his friends get together to write about what Transformers they bought that day. It kind of sucks because I think the way he writes about his love/hate passion for action figures in his strip is more thought provoking than whatever new toy came out. But whatever. I guess in that situation it's impossible to seperate the two types of commentary.

Jumping into Shortpacked! at this point probably wouldn't grab you because the strip is in the middle of the latest story arc, but if you go back to the strips from 2005 you'll be in for some good reading. Like I say, the strips that focus on the psychology of grown men collecting action figures are my favorite. When I last saw David at a Transformer convention, I bought the raw pencils to my absolute favorite Shortpacked! strip, which demonstrates exactly the kind of writing that really connected with me. At the moment I feel that David has moved away from focusing on those topics I find interesting and I kind of wish that he'd return to that, but hey-it's a strip mostly about being a fan of transforming robots. It would be unfair to expect it not to change.