WEB COMICS ROUND-UP: SHORTPACKED!

[Andrea Speed]

This is the start of a new feature, where I highlight web comics that I like, and think you should read. First up is Shortpacked! by David Willis, the saga of a toy store and its many eccentric inhabitants. It’s the perfect place to make jokes about the obsessive nature of various fandoms, and pop culture references, varying from Michael Bay to Batman to just about any movie, TV show, or action figure you can name. Sometimes someone pulls the drama tag, but not too often.




1. For those who have no idea what it is, what is Shortpacked?


David Willis: Shortpacked! chronicles wacky misadventures in pop culture, via a toystore run by a megalomaniacal dictator and populated by misfits, sociopaths, and a former President of the United States. Occasionally, there will be a Batman joke.


2. How did it come about?


DW: I have lots and lots and lots of Transformers, and worked at a Toys "R" Us for a few years. I clearly have a thing for toys. Plus I had some jokes about Aslan and Frank Miller to tell, so I assembled a cast and setting that would facilitate any joke I could possibly conceive. Shortpacked! is basically a vehicle to do anything I want, whether it be telling a story with the characters who work at the store or a one-off joke about Indiana Jones.


3. Have you gotten a cease and desist letter from Pat Lee's lawyers yet?


DW: I'm really not sure if he even knows I exist, despite my impotent Internet rage. I'm really the least of his problems. Word is he's hiding out in Hong Kong to evade those he owes money to in North America. He's got three companies worth of unpaid employees out for his blood. I just draw funny-looking pictures!


4. Where do you see yourself in five years?


DW: So long as the setting of this strip keeps me creatively happy, still doing Shortpacked! If not, doing some other strip. What I'm certain of is that I'll keep doing webcomics indefinitely, and also that I will be insanely rich. Rich enough to afford ponies. Ponies made of gold.



A fun read, feel free to visit Shortpacked! yourself and have a look around. (Occasionally Shortpacked! uses strong language. But only occasionally, so don't be afraid.)

[B. Schatz]

I love, love, love Shortpacked! Right after the whole Spider-Man thing, they had a realy good "Spider-Man Forgets Mary Jane" thing that made me laugh out loud in the comic shop. I had to show people who came in, and they liked it too.

Great, great stuff.

[Andrea Speed]

I love, love, love Shortpacked! Right after the whole Spider-Man thing, they had a realy good "Spider-Man Forgets Mary Jane" thing that made me laugh out loud in the comic shop.

I remember that one! Funny.

I also liked their recent one about why Spoiler wasn't in Batman's "hall of fallen Robins" (or whatever the frig it's actually called ). But then I'm a fan of Shortpacked!'s repetitive Batman. "I'm Batman." In case we forget.