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(Warning: Spoiler Alert)
Since the success of Penny Arcade, webcomics based on games have sprouted across the Internet like mushrooms. Ctrl+Alt+Del (also known as CAD) is one of the more popular webcomics which also revolves around video game geekery. The webcomic serves as a hybrid between a video game review, and episodes of a geek meets geek story similar to TV’s Big Bang Theory (well, if Penny were a geek instead of being, well, Penny). The main protagonist, Ethan, is the stereotypical socially-inept geek, one who even goes so far as to declare a special gamer holiday known as Witner-een-mas. Ethan has token gamer girl, Lilah, as a girlfriend, and he lives with Lucas, who is more level-headed and spends most of his time in damage control mode while around Ethan. They also have a pet of sorts, the robot Zeke, which Ethan made out of X-box 360 parts, and who dreams of taking over the world.
CAD’s author, Tim Buckley, has been working on CAD since 2002, and has even expanded it into a series of animated shorts. CAD’s strength is in how it truthfully captures how geeks interact--at least in certain situations. At first, Ethan takes a roundabout route asking Lilah out, and even utters a confused, “A what to the where now?” when Lilah mentions date. As another example, Ethan also had a workmate who just wouldn’t stop talking about Counterstrike, which annoyed the hell out of him.
On the other hand, calling the Vatican in order to say the release of the Gamecube (as such supposedly marks the coming of the antichrist) is something a bit too… far-fetched to represent geek behavior.
It must be said though that while the webcomic got off at a strong start, the constant repetition of “Oh no he didn’t” situations gets old after some time, which is often the case for slice-of-life serials. Perhaps if Buckley hadn't been so quick to get Lilah and Ethan together, there would have been more to explore. Instead, as the webcomic community complains, he now has been reduced to attempting to inject drama in the story by way of getting Lilah pregnant then having her lose the baby. While dealing with this sort of tragedy makes Ethan more than merely the lovable loser, it came off as an unnecessary shock after hundreds of tongue-in-cheek comics. Recently, CAD just hasn’t been the same, and it just isn’t as engrossing or funny as it used to be.
Further Reading:
(Image source: Ctrl+Alt+Del website (Screencap))
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