Titles: Colms Comics

Type: Webcomic

Year: 2020-?

Country: Unknown (United States?)

Genre: Comedy

Status: Ongoing (review as of chapter 197)

Platform: Webtoon (read here)

Appropriate for 30+?: Yes… however maybe not 40+

My rating: 3.5/5 stars

(Rating scale: 5/5 = masterpiece, 4/5 = quite good, 3/5 = mostly good, 2/5 = bleh, 1/5 = I regret ever being exposed to this series, 0/5 = affront to humanity)

These short-form comics are goofy, crass, meta, and more often than not parodies of existing intellectual properties. While each individual comic can be extremely hit-or-miss, there’s a good chance you’ve seen some of the hits floating around the internet before. While the series’ content draws from a range of inspiration (from hookups to the pandemic), most of Colms Comics are references to video games, anime, and other nerdy pop culture, although for the most part the humor is generic enough that even if you haven’t played Resident Evil, the Legend of Zelda, or whatever’s being lambasted you’ll still be able to infer the joke (with the exception of the Pokémon comics, as explained in the next paragraph). The cultural references are generally Millennial-oriented, so Gen Xers and older may feel out of the loop at least occasionally.

Starting with chapter 85, Colms Comics gradually morphs into an almost-exclusively Pokémon parody series… and for good reason: it’s one of the best parodies of the Pokémon Red & Blue games out there. Anyone with even passing knowledge of the Pokémon franchise should be able to derive entertainment value out of this sub-series, however unlike with his one-off comics referencing other video game series, the Red/Blue references can get pretty specific.

While far from a masterpiece, Colms Comics got quite a number of audible laughs out of me, and isn’t that all you really need from a comedy series?