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Great
Great chronicles the adventures of a man who loses everything, and then gains some things, and then loses some more things. It's about ramen and fighting and being damn fantastic. This simple, black-and-white cartoon is packed with action and laugh-out-loud wordplay. Any further description is more or less impossible.
Read it at kiwisbybeat.com.
Read it at kiwisbybeat.com.
Webcomic
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 14, 2018
Nostalgic re-read. I remember reading this as it was being created, waiting for new updates to show up in my RSS reader.
Why I picked it up
First of all, this was hard to pick up! First of all, it's kind of hard to google "What was the name of that 'great' webcomic about ramen?" Secondly, the website is down. Luckily, all the material was preserved by archive.org's Wayback Machine, so I was able to download it and make a CBZ to read on my iPad.
I thought about it initially because I just finished Good to Great, and thinking about greatness in general, I remembered Mr. Phipps and how much I enjoyed this story. It was shorter overall than I remembered, but it was still really good.
What I want to remember
I still really like how the characters age and change over the course of the story. Lyle himself goes through so many changes and identities.
I thought, and continue to think, that Mr. and Mrs. Phipps's relationship is really interesting. I'm not even sure whether they're still actually together at the end. They both clearly love each other. They are wise enough to know that they are not really that great for each other. Mr. Phipps is too unreliable for Mrs. Phipps at the end, and if he doesn't resent her coddling him and carrying him success, then he at least recognizes it and chooses to do without it. And her. When she says she'll continue to be there for him "sometimes" is one of my favorite parts of the whole story, as is the fact that she keeps her word when you see her leaving and saying, "See you again next month, Lyle!" It's just a really interesting take on what makes a relationship successful.
Why I picked it up
First of all, this was hard to pick up! First of all, it's kind of hard to google "What was the name of that 'great' webcomic about ramen?" Secondly, the website is down. Luckily, all the material was preserved by archive.org's Wayback Machine, so I was able to download it and make a CBZ to read on my iPad.
I thought about it initially because I just finished Good to Great, and thinking about greatness in general, I remembered Mr. Phipps and how much I enjoyed this story. It was shorter overall than I remembered, but it was still really good.
What I want to remember
I still really like how the characters age and change over the course of the story. Lyle himself goes through so many changes and identities.
I thought, and continue to think, that Mr. and Mrs. Phipps's relationship is really interesting. I'm not even sure whether they're still actually together at the end. They both clearly love each other. They are wise enough to know that they are not really that great for each other. Mr. Phipps is too unreliable for Mrs. Phipps at the end, and if he doesn't resent her coddling him and carrying him success, then he at least recognizes it and chooses to do without it. And her. When she says she'll continue to be there for him "sometimes" is one of my favorite parts of the whole story, as is the fact that she keeps her word when you see her leaving and saying, "See you again next month, Lyle!" It's just a really interesting take on what makes a relationship successful.
January 3, 2024
Shaggy-dog story about a man plagued by terrible luck and bad decisions who perseveres through sheer willpower, and manages to find...contentment? success? through his ability to beat people up with a barstool. There are some Tampopo-style ramen restaurant threads that spiral into huge corporate dealings and a whole arc about living on the streets as a determination guru. It's weird, frustrating, and doesn't come together very well for me except in a handful of places. The art is sketchy and not particularly good but Armand is very good at capturing the passage of time. The core relationships are complicated and bittersweet and there are some really nice moments, but they're hard to find among the directionless trudge of the full comic.
July 1, 2016
Truly one of the most touching web comics I've ever read. The ending was perfect! It's a shame that the site is no longer up :(
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews