Impressions: 20 Something

Humorous and entertaining Webcomic

20 Something, a webcomic by Jimmy Norris, focuses primarily around the antics of two best-friend roommates, Mike and Jeff. The characters and jokes so far have a certain charm to them that hit more often than miss. Mike typically plays the role of the 'straight man' while Jeff gets into the silly situations. Mike’s parents also have a tendency to show up on occasion and their banter back and forth is pleasantly cliché. Don’t ask me what 'pleasantly cliché' means, but it is a compliment.

It’s still too early to see just how crazy some of those silly situations will get, but so far they’ve remained pretty grounded; the craziest situation at this point being the two of them being given a sheep as a pet/lawnmower/cook. The riffing between the two friends and between Mike’s parents work particularly well and have had me laugh more times than not. Deliver more comics like the final chapter of “The Pancake Saga” and I think 20 Something will do well.

As for the art style, 20 Something has a fittingly simplistic look. And, being a little over half-a-year old, it has already made the jump from purely black and white to full color. The addition of color does add to the style, but the creator may want to shift away from the gif file format as it tends to make gradients appear “funky” (technical term).

Technically, the site looks and runs well. The style itself is also simple, with only a pleasant full-color header up top. 20 Something runs on wordPress with the ComicPress addon, and is relatively easily navigated. Though, when browsing through the archive there is no ‘first’ or ‘latest’ link. I am curious as to if/how Jim is generating revenue for the site as I see no ads. Not even a donations button.

From what has been published so far, it looks like the creator has the talent to deliver a quality webcomic. My only hope is that the creator can find time to turn this into a daily comic. I’d be more apt to remember to visit it daily than weekly.