Bob and George- The Comic
Created | Updated Jan 29, 2007
The Bob and George webcomic (newspaper or comic-book style comic on the web) is one of the first mainstream sprite comics, that is, a comic using the images, or "sprites", from non-3d rendered games. Featuring many characters, the comic has spawned quite a community around it, allowing for the creation of many more sprite comics when none had existed a while before. But this is not the story of the community, but of the comic.
It started in 2000 as a stall until the author, Dave Anez, could get a scanner; the Megaman parts of Bob and George, featuring the Megaman crew doing random things, were only supposed to last a few weeks. Unfortunately, the few weeks turned into a month, and when Dave finally started the drawn comic he found that the Megaman stuff was much more popular. After another unsuccessful try at drawing, Dave decided to settle on the sprites and thus a phenomenon was born.
The comic is basically divided into two parts: the re-enactments, where Megaman and the rest of the characters redoing the plot of the original Megaman games (as of this writing, they finished 5), and the other stuff. The other stuff is generally a villain coming to kill everyone, a party to celebrate the aniversary or another, sometimes random plot. The re-enactments take their plots from the Megaman video games. However recently they have been deviating from said plots more than in the past. Much of the focus is on the (sometimes random) humor involving anything from anime to ice cream. But generally, it's the characters that take the center stage:
Megaman: A robot built by Doctor Light; he's the hero of the re-enactments and due to poor timing and Dr. Light's sarcasm he's also a moron.
Bass: A Wilybot, and fellow moron extraordinaire, sometimes even dumber than Megaman.
Roll: Megaman's sarcastic, bitchy sister. She can be more aggressive than Megaman sometimes.
Dr. Light: Megaman, Roll and Protoman's drunken, asshole creator.
Protoman: Megaman's cool, aloof brother.
Dr. Wily: the incompetent recurring villain of the series.
Bob: An interdimensional, homicidal traveller, and one of the title characters. He is George's brother and his supervillain form is Napalm. He controls fire and likes to barbeque.
George: The slightly wimpy, ice cream obsessed superhero title character; his superhero form is Blitz and he controls lightning.
Ran: One of the most popular fanmade characters; his power is that he can break at the touch of a feather, but is instantly remade by his regeneration chamber. Created by Kilikana Cossack as a science fair project.
Nate: The first of the demons in the strip, and so named because his true name, N4-T3, is 'Nate' in l337. He is near-sighted and mute. Able to transform into many things, but mostly choses a humanoid form or a giant muscle-y mass. Able to fuse with many of the Light- and Wily-bots, he most often fuses with Protoman, creating Protean.
Chadling: the other demon in the strip, Chadling is George's ice cream eating buddy. Fused with George, they create Charge, the super-fast demi-demon.
Although one of the most popular webcomics, Bob and George has it's ditractors. Many dislike it because of its insistance on staying in the time that it started, rather than improving from the recolors and minor edits it started with. Many others feel that the comic has collapsed because of it's own popularity, and become a constant selfrefrence. Finally, some feel it simply isn't funny. However you may feel about Bob and George, however, one thing is certain. It's gonna be here for a while yet.
