As promised, here is your return to normalcy, or whatever amounts to it around here.

We’re talking webcomics this week, and continuing the look at work in comics that I started a few weeks ago, with a look at a unique dichotomy of joblessness and low-income work, as exhibited by Paul Southworth’s* Ugly Hill and Scott J. Morris’ Debt On. Both of comics feature casts that include young adults (technically) in varied stages of (un)employment, but in very different ways. I haven’t read all of either of them, but I think that they’re worthy of your consideration.

The two comics are as different in their approaches as they are in style. Ugly Hill’s has a look that anyone who was fortunate enough to have access to cable TV, especially Nickelodeon in the early 1990′s will appreciate, and almost evokes the idea that this is where the less popular or ambitious members of the cast of Rocko’s Modern Life (or more likely Aaahh!!! Real Monsters) ended up.

Debt On, on the other hand, more closely resembles a newspaper comic in format and presentation, except for the times when it’s in color. This is actually very appropriate, as it largely deals with issues like the government*, or society at large. The starkness of the black and white adds a certain amount of bleakness to the comic- it’s mostly black lines on white space, with little texturing or fills.

Ugly Hill, in keeping with its cartoony appearance, presents an exaggerated view of work and working. Two of the main characters, Eli and Snug have what might be politely referred to as an almost religious devotion to not working. Eli’s brother Hastings, the raging Lawful Neutral to Eli’s Chaotic Neutral (or possibly Chaotic Good) has his own devotions, in addition to coming up with unique ways of dealing with inter-office rivalries.

I like Hastings. I really do.

Debt On does not need a monstrous cast or any situations any more bizarre than those thoughtfully provided by real life to succeed. The situations that they find themselves in make the plight of the characters (to say nothing of ourselves) seem all the more sobering, when you stop to think about it.

Of course, there is the occasional curve thrown by the cast, or even sometimes to the cast that serve the dual purpose of lightening the mood as well as further illustrating the fact that changes are necessary, if not immediately in sight. Ugly Hill does its own fair share of poking at the corporate machine, but in a less straightforward manner, instead (from what I’ve read so far,) drawing on the extreme personalities of the cast to fuel the storylines. The characters primarily react to each other; not as much to events in the environment around them the way that the cast of Debt On does.

And that’s about it. It’s really rather late, and I’m tired from working today myself. I currently lack the gumption to put up a proper conclusion, so this will have to do.

Thanks for stopping in, I’ll speak to you again next week.

*In another instance of print-to-web and back again, while searching the Ugly Hill site for a name to credit the comic to, I found that Paul actually worked on a comic that I’d bought all the issues of (in real life) once upon a pretty long time ago, titled ‘Black Plague.’

**Normally I avoid politically-themed material, especially in my entertainment. However, Scott frequents The Webcomic List’s forum, and I enjoyed reading his points of view there, so I clicked through, and thought what I found there noteworthy enough to share.