MacHall Volume 1

Rating:
Summary: GREAT reads
Review: I also cannot yet review on the printed item, but have been following this comic for years. It has a great sense of humor (identical to my own), and the artist and writer are very talented. Watching Ian's skills develop, improve, and change over time has been interesting, and has inspired myself, and I'm sure many other, to experiment with different techniques and ideas in our own work.

In any case, the comic is great and I recommend it to ANYONE with a love for video games, dry humor, awkward situations, and Shirtless O'clock. ;)

Rating:
Summary: A Review before release
Review: I am reviewing this book, not having read the actual printed release, but the archives of the machall webcomic (www.machall.com) and I would strongly recommend this to perhaps the two main subgroups of people who are already looking for it - people who appreciate masterful use of photoshop and drawing (webcomics, artists, etc) and those who love gaming, computers, and...gaming. If you don't have an xbox, you'll want one. If you wondered why the matrix robots didn't just use cows or snails to power their world, you'll wonder no more. Even if the issue of the mysterious lack of pants in fantasy gaming has never crossed your mind until now, pick up this book. It is one plucky college student's odyssey through life, learning that friendship is built with Unreal Tournament and flies on strings make useful if not sexy shoulder epaullettes. Now that i'm through being the first to rant about this comic, i'll go and try to figure out how to get my bookstore to order them. Buy this book, you will not be sorry.

Rating:
Summary: From Someone who Knows the REAL "MacHall"
Review: I love this comic. Especially wonderful since I used to be able to see the Real MacHall out my dorm room window, and I was over there on a regular basis visiting friends. I know one of the characters from the comic in real life and I wandered the same Art Building as Ian on a regular basis.

This comic is more funny when you know the college (which I will keep nameless, though the seal on the website is a clue), and it's a must-read for any college-bound or in-college student. I highly recommend it. Well worth the money.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Book; Interesting Look at (College) Life
Review: Production values for this book are wonderful; the colors are true; the art is engaging and interesting; a number of the strips are laugh-out-loud funny even for someone who hasn't attended college for -- well, let's just leave it at Some While. For these things alone, this book is worth buying and reading.

But.

What I found even more compelling than the comic are the notes from Matt and Ian along the side of every page. The notes not only detail the beginning of the collaboration and the development of the comic, but offer insight into college life, and paint vivid pictures of the authors, and the creative process. *Well* done.