QUICK TALK - Grim Tales From Down Below by Bleedman

A little comic about incest, 9-11 and other happy thoughts!

Hey guys!

Unlike what you might have thought, I have NOT stopped doing this little project of mine to attempt to fix horrible writing all across the internet. In fact, I have gone on a small hiatus. I will still be going through this hiatus for a while, so until then I have created what I like to call "QUICK TALK"s.

What is a "QUICK TALK"?

It is essentially a small little rant about some form of writing or video that someone has made that I find so infuriating or beautiful (depending on the subject) and I talk about it for a little bit. A "QUICK TALK" will not be a full-fledged review. It is just a rant that gives you a taste of what subject I'm talking about, by talking about the premise, the important characters, the good, the bad, etc. And you can decide if you want to see/read it when you finish. (I will of course give you my final 2 cents at the end, though...in case you are curious)

Confused still? Well, let me just show you how it will go. Let's talk about the webcomic on Snafu-Comics called "Grim Tales From Down Below".

The Premise:

Grim (from the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy) and Mandy (from the same show) get married and have two kids: Minimandy (who looks human and can control some type of dark magic) and Grim Jr. (who is a skeleton). During a party in Halloween Town (from Nightmare Before Christmas), the following incidents occur:

1. Minimandy gets mutilated by a machine and gives her powers to Grim Jr. via giving him her right eye

2. Minimandy gets kidnapped on her way to heaven by Him's (from Powerpuff Girls) "daughter"

3. Minimandy reveals that she has feelings for Grim Jr. (I will be getting into that later...)

4. Minimandy returns as a zombie thing

5. It turns out Minimandy is actually the kid of Mandy and Nergal

And the rest of the comic deals with their dark adventures.

The Important Characters:

Grim Jr. is the main protagonist who could arguably be one of the WHINIEST brat to walk the face of the underworld! I mean SERIOUSLY. The kid whines about how he envies his sister's powers, and then after he enters his "nobody understands me and my troubles" phase...oy...just a whole lot of emo in this kid...

Minimandy (yes, that is her name) is our...*shudder*...love interest. Now I know what you are thinking, "Love interest? I thought you said that they were brother and sister!" Yes. Yes, they are. Now aside from talking like she's from the 1880's (no doubt to make her look "deep", though it makes her look pretentious) there is nothing left to say about her. She's just your stereotypical anime love-interest that is stone faced all the time.

Mandy is exactly like she was in the show. Minus any likeability. Why? Is it because she somehow hates pants and refuses to wear them? Well no. Even though, the fact that the constant cheesecake* shots slowly kills my childhood. Is it because she acts a little like a w***e? No. Well then why? I will be going over that in the bad section...believe you me...

Grim is his usual Jamacian self like from the show except now he has kids. And because he has kids, he is protective of them. And also he is strangely attracted to Mandy...even though he despised her in the cartoon...but that is explained in Mandy's "actions". Her "actions" are, as I have stated before, will be discussed later in the bad section.

Jack Skellington is the skeleton uncle who does nothing.

Nergal and Nergal Jr. are...you know, I don't even know myself...

Him is Satan...not the God 'Him', but the Powerpuff Girls 'Him'.

Mimi is Him's adopted daughter after he killed her parents, Dexter (from Dexter's Lab) and Blossom (from Powerpuff Girls) and turned her into a little demon.

The Good:

As much as it embarrasses me, I like the art style for most of the characters. And because you can not see it right now, you are probably wondering why it embarrasses me. Well, here is a link to show you what the characters look like: http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs8/i/2005/317/5/0/Grim_tales_cast_by_bleedman.jpg

On it you can see (in order from left to right and top to bottom) Grim Jr., Minimandy's two forms, Mimi, Mandy as an adult and a kid, Nergal Jr. and Grim. And for the little kids and Grim, I honestly kind of like it. They look unique and interesting. And, I'm not going to lie, Mimi looks ADORABLE. I mean seriously puffy-wuffy, cutesy-wootsy adorable! Look at her face! LOOK AT IT! Another thing I liked was when the writer chose the Angry Video Game Nerd as the embodiment of the deadly sin: Wrath. I got a chuckle out of that one.

The Bad:

Ok, so what could be so awful about this comic?...you know except for the whole undead incest thing and the prostitute-looking adult Mandy and the stupid names...well, that can be summed up in one word: writing! More specifically the writing of characters. This could be explained by the fact that this is just a crossover fanfiction pictures, but I call bull on that. At least some crossover fanfics have likeable characters and an understandable tone. Throughout the whole comic we are subjected to this extremely unpleasant and dark tone. For example, child-version Mandy (when realizing that Grim has kept her alive past her due date) cuts her throat with a knife to do Grim's job. This is not only unpleasant and dark, but it is just for shock value. She's turns out to be fine because she's immortal, but still. Also, for some reason Mandy sleeps with the evil version of Danny Phantom from that "Danny Phantom: Ultimate Evil" movie. Because...he has great abs or she wants better children, from what I can gather. And don't get me started on some of the stupid dialogue.

But that's not the worst of it. And this is what I have been talking about in the important characters section. The reason why Grim fell in love with Mandy, and what makes Mandy SO unlikeable is this: In the comic she planned 9-11. No, this is not some tasteless joke. This is serious. In this continuity she planned 9-11, Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq War, the Boxing Day Tsunami and a bunch of different ones that I can't exactly remember at the moment.

The writer explained why he did this in his blog saying " I felt a bit nervous when I started making these pages. And I can truly understand if I have made some people very upset over it .But at least hear me out.. I too am entitled to express my point of view. I was just trying to find ways how I can relate the concept of the characters with our real world.I guess we’ll start off with Mandy. What I love about Mandy as a character is that she sees the real world, not some idealistic “only good and justice prevails freedom for all and love is everything screwed up 'wonderland'. Although she’s just a fictitous cartoon character, for me she’s someone I can trully relate in our world. You can’t really blame Mandy for what she did, she’s only doing her job as the Grim Reaper, sure she made the plans. But that’s what every Grim Reaper should do (remember the movie Final Destination) At the same time Mandy is a reincarnation of all evil, her existence is the source of humanity’s darkest and most cruel essence. While Billy on the other hand and is a representation and a source of man’s stupidity. And because mankind welcomes both evil and stupidity so willingly Mandy is able to carry out her plans. In short, Mandy simply presented her ideas to mankind and mankind simply accepted it with open arms. ( Because we am dumb and bad humans.) ". You may take this however you like. In my opinion though, I feel bad for you if the person you can "relate to in our world" is the same person who is the "reincarnation of all evil, her existence is the source of humanity’s darkest and most cruel essence."

As for the incest and cheesecake from Mandy, they may be extremely revolting but they can't compare with that just INSULTING scene for me. I mean the guy hasn't made gold before (for example the only thing that he has made that I liked was Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi, and that is a personal guilty pleasure) but at least it was TOLERABLE. Also the strange cameos from every friggin' show in the world don't help. (I didn't go into that mainly for the sake of time and space, but there were MANY random cameos that made no sense. Like Joe Black, Dora the Explorer and Teletubbies. Yes. There is a comic that contains both incest and Teletubbies, wrap your mind around that!)

My Final Two Cents:

I do not like this webcomic. It is poorly written with some offensive material. It can be well drawn, but still it can be a serious chore to attempt to stomach through.

If you want to see it here is the link to the comic: http://grim.snafu-comics.com/index.php?comic_id=0

Well that's all for right now. I'll try to get my next chapter started, but if I can't I'll make another "QUICK TALK". Until then!

*cheesecake/cheesecake shot - "art that portrays women in a manner emphasizing stereotypical sexual attractiveness" - Wikipedia

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