3D Sweeties

This collection of comic-strip commentary on Millennial life and digital existence, rendered in pastel 3-D, falls flat. Originally published online on sites including Vice, the shorts feature a cast of slimes, grimacing blobs, and claymation-style human figures who go to the movies, buy furniture, and have mundane conversations in short scenarios. But the setups lack bite, and the gags go on a beat too long, without the indefinable element of discomfort that would make them cross into the truly absurd. The static panel format doesn’t work in the narrative’s favor, as it lacks variation in page layout to guide the pacing. A few pieces are more successful, such as a three-page story about a recurring character, the video game-obsessed Susan Something, logging into a virtual pet website. After 17 years away from the site, where Susan says she learned to “fixate all my energy on maintaining a digital fantasy,” she finds that her pet has abandoned hope of ever seeing her and moved on to an independent existence. By referencing an experience many digital natives share, the gag moors its abstract vibe. Undoubtedly, there are browsers who will know and connect to this particular mocking brand, but for general readers, it’s much like scrolling through a long GIF-filled comment thread: the moments of amusement aren’t worth slogging through quite so many blobby bits. [em](Apr.) [/em]