What is Checkerboard Nightmare?
Checkerboard Nightmare is a webcomic,
created and drawn by Kristofer Straub. Originally hosted independently,
it moved to Keenspot for
a time, before becoming one of the founding comics of Blank
Label Comics.It was conceived as a satire of webcomics - the strip is self-aware,
using metahumour extensively,
and the title character, Checkerboard Nightmare ("Chex")
is obsessed with gaining fame as a webcomic character and is willing
to do anything necessary to achieve it, an attitude satirising
the self-promoting nature of lesser-known webcomics. The setup
of the strip does not change beyond 'Chex wants new readers and
concocts a hare-brained scheme to get them', satirising the strict
adherance to format exhibited by, for example, sitcoms.
Its targets expanded as the strip progressed, and shifted from
satirising webcomics to the search for fame in general with the
move to Keenspot.
In addition, Checkerboard Nightmare was noted for its timely and
accurate parodies of other webcomics, including a notable storyline
where Chex attacks other webcomic creators with a shovel (drawn
in each creator's art style) in an attempt to gain fame by getting
rid of the competition, and a well-timed one-shot comic in which
a character from Queen
of Wands, which had just ended, was run over by Chex and another
character in a car as a parody of a similar gag in the webcomic Something
Positive. At the height of Checkerboard Nightmare's run, it
was well-known in the webcomics community as a razorsharp satirist
of the form, and a sign of the growth and strength of webcomics
in general.
-- Wikipedia, the bastion of all webcomics information
Q. Has Checkerboard Nightmare returned?
A. Sort of. Not really. The original goal of Checkerboard
Nightmare was webcomics deconstruction, deconstruction of the search
for fame and how easy it had become on the internet, fame inside
a small pond. I feel like it went off the rails at the end of its
original five-year run, so this is a return to form. It also has
no update schedule -- for notification of a new CxN strip, check
Starslip Crisis.
Q. Who is Kristofer Straub?
A. Artist, writer, songwriter, guitarist, dilettante, lover,
mother -- all of these have been used to incorrectly describe Kristofer
Straub, but you may be able to derive your own definition from
his other sites:
Blank Label Comics -
Nine cartoonists self-publish.
Starslip Crisis - Three
space travelers learn about art and piracy.
Nightlight Press -
One person writes short stories and blogs.
Hard Action Squad -
Two cops take on the mean streets.
Interweb P.I.
- One detective, one flask, one interweb. |
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