Webcomic Review: The Oatmeal
on February 16, 2015 at 12:01 am
Webcomic: The Oatmeal
Creator: Matthew Inman
Format: One or more panels stand alone comics, sometimes prose and illustration, multi-media, videos, etc.
Updates: About weekly?
Genre: Comedy, absurdist, slice-of-life, autobiographical
Themes: Work, life, weird facts,
Characters: Matthew, animals, various people
Archive: Beginning sometime in 2009
Matthew Inman created the Oatmeal as a place for his comics and various merchandise including greeting cards, prints and books. The site is not a typical webcomic site. The comics are stand alones, featuring whatever subject pops into Inman’s mind. Sometimes the comics are autobiographical, like the one about his dog. Other times they are about something weird like his relationship with fruit. Usually funny, sometimes touching or education, the Oatmeal is almost always entertaining.
Inman’s site is more of a multimedia device designed to sell his merch and promote his causes. Near as I can see, the comics aren’t dated, probably because he updates whenever he’s finished a comic. According to Wikipedia, he spends about three days working on a typical comic. The Oatmeal is enormously popular, which is why Inman’s email sometimes overwhelms him. From a design point, I feel like every time I visit the Oatmeal it’s the first time, as the comics aren’t organized in any particular order other than most recent and most popular. Since they are stand alone, I’m not sure that even matters. The important thing is, the site is good and worth visiting.
Some might argue that the Oatmeal is not really a webcomic site, but I think that’s just splitting hairs. Whether he updates regularly or whenever, it’s usually worth a click. It’s one of the few webcomic sites that I go out of my way to check up on.
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