A video game-themed Funny Animal webcomic by Scott Ramsoomair. Rather than directly emulating the Two Gamers on a Couch format that was popularized by Penny Arcade, this comic instead does humorous parodies of video games and anime, with the comic's characters—Cloudcuckoolander Leo and Snark Knight Aeris—starring in said scenes.Also includes subcomics Adventure Log and Super Effective (which starts here).All of these comics have consistently good artwork (a few instances of re-used backgrounds not withstanding), but not so much with the updating schedule. Recently claimed to have finally settled on a regular schedule. There were a grand total of nine strips in 2010. Add that in with Adventure Log being cancelled, you have some serious Schedule Slip. Fortunately, at least Super Effective seems to be getting regular updates in 2011, and when that ended VG Cats itself started getting regular updates in 2012. Check Schedule Slip below.Can be seen at: http://www.vgcats.com/Please note that the site does not use a permanent URL system for its archives, and so the links used in examples may no longer lead to the intended page. Ideally, along with a link, also give the issue number and title.
Alternate Universe: Years ago, Scott ran a brief (very brief - like, not even into double digits) comic called (VGKitties), exploring the notion that Leo and Aeris were ordinary housecats interacting in housecatty ways, rather than a pair of funny animals.
Also used in one of the actual comics, which depicted an alternate universe where Sonic was more popular than Mario, Mortal Kombat (now "Minor Konflict") was family friendly, and the titular cats were dogs.
Art Evolution: Here is the earliest appearance of Aeris and Leo, back in 2001. And this is their early-2010 appearance. Yeah. Character style varies wildly from strip to strip.
Pantsman hasn't shown up in quite a while, and increasingly, Aeris is becoming Ramsoomair's megaphone.
Author Tract: "Nerd Rage", an entire strip consisting of a tirade on how casual gaming is ruining the industry. Lampshaded here where other characters point out that flat out explaining your points makes a shitty allegory.
Continuity Nod: In the ever-popular "The Perfect Gift", Aeris owns figurines of the monstrosities Leo created in "Wright to Life". They sit just below her Haruhi Suzumiya girls Playboy Bunny poster and next to a Lucario figurine.
Damn You, Muscle Memory: The "First Comic" and "Last Comic" buttons are in the middle, between the "Previous Comic" and "Next Comic" buttons. This may be the only webcomic on the internet to do this.
His take on how a certain episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic should have ended. Some bronies were less than amused, and the comic has since been taken down.
Defictionalisation: The "Wright for Life" comic led to the actual Spore team creating their own◊, replacing the drawn aliens with ingame ones, and later on physical models were made. Of course, Spore players can attempt something like this as well.
Don't Explain the Joke: Aeris's response to Leo when he makes an incredibly misogynistic joke about why girls like stories about vampires and feels the need to spell out what he's talking about. Leo does this a lot. "Recurring, if you will."
Double Entendre: "That is the BIGGEST barrel I've ever seen, is it pump action?"
High Pressure Blood: This comic shows a Worms game going on... normal, right? Well, when part of the ground was destroyed by a rocket, we cut to... Leo in pain and blood stains behind him. Take a wild guess what happened. Also counts as Bowel Breaking Bricks when you think about it.
Ms.Dipshits: You don't need oxygen when you look this good...
Orphaned Series: Not the main strip, but Adventure Log stopped at eleven strips and was deadlinked over a year later. According to Ramsoomair, the Adventure Log update schedule was directly tied to each release of the official Final Fantasy XI newsletter (which included the comic as an insert). The game always had rather shaky support from Square, and when they stopped making new newsletters, Scott stopped making new comics.
Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Aeris is literally pink. Leo is gray, but his preferred color of clothing is blue. Possibly a Genius Bonus, as there are certain breeds of cats - thanks to specific recessive genes - that have grey fur, and the technical term for this is a 'Blue' cat.
Schedule Slip: While the comic advertises that it's updated every Monday, this seems to be the case much more rarely nowadays. Lampshaded in the "Left Behind" comic, as well as the randomly-changing page titles.
The main comic seems to update, at its most frequent pace, about once a month, mostly because of Scott's busy con schedule, which he only has because of VG Cats, the comic he barely updates anymore. Ow...
Getting better... At 18 comics per 52 weeks, that's a nice batting average of 34% of Mondays.
Total updates in 2010: 18 - 9 VG Cats, 9 Super Effective.
Total updates in 2011: 18 - 8 VG Cats, 10 Super Effective.
Total updates as of May 1, 2012: 08 - 8 VG Cats, 00 Super Effective.
3 updates in a row in March and 2 in April, and we finally have strip #300, suggests VG Cats is becoming much more regular.
Oh, and the main characters are named Aeris and Leo... both of which are Final Fantasy characters who are killed by the main villain of their respective games.
Aeris's color and "hair" style are the only real indicators that she's female. There was one comic, years ago, where both she and Leo were more humanly proportioned. This is the only recorded incidence of Aeris having breasts of any sort.
These days, it shows better that she's just 'small'. There's even a one-strip fancomic on-site that shows her as a bit self-conscious about it when she hears that a fictional Japanese adaptation gives her character a bigger bust. So much so that she tells Leo to bring his Pyro suit.
She looks like she's going to college, given this strip.
The first published version of this strip indicated that Leo was 21 years old; Ramsoomair later edited the figure to the less precise "many years earlier", as Leo himself has yet to reach that age to begin with.
).All of these comics have consistently good artwork (a few instances of re-used backgrounds not withstanding), but not so much with the updating schedule. Recently claimed to have finally settled on a regular schedule. There were a grand total of nine strips in 2010. Add that in with Adventure Log being cancelled, you have some serious Schedule Slip. Fortunately, at least Super Effective seems to be getting regular updates in 2011, and when that ended VG Cats itself started getting regular updates in 2012. Check Schedule Slip below.Can be seen at: http://www.vgcats.com/
0 reviews 
