This summer I contributed to Josh Lesnick’s Kickstarter for the publication of his webcomic Girly in a spiffy hardcover, limited edition box set. I did this entirely because he had a premium of an Otra and Winter figurine set and I’m helpless before the offer of relatively obscure webcomic figurines. (I’d be the first one lining up to buy figurines of Yuriko and Midori, our Yuricon mascots, but as I can’t draw and have no toy industry contacts, it’s kind of a non-starter. PS – This isn’t a request for help or advice on how to do this. As I say, it’s a non-starter right now.)

In any case, I knew once I saw the figurines, I had to be part of the Kickstarter.

Who wouldn’t be helpless in the face of this? Okay, fine, lots of people who are not me.

Anyway, with my very awesome hardcover limited edition box set and the figurines, I received a copy of Cute Wendy, Josh’s side comic to Wendy. Where Wendy followed the adventures of Wendy and her sidekick, Cute Wendy was the product of many hours of anime watching, potato chip eating, video game playing, masturbation and exhaustion, not in that order.

Cute Wendy is, in short, a slickly printed pile of WTF. Cute Wendy and her sidekick have adventures, but little to no effort is made for those adventures to make any sense, have any resolution, or meaning at all. By the end of this volume, unresolved chaos became the status quo and it was almost disappointing when Wendy and her sidekick actually did resolve a thing.

Don’t get me wrong here – I’m not dissing Cute Wendy. I just don’t want you thinking it’s a story. It’s not. It’s a series of throw-away plot ideas and leftover fast food with some vaguely imagined lesbian sex thrown in for fun. In fact, “Lesbian Sex” is mentioned quite often, although rarely seen beyond a kiss and a smoke afterwards. “Lesbian Sex” becomes a refrain that repeats, just to let us know it’s a thing in the comic.

If you are of the opinion that Lesnick’s art is not up to snuff, then Cute Wendy is not going to convince you otherwise. And the fever-dream story telling isn’t likely to win anyone over, but that’s not why you’d be reading Cute Wendy anyway! You’d only be reading this if you already liked Wendy or Girly and wanted to see the fever-dream side story. Which I now have. I look forward to revisiting Otra hitting people on the head with giant dildos as a return to normality. Cute Wendy was just that WTF.

Ratings:

Art – Still better than anything I can do, so 6
Story – There kind of isn’t one – 2
Characters – 6
Yuri – 8 They have Lesbian Sex, I’m informed
Service – 7 It’s pretty much written by/for Fanboy, but not nearly as intolerably awful as, say, Shin Koihime Muso

Overall – 5 It’s not being enshrined, but I’m not throwing it out, either.

My very sincere thanks to Josh for being so pro-Yuri and for being a very decent Fanboy. Also, cool figurines!