Review: The Reform Academy for Adult Women

It’s been a while since I’ve done a review – and really a while since this came out – but with the current Snowpocalypse giving me a little time off, I’m finally getting around to writing it.

Anyway, this review is of AusDpr’s Reform Academy comic (find more information and sample images here, or go buy it here), released at the end of last year. I was thinking I’d done a review of his first comic, Land of the Immortals, but I can’t seem to find it. In short, it’s excellent, and you should buy it.

And this one is even better. The price tag might seem a bit high at first, but this is a huge comic, with a ton of content, which makes it feel like a real journey, and not just a quick scene like you would get if you were to buy a video clip for the same amount.

AusDpr is great at taking his time with his regression scenes, rather than just jumping right to the diapers, and in this case there are several stages, each of which is given enough time and detail to really give a nice sense of progression to the story. There are some similarities to his story Shipped Away, mostly bringing back some of the fun ideas he had there, which were nice to see, although, having read that, I recognized some of them before they were officially revealed in the story, making them slightly less of a surprise.

The character designs are well done, with no two of the many characters looking similar enough to be confused with another, which is very important in a story of this size. There are also a lot of great, humiliating situations for those characters to go through. I especially enjoyed a small subplot that mostly popped up towards the end with a character trying to put a stop to the institute.

The rest of the artwork is great, too, showing a lot of improvement over the already good work he did in his first comic. More than just getting better at the basics, however, he’s added more artistry to the whole thing, resulting in some panels with very nice lighting effects, and a lot of great perspective work that helps emphasize how far the characters fall over the course of the story. The thicker borders around the characters give them a nice look and help them pop a bit more. One thing that did strike me as odd, however, were some of the pages that lacked borders around the panels, which made them feel a bit jumbled at times.

All in all, though, it was a fantastic read, and one that lasted a good, long time. I’d say, without a doubt, it’s worth the price if you’re into AusDpr’s style of storytelling, or if the plot synopsis and sample images on his blog strike you as interesting.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, Alisa’s Adventures in the Diaper Dimension is now available as an ebook from Lulu and Amazon, but, annoyingly, nowhere else. For some reason, the other venues Lulu usually publishes through won’t accept it. From a little research, it seems it might be because I use the word Amazon so much in the text, but the site doesn’t give me any specific reason, so I don’t know for sure.

Review: Power Princess

I’ve never really done a review before, other than my Halloween movie posts, which don’t really count, but I felt like this might be a good place to start. If you follow the Babes in Diapers blog (and if you don’t, you should), you’ve probably heard about his new comic, Power Princess, just released this week.

To start, I should probably mention that I like comics – I’ve even written some pitches for series for a fairly major comic company, though I never heard anything back – so I’m already somewhat biased towards this, especially since it features a more traditional comic-y story, with superheroes, sidekicks, villains, and the whole nine yards. 

This allows for a lot more story than Prisoner of the Mechanical Nursery (though the fact that it is more than twice the length doesn’t hurt, either) because it opens up the world more. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of a mechanical nursery, but there are only so many stories you can tell with that set-up, whereas the fact that there are still fresh superhero comics being put out decades after the birth of the genre shows that you can do a lot with that.

And, as shown by the preview pages on the blog post about it, it isn’t just a typical superhero setup, either. I’ve always found the idea of superheroes as celebrities an interesting one, and the story sets that up and plays with it a little. It’s also a good way to quickly establish that our heroine is a brat who deserves everything she has coming to her.

Of course, at 12 pages, you can’t pack in a ton of plot, and trying to would just make it seem rushed, but there’s enough action and twists to keep it interesting throughout. And don’t worry, there are plenty of diapers in there, too.

If you enjoyed Prisoner, I’m sure you’ll like this new comic even more. It has everything that made that comic good, other than the nursery itself, plus improved art, the same neat bonuses as Prisoner (sketches and the original script, which, to a comic fan anyway, are very interesting to look at) plus a fun pin-up. 

If you haven’t read Prisoner, or any of the other stories on the blog, which are all very good, but like my work, I would definitely still recommend it. Parker (the author) and I have a lot of the same interests when it comes to this kind of thing, so if you like what I do, I have no doubt you’ll like his work, too. Plus, if you buy this comic, you can get Prisoner for half price, though I don’t know how long that sale will be going on.

Either way, really, if you have the cash to spare and have the slightest idea you might enjoy this, you should give it a chance. If nothing else, it’s your support that allows this kind of thing to continue being made… But it’s also just a lot of fun.