Web Comics Week: Multiplex

Once again, here we are with a webcomic that has advertised on SCHWAPP!!!

Gordon McAlpin's MULTIPLEX has been around since 2005. I'm embarrassed to say it took me a long time to notice him plugging the strip in his old Newsarama signature before the remodeling over there. But I checked it out from time to time and enjoyed it. Ironic as it is, I'm not great at checking sites daily or multiple times a week (God bless the RSS feeds, I say). But it was a lock for being featured this week just because it's about time I took a more in-depth look at MULTIPLEX.


Now, there are 295 installments up on the site, so I wasn't able to read them all for this review. I caught up on about the first 40 and then skipped to the last 30 or so.

What I've found in those groups is both expected and surprising. It's natural that the strip would need to make observations and jokes independent of actual movies or theater chains, because it can't rely on the strength or weakness of the Hollywood release schedule. But what is surprising is how some of the non-movie-focused arcs are quite often the strongest riffs in the life of the strip.


After running for 295 installments, you'd expect the characters to have been fleshed out and evolved before your eyes...and you wouldn't be disappointed. You likely know people that match all of the personalities on display in the stories and, like in real life, they grow and change due to their interactions with each other.


McAlpin doesn't shy away from some controversial topics. It isn't all political correctness over on Multiplex and that's often a very good thing for the strip (tho' your mileage may vary).

Multiplex is a strip that finds equal parts of its humor in its world, our world & the movies. I think it's worth checking out.