The Webcomic Relief

     

The Webcomic Relief
YouTuber Information
Profile	The Webcomic Relief
Style	Comedy, Gaming, & Reviews
Date joined	May 19, 2010
Twitter / X	@hellriiser
Other media	Twitch
Videos	189+
Schedule	Unscheduled
Status	Active
Associates	Night Mind
Username	The Webcomic Relief
Personal information
Full name	Lasse Riishøj
Nationality	Danish
Location	Denmark
Most viewed video
First video

Riiser Plays
YouTuber Information
Handle	@RiiserPlays
Style	Gaming
Date joined	Aug 24, 2013
Videos	1454+
Schedule	Unscheduled
Status	Active
Most viewed video
First video

SIIDEquest
YouTuber Information
Handle	@siidequest5272
Style	Miscellaneous
Date joined	Sep 20, 2022
Videos	44+
Schedule	Unscheduled
Status	Inactive
Most viewed video
First video

Lasse Riishøj, better known online as The Webcomic Relief or Riiser, is an English-speaking Danish YouTuber who mainly reviews webcomics. His most popular reviews are of the webcomics Craving Control, Sonichu and So... You're a Cartoonist?.

He also posts Let's Plays on his secondary channel Riiser Plays, but after starting his own Twitch channel most of his gameplay content is streamed there instead. His third channel, SIIDEquest contains miscellaneous videos such as interviews and episodes of the Webcast Relief.

History

Inspired by content creators such as the Nostalgia Critic, Spoony and Linkara, Lasse started his own YouTube channel in 2010. He wanted to cover webcomics, a relatively niche topic on YouTube which did not have many dedicated videos for it at the time. He started to gain more popularity on YouTube after his review series of the notorious webcomic Sonichu began in October 2010, making Lasse the first person on YouTube to have reviewed most of the comic in video review format.

The Webcomic Relief reached 10,000 subscribers in 2021, but the channel getting hacked by cryptocurrency scammers in early 2023 resulted in a notable loss of subscribers, once again dropping the subscriber count to under 10,000. By the end of the year, the subscriber count had recovered back to the pre-hack amount, however some of the videos removed by the scammers remain unavailable.

Format

For the longest time, Riiser's reviews were divided into three sections for the writing, art and characters of the comic with an overall score at the end. The current structure for most of his reviews is the following:

• First Impressions: An overview on the premise, main characters and Riiser's initial thoughts on the comic.
• The Writing: More detailed analysis on the world, characters, dialogue and the plot of the comic.
• The Art: Riiser goes through the art aspects of the comic, often with subsections for the character and background art.
• Final Verdict: An overall score for the comic on a 0-10 scale with some additional thoughts from Riiser.

While usually one video (or a series of them) is dedicated to one comic, Riiser also makes compilation videos titled Strippin' with shorter reviews covering multiple comics, with the comics in question often being hosted on the same website such as Saturday AM.

Documentaries

While reviewing webcomics is the main focus of Riiser's videos, he also has released several documentaries related to webcomic creators themselves or events relating to webcomics in general:

• The House That Monsters Built: A 7-part series on the controversies related to the webcomic Floraverse, its creators and the community surrounding it.
• Christine Weston Chandler - The Perfect Storm: A two-part documentary on the life of Christine Weston Chandler, the creator of Sonichu.
• Webcomic Stories: Shorter documentary videos on notable webcomic related events and phenomena, such as the infamous Loss strip from the gaming webcomic Ctrl+Alt+Del and the public meltdown of the creator of Pictures For Sad Children.

Other Content

In addition to reviews and documentaries, Riiser's channels also feature the following subseries:

• Lemme School Ya': Riiser covers and analyzes literary devices such as the rules of Gestalt, the "they lived happily ever after" trope and many others.
• Riiser Interviews: Riiser interviews people mainly from the webcomic industry, such as the creators of the Dreamkeepers and UberQuest webcomics.
• Show and Tell: A long-form video series where Riiser goes into detailed analysis regarding all aspects of various media, such as the video game Persona 4 and the anime film Look Back.
• Designer Reacts: Riiser reacts and comments on design aspects of various media, such as games like Final Fantasy XIV and the rap battle video Spider Venom.
• Webcast Relief: A podcast on his SIIDEquest channel, where Riiser and his friend Cloudy (with occasional guests) discuss various topics not limited to webcomics. No new episodes have been released since October 2022.

Reception

Many webcomic creators have commented on Riiser's reviews positively. Phil Brown, the creator of Yosh!, even joined a livestream of Riiser's where they were reading the comic, giving some explanations on the comic's plot elements and taking Riiser's criticism in stride.

Conversely, in April 2015 the first upload of Riiser's review of the webcomic Project 2nd was removed by YouTube after its creator Leoian filed a copyright claim against the video since his real name and face was included in it. After Riiser's appeal against the takedown failed and YouTube did not restore the video, he uploaded a new version with Leoian's real name being censored and his face replaced with an unflattering drawing. Leoian still attempted to strike the review down a second time, but it was not removed. Riiser came to the conclusion that Leoian's real name and face being featured in the original video was not the true reason why he, after being exposed for several controversies on other websites, wanted to take it down.

Trivia

• Most of the title card art in Riiser's videos is done by his friend Hugo Junstrand.
• In February 2016, one of Riiser's favorite YouTubers, Night Mind joined him on a livestream reading of the webcomic Yosh!. Some of this footage was included in the first part of the Yosh! review.
• As of 2025, Riiser considers Latex Blue to be the worst webcomic ever made.
• His 9-part review of the webcomic Las Lindas was condensed into a single video in 2025.. Riiser has stated that if his channel ever reaches 100,000 subscribers, he will cover the rest of the comic.
• He initially also made a milestone goal of covering the controversial webcomic Assigned Male at reaching 1 million subscribers, but rescinded this idea in 2021 due to people unfavourably commenting on him using CwcvilleGuardian's legal name in his documentaries.

Quotes

• "If you could do all that then what the fuck was the point of all the drama up to this point?!" (in reference to characters in a webcomic suddenly having skills or powers that would have helped them previously, first brought up in the Sonichu review)
• "Here's a thought: When the character that you base on yourself in a comic, where you are free to make him so much more cooler and better just because you have that power, is a shitty, unlikable character, and he's the only reoccurring character in your comic (besides the grumpy teacher), what does that say about YOU?" (Riiser's final point to Andrew Dobson in the So... You're a Cartoonist? review)
• "YOU. ARE. NOT. FUCKING. JAPANESE." (Riiser's recurring reaction to Western comics suddenly using Japanese words and terms when English equivalents are common)