Full Comprehension is Overrated
With nothing too exciting happening in my normal strips – other than the usual awesome comics continuing to be awesome – today seemed a good occasion to take a look at a comic I was recently sent to review that managed to leave me confused, taken aback, and most importantly… fascinated.
That comic is A Fine Example.
This comic is not one that lends itself to easy description. There are characters, yes. There is a story, or at least a series of loosely connected events. There is humor, certainly, though it is less in the form of punchlines and more in the form of surreal absurdity.
I could try to describe it by saying that the main character is John Stiles, an incredibly wealthy pirate with two peg legs and a fake eyepatch, and that he is just as likely to be confronted by a difficulty in emotionally connecting to his son as to find himself fighting off hordes of zombies that have manifested on his front lawn.
I could say that, and it would convey that the strip involves strange characters and bizarre circumstances, but it really wouldn’t capture the true experience of it all.
And that is a good thing, in many ways – to be indescribable. To be that extraordinary.
A Fine Example is the sort of comic that is a fun read, if also one that requires a slight stretching of one’s mind to wrap your head around it. It works, largely, through the art – the style itself varies, with different characters being drawn in completely different fashions, creating what proves to be a rather brilliant internal dichotomy.
And, of course, the story itself wanders all over, from the rather silly, such as his pet… (mutant? robot? I’ve honestly got no idea what the thing is) – anyway, it might be about his pet being pulled over for speeding, causing an unfortunate run-in with the police… or the strip might show his son weaving a careful war of psychological sabotage against Stiles’ girlfriend. (The mother died on a space shuttle a year ago.)
It is unpredictable, and I’d use the term zany if that wouldn’t be a disservice to the dark humor underlying every strip.
It’s A Fine Example. Of what, I’m still not quite sure, but I’m certainly planning on sticking around until I find out.
Abstract Characterization
It is always a shame to see a comic starting to go downhill.
If a comic is flat-out bad… well, that’s a different story. There are a lot of webcomics out there that are trash, sure – and usually it’s because the creator is new at this, still learning how to draw, how to tell a story, how to make a joke. Ok, no problem – I’m not going to criticize them for still being in the middle of learning the process. Especially not when given how many strips started out weak but developed into something fantastic over time.
But on the other hand, when a strip has it, and is doing great, and then goes downhill… man, that sucks.
And it sadly looks like Abstract Gender is falling into that category.
It would be easy to blame the new artist. Switching artists is always a tricky business, and while in some cases it works out brilliantly, all too often it is a sign of the comic’s imminent demise. I had high hopes in this case – Abstract Gender had switched artists before. Several times early on, in fact – but the third artist, Kiey, held the title for most of the strip’s run. Replacing someone seven strips in is tricky, but not world-ending. Replacing the artist that help define the strip? That’s a different game altogether.
But it isn’t just that change alone. It’s part of it, sure – the new artist, Asuka, started off with a rocky run and a slowdown in updates, and even now still hasn’t quite clicked for me. Backgrounds are often ignored, resulting in characters that seem to perpetually float through space. The characters are well designed and expressive, but also sometimes overdone. The art isn’t bad – it’s actually quite nice – but I still haven’t gotten used to it after six months of work, and that doesn’t bode well.
But it has been the story and the writing that has been causing vast amounts of frustration.
Our latest storyline involves our main character, Rachel, unwillingly getting naked for a massage she doesn’t want, while on a ‘relaxing’ outing she didn’t want to go on, taken there by friends she doesn’t want, from a team she didn’t really want to join.
Now, to be fair – the theme of not being in control is the central theme of the strip. Rachel Hawke was previously Ryan Hawke, and the core of the strip involves him and his best friend Brian investigating a haunted mansion – and finding themselves mysteriously turned into girls.
Of course, his friend Brian seems to also have the ability to change back. Rachel does not, and is far from happy with the situation, but competely unable to do anything about it. Done right, that is a great premise for a series, and seeing Rachel’s helplessness and frustration – and how she acts because of it – has been key to driving the story along.
In that core premise – being turned into a girl – she doesn’t have control. Her frustration over it works. In all those other situations since, however, it just doesn’t make sense. She is in a situation she actively doesn’t want to have happen, and yet she goes along with it. I can buy her friends bullying her into joining them on a trip – sure, okay, that’s what friends do. Letting them persuade her into have a strange man disrobe her? When she is already very uncomfortable with her form, being it isn’t technically her own?
I don’t buy it. It is being played for laughs and for fanservice. It is letting the strip slide into sitcom silliness – look, this character has managed to get into a stupid and embarrassing situation they don’t want to be! Hah!
That’s my issue with where this strip has gone. I hate seeing that sort of mindlessness here, because Abstract Gender has a lot of promise. Dealing with the mystery as to how it all actually occured, dealing with the different characters react to their new situation, seeing the friendships broken over it – that is genuinely interesting stuff, with a bit of mystery and school drama and personal reflection combined.
We’ve even had a lot of that good stuff recently, with Rachel actively investigating who is behind her transformation. That is the sort of behavior that fits, having her pushing the action forward as she tries to control at least one aspect of her life. But the constant lapses into passive obedience – usually to bring about some silly situation for us to laugh at – just don’t work.
I’m not saying the comic can’t be funny – it has been a humor strip from the beginning. But it was also a strip that seemed to have a story to tell, and early on, had no problem balancing the jokes with the plot. And it has kept the plot moving, I’ll give it that – but it also seems willing to toss it aside for the sake of a few cheap laughs. To sacrifice characterization for crass comedy.
If it works… well, more power to ’em. There have been quite a few successes out there – in all forms of media – built off of nothing more than fanservice.
It’s just a shame to see it from a comic that had the potential to be a whole lot more.
Crossovers, Cameos and Inspiration
No Comic Genesis review this week – instead, I feel the need to talk about Arthur, King of Time and Space, and the author note today on the issue of crossovers, cameos and inspiration.
In it, Paul Gadzikowski discusses how he had previously planned to avoid ever crossing over AKOTAS with the cast of any other webcomic, largely because the premise of AKOTAS involves Arthur and co. bouncing from one version of reality to the next – and while some of these arcs might be based on other works, Arthur and crew end up taking the place of the stars of the show. He might drop his cast into a version of another webcomic, but the nature of AKOTAS made it difficult to borrow characters from other strips, and he was resigned to avoid doing so.
Until Narbonic came along.
Now, I can’t fault the man for being tempted by Narbonic, being as it was one of the most well-developed strips on the web. But it strikes me that Paul’s final decision on how to incorporate elements from the Narbonic cast into AKOTAS was a fine of example of the uniqueness of his strip and the throught process behind it.
See, AKOTAS is a pretty unique concept, and one rendered with painstaking detail. But more than that, it is a strip that really does operate equally fluidly on several different levels at once.
In this case, we’ve got Elaine of Carbonek, this rather quirky lady infatuated with Lancelot. For those who know nothing about the tale of Arthur – or merely little beyond the general story – she appears to be a character that, in a handful of strips, is made both likeable and interesting.
For those familiar with the lore the strip draws on, her situation takes on a new dimension – as nice as she might seem to be, she’s out to seduce Lancelot, which will have inevitable consequences for Lancelot, and Arthur, and the whole shebang.
To find out that this incarnation of her character is also developed as a variation on Helen Narbon makes it all even more surreal. I wouldn’t have pieced together the connection if it wasn’t pointed out, but when Paul explains the steps his mind took to make it work, I can see it all falling into place.
Elaine of Carbonek = Helen Narbonic… yeah, it works, undeniably. Subtly, sure, but it is definitely there.
And that’s the really impressive thing about AKOTAS in general – it works equally well on every given levels. It works as an independent story in its own right. It works as a retelling of the Arthurian legend. It works as an homage to the many different stories and movies and webcomics it touches upon.
It is a fine line to tread – AKOTAS is hands down the most complex comic I know of, and keeping track of the differing storylines can sometimes be a challenging task. But more often than not, the strip manages to make this a strength, rather than a weakness. It would be very easy for this latest storyline to be completely incomprehensible unless you were both a devotee of the Arthurian legend, and a die-hard fan of Narbonic.
Instead, you can be neither, and still appreciate the story – while those who do have the extra knowledge can sit back and take in all thhe different connections. That’s hard to do even once, but this strip has managed to consistently pull it off with almost every single storyline, which must require a staggering amount of skill.
Credit where credit is due – the man writes a damn fine strip, and plans to keep doing so for many, many years to come. That deserves praise in my book, any day of the week.
Zap!
Reviewing Indavo earlier this week reminded me of another strip I’ve been wanting to talk about – Zap!
I was, in fact, surprised to realize I hadn’t already done so, as it had been one of the very first strips I had wanted to discuss – but somehow it slipped through the cracks, and after over a year at this, I never found the time to discuss it.
So let’s fix that, shall we?
With the majority of webcomics out there, one can clearly see the evolution of art and writing over the course of the strip, thanks to the wonders of easy archiving. It isn’t a surprise – the task of working on the strip alone will usually force one to reach new levels, and that doesn’t at all account for development outside of the strip itself – especially as college students, from what I’ve seen, make up a significant portion of webcomic producers.
Zap! certainly follows this trend, though it takes it to a different degree – it evolves early, and the art goes from effective to downright breathtaking. I mention this because I clearly recall how I found the comic, and it was entirely via the art. With most strips, I find my way via word of mouth or hype from a trusted source – in this case, I simply saw an advertisement with a picture of the cast, and bam! I was sold.
Zap may be one of the few comics where, as much as I enjoy the story, it’s the art that keeps me coming back day after day.
Which is not to say the story is bad – far from it! It has some weaknesses – it is often a bit too predictable and a bit too cliche – but that is part of what makes it great. It feels like a classic science fiction tale, and manages to cover all sorts of ground, from politics to mysteries to space battles. It takes advantage of being a scifi strip to actually bring all sorts of clever characters into the picture, and does a good job of establishing interest in not just the good guys, but the villains, too.
Right now is a great time to join in. For one, Volume One of the strip is now available for pre-order, complete with a contest for all sorts of special goodies. Even more importantly, though, the strip is really entering into the big stakes. Our hero, the almost-heroic Zap Vexler, is coming closer and closer to finally uncovering the secret of his past. The woman he loves, Reona, is coming face to face with darkness out of her own past. We’ve got intense action sequences hand in hand with heavy drama, with each strip leaving the audience wanting more. Cliffhangers might be cruel – but they are also a sign that something is going on that’s good enough to keep a reader interested and attached.
Indavo and Zap are very similar webcomics, but with a few key differences. In Indavo, so much of the story is about the heroes exploring the universe and uncovering evil schemes. It is all about exploration and discovery of the world around them, and proving themselves against it. With Zap, it is a much more personal journey, and the exploration and discovery is very often internal. The heroes themselves are still in transition, and still struggling to become who they need to be to save the day.
Both make for great stories, and seeing the differences between the two makes me appreciate each one all the more.
Sibling Rivalry
This week in Dominic Deegan has seen the full reappearance of Dominic’s brother Jacob – necromancer, villain, and all around spooky guy.
Now, in this case, Dominic has called him in as something of an ally, in order to investigate a scene of massive death and devestation. The interest at hand is the pursuit of knowledge, and he is able to lure Jacob into helping him – at least for now. This means we get to see the two of them working together, and this is fantastic.
I like the characters in Dominic Deegan, and Mookie has moved past a lot of the hurdles that had been bothering me a few years ago – but the interaction currently going on between Dominic and Jacob is hands down some of the best he’s ever written. See, one of the issues that had been cropping up was that Dominic began to overshadow pretty much every other character – with his insight, he was the one who had to solve every problem and right every wrong.
Which, to be fair, is the premise of the comic, but still – it meant no one else could stand with him on equal footing. It meant there had to be an entire story arc devoted to the idea of other characters solving problems specifically without him.
Jacob can stand on equal footing with Dominic. He isn’t an ally, he is a foe, as skilled in his own field as Dominic is in divination. He has always been capable of keeping Dominic off-balance, which is a feat almost no one can manage.
He is, after all, Dominic’s older brother.
This is what the last few pages have done a fantastic job of showing. We manage to both have the simmering hostility of, essentially, mortal enemies momentarily entering into a truce… while at the same time we can still see the bickering unique to siblings, and see how well they each know how to push each other’s buttons.
Now that’s how you write a damn good comic.
The Midnight Blogger What Blogs at Midnight
I’ve talked about Indavo before.
It was one of my first posts on this site, actually – and it was a hell of a time to talk about the comic, with a storyline that is still a blast to read through. Of course, the best place to start is at the beginning, and that’s true now more than ever. With my current focus on Comic Genesis strips that really step things up to the next level – and with the supreme awesomeness currently dominating the strip – now seemed the perfect time for a full-blown review of Freelance Explorer Indavo!
Let’s start with some general discussion about the comic. The description I gave it last time – “good solid fun” – still holds true. This is a strip that absolutely epitomizes the quest for adventure as our heroes travel from one bit of trouble to another – righting wrongs, saving worlds, and fighting more bad guys than you can shake a stick at.
It isn’t surprising that the storyline is never dull, but what is suprising is realizing that it isn’t just one random battle after another. We learn important things about our heroes. They learn important things about themselves. And the big picture slowly – ever so slowly – starts to come into focus.
The strip has currently reached a momentous point. We’re coming face to face with showdowns the strip has been building up to since it began. The latest arc abruptly shifted from its classic style into stark noir tones, and once again I found myself surprised by how far the artist, one Nathan Bonner, is willing to push his skills into new directions.
At its heart, the strip has all the things that draw me in. Updates come at a solid pace – three times a week – and are almost never missed. The archives are simple and straightforward, with both dates and storylines available for easy browsing. The cast page and FAQ are extremely well fleshed out, kept up to date, and include a sizable run-down of what has happened in the comic thus far.
But all of that – it’s good stuff, don’t get me wrong, but it is what makes a comic professional, not what makes a comic good. It is certainly possible to be one without the other – there are a couple of comics I read that have stuck with me simply due to reliability, rather than because they do anything to actually engage my interest. But Indavo ain’t one of them.
The art is easy on the eyes, and that’s always a good thing. Art won’t make the story good, sure – but it really defines how well a good story can take hold, and the art for Indavo fits the story perfectly. I mentioned earlier that Bonner really pushes his skills in new directions, and its true – for all that most of the strip has an old school comic book feel to it, there are more and more moments that go a step – or two, or three – beyond that.
What really does it is that the art in this strip has a masterful sense of style. You see it in the character designs – the Time Traveler in the Big Hat remains my personal favorite, but most of the cast and crew have the right attention to detail to make them uniquely alive. Little details and themes throughout the chapters – such as the noir style rendition of In His Immortal Name – shift the mood to suite the plot at hand. The cover pages for each chapter, while seemingly ordinary at first, not only set the mood for each individual arc, but also evoke a connection throughout the entire story as a whole.
And, of course, it’s a good story. There are a lot of strips that move from small struggles to epic battles, but Indavo is one of the ones that does it right. From the beginning the steps are laid to build up the story, but carefully enough they never feel obtrusive. When the inevitable payload comes along, it feels like a perfectly natural result of all that came before it, and let me tell you – that takes some doing.
I don’t know if we’re approaching the end of the run – the stakes are big enough, sure. But even with everything at hand… Indavo feels like something that could go on forever, our merry trio of explorers wandering the universe from now till the end of time.
I have always been a fantasy fan, first and foremost. Science fiction – I read it, sure, but as often as not because it was lumped into the same section as the books I loved. I won’t say I don’t enjoy it, but it takes a really amazing work to truly get me invested in the story.
Indavo is one such strip. A damn good comic that captures the sense of excitement and adventure offered by a universe of endless possibilities. There’s an epic tale there, but not one that loses sight of the little things, and that makes all the difference.
Through the Looking Glass
My time today has a good number of things vying for attention, so the post today will be short; this is a shame, as there are some recent events in quite a few webcomics that deserve some serious discussion.
Rather than try talk about them and fail to do them justice, I thought today would be a good point to mention a recent comic I was sent to review, a little comic called Fish Tank.
Fish Tank was described to me as a comic about three intelligent fish living in a home aquarium, and their exploits. This didn’t seem like a bad idea for a comic, but my first though was that while it sounded clever, it also sounded incredibly boring.
Even outside of the adventures they go on – taking them from the amazon to Alaska to outer space, the characters themselves are really dynamic, and really alive. Part of it is that they are unique – Ted is a brilliant goldfish with a gift for invention, Angelo is an extremely vain but friendly angelfish, and Hoover is a bottom-feeder who always puts his own interests first. But a lot of it is the way they are drawn. The design of the fish is simple, and feels like a very old school style of drawing – a few loose, flowing strokes that come together to create a complete image.
But the simplicity works wonders where a more complex design would have rendered them completely lifeless.
Fish Tank is a fun strip, and it is a clever one, too. But it proves to be a whole lot more than that, and that’s what really makes it great.
…it’s the sudden stop at the end.
I really didn’t intend to write about Order of the Stick so soon.
It is one of those comics that I feel like I talk about all the damn time, and I always feel slightly guilty about this. I’m not even entirely sure why – I don’t want to bore people with discussion of the same material day after day, but a strip like the Order of the Stick is anything but boring.
Especially right now.
Prepare for spoilers, by the way, if for some reason you aren’t all caught up on life with Rich Burlew’s merry band of adventurers.
What amazes me about the Order of the Stick – or at least one of the things that does – is Rich’s ability to keep the story moving. It doesn’t feel too fast – if anything, sometimes I am only too eager for seeing what is coming next – but he manages to work an amazing amount of story progression into the strip.
This is due to Rich having a damn good grasp of pacing, and knowing exactly how much screen time to give a scene for maximum impact. It is even more insane when one recognizes how well he is able to split the focus between all the different characters.
You see, the strip doesn’t follow a single, linear plot thread. There are moments, yes, when our heroes are all together in a group and going about a single task. This was much more true in the early days of the strip – that is essentially what a dungeon crawl is. Even then, however, we would flash back and forth between scenes of the heroes and Xykon, the great nemesis, plotting from his lair with his minions and allies.
We really saw the split storytelling manifest with the appearance of the Linear Guild, at which point the party goes off on three seperate tracks. The (first) Linear Guild saga concludes with Durkon seperated from the rest of the party, and a heartbreaking tale of dwarven romance.
(This, just as a note, is where the strip really starts to shift focus from gaming in-jokes set in a fantasy world, to a full-fledged story that happens to have a fair share of jokes.)
(Speaking of which, it’s a damn shame Dragon magazine is going away, as the OotS strips featured within were quality pieces of work. Seriously, the comic in its current state is fantastic, and blows me away with every update, but it does miss out on the pure level of humor from the first few strips. Those are the strips quoted around one d&d table after another, and those are the ones that really established his presence. The Dragon magazine strips were the same deal – simple one-shots to make you laugh, and I’ll miss them.)
(That’s not to say the jokes have left the main strip – far from it! Rich has a great grasp of comedy, and is adept at balancing action with humor. He even had an entire full page strip that was nothing but one long penis joke.)
(No pun intended.)
Anyway, where were we?
Right, right, lots of characters, storylines, etc. Here we have a strip with a half-dozen main characters, each with their own story. We also have their evil twins, who get plenty of screen time, as well as the main villain and his own merry band of misfits. Finally, the self-righteous paladin whose own personal conflicts have been a focus of many recent arcs. Each of them gets their moment in the sun, which normally I would expect to result in the action slowing down to a crawl – but somehow it feels even more in motion.
Even in battle, which previously would just have the group fighting as a team, now seems designed to give everyone a shot at glory. During the most recent showdown with the Linear Guild, the party basically paired off with the villains one on one. During the current massive battle, each characters has their place and their chance to shine, and each time it is simply freakin’ awesome.
And Roy got the chance to go toe to toe with Xykon. To finally find out exactly what was the first step that led down the path to this confrontation. To demonstrate exactly how far his own skills have come. He had the means and the power to end Xykon once and for all…
…and he blew it. Oh, Xykon doesn’t get away unharmed. Roy landed a few solid blows, enough to give Xykon pause. Roy deprived him of his mount, which isn’t insignificant. But it wasn’t enough. We can’t even really hold Roy accountable – Xykon is leagues more powerful than him, as far as Roy has come. Sure, he came out on top in their first encounter, what with grappling and surprise and ancient magical gates at hand.
But this time, Roy lost.
And now he’s dead.
It’s a pretty big event. I mean – bam, most central character of the storyline, dead. Yet somehow, his fall doesn’t even feel as momentous as Miko’s.
Maybe it’s because adventurers do weasel their way out of trouble all the time… even death. I mean, there are plenty of ways for them to bring Roy back in the D&D world, and we’ve seen first hand they have the means to do so. Assuming the heroes win the battle. Assuming the clerics make it out alive. Assuming they recover Roy’s body.
That’s the thing – there are enough different directions this could go in that I can’t speculate as to what will happen next. On the one hand, I can’t believe Rich would take Roy out of the picture for good, given how central he has been to the entire story. At the same time, I can’t believe he would kill him off and then cheapen the death by easily bringing him back.
I’m not even sure if he was killed off in spite of being the main character… or because of it.
Roy is the leader of the group. That’s a given. Not only does he give them direction, but he is really the bond that keeps them as a team, that manages Durkon’s standoffishness and Vaarsuvius’s thirst for power, Haley’s greed, Elan’s innocence, Belkar’s hatred of all living things. They wouldn’t even be here if Roy hadn’t brought them together for his own quest to go after Xykon. Most of them certainly wouldn’t have anything to do with each other without his stabilizing presence.
They are all important, that goes without saying. They have all developed into central figures in this grand tapestry. But Roy brought them together, Roy forged them into a team, and Roy is the single reason they have come down this long and winding path.
Maybe that’s why we need to see what will happen without him.
I don’t think this is the end for Roy Greenhilt. This death – it is dramatic, it is momentous, but it’s not a good death. Roy didn’t die succeeding in his goals, he died failing them.
He failed to fulfill his father’s blood oath.
He failed to stop Xykon in his quest to conquer the world.
He failed to even weasel his way out of one simple fall.
I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him. I don’t think Rich would consign a character to such an ending, especially not a character as pivotal as Roy. Not a character with such distinct a voice – even more than the guy who drove the story along, he was the perfect straight man for so many of the jokes. Sure, V or Durkon might be able to fill in that role, but can the comic really go on without him?
I guess all we can do is keep reading, and find out.
I didn’t intend to write about OotS, but this really is a scene that can’t be denied. Regardless of what happens next, this moment will have an impact, on everything. (Not just’s Roy’s skull.) Roy was their chance to stop Xykon from getting to the throne room and setting his plans in motion, and he couldn’t cut it. The others are engaged in all manner of difficulties, and even if Xykon wasn’t in the picture, they are up against potentially overwhelming odds.
And Rich has shown he isn’t afraid to pull punches. If he can kill off Roy, then anything goes. We don’t have the slightest idea what is going to happen next.
But I’m damn well going to be there to find out.
News Post: BOASAS launches at Comics.com
As many of you have heard by now, Steven Cloud, the man behind Boy on a Stick and Slither, has entered into a web syndication deal with United Media.
Today is the offical launch day of the strip at Comics.com, so go and check it out. It’s always nice to see an artist land one of these deals, and to see the chance for a clever webcomic to come more prominently into the public eye.
Confession time: I haven’t actually read BOASAS. It has been one of those strips I’ve heard about a time or twenty, and continually hovers on my “to-read” list, but I’ve never actually had the time to sit down and go through the archives.
Fortunately it worked out – here’s a chance for me to get in on a brand new start, and see where it goes from there. Steven gave the warning that it isn’t your regular gag comic, but something a bit more subtle, a bit more philosophical than most. He mentioned a pretty heavy influence from Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes.
Right there, honestly, is the best recommendation for the strip one could have.
Damn Good Comics 