Tag Archives: comic review

Cluster@#k

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Cluster@#k

Staff: Jon Parrish, Diego Toro, Kote Carvajal, Nic J Shaw, Steven Forbes

Overview:

A fun little paranormal detective piece

Review:

Alright so we are jumping into Cluster@#k. No I didn’t censor that. It is legitimately the title (and I can dig it). I know I just did another Alterna comic (Billy the Pyro) but it is a different team and that’s really why I don’t do the same publisher twice.

So onto art. It’s a full cover with a more modern artstyle. There are some manga influences but only about as much as would be present in a lot of modern American comics. Cover is dynamic and exciting showing exactly what is going to be in the book. The characters are visually distinct, their design reflects their personality, and are (at the very least) well drawn. Anatomy remains consistent from page to page, proportions are not all wonky, and the artist has a good grasp on the utilization of angles. Seriously- the tell-tale sign of a good artist is a mastery of anatomy, facial expressions, dynamic poses, and the use of a variety of angels (love the low angle ones).

There is not much to say about the lettering. It’s solid and I can read it- exactly how it should be. They have some nice use of off-panel dialogue boxes and only on a few occasions was I confused about who was saying what (they were easy to figure out).

Plot-wise we are just kind of dropped in in media res style. We get bits and pieces as we go and I can’t really decide if it was done really well or just kind of bumbled into being cohesive. That being said, we get a few panels of pure exposition but you kind of have to in a first issue so I’m not docking it any points for that. About a quarter of the way in, it just kind of jumps off the deep end though. It goes from kind of standard adventurer/private eye/pulp fare to a more fantasy thing. Talking hobo-murdering goats, demon fusing guys, genetic abominations, and a bit of DBZ style combat. I… am not really sure how to react. It just kind of comes out of left field. Like WHAM and I don’t know that when the stars stopped floating around my head I was really ok with it. A clusterfuck indeed.

It sets you up one way then kinda does a switch-a-roo on you. After a few more pages it kind of works into a new groove and I didn’t hate the new direction. It turns out this is kind of a paranormal investigator piece with a government agency involved. The dialogue is well written, the character’s personalities inform their language and word choice, and it’s overall pretty enjoyable. I didn’t notice any major or minor errors in spelling or grammar so that’s a plus.

Overall, I’m actually fond of this one. While it doesn’t break any super new ground, it does so in a fun little way. I can see some fun plot potential down the road and the dialogue kept me reading while the art sold me initially. You could do worse with a paranormal detective story. Give it a read.

Metrics

Art: 6/10 (Solid)

Lettering: 5/10 (Does what it should well.)

Plot: 6/10 (Not bad. Liked the dialogue.)

Novelty: 3/10 (Not a super new premise)

Overall: 5/10

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Billy the Pyro

Posted on by Standard 1

Billy the Pyro

Staff: Brad Burdick Fabian Cobos

Overview:

SO pretty but SO predictable

Review:

So tight off the bat the lettering bothers me. At the default zoom setting you’d have to be a hawk to read the text on the page it is so small. After zooming in a few times I can still read it but the first text we encounter is still comparatively small to the rest of the page. The keening and line spacing could also have been spaced a bit more. Right now it feels very cramped and relegated to a much smaller portion of the page than it should be (it’s tiny) judging by the large amount of free space in the comic (though that could be strictly a compositional thing). Not to mention that the narration has this small font on a yellow-orange background. This does get better as the comic goes on and I’m probably just nitpicking here.
The art style is as polished and professional as any big name publisher with special attention being given to scene composition. One thing of note is that they really do a fantastic job of populating the background in every scene. You’ll notice that some comics will provide a great deal of detail in the background of one location and basically just leave the background blank (or maybe have some vague texture or whatnot) but this one does a good job of composing an interesting scene that is evenly populated. Also of note is that the artist does a great job with subtle expressions, something not always well-executed with an art style like this.
So I got a confession. I didn’t like Catcher in the Rye. I just thought it was a boring book about a kid who was way too full of himself and a I didn’t really like a few hundred pages of someone complaining in my ear. I only bring it up because 10 pages in and that’s all I’ve heard thus far. The main character is troubled and his life sucks. It’s a familiar tune (“Second verse, same as the first!”) and while it’s well-written here, it does seem a bit overplayed. As soon as the 2nd part of the comic’s plot hit, I could tell where it was going and the rest fell into place like a familiar puzzle. It’s a real pity, they set the story up competently and the writer clearly is very good at writing identifiable characters but the premise has just been played out a dozen times before. It’s kind of got Legacy syndrome. The basic story of “kid’s life sucks, he’s a misanthrope, he gains powers, he doesn’t understand/can’t control them” has been done to death (Rogue from the X-Men comes to mind but I can probably think of a dozen more).
In conclusion, this is a BEAUTIFUL comic (check out the last few pages if you don’t see it in the first few) that has a great writer attached but a totally overdone premise ruins what could otherwise have been a masterpiece. I think you should check it out if superhero/villian comics are your thing but don’t expect much intrigue.
PS: Did I mention it was REALLY pretty?

Metrics

Art: 9/10 (Marvel. Hire this artist.)

Lettering: 4/10 (Some issues early on but it recovers and has solid lettering later)

Plot: 5/10 (Decent characterization but stale plot )

Novelty: 2/10 (You were the chosen one! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them!)

Overall: 5/10

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Return to Rander

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Return to Rander

Staff: Tony Sedani

Overview:

A very creative little comic that stumbles now and again but gets up and keeps fighting.

Review:

Hey guys, today I am looking at Return to Rander by Tony Sedani. Looks like a samurai western judging by the cover (and I love me some samurai and westerns) so I’m going to jump in feet first!

The first note I’ll make here is that there is some really stellar character designs in this comic. A lot of creativity went into them and it shows. However, in terms of overall artistic prowess it’s definitely not professional grade. It’s not distracting or even outright bad, it’s just that some of the shots have some perspective disagreement and issues with consistency (in terms of quality and anatomy). Again, not BAD art but it didn’t knock my socks off either. There are a few instances where they chance the page size, but not enough to be a double-spread. It makes it a little hard to read with standard PDF readers.

In terms of lettering the dialogue balloons are outstanding. I feel like maybe they left a little too much empty space around the actual text, but it’s better to leave too much rather than make it all crammed in there. A center diamond layout for the text’s distribution could probably have given this comic a more professional look in a few places but it’s legible and not distracting- and that’s the important part of a comic’s lettering.

Dialogue-wise this comic has it’s ups and downs. There are some fun lines (“Why do you have to be so cryptic?” “Talking skulls are always cryptic…”) but overall it is some pretty stock dialogue. Sometimes it seems like they are just espousing characterization rather than natural language in the same way someone might do an exposition dump. I am happy to say that we are not given a steaming pile of exposition at any one point in this comic and the natural build of the plot is a point in its favor.

Unfortunately the overall plot is a bit derivative and, while we get some promising early glimmers, the characters are pretty generic. A heroic protagonist with no memory has been done to death and a protection racket on a inn where the hero helps out for little-to-no reason? Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. There seems to be a bigger plot at play so judging it on the merits of the first issue is probably not the best idea. I see the first sparks of a really solid plot and I’d be interested to see where it goes.

Overall, this is a very creative comic with a good mind behind it. It has it’s weak points, primarily when the writer relies on stock tropes rather than taking risks, but really shine when they go for their own style. If I had to draw a parallel, it’s in the same vein as Avatar: The Last Airbender or even Samurai Jack when it is at it’s not on that level. Ultimately, I’d recommend you pick up this book and see where it goes. I only review the first issue of comics but if I had to guess there is a much bigger story at play and it will get tantalizingly good in a few issues. Give it a read!

Metrics

Art: 4/10 (Rough, but with creative character designs)

Lettering: 5/10 (Decent)

Plot: 3/10 (Kind of plane, but looks like a bigger plot is starting)

Novelty: 6/10 (Interesting setting and )

Overall: 4.5/10

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Orision

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Orision

Staff: Bradley Golden, Ugur Sertcelik, Chris Allen

Overview:

If you like the horror genre, you’re gonna love this.

Review:

Alright so today I’ve got “Orision” from Second Sight Comics on the chopping block. The comic was split into multiple parts but I will only be reviewing part 1 today (as per my site’s guidelines). Just looking at the cover I can tell I’m in for an artistic treat so let’s get to it shall we? (As a forewarning to anyone downloading this, it’s a bit graphic and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who gets squeamish.)

Art

So the art of this comic is downright beautiful. It’s done in a stylized black and white (well… kinda grayscale) but it uses this contrast effectively. I couldn’t help but imagine that they thought about going for color but decided to stick with B&W for the sake of a cohesive aesthetic. If there is one thing that detracts from the overall quality of the art it’s some very “extreme” expressions. It can kind of be forgiven in this medium as you need to be overly expressive sometimes in place of a more subtle gesture that you could get away in a moving media (like film). Still, some were a little overly exaggerated but that’s just a nit-pick.

There is some great use a perspective (especially some dutch angles with visually directive onomatopoeia) and some of the poses we get could only be from someone with a mastery of the fundamentals of anatomy. Now this isn’t a comic drawn in the traditional american superhero style so don’t go in expecting that and there is nothing wrong with not doing that style- just be aware of it.

Lettering

The lettering sol solid, pretty standard, legible stuff. Don’t be confused- when I say that it’s high praise. I keep talking about how lettering you don’t remember for anything bad is the best kind of lettering there is. Lettering should just be intrusive enough to get your attention and not enough to be distracting. They do a solid job here. No complaints.

Story

So the story is a pretty straightforward affair. High in the snowy mountains an expedition is attacked by a [SPOILER] and the characters fight for their life. It kind of plays out like a horror movie and it’s a lot of fun to read. The visuals back it up very nicely and it is well paced. One of the shortcomings, something inherent to the horror genre in general, is that we don’t get a lot of characterization. There is only so much we can get out of screams and death but it does come up a little short in that department. The same goes for the lore and background. I mean I wasn’t expecting the first issue of a series to explain everything to me but it does come off as a little sparse in terms of what we know other than, “Oh my god a monster! Run!”. This isn’t Shakespeare but I don’t know if it needed to be.

Overall

So this comic left a good taste in my mouth overall. Yeah it was a quick monster/horror romp in the snowy mountains, but by God if it wasn’t a fun little ride! The visceral artstyle carried it and some of the panels straight up blew my mind in terms of the detail that was put into them. If you are a horror fan- this is probably something you won’t want to miss. If you are not a fan of the genre, you’ll probably be pretty “meh” on the whole thing. Give it a read!

 

Metrics

Art: 6/10 (Really solid work)

Lettering: 5/10 (No major issues)

Plot: 4/10 (Well paced but nothing breaks the mold)

Novelty: 5/10 (New art style and creative monster design)

Overall: 5/10

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Resistor

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Resistor

Staff: Wes Allen

Overview:

A well done, but ultimately forgettable, political drama

Review:

So I got hit up about a month back to read Resistor and I’m going to give it a review today! I’m not a big fan of political dramas but this one has some pretty cool real world parallels. Anyway, let’s dive right into it!

Art

Cover is cool kind of “iPad” style color scheme. The interior art is very different than the cover but isn’t bad by any stretch. It’s certainly not “big publisher professional”, but it has it’s own charms. A lot of the scenes are well composed visually and the artistic style tends to favor a very crowded approach to composition (which works well). There is a weird stylistic thing with the way artists depict jaws in this one, but I am gonna give it a pass because it seems intentional and part of the comic’s visual style rather than an error.

Lettering

The text can be very hard to read at times. The credits page had a hard-on-the-eyes font and the first page’s “hooray” were transparent over a complex background (without a dialogue box). I guess this is the style they were going for, but it comes out very jumbled and difficult to read. Elsewhere the text is legible but is made small in some panels and larger in others. When it gets small, it gets very tricky to read and I had to blow it up a bit with a digital zoom to read it. On page 13 we have this wall-o-text that comes from a radio that could have probably have been condensed by making it more succinct. There is also this disconnect between font written in and the drawn background. Sometimes the perspective/shadow doesn’t match up because it was added after (on signs for example).

Story

One thing that bothers me is that it takes this comic 10 pages to get into the story. We are given exposition in the form of a political rally before we get to a single line a dialogue from a character. We don’t seem to have a “main story” going by half way though the comic and it does feel a bit like a comic that has a good story to tell but doesn’t give you enough of a unified perspective to allow you to identify with any particular character. I mean we get that this political party is bad and that life sucks under its rule but I don’t empathize with any of the characters. It’s such a fragmented story that I can’t seem to really pin down what it’s about on a narrative level. By the end of it there is a larger story taking place but not enough in this issue to grab me in the mean time.

Overall

Overall, it’s a nice attempt but fails to deliver on anything more than a basic level. It’s not a bad comic but it’s not one that will stand out in my mind as a highlight of the year or anything. Maybe if the narrative direction was a bit more focused or the plot point more succinct it could have made for a good first issue.

 

Metrics

Art: 4/10 (Good but not pro quality)

Lettering: 3/10 (Some good, some pretty bad)

Plot: 4/10 (A few good notes but unfocused)

Novelty: 5/10 (How many political drama comics do you see?)

Overall: 4/10

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Super Inc., Villain’s Edition (Vol 2)

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Super Inc., Villain’s Edition

Staff: Aghori Shaivite

Overview:

A comic that tries to be a mafia story and a super villain story and fails at both.

Review:

This is a long one so I am going to break it down by chapter. To start with we get a very nice, succinct, flavorful intro that established the developer’s intent and the world in which the character’s live.

 

As it jumps into chapter 1, I am not sure if we are getting some sort of meta-humor or if this is an established “thing” in the universe of the comic. A villain is asking for space in a comic anthology from a woman. Now they keep having these references to issue #1 in the comic, which I was assured I wouldn’t have had to read. 10 pages in and I still feel lost. I have no idea what is going on. Best I can figure, this super villain is bugging some staff member at a comic company to be included in an issue. The chapter ends and I’ve still got no idea what that was all about. Was it a meta-gag? Was it a in-universe comic company and it has something to do with these “saints of death” the forward tells us about?

 

Overall the art isn’t outright bad but it doesn’t rise high enough to be called “good”. While the biology, proportions, and expressions are well enough, each panel seems to have one or two really odd/creepy errors in it. Like on page 7 one of the panels has this woman with creepy, lipless, teeth (only in that panel) and then the eyes of other characters seem to be drawn differently on occasion.

Chapter 1 wasn’t my cup of tea I guess. Oh well, let’s read chapter 2.

 

The second chapter has a different art style that I actually like. It kind of has that art deco/Andy Warhol/retro look to it and that’s something I can really dig. It’s up there with some of my favorite comic art that I’ve reviewed. It’s a night and day difference from the first chapter’s sloppy art style but it makes me wonder why they didn’t just use this style in the first place. I can follow this story and it does live up to the mobster-esque theme and inspiration promised in the forward. It does kind of begin and end rather quickly and is really a contextless vignette which kind of detracts from the overall appeal of it but it showcased some fantastic art direction so I suppose it served its purpose.
Chapter 3 against switches art styles on us to a more American comic book art style, though with some oddly flat tones. It looks like the artist is like 75-90% of the way to doing good art but there are still some awkward lines and stock poses that don’t really lend themselves to the scene compositions. It feels like this is an artist attempting to mimic a style he/she doesn’t draw all the time or at least is fresh off the boat with that style. For all the crap I just gave it though, it’s pretty solid. The use of dutch and high angle shots is excellently used and even the speed lines work to the comic’s advantage.
Chapter 4 goes back to a style with similar quality to that of chapter 1 (if not worse) and it’s a real sharp contrast in quality. After seeing the excellent art in chapter 2 and the great use of angels in chapter 3, this stuff is forced upon us again? What’s wrong? Could the production company not afford to pay a decent artist to do the entire thing? I think one of the biggest issue with the comic is the inconsistent tone and art style that is REALLY distracting.

 

Chapter 4 has this awkward issue that a lot of modern indie artists have. They don’t draw the backgrounds really. They draw the character and the background separate. This leads to an almost “cutout” feel to the comic and subtly screws with perspective (the characters and the backgrounds don’t always mix well). For a good example of this we can look at page 33. The nurse and doctor look like they are blood deflated sex dolls! Like 2 dimensional cardboard cutouts tossed against the inside of a textured cube. The artist uses the SAME texture over and over for backgrounds and just changes the color. As a reader I can’t help but notice it and it really doesn’t look very professional.

Anyway, back to the plot of chapter 4. I am totally lost as to what is going on even a few pages in. I don’t know who Simon is and why I should care about him or what he has to do with Dom from the last chapter (as this is basically “chapter 3, part 2” according to the title). It takes a few pages for the reader to get back to the guy who’s name is in the title and it was a little disruptive to the narrative flow I felt. It basically talks about how they resurrected a drug lord as a supervillain.
Chapter 5 again switches artists (I wish they would stick with one good one…) and we get some decent artwork. Not groundbreaking, but when compared to the rest of the comic it’s one of the better drawn chapters. There is this odd tonal shift from Martin Scorsese-esque drug drama with realistic characters to campy super-villain stuff and it doesn’t pass smoothly. It’s a rocky road and it isn’t handled well. We have a character, Dom, who goes from dressing like a legitimate human being with some street smarts to a underwear on the outside supervillain who says “aarrrg”. Oh yeah, he’s vaguely “pirate” themed because… reasons. His love interest says “oh he liked the jolly roger flag” and thus- he’s pirate themed. Wow. Talk about a jolting transition. I almost wish this comic was just about the drug conflict and not some knock off version of the superfriend’s “Legion of Super-Villains”. Then they give legitimate drug pushers and street thugs super villain names and it goes over right as rain? Kill me now. This comic had promise of being a good one. Why!?
Chapter 6’s art style is akin to the style in chapter 5 (definitely a different artist though). The plot revolves around the attack on a compound where Dom gets his revenge. We see his love interest again here and… god… she just looks so camp-tastic as well. I can’t get over that. There were some serious missteps in the character design department here. I feel like this comic went from the shootout scene in Godfather to the monarch’s lair from Venture Brothers really fast.
Chapter 7 (the epilogue) probably has the worst art in the entire comic and introduces a new character that teases at the next comic. I’m going to leave it at that and just remember the good parts of this comic.

Ok so now that the recap is out of the way let’s look at things in broader strokes:

God there was some awful font choices in this comic. The forward was fine but then you get to this page with a map of “the world states” and it’s a wonder I can discern what anything says. It is not easy on the eyes and is a major pain in the butt to read. Most of the time it’s fine but when they try to get fancy, it just doesn’t work (See “The Origin of Cap. Death”). There are a few times when the letters get pretty close to the edge of the dialogue balloons but I don’t think I can remember any time where it made it particularly hard to read. The lettering would have flowed better if whoever was doing the lettering took advantage of doing a diamond pattern with their text rather than a left align. Some of the shout balloons look like they were just quickly made with a pen tool and don’t have that professional edge to them. The onomatopoeia varies from chapter to chapter but it’s pretty phoned in. An onomatopoeia should be text that visually indicated the sound (an echo should trail off, a whisper can be ghastly in color and transparent). Overall, this comic could probably benefit from a legitimate letterer.

 

On a technical level, I’ll point out in hat whoever did the layout/formatting had some technical issues. The pages are centered on the page over a black background with the page number to the bottom right of the bottom most panel. However, sometimes the white background has the page number as well, has “CapNDeath” written on it, and sometimes nothing at all. It’s like the clipping varies from page to page and chapter to chapter. It is kind of distracting.

 

Overall this is a busy, squandered, comic. It keeps shifting artists which makes it rather difficult to really settle on a tone and what starts out as something that has promise ends up being thrown to the campy wolves. If it had been one or the other, this comic would not just have been good but great. Instead we have a hodge podge of maffia themes and characters thrown in with campy super villains and the result is a soupy tasteless mess.

 

Metrics

Art: 3/10 (While a few chapters had good art, the average overall is poor)

Ch1: 2/10, Ch2: 9/10, Ch3: 5/10, Ch4: /10, Ch5: 5/10, Ch6: 5/10, Ch7: 1/10

Lettering: 3/10 (Some poor font choices and layout issues present a very unprofessional comic)

Plot: 4/10 (YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE!  It was said that you would destroy the cliches, not join them! Bring balance to Comics, not leave it in darkness!)

Novelty: 5/10 (Know what? It’s never been done before. It fell flat but at least you tried.)

Overall: 3.75/10

 

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The Spirit and The Shadow

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The Spirit and The Shadow

Staff: Thomas Lavalle and Brandon Swope

Overview:

A vampire detective story with terrible art.

Review:

Ok so today I’ll be looking at “Spirit & Shadow”. It’s a vampire detective comics that promises to intrigue. “Book 1” consists of several “nights”. As I review only the first issue of things, I will be reviewing only Night #1. Let’s jump in!

First things that grabs me is the art of this comic. It’s hard to ignore. Honestly, I haven’t seen art this bad since my Surreal Murder Mysteries review. It’s bad enough that it is offensive. Like even things like Tim & Lynne or Screw Phillips had a decent attempt at it and I Am Michael Watcher showed some promise. This is just bad. It feels like someone drew over some reference pictures poorly sometimes and other times they just wholesale crop images from other places (see the neck’s “wound” on page 10). Sometimes they just re-used illustrations from previous pages and just swap the backgrounds (see page 1 and page 22). Other than just poor overall line work, we have some disproportional body parts and odd need to MOSTLY use black, white, grey, and red (which is SUPERsaturated, like 255 red). I think this color pallet could have been pulled off (check out how The Zoo Act did it!) but it wasn’t utilized really poorly here. They also have this odd need to entirely black out people who have any shadow on them. This reduces them to black profiles with a slight gradient on that. Lighting is a large part of how you dress a scene (here is a link to some of the basics of lighting) and can drastically effect the mood of a scene.

The layout is… novel at least. It reads more like a graphic novel than a comic (which is totally fine). The layout is a white background with some legible font choice. I would have suggested something not too stiff and maybe something a little more “comicy” (free form, hand written, etc) as it is dialogue and the one they used looks more like a standard word processor font. The overall effect looks more like they didn’t want to or didn’t have the budget/time to do a “full” comic and just opted to do a simpler format. It looks really unprofessional. It should be noted that near the end of night 1 it gets close to doing something like a “comic” style but it’s too little too late.

The story saves it somewhat. It’s a pretty standard police procedural, but that doesn’t mean it’s automatically a bad story. I love cop dramas and the added vampire twist was a lot of fun. It did feel a bit shoehorned in sometimes; “it’s a cop story BUT with vampires!” was the pitch I’d imagine. However, if you ignore the art the characters are pretty identifiable and the story rather rich.

Overall, I’d skip this one. There is such a thing as perspective, as positioning, as emoting, as detail, as using visuals to tell a story! None of this is there. It feels like stock images used to technically qualify this as a “comic”. This would probably be a decent novel or short story if it was written like that but it really don’t work in the visual medium they attempted here. I can’t recommend this one.

Metrics

Art: 0/10 (Some of the worst I’ve reviewed)

Lettering: 2/10 (Poor layout choice that didn’t work)

Plot: 4/10 (Standard fare)

Novelty: 3/10 (This should shine some light on it)

Overall: 2.25/10

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Interesting Tymes

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Interesting Tymes

Staff: Dave McCluskey and Andrew Morrice

Overview:

Tales from the crypt meets 2000s Cartoon Network.

Review:

I gotta admit, Interesting Tymes is not the sort of comic that normally falls in my wheelhouse and didn’t particularly interest me. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a place and that you won’t like it. It’s definitely got an appeal to a certain demographic, but that demographic isn’t mine so please keep that in mind as you read this and forgive me for the rather short review.

Interesting Tymes has a cartoony art style that kind of reminds me of Cartoon Network’s animation style in the early 2000s and it’s not bad per say (it is definitely not a “big name comic style” by any stretch of the imagination). It works for what it is going for and when it’s good it’s good.

The plot of this comic is kind of a “Tales from the Crypt” style collection of 6 stories. I honestly didn’t connect with any of the tales as they were rather simplistic in terms of the content they covered- but when you are aiming at a younger demographic (as the art style implies) it’s a good choice. They had a bad kid/santa bit, one at sea, one involving clowns, another with little red, and a kind of generic “haunted house” story. All the stories had kind of a darker theme so Tales from the Crypt is an appropriate comparison (On a weird sidenote, I still don’t know what they title had to do with the story).

The lettering on this comic was unfortunate. There were a number of clipping errors with the characters, there were some less than clear fonts applied, and a few other little things. While we are harping on technical aspects of it, lets just pull off the bandaid. The comic had this issue where clipped parts of a page would appear on the far edge of the next page. This should have easily been caught with a quick look over and is probably an export error related to the definition of page borders.

Overall, while it’s definitely not in my wheelhouse it just feels like someone just kind of wrote these with no heart. I know that’s a mean thing to say and I’m sure a lot of time was invested into it but it doesn’t bring anything new to the table. It’s just a rehashing of old characters, themes, and topics that doesn’t amount to anything really new. If you are looking for a comic for a little boy to read, you could do worse. Give it a read!

Metrics

Art: 6/10 (Catroony but well done)

Lettering: 1/10 (Several technical issues and lettering choices plague this comic)

Plot: 5/10 (Competently written)

Novelty: 1/10 (Nothing new)

Overall: 3.25/10

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The Legend Of Harapan

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SUB004008The Legend Of Harapan

Staff: JT Campbell

Overview:

It’s got a talking lion but it’s much cooler than Narnia.

Review:

Alright so today I’m looking at The Legend Of Harapan. Cover’s got a lion so that’s a good sign. Let’s jump on in.

The first thing that we are meet with in this comic is an eye-killing cursive note. I get that it was meant to look “hand written” (it even uses a vintage paper texture) and it fits with the style of the comic… but Christ I wish artists would stop using this particular set up. Mage – The Awakening’s sourcebook had this same issue- cursive is NOT easy to read. I mean this wasn’t even particularly keened cursive, but still- not a treat for the eyes. If it was just ONE page in the comic I think it could have been forgiven, but it keeps popping up.

However, once we get past those pages we are treated to a very unique and colorful art style and some very easy on the eyes text. One thing I’ll note here is that while the art seems rather simplistic (kind of like a kid’s illustrated book) but it is actually very well executed. It takes a lot of skill to give so much expression and life to simple creatures and there is no lack of detail here. There is a great use of dynamic posing here and the way they use panels is top notch (example: Page 13 has a rabbit jumping across two panels to indicate movement). They also have a good grasp of visual storytelling, allowing events to transpire without dialogue but still conveying understanding.

To be honest, I didn’t think I was going to get a story about talking lions when I opened this PDF- but I don’t think I was disappointed. It’s not some kind of furry thing (hey- if you like it, more power to you. Not my cup of tea though) so it didn’t bother me all that much. Kind of got the Narnia vibe from it instead. The story itself is pretty linear but it’s not insultingly so. You can kind of call what is going to happen (this is not an M. Night Shyamalan story) but I don’t know if this is a really an issue. I get the idea that this is kind of geared to a younger demographic? At the very least it’s not going to attract the same audience as like Sin City.

Overall it was a fun little read. It’s just over 30 pages and you don’t feel cheated on anything. It manages to set up a good little story and I think there is a lot of potential in the way this could play out. Definitely worth a read.

Metrics

Art: 6/10 (Very well done. Expressive yet simple.)

Lettering: 3/10 (Good overall but some NASTY cursive pages)

Plot: 5/10 (Solid.)

Novelty: 6/10 (Novel artstyle. Took some risks, some paid off, some did not.)

Overall: 5/10

Link to Site

Link to Buy It

Life & Death in Paradise

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Life & Death in Paradise

Staff: Nigel Lynch and Matthew Clarke

Overview:

Miami Vice meets a gang story in a way that will rock your world.

Review:

Alright so I got a comic for you all today that you’re gonna wanna read. It’s called Life & Death in Paradise and it’s downright fantastic. I should start this off by saying that it’s definitely got a mature tag on it for a reason. Anyway…

Oh my god- this is so refreshing artistically. It looks like the 90s vomited on a comic page and it’s wonderful. I know that’s not the most professional way to put it- but I absolutely love the visuals this comic has. It’s got a kind of urban, Miami Vice, look to it. The real glory of this comic’s art is the little details they put in the background of every scene. It makes what could be a pretty boring setting (some guy’s basic apartment for example) into an expression of who the character is (he’s got a PS3, he’s watching pron, there is a sheetless mattress for a bed, a shotgun placed near him on some cinder blocks, there is an refilled Mt. Dew bottle, etc). THIS is a perfect example of how a comic’s visual element can be used to tell us things about the character without exposition. I learned more about the people in this room in two panels by the junk in their room than by the entire dialogue of other comics. I get who they are. Another fantastic thing this comic does is use non-character elements to inform us visually of what’s going on. For example, we have some guys with guns running and in the corner of the panel a frog is jumping out of their way. That little frog is a visual que for the way they are moving. They didn’t stealthily walk into this place- they flipped the corner and hammered their way down the street, not paying attention to (or maybe caring about) the frog. You’ll forgive me for the way I’m gushing about this but this is like a fine meal here- everything is working visually. I want other indie writers to go and read this comic to understand what fantastic artistic direction looks like!

The lettering is crisp and clean without being “smooshed” (yes… that’s a technical term 😉 ) or taking over the scene. There were a rare few instances when the comic had some of the lettering rather close to the edge of the dialogue box, but never enough to really threaten being unreadable. I like how the comic lets the action speak for itself a lot and only uses dialogue like real people would. One thing that was kind of hit or miss was the use of slang/accented language. While it was effective in creating a cohesive vibe and making the characters feel very real- it made it hard to decipher what was being said sometimes.

If there was one thing that wasn’t as strong as the rest of the comic it was the plot. While the story and topical choice was fine, it was the lack of a central set of characters that threw me off. We are kind of given a situation and then shown the execution and impact from a few different angles. While this is successful, I don’t know if it was the best choice. I didn’t get as invested in any particular set of characters or an individual so that kind of weakened a few scenes that could have been stronger.

Overall this comic was a goddam joy to read. The bright, complex, visuals meshed perfectly with the way this was written and the topic at hand. I haven’t come across something so competently illustrated in a long time and it’s nice to see some new ground being covered in terms of tone/subject matter. This is a must read.

Metrics

Art: 9/10 (Learn something from this comic guys)

Lettering: 6/10 (Very clean with a few minor mistakes)

Plot: 6/10 (Complex, fun, and new)

Novelty: 7/10 (Covers a lot of ground in tone, subject matter, and visuals)

Overall: 7/10

Link to Product