roseembolism (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
roseembolism) wrote2009-12-31 06:52 pm
roseembolism) wrote2009-12-31 06:52 pm
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The Best Webcomics of 2009 that You Probably Aren't Reading
Now to be absolutely clear, by the best new webcomics of 20009, I mean webcomics that I discovered in 2009, and that haven't become generally popular (though the Meek seems to be breaking out in popularity). More importantly, these are comics that for various reasons I really think are worth reading, that I liked well enough to share. This review is a little rushed, so please forgive any mistakes or lapses.
And so, without further preamble, here they are:
The Meek: So this comic starts out with a naked girl being chased through a forest by a bunch of guys- wait, it's not one of THOSE webcomics! The background is that she grew up in the middle of the jungle raised by a "grandfather" that resembles a giant axolotl, who gave her the quest to seek "The.Center", in order to save the world. Naturally Granpa's cryptic instructions didn't include instructions about blending in, so nudity feels more anthropological than erotic; Angora is simply not self--conscious or aware of our clothing taboos. By contrast we see a ruling family where the king is still fighting in his mind the war where he was personally tortured and lost his family. The heavy clothing accentuates both his disability, and the confining social elements of the civilization. When the two of them meet, I predict literal fireworks.
Exaggerated cartoony yet semi-realistic artwork does an excellent job of conveying emotions, and can easily switch from enhancing the comedy of a chase scene, to emphasizing how frightening the kings "precious bodily fluids" mentality is. I'm looking forward to seeing where Angora goes in this story.
Everblue: I'm amazed that this comic hasn't gotten more publicity. This comic reminds me a bit of Myazaki back in the old days in its treatment of its characters; not so much in direct correlation, but in the feeling of youth and adventure that comes out of their expressions. It's the story (so far) of a world of water, where people live on floating cities. A girl who lives in a repressive city making a living as a shipwright meets a young man who had- and crashed- a boat that could fly, or at least glide. And she has a secret that could make an even BETTER flying boat. That's pretty much all of the story so far, though we're getting to see some of the "bad guys" now. But on the other hand, the art is incredibly engaging and pretty, and the people are both classic types, and still so individualistic and expressively drawn, that I get the same feeling I did when watching Laputa- I just want to see more of what's going to happen.
Para-ten: A simply beautiful comic about a girl who is washed down a river, and has to find her way home, while dealing with all sorts of adventures and dangers. The story characterization and dialogue is simple and straightforward, but that goes well with the artwork. And the art is incredible; thick linework with a watercolor-style wash gives the comic the feeling of being somewhere between a children's book and a piece of ukyo-e lifted off of a rice-paper scroll. It's really a unique appearance that one rarely sees in the webcomics world. The over all effect is so sweet that I really want to see where the heroine's journey goes.
Elise Otterlei's Beauty and the Beast: This is far more than a retelling of the story of Beauty and the Beast. Yes, there is a romance between an independent runaway woman and the Beast. But this isn't a story with a passive heroine, or a beast needing to control his temper, or anything like that. The Beast was put under a curse ostensibly because of a murder over an inheritance, and also over fear of his power; Harrazade (AKA BEauty) herself has a talent for magic that attracts strange attention; there are strange magic-eating monsters given free roam in the area of the curse; and just who is the handsome man- evidently banished to an otherworldy prison- that Harrazade sees in her dreams? There's a lot going on in this comic, so it helps that the characters are engaging; Beauty has both a thirst for knowledge and a determination to help with the curse (in spite of warning from the Beast) that makes her far from the standard passive heroine, and Beast has both a self-deprecating humor and courtliness that makes him a fun match. The artwork is rough and a little crude, but the artist works within her limitations to give the characters personality and life while she revitalizes the classic tale into a subtle and complex story.
What Birds Know: a slow moving but very interesting and unusual webcomic about three girls that go on a five--day mushroom collecting trip in the mountains, and find a portal to a surreal and horrifying land on the other side. There are also eggs; eggs which turn into gold on the "Normal" side of the portal, and affect all three girls physically and mentally. Though the character types might be described as influenced by the Disney school of design, it is very different in tone and style from your average epic fantasy story. It's tempting to describe this as a feminist fantasy, as it has a strong concentration on the girls relationship with each other, their families, and the larger society of the town; however this comic is not so much about empowerment, as how people's past informs how they react to weirdness and potential wealth or danger. Under the influence of the land beyond the portal, the three's friendship fracture along the fault lines of the girl's personalities.
The Next Adventure: This is a sweet little tale about a disaffected post-grad who climbs up a rope ladder in the park, and finds herself enlisted as a crewmate on a blimp and helping the eccentric (to put it mildly) captain on a quest for as-yet unnamed objects . This is an odd sort of urban fantasy steampunk story, where the magical steampunk elements are anachronistic intrusions into the modern day. One day the main character is fighting magical beings, the next talking to a suspiciously knowledgeable stranger at a coffee shop. We really know little about what's going on, or what the conspiracies involved want; but it's interesting to see magic of a sort inhabiting the skies above your average city. The art itself is simple, and possibly even a little unpolished, but it actually helps convey the subtly magical nature of the story. All in all, this is a good webcomic for people who wish sometimes that a magical airshipwould whisk them away to adventure.
Astray3: so stop me if you've heard this one before: a teenage girl is transported to a strange world where she...and at this point Astray3 diverges from any semblance of the "Girl in Another World" cliche. Our heroine starts off not even knowing the language in a world where water (and her bodily fluids) is a caustic substance, "human" is the name for insane beings of godlike power, and she's mere a "stray", which means the local government only wants to kill her and anyone who aids her. This comic is European, which means we have fantasy with a twist, where the classic cliches don't apply; For one thing, unlike as in other stories our likable heroine isn't immune to the environment; she gets bruised, hurt, dirty and exhausted when being tumbled around. Oddly enough, her fragility makes me root even more for her, and hope even more that she survives to reach someplace sane, because the peril feels more real, and she has no "grand destiny" to save her.
That's it for now. Though honestly, there's a number more good webcomics that I should do shout-outs about. So expect a part 2 soon. And now, all of you have fun reading!
And so, without further preamble, here they are:
The Meek: So this comic starts out with a naked girl being chased through a forest by a bunch of guys- wait, it's not one of THOSE webcomics! The background is that she grew up in the middle of the jungle raised by a "grandfather" that resembles a giant axolotl, who gave her the quest to seek "The.Center", in order to save the world. Naturally Granpa's cryptic instructions didn't include instructions about blending in, so nudity feels more anthropological than erotic; Angora is simply not self--conscious or aware of our clothing taboos. By contrast we see a ruling family where the king is still fighting in his mind the war where he was personally tortured and lost his family. The heavy clothing accentuates both his disability, and the confining social elements of the civilization. When the two of them meet, I predict literal fireworks.
Exaggerated cartoony yet semi-realistic artwork does an excellent job of conveying emotions, and can easily switch from enhancing the comedy of a chase scene, to emphasizing how frightening the kings "precious bodily fluids" mentality is. I'm looking forward to seeing where Angora goes in this story.
Everblue: I'm amazed that this comic hasn't gotten more publicity. This comic reminds me a bit of Myazaki back in the old days in its treatment of its characters; not so much in direct correlation, but in the feeling of youth and adventure that comes out of their expressions. It's the story (so far) of a world of water, where people live on floating cities. A girl who lives in a repressive city making a living as a shipwright meets a young man who had- and crashed- a boat that could fly, or at least glide. And she has a secret that could make an even BETTER flying boat. That's pretty much all of the story so far, though we're getting to see some of the "bad guys" now. But on the other hand, the art is incredibly engaging and pretty, and the people are both classic types, and still so individualistic and expressively drawn, that I get the same feeling I did when watching Laputa- I just want to see more of what's going to happen.
Para-ten: A simply beautiful comic about a girl who is washed down a river, and has to find her way home, while dealing with all sorts of adventures and dangers. The story characterization and dialogue is simple and straightforward, but that goes well with the artwork. And the art is incredible; thick linework with a watercolor-style wash gives the comic the feeling of being somewhere between a children's book and a piece of ukyo-e lifted off of a rice-paper scroll. It's really a unique appearance that one rarely sees in the webcomics world. The over all effect is so sweet that I really want to see where the heroine's journey goes.
Elise Otterlei's Beauty and the Beast: This is far more than a retelling of the story of Beauty and the Beast. Yes, there is a romance between an independent runaway woman and the Beast. But this isn't a story with a passive heroine, or a beast needing to control his temper, or anything like that. The Beast was put under a curse ostensibly because of a murder over an inheritance, and also over fear of his power; Harrazade (AKA BEauty) herself has a talent for magic that attracts strange attention; there are strange magic-eating monsters given free roam in the area of the curse; and just who is the handsome man- evidently banished to an otherworldy prison- that Harrazade sees in her dreams? There's a lot going on in this comic, so it helps that the characters are engaging; Beauty has both a thirst for knowledge and a determination to help with the curse (in spite of warning from the Beast) that makes her far from the standard passive heroine, and Beast has both a self-deprecating humor and courtliness that makes him a fun match. The artwork is rough and a little crude, but the artist works within her limitations to give the characters personality and life while she revitalizes the classic tale into a subtle and complex story.
What Birds Know: a slow moving but very interesting and unusual webcomic about three girls that go on a five--day mushroom collecting trip in the mountains, and find a portal to a surreal and horrifying land on the other side. There are also eggs; eggs which turn into gold on the "Normal" side of the portal, and affect all three girls physically and mentally. Though the character types might be described as influenced by the Disney school of design, it is very different in tone and style from your average epic fantasy story. It's tempting to describe this as a feminist fantasy, as it has a strong concentration on the girls relationship with each other, their families, and the larger society of the town; however this comic is not so much about empowerment, as how people's past informs how they react to weirdness and potential wealth or danger. Under the influence of the land beyond the portal, the three's friendship fracture along the fault lines of the girl's personalities.
The Next Adventure: This is a sweet little tale about a disaffected post-grad who climbs up a rope ladder in the park, and finds herself enlisted as a crewmate on a blimp and helping the eccentric (to put it mildly) captain on a quest for as-yet unnamed objects . This is an odd sort of urban fantasy steampunk story, where the magical steampunk elements are anachronistic intrusions into the modern day. One day the main character is fighting magical beings, the next talking to a suspiciously knowledgeable stranger at a coffee shop. We really know little about what's going on, or what the conspiracies involved want; but it's interesting to see magic of a sort inhabiting the skies above your average city. The art itself is simple, and possibly even a little unpolished, but it actually helps convey the subtly magical nature of the story. All in all, this is a good webcomic for people who wish sometimes that a magical airshipwould whisk them away to adventure.
Astray3: so stop me if you've heard this one before: a teenage girl is transported to a strange world where she...and at this point Astray3 diverges from any semblance of the "Girl in Another World" cliche. Our heroine starts off not even knowing the language in a world where water (and her bodily fluids) is a caustic substance, "human" is the name for insane beings of godlike power, and she's mere a "stray", which means the local government only wants to kill her and anyone who aids her. This comic is European, which means we have fantasy with a twist, where the classic cliches don't apply; For one thing, unlike as in other stories our likable heroine isn't immune to the environment; she gets bruised, hurt, dirty and exhausted when being tumbled around. Oddly enough, her fragility makes me root even more for her, and hope even more that she survives to reach someplace sane, because the peril feels more real, and she has no "grand destiny" to save her.
That's it for now. Though honestly, there's a number more good webcomics that I should do shout-outs about. So expect a part 2 soon. And now, all of you have fun reading!
Beauty & the Beast
(Anonymous) 2010-05-17 11:19 am (UTC)(link)