Post reblogged from Top of the Bottom Rung with 9 notes
okay I’m a dink
I was planning to do a shit-ton of reviews over break but I’ve been too busy with homework and regular work and spending time with my family to actually sit down and do them, so I will just do a couple plugs here real quick
first off is Surreality, by Ashes. Probably one of the stranger comics I’ve read recently, in that I’m not exactly sure what’s going on, but in a really good way! Currently in its third chapter, it’s about a girl named Jackie who does…stuff? The narrative often takes time to extrapolate on things completely irrelevant to the plot. The art style (which is done nicely) changes from panel to panel. It’s unfocused and chaotic and definitely leading up to something huge, if we don’t get lost along the way.
Normally I can’t stand plots or artwork that are so unfocused, but in this comic the frenetic storytelling really works, and this is why I liked Surreality - it’s all over the place, but the tone always holds it together. There’s a very nice tongue-in-cheek attitude in the art and story - it’s ridiculous, but completely aware that it’s ridiculous. However, it never goes too far into chaos, so all the hints throughout at a greater overall meaning and story don’t feel forced or unnatural. It’s just starting out, it’s been fun so far, and I’m looking forward to what’s coming up!
Next up is Find Chaos, by A. Stiffler and K. Copeland. It’s about a kid named Arthur who’s been recently released from a mental institution and has taken up work as a professional assassin of sorts. There’s a lot of Christian overtones, but not in an obnoxious or heavy-handed way. It’s clear from the dialogue and narration that everything has been very well-thought out and planned; really smart writing.
The art’s really nice too, lots of muted colors and clean linework that works well in the environment and action; the style reminds me of Jamie Hewlett a bit. But I would like to point out that there is a fair amount of gory violence! I was eating the first time I read it, not something I recommend, haha. It’s not done in an exploitative way, though, and I’m also looking forward to the rest of this story!
Source: halleybutt
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UPDATE OF SORTS
The internet’s off in my apartment again, so my next review is going to be pushed back a little bit, at the most until next week (unless comcast forgets to send my modem again, which is a distinct possibility).
I am planning to give Doomsday, My Dear a more in-depth review than what I’ve done so far. After that I have a couple shorter reviews I want to make, hopefully in the next few weeks I can read some more comics.
before anyone asks the only reason I’m able to write this is because I went to my job site to steal their internet
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Monster Pulse
Hello everyone, and welcome to the first actual review that I’ve put on this blog! I’m really excited about having a more official platform to do what I like best - talk about comics too much. There are spoilers ahoy, so be careful of what links you click on!
First on the table is Monster Pulse, written and drawn by Magnolia Porter. It has been up since May 27th, 2011, and is currently in its fourth chapter. The story, as summarized by Porter, is “an all-ages adventure story about kids whose body parts transform into fighting monsters.”
The story, as summarized by me, is about four children who have the luck - whether it is good or bad is unclear - to come across a mysterious substance that pulls one of their organs out of their bodies and turns it into a living, fully functional creature with extraordinary abilities. The opening sequence shows the main character, Bina, getting her heart ripped out of her chest and watching it transform into Ayo, a large archaic being with the powers of flight and super-strength and the personality of an intelligent dog. Soon afterwards, Bina meets Julie, a bald overzealous girl, with a monster named Kera who is made entirely of hair and has regenerative abilities (after all, hair always grows back); Abel, a strange young man with an eyepatch and a flying iris monster named Rixis that can shoot laser beams; and finally West, a seemingly quiet boy whose stomach monster Guuzy digests food for him and shoots…goo that does different things.
Connecting all four children is the shady organization known simply as SHELL, headed by the enigmatic Rjinder, whose entire face we have yet to see. SHELL deals with the volatile arma chemical, a substance that creates life from life. The organization knows as much about arma as the reader - it can be tracked but not contained or destroyed by anything besides itself, and has a tendency to float around in ghost form to attack people and turn their body parts into weapons. The SHELL employees conduct experiments on themselves and on the affected children using the chemical, but seem just as afraid of it themselves. 
The artwork of the comic is a bit of a strange mixture - Porter has a very fluid style that allows for a lot of dynamic variation from panel to panel. She has a very specific, personal way of putting her lines down; it’s a style that perfectly suits the quieter, more drama-focused moments within the comics. When the style is applied to the action scenes, these dynamic lines definitely work in her favor. It’s a little jarring to see a style that seems like it belongs in a autobiographical comic used to depict giant monsters fighting each other, but that’s not to say it falls flat.
Her character designs are probably my favorite part of her artwork; Porter clearly likes studying the little details that make every person’s appearance unique. Thick bottom eyelashes, thin mustaches, large hips on thin girls, hooked noses, broad jaws and so forth; every character is distinct, an admirable achievement. The same goes for the monsters too, every one personifies their respective body part in unique, interesting ways.
The comic’s coloring and inking, however, does tend to falter at times. The entire comic is done in greyscale, which in some ways is much more difficult than full colors. It’s tricky to know how dark or light to make something, so people tend to stick somewhere in the middle of the value scale. The problem with this, naturally, is that things start to blend together at times, or read incorrectly. 
For example, the monster, according to Porter, is supposed to be hanging in the background of the scene, well beyond the viewpoint of the market patrons.
However, by making the monster the same value as the main foreground element (the laser beam) the viewer is led to believe that the monster is much closer to the market than he actually is. The nice thing about greyscale is that you can push the values to your advantage - if this page were occurring in real life, the monster would probably be a lighter value since it is in the sunlight and further from our eye. However, if you darken the monster a few shades on the page, the reader will buy it, as well as the indicated distance between monster and marketplace. There’s a lot of room for experimentation here! I personally found the pages where the values were pushed to extremes to be the most engaging; they had significant visual impact and really brought me into the action.
This brings me to another issue I had with the comic, in terms of confusion. With a cast that’s mostly made up of preteens, there’s a fair amount of lightheartedness in a generally dark concept and I really enjoy that. However, Monster Pulse does exemplify an issue I see a lot with kid-centric stories - when adults become adults, they often forgot how children talk and act. Writing for children is, in my opinion, one of the most difficult things an author can undertake and it’s rare to pull it off perfectly. Children seem simple from our point of view, but when I read my old diaries from middle school, I remember just how important every little thing was to me. Kids see and think about everything they see much more than we give them credit for; they may act volatile and all-over the place emotionally, but when they are the same age as the ones in Monster Pulse, there is always a good explanation for their moods and actions. Most of the time protagonists’ motivations can’t be summed up into a single word - this goes for any kind of characterization.
So when Julie throws a tantrum about Bina befriending West, having it all explained away with “jealousy” doesn’t quite work. Julie’s supposed to be quite buoyant and friendly, so when she gets jealous about her friends talking for the first time, it reads more like a very simplified version of a six-year-old rather than an actual thirteen-year-old(ish?) character. The kids (not including Bina, who I’ll discuss in a moment) seem to revolve around one or two personality traits and I think they need a little more time and effort to develop as characters. They’re interesting traits, and I would love to know more about these people.
The reason I’m talking so much about the children, though, is to keep myself from full-on raving about the other characters. Kids are hard to write, but that’s not to say that adults are easy to write either; for every mistake Porter might have made regarding the children in the story, she more than makes up for it with the adult characters.
The comic opens up on a scene showing that Bina’s mother, Mrs. Blum, is also her teacher, and that Bina’s causing her a bit of trouble in school. When Bina overhears her mother badmouthing her to a teacher, it provokes the same small heartbreak one would feel listening to their own mother casually express disappointment in them. When Bina runs crying to her father for comfort, it’s a poignant moment that really stands out for its simplicity. The adults in Bina’s world might not have huge monster body parts being chased around by a shadowy organization, but their drama is as intriguing and important as anything else. Bina’s internal conflict reflects this, and as such she is the most well-done of the younger characters.
My favorite part of this comic by far is Lulenski, the SHELL employee charged with rounding up the alpha specimens created by the arma ghosts, which are the children and their monsters. It’s clear that she’s being manipulated to some extent previous to the start of the story - a former biologist who’s now being charged with detaining children at any cost in the name of science - but her boss, Rjinder, wants to subject her to arma treatment as well, thus turning her into one of the specimens she’s supposed to be tracking down. 
Lulenski is a fascinating character - she’s aware that she’s being manipulated to some extent, and clearly uncomfortable with what she’s been asked to do, but she continues to do it anyway, most likely out of curiosity and fear of what will happen if she doesn’t. She’s an ordinary woman who’s been pulled into unordinary circumstances and trying to make something out of it without losing herself in the process. There’s an underlying warmth exemplified in her flirtatious relationship with Rjinder’s son, Roger, and it’s nice to watch it slowly reveal itself in an otherwise cold, sterile environment such as the SHELL building. I’ve read this comic several times for this character alone; if there’s one particular element of the story that truly grabbed me and sucked me in, it’s Lulenski.
Lulenski also personifies what I like best about this comic: there’s an unbelievable amount of love and effort under the surface of this story. It clearly means a lot to Porter and this affection is palpable throughout; best of all, this affection is infectious. Porter clearly has big plans for this comic and its characters and she’s done a great job of making me wonder what is going to happen. I have my own theories about where it’s going (especially regarding Rjinder, but I won’t write about it here to avoid spoilers), but I’m there for the ride leading up to those revelations.
The archives are not too heavy at the moment, and it updates on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; if you have any free time whatsoever it’s a nice take on a fun concept that is well worth your time.
Question with 1 note
Anonymous asked: Wait, what kind of comics do you review? Stuff you personally stumble across? Only certain subject matter? Super-professional comics that are like, books?? O_O Or would you check out random chibi comic strips by an upstart? Just asking.
all kinds of comics, all genres, all styles! if I like them, I’ll try and give them a thoughtful plug no matter what! I’ve come across comics from professional ads, personal recommendations, digging through forums, etcetera. I lean towards webcomics, because they’re easy to access, but I will recommend physical comics if I can get my hands on them.
I do try and keep an eye out for comics that, although they might be a bit on the amateur side (like something a student is doing in their free time, practice comics, and so forth), show potential; most of my absolute favorite comics are the ones I’ve been following from the start because I really enjoy watching people progress as artists/writers.
That’s just plugs though! If I give a full critique of a comic, I have a few personal rules:
1. The comic has to be running for at least a year/be past its first chapter
2. No personal shots at the artist/author’s background (a lot of reviewers seem to do this and it bugs me)
3. I will point out the good stuff I see too
4. There is zero chance I am going to tear through some poor high schooler’s first comic ever I don’t care how dumb it is I’m not doing that guys
same rules apply to the snarkier reviews on my other blog too, if people were wondering!
malkovich-chevchnov asked: For me. the color palette is hard on the eyes.
I’m sorry! I have a tendency to pick out horrible blog color themes because it annoys my friends and I like irritating them. I agree that it’s hard on the eyes though so I’ll change it!
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GOOD COMICS DAY
This is one of those things that I’ve been meaning to do for a while but haven’t had the time for until I have a ton of work to finish and I need something to procrastinate with, whoops.
I was just thinking it might be nice to make my webcomic plugs a little bit more “official”, so to speak, by trying to do one once a week on this blog. Basically, every thursday or friday (depending on how heavy my workload is for that week), I’m going to try to thoroughly write about a comic I’ve read recently and why I enjoy it. I’m sure I’ll probably end up missing a few days, what with midterms coming up, but hopefully setting aside a day for it will mean I can plug comics more often.
I’d also like to do some long-form reviews of comics here too, but those probably won’t be weekly for reasons I hope are obvious (the reasons are that I am lazy and don’t want to write long essays every week). I do think I’m going to be able to release a long-form review of Monster Pulse soon, since I’ve been taking notes on it for a couple months now.
If you’re reading this you probably aren’t watching the superbowl *fistbump* me either
Post with 3 notes
okay yeah
some comics I have thought important thoughts about and want to review at some point:
- Monster Pulse
- Doomsday My Dear (honestly it might be a bit hard to review this completely objectively but I think I can manage to do it)
- goddammit I had a third one but I can’t remember what it is
- I also think there’s going to be a point when I accidentally post something here that I mean to post into my “screaming into a pillow” blog and you’ll all suddenly know a horrible secret about me
- enjoy
Post reblogged from Top of the Bottom Rung with 12 notes
okay well that last post was a lie, I do know what I want to do with it
I’m reserving it for my less casual reviews, the ones where I put actual time and effort into thinking about the comics as a whole and rating them based on their overarching efforts and achievements, if that makes sense
basically it’s for webcomics that are both good and not-so-good and in-between, focused less on snark and more on pointing out the stuff that works and explaining the stuff that doesn’t necessarily work
(what this really is is another drain on my time because I definitely need that)
the real question is should I do a ratings system, and should the ratings system be based on stars or butts (five butts out of five, good job webcomic!!!)
god reblogging myself is a chore
Source: halleybutt
test post
I just want to see what the colors look like on my new blob, nbd
do they hurt the eyes? I’m too blind and full to tell
