A real rip-snorter out of the Wild West, Nimprod blends classic style with modern grit for a fun and fast paced race through the West. In this one the bad guys wear black hats, the good guys wear red hats...and sometimes not much else. With characters like Snake the desert queen and Bang Bang Lucita, it's the perfect blend of spaghetti western and spirited spitfire storytelling. The creation of
To begin with, this story is a beaut. I mean, look at this splash page above. Just look at it. Feast your eyes.
And the art isn't carrying all the weight in the story, either. The writing is tightly wound, fast pace and fun, without an excess word or unnecessary idea to be seen. Crisp storytelling, a great sense of composition and space create a page turner of a story. The color palette is done in rust hued tones, rich and warm as the Rio Grande valley and perfectly suited to the material.
Nimprod feels like the best of the classic Western movies, with a twist: the most powerful characters in the story are all women. A refreshing and fun take on the tropes of the Old West, to be sure.
The character development is clean and direct: Snake and her new friend Lucita don't have time for anything wishy-washy, but you get enough story to go along with and the ladies play well with a bit of mystique. I'll admit, I fell in love with Snake just a little bit. Finding a powerful female character who is simply herself and needs no explanation is delightful.
The simplicity of storytelling allows it to move at a lively pace, with plenty of action and banditos to rassle (yes dear readers I will make you suffer through my attempts at ol' Western vernacularation for my amusement). The antagonists in this story are pretty much stock Western Bad Guy, but for the purposes of the story they don't need to be anything else. All in all this is a fun, flashy tale which lets you relax into a little nostalgia without feeling your IQ points drop, which is a rare find.
The Razzes
I do have one complaint as a lady reader. Um...ever had a sunburn on your midriff? It HURTS. A LOT. Oh, and so does riding a horse without wearing a bra. Imagine tiny hooks in your skin pulling it this way and that for a few hours straight. And by the way, there's cholla in the West. Ever met a cholla cactus? Let's just say anybody living anywhere near this beastie wears protection. But our lovely ladies of the gun are either demigoddesses, or....a little unprepared, shall we say?
I know this is a point that others will disagree on, but as a reader and an artist I favor functionality over style. If I look at a costume and think 'no, no way you lived there wearing that, unh-unh.' the spell of the story is somewhat broken. All I could think when I viewed this page was 'oh, the sunburn...oh...the chafing...ow...'
Beyond the stylistic quibble, I'd like to see the word bubbles get a little more breathing room. The words often feel slightly crammed into their bubbles, and their square layout detracts slightly from the overall appeal. I'd much prefer to see a diamond layout to the words that allowed for more rounded bubbles.
The Revue
A real rip-snorter of a story. Mosey on over and ask Snake what she's been up to, why doncha?
Ladies and Gentlemen! In my hands I hold a box that can unlock your every desire
But...
...At a cost!
Re:Set is an anime inspired webcomic by azureXtwilight about Michelle Vinson, a lonely and unhappy girl, who oneday opens Pandora's box and unleashes demons back into the world. She makes a deal with Sloth and it changes her world and ours.
Rating
Get ready to have your expectations reset!
Raves
Character
Michelle curses like a sailor and wants to fight demons. It's a stark contrast when we meet her in chapter 3 versus the first one. When she's introduced, she seems to play to a lot of anime tropes: twin tails, chibi faces, and school uniform. All of these tropes are subverted by chapter 3 when she really lets loose. At first it felt out of character, but I was glad to see my expectations shattered in this regard. My only issue with Michelle: I don't understand her motives or goal in making a deal with Sloth.
Art
The art is colorful, lush, and beautiful. It isn't without its flaws -- there are some bodies that are anatomically stretched and distorted in odd ways, but every effort is made to make Re:Set appear cinematic and full of motion and action. It feels very anime even down to the occasional use of chibi faces for a chuckle or two.
Vibrant reds in this scene. Lots of cool cinematic effects throughout the comic.
Video
In fact...
Check out the trailer for Re:Set, I thought it was really cool to hear voice actors portray the characters and see motion graphics for the characters.
Use of Audio
I know folks generally hate having random audio pop up when they're viewing a website.I didn't expect it towards the end of chapter 2, but it worked. The audio combined with the imagery really made it come alive in a way that you couldn't do in a traditional manga. Webcomics have the luxury of an infinite canvas, bits of animation, and even the use of audio to give life to the story the author is telling, and it's used effectively here. The music track is anime or visual novel inspired and fits with the comic pages well.
My only issue was that it had to start itself over on the next page. From a technical standpoint you'd want the audio to be able to continue across pages. This means you'd either have to use AJAX to load pages or have the audio sit in some pop-up window or iframe. AJAX loading of pages would be a very custom code solution. Pop-up windows and iframes might get AdBlocked ruining the effect.
BTW, another page in the comic uses audio too, but one drawback: if I'm reading the comic fast, it may not give the audio a chance to load. I only noticed that another page in the story had audio because it had fully loaded in time for me to hear it while I was deciding if I wanted to crop that image for this review.
The first three chapters shift in tone and made them feel disjointed. In chapter 1, Michelle gets the box and ends up making a Faustian deal with Sloth, the demon in the box. As the chapter progressed, I like how Michelle knew the potential consequences of her actions, and it seemed to be a twist on the usual morality play between mortals and gods. She shuns her guardian Gerald. She knows that the contract will probably cost her something dear, but she does it anyway. Seemingly because anything is better than a neglected life.
That is a really good question, Michelle. (From Chapter 2)
I'm not sure where chapter 2 takes place. The colors shift from the dark tones in chapter 1 to bright blues. There's a lot of fighting with some zombies and at the end Michelle greets Gerald by calling herself the "future world empress," which, if nothing else, is very anime, because I don't know what else it means.
Is that her goal? Is that part of the deal she made with Sloth? She ends up making a deal with Gerald though, which left me scratching my head. At the end of chapter 1, I was expecting the story to be about Michelle and Sloth. This chapters makes me wonder even further why she made a deal with Sloth from the get-go.
EFF YEA.
In chapter 3, the tone and genre of the story seems to shift to something more urban fantasy/paranormal. Chapter 3 onward, Re:Set introduces a ton of characters -- magicians and minions alike. There's a lot more combat, and it takes on a plot to retrieve various artifacts before they can combat the seven deadly sins who have been released into the world. Everything feels coherent as we now have an ensemble cast that we can bounce between and hold a longer story with a McGuffin plotline.
Each of these first three chapters felt like the start of a new story and not a continuation of one narrative. I suppose you could say these changes reset one's expectations as my expectations changed chapter to chapter: I thought it was a snarky, twisted morality play, but then it ended up being a McGuffin hunt in a paranormal urban fantasy anime. There's nothing wrong with any of those genres. My own work even has some sudden and jarring shifts like that in the first few chapters, but having done that and looking back at my own work, I think it hurts it, because I'm not sure where my expectations as a reader are supposed to be. If I find myself latching onto an idea only to have it tossed in chapter 2 and again in chapter 3, then I might bail on the story.
tl;dr: it's a long wind up to get to the main story.
Big Ensemble Cast
New character are introduced to pull the story along. Characters have henchmen characters. There isn't one guy after a McGuffin but teams of magicians.
One issue with all these characters: I don't feel any attachment to the majority of them, but chapter 6 appears to be a bit slower, so maybe we can get a moment to breathe and learn about a few of the characters.
Typography and Speech Bubble Issues
Early in the story, chapter 1 mainly, there are some typography issues I had. Sloth's font face is difficult to read and blends into the background color. I understand the idea of using a different font to show her otherness, but it should be readable at a glance.
There are several bubble placement issues in earlier pages. They would float between panels making it difficult to discern who the text referred too or which order to read the text in. Later on in the webcomic, these issues mostly seem to go away.
Art-wise, when drawing bodies and clothing, sometimes they appear to have hard planar surfaces or sharp edges because of how they're rim-lighted. One example is the abs on Gerald early on in the story.
They're smoothly shaded, but then there's a hard, white rim-light outlining part of his pectoral and abdominal muscles and this makes them appear very sharp looking -- like there's a hard crease between the light and shadow.
The same style of highlighting is used on clothing making it appear blocky and planar.
I know adding a bit of lighting around the edges can make a feature pop, but since most of the work in Re:Set appears painterly it might help to have the highlights blended in with the rest to avoid the odd angular appearance.
Revue
If you're fans of anime serials like Inuyasha that go on for hundreds of episodes, you may enjoy this webcomic, because it has plenty of demons, magic, and enough McGuffin chasing and demon-slaying to last that long.
To begin with, this story is a beaut. I mean, look at this splash page above. Just look at it. Feast your eyes.
I do have one complaint as a lady reader. Um...ever had a sunburn on your midriff? It HURTS. A LOT. Oh, and so does riding a horse without wearing a bra. Imagine tiny hooks in your skin pulling it this way and that for a few hours straight. And by the way, there's cholla in the West. Ever met a cholla cactus? Let's just say anybody living anywhere near this beastie wears protection. But our lovely ladies of the gun are either demigoddesses, or....a little unprepared, shall we say?
