Monthly Matinee November: Fiction Relationship Analysis: Disney's Cinderella

Fiction Relationship Analysis: Disney's Cinderella

by: Melissa Koons
www.melsmagnificentmusings.com


All images are copyright to Disney and their property

"Cinderella" is a classic fairy tale. Nearly every culture across time and the globe has a version of the story as modified for their own culture. The original story emerged in China, 850 B.C.E. This explains why feet are so prominent, as foot-binding was a common practice amongst women during this time in Chinese culture. The smaller a woman's feet were, the more attractive she was. Part of this is because a woman with small feet were often wealthier; the act of foot-binding was so painful and destructive that they were unable to do many physical activities which showed their elevated status and ability to afford servants who would do the work for them.
While feet are a key aspect of the "Cinderella" fairy tale, there are more vital commonalities that transcend culture and are prevalent in EVERY version and retelling regardless of culture or era. The most prevalent commonalities are the notions that kindness and valor will prevail over deceit and hardships and that those who possess and express these qualities will be rewarded.
The Disney retelling of "Cinderella" is no exception. Cinderella is a kind, young woman who endures the mistreatment and downright abuse of her stepmother and stepsisters with unwavering patience and hope. This is where many misinterpretations are applied. While it is important to apply a modern and progressive lens to art and its representation of society, it's also important to compare it to the initial value and message that is being taught. There are better ways to make a point, of course, but there is a reason "Cinderella" is a story that has traveled so far and across time and culture.

Misinterpretation 1: "Cinderella" is promoting taking a passive approach to abuse

While this claim can be made, when you look at the story I argue that this is a misinterpretation and only a surface judgment. Specifically focusing on Disney's animated film (disregarding "Ever After" and the live-action for the purposes of conciseness,) Cinderella wasn't passive at all. She did her chores and tried to have a positive outlook on a bleak situation, but did never acknowledged that her treatment was "okay" or "normal."
She noticed that her stepsisters were favored and that she was treated poorly, she never defended how they treated her. She never made excuses for them and their behavior. She knew it was wrong, but she was a kinder, stronger person and chose not to retaliate with the same mistreatment and negativity. It would solve nothing and she knew it was wrong to do so. So, she did what she had to do given her situation: endure. She was not in a position where she could reasonably escape her abusers, but that should not be confused with being passive. Bear in mind, it was made very clear that she had no other family and no other prospects. A young woman on her own in the time era that this story is told had few opportunities to support and provide for herself. Fleeing her step-family and being on her own would not have been an upgrade to her situation. It actually would have been a lot worse so she made do with the lesser of bad options.

While she endured, she also defended herself and spoke up when it was important. When her stepsisters accused her of a prank by putting Gus in one of their tea cups, she tried to defend herself to her stepmother but wouldn't be heard. She attempted multiple explanations, only to be cut off each time. She didn't admit to something she didn't do, but she also didn't continue to fight a futile battle.

When it came time for the ball, she requested to go. It was important to her and she made it happen, circumventing the obstacles her family put in place to deny her the opportunity. Her hope and work ethic got her through it. She didn't resort to petty arguments that would get her nothing, instead she relied on her skills, integrity, and friends to accomplish what seemed impossible. If she were passive, she never would have requested to go let alone rose to the impossible challenge her stepmother issued her so that she could prove her worth and dignity. When her sisters destroyed her gown, she wasn't passive and didn't just stand there and let it happen. She tried to get away but they blocked her on both sides and she couldn't. She also was visibly upset with her stepmother, understanding it was she who manipulated her stepsisters to attack. Cinderella, again, didn't excuse the behavior nor was she "okay" with it. She fled to her safe place and wept.

When her stepmother locked her in her room, she tried to get out. She banged on the door, she begged, she tried to pry it open. She didn't just sit there and allow herself to be locked away. When the duke and prince arrived with the shoe, Cinderella worked with the mice to get herself out of that room. Did she just allow her stepmother to make excuses and tell the duke there was no one else in the house? No! She ran down those stairs and made a point of letting them know she was there, she existed, and darn it she was getting out. Here was her opportunity, at long last, to escape her abuse and she took it! Even when her stepmother broke the glass slipper, she pulled out the second one. Boom! She wasn't about to let a little broken glass get in the way of getting out of that house. Nope. She was defiant of her stepmother when it mattered most and would result in her escape from her step-family's abusive household.

Boom, bitch.

Cinderella constantly fought her situation, but she picked her battles wisely and didn't fight with aggression or anger. Her kindness, patience, and good-natured behavior may appear like a passive approach to her abuse, but it is far from it. Instead, her actions and reactions only support that she is kind and honorable with integrity and a strong moral and ethical code which are all the traits that every version of the story told anywhere highlights.

Misinterpretation 2: "Cinderella" promotes the damsel in distress stereotype (and that you can meet a man, dance with him, barely talk, and then marry the guy.)

Yes, many fairy tales promote the idea that you don't need to get to know someone before marrying them but this notion is also a very modern concept. For most of history, marriages were arranged based on building connections and aligning with families who would give you the most benefits in supplies, wealth, and fortitude. "Getting to know" your spouse didn't become a thing until really the 20th century.
That aside, the modern perception of romantic love gets in the way of the actual message. The prince didn't "save" Cinderella—technically, the mice and birds did—he was her reward. It wasn't that she was the damsel in distress, I didn't see the prince run upstairs and free her from her locked room, did you? No. She got herself out of the situation by making friends and connections whom she could rely on. On top of that, she saved herself by providing the other slipper and proving she was the woman he was seeking. In your face step-family! (Again, another example of her not being passive.)

Just stand there and look pretty, Princey

The whole moral of the story is that kindness and valor will be rewarded. Marrying a prince, moving into a castle where she will want for nothing, and never have to endure the abuse or hardships of strenuous labor again are her rewards for sticking it out and overcoming her situation without compromising those qualities. Really, the prince is an object. That's part of the reason why he doesn't have a name. It doesn’t matter; he as a person is inconsequential, what he represents is what is more important to the story and he represents positive affection and security.

Misinterpretation 3: Outer beauty is what matters

Obviously, Disney has done a lot over the recent decades to try and create female characters who are more than their appearance and whose physical beauty is rarely even acknowledged let alone a factor in their story (Mulan, Moana, Brave, etc.) However, Cinderella was created in the 1950's and the feminist movements of the 70's, 90's, and 2010's hadn't happened yet. Due to the culture and time period it was created in, yes, there is a bit more focus on her beauty and poise being what attracts the prince. This was later rectified in films with longer run times such as "Ever After" and Disney's live-action version.
That said, even in the animated film that was never really the point. In the original fairy tale it was a consistent theme that she was beautiful and her evil stepsisters would make her sleep in the fireplace, getting covered with cinder ash, to minimize her beauty. Once she was freed of their grasp, and with her fairy godmother's help, her true beauty could shine through and she no longer had to hide who she was because of her abusers. Looking at it through this context, her outer beauty is a mere reflection of her inner beauty and it is that which attracts the prince because—remember?—he's her reward for being a kind, good-natured person.

Everyone knows a little glitter fixes years of abuse and neglect

When working with a visual, animated format in the 1950's it was difficult to translate "he's attracted to her inner beauty because she's such a wonderful person" with a glance and a 74 minute run-time. As mentioned earlier, Disney figured out how to fix that issue with the live-action version where they allowed the prince and Cinderella to have a few on-screen conversations to get to know each other. It's important to mention that the culture of the 1950's was much less "in your face" about these interactions and messages as our culture is today. In the 50's, courtship and romance was meant to be discrete and portrayed as a subtle smile, a dance, a lingering gaze—not as we expect to see it now through witty banter, conversation, and some passionate shouting. But, considering the prince is simply an object of her reward, it doesn't really matter if he gets to know her in the animated version since that was never the point of his character or presence.

Damn girl, your inner beauty
 and kind demeanor is so attractive
that no one else at the ball can compare
to your kind soul


A lot of Disney's earlier animated princess movies get heavy criticism now that our culture has changed our expectations and demands for female characters and representation (which is super awesome and I love the new direction Disney is going with their princess films and how they are adding more substance to their earlier ones in the live-action remakes to address some of the earlier issues with characterization and plot) but not all of it is deserving. When you consider the source material and the lesson that was meant to be gained from the fairy tale, Disney actually stuck to it pretty well. The issue is when the audience loses sight of the actual message and lesson and begins to only identify the differences between their expectations now vs what was acceptable in the 1950's.
The point of Cinderella is to be a kind person and to not allow external hardships compromise your inner integrity. When the viewer remembers this, Cinderella is actually an excellent role model for everyone. She knows she is being mistreated but she endures it the best she can while she has to, not allowing it to make her angry or bitter or hurtful toward others, and the moment she gets her chance to better her life and situation she takes it. She fights within her means and is eventually rewarded for her good nature, kindness, and endurance.

 

If Cinderella were to get a modern update, how do you think her rewards would differ based on modern society's values? Maybe a dashing prince and a palace where she would never have to work again aren't the rewards we seek any more, but the message of the tale still stands and has intrinsic value: be kind, be strong, and don't compromise your integrity because of a negative situation.

Backstage Pass July: Paul Duffield

Come One, Come All! Slip Behind The Curtain And Meet

Paul Duffield

So Paul, tell us about yourself? 

I trained in illustration and animation at uni, and I’ve been a professional creative in a variety of fields for about 12 years! I’ve worked as a comics artist and writer, an illustrator and designer for books and magazines, a storyboard artist for film, and as an animator.

Main Projects:

My main project at the moment is The Firelight Isle, a tale of coming of age and cultural discovery in a civilization watched over by mysterious masked priests. The main characters are Anlil and Sen, who are childhood friends about to be parted as Sen takes the trail to join the priesthood, and Anlil weaves a sacred offering.
Patreon helps pay for it all. 

Other Hobbies, Guilty Pleasures and Obsessions

Many! I play a lot of video games and watch a lot of TV, including tons of anime. I play a variety of stringed instruments for fun, and also do a lot of board gaming (currently making my way through Gloomhaven with a friend). My most consuming hobby is probably LARPing, which I love designing and making outfits for, and writing music for when I can too.

So, tell us about your early experience. How did you fall in love with telling stories in pictures?

I’ve been obsessed with drawing from a very young age, but in terms of telling stories with pictures, it was really the beginning of online comics that did it for me. When I was in college I was introduced to the idea of producing your own comics and posting them online, so I started a webcomic, and hunted down a lot of comics by other amateur creators (there were no centralised webcomics sites back then). That really sparked my love for making comics.

What media and programs do you work in to produce your project?

Typically just Photoshop, although I also use InDesign for publishing books, and when I’m working on animation, I use Premier Pro and After Effects, too. I also sometime used 3D programs like Sketchup and 3DSMax to create reference models.

Can you tell me about your typical day or strip-creation session? How does your work process flow from idea to finished page?

If I took a snapshot of a single day of creation, it would normally just focus on one stage, like doing linework all day, or doing colouring all day, since I try to break the process into stages and do it in batches. On the production side of things I think I’ve managed to streamline my process quite well, and I work heavily with another amazing creator, Kate Brown, who can take on most of the process for me if time is tight.

On the ideas and writing side of things, it’s much messier! I use a hacked-together combo of written notes and scripts, along with thumbnails and sketches of various levels of detail. I’ve done a LOT of re-writing on The Firelight Isle, so there’s very little of the script that hasn’t been completely changed since I first started writing it.

You use a lot of religious overtones in your work. What attracts you to this theme?

I don’t follow a particular religion, but I find religion and the study of religion absolutely fascinating, and I’m always drawn to accounts of spiritual experience, possibly because I’ve never had any myself! Seeing the supernatural and sublime in the things around us seems to be a deeply rooted part of human nature, and I think it would actually be very hard to write about people without writing about religion in some way. Even if people aren’t explicitly religious, they often approach reality and community in religious ways.

You've used a lot of information about weaving and dyeing. I'd love to hear about how you do research for your project.

Research is one of my favourite parts of a project! Apart from a general interest in clothing and sewing, for The Firelight Isle, I watched a lot of instructional videos on weaving and dyeing textiles, along with visiting museums with exhibits about weaving, and looking into weaving techniques from a variety of cultures and times. I also got a couple of huge books which catalogue contume and clothing patterns from peoples around the work. It’s amazing how deep a subject it is! Despite looking into it for a long time, I think I mostly just discovered how much I could never know without hands-on experience.

What’s the most difficult part of your work?

I think the most difficult part is the totality. All the individual processes - the writing, the art, the design, the research and fun and challenging by themselves, but drawing them all together and making them into a working story is the hardest part. There’s always so much to consider in every panel, and my mind can only hold so many concepts and thoughts at a time.

Can you tell me about your storytelling process? Do you prefer to script your stories, fly by the seat of your pants, or somewhere in between?

A combination! I like to know where my stories are heading in a lot of detail, so I’ll plot them out beforehand, and in the case of The Firelight Isle, I’ve written a full script. But in terms of the pages themselves, I’ll often be changing layout and dialogue right before publication, and the parts of the script that I haven’t started drawing yet are constantly in a state of flux. It’s like taking a bunch of loose strings and knotting them together - the loose ends flop about and get tangled as I go, so I stop to untangle them from time to time.

How much of a buffer do you like to keep?

I’d love to keep a huge buffer, but I’m not able to do this full-time, so I don’t have any at all! Episodes take a LONG time, so my only choice is to post as I complete them, and even that’s not regular enough to build and maintain an audience reliably.

What’s a question you’d like to answer once and for all about your art and/or that question you’re sick of getting asked?

Haha! This is a great question. With The Firelight Isle, I guess the question I get asked most often was “is it inspired by Avatar: The Last Airbender?”, to which the answer is no. I watched Avatar for the first time last year and absolutely loved it, so the comparisons are flattering, but the story and visual style of The Firelight Isle is something I developed before I’d even heard of Avatar.

If you could send a note back to yourself when you began working on your skillset, what would you say?

Hmmm, tricky one! I think I’d encourage myself to try and find a mentor. Someone who had all the skills I wanted and could help guide me in learning. I had to do a lot of self-discovery as I went through education - my tutors were all very skilled, but none had that experience in stylized figure drawing, comics and naturalistic animation that I had to struggle to gain.

What message do you hope readers take away from your work?

I think that unless your work is highly instructional or didactic, hoping for your readers to extract a specific message is a somewhat doomed enterprise, and once your story is out there, you lose all control over how it’s interpreted.



So, in the absence of having explicit lessons or messages that the characters spell out, I try to work with concepts and themes that run throughout the story. The Firelight Isle is about a few things - searching for your identity, finding your place in your culture, where you draw the line between your duty to yourself and your community, and how you feel excitement or fear about the boundaries of your world.



I try not to reach specific conclusions about these things though, because they’re questions with so many answers that explaining them away reduces their power and complexity as elements of a story.

What keeps you devoted to telling the story you’re telling?

Some sort of madness I think... I’ve been doing this for nearly seven years now, and  unless something surprising happens, it will probably take another three to complete! Seriously though, there are a number of things driving me on. One is the simple desire to finish, to sit back and look at a completed thing and feel that sense of accomplishment. Another is sheer stubbornness and the sunk cost fallacy. Another is my belief in my original vision for the project, which if I’m honest has wavered a lot. My understanding of the themes and material I’m working with has changed drastically over seven years, but to a certain extent I’m stuck with the ideas and attitudes I had back then. Even so, at the heart of it, I think The Firelight Isle is a story worth telling, and I hope readers feel the same way. I also feel a deep sense of gratitude and commitment to the many people who have supported me along the way, not least my Patreon supporters who make it possible to continue.

Thanks for a great chat, Paul. And a hundred thanks for the wonderful work! 

Backstage Pass May: Aislinn Evans

Grab Your Pass! Slip Behind The Curtain And Meet

Aislinn Evans

So Aislinn, tell us about yourself?

I’m an interdisciplinary artist from East London: I work across publication, performance, writing & drawing (and more) to explore themes of class, queerness, and neurodiversity. My pronouns are they/them. My name is pronounced Ash-ling. I’m often adapting and subverting myths and other cultural narratives to deconstruct them a little bit. But I cut my teeth on webcomics and slam poetry, a weird mix of ~low-brow~ art forms that radically shaped my practice.

Tell us about your projects?

Well, this is my website: www.aislinnn.carrd.co

And by main project, I guess you’re referring to There Was A War, a now-complete webcomic about two young women in ancient Ireland who fall in love from opposing sides of a thousand-years war. You can read that on Tapas or Webtoons here: www.twaw.carrd.co

Other Hobbies, Guilty Pleasures and Obsessions

I find that I don’t really have hobbies, just obsessions I turn into jobs. My hobby-hobbies are cycling and swimming. Right now I’m really interested in the situationists, psychogeography, the District Line, the outer-London town of Romford, and drag.

So, tell me about your early experience. How did you fall in love with telling stories in pictures?

Crikey, I dunno. I always drew and I always wrote, and I always found those two practices intersecting. One day in primary school I saw a kid in the playground drawing manga, and I thought it was beautiful, so I started watching Ghibli films and reading manga on scanlation apps - it wasn’t until I was like 14 that I started reading American comics; Spiderman and the Runaways both resonated with me at that age. Scott McCloud was also highly influential on my love for the medium.

I think the reason I’m drawn to comics is that they deftly move between written and visual communication, which reflects my experience as an autistic person. Sometimes I just want to show, not tell. Besides that, they’re also an intimately participatory art form, with really complex compositional components that I can get super geeky about.

What media and programs do you work in to produce your project?

The first few chapters of There Was A War were drawn on Paint Tool SAI - I wrote out the text in a word processor and pasted screenshots into the file. It was a lot. But about halfway through I got Clip Studio Paint, and things got a lot easier.

Most of the pages are pencilled physically, on paper and that, then scanned in.

Can you tell me about your typical day or strip-creation session? How does your work process flow from idea to finished page?

That evolved a great deal over the course of the project, but by the end I’d work 2-3 days on the comic each week; saturday and sunday, monday if I was lagging behind and had no other work. I was lucky in that I was only in college 3 days a week, and worked evenings. Also didn’t have much of a social life.

So I’d divide the chapter into stages - the writing process {the outline, page by page, panel by panel, page compositions, pencils} and production process {inks, letters, colours}. By the end I could get an 18 page chapter written in one weekend and produced in the next by working in big batches. I watched a lot of movies during this process.

Before this though, I had a big outline of the entire narrative - that picked up from like chapter 7, because before that it was a lot more loosey-goosey and terrible.

What’s the most difficult part of your work?

Ummmm… making up for mistakes I made as a teenager. I started this comic at 16, I hadn’t made a proper comic before, I dove in at the deep end. I don’t regret it, although I do wonder what I would have done if I wasn’t so tied down to this comic. Anyway, getting myself out of knots I’d inadvertently tied up when I was younger was really troublesome.

Your work is based on a very ancient part of Irish myth. This is pretty obscure. I’d love to hear about how you found these stories and became interested in them.

It actually came out of research for a different comic that I wanted to create with a friend when I was maybe 14. I picked up this book of Irish mythology from the library, made copious notes, wanting to base an anti-hero on one of the mythological figures. I chose Balor, but this original Balor was a far shot from what you get on the page. She was a modern human incarnation chasing down the people who’d hurt her and killing them. Very ‘14-year-old-with-issues.’ But I was really drawn to how tragic a character Balor was, and I’ve always wanted to complicate the story of the monster.

Can you tell me about your storytelling process? Do you prefer to script your stories, fly by the seat of your pants, or somewhere in between?

I’m pretty methodical, and structure-driven. I had a big sheet with the sequence of events divided into chapters, highlighted to signify characters and plotlines. From this I created a play by play for each chapter. I kept things pretty abstract - just the actions and key points, and how long they can take - until I got down to the thumbnailing, and that’s when I’d flesh things out.

How much of a buffer do you like to keep?

I finished TWAW in early September, and it finished coming out mid-December. That much.

What’s a question you’d like to answer once and for all about your art and/or that question you’re sick of getting asked?

Dunno, people don’t ask me questions that often.

If you could send a note back to yourself when you began working on your skillset, what would you say?

Plan more. Know the end, and know how you get there. Get there in 2 years max.

What message do you hope readers take away from your work?

TWAW is weird for messaging and themes because of the rapid development I underwent while making it, from 16 to 19, and now I’m 20 and I think my perspective is radically different once again. I think TWAW is all about obligation and loyalty, picking sides. Violence, guilt, shitty parents. All that. But you tell me what the moral of the story is.

What keeps you devoted to telling the story you’re telling?

Ah, well, I’m not anymore! Not long after I finished making TWAW, it had really left me, my practice shifted to focus on radically different work. By the time the last few episodes were coming out, it felt like a stranger had made them. I was ashamed of it for a little while. I think it’s a pretty great achievement, and I have affection for the work, but it’s not really what I want to keep making.

But what kept me motivated while I was making it was a very personal connection with the subject matter and a good friend that I lost. The first two years were ‘I need to tell this story for us’ - the last year was ‘I need to get this shit out of my system.’ When it was done I got to put that friend to rest, and my life changed. That’s how grief works I guess.

Thank you for a powerful story, Aislinn!

Sunday Revue March 1: There Was A War

Hurry Hurry Hurry!
           Have I Got a Show For You Today! 

                                                      Hang Onto Your Hats, Because

This hauntingly evocative work is the creation of Aislinn Evans, this complete comic can be read here.

A powerful and heart wrenching retelling, this is one of the most evocative folklore riffs I've seen. Its base is in the Book of the Takings of Ireland, an ancient Irish mythological work. But don't let that turn you away. This is the story of two girls, the gods who use them as playing pieces, and the war they're caught up in.

Prepare yourself.

The Rating

Wistful and brutal, heart-wrenching and echoing the power of ancient tales. A wonderful work.

The Raves

Let's start, as the creator does, with the story. 

So, I grew up with the Book of the Takings of Ireland as part of my bedtime stories, right? My great grandfather and my aunties and uncles told me about how the great Lough All Crafted slew Balor of the Evil Eye. It's part of my heritage and my heart, this story. (on a personal note, this story has some lines as gaeilge--in Irish--and that shouldn't concern you. But I was thrilled. I never get to practice my Irish on anything fun. Go rab maith agat to the creator for that!)
I tell you that so that you understand when I say this re-imagining of the legend is stunning. In this tale, the young girl (!!!) Balor is cursed into her powers: an armor of stone, and an eye that destroys when it is opened. It is a terrible curse that took the life of her own father, and many of her own clan, before her people found a way to control it.

That way is terrible: keeping young Balor in solitary confinement for her crimes and her abilities. She is pulled out only for battles.

And who are her people? Once, they were peaceful fisher-folk. Now, they are endlessly at war with the invading humans and their patron gods, the Tuatha De Danann. The Fomorii are physically stronger. The humans are many, and they wield magic. The war is horrendously bloody.

In the midst of it, two girls--one human, one Fomorii--make a friendship that blossoms.

But flowers are often trampled in times of war.

In the classic style of ancient legends, the gods play games with the lives of mortals, rolling Fate as their dice. The story is written in such an experiential way that it never feels forced; in fact, you feel the helpless horror of the characters as they realize what they've gotten into. It's beautifully evocative and utterly heart wrenching.  It's also a really powerful exploration of the amoral nature of narrative. With the right story, anyone becomes a monster. A beast. A demon. Or they become someone relatable and understandable. It's all in how the web of words is spun.

I found this story to be a powerful parable on war-narrative and the narrative of colonialism: you watch both sides justify themselves and dehumanize (for want of a better word hah) the other side. Both sides have justifiable grievances, and both sides have glaring blind spots when it comes to their own crimes.  Both sides, Fomorii and human, have lost too much. And both are in pain.

There's so much evocative power in this work that it could easily have been overwhelming. But it's leavened with moments of comfort, friendship, and joy up until the bitter end. (and yes, I mean that literally) The two main characters, Cethlenn and Balor, are so cleverly imagined at that tender teenage point where you almost know it all one day, and no nothing the next. It's an age when the world is so FRUSTRATING, because it just won't LISTEN to you!!! That feeling of fighting to find your own voice and being tired of the entire world's bull is beautifully captured. But so is the tenderness of new friendship, the terrifying and amazing feeling of becoming vulnerable to someone else, and the soft and electric thrill of budding romance.

Yes, romance. Lesbian, interspecies YA romance. In an ancient setting. Ohhhhh yes. Perfectly rendered and absolutely wonderful.

 Oh, and there are some great laughs too, mostly revolving around interspecies diet differences and misunderstandings. The Fomorii are mostly carnivores who live on fish. Humans eat a lot more plant matter than they do. With amusing results in discussion...

Speaking of that ancient setting: the art perfectly captures the Pictish and Old Celtic styles of an Ireland before it had iron. It's a powerful, visceral art style, saturated with mood-setting colors. Rough around the edges, it's designed to bypass the front of the brain and reach right down into the limbic system, pushing all the emotional buttons. And oh my, does it ever push. 

There's a really solid grasp of character design in this work, and body language is used to great effect. I really adored the capturing of teen frustration in image as much as words. I mean, this? This is gold.

This too

But be warned: this work is not for the faint of heart. It is based in bloody ancient legends, and it doesn't shy from that material.

Oh, and it drops the F bomb. Fair warning.

The Razzes

The biggest frustration I had with this story was a classic, and a trap I used to fall into myself. Word bubbles that are hard to follow. Oh word bubbles. How you torment creators. But if your reader has trouble following the lines, they're probably going to be harder to engage for the whole comic.

For English and Romance Language readers, bubbles alway need to flow right>left>up>down, as below.

The comic did get a LOT better as it went on, and a friendly note at the beginning lets readers know that they are reading the work of someone learning the art of comics. So yes, the beginning is a little rocky, but don't let that stop you from taking the road.

The Revue

A powerful and evocative story of hope, war, decision and discovery that will run you through the fires of catharsis and leave you clean on the other side. It's a hard trip, but it's well worth the journey.