Sunday Revue June 24: Witchy

You Are Opening The Door To New Worlds...Brace Yourself And Tie Back Your Hair For

Power is a double edged blade. It can give you the life you dream of...or take it away. And you have no choice in the matter.

....or do you?

This is the question in Hyalin, where power in moderation is a blessing, and immoderate power a deadly curse. In this deadly world, one teenager refuses to accept the choices she is allowed, and makes her own way. This is the story of Nyneve: coward, hero, rebel, runaway. What you see depends on where you stand.

The creation of Ariel Ries, Witchy can be read at this link.

The Rating

Superb magical abilities

The Raves

With an art style reminiscent of Secret of Kells, the first thing Witchy will catch is your eye.

The color scheme is well-chosen and vibrant, capturing the feel of times and places in an almost impressionistic fashion. Stylistically reminiscent of watercolor and animation both, it's a well-crafted treat for the eye. The world building is gorgeously done: you feel you could walk into the crowd scenes. 

The second thing Witchy will attract is your curiosity. We are dropped right into the thick of a world riven with strifes and prejudices of its own creation, formed through its own history. Well paced and nicely laid out, the story draws you into the pathos of events: characters torn between loyalty to country and devotion to family, between personal safety and personal autonomy, between hopes for the future and wounds of the past. The comic dances nimbly past many pitfalls of trope and stereotype, never quite giving you what you expected but always showing you a character who you can relate to on some level (including a few characters who you shudder to find yourself understanding.)

And then Witchy will capture your heart. This is a story of stubborn hope in the face of overwhelming odds. It's a story of devotion to your loved ones and integrity in the face of all the world's demands to conform.  Witchy manages to explore themes of personal strength, identity, autonomy and personal decision perfectly: without preaching or creating situations that feel forced, it creates storylines that lets us see the many facets of characters' identities and truly explore the idea that diversity is a culture's strength. The weakness in one member of a society should complement the strength in another. When we laud only some strengths and only some ways of being, we soon become dangerously out of balance. The issue of how to be authentic in an unbalanced society is explored in beautiful detail here.

The Razzes

I have only one complaint. Ariel, please stop apologizing every time you have to take a break on Witchy! Reading your comments, I rather feel like giving you a hug. You have nothing to apologize for. Your readers understand: this work is time consuming and life is busy. Nobody can fault you for taking breaks! Take care of yourself and the art will be better for it. 

The Revue

This is a must read, for all ages. It's one you'll visit again and again.

Sunday Revue: Stellar Persona

Make Sure Your Aura's Cleansed, Because Here Comes

There's a lot to be said for being a good samaritan. Help out a pal with the jitters at karaoke, you'll make a friend for life. Help out a dragon from the stars, you may just get super powers.

That's the jist of Stellar Personae, a sweet and candy colored story of friendship, learning and-yes-cosmic auras with special powers created by Squeakybat.

It can be found on Tapas or at this site. This little darling is a pre-teen adventure Story a la Rainbow Brite or My Little Pony. While that may not be every reader's cup of tea, within this comic's genre Stellar Persona is worth a high rating.

The Rating

There's a lot going for this one!

The Raves

I'll give this work one of my higher compliments: I could see it going into animation. It started out good in art style and it's gotten better with time. The stylization is sweetly and deftly done, creating the cheerful bubblegum-flavored effect of Cartoon Network with the gentleness of the old Care Bears show or, more aptly, Rainbow Brite.

In fact, Rainbow Brite popped into my head quite a lot as this story went on through its protagonists' work to help an injured alien, learn about their powers and find artifacts. Throughout the story readers are shown examples of diversity, supporting friends, teamwork and empathy in the context of a fun and engaging story. Explosions make nice punctuation here and there.

In fact, the alien in question heals through symbiosis with people doing good things, a touch I particularly liked.
There's a nod to the New Age concept of auras, used as shorthand for magic and has a real focus on thematic color, which makes for a really BRIGHT page. Definitely an eye-catcher!

The Razzes

Just a few wrinkles in this lovely game of dress-up need to be ironed out.

I'd like to see a little more attention paid to word bubble formation. For example, the art here looks great; by comparison the bubble looks clumsy.  In fact, most of the issues that come up in this comic are lettering-related. Word bubbles are sometimes visually out of order, making the reader track back to figure out who's speaking. Squeakybat, you're not alone. This is one of the most difficult things to learn in comic work!
My best recommendation is to read the the eminent article Comic Layout Tutorial: The Comic Lettering Spell By Chris Oatley. You'll get a lot of great advice there! Oh, and watch out for typos. I found quite a few on a read through.

The Revue

Definitely handing this out the next time someone asks 'so what do I give my kid to read in comics?'

IMAGICA=verse

When monsters are terrorizing your city, there’s only one man for the job! And by man, we mean a girl – a magical girl, to be precise. Welcome to the world of…

The Rating

The main character’s reason for becoming a magical girl is refreshingly original and believable for a comic of this genre. It’s a shame that potential is wasted on some unfortunate writing choices as the story unfolds.

The Raves

IMAGICA=verse is a magical girl comic – quite explicitly so.

Get used to the typos, by the way. They're in for the long haul.

But hey, there’s nothing wrong with being explicit in establishing your setting. In fact, the comic starts out on a high note, despite the art being amateurish. The premise is that magical girls exist in hordes, called upon to fight whatever monster threatens the city in a manner reminiscent to Power Rangers. The girls are looked up to as heroes, get ample news coverage of their battles, and have a celebrity status. They’re such a phenomenon that girls who have powers will audition what they can do before a panel of world-weary judges in order to gain some form of sponsorship.

That’s a creative and unique take on magical girls that I for one haven’t seen before. Usually, a magical girl is unique, or, at most, part of a small team of girls conveniently living within the same country and chosen by destiny. Instead, the girls are more like superheroes, and there are more of them lurking about than you can shake a magic wand at. So if not destiny, what compels our protagonist, Valencia, to take up arms?

The art isn't this comic's strength, but that traumatized stare says a lot.

As it turns out, it’s to make money and to protect her mother. Not fame, not power, and certainly not because a cute talking animal told her she has to. She’s doing it for her family, which is a far more personal reason, and one that immediately shows what drives her and where her priorities lie. To sum it up, her mother is constantly assaulted and robbed by loan sharks trying to collect on a debt Valencia's father accrued, and Valencia wants to save her. I question the wisdom of this decision, since it seems like calling the local authorities (surely there are police to deal with non-monster problems), would be smarter. Plus, the guys she works for are kind of shady and keep crucial information from her.

Less-than-wise planning aside, though, I still think it paints her as a noble character. If anything, putting herself in danger to make money and being naïve enough to trust a potential con man just shows more of what kind of person she is. Most importantly, her making the choice to fight as a magical girl, instead of being “destined,” makes all of her deeds as a magical girl meaningful to her character. It’s nice to see a comic of this genre stray from the usual clichés of the establishing plot. Unfortunately, the comic is victim to a different cliché, one from the superhero genre – the training sequence. And that’s where the comic has been spinning its wheels since.

The Razzes

The art looks like the creator learned everything from reading shoujo manga. There’s nothing wrong with that style inherently, but the anatomy is stiff and awkward, and the faces look flat. Sometimes backgrounds show decent perspective, but it has little presence or depth. The shading is applied in a sloppy fashion, with no clear light source.

Even if the art is just copying manga, that’s still a valid starting point for learning about style, character design, and visual effects. But if you really want to get good at drawing, at some point, you have to step away from manga and draw from life. I suggest beginning with some figure drawing and apply what you’ve learned to your art. Impossible you say? How can life drawing apply to cartoon-styled art? Quite well, in fact! Knowing proportions is vital to bringing a drawing to life, even if it’s not “realistic.” Here’s a video that shows the most basic shapes of the head and proportions of the face.

When you understand the shapes and proportions and apply those things to your drawings, they will have more depth to them, even though their features may be manga-like. Even if your art style isn’t realism, you can still benefit from an understanding of real anatomy and structure. For good measure, I’ll also leave you with brief guides on lighting and shadow, facial expressions, and foreshortening. These are all areas you could improve in, but with some practice, you’ll get better at them over time.

The art is, unfortunately, the least of this comic’s problems. The pacing and plot direction need so much improvement. As I said before, the story’s been mired in “training sequence” territory. One of the first major tests of her powers that we see is her trying to use some form of x-ray vision to win a game. The setup seems like the people running the game are plotting something sinister, what with the mysterious masks and a tense build-up over several pages as she hesitates to give the correct answer. The answer must lead to something important, right?

Nope. It’s a penis joke. Not even a funny joke at that, and it makes no sense since she was supposed to find the only correctly-spelled word in a box of misspelled words, and somehow the joke is that she picked the correctly-spelled word, but misread it. And all of that is followed up with more exposition on her abilities, instead of showing her learning to use them in a real confrontation. As a matter of fact, show, don't tell is a prevalent issue with the writing throughout this comic, even at its best. So what is the difference between telling and showing? Here's a tongue-in-cheek example.

Credit to Anthony Clark for this image.

Indeed, some exposition is necessary to tell a story, but readers will be even more engaged if they learn about something by seeing it happen, rather than having it explained. Instead of giving a verbal primer on how a magical girl's power works, how about just showing them do it? It's not always necessary to explain the specifics of how it works, either, as long as it's portrayed consistently. Something to consider the next time you want to have your protagonist try a new type of magic.

The supporting cast isn't written all that well either. I find Valencia to be a likeable, heroic girl, although easily manipulated, but most everyone else seems flat. Her mother, although loving and gentle, acts a little too passive and calm for somebody in her situation, and her siblings don't seem to play much of a role beyond yet another one of the things Valencia takes responsibility for. It does make her look good, but it also makes her mother look like a less capable parent. It would be nice to see these characters fleshed out more, show how the mother raises her children, and perhaps show the siblings' reactions to the situation. How does it affect them seeing their mother's arm broken by loan sharks? Are they afraid? Angry? Worried? Were they really so easily fooled by Valencia's verbal backtracking after she let slip where her money is coming from, or are they hiding their concern or simply overlooking it because they don't understand the risk? What will they do once they do understand? If family is going to be at the heart of her motivation, answering these kinds of questions is important. In order to show how strong the family bond is, you need to show who these people are and how they care for each other. It's not enough to just show Valencia's role in it.

As for her mentor figures, Derek and Isaac, they don't seem to have a role beyond dumping exposition, whether it's to Valencia or between themselves. They have a nasty habit of delivering exposition dumps to the audience about things she really ought to know, but for some reason they don't feel the need to tell her.

With mentors like these, who needs enemies?

Isaac is usually portrayed as the nicer one, but really, their roles in the story is interchangeable. They spend a lot of time talking about how special and unique Valencia is because she apparently wasn't born a magical girl but became one later (which she is unaware of for some reason), and this makes her powers even more extraordinary than usual. For all the kudos I give the beginning of the comic for avoiding the cliché of the magical girl being chosen by destiny, this comic really seems to want to veer right back into that territory the further it goes on. And that's a bit disappointing.

The Revue

The writing has so many problems. The one thing the comic does well is it gives the main character a very solid motivation and personality. Even though her decisions aren’t particularly smart, she’s so well-meaning and self-sacrificing that it’s hard to not want her to succeed. Unfortunately, that’s not enough to carry the comic. The art, the pacing and delivery, and character development really hold it back.

Tsukiko: The Moon Child’s Wish

The stars are out! Quick, make a wish!
What’s that? You wished for a webcomic? Well, good news…

The Rating

If you can power through the less-than-stellar first volume, it does start to shine brighter as the creator improves in both artistic and storytelling skill. But boy, that hurdle is hard to ignore.

The Raves

The main premise of Tsukiko: The Moon Child's Wish is pretty simple. Tsukiko is a girl who descended from the stars and is destined to save the world. You’ve heard it all before, you know the drill. What sets it apart from other comics like it? Well, if you like cosmic, dreamlike themes and imagery, it’s definitely got that going for it. The entire comic, even in its early stages, had a cute, imaginative world. Just look at the design of this place!

Now that's what I call an out-of-this world setting design!

The black and white art improves over time, becoming cuter and more consistent, but you know what this comic really needed? What it was absolutely demanding all along?

Color! Glorious color!

Now that's more like it! I could see in the chapter covers that the author knew how to use color quite well, and this watercolor style really works wonders. It makes absolutely every aspect of the art, from the expressions to the backgrounds, come to life. Bringing full color into the comic was without a doubt one of the best choices the creator has made for this project.

The art isn’t the only improvement, either. The pacing of the writing also gets a lot better over time, as does the development of the main character. The Chosen One archetype is generally hard to write well because of its cliche, contrived nature. For that reason, I appreciate that Tsukiko starts out demanding and full of herself, as any real child would be if they grew up being told they were practically Heaven's gift to mankind. Through her adventures, she grows out of her selfish arrogance into a plucky, heroic young lady who, despite still being naive and temperamental, has become increasingly lovable. The emotional depth of the characterization also becomes more compelling over time. Who would have thought a foppish pretty-boy like Lord Valentine would deliver one of the biggest emotional gut-punches this story has had to offer so far?

The comic has a fun ensemble cast that hides layers of complexity under a goofy facade. As the story unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear that most, if not all of the characters are harboring some sort of emotional baggage or personal burden. There are the obvious ones, like Aiken, who is the last of his kind. Then there’s Knight Mage, one of Tsukiko’s allies, whose source of power turns out to be the same forces she’s fighting against. And there’s the very real possibility that her success in defeating those forces could endanger him.

All in all, I might be giving the comic a 5 as a whole, but it deserves an A for effort lately. Keep up the good work!

The Razzes

I mentioned some of the massive improvements the comic has made, and not only do I consider these “improvements,” but I truly think they are part of what makes the comic good now.

Erstwhile, the comic was…not so good. The pacing was rushed and awkward and the jokes were forced and unfunny. Even now, most of the humor seems to boil down to "character comically overreacts to something." The first three chapters were mainly "humorous" bickering playing ping-pong with the "serious" moments. The first sign that the writing had some genuine potential didn’t really strike me until the latter part of Chapter 3, when Tsukiko meets Aiken. Here, we get our first taste of some genuine selflessness and heroism from Tsukiko and the introduction of a character with a rather sad backstory who adds some much-needed gravitas to the disorganized fluff that was the first few chapters.

Oh, and he speaks in bizarre broken Old English.

Linguistically, it makes no sense. The only words he evidently doesn't know are basic verbs and pronouns, yet he has no trouble saying less common words.

Don’t get me wrong, I get the gist of what he’s saying and the comic provides translations, but this kind of awkward dialog gets in the way of the emotions the writing wants to convey. Most comics depicting a character who speaks in another language or has an accent just uses a different font instead. I personally prefer that approach. To be honest, all of the dialog is, in general. It's often unnatural-sounding. My understanding, though, is the creator is from another country, so if English isn't their first language, then it's understandable that the dialog might have some problems. To that end, I suggest getting some help from a beta reader who speaks English fluently. Having another person checking the writing is a great source of constructive input.

This next bit of criticism comes from a somewhat subjective place and not all readers might agree with this, but certainly there are those who would find it disconcerting that Tsukiko has a crush on her adoptive family’s eldest son. And lest you think I’m reading too far into it…

The fact that she had a crush on him right off the bat is understandable, but for it to go on this long is a little iffy...

And there’s no ambiguity regarding him essentially being her adoptive brother, either.

Honestly, if the comic wants to switch gears to focus more on a sibling-like affection, I'd be all for it. But that's only going to work if you make Tsukiko actually treat him like a brother.

It's just…awkward. I know they’re not biologically related, but still. Granted, the story doesn’t seem to focus on this infatuation of hers much anymore, and it’s a plot line I’d happily see vanish from existence.

While Tsukiko herself becomes more well-rounded, keeping her verve and charm while growing out of her early selfishness and childish behavior, not all of the characters seem to experience major personal growth. For that matter, some of them hardly seem to matter to the plot. For example, you have Nana, a witch turned into a broom. Funny, but it seems like she exists only for that joke. Most of the other characters almost seem like window-dressing, irrelevant but for their involvement with Tsukiko. One of the things I like about characters like Valentine, who starts out seeming like a joke, is that we get to see him develop his own personal story separately from her adventures.

The thing is, as the comic goes on, I've come to like these characters. They've got personality and interesting backstories. The little bits of development the comic does throw their way are pretty good, and it's yet another sign of the creator improving with practice. I'm confident they will develop into even more well-rounded people with their own personal journeys.

This last point regards a done deal, but hear me out. Many aspects of the early chapter art were…pretty substandard. Enough to potentially turn people off. Things like sloppy inking, bad lettering placement, and slapstick comedy that really doesn’t work because the art quality makes it hard to even tell what’s going on. For example:

The key to slapstick is clarity. If you can't tell what's going on, the joke is an automatic failure.

There were certainly good pages early on, but also a lot of pages like this—and this was from Chapter 5, right before the end of the Volume 1. Not only is the art a mess, but the grammar is poor and the dialog is wooden. Now, the improvement curve following the start of the second volume is remarkable, and I applaud how much the comic has grown, but getting through the first five chapters was a bit of a grind.

I bet that sounded unfair. And it kind of is. But keep in mind, readers are not reviewers. They won’t keep reading a webcomic just to see if it gets better. Which is why, as a reviewer, I am heartily recommending anybody who sees this on Tapastic to judge this comic by its cover. I assure you all, the cover is no lie when it comes to how beautiful the art looks once it hits its stride.

Who can say no to that face?

The Revue

This comic’s biggest flaws are also a testament to its biggest strength—a creator who is clearly working hard to improve despite starting out at a very amateur, awkward level. If you like magical girl-inspired fantasy, give Tsukiko a chance. The steady improvement curve shows a lot of promise for future installments.