#Indie Comic Review

[darkeraven22]

My Neighbor Toronto Review Finale Part 4

Through A Michael Bay Movie DarklyThis will be short. And weird… As it mentions Guerllmo Del Toro and Michael Bay. Kinda. A young woman shows up to work on the team of Mr Del Toro’s Frankenstein…  Only he walked out and has been replaced by Michael Bay. Because, you know, Del Toro. Bay. Same thing right? Trash Mirror. Art by Helen Robinson. The trash in question being Michael Bay Frankenstein……

[neveromininart]

⚔ An immortal is dead and you're holding the murder weapon. ⚔

Sunset Phoenix is an action/mystery comic about an immortal kingpin and her criminal spy who were framed for the murder of a rival, and are trying to find the real killer before time runs out and the city succumbs to war.

Also I made it and worked hard on it and I think you should check it out because it's cool :)

[superectojazzmage]

Watched the Nimona movie last night. Review I guess. It was pretty damn good. Definitely would’ve probably been regarded as Blue Sky’s magnum opus if they’d gotten to release it instead of being fucked over by Disney. Very cute, very funny, very powerful in the right moments. A thing that stuck out to me is that it’s really only an adaptation in the loosest sense of the word. It takes the core premise and beats of the comic but is functionally an entirely different kind of story that does its own thing. And given that ND Stevenson was heavily involved in production, I suspect that was intentional.

The comic was much darker and more downbeat in a lot of ways, plus it was significantly longer and thus could afford to be slower paced. But more than that, it was a lot more meaty in terms of themes and scope. The whole “LGBT allegory” element was there, but it wasn’t the sole focus, the comic was a story about a lot of different things; not just an LGBT experience, but also discussion of fantasy genre tropes and clichés, criticism of other fantasy deconstructions, character study, exploring what it means to be a hero or villain, critique of the glorification of crime and cruelty in underprivileged communities, corruption in governments, peer pressure, the senseless and self-perpetuating nature of violence, the worthlessness of revenge, etc.. And above all that, it was a story about trauma and people’s responses to it, with Ballister representing people who actually deal with their problems and move on while Nimona represented people who let their mistakes and suffering and grief consume their identity, or worse, use it as an excuse to indulge their worst qualities and take out their feelings on everyone around them.

The movie, by contrast, has a much more narrow focus. The LGBT allegory is front and center and basically the entire focal point of the movie, aside from a spattering of themes about the danger of zealotry and rigid fundamentalist thinking. This gives the movie a much tighter narrative and pacing that suits its inherently shorter runtime, but also leads to a ton of changes to the story either to convey a different kind of message or just work better in a different medium. Most obviously in how Nimona is vastly more sympathetic in the movie and essentially really is the silly gremlin the comic fakes you out into thinking she is, scrapping the comic’s twist that she was a genuinely bad person who was completely serious about wanting to be a villain, caring nothing for the lives she destroyed with her behavior and idolizing Ballister because she thought he was the same as her and would thus tell her what she wanted to hear (i.e., that she was justified in killing and destroying everything around her in the name of getting even). And in the changes to the Institution’s history and nature. And all sorts of other things.

All in all, I feel if you go in comparing and contrasting the movie and the comic, arguing which changes are for the better or worse, you’ll be setting yourself up for disappointment in either direction because they’re two different beasts and it’s like comparing apples and oranges. So keep that in mind if you’re a fan of the comic watching the movie or a fan of the movie wanting to look into the comic. I think ultimately I still like the comic better, but that’s purely my personal opinion and there’s plenty that I think the movie did better.

Some other observations:

Riz Ahmed my beloved, thank you Mr. Stevenson for this perfect casting. Literally perfect for Ballister.

Acting in general was very good. You can tell this was a passion project for a lot of people, not just Stevenson.

Only two changes that are objectively bad are Ambrosius losing his awesome Van Halen hairdo and changing Ballister’s last name — Blackheart is a way cooler name than Boldheart and it’s a pointless change, one that I’d argue even hurts the narrative since it makes it too obvious that Ballister isn’t actually a bad guy.

The animation is really great with fantastic expressions, stylish movement, and wonderful aesthetics that perfectly suit the story, but there’s times where it feels a little off. But there are parts where it looks less “movie” and more “cheap mid-2000s CGI-and-Flash cartoon show from France”.

The humor can be a hit and miss, in a “going through the motions of a Hollywood animated comedy for kids” way. The movie excels when it’s either imitating the comic’s Old Internet sense of humor or going hard on the drama, but there’s bits where it seemingly slams on the brakes to do Illumination-esque Twitter humor and those bits definitely throw off the vibe.

Having an actual straight up attempted suicide in the climax was shockingly ballsy. I genuinely can’t believe they went there, but I’m glad they did because the film wouldn’t have felt nearly as raw without it.

I don’t know how they managed to make the Director even more of an asshole than in the comics, but they did.

[philicheesecake]

First review is in! Thank you so much for your support dear reader!

[alexissara]

Quick Review: Pink Sugar [Season 1]

Pink Sugar by @dulceskull is one of the most queer and exciting comics I've read, period, no qualifiers. Very few comics have made me as excited about comics as a medium despite my work on multiple award winning series as Pink Sugar has. The comic is still in it's very early days so where it goes and how it grows, who knows but as it stands it's the comic that I see there is an update for and dart onto my phone to read.

Pink Sugar follows Blake, Rocko, Artemis and near the end of this volume Satya. We see what leads up to these four lesbians going on a road trip across the different realms of the afterlife. Everyone is a hot demon in the after life because I mean, duh, obviously, why wouldn't we be? This first season is all about establishing characters, giving you a good idea of who they are, what they want, how they think, what they can do. It's a simple opener that doesn't take it too fast but instead masterfully lingers on life in a way that is still engaging thanks to the masterful dynamics between the four and the killer art.

The story ahead of us promises to be polyamarous, gender diverse, lesbian fuckery in the best way possible. There is compelling interpersonal trauma, personal trauma, relationships, friendships, adventures, magic systems, afterlife systems, and so much more. I really don't want to say too much other than, go read it now, do it, it's fucking good and it's free. You can even read it here, on tumblr, where I like linked in the first paragraph or on webtoon where I mostly read it or on Tapas or comics fury. 10/10, a truly special story, something like this comes around only ever so rarely, please support it so we can see this story reach the end.

[showtoonzfan]

For some levity, the Lackadaisy pilot is finally out! If you’ve seen it already, what are your thoughts about it? I thought it was a treat!

Yup! I’ll post my review here then!

So, overall I definitely liked it. As everyone is saying, the animation and composition is absolutely GORGEOUS, I loved the 3d props and backgrounds, I have been following this project since it was announced for an animated short so I watched a lot of sneak peeks from behind the scenes, (even becoming a patron member for Tracy for a long while) and the long wait and hard work definitely paid off. While the sketch lines being visible is very distracting at times, I will give credit that the animation and look and feel of the short is nice, since they were trying to go for an old-timey Don Bluth/Disney vibe, basically those old cartoons from the 50’s-80’s.

I will admit that while this is around 25 minutes, it feels very short, I was hoping we got to know the characters more better, mainly characters like Wick or Pepper. Like….I will say I thought there’d be a little bit more than what we got, so that was a little underwhelming for me, BUT what we got wasn’t at all bad, especially since this is a pilot. This entire time I thought it would just be an animated short, since I could have sworn the creator said that’s all it’s ganna be for now, but now it’s labeled as a “pilot”, so I can give it a pass for that. Even if you haven’t read the comic like I have, you can kinda get down most of the characters and dynamics.

Rocky is this loose canon yet sweet and can get the job done in wacky ways, Freckle is the soft cutsey wutsey one who deep down has a temper and is crazy, (and Rocky can see the potential in him) Pepper comes off as someone who wants to be an independent woman and can pull her weight around the way how rough the world is, (with Rocky respecting her and her and Freckle having somewhat of a cute relationship) Nicodeme and Serafine (two that I really enjoyed watching) are also loose canons who enjoy the battle, being paired up with my favorite character that is Mordecai, a straightforward, professional and stern person who has an infamous past and isn’t aquatinted well with the people around him. The Mitzi stuff along with the other characters at the bar I’d thought we’d dive into more, but again, this is a pilot, and they do hint at future things, how they’re trying to get Wick to help them, Mitzi being a mysterious character, and the leader of their rivalry business learning about the mishap that happens in the end credits scene.

Since this is a pilot, there are PLENTY of things to be explored, it opens a door for the characters to get more depth, and for the story to expand, something that I really want, especially since the comic (for now) seems to be on halt. I think this pilot serves as a perfect “short and sweet” scenario, it did want it wanted to do, it introduces the characters and some of the story well, and I really hope this gets a BIG following enough for the cast and crew to keep working towards this goal, I would even say I hope a studio sees this and wants to pick it up. Lackadaisy certainly isn’t for everyone, I myself have said that I had a hard time following the comic at times due to the 1920’s language, and some of the humor didn’t catch me, some of the dialogue in this pilot as well could have been better in terms of showcasing the characteristics of each character or the world, but other than everything I mentioned, I don’t have any other criticisms or nitpicks, since it’s too early.

Now that the pilot is finally out, I definitely want to reread the comic and compare the two in the near future, Lackadaisy is something I have passion for and I’m so proud of the team for what they accomplished. Here’s to hoping there’s more! 🍻

[wildstarpress]

🌟Welcome or Welcome back to Review Starlight🌟

Today we're chatting about Der-Shing Helmer's Mare Internum - award-winning Sci-Fi Webcomic about the isolated inhabitants of the planet Mars, and the ability of life to persist through darkness. Find it over at: https://wildstarpress.com/news

[fantasyfantasygames]

Dark Hammer

Dark Hammer Core Rulebooks 1-3, Darker Games, 1998

No connections to the Dark Hammer stores in the UK, or the dozen-ish Warhammer-inspired characters or games out there.

Dark Hammer (DH) is a fantasy RPG that takes its influence from some unusual sources. They mix to make something that, for all its interesting facets, ends up reading and running like a set of D&D2e house rules.

From Battlelords of the 23rd Century, DH gets its Aggression stat, the Ram Pythons (which inspire their Lizardmen), the Phentari (which inspire their Octomen), and the Arachnids (who inspire their, uh, Arachnids) as the main faceless horde of high-level villains.

From the Silhouette system, they got the idea of bounded effectiveness - your bonuses came in the form of additional d20s rather than just numbers, and you took the highest, with additional rolls of 15+ adding +1 to the result.

From MERP / Rolemaster they picked up the idea of restricted spell lists, with small numbers of thematic spells. Werewolf: the Apocalypse probably got them the Rage ability that was tied into BL23C's Aggression stat. Amber Diceless is the clear source for the item creation rules. (They were not a good fit.) And more, and more, and more.

All of this was merged into a class-and-level system with Health (hit points) rolled on d4 through d10 per level, and Defense (armor class), and an attack table with some very specific ideas about how long specific classes or races should plateau. There were some nice changes that cleaned up the D&D2e core, like having a single Magic Defense rather than saving throws, but in general everything got either bolted onto the same chassis or stuck out as a weird minigame, or both. It runs a great amount like D&D.

The setting is not well-detailed, and mostly shows up in monster and class descriptions. DH embodied the phrase, "Stealing from one is plagiarism; stealing from many is research." Art is ok for an early-90s book, which is unfortunate because this was the late 90s.

There are three corebooks, which are actually not broken out into the usual PHB/DMG/MM set. Instead, the first book is for levels 1-6, the second is for 7-13, and the last one is for 14-20. The monsters are generally borrowed from other games, but at least they picked a reasonably consistent set of them.

All in all, Dark Hammer is a reasonably decent kitchen-sink fantasy setting that there's no real reason to play.

Darker Games published Dark Hammer through the end of 2001, at which point their college loans came due. You might be thinking "Why would you stop publishing a game when you need money?" If you're thinking that: Welcome to the gaming business, I see it's your first time here! Remaining copies were pulped as a tax writeoff.

[thepointofclicking]

The Crude Knight: Collected Edition Comic Review

[kiyosho-art]

GRAPHIC NOVEL RAFFLE

Hello! To herald the release of my 330 page graphic novel about dinosaur, Connected Skies, I am holding a raffle to help spread the word. If you win, you get a free paperback copy! Free shipping, too. You've got nothing to lose, jump in.

RULES:

Follow me.

Reblog this post.

Comment, and I will assign you a number.

Let's make this massive story known!

DEADLINE: September 1st

There is also a raffle on Instagram for the same thing.

[nickvorowriter]

[darkeraven22]

My Neighbor Toronto Review Part 3

Giving Up The Old Maze Is Hard To Do…Minotaurs. If they live by stereotypes? Then they love dwelling in labyrinths. And just because its the modern day? One minotaur traded in his old labyrinth for the modern maze of a giant box store called Honest Ed’s. The Honest Minotaur. Artwork by Ally Rom Colthoff. A brother and sister break into a old big box store called Honest Ed’s… Wait. Is this…

[everyfandom-girl]

OK IM FANONIZING HIS ASS BUT

I need everyone to read Ingress Adventuring Company

Because not only is it funny, heartfelt, and deliciously imaginative, it asks important questions like:

You saved the world. You're powerful as hell. Now what, commit to being a washed-up, anxious Magic Professor / Single Father?

What if you could stuff your trauma in an attic instead of confronting it?

What if you were a DILF and an elf, and also gods most pathetic babygirl

What if you WANT to be GAY MARRIED to your OLD MAN HUMAN SOULMATE but you are SO BAD at TALKING?

This comic has been one of my favorite bite-sized, fun fantasy comics for years 🙏 you need this in your life, go go go pls pls pls

💛 OFFICIAL SITE 🧡 TAPAS 💚 WEBTOON

stretching w the tags a lil bcz im whipped as a fan,,

[kmclaude]

📖 Read my new book yet? And Much of Madness is available on Amazon. It collects 72 pages worth of my black and white comics and zines with an extra surprise (the surprise is another comic!) 📖

[samidemonster]

SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN 37 REVIEW

I’ll never stop talking about this series. I love Erica SO much!

Written by James Tynion, Illustrated by Werther Dell’Edera, Colors by Miquel Muerto

[hardcore-gaming-101]

Viola: The Heroine's Melody

Made by but two people, a casual game developer named Jelle van Doorne and online composer Nom Tunes, Viola: The Heroine’s Melody is a sort of love letter to the input RPG formula made famous by the Mario RPG games. It’s also an example of an old school isekai anime story about girls going through a coming of age adventure, making good use of that set up for some charming character work, free of modern trends. Despite some odd bugs and technical issues, it manages to be one of the more charming and unique examples of the indie RPG scene, and meets its ambitions more often than not.

Read more...