#the fact that we were all set up by the webcomic and Drive Knight's info on Gums to see the monster bite Genos's arm off... | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

woohooligancomics · 7 years ago

Text

Webcomic Whimsy: Tales of Midgard

Welcome to the Woohooligan Weekly Webcomic Whimsy! I've given a couple of interviews in the past, but this is my first experience with reviewing. If you have any suggestions for improvements, feel free to leave a note. If you're a webcomic author and would like a review, you can see my announcement and review rules here.

Title: Tales of Midgard: the Age of Magic

Writer: Attila Polyák • About

Illustrator: Erzsébet Schlett aka Lizbeth von Rabbit • About • Patreon

Site: TalesOfMidgard.com • Facebook

Genres: Action/Adventure, Fantasy, Medieval, Middle Ages, Victorian, Anacronism

Rating: PG, T for Teen - some language

Updates: Every Weekday (Mon-Fri) - (used to be full chapters in 3-week intervals)

Synopsis: (from TalesOfMidgard.com) - Tales of Midgard is a collection of fantasy stories, mostly comics, set in the world of Midgard, which is not the same as in Norse mythology, but if you are vigilant enough you’ll find a reference or two here and there. While all stories are set in the same world, the actual settings for each individual tale varies a lot. Depending on the time and age of a story, the settings of some might be more modern than others. The “main” storyline, titled The Age of Magic, will be about the adventures of a young knight named Anne White.

As the authors described, Tales of Midgard contains very little reference to Norse Myth (despite the title), and in the long-run it reminds me a lot less of mythology and more of some sessions of Dungeons and Dragons. I managed to read a little more than the first two out of nine chapters, and while magic is mentioned with frequency, it's rarely seen (that may change in later chapters). What seemed much more common than the appearance of magic however was the appearance of modern ideas and inventions; trains, newspapers, democracy, modern capitalism with beauracratic corporations. From what I can tell, there are even approximations of "cell phones" and "the Internet". The main charater, Anne, is a knight, except that the title would be a misnomer in our world, since she works for a corporation instead of a monarch and her first two jobs are both illegal "smash and grab" operations. In our world, her title would be "mercenary". As a side note, the term "freelancer" originates from an old military term for mercenaries, "free lance" (that of course you pay for, after all, it's "free"). Anne is also a mage, although the first two chapters only show her working any magic once and very briefly. If you replaced swords with firearms and "info boxes" with flash-drives, this would almost be a modern action story.

I had a really difficult time deciding on the first image to display here. I wanted it to be either the best page I could find or the page most representative of the story as a whole... but I couldn't seem to find either of those, so I opted to use the first page. The difficulty finding a single page to represent the series is that the individual pages vary so wildly. I'll find a page that includes representative dialogue, but the art shows backs of heads, and then I'll find a page with better art, but it's a splash page with little to no dialogue or narration and it tells you virtually nothing about the story.

The story opens with Anne and Erik planning their first job, stealing an "info box" from several guards who are carrying it through the city of Kessheim. These are the kinds of planning sessions I remember from a slew of tabletop roleplaying games over the years. In a game session, this is part of the fun of the game, although I'm not sure it adds much to the comic. In some of the scripts for Return of the Jedi, the film included some planning scenes, explaining how the heroes would get Lando Calrissian, Leia and the droids into position inside Jaba's Palace before the ultimate rescue of Solo. Lucas cut those scenes because in the long run it was felt that they eliminated a number of surprises that made the film more enjoyable.

This is only the eighth review I've written, and already "focus on your pacing" is becoming a frequent refrain from me. It seems like pacing the story is one of the things that challenges most webcomic authors. The first couple chapters of Tales of Midgard tends to vassilate between pages with a lot of text, and splash pages with little or no information. A lot of text on a page can be forgiven sometimes if a situation really calls for it (lord knows that's something I've struggled with), however this story has a lot of pages where the extra verbiage that's added isn't delivering any new information. Splash pages can be great when properly and sparingly used to punctuate dramatic reveals and action sequences, however, several of the splash pages in Tales of Midgard seem to be splash for splash sake (or in Latin, splish pro splash es gratia). The page above is the second page of content, opening the story with two pages of Anne and Erik discussing the plan for their first job. The second page doesn't reveal much about it, just that Erik wants more reconnaissance and that he suspects it will reveal a more challenging task ahead. And then the third page is a splash page, just for Anne to repeat that she's preparing for the job (she already said so), while striking a heroic pose.

Heroic!

I'm ribbing them a little here, but this isn't really a huge problem. I'm just pointing out that the above page could have been entirely left out and nobody would have noticed, and that the first two pages of planning could have been one page with a little more editing. The opening dialogue for example reads: "Seems like we still have about an hour. Let's revise our plan, and after that I'm off to prepare for plan B." If this were a script for a movie or a TV show that might be fine, but in a comic you have to remember that dialogue can take up a lot of realestate on the page. That line could have read: "We have about an hour to revise our plan before I prepare for plan B." And that's before you consider the elements that aren't necessary because they're mentioned elsehwere in the script. It really could have been "we have an hour to revise our plan." ... Or in retrospect it could have been dropped entirely, since the reader doesn't need to know how long they're planning, just that they are, which is apparent from the rest of the art and script on that page.

Also, paring the script down would help the artist, who inevitably has to spend more time working on the comic than a writer does. Liz had to fit in a splash page, plus five panels for a minimal portion of the story. If the script had been pared down to fit onto one page, that could have been two to three, maybe four panels of art. I'm sure that would have been easier for Liz.

It turns out Erik's suspicions were right, the job will be harder than they thought.

There are two more pages of planning (a total of six) before the job starts. The pacing on the first page of the job is better, although I think the art jumps the gun on exclamation points and burst lines (I can't remember the western term for that effect). There's not been any action yet, this is still the "suspense" portion, leading up to the action. I would have used just two panels - the first with Anne entering and the second seeing the guards carrying the box with "there they are," and a background. As I said before about the pacing, these aren't huge problems, just areas that could use some polish.

Even here I'm not convinced we're quite ready for the dramatic splash page yet, although it makes a lot more sense on this page where she snatches the box than it did during the planning phase.

Honestly, I think the three bumbling guards turning into the Three Stooges is kind of a nice touch.

If I were writing, I might have started the entire story on the last panel of that page, with the guards already chasing Anne. All that talk of running down streets, and how many guards there were, and "plan B" could easily have been part of the narration during the chase. In fact most of it is repeated in the chase narration anyway, making most of those planning pages redundant. Starting here would have gotten the reader into the thick of the action straight away (just like the opening scene of Star Wars IV: A New Hope) and probably done a better job of holding people's attention.

The first "magiknight" appears right away, you can see him behind the other three guards in the last panel of the previous page. Anne confirms that's what he is on the following page after he's overtaken the regular guards and is gaining on her. The second magiknight appears immediately after and oddly decides on a WWE wrestling move instead of the kind of thing you'd expect from someone in full-plate armor... or a spell (remember, he's also supposed to be a mage).

But the most shocking thing on that page was the democracy! SHOCKING! Remember, peasants, the King needs your vote! Again, I kid, although it is another part of the overall theme of this world being modern day with a veneer of medieval or renaissance themes. That's the kind of atmosphere that I've found a lot in D&D or other roleplaying games because the players are never historical scholars and I suspect even for them, it's hard to put yourself in the shoes of someone who lived even sixty years ago, much less several centuries.

After Anne avoids the first body-slam, the third magiknight appears immediately, following a page of Anne wondering where they are, and showing a map of her run up to this point. (The map doesn't seem necessary.) Throughout the entire chase, the third magiknight is the only one to talk, and then only to call Anne a bitch (rather than "halt" or alerting the other guards).

(EDIT: I was wrong! I forgot the last magiknight makes the comment "what are you" when Anne stands up after he knocked her down.)

I suppose I should point out that most of the first chapter is the chase with a lot of jumping and swordplay. Although if Tales of Midgard is going to be an action/adventure story with a lot of fighting like this, Liz should probably brush up a little more on drawing action sequences. This one is probably the worst and I might not have pointed it out here except that it looks less like Anne is expertly dodging a sword than she is expertly dodging a giant penis.

Like I said, most of her illustration is better... although the page immediately following this sword swing is another weirdly placed splash-page.

My penis can shatter stone!

If there were a splash page in that sequence, I think it would have been better used on Anne's dodging the blade than on the aftermath of the miss.

And that's followed by a carriage that appears to be in the Matrix Loading Program instead of the street.

Anne gets past the carriage and points out that all the maginkights so far have been "brutes with no speed or accuracy". These guys are mages? Working in service of the monarch? It does get more difficult as there are now two of them ahead of Anne, which she expertly dodges again. (Plus, there's that background that was missing behind the carriage.)

The very last magiknight appears to have a fighting style that involves constantly being off-balance and occasionally presenting his back to his enemies.

He does eventually land a blow against Anne on another splash page (and a good place for one), although the art is rather confusing... I couldn't really tell what was happening here.

Apparently she blocked the blow, but was knocked back into some barrels (empty?) that broke open. The magiknight is amazed that she's able to stand after taking the knock, although I'm not sure that explains why he didn't have time to catch her.

So Anne is able to get to the water-mill for her much hyped "plan B".

Which turns out to be jumping from a high window into the river while wearing plate armor.

And then it's time for a recap from the magiknights. I'm not sure why their dialogue is suddenly an ominous white-on-black.

Also, many of these balloon tails are confusing, and black on a dark background doesn't help.

When Anne comes up from the water, we get our only glimpse of magic in the first two chapters. How many magiknights was that? Eight of them? And not ONE spell between them? Was the wrestling leap a spell?

The second chapter opens with our first real glimpse of the anachronisms; a train.

And another couple anachronisms; a newspaper and the Grand Archives, which from context sounds a lot like the Internet. A little work on the composition of that first frame could have allowed us to see Erik's head and fixed the problem with the dialogue that's causing those parts that don't have full balloons. (Although to be honest, I think full balloons could have been used there without causing any problems. They're done that way to reveal parts of Anne's armor that aren't necessary to understand the story.)

Oh, and a third anachronism in that page also; the corporate bureacracy of the Dyrian Knights Order. Magic is also treated in this modern way, with the characters discussing "units of magic energy" as often happens in roleplaying games.

I understand that there's a goal of showing the height difference between Anne and Erik on this next page, however, with a little work on the composition, that can be done without cutting off his head in the third panel. The first panel showing the stairs and the delivery sign isn't necessary. The second panel should have been in profile so we could see all three of the people speaking. And in the last two panels, Erik could be standing more behind her so that their heads are side-by-side in the shot, allowing you to get those two panels side-by-side instead of above-and-below.

The silent disagreement between Anne and Erik is a classic trope and a well placed joke. Nicely done.

The dialogue balloons didn't have to cut into Erik's head in the 2nd panel - you could have used the extra whites-space in the lower-left corner where nothing's going on. In general, don't cut into a character's head if you can avoid it.

"That's what I'm afraid of" is another classic trope, and I would say it's a fairly well placed joke. I'm personally nonplussed by the fact that it's perpetuating the negative stereotype of women as spending their money frivolously.

Honestly I think the backgrounds are sometimes the better illustrations. Although those lamp-posts and buildings look pretty modern. There's a lot of glass for even a rennaissance period and especially the top of the building in the back of the second panel looks like a modern office building. I suppose the lamp-posts could still be oil-based rather than electric, but the design aesthetic just looks really modern to me. To be honest that clothing looks pretty modern too.

This is the point at which Erik starts second-guessing the job they just finished. He brings up some of the things I was already thinking during the chase in the first chapter.

And now the lettering starts getting weirder. We see a bunch of places where dialogue balloons follow unnatural right-to-left reading paths and a few other issues that make it hard to know which block to read next, who's speaking, etc. Many of these problems could be resolved by pruning the script (like I mentioned before), improving the panel choices, composition and character placement. This page is crowded but not the worst to read.

Pardon me for a moment while I nerd-out on writing dialogue... If you write comics yourself you might find this interesting, otherwise, skip down.

I would have simply trimmed a lot of this writing.

In the first panel, for example:

Anne: Hey Erik! What's up.

Erik: I booked passage on the August Albatross tomorrow morning.

Anne: The expensive cruiser from Dyr to Ilial?

Erik: That's the one.

That's genuinely all the information that's relevant for the reader in this first panel. Having "everything we need" until they get home should be assumed -- the only time it should be mentioned is if they lack things or there's a question about resources. The second panel runs dialogue balloons for Anne and Erik together, which was probably an oversight, since I saw that same thing fixed on a later page.

Also, the rest of the page:

Anne: Woohoo! That'll be great!

Erik: Hope so. Also, Sir Alvis wants that yearly report as soon as we reach Dyr.

Anne: Uhh... Thanks.

Erik: You've got enough cash, you should fix your orb if you don't replace it.

Anne: Yeah, I can totally afford a new one. Good night.

Erik: 'Night.

On the next page, nice backgrounds with street-lamps that definitely look electric, since they hang down from above. Dialogue balloons in the 2nd panel that are round like they're spoken? But she's alone, and the balloons in the previous panel were cloud-formed thought balloons... but neither of them have any tails, and using the bubble-tails for both would have clarified that they're all thought balloons, whether cloud-shaped or not... but they really should be one way or the other, not both. If thoughts are cloud-formed, they should always be cloud-formed to avoid confusion. Also, when balloons are separated on a wide panel like this, left-to-right takes precedence over top-to-bottom, so the text in these balloons is in the wrong order.

More nice backgrounds the next morning. Some of the water on this page is particularly nice. And then the beginning of dialogue balloons that run the wrong direction (right-to-left), which could have been easily avoided by placing Anne on the left and Erik on the right while they're sitting there on the dock.

These dialogue ballons run the wrong direction again and again.

There's a couple of pages of elegance on the Albatross before they arrive in Dyr. Stepping off the ship, it becomes apparent that the "orbs" are cell-phones, and they even ring like a telephones. It turns out a few pages later that Anne and Erik's second assignment is stealing back the "info box" (flash drive) they stole in the first chapter. D'oh! Personally I feel like the plot ought to have started developing this kind of complexity at least in the second chapter if not by the end of the first, but as I've said, these pacing issues are pretty easily resolved.

I realize that I've offered a lot of criticism of the trade-craft of comic making here, however, those are all minor and to be honest easily resolved issues. I think this story has a lot of promise, it just needs some cleaning up. If you enjoy fantasy stories with roleplaying-game-styled anachronisms, it's worth a look at Tales of Midgard.

If you are a webcomic author and are interested in a review from me, you can check out my announcement and my review rules here.

If you enjoy my reviews and would like to help ensure I'm able to continue publishing them, you can contribute on our Patreon or if you're short on funds you can also help me out by checking out and sharing my own webcomic, Woohooligan!

Thanks! Sam

#review #action #adventure #fantasy #medieval #rennaissance #anachronism

1 note · View note