Tag Archives: webcomic

Webcomics: Kapitel 5 – Hades & Persephone

Auch, wenn ich eher in der nordischen Mythologie unterwegs bin, begegnen mir doch sehr wenige (Web)Comics, die sich damit befassen. Stattdessen sehe ich vermehrt ein neues Interesse an Geschichten, die die Griechische Mythologie aufarbeiten. Allen voran den Geschichten um Hades und Persephone. Vier davon möchte ich euch anstatt eines Jahresrückblicks, den ich zwischendrin schon immer Mal hatte, heute vorstellen. Alle davon sind kostenlos (auf Englisch) als Webcomic, teils aber auch als Print erhältlich.

Doch kurz vorweg, worum geht es?

Hades und Persephone

Der Gott der Unterwelt verliebt sich in eine Fruchtbarkeitsgöttin und – je nach Fassung – entführt diese in die Unterwelt. Dort isst sie eine Pomegranate (bzw. sechs Kerne daraus) und „muss“ sechs Monate im Jahr in der Unterwelt bleiben.
In den hier beschriebenen Adaptionen wird sich mehr oder weniger an diesen Grundriss gehalten, gepaart mit entsprechenden „traditionellen“ Konstellationen (z.B. Zeus ist Persephones Vater, wodurch Hades eigentlich ihr Onkel ist, usw.).

Punderworld

Der erste Comic dieser Art, der mir begegnete war Linda Šejić Punderworld. Als Spaßprojekt gedacht, um wieder in den Lauf ihrer Hauptserie Blood Stain zu kommen, entwickelte es bald ein Eigenleben. Nicht nur sind die Hauptfiguren vom Design her die gleichen, auch das Pantheon drum herum nahm nach und nach Gestalt an.
In dieser Version umschleichen Hades und Persephone einander seit Jahrhunderten bis Hades seinem Bruder Zeus seine Verliebtheit eingesteht und dieser entsprechend die “Entführung” in die Wege leitet. Wobei es hier mehr ein “Kutschenausflug” ist, der ungewollt in der Unterwelt endet. Viel weiter ist die Geschichte „leider“ noch nicht, da sie gerade an einem weiteren Kapitel Blood Stain arbeitet.
Šejić hat sich außerdem von einer Interpretation des Namen von Hades’ Hund Cerberus/Kerberos inspirieren lassen und aus ihm einen sehr knuffigen dreiköpfigen Dalmatiner gemacht.

Funfact: Auch Punderworld spielt, wie Blood Stain, in dem Universum, das sie mit ihrem Mann Stjepan geschaffen hat.

Durch Šejić habe ich die folgenden beiden Adaptionen entdeckt, es lohnt sich also ihr zu folgen, nicht nur für ihre eigenen Inhalte.

Lore Olympus

Rachel Smythe’s Interpretation Lore Olympus versetzt die Geschichte in ein etwas moderneres Setting. Die Unterwelt ist ein Unternehmen und Persephone wird über Umwege eine Praktikantin dort. Der Zeichenstil ist etwas eigen, haben die Figuren doch alle eine eigene Farbkodierung (z.B. Hades ist blau, Persephone und diverse Blumennymphen Pink, Zeus, Apollo und Artemis sind lila, wohingegen u.a. Hera, Ares, Hephaistos gelb sind, usw.), die ich noch nicht ganz durchstiegen bin. Doch das tut der Erzählung keinen Abbruch, denn Smythe lässt es sich nicht nehmen auch ernste Themen aufzugreifen. Daher ist die Lektüre mit Vorsicht zu konsumieren, da u.a. Vergewaltigung, toxische Beziehungen, Kindesmissbrauch (respektvoll) thematisiert werden. Das einzige, was mich dabei etwas wurmt, ist die Altersdifferenz, da Persephone hier tatsächlich nur neunzehn ist im Gegensatz zum jahrhundertealten Hades. Dadurch schwankt ihre Charakterisierung zwischen kindlich naiv und Erfahren über ihr Alter hinaus. Die Interaktion zwischen den einzelnen Parteien wird durch alberne Gesichtsausdrücke aufgelockert und wirkt, wenn auch manchmal dramatisch überspitzt, natürlich.

Übrigens: Cerberus ist hier ein nachtschwarzer Dobermann, der nur gelegentlich drei Köpfe hat und Hades hortet Hunde.

Queen of the Dead (Theia Mania)

Ganz anders und nicht als Band erhältlich sind die Geschichten von Li Österberg bzw. A-gnosis. Das noch unabgeschlossene Queen of the Dead ist nur ein Aspekt der neben Destroyer of Light und diversen anderen Erzählungen in der Theia Mania-Reihe, die Geschichte der beiden und anderen Gottheiten der Griechischen Mythologie erzählt. Österberg nutzt dabei Figuren, die definitiv nicht normschön sind (Hades ist spindeldürr und hat fiese Augenringe, Persephone ist kräftig gebaut, unrasiert und hat eine große Zahnlücke) und auch diverse Sexualitäten und Geschlechter (teils explizit) ausleben. Auch scheut sie sich nicht davor Zeus’ (und anderer) “Sexkapaden” aufzuzeigen und infrage zu stellen. Ganz bin ich noch nicht durch die Reihenfolge der Geschichten durchgestiegen, aber ich mag den Stil und die erfrischende Art, wie mit den Themen umgegangen wird – plus sie gibt gelegentlich die Quellen für die Ereignisse, was auch sehr genial ist.

In ihrer Version ist Cerberus eher ein dreiköpfiger Wolf.

Persephone: Hades‘ Torment

Der letzte Comic ist leider der, bei dem meine Erwartungen aufgrund von anderen Werken am meisten enttäuscht wurden. Mit Tigress Queen and Far to the North hat Allison Shaw zwei faszinierende Welten geschaffen – und mich auch vollkommen mit ihrem Zeichenstil überzeugt. Hier allerdings kommt hauptsächlich letzteres zum Tragen. Ihre Ausflüge in die Griechische Mythologie waren zunächst Bonusgeschichten für ihren Patreon und leider merkt man das an der Kürze. Wo die anderen drei sich Bände- und Geschichten-lang Zeit nehmen alles zu erkunden, wird hier alles auf knapp ~160 Seiten abgehandelt, wodurch schlichtweg die Zeit zum Atmen fehlt. Es ist vor allem schade, da der Anfang mit Hades’ Verweigerung gegen den Liebespfeil, den er aus versehen abbekommt und ein entsprechender Dialog darüber seinen “Gelüsten” trotz Pfeil nicht nachzugehen ein interessanter Ansatz ist. Doch sobald er ihn – und damit seine Gefühle – akzeptiert, macht die Geschichte eine 180 Grad Wendung. Nicht nur wird es, auf eventuell zur Griechischen Mythologie passenden Weise, voyeuristisch im Versuch der Romantik etwas Erotik beizumischen, sondern Persephone wird auch zu einer passiven Rolle nachdem sie eingangs noch einen aktiveren Part hatte. Wirklich schade. Ob ihre Fassung von Eros & Psyche ähnlich geartet ist, kann ich noch nicht beurteilen.

Nachwort

Ich bin mir nicht sicher, warum gerade jetzt das Interesse an der Griechischen Mythologie wieder aufgeflammt ist, die Ergebnisse sind jedoch faszinierend zu beobachten. Neben diesen beiden, scheint vor allem Dionysos eine beliebte Figur zu sein, doch da habe ich mich noch nicht ausführlich genug mit beschäftigt, um euch mehr sagen zu können. Nächstes Jahr vielleicht. B)

Habt ihr eine der Geschichten bereits gelesen? Kennt ihr andere, die euch gefallen haben?
(Kennt irgendwer gute Comics zur Nordischen Mythologie?)

Damit bleibt mir nur noch zu sagen: Kommt gut ins neue Jahr!

Webcomics: Chapter Three – The Squirrely Ones

Lies auf Deutsch

A long time ago I planned to turn this thing into something regular on Wednesday. Me and plans, we still don’t like each other …

Anyway, as Katherina Ushachov (aka Evanesca) was looking for a few people to help promote her (German) novel „Zarin Saltan“ (Tzaritza Saltan) on today’s Squirrel Appreciation Day – yes, that’s a thing – I decided to make a schedule-exception and write about two comics that have squirrel-characters. Neat, right? 😀
(By the way: There will be another Fairy Tale Summer where I’ll talk about the Tzaritza some more.)

But let’s begin …

El Goonish Shive

I don’t remember when I discovered Dan Shives‘ El Goonish Shive, but it’s something I still enjoy reading.
It started off as a relatively poorly drawn comic, with no real plot, just two best friends living their lives in a world where lots of things were possible (like „Anime Style Material Arts“) because: Magic. Over its course the story picked up, the world building got stronger and the art got incredibly better. There was now reason to certain actions – without loosing „Magic’s flare for the dramatic“ – and the characters became deeper and more grounded.

Grace as squirely pirate

Updated three times a week the comic is accompanied by sometimes random, sometimes canon side-story the EGS:NP (currently running an instalment of Goonmanji, a Jumanji parody) and occasional sketches (like the one on the right).

There are many fun and diverse (gender, race and sexualities) characters. Nerdy and proud, yet vulnerable Susan being by far one of my favourites. The topics that are explored range from dating issues over teenage crime fighting up to world domination plots, all with a joke around the corner and good portion of magic.

As this is a post about squirrels let’s talk a bit about Grace. One of the main characters and a human-squirrel-alien hybrid. (Yes, there is not just magic, but also aliens in EGS, the main ones are called Uryoums). She can be horribly naive and oblivious to the things happening around her, due to her secluded upbringing, but when her friends need protection she becomes the badass fighter she was bred to be.
So look out, for this Squirrel might kick your ass! 😀

Twokinds

This is another webcomic where I don’t know how long I’ve been reading it. At some point I just stumbled across Twokinds by Thomas Fischbach and got drawn into the story due to its amazing art.

Though that’s not the only thing about it. While I have to admit that I haven’t quite figured everything out about this world filled with Keidrans (Canine- or Feline-based bipedal sentient animals) , Basitins (other animal creatures, that are not dogs) and Humans and their (racial) conflicts, do I enjoy following the characters journeys.

Mrs. Nibbly

And there are several journeys happening with the vast cast depicted above. Sure some of it is a bit too sexualized for my taste, but the Keidran characters act a lot according to their base instincts (the banner above portrays them with way more clothing than some of them usually wear). As this is also a story focusing a lot on its main character, is it another story, where I don’t like them. 😀 Instead I root for the side characters like the Wolf Natani who has to rediscover his own identity after his mind has been merged with that of his brother for a long time.

Another very minor character is Mrs. Nibbly, she is – you probably guessed it by the picture – a squirrel! A pretty smart and cool one at that, and also very brave. She just appeared out of nowhere at some point and stayed with the group, but I have a feeling there is more to her than meets the eye … she’s far too clever be „just“ a squirrel …

Afterword

I hope you enjoyed this little look into two great webcomics. 🙂
Have you read them?
Do you know others with similar themes?
Let me know in the comments below!

If you’re a German reader, make sure to check the German version of this post. 😉

PoiSonPaiNter

© For the pictures lie with their respective creators. I merely used them as example of their work and hope that’s okay.
____________________________

Read in English

Webcomics: Die Eichhörnigen

Vor langer Zeit hatte ich mir vorgenommen, dieses Ding am Mittwoch in etwas Regelmäßiges zu verwandeln. Ich und Pläne, wir mögen uns immer noch nicht …

Als Katherina Ushachov (alias Evanesca) am heutigen Welteichhörnchentag – ja, das gibt es – auf der Suche nach ein paar Leuten war, die für ihren (deutschen) Roman „Zarin Saltan“ werben wollen, entschied ich mich, eine Zeitplan-Ausnahme zu machen und über zwei Comics mit Eichhörnchen-Charakteren zu schreiben. Passend, nicht wahr? 😀
(Übrigens: Es wird einen weiteren Fairy Tale Summer geben, in dem ich noch etwas mehr über die Zarin sprechen werde.)

Aber lasst uns anfangen …

El Goonish Shive

Ich kann mich nicht erinnern, wann ich Dan Shives‘ El Goonish Shive entdeckt habe, aber es ist etwas, das ich immer noch gerne lese.
Es begann als relativ schlecht gezeichneter Comic, ohne wirkliche Handlung, nur zwei beste Freunde, die ihr Leben in einer Welt leben, in der vieles möglich war (wie „Anime Style Material Arts„), weil: Magie. Im Laufe der Zeit, wurde die Geschichte ausgebaut, das Worldbuilding wurde fundierter und der Zeichenstil hat sich unglaublich verbessert. Es gab nun Gründe für gewisse Aktionen – ohne „Magies Vorliebe für das Dramatische“ zu verlieren – und die Charaktere haben mehr Tiefe und Erdung bekommen.

Grace als eichhörnige Piratin

Dreimal wöchentlich aktualisiert, wird der Comic von einer manchmal zufälligen, manchmal kanonischen Nebengeschichte begleitet, der EGS:NP (derzeit laufen Folgen von Goonmanji, einer Jumanji-Parodie) und gelegentlichen Skizzen (wie die rechts).
Es gibt viele lustige und abwechslungsreiche Charaktere (Geschlecht, Rasse und Sexualität). Die nerdige und stolze, aber verletzliche Susan, zählt bei weitem zu meinen Favoriten. Die Themen, die verarbeitet werden, reichen von Dating Problemen über Teenie-Detektive, bis hin zu Weltherrschaftplots, alles mit einem Witz hinter jeder Ecke und einem guten Teil Magie.

Da dies ein Beitrag über Eichhörnchen ist, lasst uns ein wenig über Grace reden. Eine der Hauptcharaktere und ein Mensch-Eichhörnchen-Alien-Hybrid. (Ja, es gibt nicht nur Magie, sondern auch Aliens in EGS, die wichtigsten heißen Uryoums). Sie kann schrecklich naiv und ahnungslos gegenüber Dingen sein, die um sie herum geschehen aufgrund ihrer abgesonderten Erziehung, aber, wenn ihre Freunde in Gefahr sind, wird sie zur badass Kämpfer, zu der sie gezüchtet wurde.
Pass auf, denn dieses Eichhörnchen könnte dich umhauen! 😀

Twokinds

Dies ist ein weiterer Webcomic, bei dem ich nicht weiß, wie lange ich ihn schon lese. Irgendwann bin ich über Twokinds von Thomas Fischbach gestolpert und wurde durch seine erstaunlichen Zeichnungen in die Geschichte hineingezogen.

Obwohl das nicht das Einzige daran ist. Zwar muss ich zugeben, dass ich noch nicht alles über diese Welt mit Keidrans (Zweifüßlern auf Hunde- oder Katzen-Basis), Basitins (andere Tierkreaturen, die keine Hunde sind) und Menschen und ihren (Rassen-)Konflikten verstanden habe, aber ich genieße es, den Reisen der Charaktere zu folgen.

Mrs. Nibbly

Und es gibt mehrere Reisen, der riesigen Besetzung, die oben abgebildet ist. Sicherlich ist einiges davon für meinen Geschmack ein wenig zu sexualisiert, aber die Keidran-Charaktere handeln viel nach ihrem Grundinstinkt (das Banner oben zeigt sie mit viel mehr Kleidung, als manche von ihnen normalerweise tragen). Da dies auch eine Geschichte ist, die sich sehr stark auf die Hauptfigur konzentriert, ist es eine andere Geschichte, in der ich sie nicht mag. 😀 Stattdessen feure ich die Nebencharaktere an, wie den Wolf Natani, der seine eigene Identität wiederentdecken muss, nachdem sein Geist lange Zeit mit dem seines Bruders verschmolzen war.

Eine weitere sehr unbedeutende Figur ist Mrs. Nibbly, sie ist – ihr haben es wahrscheinlich auf dem Bild erraten – ein Eichhörnchen! Ein ziemlich kluges und cooles dazu, und auch sehr mutig. Sie tauchte einfach irgendwann aus dem Nichts auf und blieb bei der Gruppe, aber ich habe das Gefühl, dass sie mehr zu bieten hat, als man auf den ersten Blick sieht…. sie ist viel zu klug, um „nur“ ein Eichhörnchen zu sein….

Nachwort

Ich hoffe, dass euch dieser kleine Einblick in zwei großartige Webcomics gefallen hat.
Habt ihr sie gelesen?
Kennt ihr andere mit ähnlichen Themen?
Lasst es mich in den Kommentaren unten wissen!

(5/9)

Oh, schau! Da hat das #SchusselHörnchen doch tatsächlich eine Nuss hier gelassen!

Falls du nicht weißt, was du damit anfangen sollst, empfehle ich dir katherinas Beitrag dazu:
Schusseliges Eichhörnchen Schnitzeljagd zum Welteichhörnchentag mit Verlosung

Viel Erfolg bei der weiteren Suche. 😉

PoiSonPaiNter

Comics: The Beginning

And another post that has nothing to do with the Fairy Tale Summer, but that I wanted to write because of its topic: „Me and Comics. How it all began. Blogparade.“ Booknapping and GeschichtenAgentin created this Blogparade for all those readers, who not just like the written word but also the picture accompanying them and that’s something I can talk about a lot (especially as Booknapping postponed the ending of the parade so I could still participate).

Let’s take a look at the beginning…

As you might know did I already talk about this, at least in terms of Webcomics, in my Introduction to Webcomics:

I can’t really remember how it happened, but I think that on one of my trips to the Book Store to buy a new Manga, I discovered a book-like collection of Comic Strips that I just had to look at.
But who wouldn’t do that with a bright red book that had a clown on the cover, who had just cut off his own leg with an axe, while its titled claimed the content of the “book” to be “Notfunny”?
I certainly couldn’t resist picking it up and I still do not regret that I did.

But that’s not entire beginning is it?

For as long as I remember did I enjoy reading the small comics and cartoons in newspapers and magazines. I never actually followed any series (except Bummi maybe, but that was more due to my mum buying it for me), but I read them whenever I got my hands on them. Still discovering that this is a thing took me a while.
When I was twelfth, I think, I got into Anime and wanted to read/collect the Manga they portrayed. I still remember that I would have had the chance to buy an entire set of the Dragonball Manga series at a flee market, but my grandpa and my mother argued against it, because it was too expensive and just some books with pictures. I kind of still regret giving in to them, but that didn’t keep me from collecting the series regardless, even if it was more expensive that way. 😉

As this was my first series – and I really liked both Anime – I also collected the magazine with new stories and additional info. Unfortunately did my mum (and I) decide that I don’t need them any more and gave them away. Still regret it, never found such a great time line of the Dragonball (Z) universe again, as the one in those magazines…

Anyway, this is about Comics not Manga (which even became a topic for my oral English exam during studying). 😉
Because of reasons I can’t remember I stopped reading for a while and didn’t care about my nerd stuff; which resulted in regretful sales. During my A-Levels I got back into it, mostly because of different Manga, but also because of Webcomics, which I told you about in the different parts of category I linked above – and will tell you more about when I get around to adding to the series.

Where did it go from there?

I think 2012 was the first time I ever was in a proper Comic book store and they’ve fascinated me ever since. Unfortunately there is only a small one in Rostock, but that ones mostly for card and table top games. The closest proper ones for me are in Lübeck or Berlin.
Since I’m able to go to (I prefer looking through stuff before buying, instead of just ordering it online) proper Comic book stores I’ve started to collect anthology albums of different series I like. Buffy for one thing, because I want to know how the series continues, but also mostly Marvel-stuff and I recently bought the first volume of Preacher.
For four years, I think, I’m attending the German Free Comic Book Day now and I always use it to fill up my (Manga) series and discover new things. I’m not really picky, if something sounds interesting and looks good I’ll check it out, though buying it might not be part of that equation. It’ll probably stay that way simply because I don’t want to go through the trouble of collecting old stuff, though I’d love to visit someone’s Comic library of complete Marvel volumes and spent a couple of days in there. Let me know if you’d be willing to let me. 😉

That is also why my book collection (and manga collection, simply because I chose to collect long series) is much larger than my Comic collection, counting physical volumes and bookmarks. But one thing is for sure (to quote the introduction again):

[Notfunny] was my entrance into the world of Comics and I haven’t started looking for the exit yet. Quite the opposite. Since I started using the Internet more frequently, I discovered many more Comics to enjoy.

And I certainly will continue to read and also write about the Webcomics I’m reading. 😉

See you around!

PoiSonPaiNter

Webcomics: Chapter Two – Things that go bump in the night

I think it’s time to talk a bit about comics again, it’s been a while. As I said before is Hiveworks a treasure trove for great comics and I’d like to introduce you to these two relatively new titles.
I’m not entirely sure why I chose the spooky theme for this though. Maybe it’s because I recently finished reading The Sandman; maybe it’s because I’m already contemplating a Halloween-vacation to Ireland again; maybe it’s because I’ve drafted a sequel to Winter Moon and am thinking about expanding it further; maybe it’s because both comics are seemingly at a tipping point for the narration into something quite interesting; maybe it’s just because I want to write about them.
Take your pick and enjoy the read. 😉

Black Grass

This comic literally starts with something that goes bump in the night, so it was kind of also the inspiration for the title.
Black Grass tells the story of Reverent Abel Ruby (front) who besides being a preacher is also a medium (according to the description is he also clairvoyant, but that hasn’t appeared yet) and therefore able to interact with ghosts. One ghost in particular – Blue Valentine (back) gets him into a rather sticky situation involving hellish bureaucracy…
What drew me to this comic was pretty much the whole idea of a preacher-medium and I’m certain that DarkFairy’s Coelestin is entirely to blame for this – and I made sure to tell her about it when I discovered the comic (back in May last year apparently o.O) – even if he so far only had to deal with celestial poultry. 😀
Anyway, with close to a 100 pages it’s easy to catch up with this one – and hard to write about it without giving too much away, especially as the narration is quite fluid and fast. The characters are great and lovely and definitely not what you’d expect at first glance, especially Rejean seems to have a few more tricks up their sleeves that I’m quite looking forward to see…
I also really like the art style, the play with colours (especially when including the neon ones) and the way the different characters (humans, ghosts, demons) are designed. It balances well between light hearted humour and serious topics (death, duh) and I’m really curious where the story will lead.

Headless Bliss

Headless Bliss by Chloé C in turn has a more adult air about it. It deals with nightmares, demons, cannibalism, but most of all: stories; or rather: What happens to the stories a writer abandons?
The Comic tells the story of Sinaj an incomplete story, created by a human, that tries to find meaning in her existence. On her way she encounters demon princess Annùn and the two of them become quite unusual friends. When Annùn’s mother Diov throws a human, that carries around the head of its twin (see picture), into the celebratory battle for her daughter things start going from bad to worse…

With a combination of an intriguing and intentionally „ugly“ (read not clean cut, but wobbly, weird and horrific) drawing style (befitting the genre) and interesting story telling, world building and characters this comic makes for a great read, even if some scenes are quite gruesome and disturbing (especially the tale of the Twins). It’s definitely not for for the faint hearted…
The story telling aspect itself is well interwoven in between the struggles of and between the characters and underlined with fascinating usage of movement without using panels and different kinds of narrative styles. One of the background stories is even told as another characters‘ weird dreams and as someone who also has veeery strange dreams that is something I can definitely relate to.
Interesting thing to know: It’s becoming more and more clear that this story has a larger connection to Chloé’s other work Go Get a Roomie, not just its creator. 😉

Afterword

I hoped you enjoyed this little look into two great webcomics. 🙂
Have you read them?
Do you know others with similar themes?
Let me know in the comments below!
I know at least a couple of other comics with a similar theme, but on the one hand do I prefer focusing on two at a time with these things and on the the other hand do I think that they would work well enough on their own too.
So stay tuned for future updates.
PoiSonPaiNter

Webcomics: Bonus Chapter – Animated

As I can’t decide which Webcomic I want to present to you today and instead of continuing with the Gamers-theme from the last few posts, I’ll simply introduce you to a few animated variations of the comics I already told you about.

A not funny series

When I „re-wrote“ the first post of this series where I told you about Nichtlustig (Notfunny) the German

one panel Comics by Cartoonist Joscha Sauer, telling the stories of his various characters. These include a Professor, his assistant and their strange experiments; Yetis; suicidal Lemmings, a killer-robot aspiring to become a kindergarten teacher, Mr. Riebmann, who lives in the wall beside his constantly annoyed neighbour and of course Death and his Poodle, who are the not so secret stars of the Comics.

I also mentioned that they had just

finished a successful Kickstarter campaign to animate the Comics as a Cartoon series.

So this of course is the first one I want to talk about – even if this will be boring for those who don’t know German, as they are only synchronized in that language.
With the Kickstarter Sauer wanted to be able to produce a whole series of animated comics, but aimed low and set it up for one episode first. The campaign funded that well that by now two of the six funded episodes are produced, with the remaining four being released in 2017.
As far as I know are the stories for these episodes completely new, even if some parts of it where used in comics before. In the books there are a few episode like narrations instead of the usual one strip jokes, so as a reader you can already get an idea of how quirky and intertwined his stories can be. A few glimpses at the episodes – I’m not sure if they will be publicly available as soon as all of them are finished – and some old animation of the one strip comics can be found on the Nichtlustig Youtube Channel. It is certainly fun to finally have a voice for Death and Poodle and all the other characters. 😀
(And if you’re really into animated German comics, don’t forget to check out the ones by Sauer’s college Ralph Ruthe while you’re at it. 😉 )

Miniaturized Adventures

After I recently talked about Looking for Group and Tiny Dick Adventures in passing it’s creators now released a new project, where the latter got a bigger spotlight.
Starting next Wednesday there will be a 50-60 seconds episode of the so-called Tiny Dick’s Briefs each week, with daily special releases during this (release) week.
Additionally to the briefs with random (new) commentary by LFG star Richard will there also be an animated version of one of Sohmers other comics that I’ll talk about on a different day. 😉
All of these – and old attempts at animations, like a very incredible and hilarious take on The Little Mermaid’s Part of that World, that were originally planned to go into a movie that turned out to be way more expensive than they had anticipated – are available on the YouTube Page of Blind Ferret Studios – the company behind all their works.
I’m certainly looking forward to this.

A cat’s tale

As I’m already talking about animated comics do I feel like a can’t leave out Simon’s Cat. Different to the other two that were (web)comics first and were animated later, was this one animated first before also releasing comic book versions – at least from what I know.
The short episodes about the cat’s antics and adventures are quite adorable and funny and it doesn’t matter that most of the story is carried by music and simple cat noises.
All of the episodes are and regularly updated on the YouTube Page linked above.

Last words

What are your thoughts on animated Webcomics?
Is it something that interests you or do you prefer the written word?
See you around
PoiSonPaiNter
© For the pictures lie with their creators. I merely used them as example of their work and hope that’s okay.

Webcomics: Bonus Chapter – Nuzlocke

With PokémonGo being the topic all around I decided to add a little bonus chapter to the usual webcomic chapters here about an old phenomenon regarding the normal Pokémon games:

The Nuzlocke Challenge

The Challenge itself doesn’t have anything to do with webcomics, but I’ll get to that soon. First let me explain:

What is the Nuzlocke Challenge?

The Nuzlocke Challenge was created in 2010 by a bored student that by now refers to himself as „Nuzlocke“, when he wanted to change the experience he had with the Pokémon games.
Originally he set up these rules:

1. Capture only the first Pokémon you encounter in a new area.
2. If a Pokémon faints you consider it dead and release it.

To accompany his run for the Ruby-edition he started a webcomic called Pokémon: Hard-Mode (start from the Beginning). He shared this comic in different communities and they created the name „Nuzlocke“ as a wordplay on the fan favourite Seedot/Nuzleaf of the run that he occasionally drew like John Locke from Lost.
Inspired by this, many others took up the challenge and modified the original rules and added a few more rules:

1. If a Pokémon faints you consider it dead and either release it or put it in a „Dead“ Box on the PC.
2. Capture only the first Pokémon encountered in a new area, unless it’s a duplicate, then you have 1-3 more tries. You may re-catch a Pokémon that previously died.
3. All caught Pokémon must be nicknamed.
4. Healing items can/can not be used. Pokémon Centers are a must.
5. You can/can not catch any Legendaries.
6. If you encounter a shiny all rules are nullified.

This of course is not a complete set of rules as Challengers individualize them, so every run has slightly different rules, but you get the gist of it.

The Challengers

I put this into the webcomics category so I’ll introduce you to a couple of Nuzlocke runs that turned their experiences into comics. This is only a collection of the ones I enjoyed reading there are plenty more – even some that turned it into diaries.
There are some things – besides the challenge – they all have in common:

None of them are finished and they update irregularly.
The protagonist is either able to talk to their Pokémon or at least the reader is able to see their thoughts.
Each update has about 10-20+ panels.
Nearly all of them can be found on DeviantArt

Pokémon: Hard-Mode – Nuzlocke

The Original run I mentioned before was for Ruby. By now he added a run for Fire-Red and is currently running one for White, but you should read the others before that. The art improved greatly over the years and also the story telling. At first it’s just headwords/phrases that are drawn, later there is actual plot behind it. Still, some of the jokes are quite lame, but that’s also part of the charm of these runs.
As a start into the whole Nuzlocke business I’d recommend it, it is the original after all.

Tales of Sinnoh/Myths of Unova – ky-nim

One of the first runs I encountered.
While Tales of Sinnoh (Diamond) follows some rather unusual way of story telling with a foul mouthed and sometimes reckless heroine and some pretty weird plots (Team Gaga and Dialgaga), Myths of Unova (White) is an entirely different story.
It feels like Ky-nim put a lot more effort and planning into the comic-version of this run. She created whole new stories and legends about the in-game tales about Ancient Unova, she even used her own language system for telling them. Additionally to that are her character portrayals great. You come to like Nina and her team for all their different quirks and charms and you suffer with her, when one of her team members is left behind.
From all the runs I read, this is still one of my favourites and I’m fairly certain that if Ky-nim/Kylee ever decided to start her own webcomic, she’d do so awesomely – at least I couldn’t find an original comic on her pages.

Tala’s Nuzlocke Adventure – TalaSeba

A bit strange at first Tala’s Nuzlocke (Silver or Gold) evolves into something with an interesting sub-plot regarding the trainers origin and motivation, and an interesting twist to the normal storyline of the game. The art also improved greatly between the updates, as does the story telling.
The characters feel unique and have interesting designs and personalities.

Fire Red Nuzlocke – french-teapot

The art of French’s Fire Red Nuzlocke is quite cartoonish, but at the same time adorable.
It has funny characters and a twist to the usual Team Rocket story line, though that part has still to be explored further – it had only recently begun to fully include the consequences.
The seriousness of some other Nuzlockes isn’t as present here, as the focus isn’t too much on the catches and deaths, but more on the overall run and team – especially as some updates are a bit rushed and composed of notes, though that doesn’t really make it worse.

The Pokédex Project – Effsnares

A different approach to the Nuzlocke Challenge is the Pokédex Project (Leaf Green) by Effsnares. This run doesn’t focus on the actual story, but creates its own by making the characters not rivals but good friends/colleagues in the completion of the Pokédex, using their different talents to do so.
It’s also different as the main character is gender neutral – something that is still a rare thing in most media.
Additionally, is this one of the runs where you can only read the Pokémons thoughts/conversations, but the trainer can’t understand them.
And to top this all up: The art is quite beautiful. The way Eff draws the different Pokémon is simply amazing.

Honourable Mentions

These runs are quite short but with a lot of potential:

Fiasko by Nekiwii: Adorable Silver Nuzlocke (so far)
Cross Out by Protocol00: Interesting X Nuzlocke that hopefully wont be abandoned like it’s predecessor.

Gijinka Nuzlockes

These are special Nuzlocke comics that turn the involved Pokémon into Gijinka’s – anthropomorphic Pokémon – some of them have an interesting background as to why/how this is possible, others simply use it as fact. In these runs there is either a Trainer capable of recruiting Gijinka’s or Gijinka’s getting together to build a team without any humans.
Until I came across these, I’m not sure I even heard about the concept – at least not by this name.
So if you want to try something different, you may want to give these a try:

Doubt and Trust – Nyapapa

Doubt and Trust by Nyapapa is a really interesting Heart Gold/Soul Silver run.
This one does not have any humans in it, but a few original Pokémon and a nice back story as to why some things are the way they are.
The characters and their designs are great. They all have their own story and back story – and some still untold stories and secrets.
I also like the explanation of how the Gijinka change their outfits after evolution. 😉

That comic about that one kid – dejasquietplace

That comic about that one kid by dejasquietplace is a (sort of) Leaf Green run.
It not just has interesting character designs, but also great interactions between them. The different personalities are refreshing – again no real rivals but friends helping each other.
The concept how Trainer and Gijinka work together is interesting (synchronising and sharing experiences) and that not all Trainers have to be human. 😉
The narration and the art style are great, not only for the Gijinka, but also for the few real Pokémon that are still around.
I’m really looking forward to this story being continued.

Honourable Mentions

Conticent by Jonquilladin: A Platinum Classlocke (Nuzlocke variation) with an interesting concept behind the reason why and how Trainers and Gijinkas fight together.
Journey of Runaways by Kittiled: A Heart Gold/Soul Silver run, that still has to show how Trainer and Gijinka are connected.

Last words

The very first Nuzlocke comic I read was Mira’s Leaf Green Nuzlocke by xXDeath-N-HellXx. It is/was a great run, but it hasn’t been updated in three years, so I left it out of the list above.
I hope you enjoyed this little look into different Nuzlocke Challenge comics.
Have you ever tried the challenge or read any of the comics?
Do you know any other comics of the kind?
See you around

PoiSonPaiNter

Webcomics: Prologue – Looking for Something

Remember when I told you about the amazing female leads in two webcomics and dubbed it Chapter One? Well, seems like you’ll be getting a belated Prologue today, as one can’t start properly before talking about the beginning…
That and the fact that I really like Prologues….
Anyway, as I mentioned in the Introduction were Fred and Notfunny my „gate way“ into comics and Webcomics in general, but what really got me hooked on reading them was

Looking for Group

The webcomic by writer Ryan Sohmer and artist Lar (Lartist) Desouza tells the story of the elf Cale’anon (the one in the front) who just wants to be a hero, to do good, to help people, but is more often than not faced with decisions he wouldn’t naturally approve of. It’s not helping that the group he ends up travelling with includes the fourth wall breaking, easily bored, over-powered, homicidal and basically utterly ridiculous un-dead Warlock Richard (the one in the upper right corner), the witty and destructive priest Benn’joon (short Benny – in the middle with the staff), her Bloodrage father and scholar Krunch (on the left with the book), the crafty, bardic Dwarf Pella and bloodthirsty panther Sooba (both not depicted).
What makes this story fun is the clashing of these characters and their ways of solving problems. E.g. while Cale is still negotiating, Richard gets bored and just „FWOOSH“es the opposition (aka burns them to crisps with a – red – fire ball).
It basically started as run of the mill parody comic for the fantasy genre, gaming and pop culture in general (it’s filled with references: Lord of the Rings, World of Warcraft, Star Wars, Mary Poppins just to name a few) and turned into something way more epic in it’s own terms. For any new reader it’s a long way to go, but a worthy one.
When I first discovered it through a recommendation in The Forum I didn’t really give it much credit, the art was strange and the story was over the top, but the humour soon captured me – especially Richard’s, he’s so delightfully, well, Richard. The more I read the better art and story became until it reached the standard it has today. Sure there are still story lines that don’t really make sense and I’ve lost track of a lot of side stories by now (I believe I caught up when they were around book 15 and by now they’re in book 36), but I still return to the site whenever there is an update or I want to re-read something old.
Sure Cale is a typical main character, but there is so much thrown into his way that it’s fun again to watch his journey – especially the Archmage story line is incredible.
Sure there are times where the story just doesn’t seem to move on, but that’s a small price for what Sohmer & Lar offer their audience.
By now the universe expanded far beyond just Looking for Group, there are now also NPC stories, telling more about characters that only appeared briefly in the main arcs in tales drawn by different unknown/young/new artists and the Tiny Dick Adventures, where Richard comments on real life happenings – with a twist.
It’s fascinating to see the world that Sohmer created grow, see old story lines come back around and new ones starting. It’s the mix of the (bizarre) characters, the oddities and the seriousness beneath it all that makes this one special.
And Richard will certainly be amongst my favourite characters for a very long time (it is partly his fault that I keep naming characters Richard o.O).

Afterword

I hope you enjoyed this little look into my first long-term-commitment Webcomic. 🙂
Have you read it?
Do you know others with similar themes?
Let me know in the comments below!
If any one is interested: I’ve been eyeing this thing and also been using a LFG wallpaper of Lil‘ Richard and The Bunny – that is seemingly no longer available except as cover art of book 4 – for years now.

For Pony!

On a Side Note #4: The Schedule

As you might have noticed did I manage to write – lo and behold – one measly post in Mai.
I had planned more than that.
I wanted to finish another What’cha Watching Wednesday, I wanted to continue my travel log from 2014, I wanted to continue the Fanfiction stuff, that’s been waiting since December and many more things.
But I didn’t do any of it.
Instead I went to couple of things, binge watched a couple of series and was basically not in the mood to write anything.
Since I ended The Weekend Guess my motivation to write something regularly dropped immensely (I haven’t even gotten around to add the other question-collections…).
I can’t even figure out what I would like to do on a regular – weekly ? – basis.
It should be something that takes as little time as the guess, but is just as entertaining/interesting.

What to do?

I can’t make a weekly song-suggestion as I partly did that in the first segment of the Guess and DarkFairy is doing a great job at that already.
I don’t really want to answer questions on a weekly basis like the Montagsfrage (Monday Question) or the Gemeinsam Lesen (Reading Together). Both are great opportunities to think about stuff you usually wouldn’t think about, but they’re also difficult as you kind of have to come up with something to stay in the loop.
With the Reading Together there is also the problem that you have to be reading something to be able to properly participate and even if I got a more or less regular reading habit again, this feels forced sometimes, especially as I’m only able to write the post properly in the evening after work.
Besides Monday and Tuesday are days where my motivation to do something useful after work are even worse than usual. But maybe I’ll still restart doing the Reading Together at least, who knows…
I’m currently considering to start a new segment for the weekend, where I talk about the many series I’ve watched (Series Satunday), but that would not fit the bill of an easy weekly post – and I would probably run out of series and motivation quite soon – like I did with the WWW.
Which in turn I thought about trying to do bi-monthly or monthly, depending on how much I watched, as it is quite some work to put down all my thoughts.
I don’t know if anyone would be interested in „Found on the Internet“ post, where I talk about stuff I came across.
I’m not even sure I’d like doing that.
I probably would rather share it through Twitter and Facebook than blog about it.
I’d also like to continue introducing people to Webcomics I’ve read or the language stuff I started way back and I think that might be more interesting than the „random stuff from the Internet“-thing.
There is also a lot of stuff, I still want to talk about that I haven’t gotten around to write about. So it seems like a proper schedule for all the longer stuff is in order.

So, this is the plan

Every second Wednesday there will be a post:
One week a WWW, one week a Webcomic (Webcomic Wednesday, so to speak).
Starting: Next week with a WWW (not sure yet, if I give you the complete one or a split version, of what I currently have)
Every other Monday there will be a post about a Concert or Festival I’ve been at – the Music Monday, even if some will still be called In Concert/At the Festival.
This way I hopefully get on track with my logs about them and maybe even talk about a few interesting long players (again).
Every other Tuesday or Thursday there will be either a post about my travellings – the Travelling T-Day – that’ll cover random stuff from the On the Road category, as well as actual travel logs or a Translation T-Day, covering the Lost in Translation stuff, I still want to talk about.
Maybe I’ll really go for the Series Satunday as well, but I’ll see how the stuff above will turn out before I make a final decision here – though the LiT stuff would fit here as well.
There is also another idea for the weekend that I’ll present you on Sunday (there’ll also be another Your Picture – A Story over at DF.PP Entertainment by the way).
I really hope I can somehow pull this off. It’s so frustrating that I can’t manage to keep up a decent schedule, so I felt it was necessary to give myself a kick in the butt to change this.

What do you think?

Does any of this sound interesting/boring?
What would you like to see more of?
Let me know! 🙂
PoiSonPaiNter

Webcomics: Chapter One – Reluctant Heroines

It’s been a while since I (re-)posted my introduction to Webcomics, but it’s about time that I actually turn it into a serial here on the Blog. Especially as today is Free Comic Book Day – and I can’t participate as we have our own version with different comics next week – and I’ve therefore had a super-hero-ish day on Twitter earlier.
And as tomorrow is mother’s day (over here?), I decided to start by looking at two comics with incredible female leads!

Strong Female Protagonist

A lot of webcomic creators use each others help to get over taking a break and I am fairly certain that it was either a guest comic or an advertisement from one of the many other webcomics I read that lead me to this one.

At first I wasn’t quite sure about Strong Female Protagonist by Brennan Lee Mulligan and Molly Ostertag. It felt as if everything was just starting, even if it was already running for a while when I discovered it. The name of this webcomic might sound like a working title or just a note saying what someone wants the story to be about, but the story itself is so much more.

Main character Alison Green is a young woman that used to be an invulnerable, strong superhero, but retired to lead a normal life, yet that doesn’t really work out the way she wants it to. The story follows her struggles not just with her powers, but also with her differing views and ideals. Intentions and arguments are incredibly well explained and combined with a very nice and great – strong? – drawing style. The movements of the characters feel as natural as their decisions and feelings.
It’s slice of life, but not in a cheesy way, instead it’s more natural/realistic and definitely thought provoking.
Especially a story line concerning Alison’s dad got to me quite badly, as it hadn’t been that long that I’ve been through a similar thing when I read it.

This is not your typical Superhero story. It’s a story about a young woman, in a technologically advanced world with superheroes, wanting to do good – the right thing – that utilizes her special abilities and determination to change things, but doesn’t shy from making others see her point through well thought through arguments and accepting their opinions as well.

Namesake

On the other hand there is Namesake by Megan Lavey-Heaton & Isabelle Melançon where main character Emma Crewe (front) is all but thrown into her „hero“ life.

In this story, that I stumbled upon over at Hiveworks (a great source to discover new comics, by the way), we follow her journey into the world of Oz and learn bit by bit more about the bigger picture of what makes Emma special and what evil (?) lurks in the background.

Where SFP goes for realism, Namesake has a few very interesting Fantasy elements. Magic is possible, Fairy Tale worlds are real and there are people carrying the name of Fairy Tale characters that have to live (or suffer) through parts of the stories we know from the books that are written afterwards by the writers in charge of the „Namesakes“.

Still, the existence of Fantasy elements does not mean the characters don’t act reasonable, quite the contrary. Emma is one of the few lead characters that I like (which is VERY RARE) because she struggles with her role, with her powers and most of all: Questions why the hell she is supposed to do something and what the hell she is supposed to do?! 😀 Where SFP is filled with calm contemplation, Namesake runs on a lot of situation humour and very human (read: flawed) characters.

It’s fun, it’s lovely and again incredibly drawn (though I have to admit I’ve mistaken a few characters for each other on occasion…) with a quite interesting colour schemes and really fun characters.

Afterword

I hoped you enjoyed this little look into two great webcomics. 🙂
Have you read them?
Do you know others with similar themes?
Let me know in the comments below!

As next week is „Gratis Comic Tag“ (Free Comic Book Day) here, I might write another instalment of this about two more comics, not sure which ones, but we’ll see.

PoiSonPaiNter

Re-Wri-Day: Webcomics

As fifth part of the Nerd-Week you get another Re-Wri-Day, because as I recently did with my Supernatural Summaries, did I put my first post for THE EXTREMIS REVIEW about Webcomics directly on my Blog as well.

What is the Re-Wri-Day?

Inspired by EdMooneyPhotography’s Re-Work-Wednesday and based on the fact that my writing style for this Blog has changed over the past years, I kind of created my own version of this.

But why the strange name and what does it mean?

I’m awful when it comes to puns and I couldn’t help myself but to turn re-write and Friday into one strange word: Re-Wri-Day. Sorry…
But in conclusion: These posts are supposed to be always published on a Friday, but not necessarily on every Friday, just the Fridays when I feel like editing an old post beforehand.

And what am I doing with this?

I am taking my old posts from the beginnings of writing this Blog or just former posts and read them again to see what things I can change or add. They wont necessarily be actually re-written, but some changes will be made.
In the Re-Wri-Day post I’ll also give you a couple of thoughts on why I had chosen the topic and stuff you might be interested in.

So, let’s have a look at the page I changed: Webcomics

I really enjoyed writing this post, as it is one of my favourite topics to talk about. As I discovered more and more Webcomics throughout the year(s) I’ve decided that I want to pick this up as another series to introduce people to stuff I read.

For that I changed the original post a bit like giving it a different name and changing some of the lines.
I would have liked to include one of my favourite Nichtlustig-Comics as well, but I didn’t hear back from the Copyright-person, so I won’t include it here and only link to it. If anyone is interested: Nichtlustig just finished a successful Kickstarter campaign to animate the Comics as a Cartoon series. Congratulations for that!

Anyway, I still have to figure out how I want to present the upcoming Webcomics, but I guess we’ll see what I come up with, when I get around to put some more thought into it. 😉

PoiSonPaiNter

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