Tag Archives: female lead

Webcomics: Chapter 4 – Märchenhaft

Webcomics: Kapitel 4 – Märchenhaft

Das Märchensommer Banner zeigt eine Scherenschnitt-Fee, die Glitzer auf den verschnörkelten Schriftzug "Märchensommer" über einem aufgeschlagenen Buch streut. Alles vor einer grünen Wiese neben einem Baum und Sonnenstrahlen im Hintergrund.

Nicht nur Bücher haben märchenhafte Themen, auch (Web-)Comics nehmen sich ihnen an. Im Rahmen des Märchensommers möchte ich euch zwei von vielen vorstellen.

Peritale

Peritale von Mari Costa erzählt die Geschichte der Fee Periwinkle. Doch eine Sache unterscheidet sie gravierend von ihren Mitschülern und Geschwistern: Sie hat keinerlei magische Begabung. Trotzdem wird auch ihr die Aufgabe gegeben eine gute Fee zu werden und ihrem menschlichen Schützling zu einem richtigen Happy End zu helfen. Dafür muss sie die Feenwelt verlassen und sich den Abenteuern in der ihr völlig fremden Menschenwelt stellen.

Das das ohne magische Hilfe nicht ganz so einfach ist, wird ihr sehr schnell bewusst, hält sie aber nicht davon ab mit Chaos und Herz ihren Weg zu gehen.

Der Webcomic hat zwar gerade erst sein dreijähriges Bestehen gefeiert, ist mit ~300 Seiten allerdings noch recht kurz – laut Autorin ist das auch erst ein Viertel der Geschichte. Trotzdem bietet Peris Welt eine bunte Mischung aus Charakteren, dunkle Geheimnissen, eine gute Priese Humor und liebenswerte Charaktere.

Also ich bin gespannt, wie das Happy End aussieht, das Peri für ihren Schützling fabriziert, aber ich vermute es wird ganz anders, als man es denkt. 😀

Cautionary Fables & Fairy Tales (Belehrende Fabeln & Märchen)

Die Cover der Bände Europa, Afrika und Asien, darüber ein Symbolband

Eine Reihe von Märchen aus aller Welt sind die Cautionary Fables & Fairy Tales von Kel McDonald und Kate Ashwin. Bisher gibt es die drei Sammelbände Europa, Afrika und Asien, in denen verschiedene Märchen und Fabeln aus den jeweiligen Regionen von verschiedenen Zeichner*innen neu erzählt werden.

Der Fokus wird nicht nur auf die Bekannteren wie – z.B. in Europa – Rapunzel und dem Rattenfänger von Hameln gesetzt, sondern auch andere Geschichten erzählt, die eher seltener im Fokus stehen. Besonders faszinierend finde ich auch, dass mit Afrika, Asien und bald Ozeanien Regionen ein Teil davon sind, die ganz andere Traditionen und Geschichten pflegen, mit denen man hier in Europa ja doch eher selten in Kontakt kommt.

Auf Kels Seite kann man sich ihre Beiträge – neben ihren anderen fantastischen Comics – ansehen und allein dadurch reizt es mich die Produktion von Band vier Ozeanien zu unterstützen.

Nachwort

Einen weiteren Webcomic mit Märchenthema habe ich bereits in Kapitel 1 „Reluctant Heroines“ vorgestellt: Namesake, zusätzlich dazu hatte ich auf Twitter nach Tipps gefragt und einige interessante Vorschläge bekommen. Falls jemand noch mehr Lesestoff möchte: Twitter-Anfrage.

Eines der Prints, die ihr im Verlauf des Märchensommers gewinnen könnt, ist übrigens der „Traumafabel Short„, ein Teil einer Rotkäppchen Erzählung aus zwölf verschiedenen Blickwinkeln, der mit wunderbaren Zeichnungen von Blätterklingen und Mohnfuchs versehen ist. Einige der Zeichnungen sind ebenfalls in den Postkartenpaketen enthalten.

Kennt ihr die Comics oder andere Werke der Zeichnerinnen? Würden sie euch reizen?
Welche märchenhaften Comics sind euch noch über den Weg gelaufen?

Anne/PoiSonPaiNter

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Lies auf Deutsch

Not only books have fairy tale themes, also (web-)comics deal with them. As part of the Märchensommer I would like to introduce you to two of many.

Peritale

Peritale by Mari Costa tells the story of the fairy Periwinkle. But there is one thing that sets her apart from her classmates and siblings: she has no magical talent. Nevertheless, she is assigned the task of becoming a fairy godmother and helping her human ward to a real happy end. For this she has to leave the fairy world and face the adventures in the human world that is completely foreign to her.

She quickly realizes that this is not that easy without magical help, but this does not stop her from pursuing her path with chaos and compassion.

The web comic has just celebrated its three-year anniversary, but with ~300 pages it is still quite short – according to the author this is only a quarter of the story. Nevertheless, Peri’s world offers a colorful mixture of characters, dark secrets, a good dose of humor and endearing characters.

So I’m curious to see what the happy ending Peri creates for her ward will look like, but I guess it will be quite different from what you think. 😀

Cautionary Fables & Fairy Tales

The Covers of the Europe Africa and Asia editions with a line of symbols above

A series of fairy tales from all over the world are the Cautionary Fables & Fairy Tales by Kel McDonald and Kate Ashwin. So far there are the three anthologies Europe, Africa and Asia, in which various fairy tales and fables from the respective regions are newly told by different illustrators.

The focus is not only on the more familiar ones such as – for example in Europe – Rapunzel and the Pied Piper, but also other stories are told, which are rather rarely in the spotlight. I also find it particularly fascinating that with Africa, Asia and soon Oceania there are regions that have very different traditions and stories with which one rarely comes into contact here in Europe.

On Kel’s site you can see her contributions – besides her other fantastic comics – and just because of them I’m tempted to support the production of volume four Oceania.

Afterword

I have already introduced another web comic with a fairy tale theme in Chapter 1 „Reluctant Heroines“: Namesake, in addition to that I had asked on Twitter for tips and got some interesting suggestions. If anyone wants more reading material: Twitter request.

Do you know the comics or other works of the artists? Do they sound interesting to you?
What other fairy tale comics have you come across?

Anne/PoiSonPaiNter

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.
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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 Märchensommer 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

#LoveWritingChallenge – Female Characters

As I told you yesterday am I participating in the #LoveWritingChallenge by Katie Kling. For more information see the previous post.

This weeks theme are Characters and today is all about Female Characters.

To make things easier for myself I will focus on the ladies (and characters) in three of my longer stories:

Though I might add more from other stories.

For stuff about our characters from Warlords feel free to check out our Facebook Page.

So let’s take a look at the ladies in my stories…

In general am I not a fan of the Damsel in Distress so most of my ladies are strong and independent, but usually also compassionate about something and sometimes girly.

I’m fairly certain that I only have one girl that is obsessed with her male counterpart, but I still portray this as very unhealthy, at least I would if I had written any of it …

And when I think about it, do I have quite a lot of ladies in my stories, especially in leading roles … Michael’s family alone has about ten important female characters … interesting …

Though I still don’t always manage to pass the Bechdel test, as sometimes those ladies‘ main focus of discussion in a scene is a guy in trouble or at least one of their male family members …

Anyway, let’s talk jobs.

I’m fairy certain that housewife is a non existent job in any of my stories. I have pretty much everything from (kinder garden) teacher, maids, barkeepers/-owners and housekeeper over journalists, psychiatrist, doctors, corporate consultant, lawyers (to-be) up to matriarch and queen.

Usually I try to fit the job to the character and not the other way round, but sometimes it has to be the latter way (if you write about a queen, then you have to make someone queen 😉 ).

And what about their relationships?

I’m not entirely sure any of my ladies have what is generally considered a normal relationship…

Sure some of them got married and stuff, but the circumstances are a bit different.

In TUO I created the concept of the True Mate, which is basically the only partner a (wer)wolf can mate with and expect to conceive a (healthy) child, so some of the couples there are created through that concept, others defy it.

Thinking about it also made me realize that the love-arc in both TQW and TUO follow a similar pattern: Two people fall in love, but stuff and logical reasoning keeps them apart. It’s not innovative, but it fits the characters. They want to be together, but they also know that it’s not a good idea. And I think that’s also a pretty important point: Don’t force a relationship if it might end badly and you already have a bad feeling about it.

Talking about relationships means talking about sexual preferences and I have to admit that those have changed quite a bit over the years. When I first started working on TUO every character was straight, simply because I was forteen and I didn’t really know it any better.

Now I do and my characters come to a headcount of at least two bi, four lesbian (+ three side characters), one ace (and a transgender side character). It’s not much, but through this they no longer feel like something is missing and they’re not themselves. It just makes so much sense for them…

Special cases

Okay, let’s take a closer look at some of my ladies, all of which are minor lead characters, without giving too much away. I’d talk more about all of them, but then I wont be able to finish the post any time soon…

Rita Desmond (TUO)

Rita is a pure blooded Werwolf and therefore quite peculiar. She would do anything to preserve her species and is therefore not just a well trained doctor and genetics/racial history specialist, but also an executioner. She is also the head of a multi-species (different Therianthropes) asylum for strays.
One of her biggest flaws is that she loves what she is and gets pretty violent towards anyone calling her „human“ and she also looks down on them as the lesser species.

What I like about her: She is one of my few female asshole characters and it’s fun to write her badass side, but also her vulnerability.

Lihsa (TQW)

Lihsa is one of the queens maids and deeply loyal to her. Originating from a small village she came to the castle to become a member of the staff and over the years even became the right hand to the head cook (also female). She can be spunky, but also melancholy, challenging and thought provoking, but most of all: She knows what she wants. It’s not always easy for her to manage her (love) life in the castle, but she gains a certain wisdom from it that even makes the queen admire her for it.

What I like about her: That even though she always receives the bad end of something, she doesn’t lose hope and is strong enough to give something up that is important to her.

Rasha (NBWolf)

Like much of the story in general was Rasha not planned, but writing more about her makes me quite like her. She is one of the few human characters in the story and cares deeply for her wolf friends and lover. Yet at the same time is she a fierce protector of the law and striving to become a lawyer. She has a certain light headedness about her and manages to lighten the mood in almost every situation. Her big heart lets new people in easily and she accepts them as they are and wants to be accepted like that as well. Which isn’t really easy as human fiancée of a wolf, who doesn’t want to turn her(, yet).

What I like about her: Her optimistic personality that I’m still exploring. 😀

Girls, girls, girls

When creating my girls I don’t think about breaking gender roles, I pretty much let them tell me who they are. Sometimes they surprise (e.g. when I discovered that one of them liked girls, when I had already planned for her to get a boyfriend), sometimes it’s a transition of exploring different topics and seeing what fits for the character or how they would react to it.

It’s important to have a variety of characters in a story, just as we have in life.

Life is colourful and fiction should follow its example.

See you tomorrow, when I talk about finding names for my characters…

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: 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

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