My initial read was a little confusing. There were odd names, people dressed in furs and mecha all in one big bucket. It evened out for me when I made the connection to Norse mythology. If you aren’t familiar with it, the basic story is that people fight giants but they all die in the end. It’s very tragic. Usually the people are good and the giants bad but this is switched in Edenworld and the story is told from the giant’s perspective.

The Norns are the people at war with the giants, otherwise known as the Jotun. They dress in furry viking style and are armed with hand weapons that have high tech built in. In the first chapter, there seems to be a knife that is able to easily cut into one of the Jotun’s armor and even burns a bit. Mostly, I saw spears but they had all kinds of tech tricks to draw upon.

The Jotun are long lived giant mechs complete with their own high tech gizmos. They look to be at least twenty feet tall and they seem to be mostly machine. In true Viking style, the Jotun raid the Norns for their supplies, including much needed fine metal ores not available anywhere else. The Jotun have tried to avoid injuring the Norn and they’ve tried to sneak around to (more or less) keep the fragile peace.

The story starts off with a Jotun raid and continues with a rescue operation. We see both sides trying to pick up the pieces. The Norns hatch a daring sort of raid of their own and it mostly succeeds, putting the Jotun in a bad place. Then a new sinister threat to both the Norns and Jotun emerges and there is great personal cost to pay by the time you read up to the present.

The art is top notch with great character (and creature) design. It looks like pencil with photoshop tones all used to good effect. In particular, the tones are used to direct your eye toward and highlight the most important part of each panel. The viewing angles and layouts have nice variety. An interesting choice was having very thin gutters.

I also dug the little details and well drawn bits even though some of the lines can be faint or carry a slight sketch look to them. The city downshots really have the sci-fi vibe and the pencils carry just the right amount of detail. Here’s an example of not too much detail. It took me a second to figure out what the object is and it adds something very meaningful to the story. You’ll need to read the story to fully grasp the significance, sorry.

While the action scenes during the spring 2008 run were hard to follow and some of the word balloon placements were a little distracting, I would still have given Edenworld five stars. However, it was difficult to understand what was going on in the comic (in general) without reading every scrap of information on the website and it had the occasional curse word. Aside from these nitpicks, I give Edenworld four stars.Rating:

Edenworld Saga
http://www.edenworldsaga.com
art and story by Chris Crontiris
edited by Jason Lanum
review by Delos
(4 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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Note: Being that this is my last review for Comic Fencing, I just wanted to say thanks for reading.

There are a lot of comics with talking animals. This one takes the idea one step further. Picture today’s world, except that humans left the planet and the animals have taken advantage of our absence. One of the crucial things to know is that the natural predator and prey relationship still exists

Kevin is the six foot tall rabbit and Kell is his wife, a wolf. No, not everyone approves of this taboo marriage but they make it work. And there are a number of other immediate characters including a rabbit-wolf hybrid, a wolf boy and the hedgehog who was raised as a porcupine. You’ll be tickled to know that these are just Kevin and Kell’s children. There are also clones, wolves in sheep’s clothing and even some who have gone through “predator to prey reassignment surgery.” You’ll excuse me if I don’t go into specifics due to the sheer amount of history and interaction these characters have had. Invariably, I would have missed something that should have been metioned and I doubt I could condense the well written About page down to anything less. For those who might enjoy background information about the comic and how it is made, you can also read the unofficial faq.

What I will tell you is that there is a nice mix of topics including family strife, daily living and societal mores. I found all of it well done and interesting to follow. It’s all done in bite sized chunks so despite there being a large archive it was fun to read. I was pretty impatient waiting for each comic to load up, actually.

I am especially fond of comics that follow their own world-rules to their logical conclusions. If, for example, we were divided into predator and prey groups: we would have social rules about who is considered food and what they can do about it. You might expect this to have an obvious solution but it is not quite as simple as that. Interestingly, they all feel it’s cheating to use weapons like guns - that’s why they have fangs or camoflage ability, after all. But then that leads to how society defines crimes like murder? Is a wolf eating deer murder? Sometimes when we switch out the details of real life with other elements we find that our personal views on things need further examination. I find that sort of thing interesting.

But I digress from the overall lighthearted tone of Kevin & Kell. Most strips revolve around the different approaches that animals would take as opposed to humans. If everything in the garden is edible, then the weeds could be likened to snacks or special treats. Then there is also the (unofficially titled) Great Bird Conspiracy, Carnivore University, the Herd Thinning corporation and other animal-twists that I found very amusing as well.

The art has great lines with very dynamic qualities. You really get the sense of movement when a character jumps or drops something. Even the little carnivorous bunny always seems to be chewing on a bone, not just holding it in her mouth. The color adds a lot of visual and emotional depth to the comic as well.

Overall, Kevin & Kell is a well done and very entertaining.

Rating:

Kevin & Kell
http://www.kevinandkell.com
by Bill Holbrook
review by Delos
(No Ratings Yet)

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8-bit has (at this time) over one thousand comics. That can be a bit intimidating to new readers but don’t let it worry you. You can jump in pretty much anywhere and run with it.

Here’s what you should probably know; don’t take this comic seriously. Secondly, the FAQ explains that the essence of the storyline is the standard video game plot: “the good guys go beat the bad guys.” 8-bit more or less follows this easy to grasp concept although I do have a bit of an issue with one little thing. I have a hard time telling exactly who all the good guys are in the cast. Sure, a couple of them are better than the others but I didn’t see any truly good guys.

The four main characters are the predestined Light Warriors, “who are the least-enabled (or inclined) to save the world.” I found that very amusing and it certainly adds a unique spin on the video game comic idea. Who are these four characters? I did not have time to read and digest every comic, so I relied on wikipedia to give me a basic idea about them.

Starting with Black Mage Evilwizardington, who hates everyone on the planet, wields destructive magic and has a split conscience of evil and is atrociously evil. His goals are to acquire more power and kill off his fellow Lightwarriors. Nice, huh? He is so evil and selfish that the description doesn’t really do him justice.

Fighter McWarrior (picture shows two costumes) heals quickly even from lethal injuries and is a very skilled swordsman. He is trained to use more than two swords at once but actually has sword-chucks which he uses to stunning effect. Naturally, he has a sword fixation and a heroic streak which allows him to ignore his “best friend in the world” Black Mage - who specifically likes to use Fighter as a “meat shield” out of pure contempt.

Thief is an kleptomaniac elf who serves as the leader, due to his penchant for trickery and legal contracts. He talked Fighter into signing over the leadership of the Light Warriors to him. He doesn’t usually fight unless it’s an ambush, though his ninja class gives him some martial skills. He tends to rely on his wits, cunning and his ability to steal anything not nailed down or on fire.

Red Mage is a delusional character who acts like he’s a powergaming roleplayer. Adding to that, he is unafraid to modify his character sheet and even ‘forgets to write down’ lethal damage - and thus surviving. He often creates overcomplicated plans which surprisingly do work out sometimes despite obvious flaws. No matter, Red Mage prides himself on being versatile and thinks his plans as always foolproof.

There are other characters and enemies - all of which have a variety of facets to them. The characters are what make this strip. 8-bit is full of wisecracking comments that are pretty hilarious; especially if you used to play eight-bit games with your smack talking friends. Here’s an example where Black Mage tries to get the Dark Warriors (dire enemies of the Light Warriors) to hire him.

Practically every comic was amusing on its own but I had a very hard time piecing an overall storyline together from them. There were short “mission” story arcs, of course, but the main story of “good guys go beat the bad guys” serves as a backdrop more than anything else. This can be a feature or a failure, depending on your preference for story.

Overall, this is a gag comic with a little 8-bit nostalgia, great dialog and a catchy sprite cast. Lack of time and the lack of overall story made it difficult for me to push through the archive, but your opinion may vary.

Rating:

8-bit Theater
http://www.nuklearpower.com/latest.php
by Brian Clevenger
review by Delos
(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

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What’s not to like about School Spirit? It has cricket, Australian history lessons and family friendly humor. The strip is centered on a blond, quiet kid named Casper. His friend Cody helps him get into trouble, but is otherwise a good kid. You’ll also meet Davey Jones and the glamorous sisters Liberty and Pandora. Then there is Grace the tomboy, Brylcreem the smart kid and the popular Chastity round out the child characters.

Mr. Kelly is the forgetful principal of the school (who really likes the cursive writing.) Miss Conway is the iron willed teacher who commands respect from each and every student. One of my favorite characters is Mavis the unstoppable bus driver. So far, this probably sounds a lot like a standard kid comic with a bunch of kids at school, right?

Well, it’s not. School has a bunch of ghosts spirits that reside in the graveyard next to the school. There’s a little girl named Wendy, Old Bill the grandfatherly groundskeeper, a soldier from World War I and the grump named Fos. Only certain kids can see them but that doesn’t stop them from getting into mishief.

School is written by a grade school teacher who gets much of his inspiration from them. As a result, the strip has a real sense of honesty about it. Even though it has fantastic elements in it, School is about those things we really like about people and our normal daily concerns. That might include finding friends, getting lost or even deep things like how to deal with death. We can all easily relate to the characters in the strip. There are also some recurring gags that regular readers will enjoy.

Another nice things is that while the storylines don’t drag, they aren’t pushed either. There’s no desperate rush to finish a story, so we get a little side trip once in a while. I’m a big fan of that. I liked the “meanwhile, here’s an aside” that happened here. The characters even take time to comment on a review. I found that amusing.

The art stays consistent and looks good. However, I liked the Olympic Special and this one with their added textures. It adds a little pizazz.

I liked checking out the extra content as well. Sometimes you’ll find a cast page that tells you so much that you don’t actually need to read the strip. School Spirit’s cast page gives you the best character descriptions I’ve seen in a long time. I also liked the wooden desktop background and the ruler engraved with the comic navigation. Props are deserved for including the co-creator’s name on the site, even though he’s no longer on the bus, so to speak.

Also, we drongos can really use the Strine dictionary so thoughtfully provided. It’s all easily explained - Strine is ’short’ for Australian, so to speak. Many of the terms I have seen before while others are new. I don’t believe anyone should have a problem following along.

Hooroo and avagooweegend! Rating:

School Spirit
by Daniel Vander Werff
http://www.schoolspiritcomic.com
review by Delos
(No Ratings Yet)

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I started off last week’s review by saying that I was glad that comic had a short archive because reading it felt endless. This week, I feel the opposite. I would gladly have pushed through an archive four times as long as “Night Owls” currently sports; even with a weak wireless signal slowing down the loading of the flash pages, reading this comic went way too fast.

This is the kind of story I love. I’ve been a fan of the old pulp novels for as long as I can remember – toss me a Doc Savage or Shadow story, I’m usually sucked right in. Night Owls is firmly entrenched in that genre, and also has tongue lodged firmly in cheek.

It would be easy for the Timony brothers to let their lead character be the classic pulp type: someone like Clark Savage or Lamont Cranston, or even DC Comics’ venerable but virtually unknown Doctor Occult (created, like Superman, by Siegel and Shuster). Someone strong, stalwart, silent. A real macho man. Instead, they make Ernest Baxter the opposite: he is scrawny, bookish, talkative to a fault. A sensitive man. He’d rather analyze a situation than fight, but he will fight if he has to (as evidenced by his quickly lost throw-down with a gang of vampires). He’s likable, and has an interesting flaw: he’s allergic to sunlight. Take that piece of information and assume what you will; I won’t spoil anything here.

They do populate the rest of the cast with classic types, but often with a slight twist that keeps “classic” from being “complete stereotype.” Baxter’s Gal Friday, Mindy Markus, could go toe-to-toe with her contemporaries Lois Lane, Margo Lane, Rose Psychic and Patricia Savage and hold her own just fine – it’s a fine tradition of scrappy women but Mindy deviates from the stereotype by being more physically involved in the cases than Baxter and pretty much never playing the damsel in distress. Roscoe is a play on the classic street-bruiser type, and I can imagine him playing poker with Savage’s Monk Mayfair, The Shadow’s cab-driver Shreevy, and Green Lantern’s cabbie “Doiby” Dickles … the nice twist being Roscoe is a gargoyle, not just an excitable New Yorker (some readers will say there’s no difference between the two). There is of course the close police contact reminiscent of Jim Gordon and Joe Cardona, although in Night Owls he is also the strong, somewhat silent type that Baxter is not. Since Night Owls has only been around for about 61 pages, there hasn’t been the time to develop a real rogues gallery, but Doctor You, who steals other people’s faces in order to commit his crimes, has the potential to be Baxter’s John Sunlight, Shiwan Khan or Joker … or perhaps an interesting mix of all three. There are other potentially-recurring bad-guys as well: Big Eagle Eye (a mythical creature) and that aforementioned gang of vampires.

The art is smooth, stylish, definitely what would have been on the pages of the Sunday comics in the 20s or in the pages of More Fun or Detective Comics in the late 30s. The characters don’t all blend together, the backgrounds are detailed, the panels are distinct and varied enough to keep each page interesting. The story looks good in black and white, as befits the era. They refer to each section of the series as a season, but I think it’s more fair to equate it to the Saturday morning serials: it doesn’t dwell on any particular story for long, keeping the action moving and tossing off one-liners regularly as page-enders.

I give Night Owls four stars. Definitely adding it to my list of regular reads, even though the Zuda site often gives my laptop fits of apoplexy. Rating:

Peter and Robert Timony’s “Night Owls”

http://zudacomics.com/the_night_owls

reviewed by Anthony R. Cardno
(3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)

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Today, September 19th, is Talk Like A Pirate Day. Everyone loves pirates. And robots. And aliens. And breakdancing. You get all this and more with Here There Be Robots.

It begins with two aliens; Oscar is in command and Rob is his security officer. They are on a diplomatic mission (of sorts) to earth. As they settle into a stationary orbit, they play a human trivia boardgame. Suddenly, their ship is attacked by earth creatures. Sort of.

They crash into the building where the robots are planning their world takeover. There’s a little, tiny mishap with the landing gear and the earth is destroyed. Conveniently, they turn up hundreds of years earlier onboard a pirate ship - in the brig. Rob and Oscar explain it nicely in this comic. Thanks to Rob, they manage to escape the brig and the ship in full piratical disguise. And so their adventures begin.

Perhaps it’s the cartoon style, but the figures are not always drawn consistently in proportion and silhouette. However, after a second glance, you can usually tell who is who due to their costumes and other details. I mention that because it’s clear that someone on the Gregory & Gregory team can draw.

Also, aside from cover pieces, Here There Be Robots is done purely in black and white until you get to this comic. And then it goes back to black and white. The color helps the clarity of the comic significantly.

The black and white linework does fit the concept of Here There Be Robots nicely, though. There is also a tremendous amount of period detail to look at, which contributes to the historical/literary elements we expect from pirate stories. The spot blacks and gritty looking ink effects also add a filthy, filthy vibe to the comic. It’s a nice effect.

It complements the lightness of the comic. The dialog is funny and there is a theme of chaos with sudden plunges into doom. Fortunately, the aliens and robots are pretty hardy and they seem to find a way to keep going and entertain us.

I’m using a new way to assign rating stars. Here There Be Robots is a good example of a four star comic; it’s good and fine for what it does but not quite over the top. I’ve read it a number of times and I was entertained each time. Rating:

Here There Be Robots
http://randompiratecomics.net/webpages/herethereberobots/issue01_01.htm
by Jonah & Jeremy Gregory

Review by Delos Woodruff

(3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)

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