The first thing that struck me when visiting Moon Town was that although this is a new comic, it has a slick look and feel that makes it seem like it’s been here forever. There are veteran comics doing the rounds that don’t have the presentation Steve Ogden has managed in just shy of seven months.
The comic opens with a shot of one of the best-looking spaceships I’ve seen in a long time. Immediately we are presented with richly detailed art that draws you in from the opening page.
The ships look like there’s some depth to them. They look chunky; and I mean that in a good way. It’s the same with the characters: each has just enough detail to make them seem real, but they don’t lose that funky cartoon feel that makes this comic look so good.
The dialogue in Moon Town is as impressive as the artwork
The dialogue only serves to enhance the comic, too. From the docking station worker with his distinctive “Mornin’, luv” greeting (Which I instantly heard in a Lancastrian accent) to the annoying morning television presenter’s over-happy rhyming dialogue, every member of the cast feels not only distinctive, but real enough to take by the hand (or the throat, in the case of vid-jockey Triple Bee. You’d want to punch him too if he was what greeted you at 5.30am).
What’s not to like about this comic? Not a lot, quite frankly. It looks like it just stepped out of one of the post-punk British comics, like the modern issues of 2000AD, and this is no bad thing. There’s good design, snappy dialogue, and even an excellent choice of font (Eurocomic, from Blambot, which only serves to enhance the post-punk underground European comic feel that’s going on here).
If there’s anything to be derisive about, it can only really be the pacing. Each update gives around three panels of story, which usually takes up a second or two of story time. While reading through the archives this is not really a problem (unless you’re on a slow connection, in which case constantly pressing ‘next’ is going to really get on your nerves).
Yes that means the artist has more time to spend on the luscious detail and top-notch colouring but at the same time, it isn’t endearing me to come back every time the comic updates.
Because of the pacing, popping in once a week makes for better reading. Either that or wait for the print version; which it seems will not be long in coming now.
Moon Town is a fantastic new comic that definitely warrants your attention. With a little more comic in each update, this would be perfect but as it stands, it’s still worth visiting even if you’re not a science-fiction fan. The artwork alone is worth the bandwidth, and the well-executed characters will put many more established comics to shame.
The Continentals: A Review
It’s Victorian England, 1889, and London is still reeling from the aftermath of Jack the Ripper. Queen Victoria has ordered the creation of a new breed of investigator to ensure a murderous rampage of such magnitude and viciousness can never happen again. Enter, the Continentals: part Sherlock Holmes, part James Bond, part The Avengers.
The Continentals is a new web comic by Darryl Hughes (scripts) and Monique MacNaughton (art); who previously collaborated on G.A.A.K: Groovy Ass Alien Kreatures, nominated for the 2007 Glyph Comic Award. Together they have created a gripping storyline with superb artwork in the style of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Hughes’ scripts are wordy but not excessively so. He has managed in only a handful of pages (so far) to develop unique characters with their own clear personalities and mannerisms.
There is the eloquent Jeffrey Tiffen Smythe, a wordy Sherlock Holmes style of analytic detective; and the far more action-oriented Lady Fiona Fiziwigg, a Welsh fishwife who married a Lord (now deceased) and spends her time pushing Smythe’s buttons while acting like Lara Croft. Together they form a somewhat competent detective duo, with their differing skills working well in the pursuit of criminals.
What initially drew the acclaim of many in the webcomic community was not the scripts but McNaughton’s amazing artwork. It’s no exaggeration to say this stands well above the majority of what passes for art in the average web-published comic.
Each page leaps from the screen, with every character and background rendered in a level of detail is generally seen only in print comics. If this is not picked up for publication by the likes of Dark Horse, it will be a surprise.
However, the pacing of the comic is likely to be a major turn-off for its potential audience. As Hughes himself has remarked on The Webcomic List Forum, a popular gathering point for webcomic creators, the comic’s once-a-week update schedule means the story moves ahead at a snail’s pace.
Anyone coming to the comic afresh will find plenty to read but once the archives are exhausted, even visiting once a month only garners four more pages. When the plot moves slowly, this means a long wait between interesting plot points.
The overall design of the website leaves a lot to be desired, too. There has never been a real convention on how a webcomic should be displayed so it is essentially up to the creator how they want to present their work. Nevertheless, certain things are generally expected by readers and one of those is that the comic be the focus of the site. The Continentals falls down flat on this major point – the comic is not even visible on a 1024×768 display without scrolling down!
If you’re new to the comic and want to jump to the first page so you can read it in order, it’s best not to press the ‘First’ button (which is not displayed beneath the comic but, instead, beneath any comments left by readers; another problem in its own right) because that takes you to the first of many ‘preview’ pages, detailing the background to the story.
This is all excellent material which is well worth reading, but it’s not the background info most readers come for, it’s the comic. To get to the first page, you have to click on a separate link.
It is a well-written, well-drawn comic that is rightly deserving of the critical appraise it has already garnered, but it suffers from poor site design and a slow update schedule.
