Monthly Archives: September 2007

I’ve been reading Striptease for close to half a year, though it took until now before I finally read through all six years of its archives. While the early artwork is extremely cartoony, six years of constant updating has helped Chris Daily learn the tricks of the trade and resulted in an evolution of the characters into a more realistic art style. There are occasional usage of Cut-and-Paste in the artwork and backgrounds come and go as Daily pleases, but for the most part Striptease is one of the better black and white comics out there.

The story is a bit more convoluted. Much like Fragile Gravity, Striptease is a webcomic about people making a print comic. Naturally enough that’s not interesting enough a topic to concentrate on for long, so wild happenings occur. There has been evil twins, evil competing cartoonists, and other zaniness. There’s also been more realistic topics such as relationships (or the lack thereof), trust (again, or the lack thereof), and a expansion of the cast from the original three characters, Max, Emily, and Chip (though Chip was often used more for comic relief than as a serious part of the comic).

It was the introduction of Tommy as inker for the comic, and then fellow cartoonist Alli as Max’s competitor, friend, and love-interest, that started an explosion of characters and likewise a widening of the scope of stories for Striptease. It’s the side stories of these additional characters that has helped make the comic worth reading. Without these secondary characters and their stories, we’d likely be stuck in zany situation after zany situation. It is when the comic focuses on the more realistic side of things and the lives of Max and Emily’s friends that Striptease truly comes into its own.

It is rare that I review a comic right out of the gate. The pains of birth that the cartoonist goes through (in mapping out the comic, getting into a regular artistic schedule, learning the characters, and so forth) can cause even experienced cartoonists to give up and move onto other things. The shoals of hiatus are a threat even to experienced cartoonists, let alone new artists; the old Keenspace was filled with the stillborn remains of hundreds of comics that never even posted a single update, with the weight of preparing the comic having crushed the spark of imagination under its dread weight. But in many ways The Phoenix Requium was born months ago. Today was just its first actual update.

TPR is the brainchild of Sarah Ellerton, the cartoonist behind the award-winning fantasy epic Inverloch. Ellerton’s notes about the comic states it is a supernatural/horror comic set in an alternative Victorian England setting. Much like with Inverloch, TPR is planned to update with multiple pages (though Ellerton has not yet decided if she will update weekly or more frequently than that). This concept actually has considerable merit; a problem with epic stories such as Clan of the Cats and Megatokyo lies in the fact each page offers but a snippet of information, while Ellerton is able to draw scenes and increase the feel of momentum within her comic. Slower character-building parts work better because instead of dragging out through a half dozen updates, it can be done in one or two.

While TPR has but four story-pages and a cover page (and thus not really enough to reveal much plot or storyline without utilizing such overdone traditions as narrative exposition revealing back-story in a manner that often does more harm than good), what we see reveals enough to hook readers. The character wandering through snow-swept fields, struggling to reach civilization… something about him, and his thoughts at the end, these leave me wanting to know more about this man. Further, Ellerton has improved her artistic skills since the end of Inverloch; the trees at the start were so realistic I wondered at first if a photograph had been photoshopped in (a trick some cartoonists have utilized in the past). Even without Ellerton’s past acclaims, the use of silence to tell the tale and breathtaking artwork would have me waiting for more. Add in her prior work, and I have no choice but to recommend this comic.

We don’t often get to see stories that focus on Mab in Amber M. William’s popular anthropomorphic comic Dan and Mab’s Furry Adventures. Indeed, Amber seems to shy away from Mab-centric storylines, possibly due to Mab being a faerie (and thus tremendously powerful). Instead, the comic usually focuses on Dan and his issues, including the fact he’s an incubus… and on his training on how to use his powers (as well as looking at his fears that being an incubus means he’s a monster). Thus the recent storyline focusing on Mab is unique enough to stand out.

Even with the storyline being about Mab, we’ve seen remarkably little about her. Instead, we’ve had further complications to Jyrras’ own storyline and new issues he has to face (including a vengeful fae who believes his wife was snubbed by Jyrras and as a result has claimed vengeance at a future date). But the snippets we’ve seen have helped weave an interesting story about the fae. Thus the readers have learned that faeries live as long as they want. When they decide to die, their souls are reborn as new fae, and this is the only way new faeries are born.

Mab’s parents decided to pass on. While Mab’s dad has promised his soul to family friends, her mother is leaving the soul estate up to Mab herself… forcing Mab to return to the faerie kingdom and gift her mother’s soul to another fae. Up until now she seemed more annoyed by this than anything else… but today’s comic adds a sadder touch as Mab says goodbye to her mother as she steps away from this immortal coil. With Mab so often used for comedic relief and the like, it’s a fascinating touch… and a glimpse at the skill Amber has in character building that she can make even an all-powerful character remarkably human… and giving us a glimpse of the inner pain that drives all of us from time to time. It’s this characterization that makes DMFA worth reading, whether you’re a long-time fan or just now getting into the comic.

One of the benefits of having an ensemble cast is the ability to shift story perspectives. Often the process of fleshing out secondary characters helps bring about storylines that wouldn’t work if the point of view remained with the primary protagonist (if the comic has one). Shifting the point of view also helps bring a sense of freshness to the story and helps emphasize the fact the world doesn’t revolve around one or two key characters… but that in fact all of the characters have lives of their own… and stories well worth telling. Thus I was rather intrigued when Anne Onymous chose to shift the newest Wotch storyline from character-Anne to a little-used character of Mingmei.

Mingmei’s past is actually a fairly fascinating one, as she once was a middle-aged male teacher who, thanks to one of Anne’s miscast spells, ended up a teenaged oriental schoolgirl. This included a mental shift, though eventually Mingmei came to realize something was wrong, and after finally confronting Anne learned the truth (a truth that Anne also had no idea about). While some readers are critical about how so many male-to-female transformees have opted to remain women (and it’s a valid complaint), Mingmei chose to remain a girl for a much more logical reason: as Professor Sorgaz, he had no family, no friends, and no real life. By becoming Mingmei, he could live life again, and avoid the pitfalls that led to his previous dull existence.

Unfortunately, we’ve not seen too much of Sorgaz’s influences with Mingmei. Just how thorough the amalgamation has been, I’m unsure. However, with the recent discovery of the sentient slime and dimensional-stowaway Myrrh, and Anne’s own difficulties which are keeping her from even talking to her friend long enough for Mingmei to explain what’s happened, it seems likely that it’ll take the maturity of Sorgaz’s influences to help Mingmei deal with her newfound friend… a friend who doesn’t quite understand that the world she’s now in wouldn’t be that tolerant of sentient shape-shifting slimes, or of what actions are acceptable or unacceptable in her newly-adopted world. Undoubtedly Anne’s story and Mingmei’s little dilemma will merge in time, but in the meantime it’s a fun change from the usual Anne-centric storyline.