mcDuff's reviewalicious thread

[TellTaleHeart]

Dream was clearly using Reverse Polish Notation. It might have worked too, if it weren't for the fact that McDuffies is Serbian, not Polish.

[McDuffies]

ummm... is this still going? I know this question has already been asked, but it feels like its been abandoned...
And I think my comic was next in line, too...

Abandoned, already? Man, can't a guy take a break a few days to sort out some personal things? And I need to read comics too, not just flip through them. These reviews went speedy because most of comics happened to have short archives, but please don't nudge me when a huge archive like "Out there" happens to be next in turn.
Incidentally, your comic is not next in line. Avernyght is next in line, which I've written, I only need to edit it some.

[Rcmonroe]

please don't nudge me when a huge archive like "Out there" happens to be next in turn.

Indeed. McDuffies doesn't owe anybody a review, so exercizing patience seems to be in order.

[Mvmarcz]

Yeah, when I posted I just wanted to make sure people were still checking it since McDuffies had been the last poster at that point

[McDuffies]

It's no big deal folks. I promised reviews and I feel obligated to deliver them in reasonable time. But since it's just another forum fun, I'm doing it on my own terms.

[McDuffies]

And now back on topic:

why not
http://www.avernyght.com

Oh dear, I promised to write a story for this comic. But then I couldn't make time for a while, until I finally forgot. I feel ashamed.
But having read some concepts and early stories from it, I know a bit more about how much of effort is put into the comics and some of original concepts. And while it's interesting to see what the final result is and how much it differs from the concept, I might see it a bit different than an average viewer... I caught myself a few times, realising that I knew something that an average viewer wouldn't know if he hadn't read auxiliary pages beforehand. Which I usually don't do.

"The Chronicles of Avernyght" is a work of highly personal vision, it is nominally a fantasy comic but it leans towards a fairytale imagery rather than Tolkenian fantasy. Concepts like wizards, elves, swords and rings, are replaced by puppet-like creatures, evil queens and dreams. Atmosphere of the comic reminds of "Little Nemo in slumberland" more than any other comic.
Another shift from the usual is that "Avernyght" is a sort of anthology comic, telling many unrelated stories set all over the land, instead of focusing on one storyline - therefore the stereotypical "big quest" story is avoided, and wonderfully, there's no mention of the "chosen one". Generally, the comic avoids a lot of cliches related to fantasy.
(unknown to ordinary reader since the story is still on it's first story)

What "Averynight" is best at, actually what it excells in, is visual side. Visual solutions are very creative and idiosyncratic, and it's as though every character has been meticulosly designed with particular idea in mind. Visual solutions are often supported by background story, but I do think that their main nature is visual and atmospheric. For instance, while there are some explanations why main characters resemble rag puppets with distinctive stitches across their heads, none of them seems to matter compared to what effect this design has on how we see the comic: it's turning everything into a big stage of some puppet theatre, and scenographies like the one where sky and earth touch in the background in almost artificial manner, seems to help this impression.
Sky-patterned queen is, of course, the most impressive evample of creative force at hand, but it competes with others, like Whist with her scribble-patterned skirt.

There are, of course, bad sides, and one is related to clarity.
For start, author has to constantly remind herself that she has lived in this world for a while, while reader has yet to be introduced to it. What goes to her without saying, might bare a proper explaining to the reader. Now, I always attack overexplaining and advocate leaving some mystery, some things for reader to wild-guess and to fill holes with his own imagination, making him more involved into the comic. Artist, however, has to be aware how this affects the reader, because line between mystery and total confusion might be thin. In this scene, for instance, reader is still not aware of exact role dreams have in this society, and he is confused by what "it was her dream" comment has to do with anything. He might wild-guess, or he might understand it later if he rereads the comic, but artist has to be aware what exact impression she wants to leave.
But one thing that, I believe, artist shouldn't rely on, is that reader will read auxiliary pages and go through all the text explaining the world. I do think that comics should be self-explanatory, and that additional stuff on site should be there only as a bonus for those who can't get enough (though here, it is there for potential collagorators too).

But that's not exactly what I meant when I mentioned clarity.
Take character's faces, for instance. So much details put into design elements (stitches, etc) that sometimes they'll obscure their facial characteristics. Not that eyes and mouth are invisible, but they aren't the first thing we notice on those heads. Therefore we need a second look to realise what character's expression is.
I start wondering whether there is such thing as too much invention. Definitely, in particularly inventive concepts, there has to be something ordinary too, some kind of common ground for a reader to start from. Here, in some scenes you'll see many barely human-looking characters, including queen who due to her black appearance and indistiguishable body parts inevitably brings some confusion - then there'll be sometimes equally otherworldly backgrounds, then the facts about the world which we've only began to understand, and on top of it, blackened speech baloons and even sometimes uneven, curly frame borders - when many unusual elements like these happen in one place, they threaten to cause confusion, and there were definitely a few places in a comic where I had to guess what happened from the context.

There first story is in progress, and I feel that the plot is somewhat undeveloped. To illustrate - if you try to give a short recap of this plot, you realise that there is not much else to say, other than what is in this short recap. Story doesn't branch, digress, or take it's time to get us to know all those unknown things we are encounter. To tell the true, storytelling is more similar to a short story than to an epic novel, and that's understandable if the comic is indeed a collection of stories. But still, I felt that storyteller is mostly concearned about the world, and only after that in characters: to tell these events that will (apparently) have historical significance in the world of Avernyght, seems more important to her than getting us to know acters of the story, or to involve their personal perspectives. That might be the major drawback of the comic and it may make a comic a lot less interesting than it deserves.
This might be an issue related only to this story though, since after all it's an introduction. "Cronicles of Averynight" is on a good start to be something different, though there are still some things to smooth out (mostly in plotting department) if it wants to reach it's full potential.

[Mvmarcz]

I'm a bit confused by what you mean when you say the plot is underdeveloped. I do realize that this first comic is what one would describe it as...or at least I describe it as "A slave who is banished for helping a friend tries to free his people". And there isn't much else to it. It's very short, it's almost over in fact.... If I wanted to make it a longer comic I could flesh out alot of things but I think the things worth fleshing out, like certain characters, are going to get their own stories and moments after this one is over(the next short story is about Whisp for example and Uber is going to have a much larger role in another story, as are the three other regular sized Dauls that are helping Poppett).
I'd also like to say that the catalog isn't really supposed to be read to understand the world. In fact it pretty much only exists for collaborators and myself to keep things straight and not tangled up. I just made it available for people who want to read it. I deliberately avoid exposition but try to be clear via context. I understand that the Dream issue might be confusing, but in what I assume you were referencing was this page(the link was the same for both examples you gave but the line you mentioned is said here) he is simply pointing out possession as she already tells the readers she made it here. Ah well things to work toward to the future....love the smell of progress

[Boozeathon4billion]

He said he was taking a break a while back. I assume he'll get back to it. Then again, maybe not. We might have dodged the bullet, eh?

[McDuffies]

Hahah, boozeathlon didn't notice the last page.

I'm a bit confused by what you mean when you say the plot is underdeveloped.

Just what you said later, only a reader, at this point, has only this one story to judge by.

I'd also like to say that the catalog isn't really supposed to be read to understand the world. In fact it pretty much only exists for collaborators and myself to keep things straight and not tangled up. I just made it available for people who want to read it. I deliberately avoid exposition but try to be clear via context. I understand that the Dream issue might be confusing, but in what I assume you were referencing was this page(the link was the same for both examples you gave but the line you mentioned is said here) he is simply pointing out possession as she already tells the readers she made it here. Ah well things to work toward to the future....love the smell of progress

I see to be messing up links often. Anyways, glad to hear it, I was not criticizing so much as reminding of possible consequences.

[McDuffies]

I feel like reading some comics, so I thought I might as well make it worthwhile. Anyone who wants me to review his comic, post here.
Thought I don't intend to hold back any punches, so those with lower self-esteem be warned: i can be very harsh.

I'm game, if a large archive (nearing 700 strips) doesn't put you off.

I have to say that I think that "Out there" is currently one of best comics on Keenspot - on ever pageviews-conscious 'Spot, it's not shooting for any internet niche, it's more mature and less pop-culture obsessed than most of things there. Two and a half years of 6x a week updates are an easy read - you don't so much burrow through archives as slide through them, thanks to interesting characters and fun dialogue.

When talking about "Out there", we have to divide it in two phases. First one covers the trip of Miriam and John towards her new home, and this part is so impressive that long after it's over, we think of the comic as a road-comic.
Like all the best road-movies (road-comics are rare), it uses the trip as a stage, and metaphore, for internal, self-discovery journey. Characters nominally want to go sight-seeing, but what they really want is some time to think.

Main reason why this part of the comic works so well is, I think, strong chemistry between two characters, both of whom are played very close to the edge of being obnoxious an unlikeable. But Miriam, while reckless and overly fun-loving, is a character that really tries to be better; constantly in fight with herself, and if she loses the battle, it makes us more sympathetic. Exact oposite, John is solemn, guru-like and rooted in reason, and the only thing that keeps him from being smug is his ambivalence - he plays the role only when pushed by other characters who seem to need such figure around them. Yet there is something obsessive about him*.
The deal with this chemistry, it's not the usual reckless vs responsible duality. These two characters are on exact oposite ends of the scale, on which normal responsible person would be a middle, and one of main dualities seem to be action vs observation.

Paralelly with this story, people in city are waiting for Miriam's arrival, and getting to know each other on their own. This storyline works almost independently, because while Miriam and John never appear in it, they are constant center of attention. They work like a sort of mcguffin characters, and one has impression that he could get to know them through this storyline only, as if their shadows are lingering there.
These two storylines, I think, balance each other. The "open road", dynamic nature of one contrast with static and almost hermetic mise-en-scene of the bar in which most of the second happens.

Further, while "Out there" is obviously dialogue-driven comic, imagery in this this chapter is carefully chosen. Image of Miriam driving her convertible with her hair flapping around is, with it's often repeating, almost iconic, an image we'll remember the comic by, and inevitably symbolic (although we could argue further what exactly it symbolizes). Similar could be said for scenes like drunken camping.

This opening trip lasts for a rather long time, detailing over each little event or conclusion from it, and we can see that Miriam keeps delaying actual arrival. But it never bothers us, and I think that one reason for that is, we know that what happens after the trip, will inevitably be anticlimatic, even dissapointing.

And yeah, I think that the closest description to what happens after the arrival is seting into a rut. It doesn't turn bad and lose it's basic qualities like good drawing or clever dialogues and characters - it loses those elements which made the comic excelling and unique, those that I've named earlier. Before, it was a comic about people wondering and occasionally (though not as often as I'd liked) brushing onto some universal truth, now it was quickly turning into a "bunch-of-friends-hanging-out", "who-loves-who" setup that we see in webcomics so often.

For one, that strong Miriam/John chemistry is lost as more characters enter the picture and two of them (specially John) aren't as central as they were - they are rarely ever in the same scene anymore. Duality of dynamic and static storylines is gone, and most of action is now happening in an ordinary, stereotypical bar.
Art is still good, with stylish character designs, respect for textures and constantly fighting with it's 5-panel comic strip layout, skillfully avoiding "talking heads" - but there is no more visual "punch", no more strong thematic iconography I was talking about. An attempt to give a different "punch" is given through Miriam's clothing and poses as her body becomes centerpiece of the stage very often - which is no doubt well-suited since it grows out of her character as exibitionist character (sort of) who ends up always being a center of attention - but somehow that's not enough.
Finally, there is an issue of pacing, which has been decidedly slow from the beginning: the road that took several days was elaborated for months, and similar tempo is kept later, but it doesn't work anymore. You know how some days are so eventful that it seems like they last forever, and then next days seem to pass quickly... first part of the comic represented several such days, but when the eventful journey was over, it was supposed to return to normal, working days. Instead, pacing remained the same.
The effect of this was, I feel, one of going nowhere. During the first part, something was always happening, regarding either us getting to know characters, them getting to know themselves, or something else. In later part, we sometimes feel that nothing's happening in character's lives, that the comic isn't progressing, developing - then we'll realise that we're talking about a very short time span, but slow pacing made it seem longer.

Theme of journey remains, perhaps as light-mothive, but following journeys don't do much in development of the story and relations, instead often puting them on hold, being mere mirrors of the opening journey. I'm womdering what the comic would look like if the story was told mostly in a series of road trips, minimizing time spent in the city. Dunno how that would turn out, maybe it'd be a bore, maybe it'd be something unique.

There are some other minor complaints: character of Chuck is underdeveloped. For an important role of boyfriend of main character, we can't describe him any closer than as a "nice guy". Even initially one-dimensional characters like Clayton eventually gain depth, but he doesn't.
On a related topic, there seems to be a pattern of reasonable characters, able to tolerate Miriam's whims and to like her despite them, reasonable and trusting and all... come to think of it, they seem like slightly different versions of Chuck. These include Cherry's musician ex boyfriend, Walter, and Chuck himself, who all seem to act similar, talk similar, accept Miriam's act in a similar manner, only with some minor differences in character descriptions. Not that one should overdo drama and conflict, and I guess something does need to balance Miriam's characters, but it's starting to be unconvincing and repetitive.
Finally, I think that jokes about Miriam's alchocolism (single most often source of punchlines) are being overdone.

Do not get me wrong, "Out there" is still a good comic. It has mature writing and mature, unintrusive humor. It is drawn skillfully, cute but not too cute. It is a rare real-life webcomic that isn't about geeks, gamers and pop-culture obsessives. It has much more knowledge of a social life of average adult people - for instance it anknowledges kinds of evening fun other than throwing a big house party. But it is "good", and the stage was set for "great".

*Of course, I know exactly what John's backstory is: he grew up in a family of parents with university education, with one brother. When he was in his early twenties, his mother died after a long illness, which distressed him greatly as he was very close to her. He studied two colleges: medicine, which he addmitedly started hoping to help his illing mother, and never finishing it; and classic piano, in which he hopes to have a career one day. In a set of circumstances, almost unwillingly and thanks to his positive character, he became an extremely popular tv celebrity, and now he is roaming the country, far from places where people reckognize him, hoping to return when people forget him.

[Warofwinds]

Wow, McDuffies! You're not merely back, but back with a passion!

yay.

[Eve Z.]

http://www.evezworld.com/Synthetic%20Life/

*crosses fingers*

[Rcmonroe]

Thank you for a thoughtful and insightful review, McDuff. Your comments are valuable to me. Definitely worth the wait.

I usually link to my reviews, but I don't want to link to a forum thread. Do you mind if I create an html page with your review on it to include in my site?

*Of course, I know exactly what John's backstory is: he grew up in a family of parents with university education, with one brother. When he was in his early twenties, his mother died after a long illness, which distressed him greatly as he was very close to her. He studied two colleges: medicine, which he addmitedly started hoping to help his illing mother, and never finishing it; and classic piano, in which he hopes to have a career one day. In a set of circumstances, almost unwillingly and thanks to his positive character, he became an extremely popular tv celebrity, and now he is roaming the country, far from places where people reckognize him, hoping to return when people forget him.

Okay, works for me. Help me out with some more info about his brother; I've been looking for a character to build a new comic strip around.

[McDuffies]

I usually link to my reviews, but I don't want to link to a forum thread. Do you mind if I create an html page with your review on it to include in my site?

I don't mind.

Okay, works for me. Help me out with some more info about his brother; I've been looking for a character to build a new comic strip around.

His brother is less interesting than him. I was just saying biography of first Serbian "Big brother" winner who fascinated the nation by his... well, similarity with John's character.

[McDuffies]

Mine should be pretty easy to review... its just a single frame, random thing I come up with on/before update days. It can be pretty hit or miss but I'd enjoy having it ripped apart by someone other than myself.

There's a sort of old wisdom among comic authors, which says that ideas are worth practically nothing.
Take this example: you must have been occasionally approached by people who offered you ideas for comics. Many times, these ideas are completely worthless. Most of times, they might be useful to some other author, who is not you. If the person who gives the idea is more of a loony case, he'll say things like "let's make a comic: my idea, your execution, we split money 50-50", or "this idea is so great, it's guaranteed to make you very popular". I myself was offered ideas that were "sure to win" a few times - it can be really awkward.
Second example might be when a young author is afraid to show his comics to anyone for fear of having his ideas stolen. This ranges from those who are afraid to show their work to more experienced artists, to those who write to publishers asking for a contract before they send them any of their work. And then of course there are those crazy lawsuits, the kind of "Matrix was stolen from me because I once wrote a story about a guy who dressed black and wore dark glasses" and such. Experienced authors usually reply with something like "if you have only one idea, then you aren't really a material for writer. If you have more, then you can spare."
But anyone who's passed baby steps of writing knows that ideas, if not worthless, are certainlyy worth much less than 50%, that working those ideas into a finished comic is a lot of work, and that the way the story is told can make a whole difference. You can rewrite a Shakespeare play and make it into a valuable work of your own, or you can have ideas pop to you every single day, and never get yourself to sit down and do something with them.
But somehow, other people seem to often think that once you get initial idea, everything else is just easy craftmanship. They neglect all the work that has to be done.

"boozeathlon4billion" is basically all ideas and no buildup. This is a one-panel non-narrative kind of comic, and most of it's body is not actual gags with observations and punchlines, but presentation of some weird situations. Ie, "what would it be like if" kind of situations. Described, shown, but never elaborated or built upon. With symplicist art and dialogue, I can say that there is very little in a comic, apart from initial ideas.

This grown old first, and we naturally wonder what those situations would be like if they were expanded upon. For instance, if each one was dedicated a page instead of one panel. If characters were allowed to be affected by those situations, and to actually be characters. If we could see more of consequences of those situations. Author obviously treasures little ideas that pop into his head very much, but there's a load of missed oportunities and unused possibilities if he only brushes against them for one panel.
I believe that elaboration on them would make a comic more interesting. As it is, I think that it has appeal only to those very like-minded to the author. Downside of this suggestion, obviously, is that it would take a lot more work and a lot less casual approach to it.

"boozeathlon4billions" is, 'course, a non-narrative, one-panel comic and those are kind of thankless, as they have no continuity, character development, or all those things that usually hook readers. It's thankless for author too, since he has nothing to rely on but his own sence of humor - which is a very subjective thing. For me, gags here ranged from "worth a chuckle" to "obvious", to "groan-inducing bad". Some comics rely on being funny because they're weird, but my reaction is just "eh, I've seen weirder".
Lots of times I had to rely on newspost above the comic to clear things out. It was not that I didn't understand a comic, it was just that I didn't understand why particular idea was expected to be funny or amusing. Latest comic illustrates this well: it has a guy eating cereal from a box and the joke seems to be that he's too lazy to open the box - not actually worth lifting the pen. In newspost above, author explains that he is, in fact, lactose intolerant. Now we see why this joke is funny to the author and not to us - because he didn't tell us the funniest part, the twist. The whole idea was funny to him, but he didn't realize why, so he couldn't replicate it. He didn't give us the context which made it funny.
So while the comic is nominally self-reliant, you often need some clarification from news-posts. As most of people know, I usually don't read newsposts since I'm always interested in a comic, and never in author's personal life, and I usually expect the comic to be self-explanatory.

Art is one step above stickman. Early on it was done with a mouse, but lately with a tablet, still maintaining the same simplicity. People will usually say that if art is so simple, it needs very good script to make up for it. I don't think so, I think that no matter how good the script is, it won't make up for art. If author wants art this simple, he has to integrate it into comic's concept, to manage to turn this simplicity to his favour. Basically to make it so that there's a purpose to this simplicity. For better or worse, extreme sketchiness of "boozeathlon4billion" fits the comic which only glances over ideas. But then, at that point it's kind of irrelevant.

[Joel Fagin]

But anyone who's passed baby steps of writing knows that ideas, if not worthless, are certainlyy worth much less than 50%, that working those ideas into a finished comic is a lot of work, and that the way the story is told can make a whole difference.

Quite. Ideas are just a multiplier of execution.

(And always remember that anything multiplied by zero is... zero.)

- Joel Fagin

[Boozeathon4billion]

Thanks for the review. It's always good to get an outside opinion. Since most feedback I get is from people around me and involved in how the strip probably was thought up, it's always hard getting an objective opinion out of anyone other than my cynical brother who doesn't really read webcomics because he finds them boring, unfunny, and hackneyed (all of which my strip is).

"boozeathlon4billion" is basically all ideas and no buildup. This is a one-panel non-narrative kind of comic, and most of it's body is not actual gags with observations and punchlines, but presentation of some weird situations. Ie, "what would it be like if" kind of situations. Described, shown, but never elaborated or built upon. With symplicist art and dialogue, I can say that there is very little in a comic, apart from initial ideas.

I've been wanting to do something more than one frame for a while, but instead of doing it here, I'm writing a new comic which will be based on plot and character development... I figure that the single frame comic is enough of a challenge for me that I should stick with it and try to figure out how to make it work with my style of humor. Maybe I'll just fail at that in the long run, but I figure with honest opinions from people like you and others on here, I can manage to slowly improve.

Art is one step above stickman. Early on it was done with a mouse, but lately with a tablet, still maintaining the same simplicity. People will usually say that if art is so simple, it needs very good script to make up for it. I don't think so, I think that no matter how good the script is, it won't make up for art. If author wants art this simple, he has to integrate it into comic's concept, to manage to turn this simplicity to his favour. Basically to make it so that there's a purpose to this simplicity. For better or worse, extreme sketchiness of "boozeathlon4billion" fits the comic which only glances over ideas. But then, at that point it's kind of irrelevant.

My original idea for the sloppiness was to base the comic around the idea that the entire comic is alcohol induced, either by the author, the situations, the charaters in the strips, or some other means which I'm not listing... it also makes it easier because I'm still trying to develop a good artistic style of my own and this stickfigure-esque one is easy and quick to do in the meantime. Do you think if the writing improved (ie: loose characters were made to relate to humor-wise, maybe do a multiframe strip, etc) that the art would be okay? I've had some people who really hate how I draw the people and others who really like how childlike it is because it fits the immature/dumb ideas I have for strips. I've kind of grown fond of the style... so if more solid writing would improve it, I could definitely (and easily) do that. Right now the writing time is about 10% of the time I spend on it... so it could definitely use a boost anyway...

So while the comic is nominally self-reliant, you often need some clarification from news-posts. As most of people know, I usually don't read newsposts since I'm always interested in a comic, and never in author's personal life, and I usually expect the comic to be self-explanatory.

That's a bad habit I need to stop relying on... if the comic isn't funny in the first read, the news post shouldn't try to make it funny. That's called failure. lol

Thanks again for the honest review. Like I said, its great getting feedback (even when it is bad) and I'll be trying to take what you said seriously and make some changes for the better/worse in the future. After all, it would be a jerkmove to ask you to review it just so I could keep doing what I wanted anyway.

[Redtech]

Quite. Ideas are just a multiplier of execution.

(And always remember that anything multiplied by zero is... zero.)

But dividing by 0 is much more fun! Good link, but some of the guys in the comments don't seem to have got the hint!

[McDuffies]

Do you think if the writing improved (ie: loose characters were made to relate to humor-wise, maybe do a multiframe strip, etc) that the art would be okay?

I'm not sure, depends. When you're working with more complex format, you certainly have to go deeper into details, because characters have to be more distinguishable, backgrounds more establishing, etc. I don't know how that could be done with the "drunken" feel in mind, it's certainly not an easy task.

Thanks again for the honest review. Like I said, its great getting feedback (even when it is bad) and I'll be trying to take what you said seriously and make some changes for the better/worse in the future. After all, it would be a jerkmove to ask you to review it just so I could keep doing what I wanted anyway.

Well, I'm reviewing comics particularly for fon so I'm not too stressed over whether people are going to take my opinions seriously or not - though I like to hear that I've helped someone or influenced them for the better, I certainly wouldn't like anyone to take my opinion for granted. I think that many people reckognize in my reviews things that they suspected themselves before, and that's where reviews are most helpful. Other than that I'm just one more opinion in a bunch, and if someone took me for granted, that would make me somewhat responsible for content of their comic, which is not what I'd want. After all, you're making comics primarily for yourself and if my opinion contrasted strongly with yours, it would be only reasonable not to listen to me.

[McDuffies]

If you've got the time for my comic, roast away! Haven't been flogged in a great, long while. Most reviewers do not have the time for my comic though, so if you find that you don't, it won't hurt my feelings any more [or less] than a really harsh review. Which is to say, barely bruised.

Should mention: I've got a sketchy side-comic updating for this month. That is NOT the comic, just a short side-story while I take a break.

Somewhere in "The War of winds" archive, there's a page that says that author is aware that early pages are bad and that she'd rather not hear that repeated again. Unfortunately she'll have to hear it here too, for following reasons:
1. I had to read those pages and I'm revengefull
2. They are still percentually large part of archives
3. Problems in this early stage might influence later development and
4. It's good grounds to compare to later pages and see what's fixed and what isn't.

However I'll try to be short and just sum it up:
Comic is adapted from a novel but Book One and beginning of Book Two are not so much adaptation as it's basically still a novel, copied, albeit heavily illustrated. This impression is due to a fact that story is told mainly in narration, while images are just a sort of bonus - what's worse for the most part panels are character closeups or images of them walking, and artist often avoided drawing more complex scenes, choosing to narrate them. Finally, backgrounds were rather poor, often just gradients, which made additional impression that author didn't put a lot into art.
Additionally, the story tended to be very cliche, with stock fantasy characters who spoke and acted just the way we'd expect from these characters. Kid: naive but tries to act adult, master warrior: rough but righteous, speaking in almost humorously deadpan manner, bad guy: spilling one-liners about the ways he's gonna kill you, etc. They were speaking through quotes heard in hundreds of other fantasy stories.
(that was short, wasn't it?)

The change seemed almost abrupt. Author started using significantly less narration and relying on images much more. I did appreciate that there was less narration because, frankly, I didn't like it very much: I found it trying to be forcefully stylish, struggling to sound like professional fantasy novels. But maybe it's because I don't expect narration in the comic to "hog" the style - images draw our attention much more.

I think that larger chunks of narration are difficult to incorporate into comics. I've tried it often, and most often it wasn't too happy marriage. First of all, there's an issue of what should be narrated and what drawn, and which narration is actually beneficial for the comic. And then, there is a bit of jump between textual and graphic narration, a sort of awkward feel... like when characters in animated films talk and then suddenly start to sing.
Through the Second Book, artist obviously struggles with these issues, trying to find a dose of narration that would make narration smoother, but fulfill her literal tendencies. Sometimes she makes trivial mistakes, like explaining obvious ("Talon immediately crouched low, making himself as small as possible") or narrating trivial events ("Suddenly, he turned around" or something similar). Other times, there'd be no logic in choice of what is narrated and what is shown. For instance, sometimes, characters think through thought bubbles and other times their thoughts are explained in narration.
Well, I respect any attempt at learning if it results in something better, though I got to notice that "The War of Winds" runs smoother in parts with very little narration.
I noticed this page as an example where narration is used well - it tells something that reader would actually rather read than see, it finds imagery to match it, and it flows from the scene with some context to support it.

Unfortunately, while saving on narration, author just went and replaced it with a lot of dialogue (which wasn't a problem with earlier stages of the comic). Many things that I said in my "Last Resort" review a few pages back, can apply to last few chapters of "The War of Winds". Here, too, pages are hijacked by avalanche of speech baloons, so some editing would help, and some merging into larger baloons too. Difference is, while "Last Resort" exceedes in smalltalk, with "The War of Winds" it's the kind of talk where statements are repeated and rephrased for dramatic effect.

Consider this page here. The plot is, he can't get his sword won't open, so he throws it away. It takes full page to tell that, and I counted about 4 or 5 times that statement "the sword won't open" is rephrased here. This repeating, overstating, stretching of the moment, is really a crutchy attempt to achieve dramatic feel, basically attempt at manipulating the reader to care about the scene.
Why does author narrate way? It seems like she doesn't rely on the event to be interesting enough by itself, and doesn't have confidence in other means (her art, layout, framing, camerawork) to bring drama. She needs to overstate something because she's not sure that if she didn't, it would hit the target.
I would prefere a comic that gave this moment about two panels, and used the rest of the space (and space saved in all similar situations) on character and plot development and other things that would make me care about it all, which would make it genuinely dramatic.

Another illustrative example of this issue is this scene, two pages of endless verbal exchanges - and all they did was checked into a tavern?
Remember one quote though, I think that it was attributed to Bethoven: "Composing isn't hard. It's throwing away the sufficient notes that is hard."
But now I'm repeating myself too.

What about cliches? Well, some time after the aforementioned author's note, I felt for the first time that I was hearing words of actual characters and not some actors on first reading rehershal. Story progressively got more interesting (unlike the Book One) and that rising line is where archives are currently at.


Art is an issue that has to be adressed separately. Everyone knows how often I go on and on about risks of relying too much on digital colouring and effects and forgetting to master bare bones of drawing. Many readers will not notice clunky art under layers of digital post-production, but I find it the same as when you value a film by how much money is put into special effects. No amount of digital colouring makes problems in lineart invisible.

Lineart of "The War of Winds" isn't bad, I'd even say it's above average for webcomics, but simply, author had angles and poses she handles well, and those she doesn't handle well. Alternatively, on a good day, her lineart seems ok, on a bad day it seems amateurish (specially noticeable when an action scene arrives on a bad day). Take, for instance, how she draws people looking down - simply drawing an iris lower, which is not what we'll see if we observe people in real life looking down.
Always present is the problem with proportions of characters which don't suit the level of realism comic is going for - heads are always a bit too large. Consider the drow here. See how her neck is getting thicker in upper part. This is because neck is in proportion with body, and in proportion with head, but since head is too big for that body. Other thing you can consider is width of shoulders compared to head size, and you see that not all is well there.

Colouring, on the other hand, seems aimed to impress. While there is significant effort in it, and significant skills as well, there is very little in terms of moderation. There's saturation with colour and effects, each scene seems to have heavy layers of highlights, mist and other kind of digital postproduction, highlights exist on everything, even surfaces that shouldn't reflect light and in unnatural colours. Darkly artificial scenography makes it look like the whole comic is happening in a world like one of those bizzare early 90ies CGI animations.
If there were not for problems with lineart, it would look too agressive and overstated. This way it looks just like you're trying to cover up lineart. But there are skills needed for good colouring at hand, you just need to learn to level them and breath some realism in.

Now, don't take me wrong. I do appreciate experimentalism of page layouts and effort put in all this, and I always do appreciate creative approach over generic. There's so many talking-heads comics around that it seems almost a blasphemy to tell someone to tone it down and make it more "plain".
But there can be such thing as too much creativity. Creative layouts can sometimes turn out confusing, like here, where one doesn't realise at first that first panle is inside of the second one.
And then, layout has to match the content. There has to be something in the scene that maothivates the layout - for somewhat banal example, there's no point in making panel edges ripped to shreads if there isn't something ripped to shreads in that scene. And then, at times, story will be more dramatic, other times it will be toned down. To follow that, layout should sometimes be more "creative" and other times simpler, more plain. Eyes have to rest sometimes too.

There's one more thing I have to note, first several panels seem to develop pre-history of the world, but then development of the world seems to be abandoned in favor of more conventional fantasy world. To illustrate this, you make sure that every time characters swear, it has something to do with winds. But now it looks like "wind" is almost the only curse word in their language and I can't imagine a language with only one curse world. But there's no other myth at hand to draw other curse words from.