The internet is like the ocean – vast, unending, and filled with life. And just like the ocean, despite how much is out there, there is even more hiding in the depths than we could ever comprehend or discover. Yet we try. We try to seek out the places where the best is found, where gems lay hidden beneath the sand, where previously little known spaces are found and brought to wider attention. There are those who brave the maelstrom of content to find that which not only catches our attention but what ferries us into calm, beautiful waters.
Welcome back, after a bit of a hiatus, to Webcomics Worth Watching, where every month or so we take a look at one webcomic we think you all should be reading. For this special holiday edition, we’re ditching school and taking a broom stick as we play “Hooky.” Spoiler-free, of course.
INFORMATION:
Name: Hooky
By Miriam Bonastre Tur
Updates Friday at Midnight
Genres: Supernatural, Fantasy, Dark(ish) Fantasy
Years active: 2015-Present
Age Rating: All-ages but in a 80s kind of way
For Fans of: Wicked, Eragon, “Fables,” Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Kiki’s Delivery Service
The Basics
Created in 2015, “Hooky” is a sorcery fantasy by Miriam Bonastre Tur. It follows two witch siblings, Dani and Dorian Wytte, after they fail to catch the bus to their first day of witch school. Too embarrassed to go back and face their parents, the two siblings decide to run away and find themselves an alternative method of education for the year. Dragon eggs are stolen, secret plans are uncovered, a host of friends are made, garbage is set aflame, magic goes awry and the Wytte siblings find themselves running farther and farther than anticipated. . .and that’s just in their first week or so!
The Story
Opening are about as important as closing for a story. You have to hook the audience with something, be it the characters, the power of the world, the aesthetic creativity, or the intrigue of the story. If a storyteller chooses to begin big, the expectations are set much higher than if they choose to begin smaller. A more intimate beginning, with some missteps, can build to a big spectile more easily than starting with a big spectacle that fails to connect. “Hooky” starts, as mentioned above, as a very small narrative set in a very big world — a slightly more mischievous Kiki’s Delivery Service.
The central characters, Dani and Dorian, are quite literally kept central throughout the entire first episode — Dani almost never leaves the center of the frame until Dorian makes his debut and then they share it. As this is a webtoon where the updates are lengthy and built for scrolling, having for an entire episode — the first one, I might add — dedicating itself not to introducing us to the grandeur of the witchy world or the many ways in which it operates but instead choosing to spend its time following the Wytte siblings as they miss a bus, sets the tone for the comic.
Endearing us to the focal characters right away, it no longer matters what kinds of adventures they go on because the ultimate goal is just to spend the year learning and then going home. Because the stakes begin so low, the driving force behind the narrative isn’t bound to any one, singular quest. In turn, this allows Bonastre Tur the opportunities to play with expectations and to organically tell an ever widening and ever more complicated story all without sacrificing the stellar bits of environmental storytelling and worldbuilding.
Heck, even the transition between episode one and two captures this, which is a testament to Bonastre Tur’s ability to inform economically through design. Aunt Hilde’s castle is dark and massive, covered in ivy, the epitome of gothic while the town the siblings had just come from was bright, made of cobblestone and vibrant. However, the town was filled with strangers who distrusted and whispered about the two possible witches. The castle, though, lives up to its terrifying visage, harboring great wonder and knowledge while also being host to dragon eggs, scheming witches, and a huntsman that has to steal Snow White’s heart.
Continued belowOh, did I mention these early episodes really feel like a fairy tale? No? Well, they really do.
It helps that the tone of the story is earnest. Character driven humor and physical comedy are present but the story isn’t here to undercut the tropes of the genre for humor; this is a world where witches are real and the attitude towards them is hostility and as the world expands and the story unfurls, we learn why. As the cast expands, and it really expands, the narratives peddled by those we meet in these early episodes are complicated and the plot threads laid out in the background begin to come together.
The true strengths of “Hooky,” beyond the character work, are the ways in which the story progresses and morphs. Reading “Hooky” reminds me of Babylon 5 in the ways in which which plots come and go, operate in the background, and come to a head at different, natural points. There are larger storylines, teased and ever present, that loom over and affect the actions of the characters but they are not the ultimate end goal ala the Ark from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Instead, they compliment and complicate the smaller arcs, some of which are totally independent and other which are inextricably linked.
And there is so much more I could talk about: the will-they-won’t-they’s, the gorgeous character design, the fantastic battles, but to really discuss them, I’d need to go into spoilers and that would go against my earlier comments. You’ll just have to read on to find out how what begins as two kids missing a bus becomes oh so much more but not right away, and not in the ways one would expect.
Art Progression
Episode one and episode 101 are like night and day in terms of artistic consistency, quality and utilization of the vertical scroll. Episode one is very boxy, relying on discrete panels to tell the story and while this works, there is a lot of unnecessary dead space while wide vistas are squished into small panels that reduce the weight of their presentation; hallways in later chapters better capture the space than whole towns in these early episodes. That’s not to say the environments are lacking in the early episodes — the same level of attention to detail is still there but the expression of those spaces is not present.
Characters, while consistent throughout each episode, are flatter and the coloring is less dynamic. The early palates, while imbuing scenes with the right feel, aren’t very adventurous, relying on a small range of colors. Lighting is fantastic throughout, even in the first chapter it’s apparent that Bonastre Tur has a great grasp of how to naturally light a scene. The figure work, too, remains strong right from the get go. Much of the characterization of Dani can be seen through the few panels of her trying to fly on her broomstick — how she positions herself, how her face scrunches when she hits the ground and the glee on it when she finally gets flying.
I’m not sure if this has anything to do with changes in website layout but many of these older panels also seem to curve more than they really should. It’s like scenes were filmed with a fisheye lense in order to capture the whole of each environment or item, such as Dani’s broom, but instead it just makes them all appear bent.
After a few episodes, that all goes away and as the series goes on, everything improves dramatically. Color, lighting, framing, and figure work all work hand in hand to constantly blow you away and suck you into the ongoing adventures and dramas. The way Bonastre lays out a page is clever and breathtaking and, re-reading these early chapters makes it obvious that the techniques were always there, as plenty of experimental scenes that change up the traditional paneling into a more free flowing presentation, the craft to implement them just wasn’t honed enough yet.
Continued belowQuirks and Notes
Because this is on webtoons, the archive and layout is very standard. The best reading experience is always on a tablet or zoomed in on a computer, as the regular size for webtoons is always too small in my browser.
The biggest thing to know, however, is that the first 30 or so episodes will not have the smoothest dialogue. Based on Miriam Bonastre Tur’s bio, and the construction of the sentences, it becomes very clear that English is not her first language. Parsing some of the sentences is a challenge and there are many times where a sound will be rendered very differently than you would normally see it, such as “oops” being written as “ups.” It can be a roadblock for some and slows the reading experience down but by episode 100 it is virtually non-existent save for the occasional strange phrasing.
Closing Thoughts
While I focused on mostly early chapter events, “Hooky” is a comic that has created a massive story that only gets more interesting with each new episode. The cast keeps expanding and the techniques keep evolving. Never stagnant and always morphing, at 177 episodes, “Hooky” will delight, make you cry, and fill you will the wonder than only a truly great, epic fantasy can.
