The Webcomics Weekly is back in your life for one “Golden Hour.” Or perhaps 5 minutes if you happen to read fast. Relatedly, it’s funny how many different methods of restricting reading webcomics there are now. Maybe not haha funny but…you know. You’ll see why that’s relevant to the comic about angels and whatnot Mel reviews in “Golden Hour.”
Golden Hour
Episodes 1-16
Updates Wednesdays (limited free episodes available)
Created by Kai Lysander
Reviewed by Mel Lake
It never ceases to amaze me when I come across a webcomic with stunning artwork and an intriguing plot, only to discover that the creator is in their 20s. I’m in awe of people making a living creating comics or supplementing their income via Webtoon or Tapas, perhaps having a Patreon account. My hat is off to you, ambitious, talented creator folks figuring out how to make this work! I mention this because my webcomic of the week, “Golden Hour,” started on Webtoon and moved over to the Tapas Originals program. It’s a “Wait Until Free” series, which lets you read bits of the story for free, then freezes you for a few hours. How this is supposed to increase revenue for Tapas, I have no idea. For readers of “Golden Hours,” it means you can’t binge the series starting at episode one without taking breaks or spending Ink. But if you’re patient, you can technically read the series for free.
If you’ve read any of my Boomb Tube TV coverage, you’ll know that I’m a big Good Omens fan. So while I don’t often go down the “angels, demons, and priests, oh my!” rabbit hole, every now and then, one tickles my fancy and I can usually find something to enjoy. Sometimes it’s the story, sometimes the characters, and sometimes it’s the ultimate message or commentary on religion. If nothing else, playing with biblical aesthetics and religious symbols can be a lot of fun (and a lot of blasphemy, which is its own kind of fun). “Golden Hour” does a little bit of all of these things but my primary draw to it is the artwork. My goodness! The artist and writer, Kai Lysander, does marvelous things with a limited but striking palette. Their style looks like watercolor that might be traditional or might be digital, I can’t tell, with heavy blank inkwork and relatively simple layouts. They often play with focus in a way that I haven’t seen often before in webcomics — making objects in the foreground such as falling leaves clear while the background blurs, or selecting objects from a scene and repeating them blown up to a larger scale in lieu of transitions. It’s a playful style that feels light and fun, even though the subject matter of the comic is quite dark. And the colors! I love their use of bold colors and by selecting a primary color for each scene or each character, you can really feel the mood of it or you can understand the contrast that the artist is trying to emphasize.
In terms of character designs, there are four primary characters in the comic, two humans and two non-humans. Father Lorne is a fairly typical-looking priest dude, but there are moments where you’ll see his reflected image and in it, he’ll be colored in a subtly different way, making you see his inner turmoil as he struggles with his central choice. Father Lorne’s husband is a demon who looks a bit like a big, fluffy, Thundercats character who was time-traveled back to pre-Revolution France. (To be clear, this is 100% a compliment. I love this character design.) The other main character is an angel who does a hell of a lot of priest tempting for a supposedly heavenly being. His name is Vasariah, and his character design looks like a 70s shoujo manga protagonist was put in a blender with the art deco movement. (Again, I love it. These are all compliments. When Vasariah gets mad and his hair turns into freaky angel eyes? Awesome.) The way these characters interact is not always grounded in the space of the comic, meaning that there’s not always a clear sense of setting or where the characters literally are when they’re speaking. But it works! Because this comic is trippy as all get out, the style enhances the feeling that you’re being invited into Father Lorne’s mad world.
I’ve talked about the characters and the art style of “Golden Hour” but not the plot. Here is where I think the comic struggles a little. There’s so much backstory packed into the first episode that it could fill an entire volume. (It’s good stuff! A priest who falls for a demon and then is basically haunted by his own guardian angel? What a premise!) But while the “what exactly is happening” feeling is sometimes a benefit to the comic because of the existential nature of Father Lorne’s torn mental state, sometimes it can be confusing to the reader. Father Lorne fell in love with the demon Buer twelve years ago, and in doing so, doomed his soul. But in the present, his guardian angel Vasariah offers him a deal to save it: corrupt someone else in his place. It’s a hell of a moral dilemma but sometimes hard to parse. The writing is stylized and at times formal, which mostly works with the subject matter but sometimes I struggled to make sense of what the character’s motivations were. This might have been alleviated by stronger dialogue. For example, although Vasariah is an angel, it’s hard to tell exactly what he’s up to or who he reports to (if anyone).
“Golden Hour” offers relatively short, beautiful episodes and a strong moral quandary at the heart of the story. Will a priest tempt a fellow human to replace him in hell so that he can stay with the love of his life? Although it may take some patience to read the episodes on Tapas, I was hooked by the unique style and excellent colors, as well as the seriously cool character designs.
