The Webcomics Weekly is back in your life, for one final issue. Yes, the time has come for us to bid you all adieu. While a sudden stop followed by a message a year later about the hiatus would be appropriate considering the corner of comics we cover, it didn’t feel right (and also a bit facetious.) So, here’s our formal and official “until we meet again.”
Thank you for reading all these many years, from those who’ve been with us from the beginning to those reading this for the first time. Thank you to all the webcomics creators who reached out or whom we’ve had the pleasure of chatting with thanks to these reviews. Thank you. Thank you. It was truly a joy.
However! Lest you think we’re leaving you high and dry, we’ve pulled out all (most) of the stops for our finale column and are bringing us back to our origins with four, count-em, four reviews in one week. Returning after a lengthy leave-of-absence is a check-in with everyone’s favorite D&D party in “Order of the Stick,” a different kind of underworld in “Re: Punderworld,” a short, romantic murder mystery in “Café Amargo,” and a look at one of the Eisner nominees for 2024, “3rd Voice,” in this, the 285th, and final, issue of The Webcomics Weekly.
3rd Voice
1st Passage: “The God’s Book, or, Spondule and Navichet” (Pages 1-379) – 2nd Passage: “The Face and the Shadow-Side, or, An Inheritance” (Pages 380 – 425)
Updates: Mondays
By Evan Dahm
Reviewed by Elias Rosner
I went back and forth a number of times on what to review here. Do I finally read Season 2 of “Tower of God” ahead of its second season anime premiere or “Lore Olympus” ahead of the series finale (at least it’s free release?) Do I revisit Harry Bogosian’s worlds and review “Angel’s Orchard or perhaps another stroll into Danielle Corsetto’s “Elephant Town”? Or do I dig even deeper and pick one of my obscure revisits? In the end, I chose to follow on with another tradition we’d established and pick one of the Eisner noms, which just so happened to be a comic I’ve been dying to dig into for a while.
If you haven’t read anything by Evan Dahm, you’re missing out. Dahm is quietly one of the best fantasy comics creators out there. His stories rely neither on well-worn aesthetics nor on familiar archetypes. These are truly fantastical worlds with little connection to our own, and yet, as with all good fiction, it is still a reflection of our own. With “3rd Voice,” Dahm has taken and refined what he learned through his previous series and distilled it down into a more comprehensible tale that is full of the same level of nuance, depth and restraint.
In reading “3rd Voice,” I am reminded of Jeff Smith’s “Bone.” This may be a strange comparison at first blush. The two stories are not all that similar, tonally, aesthetically, or expositionally. However, the experience of reading it feels the same. I can’t explain why.
Perhaps it is in the simple yet full character and environmental designs. You can see the care and thought that’s gone into making everything internally consistent and meaningful, such that just the backgrounds and objects can tell a story of what once was, what is, and what could be.
Perhaps it’s because Dahm’s pacing is slow and deliberate, hiding the details of the world and the story’s actual epic scope behind a smaller, more personal narrative, that of Spondule and Navichet. Through them, we learn what the people of “3rd Voice” fear, value, covet. Through them, we are taught about its history and its politics.
The hardest part for many readers, I’m sure, will be the lack of exposition. “3rd Voice” relies on you to piece together its story, trusting that you will follow the what and the why without having to be told. I appreciate this trust and unlike so many other modern comics that eschew exposition, creating a confusing, unnaturally sounding mess, Dahm’s cartooning and dialog is strong enough to convey the unsaid while remaining consistent and clear, even when a character is being deliberately opaque.
Continued belowI also wanted to praise the fascinatingly antiquated speech patterns in the comic. It lends the comic an air of grandiosity and timelessness, like reading an old storybook, but one FROM said far away land – a feeling that is only made stronger every time I see a editorial caption explaining a word as if the English could not fully capture its true meanings. Or how some characters mispronounce, or perhaps pronounce with an accent, Navichet’s name. Simply one more way the fantastical is reinforced.
“3rd Voice” is a beautifully done 2nd world fantasy series that is only just ramping up. It is clearly telling an epic story about a world after the fall, of class struggles, and the lure of despotism. About what living is like, what it could be like, and what we wish it were like. It is hopeful and bleak at the same time and it is not afraid to have real consequences for its characters. No pulled punches, but no gratuitous middle-fingers to the audience either. If it were to win the Eisner, it would be a well earned win. If not, there’s always another year and another passage.
Also, don’t think I didn’t catch that the passage titles are structured like “Moby Dick’s” full title, or that the whole thing is set-up like a medieval text (argument, passage, argument, passage.) I see you Evan. I see you.
Café Amargo
Episodes 12-75
Completed
Written and illustrated by Pía Prado Bley (Piapb)
Reviewed by Mel Lake
For my final Webcomics Weekly review, I went back and finished “Café Amargo,” an English-language webcomic by a Chilean artist that I started way back in 2022. It’s a murder mystery set in 1930s South America combined with slice of life and a dash of romance.
The first few story arcs of “Café Amargo” introduce us to Domingo, a down-on-his-luck alcoholic and former hat-maker. He wants to do right by his family but has fallen on hard times. He meets Auguste Chevalier, a character who remains a cheerful mystery for all 75 episodes of the comic. Auguste is a man of many disguises, who is always involved in something dangerous, and who always sees the best in any situation. He is surrounded by a cast of strange characters, and although he offers Domingo a way out of his plight, he also involves Domingo in the murder of José Jordana, the powerful newspaper mogul who died under mysterious circumstances. Domingo and his ex-wife Graciela are drawn into the orbit of the Jordana family, three siblings who each keep their own secrets and whose rivalry threatens the safety of the people around them—and jeopardizes the stability of the country that depends on its main newspaper.
In my original review, I praised the character designs, layout, and shading of this comic. The quality remains high all the way to episode 75. It took me a minute to jump back in and remember who all the characters were, but I had no trouble discerning them from one another or remembering the plot because the writing is consistent and clear. Even though there are many, many characters, they all have unique designs and voices. No one character grabs too much screen time or seems to disappear.
“Café Amargo” employs the same tropes as many josei manga and its art style looks like an homage to older ones like “Rose of Versailles” or “Princess Knight.” One romance ends and another one begins over the course of the webcomic, with yet another relationship remaining ambiguous. I appreciate this commitment to the messy lives of the characters—the ending feels complete and satisfying without the need for the author to bend over backward to make sure main characters end up together. In my opinion, this Chilean webcomic, available for free on Tapas or bundled as a download on Gumroad, is every bit as readable as any translated manga you might see on shelves at Barnes and Noble.
At 75 episodes, “Café Amargo” is one of the shorter webcomics I’ve delved into for Webcomics Weekly. I don’t always have the attention span or level of commitment that longer comics require, so I found this one to be exactly the right length for me. I’m glad I went back to finish it, just as I’m glad to have read and reviewed many different webcomics for this column over the past few years. Writing this column has introduced me to so many stories I wouldn’t have enjoyed otherwise, and kept my brain sharp by thinking and writing critically about them. Thank you to Elias, Mike, and the whole Multiversity fam. It’s been real, y’all!
Continued below
Order of the Stick
Pages 1288-1302
Updates: Inconsistently
By Rich Burlew
Reviewed by Robbie Pleasant
“Order of the Stick,” the D&D-themed comedy webcomic, marches on to defend the final gate in what may or may not be the final battle. Well, I say “marches,” but it’s more of a dungeon crawl.
In fact, the entire layout of the last dungeon is a callback to the first dungeon they explored, bringing the entire adventure full-circle. The only difference is the number and lethality of the traps and monsters within, which the party can (mostly) avoid thanks to their guide being its designer.
This gives plenty of time for the characters to talk, giving us world-building and humor in equal measure. On one page, we get the revelation that Serini not only stayed in contact with her former party, but managed to convince each of them to help build her dungeon. A few pages later, we get a joke about how one of the traps is just green water made to look like acid to trick people into wasting spells.
However, all this leads to one of the most iconic things to find in a dungeon: a dragon. And even the flat, cartoonish art style doesn’t make Calder the red dragon any less impressive, especially given the dramatic buildup. Rich writes his dragon with all the eloquence, majesty, and disdain for all those he finds beneath him that one would expect, and it makes Calder an impressive and memorable foe.
The fight still blends humor into every page, whether it’s witty banter or cutaways about the paladins being left behind. The dialogue blends in D&D 3.5e game mechanics as a natural part of the way their world works, as they mention features and features like spell resistance, bluff checks, and saving throws the same way players in a game would.
Better yet, it gives us an exceedingly epic moment as they dispel a polymorph spell, turning Belkar’s lizard back into a tyrannosaurus rex. So yes, we get a dragon fighting a t-rex, and it is as awesome as one would hope.
While Rich Burlew uses a distinct style for the comic, relying on basic shapes for character designs (by which I mean literal squares and circles) and flat images, this is a point in the webcomic’s favor. It maintains the comedic atmosphere and recognizable style of “Order of the Stick” we’ve come to love, but also makes the moments where Burlew adds that extra “oomph” all the more impressive. Seeing panels suddenly cast in shadow from the illumination of a fire stands out all the more, and the basic designs allow the characters to pull off some fun moves, and makes the battle damage they accumulate over the fight all the more evident.
1300+ pages is a lot for any story or webcomic, and it’s hard to go that long without getting stale. But “Order of the Stick” has only continued to grow more engaging, with a fleshed-out world, characters, and high-stakes storyline. The characters remain absolutely iconic, and the jokes continue to land page after page. While the updates may not be frequent, each one is met with excitement, because it’s always worth the wait.
Re: Punderworld
Episodes 22-26 (Beauty, Devotion, Alecto)
Schedule: Twice Monthly on Thursdays
By Linda Sejic
Reviewed by Michael Mazzacane
It felt like a good time to look back at “Punderworld” by Linda Sejic, one of the original artists that got me interested in thinking about webcomics more in the first place. I had fallen of “Punderworld” though after it fell out of my general reviewing rotation and grad school commitments. I decided to just jump back in with the second season, starting around episode 21, and, yup, “Punderworld” still a delight.
In between my last thoughts on “Punderworld” and the what feels like 100+ webcomics I’ve at least written about and the more that I’ve read, Sejic’s work still stands out as one that just naturally “fits” the vertical scrolling format of a webtoon. The whole strip is filled with something! While she does make use of panels to highlight characters and shape a conversation, these are always contextualized by an overall environmental motif that helps to bring general unity to the piece. It isn’t that this coloring and art that fills the pseudo-gutter space As Hades and Persephone walk and talk their way out of the underworld, the dialog, their flirtation, and idiosyncrasies, all come forward and read as natural because the image on a macro level there is unity to everything. Other webcomics can feel disjointed because there is that gutter space that just acts as a large negative space inbetween the panels. I was originally only going to read a couple of episodes and ended up reading more just because the friction was so low.
Continued belowThe ease at which episodes flowed allows for the thing Sejic does best to be front and center: character acting. She can write some witty dialog, which when expressed through lettering gives characters all a fairly distinctive reading voice. If I were to bet I would bet she could pull off some kind of “G.I. Joe” ‘Silent Running’ type issue easily. All of Hades’ neurotic ticks about being a business-oriented manager of the dead come through in his face. The feeling of not-dread but tired monotony at the routine, and yet having an encyclopedic understanding and appreciation of the minute nuances that would be lost on other people. In contrast, Persphone’s wild and explorative nature comes through in her doe eye’d interest in the natural phenomena around her. In the case of ‘Beauty’ it’s the make-up of natural rock formations in the Underworld. In these first two episodes, Sejic does the thing most romcoms and bad romance narratives do not: show us why these two would care about actually spending time with one another. We are shown how they are complementary, aided yes by some Fate weaving and symbolism but also as personalities.
These skills allow Sejic to effortlessly introduce a new character, Alecto a Fury, and totally leave the main cast off to the side walking without missing a beat. From the very start the expression work in Alecto’s face as she performs her Underworld therapy tells you exactly what you need to know about her character. So that when she looks for her next appointment only to discover the Charon is missing along with the shades, the mixture of anxiety and relaxation that comes over her makes sense. That relaxation is aided by some of Hermes smuggled wine but it’s been a long day. Sometimes you need a nice glass of pinot. She earned it. If only those darn sudden pangs of anxiety, like a million voices cried out all of a sudden and then vanished, wouldn’t harsh her vibe.
“Punderworld” continues to be just an excellent webcomic. It reads so naturally that I’m of the mind to go hunt down a print copy at my local library to see how the strips have been reformatted as pages. I still remember when Sejic was doing “Bloodstained” as a horizontal old school newspaper strip style. So to see this transition will be interesting.
