The Webcomics Weekly is back in your life and telling you to touch grass! Smell the air! See the water! Hear the desert! Lick the…well, maybe you shouldn’t go around licking random things in nature. Certainly not the things you’ll find in the “Fairmeadow.”
Fairmeadow
Chapters 1-3
Updates Wednesdays
Created by KP (hagofbolding on the site formerly known as Twitter)
Reviewed by Mel Lake
Deep in the Cascadian wilderness, a lost warrior finds a commune. Will she tend her physical wounds as well as her emotional ones? Something tells me she will. Inspired by the real-life beauty of the Pacific Northwest, “Fairmeadow” is a meditative story about a group of people trying to live their lives isolated from a world of conflict and war while dealing with the scars they bear from it.
On the official website for “Fairmeadow,” the creator says one of her goals is to make readers want to take a hike. In addition to being a gorgeous comic and what looks like the start of a touching story about the wounds of war, she succeeds in this goal. The first pages are mostly free of dialogue. But they contain rich and varied landscapes that are beautifully drawn. The closest I’ve ever come to hiking in the Pacific Northwest was Yosemite National park, but this world felt familiar and authentic. I could feel the pull of these mountains.
But the story isn’t just for outdoor enthusiasts. Inspired by tabletop RPGs, it features an orc warrior protagonist, elf(?) people, and the fae. I’m not at all familiar with these character archetypes but I followed along anyway as they were introduced, gleaning that the world is in the midst of a war. The community that Goma, the main character, stumbles upon is made up of survivors from all sides of it. Chapters one through three are mostly concerned with getting Goma to the community of Fairmeadow and introducing Sanctuary, the strange pacifist wizard who insists he’s not the leader but clearly is. He keeps the peace when Goma lashes out, and brokers a deal that allows her to stay at the farm.
From this description, you might think the pacing of the comic is slow. But I’d describe it as meditative, rather than glacial. We get hints of Goma’s violent past that keep readers wanting to know more about what she’s experienced as a warrior for hire. And new characters are introduced at a steady clip, so once Goma arrives at the commune, there’s always a sense of forward movement.
The panel and page layouts also create a sense of movement in this comic. Each panel has a clear focus and it’s never difficult to tell who is speaking or what the panel is trying to convey. This, along with beautiful watercolor-style colors and rich details, makes reading “Fairmeadow” enjoyable. Flashbacks are in black and white, lending them a different, harsher feeling than the warm, colorful world of the farm and making it clear to readers which timeline they’re experiencing. This feels like a comic that could be printed and found in a bookstore. My only minor note would be that the weight of the lettering seems thin and makes it a little more difficult to read for my eyes. This may be a personal preference, however, since I have terrible vision and prefer heavier lettering.
High fantasy epics are a tough sell for me, precisely because they tend to move at a slow pace and prioritize world building over plot or action. But I enjoyed this one for its focus on a group of people trying to form a new society in the midst of war, which isn’t a subject I’ve seen tackled before in a webcomic. Combining it with magic makes for an interesting setup for a story. I’m curious to see where this one goes, even if the characters themselves don’t actually go anywhere except on journeys of self discovery.
