The Webcomics Weekly #166: Out with Pumpkin Spice In With CandyCane

The Webcomics Weekly returns after finally putting away that garish pumpkin spice and replacing git with Candy Cane dust! That candy can dust is “Hellbound” which also our new review of a comic written by Train to Busan writer Yeon Sangho. “Lavender Jack” is certainly in a rough spot with world war acting up as the third season begins. “Lore of Olympus” however continues to be its just dapper well done pastel self.

Netflix numbers are notoriously hard to pin down but it’s not a secret that Hellbound has been sitting very high since debuting a couple weeks ago. Why bring this up? Well, seeing as it’s wildly popular, and there is webtoon of the same name written by the creator of the TV show, Train to Busan director Yeon Sangho, I felt that it was incumbent upon myself to take a gander at this series’ origins and see what all the hubbub is about. I would regale you with a tale of how this thing came about but I literally could not figure out if the comic was written before the show but after the two-part animated short, after the show was announced but before it debuted, or if this is a remake of an older version of the comic that was originally written and drawn by Sangho. It doesn’t matter, though, because “Hellbound” is an intriguing comic whatever its origins.

The basic premise is: people are suddenly being given a time period, ranging from hours to decades, telling them when they’re going to die and at the exact time given, strange muscle creatures appear to kill them and drag their souls to hell. We follow Detective Jin, a haunted single father, as he begins an investigation into one of these deaths and gets embroiled in a web of cult religions, revenge, and family tensions. It’s a compelling choice for a focal character in a series that hopes to examine sin and earthly justice. That said, as of Chapter 5, not much has happened beyond this first death and a lengthy conversation with the religious/cult leader President Jinsu Jeong.

We’re still in the build-up phase so that’s to be expected. Unfortunately, the conversations just aren’t that interesting, at least the ones with Jinsu. The conversation itself has a slight theology 101 bent to it, though that’s kinda the point; Jinsu’s philosophy is meant to counter and tempt Jin while providing a foundation from which to have a discussion about our ideas of what justice truly is. Much of why the scenes don’t work as well as they should has to do with the way Gyuseok draws those scenes.

Gyuseok was the right pick for this comic, no doubt about it. The black & white aesthetic accentuates the horror and bleakness of the comics’ world in a way color doesn’t. Panels are kept tiny, crafting an atmosphere of constant closeness and suffocation, while the monster designs are suitably horrifying. When things have to open up, they do, as evidenced by the brutal sideways panel in the prologue. The pacing too is excellent, not too slow but not too fast. I haven’t seen many Webtoons utilize the horizontal placement of panels to control pacing and intent – they prefer to use vertical gutter space, reserving the horizontal placement for more utilitarian placements – and none do it this well. From the time Jin gets home in Chapter 4 to the end is truly masterful. But, and you knew this “but” was coming, it’s not very dynamic.

Gyuseok’s facial expressions and the mundane violence of the series are far less impressive than the over-the-top horrors present in the prologue. The reserved facial expressions helps the comic from falling too far into melodrama but it also restricts the tools at his disposal for heightening the mundane into something that can sustain a tedious conversation. Thus, the conversations with Jinsu are rendered dull and tedious not because the components are bad – slow pace, small panels, philosophical discussions – but because they are not well suited to that kind of walk and talk conversation.

All this said, we’re in the early chapters of “Hellbound,” before it has truly gotten to the first turning point. Despite my reservations about the Jinsu scenes, this is a series that is well told and has a solid hook. It feels like it will have things to say about our desires for revenge, what sins mean, and who takes advantage of moments of society fracturing. We’ll just have to wait and see…or purchase enough coins to read the whole season now. That’s also a possibility.

Season 3 of “Lavender Jack” begins with a slightly changed art style and an even bigger structural shift for the better. There’s something slightly not looser, but lively, in the line work and digital inking of these initial strips. Maybe it feels this way due to shifts in Jenn Manley Lee’s coloring, but things feel less refined. Lines and shadows threaten to fray at the end which gives this appropriate nervous energy to a story that sees an alternative World War broken out. As Madame Ferrier notes in episode 91 “no one is safe.” The bigger change is the decision to bisect each strip, at least for now, into two distinct segments.

There is the Gallery based segment focusing on Honoria Crabb and Ferrier doing what they do best in a sort of Rockford Files routine. Together their probono for charity detective agency is currently investigating the disappearance of journalist, Abacus Ma, whose been a thorn in the side of Chief Justice Gal’s since Gallery entered the war on the side of the “allies.” I pray there will be an amicus brief style pun in the future.

The other segment features Mr. and Mrs. Last of the Bastrops themselves Mimley and Ducky. They’re living a life of luxury on a journey through the Atlantic and Europe dodging assassins and lamenting the decreasing quality of threats on their lives. Despite the ever presence of these two we haven’t really gotten much time where it is just these two playing off one another in quite a while. After yet another threat on their life they resolve to return to Gallery and settle matters, a tall task given the tiny nations locked down borders. Which means its time to meet Ducky’s long lost Uncle Sal aka Richard Lewis.

Splitting strip sup in this way perhaps overly formalizes the cross-cutting style that “Lavender Jack” employed previously, but it effectively keeps represents how disconnected our main cast is from one another and the clear collision course they are on. I would also be down for just a spin-off of the Crabb and Ferrier files, just do one off slice of life adventures it’d be great.

The more things change the more they stay the same in “Lavender Jack” as things get off to a strong start.

Complications and meddling are the themes this week on “Lore Olympus.” I ended my last review after Apollo’s assault on Persephone and her avoiding processing it while on the phone with Hades. In the episodes following the incident with Apollo, Persephone gets crumbs of detail on Hades’s life and tries unsuccessfully to extract even more intimate details on his love life (or lack thereof). Neither Hades nor Persephone is one hundred percent honest about their romantic entanglements but Hades does end up comforting Persephone, who is feeling insecure about her place in Olympus.

Then, enter Hera. Zeus and Hera have a famously complicated relationship and that dynamic is definitely present here, with Hera ever chilly towards her husband and seemingly neglectful of some of her children. In these panels, she reminds me of the hilarious series of Great Gatsby-inspired comics from “Hark, A Vagrant!” where Daisy blatantly ignores her child while lounging on a sofa. Hera drinks like a fish and smokes all the time, which is a fun character trait, and perhaps it’s meant to show how older women are world-weary, turning to vice in order to escape their husbands and other men of Olympus? I mean, ouch? But maybe it’s fair? Meanwhile, Hera presents Persephone with an offer: work as an intern in the Underworld. Persephone is conflicted, having managed a loophole in her “eternal maidenhood” contract by not having taken the oath yet, and also (understandably) not wanting to work for her crush.

This is where some of the world-building in “Lore Olympus” starts to feel a bit lacking to me. And I know, I know, it’s not the point. The point is the romance and the aesthetic and Hades’s adorable, fluffy dogs. But since it’s not the point, there isn’t much focus on how exactly Olympus is structured, and what the parallels are between Olympus and our world. The Underworld is supposed to be a corporation of sorts, but besides housing dead mortal souls, it’s not clear what, exactly, Hades does. Or what Persephone is supposed to be “studying.” And I know, it doesn’t matter. The world is window dressing to the character dynamics and gorgeous art style, but I personally, could use a little more structure, just to know that it’s been thought through to some extent. Worldbuilding in fiction is so hard, but even a little crumb here or there can really help make it so the characters don’t seem like they’re floating in an (admittedly very pretty) void.

Episode 32 brings us back to Hades in the Underworld, where he encounters Aphrodite at doggy daycare and confronts her about the incident that kicked the whole story off. The idea of an Underworld doggy daycare is so gosh-darned cute that I don’t care if it makes no sense. I’m not as interested in the gods hashing out the past so much as seeing where it takes Hades and Persphone from here on, so we’ll just have to see what happens if/when Persephone begins her “internship” when “Lore Olympus” continues.