The line between digital comic and webcomic is really porous and ultimately meaningless. Usually we say one is corporately published – DC digital firsts for example – or released all at once as a downloadable, purchasable file while the other is released piecemeal for free, most often by independent creators, even if it is behind a paywall for a bit. Webtoon acting as a publisher & Substack’s entry into comics makes this more nebulous (with Patreon being another weird limbo)
What’s this have to do with It’s Jeff? Well, does it fit as a webcomic or a digital comic? Does it matter? Probably not. However, because Marvel Unlimited keeps crashing before I can read any of their new “Infinite Comics,” whereas Webtoon actually has a Batman webcomic up for free and is readable not on it’s own buggy platform, I am willing to sustain the distinction, much as I wish I could espouse the gospel of Jeff the Land Shark.
Don’t worry, you can still find all this and some webcomics called “Dr. Frost,” “Metro Hunter” and “Nomads” in this week’s issue of The Webcomics Weekly.
Dr. Frost
‘Merry Christmas Dr. Frost’ (1) – ‘Happy Birthday Dr. Frost’ (End of Season)
Updates: Saturdays
By Jongbeom Lee
Reviewed by Elias Rosner
This week, we have the two final cases of season 2 of “Dr. Frost,” and both are rather interesting conclusions. The first acts as a break between the final patient-centric case, as most Christmas themed episodes of ongoing series tend to be, be it TV or comics, and the final counsellor focused case, which is less of a case in the way we’ve thought about them thus far. Lee uses the Christmas episode to do a bit of necessary character building on the part of Frost in addition to letting the characters have a nice little breather. I would say it was a fun little two-parter but then we get the “A Christmas Carol” homage teasing a VERY ominous future via the ghost of Seol. What that could mean, I don’t know yet, but it perfectly sets the mood for ‘Happy Birthday Dr. Frost,’ which is anything but happy.
‘Happy Birthday’ breaks with the usual formulas in that it begins with a flashforward, with Professor Chun confronting Moon, who we last saw talking to Jeonghyun, before he has an “accident” on the highway courtesy of the super shady assistant to Moon. Once we return to what was once present day, right around Christmas and Frost’s birthday, the linearity works beautifully to recontextualize mundane, regular moments into tragic choices while also building tension in the build-up to an inevitable end. We learn how Moon thinks and get confirmation on how he acts and what appears to be his current goal, a goal that involves an MO eerily similar to one Johan Liebert from “Monster.”
But that is not what is most affecting about these chapters, though it is high on the list. It is the end, which has the largest impact, hammering us with the sadness Frost has been missing throughout these past two seasons.
It’s a powerful moment, from both a plot perspective and thanks to the technical execution of the scenes. It’s a slow build in the final part of ‘Happy Birthday,’ starting with moments from Frost’s perspective of his life with Professor Chun interspersed with his current feelings, which are represented both abstractly as color with large gaps in the scroll and as literal manifestations of the word, as with fear looming large and flaming above a kneeling, small, despondent Frost. The slow procession he takes is brutal and it’s even more brutal seeing the toll on the other characters who were, just one episode ago, laughing and joyously awaiting a talk with the Professor.
So we end the season with Professor Chun dead, Seonga leaving for the US, Frost despondent, Moon potentially winning, and Seon considering joining Moon’s new school, though that last point is conjecture on my part. It’s a rough place to end…if it didn’t end with a reporter revealing to Frost that Professor Chun didn’t die: he was murdered. And so were his parents. We close on this revelation and on one, final change.
Continued belowFrost, angry, staring at the camera as we cut to what would turn out to be a three and a half year wait for resolution. Next time, season three and the recap episode.
Metro Hunter
Episodes 1-3
Schedule: Sunday
Written by Yopy
Illustrated by Mr. Cheok
Reviewed by Michael Mazzacane
Tell me if you’ve heard this one before. Once upon a time the whole world lived in harmony. Then everything changed when the Monsters (or demons) attacked. Now an entire subculture of hunting those creatures has developed for profit, borrowing from the aesthetics of video games like Monster Hunter or World of Warcraft. Meanwhile our near mute, and moody, protagonist slowly works his way up the ranks to kill the Big Boss, the “Master of Fire” for a close personal reason. Go back and look through my last 8 or so reviews and you’ll notice that is a very common theme on Webtoon. Most are aesthetically pleasing if narratively kind of dull, “Mage & Demon Queen” has the best of both so far – though I can’t say I’ve read every entry in this genre.
That’s pretty much what I expected with “Metro Hunter,” a strip set 20 years after the sudden emergence of monsters for the metro lines around Seoul. And narratively speaking the Yopy and Mr. Cheok strip hits all those notes. What makes “Metro Hunter ” stand apart is how the creative team uses Mr. Cheok’s art. Cheok’s art is a surprising blend of vibrant cartooning and meticulous detail. The cartooning feels Tezuka-esque while the ink slinging detail work reads like a mix of Stephen Platt and Daniel Warren Johnson. It is, to be blunt, an absurd combination, and yet it works. Because with this aesthetic and Yopy’s story “Metro Hunter” reads like a parody of these kinds of comics in the best way. It goes from standard, but well-done monster hunting and ominous world building in the first episode to a salaryman story of two brothers by the next.
It feels a little quick to already have a parody of this genre, and “Metro Hunter” could be 100% from the creators, but that ability to send up all this speaks to how well done the storytelling is. The comedy in this land a few chuckles at the drudgery of paper pushing. The character work isn’t immediately great but that doesn’t really matter when the art is so engaging. At the very least this is worth checking out for the art even if you think the genre is a bit over-served on Webtoon at this point.
Nomads
Episodes 1-3
Updates: Fridays
By Captain Juuter
Reviewed by Mel Lake
In a world where travel is strictly regulated and fear of the unknown keeps regular people at home … actually, this is sounding a little too like the real world for my tastes. Let me start over. *ahem* In a world where nomads are the only ones allowed to travel between realms, one man sets off on an adventure while he tries to find his missing brother, never to settle in one place again. Okay, that’s better. This is the premise of the new Webtoons Original series “Nomads,” by Captain Juuter.
Besides the basic quest setup of the plot, what made me click on this series was the art style, which is like a cross between “One Piece” and “Pokemon.” (Episode three even introduces a cute cat creature with mystical powers! Cat creatures seem very popular on Webtoons…) The character designs are cute and expressive, and the settings look exactly how you’d expect a younger-skewing comedy fantasy story settings to look. The art elements that are borrowed from manga conventions, like sweatdrops and blue-haired, glasses-wearing ancillary characters are familiar, which makes you know exactly what you’re going to get from a series like this.
The exposition in the first episode is a bit clunky, including characters who explain basic facts about their universe prefacing their dialogue with “as you know,” which is a personal pet peeve of mine. But once the story gets underway, the pacing and brightly colored cartoon-style artwork start to shine. The characters themselves are still being introduced, with the main character Lance seeming to be a well-meaning goofball (similar to Luffy from “One Piece”) and Satra shaping up to be a nervous person with a mysterious past. I had a hard time following some of the sharp turns the plot took while setting up their meeting with the aforementioned cat creature, but it remains to be seen whether the actual details of the blue and orange crystal mines in the Sky Realm are actually important or just serve to get the gang together.
Since most adventure-slash-quest stories don’t really get good until they’ve been going for a while, we’ll have to wait and see what Captain Juuter has in store for this group of Nomads. I don’t think this series will really start to get good until the characters have been together and adventuring for some time. But the world of nomads and cat creatures has promise, if the gang can get established and some of the clunky plot shifts and exposition dumps become fewer and farther between.
