The Webcomics Weekly is back in your life. And this week Elias is cutting the strings that puppet him in honor of this weeks comic, “Marionetta”. How many puppet puns will there be? How many references to Avengers: Age of Ultron (the good Avengers movie) will there be? Read on and find out.
Marionetta
Episodes 1-30
Updates: Wednesdays
By Míriam Bonastre Tur
Colored by Eiden Marsal Zamora
Edited by Mireya Hernandez
Proofread by Laura Martinez
Reviewed by Elias Rosner
I’ve been waiting with bated breath for Míriam Bonastre Tur’s next project. I loved “Hooky” and I knew that whatever it was followed up with would be just as good. Imagine my surprise when I find out that not only did I miss the premiere of “Marionetta” back in December 2022 but that the comic is doing dark fantasy circuses, though more in the Hiromu Arakawa/Dianne Wynn Jones vein than the Ray Bradbury/Kentaro Miura vein. Consider me hooked before panel one.
Need more? Good news! There’s so much more. Opening on a flash forward some six-months from the comic to follow, we’re baited with a mystery of how our soon-to-be main character could have been put in the position of MURDER at the circus. Because Bonastre is a fantastic storyteller, she then properly follows this hook up with a potential “why,” the layered conflicts that “why” provokes, and a wonderful callback to “Hooky’s” opening scene chasing the bus.
Our two main characters are Julia and Kamille and they couldn’t be more different. Julia is a neurotic narc and the daughter of a career soldier, while Kamille is a spacy flower child with a penchant for mischief. The two make for an odd but wonderful pairing in this world of empires, traveling circuses and forbidden magic. Or, well, not forbidden per se. Something can’t be forbidden if it doesn’t exist, yes?
“Marionetta” has a story and characters that drags you in with their charm and their mystery. It feels effortless in its slowly expanding scope yet tight knit story. Even in these thirty episodes, there’s been plenty of pay-off and then more set-up, bolstering the short and medium term narrative. Long-term is still a question mark, seeing as how six months is not that much time. That’s what the best fantasy story does. Add in the underlying themes of questioning authority and rejecting racist dogma, and a healthy dose of disaster lesbians and hawt bishonen dudes and it’s safe to say this is one of my favorite webcomics of the year.
And how could I have forgotten the art?! There’s rarely a wasted scene or a misplaced panel break but it’s not too ornate. Backgrounds are properly varied, with solid colors when necessary and full environments most of the rest of the time. Thankfully it doesn’t lean heavily on gradients to transition between scenes and instead creates a natural flow with word balloons in conjunction with subtly shifting environs. Gradients have their place but I’ve seen so many sparkly nothings as of late that I would much rather the stark white or black present here with the panel backgrounds on top.
I also want to shout out Zamora’s colors, which use a wonderful range of colors and shades to give a soft texture to the comic and ties the foregrounds and the backgrounds together without creating a single flat plane. Yet it retains that “flat” cartoony look that suits Bonastre’s art so well. If there’s one critique I have, it’s that when you’re reading on a computer screen you can see where the line art is shaky or incomplete and the coloring splotchy rather than fully formed. But that’s a minor nitpick most readers will never notice and does nothing to detract from the wholeness of the comic.
I could go on. From the great blend of slapstick comedy, melodrama, and romantic will-they-won’t-they to the darker mystery and thriller aspects, there’s something for everyone in this comic, which is a feat of juggling that even the most talented circus member would struggle to make look effortless. And yet, “Marionetta” does.
