Webcomics Weekly #118: The First Webcomics Weekly of 2021 (01/05/21)

Welcome back to The Webcomics Weekly!

It’s a new year, but the same Webcomics Weekly. Well, not really the “same” due to a variety of philosophical and content choices, but you know what I mean. We kick of the new year still going up the “Tower of God,” and hunting “Lavender Jack.” As as “The Masked Fables” which looks like Memento but more kawaii and less Nolan neo-noir brooding. We also have a look at “A Side Character’s Love Story,” a strip whose title really says it all.

Dan Schkade’s Lavender Jack is at once a send up to classic pulp figures with a dash of “V for Vendetta” and there is a certain charm to that on its own. Would it be enough charm to hold my attention, perhaps not? Thankfully Schkade has seeded his strip with a series of delightful and engaging characters and relationships from Sir Mimley and Ducky, Theresa and her partner, and even the truly pitiful Lord Mayor. Those character dynamics center stage as the fallout from Lavender Jack’s exposure of the Mayor at the ball in the previous batch of strips.

As an American, there is something kind of funny too British slang and cursing. The thirteenth episode of “Jack” begins with just a fun stream of alliterative words starting with ‘B’ some of which are curses. This rare moment of excessive emotion from Sir Mimley is magnified by Schkade’s staging: Mimley strip his Jack disguise off – giving readers our first good look at the suit. It is a raw moment, and he is showing his raw skin.

With Mimley and Theresa fully setup as co-protagonists of this series the second half of the strip centers around what she got up to haver Jack left. She gives the Lord Mayor a very Hercule Poirot or Columbo style speech, but unlike those detectives she ices her dressing down and intellectual flex on everyone around her with a moral relativism neither detective displayed. She is in bounty hunter mode, this is a job and lofty, idealistic, aims of Justice are not her concern. What comes next is on the people who hired her, not her.

Lord Hawthorne finally returns after an excellent introduction several strips ago, but it is notable who Schkade chooses to have the reader spend time with. Not the villainous aristocratic Hawthorne couple, Schkade cuts away from them kissing or violently embracing one another to Theresa and Margeurite for a tender small moment between the couple. Theresa is realizing the work is getting harder and her partner’s health is not getting any better, but there is a warmth and understanding Schkade creates between the two – their first extended sequence together since their introduction that is just wonderfully done.

The Lord Mayor is very pitiful, an affect that is increased by Schkade’s expressive and simple cartooning for the character. Despite all this action and guns, there is actually very little violence in this strip as it expresses Classic Hollywood sensibility to how that is dealt with. The untimely end to the Lord Mayor is handled off screen in a series of panels that displace the violence on to the perpetrators dead gaze with crushing onomatopoeia. It isn’t the goriest thing I’ve read all year but it is certainly the most violent.

“Lavender Jack” begins to kick things up into high gear as the story enters a new stage.

The Masked Fables
Episode 1 – 6
Updates: Wednesday
By Ebae Kim
Reviewed by Jacob Cordas

In “Snow White,” there is a line that “The Masked Fables” kept bringing me back to: “Remember, you’re the one who can fill the world with sunshine.” Every person is responsible for their own happiness, for bringing out the beautiful. When making art, the responsibility now is how do you bring out the sunshine in each person in the world you’re creating and the characters that populate it. Ebae Kim is able to succeed at half of this.

With writing that is strong on characterization, it would seem to be the second half. The dialogue is high energy and fun, creating an immediate sense of urgency even when going through the ropes of exposition. However, more often than not, this doesn’t translate to the actual drawing of the characters. While there are occasional bright and beautiful moments in these first few episodes, most notably the representation of Snow White, the regular cast is often drawn as though Kim is just trying to get to the next major set-piece.

But those set pieces are so dazzling, it makes “The Masked Fables” worth reading. Whether it be a gorgeous castle, the beauty of a fairy tale abstractly represented, or the moment Snow White is finally revealed that I discussed above, the webcomic soars. It’s delightful and majestic. It’s what the series should be the whole time. It’s what I wish it were the whole time.

At the end of the day, I’ll still keep reading it. I want to see it improve and grow into the majestic reimagining of fairy tales I know it can be. It may not be there yet but if any webcomic deserved a happy ever after it was this one.

It’s weird to be reviewing a manga for this column but here we are. Now, I fully understand that “manga” is a fraught category that falls apart pretty quickly upon scrutiny in terms of what it actually *means* but it’s a helpful as a stylistic shorthand. “A Side Character’s Love Story” isn’t a webcomic in the same way that ONE’s “Mob Psycho 100” and Yayoiso’s “ReLIFE” are, but because it’s getting a chapter (ish) by chapter publication on a webcomic platform, so imma count it.

While I don’t totally love the title, mostly because it feels disingenuous to the actual story we get, “A Side Character’s Love Story” is warm and wholesome and channels the feeling that one is a side character in their own life to a T. I felt seen quite often while reading these chapters, between Nobuko’s bouts of social anxiety and timidness or Irie’s own misunderstandings that never quite rise to the level of melodrama. In fact, despite the fussing the art makes when Nobuko is clearly flustered or anxious, the story & drama is nice and low-key.

Tamura’s art is clean and clear as well, a perfect fit for this kind of romance story. It’s just heartwarming y’all! I do have to say that these more recent chapters are a lot more sure of themselves than the earlier ones, especially now that the “quirks” captions are gone, which weren’t bad but felt unnecessary. Tamura conveys plenty through her art, specifically in the smaller reactions of each of our principal characters, and so they ended up being clutter on the page.

One critique I do have, which has nothing to do with the comic, is that it’s clear these were originally in a magazine and not built for a vertical scroll. For readers who are looking for a more seamless reading experience, this would not be my preferred format. But for anyone looking for a new romance comic that is simple, wholesome, and too relatable, this is a great read to start the new year.