The Webcomics Weekly #156: Big Webcomic Energy (9/28/2021 Edition)

The Webcomics Weekly is back in your life and this week we bring “Big Ethel Energy” with us. We also have continuing coverage of “Lavender Jack” as things really begin to heat up. We also begin coverage of a little strip called “Lore Olympus,” might’ve heard of it.

It’s often hard to judge a webcomic by its first three updates. They’re often a lot of table setting – getting us used to the characters, the setting, the general mood, etc – and as such, is less than representative of the comic as a whole. Because of this, it can take a bit for a comic to find its stride. Now, this is more true with a traditional page by page webcomic than with your typical Webtoon or webcomic strip, as one is far longer and the other is meant to be self-contained, but, as “Big Ethel Energy” can attest, unfortunately even Webtoons can suffer from this problem.

“Big Ethel Energy” has a pretty standard YA slice-of-life, romance start and, beyond the caché of the Archie Comics characters, doesn’t have much to differentiate itself from the many other YA slice-of-life romance comics on Webtoons thus far. Jug and Veronica are stock bullies while Archie is clueless and insensitive in the one flashback we get, Ethel is living a new life but has to return home for reasons, and now is in a situation where she has to encounter the classmates who treated her poorly on a daily basis. I think my issue is that while the parts are all fine on their own, I’m mostly invested in Ethel as a journalist. She’s an award winning magazine journalist apparently!

I wish we were given more time in her current job and location to properly contrast her move to Riverdale and to better frame the reasons she might accept a job which forces her to return to the town she escaped. We KNOW why – being forced to write listicles about romance SUCKS and if you can get all expenses paid to do the kind of journalism you love AND get a book deal out of it, well wouldn’t you? – but we don’t FEEL why. The space spent on the unnecessary flashback which kicked things off could have been used to slow down and really show us who Ethel Muggs is in the present day, rather than tell us who she is in relation to who she was.

Another problem with the comic is that everyone is too pretty! Wait, did I say problem? I meant slight issue, and only because of some of the events and dialogue in episode 3. Siobhan’s art is a great fit for the comic. It’s bouncy, simple, and leans into the romance aesthetic when appropriate, with sparkles and flowers and the “all eyes on them” framing, and when to lean back into the mundane. Background details can look a little flat and scratchy – this is most apparent in episode 1 – and faces can look a little stiff for sequentials, especially when mouths are fully open, perhaps from adhering too rigidly to being “on model.”

As for why I said it was too pretty, this comes down to Ethel’s appearance in the flashback vs the present and Archie’s comments in the latter. It’s made clear from the writing that Ethel looks completely different and glammed up 10 years after leaving Riverdale but…we never see a non-glammed up Ethel in high school. Hell, we barely see any high school at all. She looks different, sure, but the radical, drastic difference we’re meant to believe happened is not visually apparent because all of Siobhan’s characters are very pretty to begin with, so the “more” aspect is lost.

Now, this could be on purpose, seeing as how Ethel responds by saying she hasn’t changed that much and Archie could be an insensitive dolt, as characterized by the one scene we saw him in before. I’m inclined to believe this reading but other textual signifiers, like the sparkles post-return to “present day” in chapter one, makes me uncertain and that uncertainty takes me out of the story.

Clearly, I cannot say whether or not “Big Ethel Energy” will change in the coming chapters. It could be that these three, which dropped as a group, are meant to be all set-up and the real interesting meat of the story is to come. Characters clearly need deepening but that’s what a romance story is for; you start from assumptions and learn to see beyond them. It’s hard to recommend the series over others on the platform but I am willing to give “Big Ethel Energy” a few more chapters despite it’s hiccups and I think others should too. It’s got a solid albeit very standard core and the art will only grow more confident from here on out. If it can capture the right momentum, I can see myself enjoying this modern take on some old characters.

In the last batch of strips, I was amused at how well “Lavender Jack” made not moving the plot forward so entertaining. Well, it was all building to this batch of strips where it seems we run a marathon in the span of a single strip and then some. While episodes 77-79 are clearly connected through a tight temporality and plot, they all manage to tell different kinds of stories and work effectively on their own.

Episode 77 at first seems like it’ll be more of the same as the Black Note monologues about the nature of masks in a way that made me think in a Pup Named Scooby Doo Red Herring, Black Note was going to be revealed to Carl Jung! The Black Note hasn’t been revealed to be them … yet. The art in this strip does a sneaky good job of creating the feeling of a lively atmosphere and still do the extended tete-e-tete from Heat as Note and Jack dance together. This flow is achieved through long vertical panels to capture the lettering which guides the eye and helps to build the impression of movement as it shifts to the next panel. There is some wonderful dialogue in this batch, but the reveal that Note has had a Halo device on him the entire time was a fantastic reveal that suddenly turns the strip on its head. Also Maddox is murdered, RIP him … I guess.

After escaping with an assist from Detective Ferrier, the pair compare notes before heading up to the Margrave Building and “Lavender Jack” takes a romantic turn with Mimley finally forced to put his cards down on how he feels about Johnny Summer and if Summer is his masked nemesis. What follows is another extended dialogue sequence, however unlike the previous one Schakde can play to audience in the back of the room with the utter feeling of exhaustion in Summer’s. It’s not that his face says I haven’t slept well for weeks it is how his entire body says that. I wouldn’t call Mimley and Summer as traditional romance, but like any effective pairing Schkade has done the most necessary element: demonstrate why these two people would care to be around one another and be vulnerable. Vulnerability isn’t exactly either of their strong suits. So when they finally kiss the moment lands and you almost expect that party hat emoji to appear. Worth noting this the first kiss between a cisgender guy and transman I’ve read in a comic.

Any sort chance to explore that further is interrupted by our nefarious emerald scarves who turn “Lavender Jack” into one of the best action comics I’m currently reading. It’s been a while since Jack had to just fight a bunch of thugs and that’s what this strip gives the reader! Schkade also manages to work in a self-aware joke that works because “Jack” as a strip is humorous but isn’t MCU quippy. The sudden appearance of an ally, declaring as such too, only works because it hasn’t been done before.

Just a surprising amount of variety in this bath of strips.

This week I’m reading the most popular comic on Webtoon! With “Within” on hiatus after concluding the first part of its run, I’m excited to start the Eisner and Ringo-nominated comic, “Lore Olympus.” Netflix announced last year that it’s planning on adapting the series in an animated format through a partnership with The Jim Henson Company but there doesn’t seem to be an easily findable release date or much in the way of current news. The print version is available for pre-order, though, and season two of the series may be wrapping up soon, so it seems like the perfect time to go back and start at the beginning of this epic romance.

Many readers may already be familiar with this retelling of “The Abduction of Persephone” but I’m just about to enter the underworld for the first time. Right off the bat, Rachel Smythe’s artwork stands out as impressive, stylish, unique, and effective. The characters are familiar to those who know them from Greek mythology (or any number of pop culture adaptations), but the way Smythe uses color palates to identify each character is amazing. Hades, God the Underworld, is drawn in blue with dark eyes that flash red when he’s angered. Though he could easily seem scary, the geometric shapes Smythe draws him in coupled with his expressive face make him reliably sympathetic. He’s the loner guy who just got dumped and doesn’t want to be at this party. Persephone, however, is the embodiment of pink. She’s just … she’s so pink. It could very easily veer into cuteness overload but doesn’t, maybe due to her flowing, changing-length hair and the sadness that shows in her big eyes. The grungy watercolor effect of Smythe’s style coupled with the amazing colors and texture effects really make this comic stand out. It’s clearly taking advantage of the vertical scroll, filling the space with sound effects, text, and smaller panels to communicate information or for humor.

I only read episodes one through five for this review, so the story at this point consists mostly of setting up the characters and getting Persephone into the predicament that will define the rest of her journey. Instead of an ancient setting, this is a modern one, where the gods and goddesses use cell phones to gossip, attend raves, and drive around in fancy cars. Some of the settings remind me of “Revolutionary Girl Utena,” though that may also just be due to the heavy use of pink. Persephone is dragged to a party by Artemis, where Hades catches his first glimpse of the goddess of spring. His offhand remark about her beauty infuriates Aphrodite, who cons her son into helping her get Persephone blackout drunk. The scheming pair dump her in Hades’ car and this is how Persephone finds herself in the underworld. Everything I’ve read about the series makes it sound like the adult themes in the original myths are handled with care and sensitivity, which isn’t necessarily an easy task given the subject matter.

After getting a taste of the gorgeous artwork and through the initial setup, I’m eager to see how this retelling of the story will unfold.