Lore Olympus Vol 1 featured Reviews 

The Webcomics Weekly #180: The Devil Plays Idol and Aphrodite Returns

By | April 5th, 2022
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

The Webcomics Weekly is back in your life! With a simple question, is that Aphrodite’s music!? With her also comes the endless drama of Hades and Minthe in “Lore Olympus.” Meanwhile in “Lavender Jack” a series of great design decisions highlight a new character. And the “Devil Plays Idol” this week.

Devil Plays Idol
Episodes 1-3
Updates: Completed
By Maria Mediarito
Reviewed by Elias Rosner

It’s rare that I get to review a completed webcomic in its entirety, owing to most new comics being long-term affairs or way too long to read week in and week out. Thankfully, “Devil Plays Idol” is a short story, sitting at a comfortable three episodes at around 6 pages each. It’s a quick read and a fun entry into the “girl loves monster girl” school romance genre. It’s not particularly novel, plot wise, what with the whole of the comic being the aftermath of an unexpected confession and even more unexpected acceptance of said confession. It is, though, very fun and does a great job of establishing multiple threads of ongoing tension that could be sources of plot and character conflicts throughout the series. However, these episodes leave a lot to be desired.

Quick sidebar. I should note before moving on that I use comic throughout this despite “Devil Plays Idol,” and all of PenLab’s comics falling under the purview of Pinoy Komiks as it is a site showcasing Filipino webcomics. PenLab uses komik throughout the site, so in the same way manhwa webtoons fall under the umbrella term “comic” so will komik here. Unrelatedly, the whole site is on hiatus from updating at the moment but I’m sure to come back and see what else is here in the future. OK. Back to the review itself.

“Devil Plays Idol” reads more like a pilot episode for an ongoing series rather than a full work on its own. I said before that it was a short story, and it is, but it struggles to stand on its own. There’s an assumption on the part of Mediarito of either past knowledge which we are not privy to or the promise of future developments which are not, at present, coming. Essentially, it is torn between being a full meal and a sampler platter, so it is not the best at being either. Still good but not as good as it could be.

This is also true of the comic itself. There is a central “mystery” that is teased throughout – though given away by the title – which is at once played up as a genuine mystery for the audience and main character and a source of dramatic irony where the comic assumes we know what’s up when there has been no information given other than “there is a miscommunication here.” It’s not helped by the occasional panel flow issue, which is especially prevalent in episode 3 where pages are cluttered with figures breaking out of panels and word balloons cascading down the page.

The charm of the characters does help alleviate these missteps and Meditarito’s fun and expressive facial expressions keep things from getting too out of hand or confusing. In a genre of big emotions and bigger, broader comedies, the ability to convey that is often more important than the exact way it’s conveyed. Or, to put it a different way, I know the emotional beats that led to the page where Seth gets decked by Grace even though the specifics were murky at best and it still landed and got a laugh out of me.

I hope to see more of these two disaster lesbians not just because I’m a fan of the genre but also because, with a bit of fine tuning and a longer look to the horizon, Meditarito could make a series that is not just another good entry but a truly great one.

Lavender Jack
Episodes 105-106
Schedule: Tuesdays
By Dan Schkade(writing and art), Jenn Manley Lee(color)
Reviewed by Michael Mazzacane

There are just some nice design moments I want to point out in this review. Overall Act Three ‘The Nightjar’ continues at an agreeable pace as the Lavender League continues to probe for Project Postscript from separate ends. At one level of society Crabb and Ferrier interview Abacus Ma. At another level the Bastrop’s make their society debut!

Continued below

In episode 105 we are introduced to a new and likely important side character Vassar. Why do I have a feeling she’s going to be important, because for all intents and purposes she is the first character we get a good close up on in this strip. Later on we see Mimley treater her not as an equal but a worthy opponent with some technique and life advice. The action fan in me is let down that the strip didn’t devolve in to Schakde doing an extended fencing sequence ala “Lazarus” but maybe that’ll happen later. The introduction of Jack also with the sillohute on the stairs makes great use of the vertical format and how pulling through the stirp can support perspective changes.

The middle portion of 105 is dedicated to a necessary if somewhat repetitive interview with Abacus Ma. Necessary in that it’s procedurally putting the pieces together the reader knows but characters do not. The description of Postscript as “it kills the future” is very Anti-Life Equation so that is work noting. Schkade’s normal design bag of tricks are on display by projecting previous art into the background as the detectives put things together. The last image of Ferrier before we transition back to Jack is some of Jenn Manley Lee’s best coloring. The pallet for the strip is often very rich and for lack of a better term Spring like – as we’ll see with the ball – but here it takes that richness but turns it down in these warm colors catching sunlight through stained glass. It’s beautiful stuff.

The opening to 106 is a great example of how design can tell the reader everything they need about the power dynamics at play irrespective of the dialog. Mayor-General Gall is a “peacock” has he is later described, Schkade draws him blustering about making a show of his ‘power’. With ghastly images of threats that haunt him. Meanwhile Lady Hawthorne just sits there quietly. She’s the one who tells the officer to “leave” in a tight dry close up surrounded by black. She’s cloaked in shadow and looks fersome. Schkade doesn’t make Gall appear to be a gullible fool, even trying to gain her respect through the implicit threat of her own assassination. But power dynamic is all about the distance and her steely resolve compared to his anger.

How Lady Hawthorne reacts to the presence of the Bastrops at the end of 106 is positively TDKR Joker-esque in a GREAT way. She says, “there you are” but what she’s really saying is “darling.”

This batch of strips is all about the buildup. The Nightjar is coming and all of Society is out. It echoes the first society even from season one but now Mimley might be on the victim list.

Lore Olympus
Episodes 68-74
Updates Sundays
By Rachel Smythe
Reviewed by Mel Lake

Aphrodite returns! Unfortunately, so too does the endless drama between Hades and Minthe, the unlucky nymph.

This week’s batch of episodes brings back the story of Eros and Psyche, showing the aftermath of Eros’s disastrous decision to keep her locked up in his apartment without revealing his identity. Eros went on a rampage, apparently killing a huge batch of mortals, which garnered the wrath of Zeus. It’s the first time we really see the gods of “Lore Olympus” directly killing humans, and it’s a bit of an abrupt left turn from the light-hearted, romantic tone that the series mostly adopts. Aphrodite, Eros’s mother, strikes a bargain with Zeus and cleans up the mess with Psyche. Since we already basically know all this, the flashback seemed out of place where it was, in the middle of Persephone’s processing of her assault by Apollo.

As the story refocuses on Hades and Persephone, Minthe re-enters the picture and, again, stands up Hades, this time leaving him sitting and drinking alone after cooking a romantic dinner for two. But, again, we also see her side of the story, this time directly after seeing how horrible being left makes Hades feel. It’s hard to hate Minthe knowing that her supposed “bff” purposely sabotaged her out of jealousy. Smythe makes the budding romance between Hades and Persephone complicated in so many ways, and knowing Minthe’s side of the story makes readers choose to either ignore her pain or watch and acknowledge how the main pair are hurting others with their flirtation. It’s an honest look at a complex web of relationships. And although you sign up for this kind of soap opera story by reading a long-running webcomic and reading a story about the Greek gods, I do sometimes want a feeling of resolution. Maybe I’m not cut out for never-ending drama, but endlessly sympathizing with all these characters has taken a toll and I’d like someone to be happy, for once, at least for a little while.

I rarely criticize the writing in “Lore Olympus” because the original art style and clever riffs on the myths make up for the shortcomings, but I did notice that this batch includes a few typos and a few character designs that felt really off. Aphrodite’s face looked exactly like Hera’s, so much so that if they weren’t color-coded, I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to tell who the characters were. The stock male face and female face used for the entire wide cast of characters became really apparent in this batch and made me realize how important the use of color coding and costumes are to distinguish each character from one another in this comic.


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