The Webcomics Weekly is back in your life! This week we have continuing coverage of “Lore Olympus” and “The Uniques”. The season drags on in “Olympus”. Meanwhile the titular “Uniques” go through a different kind of team building exercise: bowling. Elsewhere we have coverage of “Rainbow!” a long running comic that has been remastered to fit the vertical scroll formate offering up another case study in how these shifts change and enhance-detract from the original piece. And, oh yea, it’s cute romance strip! it’s a solid batch of strips as always.
Episodes 108-115
Updates Sundays
By Rachel Smythe
Reviewed by Mel Lake
Season one of “Lore Olympus” is a wrap! I’m not sure why it’s called a season since it’s not a television show…but wait, Persephone is the goddess of spring. Okay, I get it. With 115 episodes in this season, hoo boy, it was a long one. Season two is well underway and the second volume of the printed edition of the comic was just released in stores, so I’m slowly catching up with this mega-long tale of love and gossip. (Lots of love but less thunder in this version of the myths than the one in theaters right now … also fewer goats.)
With Hades and Minthe’s relationship over, the trio of Underworld gossip hounds take to the skies to find out what Persephone might be hiding behind her ridiculously huge eyes and minuscule outfits. Ever-smarmy Apollo helps them speak to Helios, the chained god who brings daylight and sees everything. It turns out that Persephone’s wrath, shown when her eyes turn red, was more than just a few minor meltdowns while she was still living in the mortal realm. We’ve seen Persephone chafing at the restrictions her mother Demeter placed on her, but when she lashes out and slaughters an entire mortal village, it’s a tantrum that has major consequences. Demeter covered up the “indiscretion” and it’s not clear if Persephone herself even knows about it or if she’s repressed the memory. This development was a welcome change for me because vague hints about Persephone’s secrets have been dropped throughout the series and it was nice to see them actually lead somewhere.
Meanwhile, the main duo themselves are playing the will-they-won’t-they game again. I shouldn’t be surprised, since this is the story of their relationship but the way Persephone acts with Hades right after setting hard boundaries with him is frustrating. She is supposed to be a child, and she acts like one. But that makes it uncomfortable to see her in sexy outfits and leading a romance with a god much older than her. Hades acting as a sort of parental figure (by accompanying her to the bank, for example, or carrying her tiny body in his giant arms) has been a staple of romances for ages. And for fans of conventional romances, this is a familiar trope. I just don’t particularly like it, because Persephone ends up looking and acting like a child while in the context of a romantic relationship. This aspect of the romance genre in the context of our current culture makes this story hard for me to get fully behind but may not bother other readers.
But the poop hits the fan when Persephone’s misdeeds, which we don’t know if she remembers, are exposed. Presumably, Minthe, Thetis, and Thanatos are accusing Persephone of mass murder to Zeus in the final panel of the season, since he’s a purple god in a white suit. But since many characters in the strip look alike, it’s sometimes hard to tell. I give Rachel Smythe a ton of kudos and credit for keeping this story going for 115 episodes, and though there have been minor errors that distract from the overall quality, that “Lore Olympus” is still going strong is an amazing feat. I didn’t quite realize how fully enmeshed in romance tropes this drama would be when I signed on to read the story but I’m in awe of the sheer amount of content the team behind this strip produces on a weekly basis and I’m curious to see what the next seasons bring. As a lover of plot-based stories, I’m hoping for more intrigue for next season, as Persephone faces the consequences of her actions and the actual abduction of Persephone myth is brought to the fore.
Continued below
‘Ep 22’ – ‘Ep 28’
Updates: Every Other Friday
Written by Sunny Gloom
Illustrated by Rue Gloom
Reviewed by Elias Rosner
Some of my favorite things to figure out are ways webcomics change over time. It’s like an archeological dig, deducing what used to be from scraps of information. I initially thought “Rainbow!” was a fairly new comic but it has actually been running for quite some time before getting remastered and re-formatted to fit the scroll (specifically for Webtoons.) Then in April of 2022, the comic became part of Tapas’ early access program and started putting out longer, more consistent episodes. It’s this point, between ep 21 & 22 that I chose as the starting point.
Glooms’ art in these episodes is a big draw to the comic. It’s lively and simple, with full backgrounds and a clear sense of space. The color palette is limited but uses the pinks and blues quite effectively to both create a sense of unease during the heavier chapters and a poppier, more lighthearted feel during the rest. This is true of the writing as well. I wanted to really praise the purples at the end of ‘ep 28’ for pulling double duty as night and foreboding.
Plot wise in these episodes, Boo, our protagonist, is mostly dealing with the fallout of her mother’s visit to the hospital. Her mother is toxic and an alcoholic who won’t admit she has a problem and Boo is so non-confrontational she cannot broach any of the thorny subjects she needs to. These episodes are perhaps Boo’s lowest point yet and we see her struggling with her conflicting feelings, of the mother she once knew and the mother in front of her. Yet we are also shown the kindness of her boss (work mom,) the concern of her coworker (friend mom) and the yearning for connection with the mysterious green-haired girl (bad boy mom.)
Did I mention this was a romance comic?
If one were to judge a story by its title, then “Rainbow!” would, at first blush, seem like a very misleading one. The exclamation point lies! It promises excitement and happiness and instead we have sadness and stress. But actually, “Rainbow!” is a far more apt title. It is the beauty after the storm. The relief after the tumult. It is a signal for queer life and of connection. It is a promise that things will never get that bad again.
We are in the storm right now but the rainbow is beginning to form.
Episodes 13-15
Schedule: Mondays
By Comfort and Adam (art and story) Color Flats by various
Reviewed by Michael Mazzacane
“The Uniques” as a vertical scroll webcomic continues to improve, in particular the opening sequence in episode 14 as Annihilgator summons his friends. While the paneling itself isn’t a meaningful shift in terms of overall geometry there is a noticeable play with vertical length and constant POV swaps that both hide and enlarge Annihilgator and keep him from view allowing the villain to be an effective monster. It’s simple but effective stuff and a good example of how one can translate normal format comic pages to these strips, with the right base art.
I always forget that this strip is technically in that late 90s early 00s mode, which does explain Singe sooooooo much more. To the creative team’s credit, they’re making me feel something more than instantaneous abject loathing for the bro. with the start of episode 13 showing Singe and Jack were up to the day New York was obliterated. They rightly see the massive shift that will be going on and how the common man will be forgotten as society and the government reorganize in a world without most of the superhero infrastructure. This plus the backstory about why he always wears gloves gives so much needed depth to the exuberant in your face quality of the character.
It’s always interesting reading indie superhero books because they function more often as meta texts and commentary on the genre, Annihilgator is a fun reference point and a solid design but you can’t just offer up knock offs and intertextual refreant and expect people to become invested. What gets people invested is solid character work which helps to spackle over all the postmodern reflexivity. Comfort and Adam do a riff on one of the things that made Claremont “X-Men” and Wolfman-Perez “Titans” work so well, giving these groups of characters something to do that isn’t cape shit and instead just being friends. Here the annual baseball game is replaced with a trip to a colorful bowling alley. The writing team’s ability to just write engaging dialogue that feels specific to the characters in conjunction with solid art makes this a plainly effective set of strips. Earlier I described the subtle shifts in paneling to be “simple but effective”, there isn’t anything simple about the structuring of this sequence. It’s a balancing act with 6 characters who must operate in subgroups and cohere into a larger sequence that is bowling. It’s a lot to balance, but in achieving that balance it all just looks simple.
