The Webcomics Weekly is back in your life! And this week we have “The Wyrm Turns” which just makes me want to spontaneously monologue Patton Oswalt style through a series of American Soap Opera introductions. I have a feeling my delivery wouldn’t be as good. That said this is a rather melodramatic and soap opera like trio of webcomics we have this week. With continuing coverage of Eisner winning “Lore Olympus” and “The Uniques” both taking on heightened and aestheticized drama from different perspectives. “Wyrm” is actually quite a playful fantasy riff about incompetent rules and the people who prop them up.
Episodes 116-122
Updates Sundays
By Rachel Smythe
Reviewed by Mel Lake
Where’s Persephone? That’s the main question on everyone’s mind as season two of “Lore Olympus” kicks off. After a recap thanks to the Fates, we launch right back into the drama and hijinks of the gods. With Persephone missing and a mismatched gang of gods and goddesses searching for her, this batch of episodes is full of hijinks and the sort of mistaken-identity shenanigans common in the old myths the story is based on.
Perhaps because Persephone is my least favorite character, I enjoyed these episodes that center around finding her but don’t actually feature her as a player. It’s always refreshing to step back and get an outsider’s point of view on what has been going on, and this batch of episodes does that, in a way. Artemis is reevaluating her relationship with her roommate, Eros is helping out while being clueless, Hades is also searching while being clueless, and Hecate is pulling the strings as the only character in the group to have a brain cell. I’ve grown fond of these side characters over the hundred-plus episodes we’ve seen them through, and I enjoyed the chance to see them run around interacting without the distraction of Persephone’s doe eyes and impossibly waist-to-hip ratio.
Zeus and Hera’s relationship also comes back to the fore here, and when Hera transforms into Persephone to fool Demeter, it brings some welcome humor back into the story. Although Hera and Zeus’s loveless marriage is sad, their interactions and the fallout propel the story forward and have major consequences for the gods and mortals around them. So although watching the drama of an unhappy couple unfold isn’t pleasant, it might be a sign that the plot of “Lore Olympus” might be moving beyond the will-they-won’t-they back and forth of Hades and Persephone’s relationship. Interestingly, we also get a glimpse of Zeus’s perspective on Persephone’s rampage, which is predictably self-centered but also a reasonable response by someone in leadership. He wonders how things managed to go so off the rails under his watch, which may not be the most important question for Hades, Persephone, or any of the other romantic sidekicks, but does seem like a good question for the King of the Gods to ask himself.
Episodes 16-18 + “Fanart and Illustration Time Out!”
Schedule: Mondays
By Comfort and Adam (art and story) Color Flats by various
Reviewed by Michael Mazzacane
Annhilgator is dealt with and the team tries to celebrate by going to the mall and discussing the finer points of what counts as a “stupid rule” only to run into their greatest villians yet: Mall Goths!
The first chunk of the fight with Annhilgator is part of an episode called ‘Chaos in the Streets’ which is a fitting title. The fight is a chaotic mess, imagine Lizardmen but with Skaven tactics. That chaos though is kind of what makes the art and storytelling in this two-part fight sequence work. I’ve read better Webtoon fight sequences, ones that vary panel size and gutter length to create a rhythm for the fight to flow to. Comfort and Adam don’t really do that in this sequence panel design is roughly the same and gutter length is wide as always. It breaks everything up into isolated pockets of action that never establishes a solid foundation for the reader. It creates effective chaos. The panel content itself is solid action work if a bit stiff and lacking in verve. Motherboard directing traffic is what gives the sequence just enough coherency to be enjoyable and effective storytelling.
Continued belowEpisode 18 begins en media res with the team taking on the previously mentioned Mall Goths. While en media res start points are supposed to be confusing, shocking, and again feature Motherboard running traffic, this singular episode’s dose of action lacks the urgency and craft of the previous ones. This sequence is confusing, not in a technically bad way, just in a kind of bland way. I just have no reason to care other than some comedic intent that I’m missing. The antagonist character design is period specific with a twist. The ability to riff and make characters is an underappreciated aspect of this book. Just none of it comes together to immediately give me a reason to care. This is the start of a new arc and it’s not even the opening act but as a singular episode if I’d read this when it came out I’d be left wanting. In totality it will likely add up to something but as it stands it’s not immediately intriguing.
In between these episodes is a fun little behind the scenes strip composed of fanart and process breakdowns. This is the kind of easy communicative stuff that I like about Webtoons comparable to process work in the back of trades.
‘Hot Air’ – ‘Registration’
Updates: Thursdays
By Jabbageart (Helen Greetham)
Reviewed by Elias Rosner
What a wonderful land Smoo is, full of knights and dragons and libraries oh my. If only its ruler was less self centered and a little more self-aware. But then we wouldn’t have the fun tale that is “The Wyrm Turns.”
I’ve been a fan of Greetham’s work for a bit. There’s a quiet playfulness to all her stories, a tone “Wrym Turns” takes and uses to great effect. Set in a traditional European high fantasy setting, “Wyrm’s” main character, Pem, wants to be a knight and has to slay a dragon to do so. Unfortunately for her, the dragon she meets is Pphnarg the Dragon who’s kinda a mess, a half dragon, and not a threat to anyone. So she becomes his knight! From there hijinks ensue. One of my favorite gags from the first chapter is that he’s an excellent accountant and deal maker thanks to his human accountant father.
Chapter 3, which is what’s covered here, is all about DragonconTM and seems to be set to develop Pphnarg and his relationship to the greater world of dragons. What we’ve seen thus far has me excited, in part because Pphnarg fits the trope of the character who recreates modern tech in a fantasy world with the aesthetic, and technological level, of the middle ages, like electric lights or a hydrogen blimp. I love that kind of character and you can’t help but relate to the guy. He’s trying his best and while his best isn’t always very good, I think Pem will be a good influence on him.
As for the art, it’s been a while since I’ve read a webcomic whose visuals have that quintessential “webcomic” look rather than a more contemporary “Webtoons” look. There’s definitely a looseness to the character’s models and a flatness to the background & colors. Some readers may be turned off by this. While the draftwork doesn’t blow me away, for me, the strengths of the story and characters, as well as my enjoyment of the whole, makes it a moot point. I particularly like the addition of a grainy filter to the whole comic to give it a bit of an aged look.
At three chapters, “The Wyrm Turns” has more than made the case for it to be read and for the story to sustain itself in an interesting and fun way. Pem & Pphnarg’s adventures are just beginning. So should your reading of this comic.
