Reviews 

The Webcomics Weekly #267: A Tall Glass of “Honey Lemon” (1/23/2024 Edition)

By | January 23rd, 2024
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

The Webcomics Weekly is back in your life and it has a cup of “Honey Lemon” tea for you. May you have a meet cute in the rain involving a three legged cat. After a surprisingly long mid season break, the slice of life romance strip is back which makes it a good time to look at it.

Honey Lemon
Episodes 1-35
Schedule: Tuesdays
By Courtney Wirthit(art and story), Wen (lead design assistant), Mercury (lead color assistant), Grace McCormack (line art assistant), Jirah (line art assistant)
Reviewed by Michael Mazzacane

You could say that this series title “Honey Lemon” captures the essence of itself, it is earthy and a bit bitter but also sweet with a sudden acidic hit. Such is the trials and tribulations of Kyoungmi. She has experienced the sweetness of life after her successful book deal turned it into a transmedia property. But a couple years after writing the next big thing, she is struggling to figure out what to write next. That with the building, but still sudden, realization about her boyfriend, has resulted in Kyoungmi facing down what feels like a midlife crisis before she’s thirty. Now Kyoungmi is on the search for inspiration and renewal.

For me, this comic hits the sweet spot that slice of life stories can. While this webtoon is categorized as a “romance”, and that slow burn is to a degree the central serializing pillar of this series, the Courtney Wirthit led comic functions more on the slice of life side of things after about episode 8 or so. It’s good hangout strip, the joy is seeing Wirthit and the rest of the art team represent the core four characters being, trying to be the thing that aspire to, and all the awkward failures that happen along the way.

The plotting of the first 5 or so strips is a bit more on the melodramatic side, and while I am always one for melodrama it comes off more as a byproduct of plot contrivance than character. To their credit the creative team write a fantastic meet cute between Kyoungmi and Joonhyung. There’s sudden rain, spilled honey lemon tea, and the somewhat magical appearance of a three legged cat named Tuna. Afterwards things get more extreme from there, it a real whirlwind of plotting. However afterwards things begin to slow down more into that slice of life kind of vibe.

The extremity of the first batch of strips, complete with a waking nightmare mixed media shift in the art is to build contrast with the more vibes nature of later strips. Of note in this first batch is the “dinner date” Kyoungmi has with her boyfriend and the clear just display of someone not treating someone, much less their partner, as anything but an object. It’s maybe underlined a bit thick but it’s an early example of the creative teams ability to mix good character acting and framing with the scripting.

The scripting for the most part is fine, the lettering has a certain monotone quality to it. Other than a quote from the Barbie movie about mojo dojo’s it provides both functional dialogue and sounds realistic. Because at the heart of this strip is the two pairs of friendships at the center of this strip and without that realness none of this strip works. Thankfully the creative team do a good job of displaying a bunch of fresh out of college what-am-I-doing-now style angst and romance? There’s a way they draw Jae and Joon teasing one another that makes it feel like they have been friends for a long time. The same is true for Kyoungmi and Sora.

“Honey Lemon” art team do perhaps the most work in creating the slice of life vibes and is the reason to read this strip. Which feels like an odd thing to say as the art isn’t exactly some groundbreaking bit of cartooning, it has a lot of formal qualities not dissimilar from a bunch of other strips made in clipstudio paint. There is something to how the team contrast 3D environments of the city and the insertion of fake social media with the line work that brings this slightly idealized realness to the strip. “Honey Lemon” is kind of like Friends in that it’s an ensemble piece about people who do work and yet have all this free time, if you broke it down it wouldn’t make sense but the vibes are right. The art and structure of this book get the vibes right.

It may not be a read it every week kind of strip but it’s worth checking in on when you need some good vibes.


//TAGS | Webcomics

Michael Mazzacane

Your Friendly Neighborhood Media & Cultural Studies-Man Twitter

EMAIL | ARTICLES



  • -->