Earthsong

[Chimera]

I don't know if anyone has reviewed this before, but it wasn't on the 2 most recent pages, so I'll start a topic for it:
Earthsong by Crystal Yates.

The art is what caught my attention first. I love the vivid colors and anime-style art. Yates herself described Earthsong in an interview as "a fantasy manga." I'm not familiar with manga, so I'll take her word for it (Ookla may be able to shed some light here). But I can definitely see the Sailor Moon-type anime influence. And I like it.

The storytelling is not bad either. In "Genesis" there is a lot of text, but otherwise Yates does a good job of balancing visual storytelling with dialogue/text, in my humble opinion. The world and magic system are a fun blend of old and new--mythological beings looked at in a different way. I am intrigued by the story and plan to keep following it.

One of the things I enjoyed most about this comic was the lack of annoying and distracting advertisements. The artist linked to several of her fellow webcomic writers, but at most I was detered by all the irrevelant content and lack of actual art/comic. At Earthsong, though, all the visual focus is on the art and the story. Of course, Yates does put content, including plugs to vote for her and links to other sites, in the green blog box on the lefthand side, but that stuff is *only* there. It is contained. Though, there do seem to be more advertisements on the home page than in the archives. (As you get more popular, is it required to link more? I don't know. I'd think it was the opposite.)

I will also unabashadly admit that this is the type of art style and fantasy story that I am inclined to like. It is right up my alley. So, if it is not someone else's cup of tea, I won't be dismayed.

Oh, and if you're interested, here is a link to an interview with the author. I like her--she seems down to earth, like someone I would be friends with if I met her in real life.

[Chimera]

Okay, can't sleep and am indulging in my new love Earthsong. Here are some fun extras I found:

Yates does two artpad sketches--Willow and Tristam. (Both of these links are ones where fans added fun little flairs--they were the ones that worked.) I find the drawing process fascinating, and liked watching this animation show her progress from start to finish. Granted, these are rough sketches done with a mouse, but still. Even how she shades the drawings is cool to an amateur like me.

Apparently Tristam's story sequence (see Lament in the archives) led to some teasing from fans. He's an angsty vampire, see, and became dubbed with the unfortunate nickname of Vampy McEmopants. The next development was some very entertaining fanfic in the form of a livejournal from the dismal vampire. The McEmopants Monologues had me in stitches. Read them--please! However, to really understand and enjoy them you need to have read up to the end of Tristam's flashback in the Lament chapter. *snicker* McEmobriefs. Demonic tornados. Viscious mall cops. Bwahahahaha!

[Entsuropi]

I've read it before. It moves too slowly and is overly wordy, in my opinion, but it's not bad. I'm thinking it'll be a good webcomic in a year or so. Needs time to get improvements in pacing - the start of the comic was really slow, but the latest strips seem to be covering more ground faster. The art is cute, but the dialogue doesn't quite hit home all the time. Well worth a read, but I think i'll wait a fortnight between readings, just so I get a bigger burst at once. Heavy storyline comics don't tend to work well when you read a page at a time.

I think that if I ever made a webcomic i'd do my damndest to make it the fastest moving. Too many comics move at glacial pace. QC is falling down in that regard - nothing of actual plot importance has happened in like 100 strips. Megatokyo is getting slightly better.

[Chimera]

I do feel lucky that I got to read a big chunk of it in one sitting. Now I care enough about the characters to keep following it. I can see why you would say it is slow, though. It is heavy on the story--but I still like.