Posted by Shane Woodis | October 26, 2009 .
Iâm hesitant to call Harkovast a âFurryâ comic. The characters are all anthropomorphized animals, so I guess that qualifies it to some degree. Thereâs just something about the way that itâs drawn: it doesnât quite have the same feel. The art, especially the coloring, reminds me of the illustrations in a (violent) story book, where anthropomorphized animals abound as well without generally being labeled as âfurryâ. Ultimately whether or not you consider it a Furry comic doesnât make much of a difference when itâs the actual quality of the series that matters.
I was asked to review this comic by its creator, Daniel Stribley, after he read some of my other reviews. Seriously, I go out of my way to be humorously cruel to the comics I review: why do people keep wanting me to review their comics? I would say that itâs some kind of masochism, but I think that shows a bit too much confidence in my ability to annoy people. Still, at least these comics tend to have smaller archives, so I can get through a review faster. Well, I might as well get to the actual review, otherwise this will end up being more of my musings on writing the review than the review itself. So: Harkovast! Things get off to a shakey start with a combination of bad anatomy and a boring wall of text. That guy with the Cricket bats strapped to his back, surprisingly, isnât the main character. In fact, heâs got a pretty passive role in the whole series thus far, and I barely remember him. This is one of those stories that doesnât really have a âmain characterâ, so much as a main cast, and even then it takes a surprisingly long time for them all to meet up.
Anyway, back to the story. The worldâs at war with âThe Namelessâ, which is basically a group of undead rat⦠Viking⦠things. Theyâre not very fleshed out: they seem to exist just to be something that the other characters can kill on a regular basis without the reader having to deal with any of the moral dilemmas normally associated with war. Theyâre such over the top âbad guysâ that itâs actually kind of funny. The simplicity of the whole thing would probably be a bit easier to take if they didnât seem so organized. Like, if it was just a mindless zombie horde that marches across the land, then fine, whatever. But itâs a whole army that seems be organized entirely around wandering the countryside being tremendous dicks to everyone else on the planet. Whatâs their motivation to do any of this? Are they stealing the land from the people they murder? Do the people they capture and torture have anything they want, or do they just like doing it? All we know is that thereâs a lot of them, theyâre jerks, and some guy called the Heretic is probably their leader. Not to say that we need to know all the ins and outs of their armies, politics, etc. But as they are now theyâre just kinda generic and boring.
Like a lot of furry (or whatever) style comics, speciesâ are essentially treated as different ethnic groups in the world of Harkovast. The sort of British white people are Cats, Native Americans are Foxes, Asians are Lizards, etc. Thereâs a whole bizarre sequence where Daniel explains how cross-breeding works in a world where lizards can hook up with birds, but I honestly couldnât care less. Iâm already suspending my disbelief just to accept this talking animal fantasy world: I donât need to see the whole comic come to screeching halt for one page so I can know what happens when a wolf boinks a fox. In general the comic has a tendency to just drop everything so Daniel can have either the narrator or one of the characters rant barely coherently and pretentiously. Frankly, itâs a chore whenever one of those pages comes up. I canât even think of something funny to say about them. Theyâre long, theyâre boring, and I donât like them.
Well, I might as well talk about the characters, which I always seem to do in these reviews. The first recurring character we meet is that mysterious guy with the cricket bats I mentioned earlier, and he hasnât really done anything besides ramble to no one in particular about the state of the world heâs in. After him we meet Shogun, who I took to calling âJapanophileâ, because he just came off as the kind of character that would be made up by someone whoâs way too into anime and automatically thinks that something is better if its carrying a katana. I actually wasnât too far off: apparently Shogun is supposed to be an arrogant prick who thinks heâs worlds better than all the white peoâcats because he acts like heâs Japaneâa lizard. Itâs kind of relieving, in a way, to know my suspicions werenât just snarky paranoia. We donât really know anything about Shogun apart from the fact that heâs a cat, he was raised as a lizard, is pretty good at being a lizard, and doesnât like cats. He really doesnât have much of a personality to speak of, which is true of basically everyone in the comic. They all have traits and mannerisms, but the whole thing feels oddly like a textbook. You get all the facts of the events that happen in the series, but no reason to give it any emotional investment.
Next up we have BIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRD MAAAAAAN! Actually, he kind of looks like the Dread Pirate Roberts mixed with the Vlasic Pickle stork. Iâve just looked it up, and the Vlasic stork is named Jovny, which is what Iâll be calling this character because I canât remember his name without looking it up (even though I made the minimal amount of effort to look up the Vlasic Pickle Storkâs name) and thinking of him talking like Jovny just makes me smile. Does this mean the birds are supposed to be Jewish? Whatever: Jovnyâs the closest to having a personality. I think this is just because heâs the only guy who isnât either deadly serious at all times or just plain retarded (more on that later). Anyway, Jovny is a professional assassin, and he died earlier, but heâs okay now. Insert your own âmostly deadâ joke wherever you think it would be funniest.
After that we have Sir Muir, whoâs that retarded guy I mentioned earlier. Iâm not quite sure what to make of him. Heâs pointlessly wacky, which is a trait that tends to really gets on my nerves, but he manages to spread it out enough that itâs never really an annoyance. I think it might be because his inane ramblings get on Japanophileâs nerves, and since I just plain donât like Japanophile Iâm totally okay with that. I think another part of it is that heâs a good fighter without him being so good that itâs ridiculous. Either way, heâs still kind of annoying in his own tard-cat sort of way, but he manages to be goofy at times without clashing painfully with the extremely serious world he inhabits.
Finally, after all this we have lizard girl. She probably has a name too, but whatever. Sheâs on a quest to find Japanophile, because she needs his help to kill the Heretic. Sir Muir ends up joining her because heâs that odd combination of chivalrous and retarded that allows him to drop whatever heâs doing at any given time to chauffeur a woman around. Jovny finds himself traveling with them because heâs on his way to kill the same guy, and figures itâd be easier if he had three people helping him. Lizard girl has this sort of boring, generic polite personality. She doesnât have any kind of opinion about anything apart from âevil is badâ and âpeople are interestingâ. Still, as a delicate woman sheâs lucky to have all these strong men to protect her andâwait, what the hell?
Did you see that shit? She just punched that dudeâs goddamn eye out! Holy shit, what does she even need Shogun for? Seriously, dude gets his shit ruined just a few pages later and Lizard Girl⦠I mean Chen-Chen (I think sheâs earned the right to be referred to be her actual name, right?) has to bail his ass out right after that. Yes, that attack that took down the fully armored and armed Japanophile in ONE HIT doesnât even faze her. She just blocks that shit with her bare hands. Bitch doesnât even carry a weapon or shield or anything and she blocks it three goddamn times. I donât even think it was giving her any trouble. Weâll never really know because Sir Tard-cat decides to get in the way of her going all balls out on that dude and kicking him so hard his testicles fly out his butthole (which is one of the more literal ways one can go âballs outâ). So⦠what does she need Shogun for again? Oh yeah, to show up at the last moment after everyone else has already beaten the guy to a bloody pulp and act like he didnât get taken down in the first round like a punk bitch. What a douche.
Iâve got mixed feelings about the art. Itâs very simple, for the most part, and attempts to do more complex art just look awkward and forced. Itâs clear that Stribley is familiar with perspective, but doesnât quite understand it. The best part of the comic is easily the coloring, where Stribley really redeems himself. The linework has a middle-school quality to the art, but the coloring isâoh-wait-he-doesnât-color-it-his-wife-does! Man, I wonder what it would look like if she drew the rest of it? So⦠even though the woman is clearly the more adept at this sort of thing, thereâs a man that takes charge and gets most of the credit? Itâs Chen-Chen all over again! That aside, I think it might be the fact that his wife does such a great job coloring his backgrounds and such that resulted in Dan never using word balloons. Normally this is something that I just hate, but somehow it works in this comic. I think itâs because it really does feel like more of a storybook than a comic, and the lack of recognizable word balloons, coupled with non-comic fonts, helps to enhance that. It also helps that the text layout is never confusing, so at the least you can always tell whoâs talking at any given moment. Still, he feels the need to code some peopleâs text with different fonts for no readily apparent reason, which has always irked me.
Still, I want to remind you that, even if the coloring makes the art sort of quirky and interesting, itâs still pretty bad a lot of the times. Like this page, where Shogun uses his Evil Dead-style robot hand to shatter a sword. Wait⦠shatter? What, is it made of glass? Also, it seems to shatter entirely in the 2-D plane, which hopefully makes it easier to clean up. Or you have another page where the extreme perspective isnât entirely clear so it looks like a giant bird foot is about to crush that church. It doesnât help that essentially the exact same thing happens again just a few pages later. This oneâs more on the coloring, since the grass doesnât appear to be in as much of a closeup as it should be for that perspective to make any kind of sense. Either way, the steps of these creatures are really stiff and unnatural: apparently they walk by slamming their feet down at perfect 90 degree angles. The action scenes improve over time, but always retain this awkward stiffness that enhances the feeling that things are more diagrams of events than actual occurrences to be interested in. When Dan does push himself to do more interesting angles, the results are equal parts confusing and hilarious. If that comic wasnât titled âkickâ Iâd have no idea what was supposed to be happening in that last panel. You also get to see one of the problems with the coloring: when thereâs a solid background in the colors, the Stribleyâs save some time by just filling it in on the computer. I donât really blame them, but it makes things look really awkward, since the color is so clean and crisp there but more textured everywhere else. Itâs kind of forgivable most of the time, but if they try to do a motion blur at the same time things get weird. Since the colored part is just sort of pasted over a blank background the slow fade to white ends up just being chopped at the tip. Since it doesnât fade correctly into the background it ends up looking an awful lot like just solid chunks that randomly grow off the characters.
At the end of the day, hereâs my real test of quality for a webcomic: after reviewing it, do I still read it? No. I can see there being an appeal for this kind of comic, but Iâm not its target demographic. I donât like boring, âevil for evilâs sakeâ enemies, I donât like blank, uninteresting characters, and I donât like stiff art. Itâs definitely great to see someone produce something unique with the coloring and all, but itâs not enough to keep me coming back. I dunno⦠give it a look. Iâd be hard-pressed to say itâs an out and out bad comic, but itâs certainly not for everyone, and especially not for me.
Man, after all this reviewing, I sure could use a drink⦠but Iâm all out of Kool-aid! Wait, whatâs that I hear?
OH YEAH!
