A short review for Harkovast, purely because we didn't want to rag on about everything thing that has been said a thousand times before. Despite us not agreeing on certain aspects the core thing is that harko crap is a myth.

We could have gone into more detail but early on we decided to keep this one fairly light, and no Hark didn't pay us anything.

When El cid agreed to do this review I wasn't sure how it would go. I expected him to be more critical if I'm honest.

You shit eaters think you can review me?!
ME?!?!?
I MADE DRUNK DUCK!
You don't appreciate my genius? My visions?
You dick suckers wouldn't know art if….


Wait….what?
It was a positive review?
Really?

As I was saying, I think Lite Bites is a fantastic review comic, which offers insightful and well thought out commentary and everyone should definitely take their views very seriously.

Joking aside, thanks for the review!
It is nice to find someone talking about the comic that really enjoyed it.
I especially liked the discussion of which character the various review characters liked most. That is always something I enjoy, that the characters all have different appeals.

I'll send you a link on my next update, to let people see it.

I haven't really checked your reviews before (I was a bit bummed on reviews when Kev quit!) but they seem very entertaining.
The bit at the end of the Crossing Death review where they have to fight random monsters was awesome! I cracked up at my computer.

Thanks for your encouragement.

I've said this about other reviews and it holds true for this one, one of the reasons the reviews are done by at least two people is to avoid favouritism.

What was Carmen on about saying it does stereotypical versions of real world cultures?
They are inspired by real world cultures, but I think I give them a pretty reasonable representation.
I am generally drawing aspects of cultures and designs I find interesting, rather then aping them completely.
For example, the Tsung-Dao are stylistically Japanese but their collectivist culture is desire for routine are not very Japanese at all.

Not really stereotypical in a derogatory sense, but there were a few times when I was like, “Oh they're supposed to be Japanese samurai,” and “Oh they're supposed to be North American Indians,” as opposed to just “they're an honor-bound warrior clan” or “they're a primitive Stone Age tribe.” It's hard to miss the comparison with the Ano-Chee; they've got the whole kit right down to the deerskin clothing, feather headdresses, and wigwams (okay, I don't know that it's deerskin specifically!). But you didn't go anywhere precarious with it, so it wasn't a big issue. Hey! We have to find something to poke at!

Native American stuff looks cool= FACT!

I actually wanted to go against some stereotypes of native american cultures a bit with the Ano-Chee.
In most media all native Americans seem to talk about is their land and going on spirit journies.
It is such a prevalent cliche that I honestly struggle to think of a native america who isn't shown doing this stuff.
Or worse yet, they adopt a white guy!

The Ano-Chee are meant to be a more well rounded (and normal) bunch of people. They do have magic powers, but so does everyone else in Harkovast so that is just standard Harkovast stuff.

Similarly the Tsung-Dao steer clear of talking about Honour all the time, which is (lets face it) all Japanese characters EVER talk about in the media.

I think people are most sensitive to this kind of thing if you depict a culture based on -
Native Americans
or
Muslims

Naturally, cultures based on both appear in Harkovast.

You're gonna have Muslims? Aw snap! Don't make ‘em camels! Somebody’ll fly a Boeing 767 into Drunk Duck behind that!

A lot of people seem to like the way you melded your fantasy-verse with real world cultures, but for me it's one of the few things creative-wise that I wasn't so crazy about with Harkovast. I'd have much rather seen completely original fantasy civilizations based on the species' animal traits. Like cave-dwelling bear people who hold an annual hibernation ceremony, where they sacrifice a cub by dipping him in honey and leaving him for the bees. That kind of thing. You didn't go all-out with aping the Medieval knight, the ninja, and the others, you're absolutely right. But I just would have rather seen something less familiar. Maybe a somewhat petty criticism there, but hey I'm a critic! It's what I do!

Hey el cid, your next foorum post will be 666. better make it an evil one.

All El Cids posts are evil by deffinition!
He is the Hannibal Lecter of webcomic discussion.

The medieval muslims-ish culture are called Al-Saigal and they look like tigers.
(One actually featured during the convoy ambush.)

There will be camel people later on however…

I always looked at it that the animal appearance of the various cultures is incidental, and not really the focus.
They are more like humans who look like animals, rather than animals that look like humans, if that makes sense.
It could have worked fine the other way (with hibernating bears etc as you say) but I have a big interest in historical cultures, so I enjoy depicting the various aspects of them that appeal to me.

Something I noticed in the review that I found amusing but forgot to comment on before was the description of my comic as a “drunk duck legend.”
Flattering as that is, I have yet to even get into the top ten!
More of a Drunk Duck participant, or drunk duck person who was also present while stuff happened.
Unless all of Drunk Duck has secretly become vampires and now I AM LEGEND!
….but not like the Will Smith film…..
….cause that looked like balls.

You haven't watched Will smiths I am legend? You should it's awesomely bad. Well in someways, the first act is actually well done but it goes downhill fast.

Genejoke
Hey el cid, your next foorum post will be 666. better make it an evil one.

Hmm, something evil, eh?



Evil enough for ya?

Frickin' brilliant director, though. Even if he is criminally insane.

harkovast
I always looked at it that the animal appearance of the various cultures is incidental, and not really the focus.
They are more like humans who look like animals, rather than animals that look like humans, if that makes sense.
It could have worked fine the other way (with hibernating bears etc as you say) but I have a big interest in historical cultures, so I enjoy depicting the various aspects of them that appeal to me.

Yunno, that casts it in a whole different light. Now I'm wondering, did you do the comic with anthromorphic characters because you wanted to do something anthro-ish, or was it just to make it clear to the audience that you weren't just transplanting Native Americans, ninjas, Dacians, and all the rest? Hmmm…

I think it started out cause I thought the anthro characters looked really cool (and I still think so!)
Another big factor was that I wanted them to clearly be fantastical races but not boring old elves, dwarves and orcs that have been done to death.
They also provide a great visual short hand so readers can very quickly tell what race and culture a particular character is, which is ideal for the webcomic medium.

I certainly always imagined them as animal people. I started devising the world and the races way before I actually came up with a story to set in it.