Re: Nature of Nature's Art
Dang, that font is really hard to read!
Also, may I ask why this is your favourite webcomic?
:elan:
Re: Nature of Nature's Art
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Elanasaurus
Also, may I ask why this is your favourite webcomic?
:elan:
The most honest answer is, because I was there from the beginning -- page 28 or 29 out of 1700. I was browsing the Webcomics Top 100 list one day and saw a neat GIF of two canids fighting. :smalltongue:
Re: Nature of Nature's Art
Alright then. Cool. Happy reading.
:elan:
Re: Nature of Nature's Art
I'll make a more serious attempt to answer the question.
I do not know another artist who can draw animals so well and so quickly. We get two pages a week -- which, by the way, are two to three times the size of a normal comics-book page -- with interesting layouts, expressive characters, vivid colors and well-developed symbolism. Not only that, the anatomy of these animals surpasses most artists who draw from references -- which Mr. Braun, I think, does not. Most animal artists end up specializing in one kind of animal, with their others noticeably worse, but in this case the mustelids, canids, felids, and rodents all look good. (Okay, when humans and ungulates show up they tend to look wonky.) My single favorite drawing of a fox occurs in the print version of Wild Style, which was not an arc, but rather him doing joke-a-day gag humor for a month.
The stories sound simple when summarized, but most of the arcs are every bit as detailed and involuted as the plot of Watchmen. The characterization is the best I've found in comics, web or print. When an arc starts, you may think you know what cliche or archetype a character fulfills, but by the time the story ends that character will have changed drastically, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. In the early days, the comic billed itself as a series of Kung Fu stories involving animals, and that held true up until arcs four and five. But if it were compared to Kung Fu movies, this would be one of the more esoteric ones, like Master Killer or Hero. The animals possess their own version of augmented reality, and the most powerful martial artists have the powers you'd expect to see from a classic D&D illusionist.
The visual pacing of each story is occasionally broken by magnificent, oversized pages. The most ridiculous of these is page 292 of Solar System, which is about 12000x8000 pixels (no, I did not include an extra zero) and requires a Java applet to read. These oversized pages are a rare treat, and usually represent a moment of profound victory or decision for the protagonists. As for the narrative tone, four out of five arcs are dark, the exception being the samurai thriller Lycosa. However, these dark stories are regularly broken up -- or in Syconium's case, begun -- with brilliant, albeit manic, humor. Even the horror story Secretary, which contains the most horrific imagery I've seen in comics (and I've read the print version of From Hell), contains some of this humor. It's a shame Mr. Braun won't write a comedy arc, because it would be great.
Um... I can say more, but this is already enough for a nice encomium. Oh, wait, here's one more thing. The level of discourse on NofNA's webpage is the highest I've seen for a comments section anywhere on the Internet.
Re: Nature of Nature's Art
Wow. That sounds super cool. I'll check it out.
:elan:
Re: Nature of Nature's Art
Have fun! For what it's worth, the first few pages of Syconium are as explicit as it ever gets. Almost all the rest of the sex happens between scenes or off-panel.
(Man, this is an embarrassing comic to proselytize for. Maybe I should have registered back when Solar System was approaching its end.)
Re: Nature of Nature's Art
Don't be embarrassed. I already read the opening of Syconium and had a laugh.
:elan:
Re: Nature of Nature's Art
The protagonist is currently battling her way through all her inner demons, and being both an artist and a courtesan, she has quite a few. :smallbiggrin: