FROM THE CREATORS OF "GAAK", "ALIEN DICE", "DARIUS", "BLACK ROSE", AND "THE CONTINENTALS" COMES:
'CHEVALIER: THE QUEEN'S MOUSEKETEER"
In the magical of The Hither and Yon the noble kingdoms of The Land Ever After and The Far, Far Away are on the verge of war. A sinister plot is in play. The young Princess Faere of the land of The Shire, betrothed to Prince Charming of the Land Ever After, has been mysteriously kidnapped. And all the evidence of the foul deed points to The Far, Far Away.
With his kingdom on the verge of war with Ever After, Chevalier the mouse (a blacksmith who fancies himself a dashing "mouseketeer") volunteers his services to the High Queen of the Far, Far Away to find the missing Princess and bring her back in time to stop the war. So Chevalier and his young nephew/squire Tom-Tom go off on a quest to save the fair Princess Faere and fulfill his destiny.
"CHEVALIER: The Queen's Mouseketeer" by writer/creator Darryl Hughes ("GAAK", "The Continentals") and artist Tiffany Ross ("Alien Dice", "Black Rose", "Darius"). It's a fabled fairy tale of enor-mouse proportions.
Hey, nice! I like the style - very fairy tale-ish and soft. The character sketches look promising, too.
You need a proof reader, though. The passed/past has been mentioned, but there's something... off about "In the tales people say", too. I think it should've been "In the tales people tell" instead.
Other than that, nice idea! The world needs more fairy tales
I'll keep an eye out for this one.
Hey, nice! I like the style - very fairy tale-ish and soft. The character sketches look promising, too.
You need a proof reader, though. The passed/past has been mentioned, but there's something... off about "In the tales people say", too. I think it should've been "In the tales people tell" instead.
Other than that, nice idea! The world needs more fairy tales
I'll keep an eye out for this one.
Glad you like it. :)
Yeah, we're fixing the passed/past thing.
As for the "something off". It's not. Without giving too much away. If you read the plot synopsis in my initial post, you know that one of the two kingdoms in the story is called "The Far, Far Away". And since you read the comic page itself you know the comic rhymes. This is the intro to "The Far, Far Away" and "in the tales people say" rhymes with "The far, Far Away". :)
Hope I didn't spoil the next age for anyone. :)
Dee
BTW--The artwork is by Tiffany Ross, creator of "Alien Dice", "Darius", "Black Rose", among others.
Oh. I didn't catch the rhyming. Cool, I'll just wait for the next page before I can comment on the writing. How often do you update?
Also, I don't think that "that land I mentioned in the synopsis is gonna be mentioned in-comic in the next page" is really considered a spoiler....
It'll be slow going (once a week) for the first month. which will be tough for any new comic, but paticularly one that, as mentioned, will rhyme. But Tiffany has like 40 comics she does (I'm kidding. But it's a lot) including Alien Dice, Darius, Cyantian, Black Rose, Abbby's Agency, etc, and we're really just getting started with Chevalier. But after the first month we should be updating twice a week.
The goal with Chevalier (Chev) is for it to be a children's book. So it has a definite beginning, middle, and end. So I guess you could call it a web graphic novel as opposed to a webcomic. :)
There have been several updates since my last post. I hope you guys will come and check us out.
Dee
"CHEVALIER: The Queen's Mouseketeer" by writer/creator Darryl Hughes and artist Tiffany Ross. It's a fabled fairy tale of enor-mouse proportions. http://www.shivae.net/chevalier
There have been a WHOLE BUNCH of updates since my last post here. I hope you guys will come and check them out.
Dee
"CHEVALIER: The Queen's Mouseketeer" by writer/creator Darryl Hughes and artist Tiffany Ross. It's a fabled fairy tale of enor-mouse proportions. http://www.shivae.net/chevalier
Hey Dee. I thought I'd better ask... Do you want feedback, or are you just plugging?
Oh, absolutely. I'd love to get some feedback from you. As long as it's constructive. :)
Bare in mind that Chevalier is going to be a children's book meant for kids 6 years old and up. Tiffany and I are showing it online while we're finishing it.
All right, here I go. Bear in mind, children's books aren't my kind of genre, so take everything with a grain of salt
What works:
- the artwork is soft and very fitting for the genre. I especially like the very vibrant colouring and the shading of it all.
- There are some downright beautiful pages, fx this or this.
- The setting has been nicely introduced, both art-wise and writing-wise. Everything is pretty and perfect (except there's apparantly a small bit of speciesm? Intentional?), and I'm now just waiting for the evil wizard/king's uncle/dragon to swoop in and steal away the peace!
- Chevalier is a very classic character archetype, and you've done a nice job of showing his motivations and how he might become a hero (and thank you for not having Mr. Everymouse pick up a rapier and three days later become überhero).
What might need improvement:
- Okay, admitted, my vision is apparantly very suboptimal, but I couldn't find the navigation buttons at first. They might benefit from being bigger and/or moved closer to the actual comic.
- Lots of respect for telling a story through rhymes, it's definitely a tough feat. I especially like this page's imagery. However.... I feel that the rythm is often broken by spreading one rhyme out over two (or more) pages. Poems (and poem-like writing) have a certain flow, and you need to be very, very mindful of how that flow translates into a new medium. Especially since, if I can't feel the poem, the writing just feels clunky and weird.
- Kudos to the artist for playing with facial shapes and different appearances (it's both very important and very rarely seen), but she seems to have some trouble with human proportions (take a look at this page for example - in the two first panels, there's too much forehead, too much chin and too little hands). They seem like beginner's mistakes, but they do make everything seem a little off, and they're in stark contrast to the mice people (that the artist draws very, very well). Nothing except practise will help here, though.
- The story may be a liiiittle too classic. Until now, it all seems like something I've read before. It's not critique per se, as you only now seem to come to the actual story, but I hope you'll tell something new. Bump this thread in a month or so, and I'll come judge
Overall, I think you're on to something with this, but it needs a little polishing (mostly with the using-poem-style-in-a-comic part) before it really shines.
... Yeah. I think that's all I've got. I hope it's at least somewhat useful.
Just to inform you about the rhyme. There are several pages in the beginning (I think you mentioned them) where the shyme was broken up because Tiffany (the artist) felt she needed to add an extra page in order to not clutter the pages. So I think two extra pages worth of panels got added that weren't scripted that broke up the rhyme unintentionally.
But you also have to consider that this is meant to be a children's "book" when finished. And flipping pages is always better then waiting for them to load (said the guy with the webcomic :) ), so I don't think kids reading this when it's all done and flipping from page to page will have the problems that webcomic reads might.
Other then the pages at the beginning that were unintentionally broken up, I have to disaree. I think that the rhyme flows rather nicely from one page to the next. Each new pages rhyme picks up where the last pages rhyme ended. What more could you ask for in a comic as opposed to a poem that's just written out beginning to end?
But a good review all around. :) And I will check back to see what you hink as the story progresses. Thanks for taking the time.
Huhm, you're right, it does change over time (I mostly went with my general impression, didn't really look out for changes in such a short archive).
You do it again here, though (not really bad, I mean this is obviously just stretching out a reveal, I just need to reaffirm myself that I'm not completely off ).
Something else I just stumbled across, combing the comic for rhymes... Where's the rhyme in this? I feel like I've missed something.
I don't know what you mean by the first one. The whole page rhymes.
As to the second? The rhyme is here: "In the east there stood a kingdom, of opulence, and splendor, and GRANDEUR. Beyond cinder walls, stood the high marbled towers, of the royal kingdom of the land EVER AFTER".
Well, both "Grandeur" and "Ever After" end with an "err" sound, so they rhyme.
Dee
Congratulations on the book deal!
As for the discussion on rhyme and pronunciation, I'll never add to that, since I'm not a native speaker, but I reckon that's what they invented m-w.com for.
NEWS! It's been a crazy year. Started a great fantasy webcomic, got a publisher for a great fantasy webcomic, lost a publisher for my great fantasy webcomic, and then lost my creative partner on my great fantasy webcomic.
Now Chevalier: The Queen's Mouseketeer is getting the reboot/relaunch treatment, coming back with a new artist (the great Monique MacNaughton) and a new attitude. The new comic will debut in late summer/early fall. You can check out the new "cast photo" at the new website here:
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