Unsounded, quite possibly the (2nd) best webcomic I have seen.

[Imgran]

I can't give it marks for that unless I thought it was an early effort for the artist. This thing is MUCH too polished artistically for me to give that a lot of credibility. OOTS and GG have the look and feel of something that had to evolve and did. If Unsounded evolved, and I'm talking purely technical skill here, it wasn't by much.

And technically I didn't say the artist should change a thing. Just that I prefer comics that focus their efforts a lot differently than this one does. I can suspend disbelief visually far better than literally, and this comic lays its efforts out the exact opposite way.

So far most of the characters are unlikable (The little tail girl is a complete unsympathetic brat, the undead would be two-dimensional and difficult to identify properly with if he were fully human and alive and the Vampire's Lament subtheme does NOT help there -- and those are your heroes), the setting is cliche and unimpressive, all the made up language is already tiresome and unlikely to be consigned to the compost bin where it belongs, and I've already gotten into my opinion of the pacing and the over-focus on art over content.

I gave it a good chance to win me over and it had me for awhile -- until the 12 comics to introduce a minor Creche functionary whose entire role so far has been to try to arrest the little girl once. It got me back for a bit during the chase scene and then this mage duel thing. Horrible way to depict combat. Not only does the combat art make beam spam look convincingly lifelike and viscerally gripping, but it goes on, and on, and ON and ON!! And each attack and counterattack gets at least one, sometimes multiple, lovingly rendered splash pages. UGGH! Come ON, you've made your POINT, let's GO!

Undead McCreepyguy is just icing on the cake. Completely failing to refute repeated suggestions of pedophilia while you escort a young girl across the countryside. That's the way to convince me to stick around. Yeah.

It would probably help if he wasn't functionally indestructable too. I mean, the closest we've seen to any vulnerablility on the guy is a bit of a sore leg, while he's slaying epic precursor monsters, tossing seasoned fighters around by their lapels, cutting armored veteran warriors' arms off with a mere thought, when a sword goes right through him, and when he can put himself back together after a grenade-analogue explodes loudly at his feet. His leg hurts. Yep. Oh and his leg hurts so bad that he's traded multiple rounds of deadly high-level magic with a seasoned mercenary spellcaster who fights dirty with no ill effect. Dominic Deegan is less invulnerable than that.

Really hard to be sympathetic when you can't be effectively damaged. REALLY hard.

[Reverent-One]

Originally Posted by Imgran

Undead McCreepyguy is just icing on the cake. Completely failing to refute repeated suggestions of pedophilia while you escort a young girl across the countryside. That's the way to convince me to stick around. Yeah.

I'm not touching most of this because it's all a matter of opinion either way, but this bit, really? The "accusations" of pedophilia are ignored (beyond repeated facepalms) because they're so utterly ridiculous as to not be worth a response (unless you agree it's a reasonable conclusion that anyone who spanks a child is actually a pedophile).

[Terry576]

Wait.

People don't like Sette?

[uncool]

Originally Posted by Imgran

I can't give it marks for that unless I thought it was an early effort for the artist. This thing is MUCH too polished artistically for me to give that a lot of credibility. OOTS and GG have the look and feel of something that had to evolve and did. If Unsounded evolved, and I'm talking purely technical skill here, it wasn't by much.

And technically I didn't say the artist should change a thing. Just that I prefer comics that focus their efforts a lot differently than this one does. I can suspend disbelief visually far better than literally, and this comic lays its efforts out the exact opposite way.

So far most of the characters are unlikable (The little tail girl is a complete unsympathetic brat, the undead would be two-dimensional and difficult to identify properly with if he were fully human and alive and the Vampire's Lament subtheme does NOT help there -- and those are your heroes), the setting is cliche and unimpressive, all the made up language is already tiresome and unlikely to be consigned to the compost bin where it belongs, and I've already gotten into my opinion of the pacing and the over-focus on art over content.

I'm going to have to disagree. Sette has shown aspects of being bratty, but knows quite clearly that she can get in over her head, and when she realizes that she is over her head doesn't revert to a complete whiny idiot, but does call for help. She can at least work at taking care of herself in all situations. Furthermore, she is being dragged out of her world into a larger world by people who do not have her interests at heart - namely, her "father", whom she idolizes, but who so far has not shown extreme interest in her beyond how he seems to manipulate everyone. Even further, she does show awareness of others - she's just been brought up to know that she doesn't have to care about it.

I gave it a good chance to win me over and it had me for awhile -- until the 12 comics to introduce a minor Creche functionary whose entire role so far has been to try to arrest the little girl once.

The key words there would be "so far".

It got me back for a bit during the chase scene and then this mage duel thing. Horrible way to depict combat. Not only does the combat art make beam spam look convincingly lifelike and viscerally gripping, but it goes on, and on, and ON and ON!! And each attack and counterattack gets at least one, sometimes multiple, lovingly rendered splash pages. UGGH! Come ON, you've made your POINT, let's GO!

Each of the pages demonstrates an aspect either of the magic or of the combatants. Sure, I'll agree, it could be condensed, but not by so much as you are implying.

The first page was the obvious start of the duel. The second demonstrated aspects of both Duane and Quigley's philosophies - Duane thinks that using an advantage is normal, but one should stay within the rules, while Quigley thinks that all advantages are there to be taken. The third was a necessary break in Duane's favor for Duane to be able to ask about the girl when he thinks he can press his advantage. Similarly, the fourth (3 pages after the 3rd) was there for a break in Quigley's favor so that Quigley can still be seen as avoiding killing Duane by avoiding full use of his force. I could continue, but you get the point.

Undead McCreepyguy is just icing on the cake. Completely failing to refute repeated suggestions of pedophilia while you escort a young girl across the countryside. That's the way to convince me to stick around. Yeah.

Err. No.

It would probably help if he wasn't functionally indestructable too. I mean, the closest we've seen to any vulnerablility on the guy is a bit of a sore leg, while he's slaying epic precursor monsters,

Demonstrating that yes, he has amazing magical powers. That doesn't show anything about indestructibility.

tossing seasoned fighters around by their lapels,

Are you referring to Ephsephin? Because I haven't seen any indication that he's all that seasoned.

cutting armored veteran warriors' arms off with a mere thought,

Again, this doesn't say anything about indestructibility, but rather strength while extremely emotionally affected.

when a sword goes right through him,

That's the first indication of being difficult to attack. That was a desperation attack not meant to kill but to respond in the heat of the moment.

and when he can put himself back together after a grenade-analogue explodes loudly at his feet.

All we saw was that he went over the edge. Not just that, but Quigley seems to have expected him to come back; that didn't surprise him. He only was surprised when he saw that Duane was a tacit caster.

His leg hurts. Yep. Oh and his leg hurts so bad that he's traded multiple rounds of deadly high-level magic with a seasoned mercenary spellcaster who fights dirty with no ill effect. Dominic Deegan is less invulnerable than that.

He was hobbling after about 3 rounds. That's usually not a sign of being so disabled as to not be able to do something you practice nearly every day. His leg was broken (or something similar) later; since then, he has done nearly nothing except escape the claw.

Really hard to be sympathetic when you can't be effectively damaged. REALLY hard.

So far, it seems that stabs don't damage him as expected. However, blunt attacks seem to have better than usual effect due to him being so light, and I don't recall anyone slashing at him. Ephsephin asks for help, but only after having already been attacked three times at the same spot on his face and losing an attack to surprise.

Further, acts of determination seem to be, if not typical, at least more common than you'd expect. We've seen Toma survive a much larger explosion much closer than that grenade, plus the ceiling collapsing on him, with very very little ill-effect.

ETA: Apparently when I posted it I had left some of this unfinished. It is now finished.
=Uncool-

[Imgran]

We'll you've made some counterarguments, and they're definitely arguments, and I'll even go so far as to call them actual rebuttals, but what I'm left with is a whole bunch of people saying "what a great comic" and me seeing some really, really good artwork covering for an absolutely Mookie-esque writing style. That's not a good comic in my mind. Mookie with epic artistic skill is still Mookie.

[leakingpen]

Originally Posted by Jimor

You didn't, and I didn't say you did. What you ARE doing is saying the author should write a different story using different words. Ambiguity of the characters and motivations are what Unsounded is about, so saying it shouldn't do that thing is exactly like telling George R.R. Martin that he should clearly delineate between the good guys and the bad guys, and also get rid of all those extra characters that bog things down so he could have easily wrapped up the whole story in one book instead of 6.

Not that there aren't criticisms to be leveled at Ashley for various things, it's clear she's learning on the job, which is a danger that MOST webcomic creators face. Because unlike novelists, they put their work out to the public before completion and thus never have a chance to look at the whole thing in retrospect and say to themselves "oh yeah, I should tighten up the beginning."

But Unsounded has hit the ground running better than just about any webcomic I've ever seen, including standards like OOTS or Girl Genius.

Jimor, you are apparently unfamiliar with online serialized novels! (points down at link in sig)

But beyond that, I agree with you almost completely. I do like the ambiguous characters, the amount of time being used in setup seems fine to me. I think the artist DOES need to tighten up the writing a bit, and I think the first chapter needs to be rewritten or repaced a little, so we get to understanding what we do of sette a bit faster. But I don't consider it crud writing, the dialogue is nice and tight, and sure, what we have could be 40 pages of a novel.

If you cut it right, you could turn a 500 page novel into a 40 page novella. What's your point? It's a long rambling comic. That's its style. Some people (me) LIKE THAT. If you don't like the style, Imgran, cool, you don't have to. But the way you worded it was, "this comic is crud, and will fail miserably, unless the author changes it to be the exact way I like my comics, because MY opinion is worth so much. "

[Simius]

I can't give it marks for that unless I thought it was an early effort for the artist. This thing is MUCH too polished artistically for me to give that a lot of credibility.

This makes no sense at all. You can be a great artist and still be a beginner at writing your own comic. Unsounded is Ashley's first long project, as she has said multiple times.

[Caesar]

The writing behind Sette and the subsequent back-and-forth interaction between her and Duane made me cringe at first as it stood out rather glaringly from the rest of the content. I kept reading tho, simply because the rest is so good, I had to pay my respects.

Luckily, Sette the character settles down and Sette the writing style settles in, and the whole thing starts to flow with as much aesthetic ease as the artist's pen.

Now I must say, I quite like Sette. As far as all the splash pages? Worth every letter in a thousand words. And with the rate that they update, please, keep them coming. If it is really bothersome, the reader can always leave the comic in bookmarks and check in every month or so for a longer, more continuous ride.

EDIT: also, Ive been voting on this comic since i started reading it. Since then, its fallen from 16th to about 23rd place. I really dont understand that, plenty of the more popular comics are utter crap in comparison, even if you try to be unbiased about genre and style. There's no accounting for taste or popularity, I suppose.

[Saph]

Originally Posted by Caesar

EDIT: also, Ive been voting on this comic since i started reading it. Since then, its fallen from 16th to about 23rd place. I really dont understand that, plenty of the more popular comics are utter crap in comparison, even if you try to be unbiased about genre and style. There's no accounting for taste or popularity, I suppose.

It's just a bit hard to get into a story if you hate the protagonist. I really did try to like this one because the artwork was so beautiful, but Sette is one of the most annoying main characters I've ever seen. What a waste . . .

[lord_khaine]

Well, i gotta admit that at first i also found Settie terribly annoying, but either she grew on me, or else she did manage to grow a little, because i did learn to like her in the later chapters.

[Killer Angel]

New update (really, it keeps an impressing pace).

Mountain Hammer strikes down!

[the humanity]

I tried that in D&D once.

glad it worked for somebody!

[Reed]

This is one of my favorite webcomics, too.

It's true that Sette is tough to take - I had a problem with her, too, at the beginning. But at least the author never gives the impression that Sette's behavior is supposed to be 'cute'. Sometime around Chapter 2 she started to grow on me, and though she's still not very likable, I find her really interesting as a character.

I think the comic has very good art and a good plot with well-rounded and ambiguous characters. It mixes dark and funny elements in quite an special way. Also, the fact that it updates so often and so consistently really lets you get into the story.

[Ravens_cry]

The art is amazing , the world is fascinating, but the use of archaic and fictional slang by Sette make it tough to read her dialogue.

[TheZenMaster]

Originally Posted by Imgran

I find myself missing Mookie's ability to resolve a battle with couple quick hadoken's to the chops and move on.

OUCH.

Thats not something to state lightly.

[Eric Tolle]

Read it before, and while the art is nice, I said the Eight Deadly Words somewhere in Chapter 2. So I'll pass.

As for art, well, there's others with fantastic art as well. The Meek (NSFW), Derelict, Red Moon Rising, The Becoming, Everblue...there's dozens of comics out there with excellent art, that don't deserve the Eight Deadly Words

[Ravens_cry]

Eight Deadly Words?

[uncool]

Originally Posted by Ravens_cry

Eight Deadly Words?

"I don't care what happens to these people."
=Uncool-

[Ravens_cry]

Originally Posted by uncool

"I don't care what happens to these people."
=Uncool-

Unfortunately, those are indeed deadly words of a webcomic.
And now that you say it, it mostly rings true.
Girl Genius is another resplendently illustrated webcomic with an intriguing world, but the characters are engaging enough to actually care for their plight, to cheer their victories, to bemoan their defeats.
I'm not feeling that with these two, as much as the world itself fascinates me.

[MightyTim]

Originally Posted by uncool

"I don't care what happens to these people."
=Uncool-

I think my biggest problem with this comic is that none of the main characters have anything resembling a reasonable motive for doing what they're doing. Or rather, the author is going way overboard on the "dark and mysterious past" trope. (I'll grant that Sette is largely an exception, at this point. but if it took the better part of 100 pages to flesh out just one character, I don't think I'm sticking around for the long haul.)

Having a character with uncertain origins works. Having an entire webcomic with them means that scenes like the dual is severely undercut. It should be awesome, but since we haven't learned anything substantial about either of the combatants, I'm left with a severe feeling of "Ok, why exactly do they hate each other this much?"

The author is playing way too coy with the backstories of way too many characters, and it's undercutting the audiences ability to relate.

I understand what the author wants to do, and I'd probably end up doing the same thing myself, but it doesn't mean it's good writing. So far the entire comic has just been teasers, hints at past atrocities, and dark secrets.

[Marnath]

Originally Posted by uncool

"I don't care what happens to these people."
=Uncool-

Originally Posted by MightyTim

I think my biggest problem with this comic is that none of the main characters have anything resembling a reasonable motive for doing what they're doing. Or rather, the author is going way overboard on the "dark and mysterious past" trope. (I'll grant that Sette is largely an exception, at this point. but if it took the better part of 100 pages to flesh out just one character, I don't think I'm sticking around for the long haul.)

Having a character with uncertain origins works. Having an entire webcomic with them means that scenes like the dual is severely undercut. It should be awesome, but since we haven't learned anything substantial about either of the combatants, I'm left with a severe feeling of "Ok, why exactly do they hate each other this much?"

The author is playing way too coy with the backstories of way too many characters, and it's undercutting the audiences ability to relate.

I understand what the author wants to do, and I'd probably end up doing the same thing myself, but it doesn't mean it's good writing. So far the entire comic has just been teasers, hints at past atrocities, and dark secrets.

I agree with these sentiments.

Originally Posted by leakingpen

hmm, dig the art, and I'm pushing because I want to know more about this undead magician, but Sette is REALLY ruining it for me.

He's got no reason at all not to beat this little brat to death after page 7 and bury her in a shallow grave. He says it himself, he could just move somewhere else where her father can't expose him.

Originally Posted by Jimor

Like I said, page 59 of the first chapter is probably one of the most powerful moments you'll ever see in a comic, so you owe it to yourself to at least get that far before making a final decision.

I read that part and felt nothing. A character has to mean something for their death to carry any weight. "Here's a little girl some slavers caught! Oops, now she's dead. Aren't those slavers just awful people?" Yes, it's terrible that she got tortured to death but it doesn't carry any emotional impact because it happened to a set piece instead of a character.

[Reverent-One]

Originally Posted by MightyTim

I think my biggest problem with this comic is that none of the main characters have anything resembling a reasonable motive for doing what they're doing. Or rather, the author is going way overboard on the "dark and mysterious past" trope. (I'll grant that Sette is largely an exception, at this point. but if it took the better part of 100 pages to flesh out just one character, I don't think I'm sticking around for the long haul.)

Having a character with uncertain origins works. Having an entire webcomic with them means that scenes like the dual is severely undercut. It should be awesome, but since we haven't learned anything substantial about either of the combatants, I'm left with a severe feeling of "Ok, why exactly do they hate each other this much?"

The author is playing way too coy with the backstories of way too many characters, and it's undercutting the audiences ability to relate.

I understand what the author wants to do, and I'd probably end up doing the same thing myself, but it doesn't mean it's good writing. So far the entire comic has just been teasers, hints at past atrocities, and dark secrets.

While I agree that there's a lot of unrevealed backstories, I do feel the writer's done an acceptable job of giving us motivations for the character's current situations. To use your dueling example, it's clear Duane doesn't like people enslaving children and doing horrible things to them, and while there are hints this is a matter that's particularly close to home for him, we don't really need to see a backstory to understand why a character might feel that way. As for Quigley, he doesn't seem to hate Duane, he's just an arrogant prick who doesn't like being shown up. After the fight, he wasn't angry at Duane, but was more curious about him than anything.

Obviously this is all IMO, and what works for one person might not work for another, but I'm just throwing in my two cents.

[Jimor]

OK, of all the ways Toma catching up to Quigley and co. could have gone, that is one I didn't expect in the least.

[Teln]

Fight scene ahead!

I like Sette, she kind of reminds me of my sister. That said, I understand the "Marmite Factor" in her personality.

[Killer Angel]

And so, Chapter 5 has reached its end...

[Jimor]

And we're getting some answers. More info on the nature of Duane's zombiehood, some details on how spellery is accomplished, what it was being smuggled in living people, Toma's real rank...

And a whole bunch of really nice character development on all sides of the equation. Can't wait for the restart!

[Teln]

Where is this information?

[Jimor]

Originally Posted by Teln

Where is this information?

All in the last chapter. Magic explained with the battle and Sette's destruction of the Khert, the smuggling operation explained while they rode inside Uaid, Starfish knowing Toma's rank, and the combination of finding out about Duane's problem with night, and the fact that Quigley really didn't quite know what to make of him. Still a lot to learn about Duane, though.

Which is all about right for the pacing, Ask a bunch of questions in the first 4 chapters, then start doling out answers (and asking new questions) as the rest of the story moves along.

For example, we still don't know the true nature of Sette's mission to her uncle's (and of course how what the nature of the lies told to her about it, and how it's going to go horribly wrong in any case). How long will it take Toma to figure out that Duane and Sette aren't involved with the smugglers? Even if so, will there still be other issues he has with them?

We also still have Jivi's story to tell as well.

So, lots of stuff to look forward to on May 14th.

[Jimor]

And it's back from hiatus.

Just the chapter splash page, but good to know I can get my fix again.

There is also now an official Facebook Fan Page, to go along with the group it had before.

[Teln]

Matty never seems to catch a break. Poor kid.