21Six.net

I’ve decided to stop talking about Ultimate Marvel and Batman long enough to bring you a few new bits of stuff for your reading pleasure. One of them comes to me from a little booth in Anime Boston 2010, a five-issue series called “Sky Pirates of Valendor” published by a Connecticut group going by the name of “Free Lunch Comics”. I purchased the trade paperback of this series, which was apparently published in 2009. It was also signed by one of the creators, who seemed genuinely to enjoy his stuff and seemed like a pretty nice guy. I flipped through it a little at the convention, unsure if I wanted to actually purchase it, but some of the splash pages and the general concept intrigued me enough to give a chance, despite being a collection of things I typically disregard.

So, the book itself is something like a steampunk pirate adventure/fantasy story with various anthropomorphic animals. If you were to tell me that alone, I wouldn’t consider this book. Generally speaking, these aren’t the sorts of books I look at, mostly because I tend not to like anthropomorphic animals. Talking animals by themselves are fine, or talking animals that are animals are also fine. However, I’ve never really enjoyed seeing what amounts to buff dudes with fox faces and tails. It’s part of why I never play the Argonian or the Khajit in The Elder Scrolls games, the races, being animal with human builds, make it slightly more difficult to directly relate than an elf or some other archetype of fantasy stories. There were a lot of anthropomorphic animal things in Anime Boston, now that I think about it.

I’m also not particularly fond of Steampunk, just because it’s become trendy, and a lot of people don’t tend to do it right. Pirates are okay.

Clearly this is not the sort of book I should like, but what I found rather interesting was that I kept reading. The story, while not immediately engaging, was something that I felt like I should keep reading. I wasn’t swept up in the battles and things of that sort, but I was still curious, and interested in the characters that existed. They seemed fleshed out, though still hovering close to just being the typical characters that might exist in a story of this level (or just general pirate-fantasy stories). But I read the book, and after I finished it I found myself surprised that I was wanting more of these people. I wanted to know more of their past, and I wanted to know the future. I, simply, wanted to know what was going to happen next. And, best I can tell, I’m not actually going to get to know that.

But, I suppose you may want to actually know the story. The story is focused around Tobin Manhein, a half-elf pirate captain who was once apparently in the military; his anthro-bear comrade-in-arms Bryan; as well as a absurdly high-tech-for-the-period woman named Gearz and their adventure. From what I could gather story involved Tobin attempting to get some stuff for easy money, and then being entangled in the comic’s weird magic religion thing.

The book contains elves, dwarves, anthro-animals, the cyborg woman, and other races that really help establish it firmly in the fantasy/adventure genre. The dwarves that do show up tend to be typical dwarves, having features like the Svirfneblin and the dwarves of the Weiss/Hickman “Dragon Gate” books and other fantasy stories. That is to say that the only dwarves that are regularly seen are, short with beards, and tend to have a strong focus on machinery, as they work only with the instances of engines and things like that within the book.

The book also features other standard operating practices for fantasy stories such as guilds and things like that, but on the whole these things don’t really detract from the story, since they’re side details that would only really be a bother if you were looking for something to pick at.

The story itself actually feels unfinished. The main conflict with the magic religion thing is ended by the end of the story, but there’s still a lot to tell, which is what I mentioned earlier. The relationship between Tobin and Gearz, which is one that is suggested had been done before, needs elaboration and things of that nature. What happens next? They don’t tell us. We’re just given a tease in a one page epilogue after everything, as though that is adequate. An epilogue that has, quite frankly, as little do with the parts I’m interested in reading, to paraphrase a “Sandman” line, as I have to do with Hedgehogs.

The ending suggests that there’s simply going to be a resuscitation of the conflict that just ended, and we’re going to have to deal with something along those lines, which starts to drag it back into basic fantasy territory. It’s not something I’d like. Were they to continue beyond these issues (they might have already, I don’t know) I’d like to see something that related to the previous issues.

It was, though, a good story. After all, I wouldn’t be wanting to read more if it were bad. Even if, sometimes, I had a bit of difficulty following it immediately.

My primary complaint with this story isn’t actually the story, but rather the style of the art. The art, while not bad, is very rough compared to some things. It feels very much like something that was originally printed up in the web, but not like Ellis’ “Freak Angels”. It didn’t have the refined feel of some of the more professional web comics out there for obvious reasons. The art did not immediately detract from my enjoying the story, but there were times where, had they made a few changes it would have been much more enjoyable.

Another frustrating part was that the person who did the caption boxes used the exact same style for every person’s thoughts, as well as scene descriptors. As this comic is in black and white, it would take me a moment to try to figure out just who was thinking or if this was a situation where “later that day” was just a scene change. This is just something that appears to have not been considered as something that would be a problem and isn’t really an issue for me, but just was annoying in a few scenes.

Gearz herself was a rather confusing character to me, mostly because in an incredibly steampunk world, her technology was something more akin to a quasi-cyberpunk setup. The woman had mechanical arms and had a “War Mode” that activated at one point in the story, which featured a nicely distinct caption indicating that sort of thing. She also had this weird beam that would come out of her arm that functioned not unlike a sword and a shield when used in different features.

The complaint here is that, really, she isn’t driven by steam, or anything like that. And steampunk technology cannot do that sort of thing. She’s a higher instance of science fiction than the rest of the story and, had she been properly utilized, would have possibly broken the entire established rules of the world created.

Perhaps the most jarring thing about this comic for me is one that’s actually kind of silly. The art, I feel, doesn’t mesh with the materials of the story that are presented. Let me explain. As I said in the beginning, there are a number of features within this story that do are pretty unorthodox for a western comic– at least, a recognizable western comic. I’m not saying they don’t exist, I’m just saying that Steampunk Pirates And Bear-Men With Shotguns isn’t the most predominant thing out there.

Oh yeah, the bear dude? Has a shotgun. Honestly, that’s on my list of coolest things ever.

Anyway, I feel like this story would be better suited as a more eastern-styled comic. I’m not saying, at all, that it should have the minimalist easternized style that gave is the crap look of the Teen Titans show, or the majority of the modern comic book cartoons out today, I mean a fully fleshed out manga comic style. Yeah, that might make it feel a little more generic at first (I saw a lot of anthro-animal manga in the same room) but the story itself feels like something that was originally written with this in mind, but shifted to a more western art. Of course, given the tendency for a lot of really bad manga-type things, I almost don’t want to immediately recommend that because there SO much out there (given the increasing fandom of Japanese materials) but at the same time if it might work I can’t… not… recommend the idea.

There were, however, a few particularly well-drawn panels that were in the comic. The artist took a lot of time drawing a few of the face-focused panels, giving them an incredibly detailed and emotional feel that seemed to make some of the more rushed-looking aspects a little disappointing.

In summary here, since I’m rambling a lot more than I intended to, this is a good story. The art is slightly off for what’s being told, and I have really only minor complaints about the entire thing. I would read a sequel to this story any time it was made available, and I’d probably enjoy it just as much as I did this one. I hope that at some point I can find a sequel, if they made it, or they do make one so that I can find out what’s going to happen next. This is a universe, something that has been established in the five issues of this trade paperback, and it’s something I could really stand to see more of.

I want to know more about these anthro-wolves, and bears, and cats. More about the elves, and the dwarves. I want to know how Gearz manages to exist in this continuity. I want to see what’s going to happen. I want to do what’s happened in the past, without it just being told to me in a panel. These people have so many stories to tell, if only they can get told by the people involved in the creation of the stories.

You can find the comics at their website here or by going to the Free Lunch Comics website.