In The Secrets of the Willson Family, Anna is a bright and trusting teenager who’s dropped off by her father at the country villa she inherited from her grandfather, whose death is cloaked in mystery. As she settles in at her temporary home, questions lurk in the background.
What business is her father attending to that requires him to place his daughter in the care of strangers?
What do Leo, the estate manager, and Emily the maid know that they aren’t revealing?
What is the strange affliction that affects Catherine the cook, impairing her speech?
And most of all, what is the secret that Anna’s late grandfather has concealed in books, a music box, and a bizaare fairy tale he left for her?
Author/illustrator Mill2’s colorful art has the range to portray reassuring daylight scenes that show off the beauty of the villa setting, and then segway to quiet, twilight tableaus that build to suspenseful outcomes.
Tillie Walden is quite the phenomena in the graphic novel field. Having created eight professionally published works, she’s won the Ignatz and Eisner awards multiple times, and snagged an LA Times Book Prize along the way. This line of achievements is all the more astounding considering that Walden was born in 1996 and created her first award-winning graphic novel at the age of 18.
I first heard about On a Sunbeam a few years ago, and it was one of the series that inspired in me a renewed interest in the webcomics medium. I found myself impressed by the sheer scale and ambition of the project, and how subtle and well executed it is.
Walden has confessed that she is not a science fiction fan, and hence her version of space travel is a radical departure. The spaceships in this saga resemble fishes; their interiors have a stylish, elaborate decor like a Mediterranean resort.
Only a skeleton crew of five young travelers is required to pilot the expedition ship where the story takes place. The leisurely, elliptical narrative follows them as they set out to restore old buildings which are apparently floating… somehow …in space. The focus is on the crew’s interpersonal dynamic, with three of them, Alma, Elliot and Charlotte having worked together a long time, and the newcomers Jules and Mia being treated as outsiders.
Walden’s art style is very loose and casual, but she has a knack for setting her realistic-seeming characters in three-dimensional space. It gives the story enormous scale that evokes a sense of wonder, sliding past any rational objections the reader might have. Her tranquil color scheme gradually shifts from a beige duotone to blue and then to a multicolored pallet, new colors being introduced when there is a new phenomena to be witnessed, such as moonlight reflected from nearby planets, or secret chambers in an abandoned church.
The overall effect of the series, both the writing and the art, is to project a sense of an alternate time and space that cannot be fully comprehended, and to populate it with characters whose behavior is familiar but also mysterious. Walden’s artistry is like a closure diagram, where the mind intuitively completes the picture in a way that’s more compelling and real than a straightforward presentation could ever be.
The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn introduces us to a paranormal investigator whose very manifestation defies scientific understanding. Dressing though he might as an Edwardian gentleman, one can’t fail to notice Mr Zahn’s appearance— a jawless skull floating above an invisible skeletal body.
Oscar seems quite at home in the dark macabre landscape where the story takes place, and we come to understand that he is a kindly and conscientious investigator of metaphysical manifestations in that shadowy domain. Taking cues from his assistant, a gnome-like witch named Agnes, he bravely ventures into foreboding sites of spectral habitation, seeking not merely to vanquish a hobgoblin, but to right a wrong or heal a broken heart.
Toronto artist Tri Vuong renders the saga in luscious dark strokes resembling the work of Hellboy artist Mike Mignola. Like Hellboy, the series is steeped in a Lovecraftian steampunk paracosm. The writing is subtle, low-key and intriguing. Considering that the main character is incapable of facial expressions, it’s quite an achievement that he is so personable and sympathetic.
Artist/writer Pascalle Lepas began Wilde Life in September 2014, and the serial webcomic has continued to this day.
The main character, Oscar Wilde, is a contemporary writer from Chicago who moves to rural Oklahoma, for reasons that are not immediately clear. What is clear is that things are not normal; his landlady has two hounds that shape-shift into teenagers, and the home he rents is inhabited by a polite and fascinating ghost named Sylvia. After initially being startled by her presence, Oscar befriends Sylvia and goes out of his way to make her life-after-death a bit easier, supplying her with books on tape and a deck of playing cards.
Though there is some mystery about Oscar initially, he comes across as a thoroughly likable guy. Sylvia as well is a genial and gracious presence. Overall, the series has a comfortable and intriguing feel as it explores what ordinary life might be like for extraordinary creatures.
Lepas depicts the saga with a superb realistic style that settles his supernatural characters in an everyday world with a quiet, low-key macabre atmosphere. His illustrations have a clarity and a simplicity that make for an easy, pleasurable read, going late into the night, and perhaps interrupted by the sound of a set of car keys hitting the floor…
Surveying webcomics, one thing you learn rather quickly– it’s not hard to find outstanding artwork. There is excellent work in every style to be found in abundance. But finding a series where quality art is married to a quality story is more rare.
My first impression of House of Stars was, holy crap! The artwork by Spanish artist Edu Marmovi (Lion Illustration) is exquisite. The rendering, the color, the attention to details, everything has a sense of grandeur about it. It manages storytelling extremely well, using color, space, pacing and well-chosen details to move the action forward at a stately pace. The design traverses the infinite canvas format effectively and with uncommon grace.
Fortunately, the story by saltacuentos is worthy of this exceptional treatment. The lead character Lily is a beautiful nineteen year old is at the cusp of her sexual awakening. She lives with her grandmother in a strange, underpopulated village where wreckage and decay abound, and where other girls have gone missing.
One day, Lily sets off for the wilderness and witnesses a green man seemingly drowning a girl. Thus she is launched into an otherworldly adventure where her courage and valor will be tested.
This is a completed series which can be enjoyed in perhaps a single sitting.
