Month: March 2023

When I listed Blind Alley in my Best Webcomics of 2022 article, I wrote “Adam de Souza’s low key humor is reminiscent of Charles Schulz with a touch of Charles Adams in this Ignatz Award-nominated series.”

Blind Alley is certainly one of the best webcomics out there, and no doubt Schulz or Adams would have been fans.  In its casual, meandering way, the twice-weekly strip serves up so many remarkable pleasures— comedy, mystery, fantasy, philosophy, enigma and visual beauty.

The large cast of children who populate Blind Alley each have their own ongoing stories that the author picks up and drops at random. There is a true-to-life context for much of the action, with tedium, sadness, death, divorce and loss shaping the children’s lives.  There are also supernatural elements that present themselves in novel and fascinating ways, such as a dark presence calling on a tin-can telephone, or a sewer-dwelling creature who loves chocolate.

Episodes vary from Sunday-style three-tiered strips to single-panel full-color illustrations, but the majority are a single row of panels resembling a daily newspaper strip.  This short format is the sweet spot of Blind Alley’s narrative strength, often soaring to extraordinary heights of dramatic expression—

• Exploring the forest, “hippies” Sweetie and Pod are shocked to discover their favorite tree chopped down.  The two drape themselves over the stump, trembling with grief. 
• The neighborhood bully Ten begins to realize the dislike he has engendered in his playmates. He wanders into the woods, and leans his forehead against a tree.
• Oliver arrives home to a dark and disheveled house.  He calls in vain for his mother, and then settles down to eat supper alone.

Vancouver artist de Souza has vast experience as an illustrator and cartoonist; his portfolio is a magnificent Odyssey of shapes and ideas. One could hardly find a better tutor for a child or adult in understanding our vast and strange universe.

In Reika, a young orphan whose parents recently died in a car crash is having trouble making friends in her new school, and finds herself being picked on by the class bully.  The child withdraws and turns her thoughts inwards. Soon she begins seeing strange and frightening supernatural beings.

The creatures turn out to be Yokai, spirits in a variety of shapes who wander between hell and our world.  Reika comes to lose her fear of these entities, and begins to feel more confident and loved because of their friendship.

This story is from the Heart Anthology, a collection of works taken from Webtoons’ 2020 short story contest. I’m a big fan of these self-contained narratives, because the story arcs are well-defined like a good movie or novel.  For example, Reika’s story structurally begins in the present day, with the rest being told in flashback, leading up to a touching epilog.

Creators Marvin.W and caw-chan have composed a fast-paced, exciting, and visually impressive fantasy.  Their collaboration is a feather-light balance of drama, comedy, and young romance. The story situates itself in an interesting space between reality and the supernatural world.  It is a thrilling exploration of the the unseen and the unknown, but for its young protagonist, the consequences are personal and very real.

The Harvey and Eisner-nominated The Eyes investigates the power of eyesight in a series of paradoxical, tension-filled scenarios. The stories reside in a universe next door where seeing is not believing, invisibility and blindness are roommates, eye injury may be a necessary step to combat evil, and we must sometimes be shielded from what may be revealed about ourselves.

Spanish artist/writer Javi De Castro is intoxicated with the notion of using visual storytelling to explore paradoxes of vision itself. He has created metafictional narratives that turn back upon themselves, challenging the reader to distinguish what they see from what they know.  Even as the characters undertake an ontological escapade, the reader undergoes an adventure in understanding and enlightening confusion.

It is especially notable that Castro employs replacement animation to introduce mysterious, paradoxical effects into his comics. As his portfolio shows, he has devoted many years to perfecting this technique and exploring its potential. In The Eyes, invisibility, blindness, hallucination and demonic possession are all made tangible by panels that flash suddenly from one image to another.

Considering that this animation cannot be transferred from the internet to print medium, Castro takes pains to distinguish his work from the ephemeral blog format of most webcomics.  Each story is presented as an episode with its own cover (and variants of the covers by other artists).  It’s as if he’s preparing for the day when webcomics will be archived for posterity, just like other legitimate art forms.