CM: Tales of the Questor

We’ve gone over a great deal of fantastic comics this month, readers, but none are as fantastic as the comic I’m about to talk to you about now.

Why is it so fantastic, you ask? Is it the most well-known anthropomorphic web comic out there? Is it the longest running? Is it created by a celebrity of some kind or responsible for kicking off an entire genre?

I say ‘nay’ to all of those things! This comic is awesome for a number of reasons, but the obvious reason is this:

This is a comic about raccoons.

I present to you Talesof the Questor by R. H. Junior!

Some heroes need a sword. Some need a bow. Me? I just need some potassium!

Tales of the Questor is an adventure themed comic that details the life of Quentyn, Son of Quinn. After becoming the Questor (Basically an officially recognized Hero for Hire) of his home town of Freeman Downs, Quentyn sets off on a number of quests to prove his worth. His quests take him far and wide and into many dangerous locales, but the greatest obstacle of all is the expectation of nearly everyone for him to fail.

Despite my clear and obvious bias towards this comic for its Procyon protagonist, it’s also simply a great comic in its own right and deserves to be read by anyone looking for a meaty tale to sink their teeth into. Of all the comics I’ve shown you this month, this one is by far the most literary of the bunch.

Story

So, calling Tales of the Questor the most literary of all the anthro comics I’ve shared is pretty high praise, and I don’t give it lightly. The thing that this comic absolutely excels at above all else is the story-telling. Tales of the Questor has a story as heavy as you could ever want from a graphic novel and even shares some qualities with plot-heavy Japanese manga in how it structures its tale. It ranges from comical to dramatic and has elements of horror, romance, and classic high fantasy mixed with science fiction. There many moments of severe, gut-wrenching anguish, and philosophical questions can be gleaned from how it looks at magic, religion, and science, as well as how it shows people treating one another.

Tales of the Questor is written as strongly as any proper novel I’ve read, and it has so many great twists and turns starting from the very first arc alone that I don’t want to spoil any of them! Quentyn’s short size does not in any way hamper his ability to kick some tail, and he takes on monsters of all flavors. What I find most entertaining about him is that he almost never does this by means of brute force.

One of the things that makes Quentyn a great hero to read about is that he uses a gift rarely seen in comics about heroes: He uses intelligence. This is not the kind of intelligence where the character is fighting morons and buffoons and happens to be a brainiac inventor or science nerd. This is the kind of intelligence you would find in a Ranger or Wizard. Yes, Quentyn is a good student, but this comes out in truly awesome ways, like how he knows the habitats and patterns of a monster that’s terrorizing a village and treats it like a professional would treat hunting a wild beast. He details the equipment and resources he’ll need for each adversary, explaining his reasoning for everything, and almost never goes into a fight unprepared.

It’s like a raccoon version of Batman, really, only he explains everything and plans to a sensible degree rather than a ridiculous one.

The reason for this is that, like any good idea, Quentyn’s plans can and do fail, and the excitement of the adventures comes from how he deals with that possibility and the various wrenches that are thrown into his plans. More often than not, Quentyn has to rely on a lot of ingenuity, a hefty amount of guts, and a fair bit of luck. Also, even when the most awful of situations turns into a victory for him, they are not without loss or consequence. Characters die in Tales of the Questor, good and bad alike, and Quentyn often goes through personal growth as a result.

Also, even though it’s clear that Quentyn is the star of the story, other characters get to share in the limelight. Usually between main arcs, we take a break from the crazy adventure and get to see how others are shaping and forming the world that Quentyn lives in. Some of these are directly tied to Quentyn, like his best friend Kestrel, but others serve only to make the readers more aware of how the world works and what bigger problems are looming in the future.

If you plan to read Tales of the Questor, then I highly encourage you to start at the beginning and work your way up. It’s a long journey, but definitely one that is worth taking.

Art and Presentation

If there’s one place where I could see fault with Tales of the Questor, it’s in the art style and how the comic is presented to us on the website.

Before we talk about this, let me be very clear: I love the art style of this comic. I find it charming and expressive and Quentyn’s design is iconic. If I could get posters of panels from the comic, I most definitely would!

But not everybody is going to feel this way about the art style of R. H. Junior, especially with his early comics. Though certainly not sloppy, Tales of the Questor tends to have a very simple look. Main characters are given a good amount of detail in most scenes, but background characters and the backgrounds themselves tend to look very washed out or lacking in detail. Many times, a massive crowd of characters looks absolutely indistinguishable.

Personally, I believe this art style is a choice rather than anything lacking on the part of the artist, simply because this is an art style that emphasizes speed. Not speed of character movements, mind you, but speed of information. You saw how much I gushed about the story and writing of the comic. I believe the art is so simple both because of the artist’s sense of style and because, frankly, he’s only one man. The number of Questor comics number just over 700, and that’s not counting R. H. Junior’s other projects that he has going. If every panel was packed with details, then the speed of the comic coming out would be greatly reduced.

Another reason I think the art style is solid is because, for all the times the artist heavily simplifies a crowd of essentially NPCs, he never skimps when it comes to colors. The coloration of this comic is never messy and often breath-taking. The use of lights for magic and effects look great, and character palettes are both consistent and telling of their personality and purpose. I mean, just look at Quentyn with his green hat and bright red boots! He looks ready to rescue a princess and collect the hookshot in a future dungeon.

The presentation of the website the comic is hosted on is another story altogether and something I will hold against it as a fault. Navigating through comics is a serious pain in the neck when the methods for finding your place are so obtuse. When browsing the comic online recently, the only options were ‘Next’, ‘Previous’, and ‘First Comic’. There’s an Archive section under the most recent comic, but there currently is not a link there. There’s a working Archive button at the top of the website, but it takes you to a page with every comic ever posted on the site, and they’re not given any kind of subtitles or keywords. Trying to find where I last left off when looking at a list that ranges from ‘Tales of the Questor 700’ to ‘Tales of the Questor 001’ was not one of my favorite experiences. A simple division of the comics by storylines would be very helpful indeed, as there are a LOT of storylines in Tales of the Questor, and being able to jump right back into your favorites would be a wonderful thing.

As it stands, I had to make a personal webpage bookmark and update it every time that I stopped reading. For webcomics, I feel that readers shouldn’t be expected to do that.

There ARE books of the comic, both digital and physical, and I feel paging through them would be a far more fun experience. I don’t own any of the physical books yet, but it’s definitely something on my future list.

The ‘Anthro’ Element

The elements of anthropomorphism are very strong in this comic. Yes, there are obviously anthropomorphic raccoons in abundance, but there’s also more to it than that.

There are humans in this world, along with elves, fairies, orcs, anthropomorphic horses, bats, and a variety of other races. None of these races are given as much backstory as the raccoons, but what’s really fun is how detailed the information is on how the raccoons interact with other races or are known to them. For instance, it’s explained pretty early on that humans exist in this world and Quentyn’s race has hidden themselves from them for various reasons of safety. There’s a long explanation of the various forms of misdirection the raccoons have mastered in order to avoid humans discovering them, and it becomes really fun to see how this race has basically made itself into a myth.

Even within themselves, the raccoons are a blast to read about. There’s a ton of world building where we learn how their trade works, what natural elements they lack, and even exactly how their magic system operates in the world, explaining it like a science. This raccoon race is so wonderfully alien and different from humanity, but we’re given an open door to learn about them and their history. The result is a race that starts to feel like it has so much history that you could logically see it existing and start to understand their outlooks on life.

The next time I run across a talking raccoon, I’ll certainly remember the things I’ve learned from Tales of the Questor.

Final Words

I’ve said all that I can say about this comic, I think. I love it! I love the characters, I love the visual style, I love the writing style, and I love the story. It’s made me cry, laugh, and even get a little angry at the injustices of the world we’re shown.

It’s also one of the few stories that made me have a desire to BE in the story’s world. It’s difficult to describe what I mean by that exactly, but try to think about the world of Harry Potter. Once you learn about how it works, the different factions at work, and the various places to go and people to see, that world becomes a desirable place to mentally explore and you can see yourself going to Hogwarts or muse about which kind of magic you would learn or the weird things you would see. Just look at all the crazy amounts of Harry Potter fan-fiction out there to see examples of folks wanting to be a part of the magic. Tales of the Questor is like that for me. After learning so much about Quentyn and his world, I find myself wanting to visit it and see more of it. I think about what it would be like to help him on his quest or what adventures could be had with the various races he encounters or even what profession I’d end up with in such a world.

It’s a beautiful, childish feeling that makes reading this comic all the more fun and wonderful. Letting yourself get absorbed into the mythology of Quentyn’s world (Or your own favorite world in literature) is great escapism, even if it only lasts for the length of a reading session.

So, that’s it for Comics Month here at the Raccoon Reader Review! I hope you all enjoyed this month of me going on about my favorite comics and what I see in them, and I hope it introduced some of you to something new you wouldn’t have otherwise tried out.

Want me to do more themes in the future? Have more comics you’d like me to check out? Want me to never do another month of long essays ever again? Go ahead and leave your thoughts below!

Until next time, happy reading, all!

-Chammy

Currently Reading:

Tales of the Questor by R. H. Junior