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

CM: Ozy and Millie

I think I can safely say that Dana C. Simpson’s Ozy and Millie is one of the widest spread anthropomorphic comics out there. At the very least, of all the comics that I’m looking at this month, it’s the most successful and well-known!

Really, I just wanted the hat, but the vest is nice too!

The premise of the comic is a simple one: Ozy and Millie is about two vulpine children, an arctic fox named Ozy and a red fox named Millie. The comic follows their adventures through school and childhood, with plenty of hijinks and interesting characters along the way!

The comic runs much like any good daily comic strip, with each strip being self-contained enough to be read and enjoyed, and with a steadily increasing cast of characters to help or hinder our protagonists. Many of the cast can and have held their own to be the focus of one or more storylines, which helps add variety to the reading and allows readers to form real attachments. In many ways, Ozy and Millie is reminiscent of Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes in this regard, many times playing off of readers’ expectations for certain characters and building a personal mythology of running gags, annual story events, and witty writing that one would never expect for a ‘kid’ comic.

Before anyone starts calling Ozy and Millie derivative of Watterson’s much loved work, though, it must be understood how very much it sets itself apart and what makes it a truly iconic anthropomorphic comic.

Story

As I said above, Ozy and Millie is a daily comic strip through and through in its design. This means having ‘dailies’ in black and white with the occasional larger and fully colored ‘Sunday Strip’. When using this format for making stories, there are some concessions that must be made. For one, each strip must be at least somewhat self-contained and able to tell its own story in the three to four panels allotted. While this would naturally make one think that the comics cannot have a full, complex story between them, you would quickly find that to be untrue! Yes, many of the comics are simply setups for gags or messages, but it soon becomes apparent that, despite all of these gags in every strip, there is a real continuation of plot.

Now, this is not soap opera levels of story-telling, where you need to know who was dating whom and that Billy switched places with his evil twin from Dimension X last season. Rather, the story told is one of characters constantly learning from past experiences. There are so many fun moments and great jokes that I don’t want to spoil them, but an excellent example of the kind of ‘story progression’ that I’m talking about is the growth of the relationship between Millie and Llewellyn.

Llewellyn is a very long-lived dragon who also happens to be Ozy’s adopted father. When Millie first meets him, she is absolutely terrified of this tall, scaled, fire-breathing creature, and perhaps understandably so, considering how different Llewellyn is from other adults. Yet, she soon overcomes her fears and a bit of a friendship starts. As the comic goes on, Millie and Llewellyn become better and better friends, extending to even her mother becoming quite close to the dragon. Yet they frequently reference back to Millie being afraid of him at first or having to learn to eventually not find some of Llewellyn’s mannerisms to be quite so weird. For the entire ten years of the comic’s run, this storyline of their friendship develops off and on until it reaches a wonderful end point, and that is only ONE of many reoccurring plots that Ozy and Millie has. I didn’t even touch upon the grand tales of Captain Locke, the pirate that lives in Ozy’s sofa and perhaps my favorite character in the cast after Llewellyn.

So, yes, story elements in Ozy and Millie are far more wonderful and literary than you might expect, with plenty of surprises along the way and not a small amount of political satire as well.

Presentation

Ozy and Millie has been a website from day one, and the entire archive is freely available there online, but that is most certainly not the only way the comic can be taken in. Unlike the previous comics this month, Ozy and Millie has a number of professional book collections, and a small amount of real media associated with it. There used to be more, like calendars and fake voting bumper stickers (What? You didn’t vote for the Zen party?), but that has understandably trailed off ever since the comic’s official end. Nowadays, there are the standard shirts and mugs, but there are also supposedly still copies of the physical prints of the comic strips for sale from the author herself!

Ozy and Millie really does pride itself on its printability and readability, I think. The characters are distinct, but relatively simple in their overall designs. The comic strips are rarely so massive as to be impossible to print out and stick on your desk or a locker. Even the writing is presented in such a way that, even when complicated words or concepts are used, they are accompanied by something visually amusing to treat those who don’t completely get the joke.

Speaking of the jokes, I can’t really talk about Ozy and Millie and not address the kind of jokes that it favors. It’s not the most difficult to describe, but I can’t pass up an opportunity for Millie to give a visual aid:

Yep. There is political humor in Ozy and Millie and a LOT of it. If I had to throw out a guess, the comic strip is at least 60% political jokes and satire. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were much more than that, as many political jokes tend to go over my head. If you are not a fan of political humor like Millie’s handy sock puppet above, then you might find yourself less enamored with the comic itself. However, before non-politically-minded readers move to dash away, I should emphasize once again: Political jokes don’t do a whole lot for me, yet I absolutely loved the writing in Ozy and Millie.

The reason for this is due to Simpson’s fantastic writing style. This is especially apparent later on in the strip’s life, but Simpson has quite a talent for making a political commentary in the midst of a really fun and entertaining story that doesn’t seem political at all. Far from excluding folks who aren’t into politics, Simpson instead hides political phrases, ideas, and jokes so that folks who don’t know about them don’t know they’re missing anything, and folks who DO get them enjoy the stories that much more. Mr. W there is about as blatant as it gets, which may be enough to scare some folks away, but you would be doing yourself a great disservice.

The ‘Anthro’ Element

For once, I almost feel like I don’t have to talk a whole ton about this aspect for this comic.

The obvious elements of anthropomorphism are right there in every strip of the comic. We’ve got talking animals wearing various types of clothing and having conversations about many elements that are very human and yet different enough to help use realize that these are most certainly NOT humans.

Simpson does it better than many other anthro comic artists that I’ve read, though, and really does pay attention to the type of animals that she’s working with. One of the more obvious signs of this is with one of the school bullies, Felicia. She’s a typical ‘popular girl’ and just so happens to also be a sheep. Aside from the clear play on the idea of the ‘popular herd’, she also makes frequent use of her wool for jokes about fashion and even plot devices. The talks about her dying her fur during her ‘goth’ phase are some of the best with the concept.

Llewellyn steals the show with his absolute dragon-ness, though! Not only does he frequently breathe fire and have special dragon bread that tastes like gasoline, but the long-lived nature of his species is a central point of his character. Llewellyn rubs elbows with old American presidents, Chinese philosophers, and even Winston Churchill, taking in so many different ways of thinking and looking at the world that it turns the concept of ‘the wise old dragon’ completely on its head. Interestingly enough, he has the most human insight of all of the cast, which makes for often very amusing philosophies during all of the craziness that Millie gets involved with.

After Words

Sadly, Ozy and Millie ended officially back in 2008. Thankfully, it was a good, proper ending, rather than a slow death, making for a complete story that doesn’t leave the reader hanging. The books are still very much available, and Dana Simpson is still doing other comics. In fact, one of her recent creations is doing very well for itself and recently had a book released with more on the way! The series is titled ‘Heavenly Nostrils’ and is about a girl and her unicorn, meaning that it’s a prime target for us to look at together someday. For now, you can give it a read yourself and support the author!

It’s difficult for me to bring up problems with Ozy and Millie. The comic really is solid, and it’s also a comic that I followed all the way up to its conclusion. My copy of ‘Ink and White Space’ still sits proudly on my shelf. I think it was the first independent comic collection that I ever ordered online.

If I had to give any marks against Ozy and Millie, it would be the previously mentioned political points and how that could really drive away some folks. Some of the characters also are built for ideas or messages that don’t really come to fruition or seem all that fleshed out, like Stephan Aardvark and his being built around the eventual ‘dotcom boom’ and making fun of computer geeks in the 90s. Really, though, these are extremely minor points in ten years’ worth of solid comics and entertainment.

Do yourself a favor and read through some of the archives and maybe even pick up on the collections available on Amazon!

Until next time, happy reading all!

-Chammy

Vote and Vocalize!

03-24-15: Late to the Party

Well, color me embarrassed! In my focus on doing comic overviews this month, I totally let it slip my mind that the Ursa Major Award Nominees have been declared and voting has opened! There are a wide variety of categories, from ‘Best Motion Picture’ to ‘Best Game’, but, of course, our category of choice is going to be the ‘Best Novel’ award. While I had no intention of going over the ‘Best Short Fiction’ list anyways, it would have been doubly odd to do that this year on account of all of them being by the same author.

This is what happens when you have a limited pool to work with, sadly.

 

I believe the creature above accurately describes my reading speed.

In any case, voting has started for ‘Best Anthropomorphic Novel’ and I’m going to give you all a quick rundown of the nominees by way of their own book summaries! The choice you make afterwards is entirely up to you, but I encourage you all to vote not only on this, but in any other categories that you’re interested in! Voting only takes a valid e-mail address, so anybody can do it. Vote here!

Best Anthropomorphic Novel

-Chakat in the Alley, by James R. Jordan. (CreateSpace, June 17)-

“The conclusion to the events of "The Cat's Eye Pub" Having finally been found by the family shi didn't know shi had, Midsnow begins hir tale that explains hir dark past. What secrets does shi hold? And what secrets are hir long lost family hiding as well? A story of loss and sacrifice that will only fuel long held emotions, as faces of the past come back to haunt.”

-The Forges of Dawn, by E.M. Kinsey. (CreateSpace, September 15)-

“FOR THERE TO BE HEROES... The traditional place for a Lyonesse, as huntress and mother, holds no appeal for young Uhuru. Her greatest wish is to be a great warrior like her father and stand as protector to her pride. Society would deny her this, but fate will not. THERE MUST FIRST BE DARKNESS... Fueled by a lust for perfection and purity, the Pale Ones have conquered most of the known world. Those who do not fit their impossible ideal for Lyondom are slowly being eradicated -- and those who desert their cause are hunted down just the same. AND TO OPPOSE THAT DARKNESS... When her pride is attacked and taken by the Pale Ones, Uhuru must take up the mantle she has always coveted, and in so doing, learn its true cost. What starts as a journey to save her family quickly becomes a mission to end her enemies' reign of terror once and for all. From the shores of the only land she has ever known to the steps of faraway empires and back again, Uhuru will face pirates, monsters, and heart-breaking loss to finally learn the greatest lesson of all: heroes are never really born. Like any weapon… HEROES MUST BE FORGED”

-Huntress, by Renee Carter Hall (in Five Fortunes, edited by Fred Patten, FurPlanet Productions, January 16)-

“A fortune can be many things.
A fortune is wealth, which you earn through hard work, win by chance, steal by cunning, or lose through tragedy.
Good fortune smiles upon some and makes life easy, while ill fortune curses others to walk lonely, bitter roads.
A fortune can be your fate foretold with cards, predetermined by the stars, or read in tea leaves and portents.
Here you will find a mix of all such fortunes and the stories of five fates determined by chance or divined by purpose.
One man will remake himself into a rabbit to forge a new life. A lioness will pursue her desire to be a hunter at all costs. A wolf will struggle against her nature, only to find that even counting money can be dangerous. A cat will fall in love with a dog, and both will find that means more than anyone could imagine. And a Caitian will journey across the stars in the hope of escaping the misfortunes of his life.
Each tale explores how a fortune can change a life. How a person might change their destiny. How greed or simple bad luck can change everything. And above all, the lengths some will go to make themselves a new fortune.”

-Impossible Magic, by J.F.R. Coates. (Jaffa Books, August 18)-

“The sequel to his début fantasy novel, Axinstone. Continuing where the first book left off, Impossible Magic is a fantasy adventure that doesn't ease up. Packed with dragons and magic, this is a fantastic book for all ages.”

-Off the Beaten Path, by Rukis. (FurPlanet Productions, July 4 - Mature Readers)-

“Spending her life beneath the oppressive control of an abusive husband she'd had no choice in marrying was a hard life, but Shivah strove to endure it in order to protect her child.

When her child was slain, and Shivah herself viciously attacked and left for dead, she swore she'd make her husband pay dearly for his greatest mistake...leaving her alive.

She is joined in her hunt by the two men who pulled her from the jaws of death, and a group of lawmen hunting a dangerous band of raiders threatening the countryside. But there may be deeper, more widespread evils hidden in the shadows of the conflict she finds herself a part of.”

Best of luck to all of the nominees! The odds of me reading through every story here before the deadline of April 15^th are slim to none, but I do have a few that I’m favoring more than others. If you have read any of these books or are planning to do so to make your own decision, go ahead and share your thoughts about them and give your own recommendations!

Onward! Time to add new books to the shelf!

Until next time, happy reading, all!

-Chammy

Currently Reading:

The Forges of Dawn by E.M. Kinsey

CM: The World of Vicki Fox

Last week, we had a comic all about shooting, killing, drinking, and jazzy cats in 1920’s garb. So, in the great tradition of Monty Python’s Flying Circus: “And now for something completely different”

This week’s comic is one of my oldest favorite webcomics, and one that pretty much introduced the genre to me: The World of Vicki Fox.

See? There are many advantages to be little and cute!

The World of Vicki Fox is an anthropomorphic webcomic created by Michael Russell and Laura Howell. It’s best described as a “slice of life” comedy comic strip about the lives of the titular Vicki Fox and her friends and family in the city of Apopka, Georgia. Almost the entire cast is made up of anthropomorphic animals of varying species.

Where many other comics delve into deep stories, crazy action, or fierce drama. The World of Vicki Fox is more like an episode of "Happy Days" or "Mary Tyler Moore". The meat of the comic comes from learning about the characters and seeing the hijinks their various personality traits, jobs, and relationships get them caught up in. In one of the comics, one of the characters even compares Vicki and her roommate Ceri Bobcat to Mary and Rhoda (I now feel really old in enjoying that reference)! It prides itself on being a wholesome, family-friendly experience that can be read and enjoyed by anybody and usually has subtle a lesson to be learned in the midst of all the jokes. What it does best is, without question, creating a full world for the readers to enjoy and immerse themselves in.

Story

The World of Vicki Fox is another comic where it’s difficult to have actual ‘spoilers’ when talking about the story. The reason for this, as I said above, is because the comic isn’t really concerned with telling deep narratives. The deepest the stories have ever gotten in terms of continuity is a storyline that shows how Vicki and Ceri first met and became roommates. While that might seem like a downfall of the comic, it is actually quite the opposite!

Reading and enjoying the stories of The World of Vicki Fox is like enjoying an episode of your favorite sitcom. They’re warm, familiar, and largely self-contained. You can hop in nearly anywhere and still enjoy the characters and the jokes, picking up on the relations between characters as you go along. Speaking of relations, the majority of the stories are focused on romance and family, which makes for great humor, but also plenty of ‘aww’ moments where you’re rooting for the protagonist or feeling sorry for their losses. It’s not all played for laughs, either! A number of comics don’t end in gags, but in thoughtful phrases as the characters come to one realization or another, learning (or, in the case of Zephy Fox, ignoring) lessons along the way.

Another aspect of the comic that might surprise some readers is that The World of Vicki Fox is largely a female-focused comic. Three out of the four primary characters are female and most of the stories are largely from their perspectives or directly involve them in some way. Vicki Fox herself is very concerned with building a life for herself and enjoying every aspect of it that she can. There’s shopping trips, pecan festivals, playful romance, and enjoying family and church functions. In some ways, it might be seen as a little stereotypically girly, but Vicki and her friends are crazy enough that, even if you’re not into ‘girly stuff’, you’ll find something to enjoy. Personally, I had a lot of fun with Aussie, Vicki’s best friend who pretends to be Australian for no good reason aside from thinking that it’s cool.

Presentation

One of the most striking elements of The World of Vicki Fox is its art style. More specifically, the sheer number of art styles on display is pretty incredible.

The comic started out with only Laura Howell doing the art, whose style is quite iconic and fits the cartoony world of Vicki and her friends wonderfully. It has something of a “Looney Tunes” vibe to it, which is really endearing. By the third storyline, the art changed over to Shelly Pleger, another fantastic artist but with a noticeably different style. Her art is more reminiscent of Disney cartoons and 90’s era Warner Bros. cartoons.  It was during her second storyline that things started to change rather dramatically.

Starting with a comic called “Minding the Gap”, all sorts of artists started sending in guest comics and illustrations to fill the space between major storyline updates. It was a remarkable display of talent and style, and really helped to expand The World of Vicki Fox as a comic for the furry comic community at large. It not only showed that Vicki and her friends could appear in different styles and still be absolutely recognizable due to their personalities, but also showed that the comic had an incredible community behind it. As the storyline continued, the art for the main comics changed to Jennifer Morton, another experienced comic artist, with Shelley Pleger coming back every now and again.

Sadly, as the comic went on, this created a bit of a problem where the artistic identity of the comic started to feel inconsistent, both in quality and in pacing. Along with update problems, this might have created the situation that led to the comic’s current hiatus.

The ‘Anthro’ Element

The anthropomorphic element to The World of Vicki Fox is probably one of its strongest traits! Not only are almost all of the characters animals with a wide variety of species and appearances to them, but there are rules set in the world and frequent pokes at common tropes, or habits, of anthropomorphic cartoons.

When I talk about ‘rules’, I mean that it’s clearly outlined how relationships and interactions between species work, and the comic largely sticks to them. Michael Russell himself explains it best in the FAQ on the site, talking about how there are three levels in Vicki’s world: Humans, human-animals, and regular animals. He goes even further to talk about how romantic relationships only exist between members of the same animal family (i.e. canine, feline, etc.), and even how religions work with all the various species in play! There’s clearly a ton of thought put into the world and how the species all interact with it and with each other, and learning about these little wrinkles of the world design isn’t completely necessary, but only makes the stories better.

On the comical side of things, The World of Vicki Fox has its fair share of jokes about cutting holes in clothing for their tails, human-sized cars being horribly cumbersome for most of the smaller animal races, and the girls going crazy about buying shoes, despite usually being barefoot like most typical cartoon animals in the genre. It’s really ‘anthropomorphic’ in the most fun of ways, never taking itself too seriously, but sticking to its rules for the world when they come up. There’s never a problem of Vicki and her friends being merely ‘humans in animal suits’, and that really helps to create its identity.

I won’t lie: I pretty much adore the way The World of Vicki Fox handles anthropomorphism and I dearly wish more comics took the same approach.

My Thoughts

I’ve slipped in a lot of personal thoughts in talking about this comic already, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I really enjoy the whole production. I absolutely recommend this comic to everyone reading here.

However, there are some problems about the comic that I absolutely must talk about and can’t leave out in good conscience. As previously mentioned, the art style for the comic changed dramatically over the years, and the change in quality is very noticeable. Now, this is not to say that the later artists were bad, but more that the difference was just so jarring that it greatly hampered my enjoyment. Personally, my favorite era of the comic’s style is before the ‘Minding the Gap’ comics and I hope we get more of a focused art style when the comic relaunches.

Speaking of which, that brings up the second problem I had with The World of Vicki Fox: the lack of consistent updates. While lulls are not unheard of in webcomics, the massive gaps between comics became so long that the author himself brought attention to it and made a comic out of the gaps! Ironically, even the “Minding the Gap” comics didn’t keep up with much consistency, and that ultimately led to the comic ending prematurely in 2013. The storyline at the time, called “Summer Work”, was left hanging essentially in the middle and looks like it most likely will not have a conclusion. There’s an announcement about the website relaunching and being retitled “Dixie Wildlife” on the Comics page, and we received an update recently about the expected relaunch to be taking place in Spring 2015. Only time will tell if they’ll stick to the launch date, but it is my sincere hope that they do!

Despite these problems, I still love this comic and read back through it frequently. I’m eager to see more of it in the future and consider it a great shame that no print version of The World of Vicki Fox exists! I would love to be able to have something to hold onto if the website ever goes offline, as well as something to show off to my friends and family on my bookshelf.

As it stands, the future of The World of Vicki Fox is nebulous at best, but everything that made the comic and the website great is still available to us online! Be sure to give it a read and experience one of the most wholesome and fun experiences to be had with online anthropomorphic comics!

The World of Vicki Fox

Until next time, happy reading, all!

-Chammy

Comic Month! Lackadaisy

Hello all, and welcome to Comic Month here at the Raccoon Reader Review! More specifically, I should say ‘web comic’ month, as all of the comics that I’m about to show to you this month are fully available online for your reading pleasure. Most of them, though, are also available in book format, so don’t hesitate to pick up a hard copy of the comics if you want to support these wonderful artists and writers!

The goal of this month is to show off some anthropomorphic comics that I enjoy and spread word of them to folks who may not necessarily have seen them before. That means I’ll mainly be going over the great points of these comics, but I’ll also point out problems where it’s due.

So, without further ado, let’s dive into this week’s anthro comic: Lackadaisy

 

I may not be a cat, but I think I'll fit right in!

What is it?

Lackadaisy is a comic written and drawn by Tracy J. Butler.

(from the artist):

            “It's about a gang of tenacious (if not shady) characters running a St. Louis speakeasy in the era of Prohibition. I suppose it falls somewhere in the realm of historical fiction, parody, dark comedy, and abject nonsense.”

In truth, Lackadaisy is a comic about many things, but it’s mainly about people who do illegal things. Characters lie, cheat, steal, and kill in the name of their respective establishments and personal interests. In fact, it might almost be considered a theme of the comic that none of the cast are completely unfamiliar with violence and bloodshed. In a way, it’s a sort of tearing down of ‘the good old days’, and yet it still fully celebrates them. Lackadaisy is a comic filled with music, poetry, history, comedy, love, murder, and a bit of alcohol.

Story

I would say that I want to avoid spoilers here, but Lackadaisy’s story is not one that lends itself much to spoiling.

The story primarily concerns itself with the adventures of the Cheshire Cat-like Rocky Rickaby, who is currently employed by the mysterious Mitzi May at the Little Daisy Café. He’s a gin-runner for the Lackadaisy Speakeasy that’s set up beneath the storefront, meaning it’s his job to go out and secure shipments of liquor to keep them in business. From the very beginning, we learn that Rocky is… not the greatest at this job. He tends to get pushed around and his head is very much always in the clouds and dreaming of grand things. Yet he loves the job anyways and puts his life on the line to do it for Mitzi.

The story isn’t just about Rocky, though. After being introduced to his problems, we soon meet an increasingly colorful cast of characters, such as Viktor, the feral-looking one-eyed Slovak with knees that don’t bend, Ivy Pepper, who works at the actual café part of Little Daisy Café, and Freckle, Rocky’s quiet and somewhat shy little cousin who continually gets wrapped up in the craziness of Rocky’s adventures. This isn’t even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the cast of characters, and our perspective changes frequently as the story demands it. See for yourself all of the characters that Lackadaisy offers to us here!

Luckily, all these different characters don’t muddy the story in the least. See, when I say that the story primarily concerns itself with Rocky, that’s both a truth and a bit of a lie. So far, Rocky most definitely gets the most face time in the comic, but the comic is less about him and more about the characters involved with his place of employment. Lackadaisy is, above all else, a comic about characters and the lives that they lead. That’s why I say that it doesn’t quite lend itself to spoilers too well, because the magic of the story is in seeing all of these characters come to life and deal with their various histories and relations. The only way to truly ‘spoil’ Lackadaisy would be to write out a full-disclosure biography on every character in the story, and you’d be better off just watching these characters explain themselves anyways.

Presentation

Lackadaisy is more than just a collection of comic pages and fun characters. The full experience of Lackadaisy is the site itself and the wonderful level of immersion into the world. Not only does the story of the comic take place in the 1920s, but the website itself is steeped in information and colloquialisms from that era. There’s even a glossary on the site to help folks out if they want to know more about words of the era, though the artist never overuses these words in the comics to the point of the glossary being necessary reading.

Lackadaisy has a lot of themes going on, especially if one were to break down all of the different aspects of the era that it slips in. One of its more recurring themes, however, is the theme of photographs. Throughout the entire design of the website, the characters are shown in period-centric styles, and this frequently takes the form of old photography. Not only being in the backdrop of the site, the comic itself tends to use quite a number of photos, showing characters caught in the middle of moments or giving us glimpses of their histories. In fact, the comic itself could be said to be drawn in the style of a photograph, being presented entirely in sepia tones. Of course, comic panels do lend themselves well to being compared to photographs, but Butler definitely runs with the idea.

Speaking of the comic’s art, though, I must say that it’s absolutely fantastic! I can’t emphasize that enough. Tracy Butler brings out expressions and emotions with every panel and does so with great detail. Characters are never as simple as they might seem in design, and most every one of them will give an expression that you don’t quite expect that will suddenly reveal more about their character to you than any mere words could do. The characters’ outfits and the setting are also all drawn expertly, with more details than most will probably ever notice. Butler often gives us fun notes about her design process too, including historical facts and errors about what she’s drawn, as well as tutorials and thoughts about character design and putting images together.

It’s some of the most professional art that I’ve ever seen in an web-based anthropomorphic comic.

The ‘Anthro’ Element

If it’s not obvious from the images I’ve shown you so far (Or if you can’t see the images for one reason or another), Lackadaisy is anthropomorphic at its most basic level. The entire cast of characters is made up of cats of different breeds, as is the world surrounding them. Rather than referencing this in any dialogue, the art pretty much speaks for itself. Characters infrequently do ‘catty’ things, like sleeping in odd positions or having their tails frizz out when they’re concerned. On the whole, though, the world being filled with cats really doesn’t play much of a part in the story of the comic.

Butler herself says that the cats are ‘just stand-ins for humans in the comic’. While I might have a problem with that in works of literature, showing a lack of inventiveness, I’m a little more apt to forgive it in the world of a graphic novel. The reason for this is pretty obvious: everything that we need to know about the characters in terms of their species is shown to us in the art of the comic itself. Nobody is going to look at a comic panel of Lackadaisy and mistake the felines in zoot suits for human beings. Even their hands and feet have pads and claws on them, so it's difficult to even think of them as people in furry suits. In a way, it’s a very ‘Disney’ approach. These cats that can talk are just that.

This does beg the question, though… Why are we more willing to accept this? Why is reading about a talking mouse going to the store to buy bread and jam and driving a car more of a logical stretch for some than watching a quadrupedal lion actively using a torch in his teeth to light a field on fire in Disney’s The Lion King 2? Really, I think it has to do with how our minds tend to work. In general, we are more receptive to being shown something than being told to think something. When the visual is entirely our own idea, it’s oddly more difficult to bend it than if somebody else presents the visuals for us. You can easily experience this for yourself if you ever watch a movie based on a book and then read that book. Suddenly, without even trying, you’ll tend to see the main character as the actor that portrayed him or her in the film. Publishers are even completely aware of this, which is why they tend to reprint books with covers matching the posters of their films. Pre-determined visuals are comfortable for our eyes and our minds, even if imagination is arguably better exercise for our brains.

So, in the end, Lackadaisy’s anthro element is a basic one, but the great art carries it forward and brings out all that we need to know about these characters as cats and as people. Its story is certainly more of an exploration of the human element than the animal one, which makes it good anthropomorphism, but there’s less of an animal mask to it when compared to other works. This may or may not turn off some folks.

My Thoughts

I’ll not mince words. I love this comic and everything about it! The art, the characters, the presentation… it’s all a beautiful visual symphony in my eyes. The world absolutely comes alive in the pages presented to us, and there’s so much personality in the website and the various images and comics spread across it. It’s just astounding to me every time that I look through it and it’s my hope that I can spread this comic even further and make more people aware of it. I highly recommend it and hope that you all give it a read for yourselves!

If there were one thing that I had to point out as a disappointment about the comic, it’s the fact that the wait between updates can be excruciating. As Butler’s art gets more and more impressive and extravagant, it takes her, understandably, more time to make each page. This works somewhat to the comic’s detriment, as the art wows us with every new piece, but the gaps can be so large that you tend to forget where you were in the story unless you read back a few pages first.

For that reason, I think one of the best ways to experience Lackadaisy is in its book form. The first volume has long been available, and the second seems to be well underway. With the books, you get to experience the entire story at your own pace. Regrettably, all of Tracy Butler’s notes couldn’t be transferred to the pages of the book, nor could the side comics on the website, but that also makes the book experience and the website experience complementary rather than competing, and checking out both can really enhance your reading!

Well, I hope you all enjoyed a look at one of my favorite anthro comics out there today! There’s more to come, so please stick around for the month! If you have any anthro comics that you want me to check out or hear my opinions on, or any topics in general that you want me to cover, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Until next time, happy reading, all!

-Chammy

Currently Reading:

Animas – Legacy of the Claw by C. R. Grey