Below, you can find the first fantasy webcomic review, written by Elena Cordero. Please note that we’re still working out some details about the structure of the reviews, so future reviews may look a little different.
- Comic: Fey Winds (1st page) by Nicole Chartrand
- Reviewer: Elena Cordero
- Status: Ongoing; 1 new page per week; 401 pages as of 27 November 2015
Tone is one of the most important aspects in a work of fiction. It is what keeps the audience immersed and conveys what the writer wants them to feel. Without proper tone, a fictional work can feel disjointed, confusing, unengaging, or just plain unpleasant. Thus, tone is arguably one of the most important things to decide when beginning a story. In reviewing Fey Winds, a comic by Nicole Chartrand, I’ve run into an dilemma.
Like most fantasy stories, Fey Winds begins with a much lighter tone than what it will eventually become. Typically, these stories will leave hints of what’s to come, which Chartrand does succeed in; that’s not an issue here. The Fey Winds site has more than one page dedicated to providing information on the characters, races, and regions within the story, and the comic itself opens up with a rather serious history lesson regarding an ancient war, albeit, a very brief one.
Fey Winds succeeds in getting viewers engaged right away, there’s no denying it. It’s premise is quite simple. Long ago, a mystical being called the Sylphe ravaged the lands during a great war. Eventually, she turned on her masters and disappeared from the world, but not before leaving behind trinkets of great power and value. Our protagonists are a group of adventurers in search of these trinkets. Why? Doesn’t matter. The readers are thrust into a story that’s eager to get started, full context or not.
Within five pages, the setting, backstory, and our main characters are introduced, all in mere sentences. Our cast consists of a fox who was turned into a human, a swordsman magically bound to go wherever she does, an elf who’s routinely possessed by ghosts, and a runaway prince who can turn into a dragon.
The humorous tone of the comic is quickly set alongside our unusual protagonists, complete with The Legend of Zelda references and silly faces. Throughout the first couple of chapters, it quickly becomes evident that our main heroes are not afraid of cracking one liners and jokes at the expense of themselves and the fantasy tropes they come across. Now as I said, it is incredibly common for fantasy stories to display their lighter side up front, and Fey Winds is smart enough to present itself in a more serious light for those with the habit of checking “About” pages prior to reading.
The art also helps, with a bit of manga inspired style that’s flexible enough to fit any tone ranging from silly to deathly serious. As the story progresses, the art evolves enough to get some good action scenes thrown in. Panoramic shots and magic filled page spreads become slightly more common, character designs get a surprising amount of detail despite their sillier origins, and you eventually get an acceptable level of lush art most would expect from high-end fantasy.
So our tone is now set: lighthearted goofy fun that’s not afraid to get serious as we eventually go more in depth. All in all, we have here the recipe for a fairly enjoyable story that, at the very least, promises to be of acceptable quality. You have your jokes that know when to poke fun at cliché but still necessary aspects of fantasy storytelling, and following this, you have the bare minimum of lore to make the fairly well drawn world feel whole.
So where’s the dilemma, you may ask? What is the fly that spoils this solid recipe I’m praising so much? Clearly I will pull a 180 and reveal the flaws that drag this comic review into the ground, because that’s what cynical critics do, right? (See that? That’s called lampshade hanging, and you’d best develop a taste for it if you wish to enjoy Fey Winds.)
Exhibit A
Well for starters, the humour can be a bit much. It’s hard to say the balance of humourous and serious tones is maintained well when phrases like “le sigh” and “omg hax” are sprinkled in ever so infrequently enough to feel jarring every time they pop up. It could also be because the lore presented alongside the comic is hardly ever touched upon in the comic itself, serving more as a glossary than anything else. Or maybe I just don’t like how the pages felt too small at times and the border surrounding the comic is just bright green space, making early pages a bit of an eyesore. It could be a lot of things.
For me, the real kicker is that, a mere two chapters into the story, out of what is currently 12 and counting, everything established is thrown out the window.
After getting little to no time to see our heroes interacting with each other, we’re introduced to our first main villain. Backstories suddenly become complex, revealing connections surprising enough to be consider spoilers despite happening so early in. Our villain’s goals and the main protagonist’s role in it are suddenly brought out and change what little we know about the story completely. All at once, the comic’s more serious tone comes charging in at full force.
And now, some readers give their best “ahhhh now I get it” as my nitpicking comes full circle. My introduction to this comic felt like it was establishing a lighthearted adventure with a touch of serious mode thrown in. Despite the characters being a bit too silly or on-the-nose at times for me, I was still relatively sold on the premise. What I at first thought was a cheerful fantasy adventure, though, was in actuality a very lengthy and extended prologue, setting up our characters and who they are before the plot literally ambushes them when they least expect it.
I return to what I said at the beginning of the review. Fey Winds has presented a dilemma to me. One that makes a standard review formula quite difficult, to be honest. You see, it can be a problem when a story just shifts tone suddenly. Some people might think it’s jarring when we have enemies called “The Minionz” in the exact same chapter as one where a character is violently tortured by our true antagonist. Others might feel it was not necessary to establish backstories that will become completely irrelevant or exposed as flat out lies a hundred pages later. There’s a lot in Fey Winds to make you raise an eyebrow.
But this doesn’t have to be an issue, in all fairness. I can’t exactly blame the comic completely for my own expectations. The humour doesn’t outright stop once the plot kicks in, and the lore and setup was all there, making sure I knew exactly what I was getting into. What really matters is how the story develops after it gets going, regardless of the time it takes to get there, so a sudden tone shift less than a quarter into the story is a rather minor offense, is it not?
Our heroes seem to agree, at least.
But the thing is, nobody likes it when a story holds off on the main course for too long. A solid start and fairly developed follow-up can and will be ruined if the transition between the two is too sudden and awkward. For some, the warning of how abrupt these shifts are is concerning, regardless of how interesting the resulting storyline is. For others though, they are minor nitpicks that don’t detract from the big picture, as long as all you care about is the overall experience and knowing there aren’t bigger issues plaguing a comic.
This was my dilemma. Fey Winds has good art and a unique world. The characters are likable and the story goes interesting places, even if it doesn’t explore those options as much as one would prefer. There are flaws, but they can range from deal breakers to minor infractions, depending on why you read webcomics in the first place. The comic delivers exactly what I expected from it and provided an adequate adventure once it eventually got the misshapen ball rolling. How far that gets you will have much mileage. It will not be your new favourite, but there is enough here to potentially overlook its flaws for a rainy day.
Fey Winds is, at the very least… acceptable.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
- Awkward tone shifts/clashes
Rating:
- Story: ★★★☆☆
- Artwork: ★★★☆☆
- Website: ★★☆
- Overall: ★★★☆☆
* Note that our rating system is much more strict than most and 4 stars are already reserved for comics which are significantly above the average in the specific regard.
* Note that the overall rating is not the average of the other three ratings, but represents the overall impression of the comic.
