Dalton’s description of his comic gives some insight into the amount of thought he’s put into it: “A Mad Tea-Party began as an attempt to write my own … Japanese sci-fi manga. Japanese sci-fi … seems imbued with a deep trauma left over from the Second World War. Rather than the triumph of science or ethical certainty found in the West, we find morally questionable wars, a loss of identity, and razed cities.” If Dalton’s intention was to create a world ravaged by war, he succeeded. The world of MTP is recovering from a lengthy skirmish with robots from outer space (never a good thing), in which armies of genetically-engineered super soldiers (”genies”) were deployed. The comic takes place well after the war, though, in an era when the genies have retired and the world is slowly trying to establish a new normalcy. Dalton sets the scene through numerous well-drawn establishing shots, all drawn in a meticulous ligne-claire style. Background information about the history of the war is relayed through an interpolated comic drawn in a more traditional manga style. It’s a nice gimmick, although I’m not sure how necessary it actually is. The world-building of MTP is strong and consistent, definitely a step up from many other SF webcomics I’ve read.

When your setting is a politically-unsettled world ravaged by intergalactic war, who will your characters be? Many possibilities come to mind: obsolete genie soldiers, government leaders, revolutionaries… the possibilities are endless. Dalton takes the unexpected path and chooses as protagonists a teenage girl and her kid sister. I had a professor once who said that the protagonist should always be the person who hurts the most; that is, the person who is most badly wounded by the world around them. Dalton’s characters fit this technique nicely. Matilda and Constance are the children of two genie soldiers. They have inherited some of the engineered traits of their parents, including the tell-tale red hair and (in Constance’s case) photographic memory. Unfortunately for them, the world has come to distrust the genies and wants rid of them. Our protagonists, being nominally genie but lacking any military background, are subject to the discrimination of “normal” people and targeted by fascist political groups. Constance’s total recall nonwithstanding, the girls consider themselves normal, and want nothing more than to be accepted as such.

It is understandable, then, that Matilda falls into the trap set for her by the fascist New Youth movement, a coalition of teenagers engaging in terrorist tactics in order to rid the world of the groups they view as undesirable (namely, extraterrestrials and genies). New Youth members are easily identifiable by their uniforms, which consist of all-black clothing and stupid hats. A member of the group begins dating Mathilda, but unbeknownst to her, this is all an elaborate scheme to kidnap her. The New Youth are but one of several political cults which we encounter throughout the comic. Another is the Maldivians, which appear similar to real-world hippies, with the exception of a violent stance on non-humans. Many of these groups would seem strange in a real-world context, but within Dalton’s mythos they are quite comfortable and plausible. It is a testament to his world-building ability that he can make me believe in these seemingly-contradictory groups.

The storytelling, unfortunately, seems a bit stiff in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. There’s nothing obviously wrong with it; the pacing seems just about right and the dialogue isn’t overly long, and yet the comic tends to feel a little draggy at times. My guess is that the problem lies in the story’s lack of direction. While I can understand the characters’ motivations and the overall intent of the story, I can’t quite say exactly where the story intends to go. Is MTP an epic with humble beginnings, or does it continue to be a relatively small-scale family story? I think part of the problem lies in the slow update schedule of a webcomic. A large paper-bound work like Jeff Smith’s Bone is able to increase its scope slowly because the reader is able to move through it fairly quickly, but with only five chapters of MTP available online, its arc is difficult to guess at. While Dalton’s world-building and characters are strong enough to keep me reading, it would be nice to have some idea of where the story is going.

Before I get off the subject of the story, I do want to note that I greatly enjoy the character of Roger Anyodrubax, the extraterrestrial New Yorker. He’s good fun, and the fact that he turns out to have a shady past just makes him that much better.

The art in MTP is overall quite nice. It’s all in black and white, shaded with what looks to me like a combination of marker and pencil, but I may be wrong. The linework is mostly uniform weight, which gives it an almost European feel. This is part of what’s neat about MTP: despite its heavy borrowing from manga, it ultimately reads as a fusion of multiple traditions. The shading does leave something to be desired, though. It looks a bit streaky in places and has a tendency to dull down to a uniform gray that hinders any perception of depth. Some atmospheric perspective and greater contrast would work wonders. Still, it’s a minor quibble, and I enjoy the art despite this. That said, must it be posted so darn small? Really, Mr. Dalton, you could start posting it in higher resolution any time. We won’t complain, honest.

At first I was somewhat distracted by the way that Dalton draws people, but I’ve gotten used to it over time (I’ve been following this comic for a while now). Still, they do seem to exist in a kind of Uncanny Valley of drawing, being fairly accurate in figure but having slightly peculiar faces. The characters’ expressions can also be a little stiff, as can their poses, but Dalton can often render subtle expressions as well. Overall I would call the character art good enough… it could use some improvement, but in all honesty there probably aren’t any artists who have mastered character drawing. Even Will Eisner can look kind of odd at times.

At this point I think I’ve probably established a reputation as the guy who always wants to talk about the typography, so here: there’s nothing wrong with the type in MTP. The font choice is a little unusual but I am grateful it’s not Anime Ace or one of these other overused fake handwriting fonts. I’m not a big fan of center-justified text, but if it must be used, Dalton’s approach is the way to do it: lines of very similar lengths fitting comfortably and neatly into their balloons. To those of you lettering on a machine, please look at what this man is doing. Follow his example. Delete Anime Ace from your computer. Now.

In summation, MTP is a very good comic. It has strong worldbuilding and characterization on top of attractive art, and Dalton combines different comics traditions like a master. It’s a smart comic by a smart guy. Do take a look at it.

Incidentally, this is the second comic I’ve looked at this year that uses Lewis Carroll as a framing device. How about that?

Freewheel is the story of Jaimie, who we see at the beginning riding in a boxcar, until her brother snaps her out of what seems to have been a daydream. We see that she has been working on drawing some sort of hideous knight-demon-monster-thing, which her brother describes as “beautiful.” How many pages into this comic are we again? That’s right, two pages, and we already have established the following bits of information:

1. This comic will involve riding on freight trains
2. The principal character is named Jamie and she has a brother named Jack.
3. Jamie is a dreamer
4. Jamie has a brother who she gets along well with
5. Jamie has a taste for the macabre

Yes. This is how character construction should be. Crucial bits of information should be established as quickly as possible. The more we can see into a character’s personality, the more quickly we can be engaged in her story. I’ve lost track of how many comics I’ve seen where I still can’t keep track of the characters’ names and personalities by the hundredth page. Please, please follow Baillie’s example here. It doesn’t matter how exciting your opening is; if we don’t know your characters, we will not care. And look, Baillie still got to start with somebody riding on a freight train–you can have it both ways if you play it right.

So let’s jump a few more pages ahead. We find out that Jamie and Jack are in the care a of cruel foster parent. Then we’re back to the train and Jamie reveals that Jack is missing. Now I know what some of you are going to ask: John, why are you praising these rapid developments that you criticized so harshly in your reMIND review? Well, here is why: When establishing plot, time is of the essence. You do not want to force your readers to slog through dozens of pages before letting them in on what’s going to happen. And, in fact, the opening of reMIND works perfectly well in this regard. We learn the principal characters’ names and the plot hook (Victuals’s disappearance) right away, giving us reason to keep reading. However, there is a difference between rapidly establishing plot and rapidly resolving plot, and therein lies the difference between reMIND and Freewheel. The latter sets up all its major plot points right away, then returns to a more reasonable pace when actually pursuing them.

So, while we’re on the subject, the plot of Freewheel is as follows: Jamie and Jack’s parents disappeared from their lives under fairly mysterious circumstances, and thus they’ve been in foster care for some time prior to the beginning of the story. However, after Jack too disappears, Jamie embarks on a road trip to find him. At first she’s all alone, but she soon falls into the care of a secret hobo underworld filled with surreal twists and turns. Its backstory and realization is quite well-developed too, reminding me of Tom Siddel’s– aw, phooey. I promised myself this review would be my first not to refer to Gunnerkrigg Court.

Anyway, let’s say a few words about stories set in worlds filled with mysterious secrets. Earlier I drew a comparison to Hans Rickheit, because he works in a very similar vein. In his new webcomic Ectopiary (which I was planning to review this month, before El Santo beat me to it, the sly devil), a small girl goes to live in a fairly ordinary-looking (if somewhat creepy) old house. As most of the trappings are fairly realistic, some of the bizarre and downright gruesome things that happen later are much more powerful than they would be otherwise. By layering weirdness in between layers of normalcy, a story can lull us into a false sense of security, and those things that depart from reality appear in stark and disturbing contrast.

Freewheel uses this technique to great effect. At first the story seems realistic, and then whimsical. Its more twisted side doesn’t really appear until Jamie is sent into a mysterious cave. Despite numerous warnings about the cave’s dangers,  seeing the wall suddenly attempt to absorb Jamie’s arm is still one of the most jarring moments of the comic. It’s that instant when your brain suddenly realizes that there is something really, really bad in this world, something deeply evil hiding beneath the more carefree skin. This twist is what really hooked me on this comic, and luckily it has plenty more in store. Jamie’s adventures begin to feel like a modern re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland, filled with bizarre creatures and wacky characters. But no matter how carefree the plot may feel at times, you always remember that The Darkness is lurking somewhere, and that is what keeps you clicking through the pages.

Before we move on to say a few words about the art, I must make an admission, dear readers. When I reached the newest page of this comic I was very irate. I may have even furiously clicked the dead Next link a few times in case it might magically work again. Sometimes reading webcomics feels like starting a book only to discover that half the pages are missing.

So, on to the artwork. As I said before, it’s very nice. Baillie’s drawings are not always perfect, but they’re attractive and certainly above average for webcomics. Baille mostly shades by hand, and she uses the effect well, her crosshatching both moving with the form and creating beautiful textures on the surface of the picture plane. The one gripe I have is that the webcomic is at too low a resolution (500px wide) to do justice to the linework. I may have to buy the printed editions just so I can see it properly…so perhaps this is actually a very shrewd marketing decision on the part of Ms. Baillie. Well played.

I mentioned earlier that Freewheel plays with formal elements. Baillie doesn’t confine herself to a strict system of panels and dialogue like many cartoonists (such as myself, unfortunately) tend to do. She frequently has pages which are nearly diagrammatic (above), or in the form of elaborate montages. Even when she uses more traditional panel layouts she’s not afraid to break them up with unusual shapes or sizes. There aren’t enough webcomics artists who are comfortable treating each page as an art object in and of itself.

Now a word about the typography. Baillie is obviously hand-lettering all these pages, and as you’ve probably guessed, that makes me very happy. I’ve seen a lot of computer lettering, and while some of it is adequate, I’ve seen very little (if any) of it that I would describe as great. We don’t see hand-drawn type very often any more, and comics, as a largely hand-drawn medium, are an ideal place for it. Sure, computer lettering is much easier, but at what cost? Would this page have the same power if it was lettered digitally?

In summation, Freewheel is really good. It’s not perfect, but its problems are negligible. The story has plenty of mystery and intrigue. The characters are fun and unique. The art is elegant and the page layouts are refreshingly original. My main complaint pertains to that Next button, which preferably should go all the way to a page that says THE END in nice hand-drawn letters.

Overall impression: Positive
(I am discontinuing the number-based rating system. I found it difficult to evaluate things that way and I have a strong suspicion that I would have ended up rating everything as above average.)

reMIND was recently reviewed by The Webcomic Overlook, and normally I wouldn’t want to nip so closely at the heels of the peerless & fearless El Santo (the man has read the complete archives of both Jack and Ctrl+Alt+Del), but the pacing of reMIND so bothered me that I simply had to write about it. Since El Santo’s already done a pretty thorough examination of the plot, I won’t spend much time on it. If you want the a more complete critical picture of the comic, just be sure to read his review too.

Now, given that the comic has already been skillfully reviewed, and that I have serious issues with the pacing, you may be wondering why I’m bothering with this. Here is why, dear reader: because the art in reMIND is absolutely phenomenal. Remember last month, when I told Namesake to use a limited palette? Brubaker has the limited palette thing nailed, right down to using different palettes to indicate different locations. His character designs are whimsical and attractive. His perspective-drawing is spot-on. Even his page compositions are superb. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Suffice to say, there is nothing wrong with the art. Maybe some facial expressions could be exaggerated a bit more, but that’s the only thing I can think of to say on that front. The art is just that good. (Consistent, too… no first-chapter disease here.)

The world-building, similarly, is quite nice. I’m genuinely interested in the plot, characters, and the details of the reMIND universe, and it seems like it could be a really interesting story. Herein is the problem with the pacing, though: reMIND always feels as if it’s in a desperate hurry to get to the next part of the story. Things are progressing so fast that I have to wonder how long this story can even manage to be, given that it has a predetermined ending that we seem to be rushing toward at a breakneck speed.

For example: The first character we meet is a young woman named Sonja, who tells us that her cat, Victuals (don’t ask me, ask Brubaker) disappeared one day. Brubaker spends a fair amount of time on this, so I naturally expected that Victuals’s absence would be a fairly significant part of the first chapter, maybe more. No. Victuals reappears three pages later, two of which make up a total elapsed narrative time of maybe thirty seconds. Now, Victuals has to disappear, for story reasons– but if he’s only going to be absent for three pages, why not start the story after he returns? His disappearance gives every appearance of being the beginning of a subplot, so to have it resolved so quickly is jarring to say the least.

To give Brubaker his due, he does at least sometimes try to pare out details sparingly. He gives insights into Victuals’s past* only subtly at first, revealing enough to encourage curiosity but not enough to destroy the mystery. This doesn’t last very long, though, as Chapter 2 begins a detailed explanation of the backstory. This begins on Spread 18 (effectively page 18). For comparison, Gunnerkrigg Court’s eigtheenth page falls at a point where several primary characters haven’t even been introduced yet and very, very little of the world has even been revealed yet, much less explained. reMIND, meanwhile, is already preparing to pull the cover off its entire backstory. Couldn’t this have waited until Chapter 3 at least? Sure, I’m intrigued by all the setup, but if the explanation starts too soon, that feeling of intrigue is just going to be destroyed. Imagine a magician who explains how each of his tricks worked immediately after performing them. The same principle is at work here.

* Technically speaking it is not Victuals’s past that is being described, but the past of the lizard-man whose brain has been transplanted into Victuals’s body, but as I stated earlier, the plot is not the focus of this review.

Going through and picking on every instance of rushed pacing would just be mean, so I won’t do that, but the pacing really is the only problem with this comic as far as I can see. I really wanted to like reMIND, with its fabulous artwork and unique world-building, but its tendency to treat every scene as an obstacle to be rushed through killed it for me. When there’s a mysterious object under a tarp, maybe I don’t want to find out what it is in the very next chapter. When Victuals dives to return to his home, maybe I don’t want him to arrive there safe and sound just two pages later. Maybe I want him to have to fight a shark on the way.

Final Rating: 7.5 out of 10. If not for the pacing problems this comic would probably rate a 10. Do take a look at it, if only to see the beautiful artwork.

Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how much I enjoyed this funny dog character.

Namesake began in 2010, produced as a joint effort by Isabelle Melançon and Megan Lavey. The about page does not make it clear who does what on the production team. According to the authors’ description, Namesake is about Emma Crewe, a girl who discovers she has the power to visit supposedly-fictional worlds, becoming the protagonist, or Namesake, of the stories as she travels.

The comic starts off on a strong note with a fabulous title page featuring a lovely reinterpretation of the Cheshire Cat, among other things. This is immediately followed with a terrific opening line and some nicely understated art which establish a suspenseful mood right away.

As the story moves forward, astute readers will recognize that we are looking at Charles Dodgson, better known to the world as Lewis Carroll. He is worried because Alice Liddell, the real-life star of Alice in Wonderland, has been sent to another world and has not yet returned. This is all very intriguing, but somewhat overshadowed by the questionable nature of their real-life relationship.  Lewis Carroll is often suspected to have been somewhat of a pedophile, and his close relationship to Alice Liddell has particularly troubling connotations, as he is even suspected to have wanted to marry her when she was only 11. Carroll spent a lot of time with young children, and frequently photographed them. This included many photographs of nude children, some in provocative poses (NSFW). This doesn’t seem to be where M & L are going with this, but since this connotation exists, it can add a somewhat disturbing undertone to the opening sequence, especially when Mr. Dodgson speaks of his “close bond” to the young Liddell.

That being said, there is a distinct advantage to the use of Lewis Carroll here, one which I think is closer to what M & L are intending to play. Carroll’s journals have seen extensive censorship prior to reaching the hands of historians, leaving the record of his life somewhat spotty. What was in the eliminated journal entries is a matter of speculation. Some believe it to be the aforementioned marriage proposal to Alice. Others think it may have something to do with Carroll having an affair with the Liddells’ maid (Mr. Dodgson was apparently irrepressible). M & L are, I think, playing off these missing entries to imply that they contained “research” related to the premise of Namesake.

Following the introduction, we get introduced to our true protagonist, Emma Crewe. The comic does not specify, but I’d guess she’s supposed to be around 16 or so. There’s an implication that she’s somewhat of an introvert, but overall we don’t get much of a taste of her personality.

Emma goes to the library to pick up her little sister, and while there she meets a mysterious librarian who likes classical music. Here I must make a brief digression to observe that classical music barely exists in webcomics; I think this may be the first time I’ve ever seen it mentioned at all. That being so, I was intrigued by the mention and hoped it would develop further. The librarian mentions that she especially likes Chopin’s Prelude #14, which is a very, very short piece, approximately 30 seconds long. It dances up and down the keyboard in a disconcerting sort of way, and is tellingly nicknamed “Fear.” Symbolic? Well, maybe.

My high hopes for the librarian character are unfortunately dashed a few pages later when she is murdered by a creepy-looking teenager who steals her shoes, revealing that the librarian is not actually human. This is where the comic begins to take the Gunnerkrigg Court approach, showing only tiny glimpses into a mysterious world. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work very well here; there are simply too many little tidbits being thrown around in close succession so instead of the intended air of mystery, things just get kind of muddled.

After the chaos subsides, Emma finds herself in Oz, specifically in Munchkinland. Her reactions to the situation struck me as sort of odd, given that she never seems to assume that it’s all some sort of elaborate hoax, as I think most people would.

While she’s busy saving the day for the first time in Oz, we get some more of the mystery angle as a dashing long-haired fellow named Jack argues with his boss over the phone, revealing to us that there’s some sort of bureau which controls these things somehow. It’s kind of a strange moment, one which makes it seem as if these transpositions between worlds are organized by some sort of corporation. I’m not really sure what to make of it.

Meanwhile, back in Oz, Emma defeats the Wicked Witch of the East using her cell phone. I am at a loss to explain why this happens. Then she faints and dreams of a very creepy ghost. It’s a good, subtle moment, but unfortunately is over very quickly, and much of its effect is lost by the relative silliness of the rest of the plot. This is a problem I see throughout Namesake: it has a lot of nice moments, but they tend to get lost in a sea of things which are absurd, unexpected, and/or nonsensical.

After the defeat of the witch, Emma learns that she’s now considered a “Dorothy,” the word that people from Oz use to refer to girls from another world who come to rid them of evil. In the next chapter, we find out more about this through a long section of exposition in which we learn way more than we needed to know about Oz and the Dorothies it has had over the years. These kinds of long-winded lectures are really hazardous to attempt because they appear to have no relevance to the story’s more-immediate problems, and can therefore be difficult for the reader to follow. This section could stand to be condensed, if not cut completely.

Overall I would describe the writing of Namesake as “scatterbrained.” It tends to throw too many things around at once, often putting things together which have so little to do with each other that they cancel each other out.

The dialogue is also somewhat stilted at times, characters throwing massive balloons of text up onto the screen and saying things that sound truly unnatural.

The art, however, is quite nice. The linework is smooth and sophisticated, clearly and effortlessly defining the shapes of the characters and their surroundings. The characters too are drawn quite beautifully, with distinctive designs, accurate figure drawing, and some wonderfully subtle expressions.

Unfortunately, however, the drawings are too often undone by the coloring. Now some of you are probably aware of my stance on color (I’m a staunch advocate of black-and-white), but for once I am not advocating an elimination of color. In this case I’m mainly calling for one thing: consistency. Namesake only uses color when time permits it. This means that the comic is sometimes in color, but not always. It fluctuates in and out of color constantly, without any regard to what the story is doing at the moment. This prevents the color from having any kind of significance at all, which makes its occasional use as a narrative device fall flat. How do we know if a colored page is significant when most of the time their timing is completely arbitrary?

The coloring itself could use some work too. In many cases it is very subtle, using subdued tones and a relatively limited palette, but most of the time it looks kind of gaudy, as if it was colored with markers. To the colorist of this comic I have two suggestions: desaturate and use a limited palette. It will take some practice, but it will pay off. If you could just color more pages like this one, you’d already be on the right track.

Now, because I am nothing if not thorough, I am obliged to say a few words about typography. The word balloons in Namesake are very strange, often too large for the words they contain, suggesting that they were drawn before they were lettered. Words are crushed into the panels in any way that they’ll fit, which means a lot of typographical orphans and occasional size variations. A lot of text is also center-aligned, which is not ideal because it leads to jagged edges on both sides of the text block. I highly recommend buying an Ames Lettering Guide and learning to use it. They cost about $2. Handwritten typography is a chore, yes, but the results are worth it.

Overall, Namesake shows promise. Few of the characters are developed to any degree yet, but I think they all have the potential to improve. There is a nice foundation of mystery to build upon, and I do get the sense that M & L have a sophisticated plan and backstory from which they’re working. With some consistency in the colors and with better-polished writing (and that will come naturally in time), Namesake has the potential to become something quite interesting and unique.

Final rating: 6 out of 10. Above-average webcomic held up by very nice drawings.

We open with a page of exposition: Humankind has finally gained access to the stars and immediately found itself with a choice: form an alliance with one of two warring powers, or be destroyed.  The two warring powers, the Umiak and the Loroi, seem to be fighting for no readily discernable reason, and why no other race can remain neutral is not explained either. A bit more knowledge of the issues at hand would have been nice.
After the exposition, we get a view of the interior of the humans’ ship, the Bellarmine, and four members of its crew: Dylan Meconis, a hunchbacked stormtrooper, a skinny guy hugging a fire extinguisher, and our hero and narrator, Alexander Jardin. “At last, action!” Jardin says, which unfortunately sums up his character quite nicely: in all situations, Jardin behaves like a teenager, and treats reality like a game intended for his amusement. As he sees it, the entire situation is simple: they watch a battle between the two sides, and join up with the winner. I’m no military strategist by any means, but even I can see the gaping flaws in this idea. There are so many aspects to consider in this situation aside from which side has the tactical advantage. Taking sides based on the outcome of one battle could result in any number of problems down the road, especially considering that we don’t know anything about the politics of the situation. Thankfully, Jardin is not in command, at least for the moment.
In any case, he is cut short by hostile aliens blowing up the Bellarmine, which leaves Jardin adrift in space, where he doles out gratuitous and unnecessary internal monologue boxes. Imagine this sequence without them…is it not stronger? He vows revenge just as an alien ship swoops toward him, giving me a convenient opportunity to say a few words about the artwork.

Francis works with a combination of CGI and hand-drawing. CGI is usually reserved for backgrounds, in which it generally looks pretty nice, although in some cases, particularly those where too much of it is visible at once, it becomes a distraction. The success of the CGI but that depends on it not drawing too much attention to itself. Sometimes it just contrasts too much with the characters, and other times looks more like screenshots from Doom than it does like a believable spacecraft. Also, as seen in the above excerpt, sometimes the combinations are just odd. This sudden appearance of a CGI spaceship is visually jarring, and its relationship to the drawn character is hard to understand: is it a tiny spaceship flying toward a huge astronaut, or a huge spaceship flying away from a tiny astronaut? If it’s the latter, how  did Jardin not notice it before now?
Despite these gripes, however, the CGI/drawn combination actually works quite well here in most cases, probably better than anywhere else I’ve ever seen it attempted. The concept is not without its pitfalls, but in general Francis pulls it off very effectively, and it definitely meshes well with the futuristic vibe he’s shooting for.

Back on the ship, Jardin awakes, spouting bubbles of strange internal monologue all the while. When he comes to, he sees that he is surrounded by blue aliens, the Loroi. Their uniforms make them resemble action figure robots, and they sport brightly-colored anime hairdos that seem at odds with the fairly original (not to mention more logical) concepts explored elsewhere. Jardin says that he represents humanity, which the Loroi mistake to be the name of the species, which in their speech balloons is sometimes (but not always) spelled “Humaniti.” Annoying as this misunderstanding is, Jardin never even tries to correct them on it.
The Loroi decide to probe Jardin’s brain, which I would assume must be a pretty risky move considering what I’ve seen of his psyche so far. This doesn’t work, but does lead Jardin to make an analogy to being “zapped with a cattle prod.” How does Jardin know anything about cattle prods? Are they still being used in the far future, and does he know what it feels like to be zapped by one? Jardin often has a tendency to make analogies like this one, and they don’t usually make a whole lot of sense. Granted, it would have been just as bad for him to say “it was like being zapped by a Plotarian Zap Beetle” or something equally ridiculous, but I doubt he would ever have even heard of a cattle prod, much less been zapped by one. An ideal solution probably would have been to skip the analogy completely; he looks pretty unhappy even without it.
When Jardin next wakes, he is in a cell, and believes the Loroi to have successfully downloaded his entire brain. He fears that now they will use him for “gruesome experiments,” apparently not realizing that prisoners of war are more typically used as bargaining chips and are much more valuable alive. How Jardin managed to get this far without even a basic knowledge of international politics is a mystery.
I don’t mean to keep picking on Jardin, though. As is probably apparent, I don’t like him very much, but he doesn’t kill the story for me. He’s definitely not quite at the Wesley Crusher level of intolerability, I just wish he would think a bit more.

Let’s forget Jardin for a minute and look at the Loroi. Francis has obviously put a lot of thought into how to make them seem unique, and come up with some interesting ideas. One is their formal mode of speech, in which they say things only “seem to be” rather than saying they “are.” This is a clever touch, and a plausible cultural difference, but for some reason they are not very consistent with it and don’t use it very often.
In a similar inconsistency, one Loroi comments on how Jardin often hesitates in his speech, saying that the Loroi do not speak until they are certain of what they want to say. Then, on the very next page, she hesitates while speaking. In fact, they hesitate while speaking fairly often, leading me to suspect that she was just making stuff up. This is unfortunately typical of the Loroi: their cultural differences tend to be superficial and inconsistent.
The most noteworthy aspect of the Loroi, however, is their femaleness. Apparently the Loroi male-to-female ratio is 1:8, so males are protected and generally sheltered from any situation which might endanger them. This is a logical cultural outgrowth of their biology, and I salute Francis for it. From a feminist perspective, though, the female-dominated space crew is on shaky ground, as its commanding women are depicted as an aspect of an alien culture (thus making female command a non-human thing), and the fact that men are a highly precious commodity and mate frequently, with multiple females does not exactly make them sound like subordinates. I think Francis is trying to make his universe a progressive one, but the road of gender issues continues to be as treacherous as usual.

Finally Jardin is brought to the bridge, and much of the rest of the chapter is comprised of lots and lots of exposition. In summation: The Loroi tell him that they will help him salvage the Bellarmine, and that as the only survivor he is now Earth’s only liaison. Furthermore, they suspect him of having sabotaged their sensor system. In the comic this is explained through pages upon pages of explication, the characters spewing huge bubbles of text which take a long time to read and don’t contain much crucial information. This is a major problem throughout the comic; there are simply too many words and it could desperately use some editing. Allow me to rewrite the above page:
Jardin: It’s nothing but a coincidence. Anyway, why would the Umiak send a spy who looked like me?
Jardin: Your sensors… are they telepathic?
Loroi: Perhaps.
Jardin: Well, since you have to talk to me I gather you can’t read my mind. Maybe that’s why your sensors don’t work on humans. And anyway, the Umiak couldn’t possibly know we have resistance to telepathy.
Jardin: I know that wasn’t what you wanted to hear. I give you my word of honor that it’s the truth.
Loroi captain: Words are tools of deception.
The basic idea is maintained with much fewer words, which not only makes the comic easier to read, but is also more realistic dialogue.

Despite all this, though, Outsider is not a bad comic. The world-building actually seems quite detailed, and I do get the sense that Francis knows what he’s building toward. The actual plotting seems solid overall, and some of the mysteries (Who blew up the Bellarmine, and why? Why are the humans and Loroi physically similar?) are genuinely interesting and would be interesting to see resolved. The artwork, while derivative, is solid and attractive. The space battles in particular are handled with elegancy and dexterity. The beams of light contrasted against the darkness of space take on a beautifully geometric quality, and the Loroi tactical screens give a sense of the slow-motion movement which would certainly be felt when moving on a battlefield of cosmic scale. There are other nice moments, too, like this elegant mosaic and the cool Loroi bridge.
Overall, Outsider is worth a look. The art is crisp and futuristic, and the quality of the CGI seems to be improving. Francis’s figures are drawn with expertise and dexterity. The premise, while not completely original, is engaging. If in the future he can cut down on some exposition and make Jardin use his brain, he has a chance to turn Outsider into a pretty remarkable comic.

Final Rating: 7 out of 10. Above-average webcomic, falling somewhat short mainly due to awkward writing.

See above for the first Circuit Reader post, in which you will find out my feelings on Outsider by Jim Francis.