 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||||
|
|
Web Comic Review for 09/26/2003 Greetings and salutations to all my loyal readers and hello to all my newcomers! Once again, I bring you a web comic for your reading pleasure, and today's comic is another beauty. The comic to read this week is Cascadia by Clio Chiang. This is a great comic, but the portions are a bit small for my appetite...actually, I complained because the paper only had ONE page of comics a day. Cascadia is set in the days of old when magic and monsters were commonplace. Yeah, I know the whole "days of old" thing is overdone in web comics, but you can't really hold that against any one comic. Also, I have noticed that magic and monsters were really common in days of old. Sigh, to be a god back then...oops, off track. The main character of Cascadia is the great archer and bandit Jacob Arman. Jacob and the team that was sent to recruit him are on a quest to recover the Relics of the Sun to once again imprison the Moon Demon. On their path to recover the relics, this team of heroes will encounter monsters, treacherous terrain, dark magic, and even death. Chiang does an excellent job of writing this story, and it is very simple for the characters of Cascadia to become real in your imagination. Also, if you have ever played Dungeons and Dragons or any other fantasy role playing game, you will find many aspects of this comic that are very familiar. This comic is great for sucking in readers The plus sides of Cascadia are easy to point out for any one that has read it. Cascadia is a great story with an involving plot and well thought out characters. The world that Clio has created contained elements of magic and fantasy that are all his own. While most aspects of this world have been borrowed from other fantasy, the author mixes together these elements to create a completely unique world. If that kind of plot isn't enough for you, this comic also features artwork that is superior in many ways to any other web comic I have reviewed. Chiang obviously puts a lot of time and effort into each page of his comic. Speaking of pages, Cascadia is another of the comics that I have deemed Web Comic Books. Cascadia is not like normal web comics (whatever normal is). This comic never seems to update more than twice a month, and comedy is not the central focus of most pages. For those of you that don't like regular comics but are fans of comic books, this kind of web comic may be what you are looking for. Ok, well that is it for the good elements of Cascadia; it is time to focus on the bad points. While Cascadia is very in depth, it is also very confusing. I found myself having to read some sections several times just to understand what kind of fantastic stuff was going on. My advice to the artist on this point would be to add a "Magic of Cascadia" section or something where a person new to the comic (or an old fan that is a bit lost) can go and get an overview of how things work. Those seals still confuse the heck out of the deity. This is however a minor point when compared to the major flaw of Cascadia. The comic only updates about once or twice per month! This is crazy. Even if the author can only get out one page a week, that would still be better than eight pages that fans of Cascadia may be used to waiting a month for. I know that a comic of this quality takes time, but you could break eight pages down to two pages a week. If this is too much, then I never think this comic will have a huge following. Cascadia is too good and the plot is too involving to make fans wait over a month for each update. To sum everything up, I am actually a big fan of this comic. I am disappointed in the time between updates, and that disappointment will cost this comic in its rating. However, Cascadia is worth the wait; it is a good comic with a great plot. One thing though, what is the deal with that freaky horse? Site updates are at about Once a Month. 8-bit Theatre is rated TEEN for Mild Violence, and Language. Out of 5 Energy Stars, Shalmdi gives Cascadia by Clio Chiang 
 Comments From the Other Gods:
DISAGREE WITH A REVIEW? GOT A COMIC YOU WANT REVIEWED?
|
|
||
|
||||
