Comic of the Month

[Jitter]

BTW if you haven’t taken up Digger, do it! It’s not running anymore so you can read it later if you don’t have time right now, but in any case do read it. It is absolutely brilliant. The very first pages are just mildly odd, but it truly becomes peculiar like the catchphrase promises!

It reminds me the great classic of fantasy comics, Bone by Jeff Smith. There is a lot of the same warmth and weirdness. Not too much, it doesn’t feel like a copy of anything ever, but if you love Bone you will likely love Digger.

It is beautiful and heart wrenching, often at the same time, but it’s also full of humor. I have laughed out loud many times reading it.

Thank you @thorny for sharing this with us. I would never have read it, if it weren’t for this, and that would have been a shame.

[thorny]

You're very welcome!

If these forums can become a site for sharing great things that most of us otherwise would never have seen, I think that would be excellent.

Speaking of which -- I've never read Bone. Maybe a comic of the month for some later month?

[Jitter]

I have Bone as physical books only, I am not aware of it being available online. But, I can look i to it!

Speaking of which, January is spoken for but there are open spots from February onwards! Who wants to go? @RanVor you had something in mind? @Vulpes?

[Vulpes]

Ugh... I'd love to take a turn in the next few months, but I think next semester is going to be just as wearing as this one. Maybe more if omicron pays us a visit. I'll start to have more slack around April. But if the semester is less crazy than I expect, I'll check and see if there's an opening! Hoping I'll at least have time to check out some of the comic suggestions.

[Jitter]

Vulpes, Ok, you’ll get to go later in spring then!

I very strongly suggest Digger! It’s already finished, so it will be easier to read a bit at a time. Girl Genius is fun and interesting, but it’s massive. White Noise is at least for me a lot slower to read than the others, because there’s a written description of every page which sends me back looking at the comic. It’s well worth it, but probably isn’t at its best when you are pressed for time. So, in my opinion, the best enjoyment to time spent ratio would be Digger, although overall my favorite (out of the comics of the month so far) is probably White Noise. They are very different, so it’s hard to actually put my finger on it though

[Vulpes]

I started White Noise, but yes, it does tend to become recursive if you read the written description. I really like it, and intend to return to it when I've time. I've looked at Girl Genius a bit in the past, because it gets referenced a lot, and kind of bounced off it. That may be because it's so massive - how could I possibly get caught up?? But also it just didn't grab me for whatever reason. I should look into the discussion and maybe figure out why, or discover what I'm missing. Digger I've read and enjoyed, and it's going to be my holiday break reading because I honestly hardly recognized it from the description. I'm just into chapter 2 and keep having moments of "Oh yes, I remember this... but where did it lead? What on earth happens next?" Or maybe that should be what in earth! 

[RanVor]

I have Bone as physical books only, I am not aware of it being available online. But, I can look i to it!

Speaking of which, January is spoken for but there are open spots from February onwards! Who wants to go? @RanVor you had something in mind? @Vulpes?

Uhh, I could take... March? Maybe?

[Jitter]

@RanVor ok, I’ll pencil you in for March! Vulpes, shall I put you in for May, if it’s looking easier from April onwards? Of course none of us can know what is the situation many months from now, so if it turns out closer to your time that it won’t work, we’ll make changes. But even a provisional date will make it more likely to happen

[Vulpes]

Sure, put me in for May, I should be less frantic and by then maybe I'll have decided which comic I'd like to talk about!

[catbirds]

Happy new year!

I'm introducing this month's comic of the month, Warm Blood

Genre: Slice-of-life and mystery, with a bit of unreality/supernatural elements

Official synopsis:
Warm Blood is a slice-of-life high school mystery comic following our hero Penny as she navigates life at Greenwood High.

There is a killer at Greenwood High. His name is Logan Filigree. Who is the killer at Greenwood High?

Content warnings:

• Where the supernatural elements show up, it can get disorienting to read
• Blood, murder, and deaths of minors are relevant to the plot, but are not graphic
• alcohol, underage drinking
• very mild depictions of internalized homophobia
• stalking

Status: 555 pages long and currently not updating. It goes up to the end of Penny's first year at high school, but might continue?

Why I liked it:

Spoiler: mild spoilers for first few chapters • show

I read it and had a weird sense of familiarity about it because it had a lot of similarities to how I felt going into high school, but presented the undercurrent of unease in a much more blunt way. Most of these scenes are just snippets of Penny's life, meeting and hanging out with new friends, punctuated by odd events or things that you'd have called "drama" popping up in the midst of it. I think one scene that particularly got to me was the part where Penny had someone who kept waiting around her house, and a student remarked how "lucky" she was that that was happening. Not that anyone would say that, but it's so odd seeing that kind of atmosphere spelled out for you.

It's also just kind of nice seeing these teenagers go on small adventures around the town where they live, especially with all the mysterious and inexplicable phenomena that just pop up. And they generally have a very energetic dynamic, but nothing unrealistic for fourteen-year-olds. If you're into the type of story that's just a bunch of snippets of people's lives, then you'll probably enjoy this one.

Another thing is that it seems more like a story that's meant to be read by people who've already been through high school. At that age, I'd have found this type of thing pretty boring.

Regarding the art: This is one of those webcomics where the artist changes every scene, which makes it fun because you can see a bunch of different art styles and ways they depict characters! You might also recognize a few if you follow a lot of internet artists. However, it might be distracting since your brain will be constantly adapting to the new appearances of these characters.

That said:

Spoiler: show

A lot of references might be hard to understand if you're not totally into whatever media is coming out these days. I don't even understand all of them, just that I've heard all these titles and whatnot mentioned in passing at least once or twice.

Also, some scenes don't make sense together. That's probably the desired effect, given the nature of the comic, but do keep in mind that if you're suddenly not sure what's going on, that's fine.

[Keep Looking]

Warm Blood sounds like a fascinating comic, Catbirds, I'll be sure to check it out!

[muidole]

Finished reading Warm Blood a few days ago! It was a very interesting experience reading the comic with how disjointed a lot of the scenes are. There were a few plot threads that I wished were explored more*, though I guess not knowing more is part of the experience. Also loved all of the different art styles used in the comic - I had read only one other comic that did something similar with each scene being illustrated by a different artist so I was surprised to learn that it wasn't a totally unique thing (though I guess I should have figured as much). Overall, it was a fun read!

Spoiler: * • show

plot threads like the shadowy people, the twins' relationship and backstory, and Silver

[thorny]

Have just started reading Warm Blood. This is definitely weird. Might be a kind of weird that I like, will have to read some more to find out.

I gather that some portions of it aren't supposed to make any sense to the reader, at least to start -- maybe ever? Is that supposed to include the behavior of the characters? That is, some parts of their behavior do seem very like high school. But some bits don't -- spoilering this, it's all in the first ten pages though so if you've read any significant amount it won't be a spoiler:

Spoiler: show

On page 4, Logan tells Penny he's the murderer; and shakes hands with her with blood dripping off his hands. She doesn't react to that at all. And then on page 8 she wonders if a different person is the killer. Is she supposed to not be able to see the blood, and not be able to hear him saying he's the murderer (although she seems able to hear everything else he says)? Or is there supposed to be something odd about Penny's cognition? Or is this just a way of saying, wow this situation is strange and makes no sense; like Cale not being able to see for themself that Penny has legs?

Or am I overthinking this, and I should just go along for the ride and not try to work out what anything means?

[Jitter]

I have only just started recently, but I have the same points as Thorny. Below my response to Thorny's spoilered bit.

Spoiler: show

And it's not just that Penny doesn't see the blood - no one is worried about a totally bloodied kid. It seems to be pretty everyday as no one is too worried about the announcement of a murder, but still. I wonder if Logan is some sort of ghost or whatever, that the others don't see? Later he also speaks about setting up a study group to find more victims, so... weird! Otherwise he seems nice.

I was very amused by the shrimp student So I suppose it's intended to be rather surrealistic in all.

[Jitter]

I finished Warm Blood. Fascinating is probably the exact correct thing to say. It was a bit too weird and disjointed for me to actually enjoy it much, but I did get interested in the characters and many of rhe events.

I mostly liked the changing artists. Like you said Catbirds, it’s interesting to see so many styles. And many of the styles aren’t to my liking in themselves, so I would probably not have read something drawn completely in several of the styles used. On one hand it is kind of cool how it’s usually very easy to immediately understand who is who despite the marked differences between artists. On the other hand of course it also shows how much is done by hair color and styling.

I have never been an American teenager, so I didn’t relate with much of the slice-of-life bits. Or maybe it’s just because I have forgotten But I would characterize this as a horror story (or stories) arranged around high school life. I would also hesitate to call is mystery story, because there doesn’t seem to be much solving of the mysteries, more like a series of possibly somehow loosely related absurd supernatural and usually horror-esque events. It’s not graphic, and not very scary (I don’t cope well with horror but this wasn’t anything nearly too scary for me) but the underlying uneasiness is palpable.

I’d like to hear overall impressions from the others as well. I’m not sure if it’s my lack of North American life history (yes I noticed it takes place in Canada) that caused the alienation, or is the whole thing just a little off, even the seemingly “normal life” parts.