Don’t Go Without Me by Rosemary Valero-O’Connell published by Shortbox (link to their X page, their website is broken) 2019
This is an enjoyable and visually pleasing collection of three illustrated stories: of a couple becoming unintentionally separated during an inter-dimensional trip, a spacecraft that runs on human memories malfunctioning explosively, and people preparing for a giant to wake.
Valero-O’Connell’s illustrations are extremely charming – I love the shapes of their inter-dimensional animals, the softness of their characters’ noses (some so similar to my bi-racial nose), and the detailed illustrations created with such nicely chosen limited color palettes.
Whatever you want to do, do it now. Wherever you want to be, be there tonight.
Concise, well-told stories; skilled and pleasing illustrations; and somehow also lessons about valuing life and what you have. This is a great collection!
I Am the Villain by Sejji published by Webtoon (51 chapters – ongoing) 2023 – present
I mentioned in an earlier post that I appreciate the background art for many of these full color, digital manhwa, and that’s what I’d like to emphasize in this review.
Sejji’s work in this story is SO GORGEOUS. I Am The Villain is the sort of comic you just stop scrolling through to appreciate the background art. Let me show you:
When I write that I am being spoiled by the quality of the art, especially architectural forms, this is what I mean.
Yes, Lucy wakes up in a friend’s novel as the doomed villainess, but LOOK AT THE DRAWINGS! Oh my goodness! The gardens! The interiors! The rooms where the heroine walks in beside enormous flower arrangements! It is so LOVELY.
It’s not only about the scenery and architecture: the attractive characters are also drawn with love and enthusiasm, and each has a different style of costume with different levels of ornament.
The lovely characters each have a different style, and I appreciate the effort to distinguish their costumes. Meanwhile, look at the room that Lucy is in, once you can take your eyes away from her gaze. It’s SO PRETTY.
There are other comics I’m reading which are more traditional simplified drawing style – strangely proportioned, exaggerated, very limited colors, very simple costumes – and works like this feel like an entirely different category.
The heroine in this story feels more like a ‘normal’ person: she struggles with her isekai (falling into another world) situation. She makes decent decisions to improve her ability to survive (without making much progress), yet is also burdened by a sense of being a fraud (she is a modern person, not the rich woman whose body she is in) worried about the ethics of making life decisions for someone who may… come back? Also, she’s a bit too trusting, though that would fit in with the sheltered woman whose life she has taken over.
I’ll wait to write more about the story once a full season has been released, but I recommend this manhwa now for its art quality.
The Spark In Your Eyes by Muro published by Webtoon (144 chapters, 1 complete season, ongoing) 2022 – present
Finally, I’m writing about a comic that is NOT about modern gals being transported into books or any character getting a second chance at living the same life!
Hildegard, as her captors rename her, is just a little girl who bleeds (and possibly dies) on a sacred altar during her village’s capture. Her blood activates the altar, and she receives the powers of the sun goddess. The King of the Mormerattan invaders wanted the goddess’ power for himself, but takes the girl, forces her to learn his people’s language, and crafts her into a child-weapon, holding her people’s fate hostage to her performance on the battlefield.
Hilde can feel pain when grievously injured, but will not die – she can repair herself from horrific damage, and blast light that can burn away material things, from castle walls to people. Forced to wear a mask, she is an anonymous and lonely young goddess of death, who must lose the few dear friends she has on the battlefield on behalf of the nation who stole her. She grows numb and ages during the long war with the north. The king wants to exploit her power against foreign rivals in battle forever. Meanwhile, his domestic rivals believe Hilde is a crime against nature that must be destroyed. Even in immortality, she has no real safety or peace.
Erkin is a strapping, peaceful, blue-eyed boy devoted to his parents’ herbalist-medical arts. Told his parents died at Hildegard’s hands, he leaves his defeated homeland to head south, in hopes of (somehow) avenging their deaths. He winds up being hired by a mysterious noble to treat an illness he is not allowed to see with his own eyes, and finds purpose and friendship in the country that conquered his people, but still perceives him as a threat.
I’d like to tell you that they meet in therapy, but therapy hasn’t been invented yet in this brutal feudal fantasy world.
This is a story of people who die too young, of greedy elders who exploit soldiers and captives, of rumors, sabotage, jealousy, and hunger for power that destroys countless lives. Plus, a story about the exploited heroine, the innocent-but-vengeful northerner, and the community of survivors around them who struggle to live in a fragile and perilous peace in a quiet corner of a restive kingdom.
This story has gorgeous clouds, and many sad scenes of death and war. I was completely engrossed at the heroine’s reluctant survival, the pain of her losses, revelations of the many betrayals she has suffered, and her hazy memory of being told by just one person to live on…
I like that the major characters talk to each other: they keep secrets, but also can reveal them; they have revelations about communications misunderstandings before people die over them; they help each other, but can also be manipulated by concern for their families (a recurring theme). This is a high stakes story about people with capacities for both compassion and brutality, who are too often put in difficult situations. I am eager for the next season!
The village where dear friends Yoshiki and Hikaru live has a traditional festival to the god of the mountain. A mountain where Yoshiki’s father warned him never to explore. A mountain where, the boys don’t realize, Hikaru’s family used to keep <things> in their rightful places…
There are people in the village who can hear <things> from the Other Side. Others can see <things>. But engaging with <the things>, talking to them, or in any way acknowledging them can make the people who respond more attractive to the restless spirits, and that is a problem. A problem Yoshiki’s closeness with Hikaru, including their physical closeness, may soon reveal. Not just in the cold, unhealed bruise on Yoshiki’s arm…
Classmate Asako is sensitive to these <things>, and has seen a <thing> save the friend she loves most, so her questions for Hikaru are well-meaning – alarming, but innocent. Her innocence doesn’t mean she is safe, however.
Volume 3 is the smooth continuation of the spooky story of Yoshiki and the being occupying his beloved friend Hikaru’s body. The tension is superb. The body horror is impressive. The traumas are real. And the ethics and attitudes of <things> are highly uncomfortable…
This horror story of a loving friendship between two boys, one of whom is no longer human, is SO GOOD. And SO CREEPY.
Yoshiki was already warned that it is dangerous for him to stay close to his not-quite-the-same friend, Hikaru. That being near <things like him> attracts <other things>. The woman who told him knows from experience. But that doesn’t prepare Yoshiki or his sister for <the thing> that turns up in the bathroom. Hikaru thinks he can handle it, but… can he?
Hikaru is determined to stay near and protect Yoshiki, and did so once before, but can he really protect him? Or is his affection just putting Yoshiki deeper into danger?
In this volume, we see original Hikaru’s dying wish, and know how much he cared for his best friend.
Volume 2 is another sweet, creepy, wonderful volume.
I’m the Queen In This Life by Themis, Omin published by Webtoon (106 episodes, ongoing) 2022 – present
Ariadne desperately loves Cesare, and will do anything to win his approval and become his wife – including regicide. She is also willing to wait, and wait, and wait for their engagement to lead to an actual wedding after her dirty deeds open the throne to him. Cesare and her half sister betray her, however, and as she lay dying, she asks for another chance at life… She is offered one more chance – WITH CONDITIONS.
Ariadne wakes up in her distant past as her desperate, 17-year old self, living on a farm in isolation from her powerful Cardinal father. She knows her father is going to send for her and pass her off to Cesare, which she can’t allow to happen. She also knows she can’t just live a normal life: this time around, she has to make up for the evil deeds she did last time.
So much is asked of second-chance heroines, and Ariadne gets this treatment at an unusual level. She has to be multilingual, pious, must bravely confront a heretic pastor in the national cathedral, prevent an assassination, survive her conniving and evil family, impress her highly political father, and NOT under ANY circumstance, wind up being handed off to Cesare like property. Oh, and be NICE, which isn’t something she had much practice in within her predatory surroundings.
Her efforts don’t always work out – she is actively being sabotaged by her stepmother, her stepsisters, jealous servants, Cesare, local gossips, and even assassins from a neighboring kingdom! People die on her. Plots succeed against her. Rumors swirl because of an issue with the color of her dress as a masquerade… Her new love is pledged to marry someone else. But she wearily fights on.
I can tell you that the title of this comic doesn’t seem like it will become true anytime soon 100 episodes on! But there is hope, and she’s going to keep fighting. (I want to buy this girl a drink and give her a hug.). There’s still a possibility it won’t literally happen, but she’s been through so much personal growth that she deserves a crown.
I’m big into Webtoon (my credit card company can confirm this!), and was curious about this first book in a series when I spotted it at Silver Sprocket. There is something about the use of color in the art that I found novel, so I picked it up. And I enjoyed it!
This is a retelling of the story of Persephone and Hades, with cell phones, parties, credit cards, shopping gossip, and saturated color.
The saturated, extures, shadows, and the GLOW that things have are all appealing elements of Smythe’s style.
My taste in Webtoon comics leans toward overly rendered buildings drawn in perspective with excessive arched arcades, plus costumes with entirely too many fasteners (many of which cannot fasten things based on their position). But this softer approach of running-mascara facial expressions and six-line faces in glowing rooms charmed me.
I have mixed feelings that the gods of Olympus have cell phones, cars, and modernist houses to bring the story into our age, but those details do nothing to diminish the drama of jealous gods, personal insecurity, crushes, sibling rivalries, love, beauty, endless night, and apology donuts.
I fear I may fall for the next six massive volumes of this series, but I’m trying to get to the bottom of this particular reading pile before I consider the temptation.
Monster Duke’s Daughter by Han Ocean, Chal Lan published by Webtoon (151 chapters, ongoing) 2022 – present
Tiny Lotilucia is transported away from her beloved mother, who was still trapped in their eternally snowy forest home/prison, to the estate of her unknown father, Duke Frodium. She knows her mother said a forever goodbye, and she knows that her father factually accepts her existence, but isn’t entirely sure how to relate to her.
As she tries to maintain a low profile (out of sight, out of danger?) and learns to read, she finds a book in the library. A book about a little girl named Lotilucia, whose father is also Duke Frodium, and who… dies very young, without every being fully accepted by her father. In the story, she is replaced in her father’s improved affections by a new adopted daughter, who appears to be the true heroine of the book, and who resembles Lotilucia’s lost mother. Despite being a tiny-but-literate girl, she decides that she won’t allow the book to determine her fate, and strikes out to really live – this includes forging a bond with her surprised father, preventing her untimely death, and perhaps becoming the lead character of her own story.
As she grows, she realizes she can do more than just survive – she may be able to protect her father’s secret (he’s a demon protecting the human world from the demon world), use rare powers she inherited from her mother to protect her loved ones – including her friends, one of who is growing up into a handsome boy, and is secretly a dragon – and become a protector of the human world and ally to the emperor as her father’s successor.
There are sci-fi technologies in this fantasy story, questions about whether Lotilucia is living in a real world or if the book was the real world, and scenes that were supposed to be flashbacks, but where the participants (or at least one important participant) can see Lotilucia and interact with her in what should just be a memory…
Our child heroine really has too much on her shoulders, and has to exceed the abilities and expectations of other so much, it’s unfair! Despite her young start, she is SO DETERMINED and so unnaturally skilled, that she is pulling off improbable rescues and stirring up trouble much larger than herself. The giant-eyed child does grow up over the course of the story, so her body catches up (mostly) with her enormous eyes.
I’m 151 chapters in, and the fact that I’m 151 chapters in tells you that I’m committed! This is a cute fantasy story about being true to yourself, thinking you are old enough to make independent decisions when you are four years old (you are not), making your own future, caring about your parents, worrying your father, and having everyone say you make a good-looking couple with your dragon guy pal.
This is a COMPLETELY ADORABLE comic about a fire demon who wakes up on a farm and is adopted by the farm family as seasonal help and a friend.
Auntie Ann and Katy don’t think twice about taking Red in, taking Red to a friend to make some soft clothes suitable for an eight foot tall fire demon. They just… accept Red as they are: a nice, helpful, large, warm being.
Have I mentioned this is completely adorable?
Cats can’t resist Red, a cosy fire demon who is always warm. Awwwwwwwww. Beyond cute!
I can often resist things that are cute, but this is so…. not just cute, but soothing. Sweet. Homey. Gentle.
This is an adorable, gothic visual comic collection about a lovely goth girl named Flora who inherits a mansion inhabited by a “cat.”
This”cat” defies the laws of physics, consumes people, levitates, stretches endlessly into room-filling forms, periodically swallows Flora…
Creepy Cat is both adorable and… a monster of some undetermined kind. But it is so… fluffy! (Life lesson: you can get away with a lot if you are fluffy.)
The stories are brief, a few panels or pages long, and are stylishly adorable. The tone is great; Flora is charming; Creepy Cat lives up to its name. Flora is sometimes in danger, and it appears Creepy Cat may periodically eat or harm Flora, but doesn’t necessarily like when anyone else does that. (Yay for possessiveness?)
There is an adorable brief comic at the end in which Valent tells the story of how this comic came to be.
This is a lovely, consistent, stylish, attractive work. And there are more volumes out there, which is good news.
