Webcomic Review: Starveil

David Rapoza is an artist that continues to grow in popularity and whose thoughts on the freelance industry are great to chew on. His artwork is gritty and detailed and fun to stare at, he even has instructionals on his process up on youtube. What gained him a lot of notice was the hi res, & detailed ninja turtles that he created over 4 years ago.

Its always interesting to see when an artists creates solo work, the piece he started a few years ago was a webcomic called Starveil. This webcomic kinda feels like an homage of everything that was awesome as an American boy growing up in the 90s. It seems to have elements of Dragon Ball Z, Mad Max, old anime, space operas all thrown in a blender. "Will it blend?" Hell yeah it does.

Along with his gritty style the book is fast paced and displays plentiful and powerful action. The palatte he chose for the backgrounds allow for his characters to pop off the page, and the faded pastel colors make the world he's crafted thus far seem truly alien. A feature that is emphasized by his use of negative space is sublime as certain elements spill out of the panels and into the gutters.

My only qualm artistically with the book is his lettering. While I still love his color choice in bubbles and have no issue with his decision in font, its the layout that bugs me. It seems to have many errors of a neophyte letterist, such as bubbles being to long, or dialogue not being centered and touching the bubble borders... Bubble Borders.

The story isn't anything ground breaking, as of yet, as the "hero" of the book is trying to rescue a beautiful stowaway from his crashed vessel and encountering antagonists on the way. What is innovative is how Rapoza takes advantage of tumblrs' gif ability and uses short animations featured in certain panels that help bring the book to life. Action scenes come alive as characters walk toward you, or energy beems fly across the page and increase the already speedy pacing of the book and makes you feel like you should be listening to DragonForce while reading.

The dialogue tends to verge on being a little slow, and self aggrandizing. Though I feel like this element is homaging the taunts and challenges of characters from certain series like Dragon Ball Z or Conan the animated series. It could also be a nod to the silver age of comics as panels used to be densely packed with words and exposition.

What I've really enjoyed from the series isn't even in the book itself but in his extras, the portrait gallery. The character designs there are so eye catching and colorful as classic cartoon heroes used to be. Its even more enjoyable when a character from the gallary enters into the book and you can see them in action. Its kind of like when your favorite X-men was finally featured on an episode of that 90s X-men animated series.

The series so far has me wanting more but unfortunately there has not been an update in a while. Rapoza has a patreon running for the creation of this webcomic and has said that certain contractual obligations have forced him to keep it hush hush for now. He has also posted random images from the book on his tumblr showing that work is still continuing on it and it may yet still see print. However if you want more of his comic work now you can always check out his hilarious series Steve Lichman about a Lich trying to get by in these crazy modern times.


That guy Sir Thomas J. Gryphon is okay, but overhauling the Gryphon Knights website has driven him batty. You can see his own sci-fi work on series like FvD or WOW Signal.

Webcomic Review: George Jurard's STAR WARS in 365 Days or (Darth Days!)

Escape from Mos Eisley

I missed "May the 4th be With You" but while its still "Revenge of the 5th I wanted to share a Star Wars webcomic with you.

While not a webcomic in the traditional sense, nor holding an original narrative of its own George Jurard's A scene a day of the original Star Wars trilogy, or "Darth Days", acts as a countdown clock to the release of Episode VII.

Darth Vader in his Tie Fighter

It captures all the pivitol scenes and dialogue of the original trilogy in beautifully rendered landscape panels. Each panel varies in its portayal, some with detailed colors while others use a monochromatic or limited color palatte. Seeing a new panel everyday will have your mind wandering back to your multiple viewings of the OT, and hungering for the newest chapter.

The below panel, a scene which portrays the first meeting of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in person, (that is outside of the new Star Wars comics continuity). This pane while my least favorite in the nostalgic inducing series still has some remarkable intuitiveness to it. In the films the scene was rich in color, powerful warm red reflections off of cold metal interrupted with pillars of blues; I still feel anticipation when rewatching the as Luke slowly walks into the room. Here its rendered almost as if those colors were inverted and desaturated. You would almost say that the image doesn't capture the elements of the original. That is also why I love this piece, because Jurard seems to do three things in creating these art pieces.

1) He never repeats a patter, if you look at the over 100 images he's created so far you'll notice not one is colored or rendered the same as another, and you can imagine the struggle it is to think outside of a linear pattern of production. Perhaps the reason this room isn't red and blue as image 19/365, which I've also included above in this blog, already has these color elements.

2) This is his own telling of the original series, in this way he's become the director, and created these thumbnails that are reminiscent of the film while unique in their presentation.

3) He captures the emotions of each scene plucking those most memorable instants to retell the whole of the trilogy in only 365 images!

These are not easy tasks as trying to create artwork that properly homages a creation that has become a classic and legendary in itself, bears with it a fear of misrepresenting that franchise and angering a ferocious fanbase. Something that this franchises own creator has encountered. Its been a work that I've thought about for a while, and how he overlays his own vision onto a scene without stealing that emotion you felt when first watching the films. If anything his portrayal is more accurate to how we see images in our memory, similar to what is but not clear or exact to what was.

I  look forward to every new update and as George Jurard is almost 2/3rds into completion of his project I hope that he is able to encapsulate it into a book, that is simple to flip through, so that in a glance one can return to a galaxy far far away...

Sir Thomas J. Gryphon is no Padawan to Star Wars lore, he has enjoyed the EU and is looking forward to the retelling of  the series including the prequel remakes Disney has planned. In the Meanwhile he is telling his own sci-fi on Gryphonknights called the WOW Signal!

Creating a Comic: The Initial Concept

The Quack Addict? 

Creating is a strange process, at times its like we are possessed and the only way to excise the muse is in forging a world. A story can be crafted after years of notes, writes or rewrites, as in the case of the exhaustively detailed lore of Middle Earth, at others its a few notes and a doodle on a beer napkin a la Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Either process took bringing a concept from mind to paper.

Its not just full time artists who have ideas burgeoning in their head. Plenty of people have had conceptualizations that knock around in their brains from childhood, festering as they get older. A creative thought can decay the longer you have it in you, losing bits of it as time go by. Outside of it your brain though, that's where a brainchild can evolve.

I made it the bad habit to follow the former path. I was often impatient in the planning processes and so I never made notes, never wrote an outline or a script, didn't create sketches, or conceptual drawings or even storyboard. I just began illustrating comic pages. Some interesting stuff came of it, but honestly, while I improved artistically, the stuff I created was real dren. I ended up starting over, the right way making notes, storyboards and outlines, and the book, WOW Signal, ended up being much better for it!

I suppose I went in with a rather arrogant assumption that my raw creativity was the best work, and that any sort of edit or revisions simply
watered it down. Sure I wanted work out there as fast I could, but overestimating the value of my initial concepts ended up creating wasted time. So I guess my first point would be that it doesn't hurt doing things the right way.

This is a space cruiser I created in 1996

As far as creating a concept itself, sometimes I would take old work I had done, some of which was decades old and recreate it in the present breathing new life into it with more refined ability. Sometimes these old creations we made up during childhood with a little tweaks can be remarkably awesome. Going through old sketches I found a galaxy worth of doodles of planets with notes on each, and while some was I'm sure lifted from TV at the time others were quaintly bizarre.

I would warn people who want to get ideas, that watching, reading or just hopping into other media makes it easy to an set you up for hijacking creative material without meaning to. Instead just make notes on things in life that inspire you, and you can add a fantasy or sci-fi twist, like how some monsters are made by combining to regular creatures or how Henchgirl is as autobiographical for the author as it is fantastical! If you feel you need something to inspire you then consume older public domain work that you can be influenced by with fear of legal retribution.

As you go about crafting a world, bring a pen with you everywhere. You never know when inspiration will strike, and I'd say carry a notebook too but for me that's cumbersome. Instead I write notes on random pieces of paper, envelopes from opened mail, my hand, and napkins among other things, which are certain not to get lost.

When you've got enough put together its always nice to bounce thoughts off others, just to help further refine good ideas and bad ideas. Just don't bounce ideas off Stan Lee who knows where they will end up

That guy #SirThomas is okay, he's been making stuff since he was young and not all of it was poop. You can see his work on books like Frankenstein vs. Dracula, or many of the issues of Meanwhile...