There are about 3 ‘advertisements’ for Aurora before chapter one begins. They look very pretty in color but I wish they would have hinted at the substance of the comic. For me it is not enough to merely see something pretty, I need to see a preamble of the peril the girl is going to have to face.
I’m on page 20 and I keep looking for line variation but the artist seems to prefer to limit herself with a range of choices between wispy to less-wispy. Partially because of this it can be a little hard to tell the age of one character from another, at one point I only knew a set of characters were the main character’s parents because she called them mom and dad. Otherwise I would have assumed they were the same age. Perhaps if the artist had given them a few crows feet?
It’s not just the parents either, all the characters I’ve seen so far are flawless looking. Not a wrinkle or ounce of fat to be seen anywhere. Everything is shiny bouncy hair and perfect tiny noses, expressions are limited to ‘happy’ or ‘thoughtful’ it’s getting one dimensional. I prefer a little more complexity.
I’m not fond of the dialogue either; since there’s so much of it, I’d expect some of it to be important. At one point the main character ‘Lumi’ says to her friend “… you’re nothing if not responsible.” Taken out of context it sounds innocent enough except that, reading what I have so far, I now know for certain that the writer prefers to ‘write it’ and not ‘show it’. And she seems to think that using exclamation points counts as action. It doesn’t.
Perhaps I’m being too harsh but I look at two main components in a comic, dialogue and action. One or the other may be faulty for me to like someone’s work, but not both at the same time. I’m sorry but the comic seems to be as featureless as it’s 3 advertisements.
Notes from Jason
The review above is my wife’s thoughts, but I wanted to respond. Meaning this part is written by me (Jason Love). It is a reaction to Leah’s Review of Aurora The Webcomic by Thea Kendall.
1: Ads at the beginning of the webcomic
Personally I don’t mind the advertisements because I realize it is just how blogs work. They could be deleted, but then anyone who linked to it will have a broken link. Keeping them seems like a logical choice, if there is a way to remove them from the beginning of the comic might be nice but not needed.
2: Art style and age of characters.
My wife said “it can be a little hard to tell the age of one character from another”, I didn’t have any problems telling the age of people. I understand what she means (you can see here aurorawebcomic.com/2012/10/01/page-14-2/) but this wasn’t an issue for me.
3: Dialogue
I like the dialogue and the amount. Many comics both on the web and off can get very wordy. Thea has a good balance with some pages having a lot and other pages having none. Most of the pages having just enough.
You can decide for yourself at aurorawebcomic.com/
Rarely do my wife and I disagree with each other on a webcomic, so we would love to have you add your thoughts in the comments section below. Who do you agree with and why?
