Tiana
2008-09-05 06:09:29
I tried, really, I did. It gets a higher rating for the art. The art is gorgeous. The art is beautiful. The art is outstanding and no mere webcomic should be of this quality. Seriously, if I haven't made my point yet, the art on Drow Tales is stunning and you should look at it if ONLY FOR THE ART.
Because I tried, really, I did. I love fantasy, really, I do. I love reading, really, I do.
The Nidraa'chal? The Chel'el'sussoloth? Mikilu'ligr Val'Dutan'vir, Overseer of the Imperial Queen Div a'Ratrika Val'Charen? I could get more memorable and pronouncable names by banging on my keyboard. Am I kidding? No way. Chapter 1, page 11, check it out. Gorgeous art, by the way, lovely masked drow on there, lovely burning painted cities, near movie-background quality, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. Painted backgrounds and anime-ish characters with slight cel-shading in a painterly style integrated perfectly and clearly, I could only dream of achieving this.
But seriously. I could get better names by banging my hand on my keyboard. Uirojkma. There. It's just as pronouncable as Mikilu'igr. And there's less stray apostrophes, too. Am I going to remember those characters? I'd have better luck by adding up the apostrophes per name and calling them One, Two, Three, etc... if there's one with the same, I'll just have to add on plus-one-uncapitalized-letter-beginning-name to count too, and make it a two digit code. Uiro Jkma. I banged a hand against the keyboard and I think I'd be more likely to remember Uiro than Mikilu'igr there! Though these appear to be minor characters (I couldn't make myself read it and only read a few chapters at different periods in the timline... seriously, there is a lot of chapters here) all the names seem to be of similar unpronouncable, unrecognizable quality. Randomly clicking through, there's a Faen. At least I can pronounce that.
Problem two.
WALL OF TEXT.
Small text, lots of it. Lots and lots of it. Dark purple on black speech bubbles, occasionally. Different types of characters have different types of speech bubbles, evidently. And lots and lots of text. Filled with unpronounable fantasy names, no less. I'm sure it's amazing, but my eyes glossed over after the first few pages I checked out with about two pages in Word covering them. But the art was pretty! Not all of the pages are this bad. I clicked randomly on a storyline in the middle, I don't remember which numbers they were, but it was with the Faen kid I mentioned--and that one wasn't all wall of text. But then I read some other one with a chick who's name I couldn't remember for the life of me and I've never seen so much text jammed onto a graphic novel page in my life. You'd think they were trying to reinact Hamlet here. Or something. I'll cite Chapter 11, page 68 as a wall of text example.
But the art is realllllly good looking.
It was pretty hard to find, though. That web design is pretty cluttery. It took me about five minutes to find where their archive was because they don't have a standard webcomic webpage. Also, I have a 1440x900 monitor. Maximizing the page doesn't help--there's still a side scrollbar.
That's right.
Their webpage is more than 1400 pixels wide. The important stuff is centered, at least, and unless you have a small monitor, it's readable without scrolling.
It's a realllly pretty webpage.
Just, like the comic, not necessarily that user friendly. The archive consists of a dropdown for an awful lot of pages.
Not all of Drow Tales appears to be available for free, as they have various subscriptions which give access to other stories and whatnot. As a couple of these have 'for adults only!' disclaimers, looks like Drow Tales adheres to the standard belief that dark elf = sex and gore.
Though this shows up by clicking around in their public archives, too. Blood and sexy costumes. Probably web-14. No. Definately web-14.
But the art is pretty!
Seriously, if you like Drow stuff, Drow Tales is probably for you--though you probably already found it. It's very typically Drow. Like those books. With the Drow. You know, those ones. And then maybe you'll be able to swallow those I-banged-my-arm-on-the-keyboard names. I couldn't, and I love fantasy. It also updates Monday-Friday, so it's a lot of Drow-y goodness, and a lot of amazing art. Well done manga, no questions asked, this art is professional quality and it deserves to be bought off a shelf, and not free on the internet.
If just for the art, check it out. Drow Tales is simply beautiful.
I find that the presentation of the writing is lacking (they throw too much at you at one time, often) and that the web design is simply too confusing for me to give it all five stars. The writing never grabbed me. The art did.
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2008-07-12 15:31:35
A little hard to read in the beginning due to use of font, but that gets better after the first few pages.
2008-09-05 06:09:29
Because I tried, really, I did. I love fantasy, really, I do. I love reading, really, I do.
The Nidraa'chal? The Chel'el'sussoloth? Mikilu'ligr Val'Dutan'vir, Overseer of the Imperial Queen Div a'Ratrika Val'Charen? I could get more memorable and pronouncable names by banging on my keyboard. Am I kidding? No way. Chapter 1, page 11, check it out. Gorgeous art, by the way, lovely masked drow on there, lovely burning painted cities, near movie-background quality, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. Painted backgrounds and anime-ish characters with slight cel-shading in a painterly style integrated perfectly and clearly, I could only dream of achieving this.
But seriously. I could get better names by banging my hand on my keyboard. Uirojkma. There. It's just as pronouncable as Mikilu'igr. And there's less stray apostrophes, too. Am I going to remember those characters? I'd have better luck by adding up the apostrophes per name and calling them One, Two, Three, etc... if there's one with the same, I'll just have to add on plus-one-uncapitalized-letter-beginning-name to count too, and make it a two digit code. Uiro Jkma. I banged a hand against the keyboard and I think I'd be more likely to remember Uiro than Mikilu'igr there! Though these appear to be minor characters (I couldn't make myself read it and only read a few chapters at different periods in the timline... seriously, there is a lot of chapters here) all the names seem to be of similar unpronouncable, unrecognizable quality. Randomly clicking through, there's a Faen. At least I can pronounce that.
Problem two.
WALL OF TEXT.
Small text, lots of it. Lots and lots of it. Dark purple on black speech bubbles, occasionally. Different types of characters have different types of speech bubbles, evidently. And lots and lots of text. Filled with unpronounable fantasy names, no less. I'm sure it's amazing, but my eyes glossed over after the first few pages I checked out with about two pages in Word covering them. But the art was pretty! Not all of the pages are this bad. I clicked randomly on a storyline in the middle, I don't remember which numbers they were, but it was with the Faen kid I mentioned--and that one wasn't all wall of text. But then I read some other one with a chick who's name I couldn't remember for the life of me and I've never seen so much text jammed onto a graphic novel page in my life. You'd think they were trying to reinact Hamlet here. Or something. I'll cite Chapter 11, page 68 as a wall of text example.
But the art is realllllly good looking.
It was pretty hard to find, though. That web design is pretty cluttery. It took me about five minutes to find where their archive was because they don't have a standard webcomic webpage. Also, I have a 1440x900 monitor. Maximizing the page doesn't help--there's still a side scrollbar.
That's right.
Their webpage is more than 1400 pixels wide. The important stuff is centered, at least, and unless you have a small monitor, it's readable without scrolling.
It's a realllly pretty webpage.
Just, like the comic, not necessarily that user friendly. The archive consists of a dropdown for an awful lot of pages.
Not all of Drow Tales appears to be available for free, as they have various subscriptions which give access to other stories and whatnot. As a couple of these have 'for adults only!' disclaimers, looks like Drow Tales adheres to the standard belief that dark elf = sex and gore.
Though this shows up by clicking around in their public archives, too. Blood and sexy costumes. Probably web-14. No. Definately web-14.
But the art is pretty!
Seriously, if you like Drow stuff, Drow Tales is probably for you--though you probably already found it. It's very typically Drow. Like those books. With the Drow. You know, those ones. And then maybe you'll be able to swallow those I-banged-my-arm-on-the-keyboard names. I couldn't, and I love fantasy. It also updates Monday-Friday, so it's a lot of Drow-y goodness, and a lot of amazing art. Well done manga, no questions asked, this art is professional quality and it deserves to be bought off a shelf, and not free on the internet.
If just for the art, check it out. Drow Tales is simply beautiful.
I find that the presentation of the writing is lacking (they throw too much at you at one time, often) and that the web design is simply too confusing for me to give it all five stars. The writing never grabbed me. The art did.
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