I didn't expect this one. I knew the series was ongoing but I had my eyes on other projects and completely forgot about this one. Last time on Babylon Working, the old man had succeeded in his plan in luring the demons to the moon and absorbed their power while the other group merged an alien with a human, then the bad guy with the goatee got gwat by his now-evil alien wife the Scarlet Queen. Fortunately she turned good and closed the portal but our heroines are arrested by the police. 

We return to #5 with a prison episode. The gang must get out of jail but Qi'an the robot has been shut down and they don't have a ship. Fortunately, a mutual foe arrives to help them. Will they accept his jailbreak? He's not exactly a trustworthy figure.

The artwork was quite consistent. The art team hasn't changed since #4, which feels like a rarity in today's indie comic world. The framing was pretty good, they got the action scenes right with little blurring, and the anatomical features were...anatomically correct. Yeah, don't want to read this series near kids, or on a plane- unless you have privacy filter. The covers are a little misleading but still drawn well.

You should be able to find it on their website here at some point in the future. But I don't know when that will be.

The story says: On towering stilts, a Banna boy searches for the great serpent in the sky to save his friends. But that's not the case in this short story. Karo, a young stilt-walker is asked by his mother to be careful when walking around. But he wants a snake to take him to the supreme being so he can get a sibling. His imaginary friends Rocky and Arrow aid in this quest and he finds a snake. Unfortunately, the snake has other ideas. I mean, it's a snake. Of course it has other ideas. 

The art reminds me of some worn-out classroom comics that middle schools give out on free reading days to encourage kids not to smoke or do drugs or jaywalk. Its framing and panel work are a bit different from those comics as well as the lighting, which I feel makes it more grounded and less 'colorful for kids' vibe that those comics have. I didn't have strong feelings abut the character designs but I can see where some of the inspiration came from. 

Beserat Debebe and Shiferaw Yinessu crafted a nice compressed tale into 11 issues. I heard on Facebook it was a contest submission but I forgot which one. It would be a pity if they didn't win because I feel it made a great example of comic/webtoon storytelling. 

The Banna people of Ethiopia are known for their tall wooden stilts, used to walk above grass, mud, and floodwaters. 

You can read it for free on Tapas.io

So the great series finally got on TV! For a while, I thought MAX was going to bury it like TNT often does (Re: the fifth season). I was also thinking COVID might've killed it since planning started up around that time. Also, there was an issue with the animation studio outsourcing to North Koreans pretending to be Chinese. And now I can blame some of the bad animation effects on the North Koreans!

The show wasn't a complete 1 to 1 copy of the graphic novels. Obviously with 10 episodes, they had to make some editorial changes. I can't seem to recall the blood rivalry between Toye's father and Zaza being as big a deal in the novels. Also I don't recall a desert scene or a tricky trap scene with the priests. Anyway, the show stayed pretty true to the heart of the book; a little girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders who just wants to see her mother. 

The animation could have been better. Again, I blame the North Koreans for this. Perhaps their animated cells were removed and not replaced, hence the jankiness of the last 3 episodes. Never thought I'd blame the North for bad african animation but here we are. Anyway, the character art was really good and the final battle really popped as well. The humorous scenes weren't to 'looney tunes' or anything like that. 

Overall, I was happy with the adaptation and I think most fans will be, even though it was far from perfect. 4 out 5 stars. You can find it on the networks in the poster.

It's hard to keep up with the Niobe line even though it's my favorite atmospheric fantasy comic. The site doesn't have a great reading order list but at least there's something. When I bought today's comic, I had to double-check that I didn't buy it before or get it through the kickstarter. Anyway, we see Niobe at a low point in her life, still troubled by thoughts of her mother. In an earlier issue, we see her with an army of elfen tribals and this episode explains how that came to be. 

As usual the artwork goes from great to amazing! Stranger comics always brings great landscapes and framing. The only scenes I didn't like were the hair scenes. The character spends a bit of time getting hair done and while poignant, it's becoming a running gag for fans of the series. There are some scenes where prayers or songs or spells are cast and those are written in italics but they are a little hard to read. But everything else is a pleasure to read. 

There are some interesting bits added on that I think readers will like. Two special songs by Aiysha Sinclair were made for the comic which you can play on Youtube, and there's a D&D style character guide for the Hundar at the end of the comic. Asunda has some tabletop elements if you wanna use the characters in a future campaign. 

You can find Volume 2 at Stranger Comics. Don't be a stranger and pick it up! 4.5 out of 5 stars!

Shonen manga has a pretty simple plotline- young protagonists fight evil groups and later an ultimate evil from beyond the stars or whatever. Worldbreakers is written along the same vein of action webtoons. Damian Drago is an alien-human hybrid from planet Orion, exiled to Earth to track down his sister. When he first arrived he teamed up with a dangerous organization led by the mysterious Mama Shadow, but turned against her and got brain damaged. Rescued by good guys, Damien and his team must defeat Mama Shadow before she enacts her plan to steal his body and kill his father. 

The artwork's a bit lacking, even by webtoon standards. I feel like it needed more definition and certainly a lot more panel angle work. The artwork held back the story a bit and didn't show a whole of improvement under the 4th volume. One slight drawback to Webtoons.com is that the episode covers are too small to really use like this.

Read it here on Webtoons. Give it a look but don't expect much. 3 out of 5 stars.

Wingless Comics is back with a new series from Kickstarter that they are hoping will take off. And what takes off more than Mecha?! You might remember their previous big project Nightfall.

The story is that Earth has been divided into two regions. Our hero Nas Williams lives on lower Earth in the 7th Ward (no not New Orleans) but he's been having some odd dreams. On upper Earth, the winners of the EXODUS War are mad at him and his mother, and demand his capture. Fortunately for Nas and his friends, they skipped school and found a crashed mecha from that war. What could this mean? 

The artwork was mostly stylish, and somewhat polished through most of the frames. Some readers will like the characters and text bubbles extending into other frames, but I found it slightly distracting. The bulk of the lettering was good but there was 1 unfinished bubble where it looked like he said "gay" but really said "say". Anyhoo, it's fairly high quality in most regards but the mecha battle was a bit confusing and not covered well. 

Volume 1 is now available on the Wingless Comics website here. They threw in a teaser to Formula X Ones, a racing comic set in the same universe as Air Force Ones. I haven't read it yet because I know it'll be months before they finish it, so I'll wait for the full story.

When the gods fight, the people pay the price. In this story, 1 person in particular pays the price. Carl Sims was a martial arts teacher who was going about his business while in the dimensions above, the gods of rain and lightning fought each other. One brother turned evil, seduced by the power of the evil cup of Hatie that once belonged to a devil character beaten thousands of years prior. Carl was struck by lightning accidentally by the good god Zunder, then brought back to life by Zunder and King IIlnus to fight against Vilking and his 5 phobia monster squad who are bent on taking over the Earth and ruling the universe. Pretty basic plot if you ask me. 

The artwork is also very basic. It looks like the artist drew it on some paper lying around. The text is hard to read in some spots, and a bit tricky to follow. In some frames it even comes off as blurry. I skipped ahead to see if the artwork does improve, and it did, albeit marginally. I hated the cover art so I chose the cover art from chapter 2 instead. The paneling is fine and the action is consistent. The artist had some martial arts training at some point because there was some nice choreography in some of the fight scenes.

2.5 out of 5 stars. You can read the story for yourself at Webtoons

It's been a minute, ok a whole year, since I last checked on the Delta Dogs. They're a family of superhero cousins and brothers trying to keep their city safe from Grey Sox and the other slugger gangs. 

We continue with the train robby. Quan is forced to team up with Renee to capture the power-up drugs the Red Sox gang wants but the Black Sox stand in their way. Can they steal the shipment before time runs out and they have to fight more powered gang members?

In #21, Quan's last minute attack did a massive amount of damage and the Grey Sox are mad. Quan has a plan but gets a surprise- mom is home early! Unfortunately, so are the gangs. Can Quan and his family fight them off and escape before more powerful members show up?

The artwork showed some improvement though I'm not as much of a fan of the particle effects. I feel like the character art improved the most, but the framing still needs a little work. It's certainly more polished than I believed and it's gone past Aceblade in terms of quality and rapidly approaching The Antagonists. I'm gonna keep following it because it remains a constant work.

You can find Delta Dogs on their website here. 

It's here! It's finally here! The end of the Chosen saga! What will Iyanu choose- to save Yorubaland or an afterlife with her mother. The problem is, she can't choose both, and the Fallen One is fast approaching. Can Iyanu's friends and her guardians hold him off long enough for her to scale the mountain that protects the source? 

I had a few problems with the writing this time. While the story was clearly focused in Iyanu's journey, Biyi and Toye were sidelined a lot. Biyi got more of the action but only for a few pages, while we got overextended dialog and some repetitive scenes. How will this hold out on the cartoon? It's hard to say since HBO's taking its sweet time to release it. 

I really liked the art, for the most part. I didn't like her hair in the cover as it looks like Marge Simpson's to some degree. The leopard's head is a bit huge too but I think that's more of a bonus than a distraction.  The fight scenes and establishing frames were done really well, giving characters a bit of menace. Though I think they could have done a better job with the lighting and shadow. 

Overall, a fun end this saga. I think many readers will be pleased and I believe they'll like the art of the show. 4 out of 5 stars. You can find Volume 4 on Amazon and Kobo in e-book and paperback.

ODB, the Ol' Dirty Bastard. Russell Jones had a lot of names and interests. Comics was apparently one of them. A group of comic artists and writer teamed up for this Kickstarter, with the blessing of his estate, to make this eclectic collab focused around NYCs black population & experience. 

The premise of the story is that the multiverse collided in NYC, forcing 119 versions of the city to merge into 1, with a corp called SoundCorp (I guess this is a stand-in for RCA or Columbia) trying to take the elemental power crystals that forced during the merge. There are 5 different stories related around the theme of encroaching corporations targeting the black communities and those people being inspired by the 'ghosts' of ODB to fight back. How much of that is related to his life? A bit here and there. They say he was a man of the people, and the strip joint. 

The art styles vary with each art team. The best art by far was the second story Demon Flow. The dark themes and paneling really impose the dread on the reader. You can tell something bad will happen from the second frame. The worst was the first story about the robots coming to steal dance moves, which is a shame because the story was fun.

Is it as good as other collabs I've read? No, not really. While the stories are not completely synced with each other, the general connection of the community seemed more present. You get the feel of the city and of what the ODB was getting at with most of his lyrics. But these stories lack his personal raw and jagged style. Perhaps that wasn't the direction the teams were allowed to go in. I give it 4 out of 5 stars. You can find it at various shops linked to Oni Press here.

Sorry for the delay. I was distracted by the madness that is Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bacon. Anyway, this dropped today. The cover locale looks a little familiar but I can't quite place it. I think it's the folk village in Seoul because of the stairs but I might be wrong.

We continue the story of Rayven adjusting to life in South Korea (the good one, most of the time) and learning taekwondo with a friend. It's a common hobby in Korea for kids and occasionally adults. She's not fond of school lunches and misses the usual pizza for lunch. Yeah, she's like 7 or 8, give her a break. She's also got an annoying bully on her tail who regularly racially incites her about not being Korean. Well, she isn't. But this is a huge problem for those who are mixed-race, as the entire educational/cultural touchstone is ethnic nationalism. Anyway, her class gets to participate in a taekwondo demonstration at Gyeongbukgung palace. It's a pretty common thing here. 

The artwork has improved a lot. I still think it needs a bit more improvement in shading, but because this is kinda geared for kids, I don't think they need to make it Sin City style. It'd be quite the mood shift LOLZ. I think readers will enjoy the elemental effects with the framing when Rayven is doing the taekwondo demo. 

This just came out so it'll be a while before it goes on sale. I'll keep an eye on it, but if you can't wait that long, here's the Kickstarter.

While I never have any regrets about a Kickstarter (except Japan Needs Heroes) this is one I could've avoided. I encountered the writer on the BCC group as he was asking why Black folks aren't pitching in. So I jumped in because I like it when creators ask folks to check out their products. Don't mind if I do...

I was suspicious that it was a religiously focused comic because of some text I saw in the Kickstarter. And yup, correct! It is heavy-handed in its religiousity and I do not like that one bit. Is it better than Left Behind? To be honest, everything is better than that steaming turd. The bar for religious fiction is soooo low that anything slightly better is automatically good. 

The art was quite good in many aspects. Framing was on point, character art was very consistent, info page reminded me of 90s Marvel Comics' style, the letter looked good as well. Art-wise, it's better than Scorpio. I also liked the covers (there are 2) and the pinups. Lighting/tone needs work.

Plot-wise, it's a bit weak. I liked the mini-stories a bit more than the main story but the forgiveness and come-to-Jesus angle kinda clashed with the first arc. They were chasing after the Cheetor wannabe for a reason. Later on, he becomes a good guy? What about his crimes? I don't get it, but it is a Christian focused comic, so I'll never get it. At least we got a good intro to Black Cobra the main character out of it, and we got a hint that #2 is on the way. 3.0 out of 5 stars, but 4 out of 5 in religious stars. Nightfall was better but that's a hard bar to climb over. 

You can find Black Cobra and other comics in the series at Remnant and Grok Comics.