Anarchic Fox on 23/4/2021 at 15:40
A thread about (
https://www.nofna.com) my favorite webcomic.
Quote Posted by Anarchic Fox, on a Different Forum
Also, may I ask why this is your favourite webcomic?I'll make a more serious attempt to answer the question.
I do not know another artist who can draw animals so well and so quickly. We get two pages a week -- which, by the way, are two to three times the size of a normal comics-book page -- with interesting layouts, expressive characters, vivid colors and well-developed symbolism. Not only that, the anatomy of these animals surpasses most artists who draw from references -- which Mr. Braun, I think, does not. Most animal artists end up specializing in one kind of animal, with their others noticeably worse, but in this case the mustelids, canids, felids, and rodents all look good. (Okay, when humans and ungulates show up they tend to look wonky.) My single favorite drawing of a fox occurs in the print version of
Wild Style, which was not an arc, but rather him doing joke-a-day gag humor for a month.
The stories sound simple when summarized, but most of the arcs are every bit as detailed and involuted as the plot of
Watchmen. The characterization is the best I've found in comics, web or print. When an arc starts, you may think you know what cliche or archetype a character fulfills, but by the time the story ends that character will have changed drastically, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. In the early days, the comic billed itself as a series of Kung Fu stories involving animals, and that held true up until arcs four and five. But if it were compared to Kung Fu movies, this would be one of the more esoteric ones, like
Master Killer or
Hero. The animals possess their own version of augmented reality, and the most powerful martial artists have the powers you'd expect to see from a classic D&D illusionist.
The visual pacing of each story is occasionally broken by magnificent, oversized pages. The most ridiculous of these is (
http://www.nofna.com/?T=1-1-88-292) page 292 of
Solar System, which is about 12000x8000 pixels (no, I did not include an extra zero) and whose original has been replaced by a Java applet a fan made for just that one page. These oversized pages are a rare treat, and usually represent a moment of profound victory or decision for the protagonists. As for the narrative tone...
...I can say more, but this is already enough for a nice encomium.
To add to the above, here are brief descriptions of the completed arcs:
10%+: A young maned wolf develops a technique that enhances his abilities, but risks brain damage... and must apply this technique against his own mentor.
Lycosa: A parable about not letting the future supplant the past, in which a wolf spider confronts a society of charismatic futurists.
Solar System: A crew consisting of a human, an ape, a dog, a mouse and a gerbil have finished rehabilitating a space shuttle, only to find it must serve a larger purpose than first intended. The solar system is a large place, and has not yet yielded all its secrets.
Wild Style: A hundred gag comics. The product of a successful Kickstarter, the author repudiated this style of humor entirely in the afterword of the print edition, and made a resolution to never do it again.
Secretary: This arc is special, departing from all the others in tone and theme. It contains the most powerful use of infinite canvas that I know.
Syconium: An exploration of art, sexuality and their interrelated power, this arc caused utter havoc among the NofNA fanbase. I disagree with this arc's stated thesis, and yet I have never identified with a character as much as I identified with this arc's heroine.
The latest arc is called Emancipation. I'll let a recent comic page explain its themes:
Inline Image:
http://www.nofna.com/arcs/1/139.pngKolya on 23/4/2021 at 22:59
To be frank I'm not taken by the pixelated style, off colors, weird font choices, cats with grammar errors or if I'd even agree that this person draws great animals. (
http://www.nofna.com/?T=1-1-1-135) This looks like bad furry art and it's not an outlier. The story seems to be quite involved and might hold one's attention if they get into it, but the art style throws me off fast. Oh well, it's not for me.
Anarchic Fox on 23/4/2021 at 23:05
It's an outlier. But yeah, many people find the pixelated artwork unapproachable.
Anarchic Fox on 24/4/2021 at 22:52
Quote Posted by Tocky
The days of his caliber of illustration are over.
If you mean in traditional media, you may be right. But if you include digital illustration, you are wrong. Abaddon of (
https://killsixbilliondemons.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/throne.jpg) Kill Six Billion Demons and Ashley Cope of (
https://unsoundedupdates.tumblr.com/) Unsounded are at or near Wrightson's level.
Zachary Braun (NofNA's creator) is immensely talented, but has glaring weaknesses too. The worst blind spot is his human faces, which are ugly. But I'd rather have art with high highs and low lows, than art that's uniform but average.
Tocky on 25/4/2021 at 01:37
I don't know how to say this but... no. Those are nowhere near Wrightson's degree of talent. Abaddon could well do illustrations on a level with Heavy Metal magazine's mid level artists but that isn't even approaching Wrightson. Maybe Paul Kirchner... or Philippe Druillet on a bad day. There is someone she is exactly like but I can't think of the name. Certainly not Luis Royo or Richard Corbin. Maybe it is Druillet.
Inline Image:
https://i.pinimg.com/236x/6b/3a/e7/6b3ae78da822e199be98492c28da4974--sci-fi-art-philippe.jpgNo that's not it. Still not up to his level. Somebody help me out. Who the hell is it I'm thinking of?
Anarchic Fox on 25/4/2021 at 05:15
Quote Posted by Tocky
I don't know how to say this but... no. Those are nowhere near Wrightson's degree of talent.
I can accept "not at." But "nowhere near"?! Really? How many goddamn tiers of ability are there? If Wrightson is at the top, Abaddon and Cope are
at least one tier down.
Now, the important question arises. How much effort did you put into the comparison? I didn't put much effort into mine, but I put in more than the minimum.
*sigh* As they say in Latin,
de gustibus ad faucem.
Pyrian on 25/4/2021 at 08:58
:erm: I don't see any artwork in this thread that seems to know where their light sources are. :confused:
Anarchic Fox on 25/4/2021 at 09:13
...Missing verb?
Anyway, in NofNA's Secretary arc, there's a powerful page whose light source, which the main character calls "the black rainbow," dominates the entire composition.
