Divine Gifts of Yoni Review

It’s been well over a year since I started ECKC’s Divine Gifts of Yoni. It’s a fat book. It doesn’t help that I’m a slow reader, but seriously, it’s over 600 pages long. As a fat book, it is also an expensive book, especially if your shipping that bulk across borders. So was it worth it? For just about 2 years of decent reading, I’d say so.

As usual, I do my best not to try and predict my impressions of indie/amateur works. Getting your hopes up is 90% of the time a fruitless endeavor, this is something I’ve learned from even mainstream media, and as expected in a story as large as TDGY, there are plenty of rough spots. However there were also a lot of parts that were unexpectedly impressive. There was also a consistent spirit behind the writing, although it wasn’t perfect, you clearly knew what the author was trying to interpret. And with a strong main cast, I often found myself choosing to read this book over other mainstream and classic titles I was reading at the time.

So, the Divine Gifts of Yoni: It features two worlds, each with their own set of stories which connect the two together. Each world stars a group of main characters accomplishing various goals and pursuing some kind of crystal/god based prophecy to metamorphose the two worlds. The whole story is honestly a bit blurry and hard to follow as it is stretched far through the many personal dilemmas of the cast. It probably isn’t to the most benefit of the story for the largest aspect of the plot to be so uninvolved, however the personal quests of the characters are interesting and do carry you through the book.

Interestingly enough, the best thing I can compare the story to is fan fiction. Yes, it’s an original story, but it has that “I should be reading this on the internet” vibe. There is indeed a couple anime-esque stereotypes to the story, more so in feeling than content (aside from furry ears, tails, and harem scenarios, of course), but above all I think it’s the fondness the author has for her characters that shows through the pages, giving them a very fan written aura. It also carries the negative aspects of fan fiction, including frequent spelling mistakes, seemingly spontaneously conceived story layout, and segments which just don’t look like the author read through them after writing. This makes it completely worthwhile for me because I enjoy fan fiction, but the feeling is dominant enough that I would recommend that if you don’t like fan fiction, you probably should reconsider paying the 40 bux for this title.

As for the religious aspect, knowing where the author comes from, the connection between Yoni and Jesus are quite apparent in her writings. In the beginning of the story, the random prayers and praises to God seem to be rather bluntly jammed into the dialogue, thankfully however, the belief system get’s much more natural towards the end of the story. However again, unfortunately like many amateur christian authors, ECKC does try to take the CS Lewis approach and not explain the religious system of the characters, it’s just assumed that people get it. The difference from CS Lewis is that the belief system isn’t so much metaphoric as it is just swapping out words. Only people familiar with christian contexts will get it. Even if it’s obvious, it seems rather short sighted of us to offer no explanation for those who are unfamiliar with modern christian beliefs. Especially considering how varied modern Christianity can be. Sometimes it fits in a fantasy novel a little too well. Rather than just assuming that the characters beliefs are christian based because I know the story is from a christian community, I would rather have the story explain the beliefs to me through a culture more native to the worlds of the story.

There’s actually a few things in this book I can really pick on, so I’m just going to go ahead and get them out of the way. Probably one of the larger set backs is the fact that the chapters of this book are 30+ pages apart. They strike me as mostly redundant, especially considering that each chapter has multiple “star star star” breaks signifying time and scene changes. The strange chapter layout works double negatively with the balance of the two-world stories going on. There doesn’t seem to be a real organized sense of timing other than “now’s a good time to cut to…”. Sometimes you spend a chapter cutting back and forth between worlds while other times you spend so much time with one story that you have to backtrack in the book to recall what is going on with the other side. There is also an over abundance of parentheses. In a story where the narrator is already omnipotent, I can’t help but feel it’s just showing off when the brackets come out. The other big problem is the ending… actually I think I’m going to have to reread the ending. It was rather unsatisfying, i’ll leave it at that. The story seems to dissolve rather than resolve. Now I can see this being a benefit if there are going to be sequels but who knows when that might be? However, as I said, the smaller sub-stories tended to overshadow the global plot, so I can’t say whether or not I’m missing out on something terribly exciting. I’m more so dissatisfied in the mood the story went out on.

Now in the book’s defense, which I think its primary benefit is in its readability: it’s a very easy story to just pick up and get lost in. The world immerses you and despite a couple dry spots, it’s a very easy book to keep reading. I wouldn’t say it’s up to the point where you can’t stop reading. Although, yes, there were a few spots where I couldn’t put the book down, but it has a very casual, contemporary flow which doesn’t fatigue you very quickly. The characters again, are quite enjoyable. I can’t say I ever found them to be very deep and layered, it isn’t hard to guess what each one might be thinking, but they do grow and develop with the story and it’s very motivating to witness this. Like any great fantasy novel, the story also has many settings and creatures which are fairly original and overall interesting. In fact, the story reminds me a lot of the Escaflowne movie. Lots of flowy, beautiful, emotional scenes, with random spots of splattered blood and violence to keep the testosterone up. I love that movie.

There’s a lot more details I would still like to go into about this book, but after looking at what I’ve already written, I’ll just cut to the summary. A lot about this book screams “take me to the next level!” but that is what I like about it. It’s an excellent foundational story and it sparks my imagination to think of where the author is going to go from here, whether with these characters which I’ve grown quite attached to, or something entirely new. Like a lot of classical literature it flows great, is entirely rememberable, yet makes you want to seek improvements. More details, better arrangements, new stories, it’s a very inspiring book. If you’re okay with the anime/fan-fiction style of story, I’d recommend that you consider adding this book to your collection. I know it’s quite happy in mine.

Game Plan! v1 Review

Hey, a post with substance for once.

Kay. Inkhana and Calbhach’s Game Plan! is probably the most current comic I own, at least until I get Josh Alves’ newie in the mail. Honestly I should have reviewed this title a few weeks ago when I finished it, but whatever, I’m sure my memory is fresh enough.

Alright, Once again I am needlessly reviewing a free webcomic which you could read and judge for yourself if you wanted. Or maybe you’re like me and can no longer tolerate staring at a backlit screen for hours and hours unless something is moving. Yes, that’s right, I don’t read the Game Plan! webcomic, but that doesn’t mean I have anything against it. I bought the book so I could check out the story in traditional comfort.

Now what can I say about it? Notice Game Plan! has a pretty positive following online, which you would expect as it is the main (and to my understanding, hosting) comic of christianmanga.com and I must say that the fan following is pretty much deserved. The first volume was a genuinely decent read.

Normally I’d protest the right-to-left reading style. I mean, it’s English written. If your not Japanese, don’t try to be. You’ll hurt yourself (I know I do). But to be honest I didn’t even notice I was reading the Japanese way for a good couple of chapters. So well done.

The characters came off a little too strong with stereotypical manga personalities at first but I felt they toned down, or at least spaced out, as the book progressed. Or maybe I just got too involved in the story to notice? Anyway, I think that’s evidence of the good job Inkhana and Calbhach has done. Even the “mascot” ends up being less annoying than expected.

The story itself: no real complaints for a first issue. It goes into the main story and progresses steadily without getting much more complex. It follows the stereotypical rolls of a bitter depressed nonchristian befriending an upbeat christian of the opposite sex and the story follows as expected for most of the book. However there is room for plot twists in future volumes which could either be brilliant or disastrous.

But it’s fun and involving. The characters, while mostly typical (as most all mainstream manga is ‘typical’ these days) are developed enough to keep you interested and wanting to read more. And I do get impressed when a christian story isn’t scared to show the possibilities for both the relationship involvements and complications of the characters. I’m not sure what much more you’d want from amature webmanga, but this book has done enough to get on my good side. If you’re not already drowned in this scene, check it out.

Gerard Lee’s the New Sons of Thunder

An apology to all my regular readers for the recent update drought. Yes I know, “regular readers” was always an impossibility with this website. I’m not going to make any empty promises about more updates. After all, I’ve been too lazy to even submit an entry or two about what’s going (or not going) on and what I have planned for Make Belief Studios. Things are always changing over here! And with addition to being blog-lazy, I’ve also been genuinely busy, but I’ll keep that to a separate entry… probably that entry which I was just talking about not doing…

Anyway! This is about Gerard Lee’s “the New Sons of Thunder”! Now I will say that Gerry Lee is officially my favorite comic producer of the entire Christian scene… or at least the Christian manga scene… probably the whole scene, though. Now, this isn’t just fanboy gush, I’ve been a fan of Gerry’s for a while now, but I didn’t decide he was my favorite until I got his latest, and to my understanding: initial, published work in the mail today.

The New Sons of Thunder (I’m not writing that title out anymore this article), written by Gerard Lee with art by Blake Larry… Larry Blake! Either way these really sound like comic book names, way to go guys! You’ve passed stage one! I’m sure Strong Bad would agree. Anyway, I’ve got to get this out of the way before I go any farther:

Why is the art NOT manga?!? In my opinion Gerry’s writing captures the very heart of what makes manga! His own scribble comics (I believe they can now officially be called “storyboards”) are manga! The characters and jokes and plot devices all scream “Takashi Rumiko” and “Kanzaka Hajime”! But where is the manga in this book?!?

Oh…. There it is. The inside cover. XD;;; Joking. *gloat gloat* Okay, now that was fanboy esque. It’s out of my system now. On to the real review.

Larry Blake, according to google, is a legendary underground artist. You probably have heard of him. I find his name super familiar, but then again, maybe it’s just one of those names. I did have to look through 3 pages of search results to find a description which likely belonged to this specific Mr. Blake. And by the way Mr. Blake, if you really are as famous as I get the sinking feeling you might be. I’m sorry for this treatment, I just don’t move along well in underground scenes. Especially ones involving western comics.

Kay, now for a bit of schizophrenia: Larry’s artwork is fabulous. Super detailed with rich textures, deep backgrounds and expressive characters! Not to mention his excellent story telling through paneling! He must do a lot of caricatures because I’d say his weakest area would be in proportions (isn’t that true with all of us?) and digital finalization. That last area I mentioned is probably a side effect of the artwork being 100% traditional! How sweet is that? Every line from tone to frame to shadow was done with a real pen! I hate to say it, but his western style has met Gerry’s eastern writing pretty darn well. However, if I see one more character represented as “asian” solely by their ridiculously squinty eyes and straggly hair, I’m gonna….~.~*

Sorry, sorry, getting too picky there.

On to the story itself! Heck, I don’t need to tell you what I think! You can figure it out for yourself! All of tNSoT adventures are available for free reading over at Cyberlight Comics, in scribble comic (*cough* *cough* storyboard *cough*) form:
http://cyberlightcomics.com/scribble/index.htm
There’s even a bunch of other equally amusing comics done by Gerry, free to read.

Now that you know about that… I’m still gonna tell you what I think about Gerry’s writing! It’s brilliant! I’m sure you expected me to say something like that, but it really is good! Sure the story’s nothing brand new, you can put names to his inspirations, but the fact that it’s so transparent I think is one of the best things about Gerry’s works. His heart is in it and you can see it clearly. And on a technical level it’s a good story. His characters are rich and not only develop, but stay true to their roots.

This is one of the differences I think are between American style comics and manga. In American comics you’ll rarely see a character that “develops” without changing into a completely different character by the end of the story. Gerry’s characters grow yet still stay true to their personalities and I think this gives testament to what a strong manga writer Gerry is. I’ll admit the story is not always very coherent but it is easy to understand and above all amusing. It sucks you in and gets you involved like a good manga should! Not to mention it’s often hilarious. I know tons of artists, indie and professional, who can’t get their point across or tell a decent joke but Gerry accomplishes both of those without wasting an effort.

To give you a taste of some of what makes Gerry’s writing so great: a quote from Gerry’s latest scribble comic:
“Hello there, wretched sinner! Good news!”
“We want to share the love of the Lord Jesus Christ with you! So what kind of sinner are you? Murderer? Thief? Harlot?”
“Whatever your past, God loves you! We love you!”
“I’m a catholic!”

Those are a couple of my favorite lines from Gerry’s yet unpublished scribble comic “Little Miss Martyr”. It was sent to me with his tNSoT comic. Though I’m pretty sure he’s not sending copies of this scribble comic out with every order of tNSoT. I’m quite sure he just sent it to me because I’m obviously super elite in this scene. Regardless, I’ll donate a short review so you’ll know what to expect when this comic finally does hit stands. or internet sites, where ever.

Little Miss Martyr is the latest installment of the tNsoT series, and I’m quite certain the greatest so far. Gerry doesn’t hold back with the comedy or the Christian values. If you’re not a fan of Christian values, don’t worry, he balances them well and the story and characters are enjoyable regardless. Speaking of characters, the new “Little Miss Martyr” is an enjoyable addition to the cast. I’m surprised that Gerry can keep popping out these unique persona’s and have them work well together without jumbling their personalities up! However, if I exclude Father Dominic, I notice that the group now has more females than males… I’m sorry, but I can’t help but wonder how Mr. Lee would handle a harem genre story ^.^

Sorry, that’s my fanboy coming out again.

It’s a scribble comic, so there’s nothing I really can judge too harshly. However I will say that the fonts can often be really hard to read. This is sadly true in all of Gerry’s scribble comics so far. Is it too much to ask for all the letters to have a small space between them? Not as big as the space between the words, mind you. Specific to this issue, however, the story does tend to drag a little in the second half when the characters are doing various “godly works”. It kinda sends you a mixed signal of “I get the point” and “what was the story about again?”. A couple of those scenes taken out would make the story a much nicer read. However, deciding which scenes the story could do without, I’m not going to attempt.

As I said, Gerry is my current favorite producer in the Christian comic scene. I say “producer” because writer or artist, I always end up loving Gerry’s work! For the same reasons I’ve already written, he’s transparent and talented, more so than even he knows. Not to mention he’s one of the kindest guys you would ever get the privilege to talk to.

Larry Blake’s art is a treat and good for variety, however, a Gerry Lee story with Gerry Lee artwork (scribble or otherwise) is just an all around win! I have a certain admiration for Gerry’s works, likely because it seems that he’s accomplished exactly what I hope for my own manga. He has a goal and a message and even though his skills might not be well polished, his feelings are more than enough when they come barreling out. Everything he has to offer comes out on that page clear and honest for everyone to see and make what they will of it.

Thank you for all the hard work Gerry. Please keep it up. I know you’ve got a lot more dying to come out!

Decisive Origin 2007 art collection

Hey,
Gilded Providence is on hiatus until I make some actual headway editing the first book. If waiting irritates you, I invite complaints.

In the mean time, I’d like to turn your attention over to another artist, Laurie Thomas from Decisive Origin.

I’ve recently received a copy of her 2007 artbook, “Blue Fire” and if you’re into independent artbooks, you should probably check it out. Decisive Origin has lots of free web-manga and galleries so you’ll have a pretty good idea of the kind of art that’s inside the book. On the downside, this art collection “book” is really more of a magazine flier, the paper is flimsy and textured but, hurray! The print quality is great. It’s short, but it’s sweet as the art is highly stylized with strong emotional tones. It gives you a good taste of the art of Laurie Thomas, but I sure hope the books of future years have a bit more meat to them.

There are a couple other purchasable manga available from decisive origin; “Songstress of the Beautiful Sun”, which makes a great addition to the artbook. I highly recommend purchasing them together. As well as “Intricate!”, a new manga available for pre-order. I have complete confidence that it’ll be equally wonderful!

Review: Stephen Tarpley’s Sheep Gate

I haven’t heard from Stephen Tarpley since I did The Dream for our little comic combo, but I just got Stephen’s Sheep Gate in the mail today and I had to throw a shout out to it. It is indie greatness. Everything one looks for in an indie comic, it’s got. Gritty over detailed art, a twisting storyline that keeps you in suspense, and especially, genuine originality.

The good:
It’s not what you’d expect. The story is engaging and unpredictable. I’m sure you’ve all seen christian “sheep” comics before. This is nothing like those. So don’t worry. I can’t say too much about the story because I don’t want to give away anything, but let’s summarize this issue with “outlawed sheep and flying buffalo”. I hope I didn’t spoil too much already.

Unfortunately this book is only a first issue. One of many, I’m sensing from Stephen’s after-word. The story is incomplete, but there is much to hope for. I look forward to reading more about what makes Sideburn tick, the meaning behind the reoccurring noose, the ultra-cool sheriff, and of course the buffalo. Sheep Gate is promising much from its first issue and based on the plot progress in the first 42 pages, I don’t expect to be disappointed.

The not-so-good:
Stephen’s art style is great and perfect for the story atmosphere. Sadly, however, it does have the typical amature production problem of being muddy and can be a bit difficult to read. That being said, it’s not the worse. Everything is legible and understandable. It just takes a bit more time to read through in some places.

The story telling has the same problem. There is a lot of energy and creativity in the paneling of Sheep Gate. Sometimes though, things get a bit out of place and the reading doesn’t go as smoothly as a reader would hope. Once again, this is not a wall to the story, merely uncomfortable footing. The story still reads well, you just have to pay a bit closer attention. Probably not an easy read for younger readers or people who may be just starting to get into comic books.

The number one quarrel would have to be the fact that this is a first issue. Sure a longer story is great, but according to Stephen, the first issue was started way back in 2000. That’s a little discouraging. However, I’m no stranger to long production times and I’m sure that with enough encouragement, Stephen will come through with more issues!

Unfortunately Stephen’s website is down and presumably out of date considering its URL. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, though. Sheep Gate can be purchased through christiancomics.net. It’s highly recommended for indie comic fans and has a gorgeous color cover by Kneon Transitt, something for everyone! So go eat up!