Bryn Colvin and Tom Brown’s Tales From the Copper Age takes place in the town of Hopeless, Maine, where the residents find life a little darker and more dangerous with every passing day. This work swept me in from the very beginning. I still can’t say why. It’s not just that it takes place in Maine, though it does bring back wistful memories of childhood (it was an atypical childhood). And it’s not just Bryn’s art and Tom’s story, though the former is haunting and the latter superb.
Somehow, Tales From the Copper Age seems like more than just a webcomic. Comics tell a story. Bryn and Tom’s work seems like a glimpse into another world. Some of this comes from the details, which can be uncanny. Two characters walk up a path. Small creatures with tentacles hang from the trees. But the characters ignore them, as if this was just an ordinary part of their world. “What is going on?” you wonder. The answers, when they arrive, only lead to more questions. Then there’s the story, which I urge you to discover yourselves. Finally there is the background, which is revealed in hints within the tale and in and the accompanying newspaper, The Hopeless Vendetta.
These hints form pieces of a puzzle whose extent remains a mystery. Who were Salamandra’s parents? What is the origin and nature of her powers? Why was Annamarie, who seems to have powers of her own, willing to release her to the orphanage? Why are there so many orphans? Who is the Blind Fisherman, and how does he fit into this tale? How did the town of Hopeless, Maine, get cut off from the rest of the world? Why did its inhabitants seem more annoyed than alarmed when the dead left their graves? What is it with these demons? And why are small creatures with tentacles hanging from the trees?
I hope someday to learn the answers. So I encourage you all to check out Bryn and Tom’s work, tell your friends about it, and bring in more readers until those answers arrive. Detail from Personal Demons, page 21
This is an example of what I call a “high art” webcomic, where every panel is painstakingly detailed and exquisitely colored. Others I like are “Cealdian” and “Girl Genius”. The story is a little dark and dreary for my taste, but I’ll follow it just to admire the masterful play of artwork and atmosphere. Thanks for the find!
‘Girl Genius’ is, of course, the standard by which all other works are measured. Indeed, I believe it’s the basis for a system of measurement: 1 GG = the quality of a work by Phil Foglio. Artists are doing well if they can achieve values in the milli-GG range, and most work ranks down in the micro-GG level. The Infamous Green Marine scored negative values.
I’d stumbled upon ‘Cealdian’, failed to save a link (members of my tribe are not noted for their wisdom or foresight), and I’ve been trying to find it again for quite some time. Thanks for reminding me of the name! I have a lot of catching up to do, after which it may well get added to my To Review list.
Dreary…us? Heaven forfend!
“Dreary…us?”
Um…YEAH! Lord, it’s “The Shining”-by-the-effing-SEA, LOL!
Not that that’s a bad thing necessarily. I LOVED “The Shining”…once! Everybody has their dark side, and it’s fun to explore it sometimes, especially when we’re young and angsty. I also liked “Ladykillers”, with the scenes on the bridge. If that river wasn’t meant to symbolize the Styx, I totally misread the director’s intention! And I’m still a huge fan of Batman, both the comic and the movies, not the least because of its brooding, gothic atmosphere.
But at this point, I’ve had a pretty long, dark and dreary life of my own, and I don’t care to visit there much any more. But I meant what I said about your skill with the whole mysterious world and deepening plot, and I wholeheartedly support and encourage you.
I’m going to go ahead and admit I discovered Phil Foglio through his “XXXenophile” series. I was so amazed by his artwork, I sometimes forgot it was, ah… “mature”. Then I was chatting with a fellow comic fan who told me about Phil’s non-porn work, and I was hooked. I’ve saved every page of GG from the beginning, and I’ve read through them all three times now. I have the Heterodyne Coffee logo on a shirt AND a coffee mug! One of very few webcomics for which I have swag, btw.
Meanwhile, Paul, I know you are indulging in self-depreciating humor, but your own illustrations are perfectly good and appropriate to your type of story, and your writing is great! We all have different strengths and weaknesses, and you have plenty of followers of your own.
Okay, shutting up…
One thing that strike me most about Copper Age — and also Hopeless Vendetta — is that the characters never give up. Salamandra in particular seems to have a rather tough row to hoe. (’Mother wants to drink me’? ‘It’s a demon. It must be one of father’s’? Huh? Say what?) But she keeps plugging away. Even the ordinary islanders seem to face their situation with a mixture of stoicism and fortitude I cannot but envy. I find this strangely uplifting. Would that I could always have managed the same
But how the heck DO you spell ’stoicism’? I can never get that right. S… T… O… aargh… phooey…
Thanks for the comment about my own illustrations, Kona! I appreciate it! I lost a lot over the years. To see just how much, compare
‘How Ejection Pods Work’
http://paulgazis.com/EightWorlds/TalesOfTheEightWorlds_004.htm
which I whipped off in less than an hour back in 1982, with… well… the Infamous Green Marine. The former has details, perspective, drama, action. You can almost watch that ship break up and feel that poor starcrew’s sweat. I find myself wondering if it was drawn by an entirely different person… and perhaps it was. But it seems to be coming back, slowly. And this business of striving to regain what was lost is uplifting too.
Impressive artwork indeed! I have also lost many of the skills of my youth. I was not a bad artist myself, as well as a guitarist and vocalist. My writing doesn’t flow as easily as it once did, and my wits are no longer quick. Just as I finally came to know everything, I discovered I was forgetting everything! I fixed up a friend’s bike the other day, and when I went to try it out, I discovered I’d forgotten how to RIDE A BICYCLE! I guess the only thing I have really improved is inner peace and wisdom. Too late to do me much good, I’m afraid, but better than nothing.
I have to admit I hadn’t checked out your “Eight Worlds” site before. One of the things that I liked about “Blade Runner” and the first “Star Wars” was the gritty reality, the reminder that everything in the future will not be all glass and chrome like conventional Sci-Fi indicated. It’s jarring to think that products not even dreamed of yet will some day be old and scruffy, but on reflection, it’s inevitable. Your “Eight Worlds” seems to also address that reality.
Double posting, I know, but I need to correct myself on something.
When I said “Tales From the Copper Age” was “dreary”, I had another definition of the word in mind. I can’t say now just where that definition might be found outside my own desiccated imagination, since the only one I can find elsewhere relates to “dull, boring, monotonous, tedious, lifeless, lackluster…” oh crap! It’s ANYTHING but that! I guess the mood I was going for was a kind of fearful melancholy, which “dark” already describes.
That damned raven made me do it! Curse you, Poe!
One of my favorite ‘gritty reality’ SF films is still John Carpenter’s ‘Dark Star’ — arguably the predecessor to ‘Alien’. The ship looks like a college dorm room, and has clearly been maintained to approximately the same standards. The film also contains one of my all-time favorite lines:
“Hey, my jet pack’s busted! Oh man.”
The subconscious mind is strange thing, and it may be no accident that Eight World ships have roughly the same lifting-body shape as the ‘Dark Star’….