08-07-07

The Trouble with Locks
I suppose I should come right out and admit straight off that I am one of the few comics reviewers who has absolutely no opinion whatsoever on furry comics as a genre.  Anthropomorphism has been with us since Aesop and I see no reason to expect it to go away because someone got the willies watch the "Yiffing" episode of CSI.  I have my genre prejudices, I'll admit, but for the most part what I care about is the quality of the art and the writing.  So, while you'll see "furries" in the "Caveats" line on occasion, rest assured that this does not affect the finally star rating of a comic.

Codename: Hunter, by Darcy and Matt Sowers, is a furry comic.  It's also a "magic in the real world" comic, and a "secret agent" comic, but what I gather most people notice first is that it stars a cast of anthropomorphic animals.  I hope  that the next thing they notice is that they're very well-drawn anthropomorphic animals.  It would be hard to pinpoint a single unifying influence on Darcy Sowers's character art, but if I was pressed to do so, I'd say, her characters are what Dangermouse would have looked like if that series had been produced in a Disney studio instead of a basement at BBC.  Maybe.  Some elements of her facial art also bear a passing resemblance to Tom & Jerry cartoons (the good ones, from when MGM was producing them, not the crappy Hanna-Barbera ones).  Sort of. 

Honestly, Sowers's style is very much her own, and any attempt to seek out her influences is likely to fall into pointlessness when faced with that simple fact.  Sowers takes possession of every page, every line.  That, in itself is worthy of notice, if for no other reason than that it is a risky way for an artist to proceed.  Her art and attempts don't always succeed.   One page, in particular has stuck with me:  It's a crane shot of a busy London street, but the perspective is just a tad off, and things look flattened the way a Medieval tapestry looks flattened.  There are other points where she doesn't quite pull it off, but they're very minor, and only noticeable if you look for them.  Her coloring is flawless, especially since she moved to Prismacolor markers.

A note must here be made on the subject of color.  The Sowerses recently moved their color comics behind a subscription wall (or a donation area, or whatever you want to call it).  Unlike other comics, which will not get a link or even a name here, this does not hurt the quality of the "free" comics at all.  Either Sowers's coloring technique provides enough greyscale variation on its own, or the method they use for removing the color is efficient enough that the greyscale comics are easily as beautiful as the color ones.

Of course Sowers's art would be meaningless if it weren't attached to a good story.  This is where Sowers's new husband, Matt Sowers comes in.  Codename: Hunter is...hmm...well, it's hard to describe.  It begins with the Battle of Hastings, makes a layover in the Battle of Britain, then moves on to it's current position in the modern world, all without missing a beat or causing any head-scratching.  The basic premise is that, after Hastings, William the Conqueror, nervous about his iffy claim to English Throne, commissions the Abbot of Westminster to create a lock to block the magic that had previously existed in the world (or, more precisely, Great Britain).  The Abbot agrees, and, after years of research, he and his monks install a specially-designed stained-glass window into the Abbey.  The lock works, magic is shut out, and all proceeds normally.  Until the Blitz.  During a bombing run, several of the stained-glass windows in Westminster Abbey are destroyed, including the one that had served as a lock for the past 800 years.  Now all sorts of magical creatures and abilities have started leaking out.  Once MI:5 has determined that this "magic leak" is real, and not the product of some hallucinatory agent introduced by the Germans, the Director acts by creating a new division to investigate and contain the effects of the broken lock.  Later, under the authority of the Princess of Wales, this division is created as its own governmental department.

Simple, right?  Trust me when I say it makes a lot more sense when you read it than when I summarize it.  And it's worth a read.  The story has it's slow moments and a few painfully predictable moments, and the artwork can be iffy, but it's solid.  And that's more than you can say about a lot of webcomics, furry or not.

Codename: Hunter by Darby and Matt Sowers
Updates:  MWF
Caveats:  Inconsistent quality, greyscale, furries
Rating: