Thank Goodness for Herald Owlett Volume 2

(Herald Owlett comes packaged inside a plain envelope decorated with a sticker. Above is the envelope, on the left, and the covr of the actual comic, on the right.)

By Nikki Stu
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I’m not sure if I’ve ever read another comic that uses the style of video games in the same way as Herald Owlett. The boss (bad guy) is too huge and impossible to defeat? Well you clearly have to run around the level (setting) and destroy all of its power generators. Each one is vulnerable to a specific type of attack! The video game comparisons don’t end there, as there are also super moves, arms exploding into pixels, and other awesome stuff.

None of that is meant as a criticism of Herald Owlett, but rather a compliment. It’s done with such style that I don’t care that the plot is just an excuse for a fight and could have been lifted from any number of video games. I mean, I love video games!

The action is fun, the character designs are good (flower fairies!), and there’s clearly a bunch of back story with the characters (though part of me feels I will only ever discover this by reading the non-existant instruction manual). Owlett is a forest wizard/bushwatcher, his enemy Bufu (some sort of evil elf-monster thing) has hired a much bigger monster to kill him. They fight! Yeah!

Stu’s art style is really fun. While all of the characters that appear are monsters (of some kind or another), they’re never really scary or anything. The main monster appears as a giant black blotch on the background, and its look remind me of some of the characters from Samurai Jack.

Herald Owlett is pretty cool looking too: with five eyes asymmetrically laid out on his face, solar panels, and bizarre antlers. You’re not really sure what sort of creature he’s supposed to be until Stu reveals in the back of the book that he’s “a mixture of bird, mammal, reptile and insect, with a dash of plant”. This might just mean that Stu can give Owlett any power the story demands, but I thought it was pretty cute.

The design of the characters makes me really want to play a Herald Owlett video game. I’d love to see a 3-D, cel shaded version of the giant monster Owlett is fighting in this comic.

There are occasional panels where I’m not really sure what’s happening, but it’s not a major problem. I’m also really happy to see that Stu has started hand lettering this, as the computer fonts used in volume one where one of my only complaints. Stu’s told me she’s busy working away on volume three, and I’m looking forward to reading it when it comes out.

Now back to listening to the music from Kirby Super Star.

Thank Goodness for Herald Owlett Volume 1

By Nikki Stu
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I suppose it’s possible you could read one of Nikki Stu’s comics and not pick up on the video game references. The experience points awarding for defeating bad guys, the super moves, and the fact that it’s basically just one fight scene all make it seem kind of obvious to me (though I suppose Stu might just have watched a lot of Dragon Ball Z). But I like video games, and I like comic books inspired by video games (not necessarily ones based on video games, though I was excited to find a couple of issues of the old Super Mario Brothers comics a while ago) so none of those points count as negatives for me.

Here Stu introduces Herald Owlett, a weird antlered creature who has entirely too many eyes for me to believe he is actually an owl. Herald is a bushwatcher, though exactly what that is isn’t really explained. As he is fighting monsters that are damaging trees I assume he is some sort of nature guardian/ranger thing. But that is beside the point, because these are awesome monsters! Gigantic black beasts (summoned by some weird little goblin creature Herald has apparently dealt with before) that seem to change and flow as the battle progresses, gaining tentacles, eyes, and other body parts as needed. Herald clearly has no chance.

And just because the comic is basically all a fight scene really doesn’t bother me. I like Stu’s designs, the dialogue can be pretty funny (“I don’t want to be eaten, not today!”), and I’m given enough hints about a bigger plot that I’m curious about what happens next. The cliffhanger ending doesn’t hurt either.

My only complaints are that a lot of the computer lettering is kind of awful looking (letter it all by hand, the bits that already are look better!) and that some of the backgrounds (or rather the lack of backgrounds) make it kind of confusing to figure out what’s going on and where the characters are (he’s inside the tree?). I know that more recent comics Stu has done (such as her contribution to the Songbird/Birdsong anthology) have much better lettering, so I’m looking forward to reading future volumes of Herald Owlett and hoping they’ll have the same improvements.

And apparently Failboat press are in the process of putting out a second Songbird/Birdsong anthology, but need to sell more of the first volume to get the funds to pay for the printing of the second one. It is an awesome anthology (I think I’ve given positive reviews to pretty much everyone who contributed) and the physical object is really nice. You should go and buy it right now.

Bomblizzard Vol 1

I got this from a girl (Nikki Stu) who’s done some pretty fantastic video game inspired collage art (one of her pieces is in a book of Darkstalkers artwork put out by Udon), but I was surprised to discover that it also has comics by Isy Morgenmuffel and Steve Larder (Rumlad)! I didn’t expect to see comics from some punk rock activisty people in the same book as video game people. (It turns out Steve went to school with Nikki).

The theme of this issue is winter, and there’s some pretty neat stuff in here. Isy’s comic is about a boat trip to the Canary Islands (and then returning home to be lonely in dreary Britain). Isy’s comics are really good, even if her panel to panel story telling is sometimes a bit iffy. (I’m of the belief that if you need arrows to tell the reader what panel to read next you’re not laying out your pages properly. Though since I haven’t made any comics at all, what do I know?)

Nikki’s comic is about a weird owl creature hunting some magical winter spirits. I really liked the way the winter spirits were drawn, but the owl creature has a pretty complicated design that is a bit hard to understand in black and white. I’d love to see a colour version of it though.

Steve’s bit is less a comic and more illustrated text, though admittedly Steve is never really big on drawing things like panel borders to begin with. It’s about him going to Austria to visit a friend and being incredibly cold. And yes Steve, people from actual cold countries do laugh at the UK’s inability to deal with winter.

Nich Angell’s comic was a cute one about people attacking a weather satellite to make proper winter weather actually happen. I think Nich’s art is also very video game influenced, and it’ll be interested to see how his style evolves as he grows as an artist.

There’re a number of other comics and pieces of art in here, and the “worst” one is still pretty good. I can’t wait until the next issue.



(Art from Nikki Stu's comic.)