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When she axes you to do something, do it!
 (From The Longest Sojourn. Click on image to see full-sized image.)
When I started Tangents up as a review site, I was actively reading around 30 sites (and had another 20 that had stopped updating for one reason or another). I've always been resistant to reading new strips, claiming I didn't have the time to invest in them. Naturally that had to change once I started writing reviews. Things would get old fast if I kept reviewing the same 30 strips over and over again. So when I was posting on the Keenspace Help Forum, I noticed Ping Teo (aka Phalanx) and her link to The Longest Sojourn and clicked it on a whim.
(This also shows the power of a well-designed banner. While I feel the best banners help tell some of what the comic is about, showing off the art and a character or two (or setting) also will draw people in. Over 80% of the webcomics I've started reading in the past two months have been because of interesting banners. (I say 80% because The Lazy Grind Contest has 12 other comics in it that I'd not read before, and while I've lacked interest in a couple of them, the rest have started me reading. Without banners.))
I must admit that TLS didn't initially perk my interest. One of the notes under the comics about Daenon led me to believe initially that this was going to be a Diablo II clone. But there was something about TLS that kept me reading, and things picked up after a bit. This wasn't a Diablo clone, or a ripoff of any other story.
TLS promises to be an epic story. Further, the more I read, the more I grew to enjoy the world that was growing around our three heroes. It didn't matter that I didn't like Thorne's character (he was entirely too nihilistic and whiny for me to like), and that the other two seemed to lack chemistry. They started to grow on me.
The artwork is one of the big draws for me here. While the first two chapters were in black and white line art, the third chapter starts the use of sepia tones, which adds to the character of the comic, giving it more of an archaic tone. What's more, I've grown interested in both Jaeger and Daenon (much less in Thorne, who seems aptly named) and want to know more about these two characters.
Really, that's needed for any comic. If you don't care about the characters, you have little reason to return. Fortunately, despite a slow start, The Longest Sojourn succeeds in that, and gives this epic story something to care about besides plot.
Robert A. Howard
------------------------- Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.
 (From Ozy and Millie. Click on image to see full-sized no-pattern baldness.)
Sorry, had to quote Mel Brooks for today's Ozy and Millie.
We've had a yearly tradition of Ozy losing his hair each year, due to a family curse. It didn't matter that his draconic father adopted him, or that Dragons don't have fur so losing all their hair once a year doesn't matter. Instead, in the strange arcane nature of comedic curses, Ozy was destined to lose his fur once a year.
Usually this curse manifested because of Millie. I think she's shaved him, Naired him, and pretty much been the culprit for Ozy's yearly shedding since the curse first was mentioned. But this year things were going to be different. This year Millie was going to make sure that Ozy didn't lose his fur.
Naturally, the law of comedic necessity lent us to a hair-loss incident. But it wasn't Ozy this time. Instead, it was Millie.
There's something disturbing about seeing Millie standing there shorn of fur. Of course, considering all the times she's been responsible for Ozy looking like a chihuahua, turn-about is fair play, and is the reason why this fur-loss comic is so funny.
It'll be interesting to see how long it takes for Millie to regrow her ponytail. I see several possible storylines dealing with Millie's baldness, and even just her appearing the next day with her fur back and a blithe "my hair grows fast" explanation. Still, Millie has remained fairly static for years. It would be fun to see her character design change... or even just have it take a couple months before her hair is long again.
As for the curse... maybe it struck Millie because her mom is dating Ozy's dad? Either that or those plastic bubbles are good at deflecting yearly curses...
Robert A. Howard
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