Week of 2/13/2024

Midae preps you for a backstory in The Shapes, I make a few major announcements, and review an urban fantasy comic this week.

The Shapes

Struck v. Struck 12-13

News

The Shapes #4

The Shapes #4 is finally out officially! You can buy it now on my online shop. Stay tuned for more updates.

St. Pete Zine Fest & Symposium

If you missed me during Tampa Zine Fest, no worries! I’m tabling today from 11 AM-3 PM at the St. Pete Zine Fest at SPC’s West Community Library. It’s free, and there'll be plenty of local creatives and programming for people of all ages to enjoy.

Tampa Zine Fest Overview

Tampa Zine Fest 2024 was a success! I arrived 20-30 minutes late due to traffic and spent another 15 minutes setting up, but when I was ready, everything went smoothly. Foot traffic was consistent, and I enjoyed getting to see the unique work all the vendors had to offer both old and new. Not to mention the venue Southern Brewery had amazing shading in their outdoor gardens and some darn good craft malts.

Thank you to everyone who came out to support the local creative community and stopped by my table.

Sammy the Critic

Murky Water Review

Murky Water is an urban fantasy story part of The City Between series of anthology webcomics by Kel McDonald. Set in an unnamed futuristic city with supernatural elements, we meet detective duo Maria Pimienta and Connor Burke, the only openly werewolf officer, both of whom work together to solve the murder of a man who drowned in his living room, seemingly due to magic. As the mystery progresses, more shades of gray are unveiled.

From the get-go, McDonald throws us into their world and characters without much context beforehand. While this fly-on-the-wall approach to character introduction may feel a tad abrupt, I think it’s an efficient way to quickly get the readers acquainted with the cast when you would rather jump straight to the action and bypass the expository formalities of spending the first act introducing the main cast. In the first few pages alone, we see Connor is the type of charismatic personality who thinks highly of himself and displays an oft facetious, teasing disposition while Connor is more down-to-earth and has a strong sense of justice. The “opposites attract” adage applies aptly here as we watch their conflicting demeanors play off each other.

That said, this storytelling approach did not translate as swimmingly in the settings department. Noticeably, throughout the comic, there’s a dearth of establishing shots to provide a general context of the environment the characters are inhabiting. The most insight we usually get is during mid-shots and full body shots, particularly the scenes containing minimal to no dialogue since it allows the reader to take in the atmosphere.

However, without an establishing panel to contextualize these settings, I never develop a robust frame of reference for the story’s futuristic elements. There’s even a scene where the lead duo are conversing during a commute which took a second or third read for me to realize they were on the subway and not the office.

The plot’s mystery suffers, meanwhile, from having too much to show and say with too little time. Pardon the pun, but the comic really does try broaching murky waters by showing the moral grayness of characters to explore complex themes such as systemic corruption and injustice. We view this depicted as Connor avoids acknowledging a werewolf’s possible involvement in the murder case and how he defends and conceals other werewolves’ criminal actions including ones that would be deemed deserving of prosecution due to werewolves’ historic experience with discrimination.

By itself, that sounds like a perfect theme to touch on, but within the story, it falls apart because the serious consequences of systemic racism aren’t portrayed. The most we get is from Jorge who’s afraid of telling his foster parents that he’s becoming a werewolf, but again, the actual stakes or even microaggression that come with living with that identity are never shown.

As the plot mystery elements culminate in the final act, the pace does pick up and becomes exciting which is helped by the use of varied angles that reveal the locales as a whole. By the this point, it felt like I was gaining better spatial awareness for the world itself. However, the ending, despite wrapping up the main conflict, leaves a lot of loose ends. Some, like Pimienta state of mind afterward, seem intentional, but others such as Jorge eventual fate don’t have a proper arc resolution. Since Murky Waters is part of a series, perhaps the other stories do or will address these aspects I’m critiquing. I know current ongoing story in The City Between series (which I am finding very engaging so far, mind you) Shards of Reflection revolves around a character only mentioned in passing in Murky Water.

Overall, as a stand-alone story, Murky Water does hook the reader in fast, featuring a strong cast alongside some decent art and action. Its lore ambiguity and thematic shortcomings hold it back from achieving its full potential. That said, I am looking forward to reading the previous The City Between installments and following the ongoing Shards of Reflection, which I do recommend checking out.

You can follow updates about Kel McDonald’s upcoming Kickstarter campaign for Murky Waters here, and read it for free along with their other comics on their website.