quarta-feira, 15 de julho de 2020

Garg's 2020 Furry Webcomic Review

I am a furry! That should come at no surprise, and if it does to you, you might wanna see a doctor about that. So! I love furry webcomics. I’m not a comic book geek, I don’t like comic books in general or even webcomics in general, but I do have a thing for and enjoy furry webcomics - when they’re good, or at least have more good than bad. This is basically a list of webcomics I’ve read all the way through, at least up until their current day point for those that are still ongoing, and my opinions on them and why I have these opinions.
Some of these are more well known than others, but I feel they all deserve the same amount of time and attention while also not skipping the more well known ones. Just because they’re well known doesn’t mean everyone knows them, and I hope this.. thing can help newcomers to the fandom get into the webcomic side of it. And believe me, it’s a very, very content rich side of it.
I suggest, no, I urge you not to judge *any* of these comics purely by their visuals. Some of these are absolutely stunning but have badly written stories, some of these have butt-ugly visuals but a gripping and surprising story. Some of them have visuals and writing to match. I.S.O for example is a splendid comic which most people I’ve recommended it to stopped reading after seeing the first page just because of the visuals, despite being one of, if not THE best comic in this list. So please keep an open mind, and an open heart.

 Edit: So I decided to draw at least one character of each comic. I'll add the images as I draw 'em. Sorry for the eyesore~

'Kade', like arcade. Very punny.
Savestate
Savestate is a furry webcomic about a brother and a sister that inherit an estate: the Sav estate, obviously named by them. They’re both 90s kids with a obsession in games and game culture, especially retro games. It doesn’t have that many pages as of writing this, so it’s an easy one to binge if you want to do so.
The characters all have distinct personalities and physical characteristics based on their species. The lizard prefers summer while the dogs prefer winter, stuff like that. There’s plenty of comedy relating to videogames and general nerd culture as well as a few bites at internet culture in general.
It’s more of a character driven story than a plot driven one but there is a chronological order to events and events always end up having consequences, be they in just a passing remark or a strip exploring the consequences of a past one, something seldom seen in slice of life webcomics like this one.
The art is actually really great right off the bat and maintains that all throughout, though a slight improvement in perspective and consistency can definitely be perceived about halfway through it.
I recommend you give it a read, IF you are or were into gaming between the 90s and nowadays. Otherwise a lot of the jokes *will* fly over your head and most of the fun in it will be lost, leading to a rather poor reading experience. Speaking of experiences..
Catherine,  or 'Cat'. *Very* clever
Furry Experience
Mormons, mormons everywhere. Furry Experience is a comic about living in Utah and their, well, experiences in the state using anthropomorphic animals as a part of character design in a mostly realistic world. Like most webcomics, the artstyle at the very start of the comic is a bit.. odd, but gets a lot better as it goes on. And I mean, a lot better.
The plot centers around three roommates just going about with their lives, with lots of comedy in between drama. I recommend either checking the comic out yourself right now or reading Corbeau’s write-up on the comic in the website ‘Furstarter’. There’s a link to the article in Furry Experience’s wikifur page for those interested. Oh, and if you find dead links leading to the comic itself, it’s because they’ve changed URLs more than once now.
The comic hasn’t seen a new page since January of this year, but it shouldn’t take much time before it picks back up. And besides, it has more than 600 pages already. That’s a back catalog if I’ve ever seen one.
In conclusion, it’s a well-made, long running, slice of life comic with regional and non-regional comedy and likeable characters. I highly recommend it.
Sunset Marauder
Is a comic with lots of action about the least inconspicuous bunch of misfits trying to avoid the cops. The art is weird, and the dialogue can and does go on for far too long sometimes, but the plot, the characters and the main conflict of the story are gripping enough to hold it all together.
It seems to be on an unannounced hiatus as the creator stopped uploading pages a few months ago, but that's something almost all the comics in this list have in common. Whether it’ll be back or not is completely unknown to me but I, for one, hope it isn’t discontinued for any given reason.
The universe it's set in feels a tad uninspired or at the very least underdeveloped most of the time, with characters going from place to place without a terribly good sense of cardinality or location. The comic works regardless, but it should be noted in case that's important to you in a story.
The plot seems to avoid conveniences and contrivances at pretty much every turn - everything makes logical sense and the characters aren’t stupid for the sake of the plot going on. It gives it much more of a feeling that when the characters are at risk, they really are at risk, and the only thing to save them is their brain and braun.
I recommend giving it a try. The violence and profanity are minor and the story is fairly tense all throughout, especially with the villains that are actually smart and heros that are even smarter. Competent, smart and enjoyable is the best way to put this one.


Space Pawdyssey
Despite the incredibly cringy and unoriginal name, this comic is surprisingly quite good.
The characters are all distinct from one another, the tone of the story and personality of characters is established right off the bat, and everything gets fleshed out well enough as time goes on, from plot to character.
There are a couple of instances where characters are saved by other characters in contrived ways, but it doesn't get in the way of the plot that much, and when it happens, it's usually as quick as a single panel.
Similarly quick, however, is the resolution of conflict between characters. Where there's a fight, it never lasts beyond the fifth page after to the one it got introduced in, which can make for an unsatisfying story if the plot doesn't strike your fancy.
The art style is simple but pleasing to the eye, and there are no major changes in style unlike in a comic like Kitfox Comics, which makes for a very consistent experience. Of course, this also means that if you don't like the style, there isn't really any hope in it changing later on, for better or for worse.
Definitely a recommendation on my part, this one. The main plot and the chemistry between the characters is possibly my favourite aspect of it, though the comedy also gets a chuckle or two out of me every once in a while.

Forest Hill
Forest Hill is a mature furry slice of life webcomic about a group of kids in a town called.. Forest Hill, and deals with several very sensitive and touchy subjects in a realistic and impartial manner.
The comic's art starts out really bad, and the dialogue initially feels like it was written by a teenager, but as it goes on the art and writing rapidly improves as we're presented the world, our world, not as we'd like it to be, but how it really, sadly, is. Life does indeed happen, and life tends to not be pretty.
That’s not to say that it's a downer comic, though - just like life, things get better. Even when it all just seems completely hopeless, there’s always a glimmer of hope, just waiting for you to reach for it and grasp it. You just have to hang on and hold on for as long as you can and not let the bad things in life destroy you.
Whether or not I recommend it depends a ton on who you are and how sensitive you are. You absolutely need a strong backbone in order to read through, and especially watch some of the stuff that happens in the comic, as it is plenty graphic and doesn't pull *any* punches. In terms of overall, objective artistic quality it's a 10 out of 10. The art isn't perfect and the dialogue can be a little weird but the intent and execution of certain concepts and themes is nothing if not highly ambitious and well executed.
TwoKinds
TwoKinds is a weird comic about an amnesiac anime bro who gets all the furry ladies. Okay, seriously now, it's a really good comic with time well distributed between character development, plot, side plot and worldbuilding, and it has some extremely emotional arcs along the way.
The art starts out really bad but rather seamlessly evolves into some top notch stuff, with professionally done shading and linework. The characters all have a multilayered personality, with few exceptions, and the world is consistent with itself, which is a rare sight in such a long running series. It should be noted the comic has plenty of fan service, both good and bad, but it's very light stuff and mostly stays out of the way of the story. Mostly.
A lot of people criticise the comic for being terrible, but I personally don’t see it. It might and probably does have to do with how it starts and how it goes on for the first couple of years, but it’s one of the comics where if you stick around and have patience, you get to some really, really cool stuff that I won’t spoil. It must be noted that the comic is very full of clichés and tropes, like the main character having amnesia but somehow remembering everything about language and behaviour while also remembering things right on time for some drama. Still, if you can look past these issues, it's a really good read.
In short, it's a good comic, and a good example of a gripping one with a gradually evolving art style. It's still ongoing to this day and doesn't look like it's anywhere close to be finished yet. You should read it. Also, it's made by Markiplier's brother. Just thought I'd mention that. Smiley fac-
Kitfox Comics
Kitfox Comics is a series about a small group of ragtag acquaintances and the conflict going on around them, and how it affects them whether they're involved and or want to be involved or not.
The art style changes from time to time, which can cause confusion in 'who's who' in the uncoloured sections, but holds up most of the time, and gets especially nice after the first couple of pages. There are a few lineless parts, some shaded parts, but, unlike a comic I’ll soon talk about called Beyond the Western Deeps, it’s all in that same style of lineart.
The characters are likeable and interesting to follow around and the plot is engaging and sometimes heart aching, with scenes of action and worldbuilding peppered by some light comedy. Nothing is as it first seems, including the world and its conflict, and nothing is black and white. Not entirely, at least. And while the comic does touch on some themes like discrimination, it’s not a focal point of the comic, so don’t go in expecting some grand political statement. In fact, don’t go into any of these for that. You have Tumblr and Twitter for that.
Despite also being in hiatus for the vast majority of 2020, it's a really good comic and I highly, highly recommend it.
Housepets!
Animais de estimação, by Rick Griffin! This comic is, pardon my French, fucking fantastic. The characters, despite being many, which tends to lead to the “who the fluff are you” effect, are all memorable in their own little ways, and all have relevance to the main overarching plot, which I won't comment on beyond that it's legitimately the goodest shit.
The art starts out a bit weird and flat looking but progresses into a stylish and eye-pleasing style that Rick also uses in his other work. The "imaginate" segments, where the characters play pretend and parody famous plays, books and films, are definitely a low point if you're not familiar with the original material, but they're few and far between, even if they do tend to drag on for far, far too long sometimes.
The same goes for the segments of one of the main character’s fictional comic book, a superman parody, which range from inoffensive to chuckle inducing to 'please just end it already so I can get back to the good doggies and cattos'. The comedy is similarly hit or miss, buy mostly hit as time goes on.
With really good characters, plots, and even worldbuilding, there isn't much to say about Housepets other than what has been said - it's a fantastic comic and you should be reading it right now. It’s updated three times every week which also makes it the most active comic series in this list.
College Catastrophe, Nine To Nine, and Swords and Sausages
CC is one of my favourite comics and is about a lion called Jan as he arrives at a new place to study at a college. The comic is a comedy slice of life drama and follows Jan as well as a charismatic cast of supporting characters, notably Wolfram, as they all go through the motions and do a "little" more beside that.
The writing is consistent and nothing that happens as a side plot feels like a side plot. Being a character driven comedy, that's not quite hard to imagine.
The story does have its canonical ending but is continued in Tiger Knight's sequel comic, Nine to Nine, which is still ongoing to this day and has very similar theming. The artwork is stylish, cute and simple. It has been a bit of a while since I read CC, but if there's anything that stuck to me it was the sadness I felt saying goodbye to the characters at the end. Until I found out that Nine to Nine is a sequel to it, that is.
Should be obvious by now that I highly recommend it. It's not brilliant or anything but it's one of the most solid comedy furcomics out there and the style alone is worth checking it out for.
Nine to Nine is similarly great, but it does lack the college dorm humor that made for some of the best strips and arcs in CC. Still, the new characters introduced are fun to read about, and the less-than-PG feel of the comic sells well the idea that they've grown up a little since CC, while still being the same characters with the same personalities. Big recommend.
Swords and Sausages is, in my opinion, the weaker of the three TK comics. It's about Tor and Silver, two thieving and double crossing scoundrels in a fantasy setting doing what you'd expect such a pair to do.
The world is either underdeveloped or underutilised - not exactly sure which. There's a lot of NSFW comedy this time around, and a good bit of the comedy comes from Silver repeatedly using her body to get what she wants. The whole thing is heavily implied at times to be a DnD session between Jan and.. err, Squeak girl. That stuff is really fun and my favourite part about the comic. I still recommend at least giving it a try if you happen to end up enjoying Jan's other comics, as there is that same humor mixed in with the crass stuff. Just don't be surprised if you see some fox boobs along the way.
In conclusion, I recommend all of Jan's comics, especially College Catastrophe and Nine to Nine. SnS isn't bad but it's just not for me, so if you think it sounds interesting, do give it a try.
Homeworld
Homeworld is a comic about a military dog dude that gets into trouble with his boss after acting against orders. It's currently on hold while the creator cools off from working on it nonstop for over a year, and so far there aren't many pages. But the ones that are there show a lot of promise in its future.
The art style is very distinctive and the lighting and environments are top notch. The story has a bit of a feeling like when you go watch TV and end up watching a mid season episode from a show you've never heard of, where it seems like you've been dropped into a situation without proper context and just expected to figure it out. Because of that, the opening few pages aren't the strongest, but they do kick off the primary plot, so it's really no big deal.
The worldbuilding so far presents an interesting setting (or settings) and gets you into the experience very easily. You really do get a feel that the places the characters go to and come from are actual places, that they travel to and fro. It’s really outstandingly well done in that regard.
I wish there was more to say about this comic but I'm afraid that's all I can say about it so far. We'll have to see in the future whether or not any of the currently established and set up story elements pay off or if the story just falls flat completely when it comes to resolving the conflict. I recommend keeping an eye on it at least if you're into conspiracies and shooty shooties.
The Sprawl
The Sprawl is a violent and nihilistic comic about a planet with terrible secrets buried beneath it. I actually had really, really high hopes for this one. I found it as a comment under a post from a person asking for furry webcomic suggestions. The person that suggested it said it was gritty, violent, and not for the faint of heart. Caught my interest immediately, and the cover art and first couple of pages did not disappoint, at all. Far from it. It's got stunning artwork and great dialogue and characterization.. both of which are almost nullified by a complete disregard for the life of characters in the cast.

Each chapter you follow a different group of people, and the chapters are labelled as logs, like they're reports of incidents as they happened. So it's like you're reading or watching logs from different people and trying to piece it together, a bit like Half-Life 1 and its expansions, where you only get a part of the story by following a single person and need more perspectives to know what all went down.
The first chapter really gets you into the world and gives you a good feel for how things work. Then the violence happens and leaves you in shock, but understanding something vital: this world isn’t just unforgiving - it’s outright malicious. And that’s really, really well done and something I’m personally really interested in. So I was very eager to read on.
However, by the third log, it all just gets a bit confusing and the story loses its intended effect. The violence loses its shock value by the 10th adjacent or main character killed off by the plot and makes for a very unsatisfying comic to read when you know next to nothing and anyone that gets close to knowing just dies. The office politics later on are just bad, it tries to be both worldbuilding and plot and just ends up being something I'm sick of hearing about. It also has lots, and I mean lots of gratuitous breasts, mostly female, all of which change size between panels, sometimes within a single page.
If you want fan service and gore coupled with some fantastic lighting and character design, go right ahead. But story wise and just in general overall, I have to say I sadly do not recommend The Sprawl. At least, not for now. Do keep in mind all these comics, with few exceptions, *are* ongoing and can get better or worse as time goes on. That’s the magic with webcomics. They keep going no matter what and they tend to get better rather than worse. So here’s hoping The Sprawl’s story ends up paying off by the end of it.
Chronicles of Atlum: Cross
Chronicles of Atlum is an exceedingly short comic that falls just short of greatness precisely due to being as short as it is. Right at the start of the story you get introduced to the protagonist and the world as well as the main conflict in the plot. However, after the protagonist is forced into changing personality, we get a huge timeskip to when he's already changed and apt. It's incredibly jarring and undermines the huge potential for character growth and development in such a situation. Then it all ends rather abruptly and you're left feeling like you skipped chapters on the way there. Basically, it's a great story that gets undermined by being just utterly rushed into completion, and it's honestly really, really sad.
The artwork is amazing. Lighting is never flat, the characters have really expressive faces and designs, and all have different archetypes they fit. It really is an extremely competent work of art, overall.
So, do I recommend it? Honestly? I don't know. Compared to the others on this list, it's one of the weaker ones for sure. But I'd say at least give it a try. It might be short, and rushed, but if you read one, two pages a day, that just might make it a whole lot more enjoyable. Just don’t binge it, for your own good.
I.S.O.
ISO is a, wait for it, yes, a furry webcomic about a bad boy tiger moving to a new place in order to study at a college, only for his plans and goals to be disrupted by the people around him, in a way more positive than he initially perceives. It's a fantastic comic about self acceptance and empathy, and it does have a canonical end, even if it got an admittedly far more comedic sequel that seems to have been sadly discontinued by the comic creator.
The art takes some getting used to, but the page layouts, use of perspective and use of negative space more than make up for it. Right off the bat you can tell that this comic isn't just gonna go with the usual square panels - it wants to be creative, and I'm happy to say it's successful. The creative panel layouts never get in the way of readability and instead serve only to enhance it, with very few exceptions.
The plot has plenty of twists and turns and the characters are all fantastically multidimensional and likable, the character arcs are genuinely better than the stuff found in most movies or games of late, it's just really, really good. The only downside to the comic is the resolution of the pages, as it is a fairly old comic by now, but it is, nonetheless, a great experience and I highly recommend it.
Honestly, there isn't much more I can say without spoiling it. But what I can say is that it's one of if not my favourite webcomic ever, and damn near perfect.
Freefall
Okay, I'm not quite sure whether or not Freefall can be considered a furry webcomic, but since it has at least one dog girl, I'd say it counts. Freefall is very long running, but the artstyle has a consistent quality to it right off the bat. And it is very, very good, and very unique, too. It's the kind of thing you'd expect to come out of a 90s Saturday morning cartoon, and it fits the story and characters perfectly. The character designs are the biggest strongpoint, visually, Sam being my absolute favourite out of the cast.
The story follows Sam and Helix, Sam being a tentacle alien in a space suit and Helix being a spherical and often times stupid robot. The both of them go around, taking advantage of others while keeping what may or may not be a facade of naivety, in their hopes to get their spaceship in working order. It's not a very plot driven story, rather a character driven one, but there's almost always an overarching plot going on and progressing someway in every panel. The comedy is always on point, too - not the kind to make you 'laugh out loud', but rather the kind that gets a chuckle or two out of you, or at the very least amuses you.
The comic is mostly black and white up until a certain point where it started being published colourized. However, there are fan-made colourized versions of some of the black and white strips that might be worth checking out on re-reads. The quality in design isn’t limited to character design too: the designs of spaceships, buildings, and landscape are all really, really good too. When it needs to be brutalist, it is, when it can be a little more fantastical, it is. It’s just brilliant visually.
Of course, humor varies from person to person, but if you find the kind of character based comedy in now-old TV cartoons funny, then this will be right up your alley.
Beyond the Western Deep
At last, Beyond the Western Deep. It’s one of the top comics in this list in terms of quality of writing. However, it’s not perfect, and does have some issues, mainly with pacing and historical authenticity. They don't break the comic, depending on the person at least, but they're worth mentioning, and they are kind of the whole reason I decided to start working on this thing. It’s also the longest one out of them all, mainly because I’m really passionate about medieval era designs and stuff.
The comic starts off with you following a squirrel captain and an otter dude as they go on a diplomatic mission, which is very well set up and makes you really interested about the characters and the world in almost no time. However, right after a lot of plot relevant things occur, the comic shifts to a different cast of characters far away, which do get tied into the main plot, but via what had previously been just a secondary character that basically only showed up at the start. It's a while until you get back to the initial duo, and while all the casts of characters are fun in their own ways, it's hard not to feel some kind of way about having to read through and wait for pages that actually relate to the characters and plot you've been so masterfully entangled with. It also has some side stories with distinctive titles separate from the main chapter system that, despite being completely disconnected from the main plot, are in the same archives as the main chapters, awkwardly wedged between chapters.
The art in this comic is phenomenal. At times it’s the kind of stuff that looks straight out of my FurAffinity account’s favourites list, and when it's not, it's still a treat to look at and just glues you to the screen while you read it. Honestly, it's the best part about the comic, followed only by the universe and plot, which I won't spoil for obvious reasons.
Time for the nerd to rant about castles. So! The castles these races built are terrible! Like, seriously. Take the wolves’ garrison. They built it in a canyon, with mountains on each side. Which sounds reasonable - you want to keep it hidden from the damn khajiit. Problem is, they send patrols out into the enemy territory every now and again. Patrols which return to their point of origin and depart from that same point of origin. All you have to do to find out where that garrison is is trail a patrol, kidnap and question them, or just ask around since that garrison is also where the big bad wolf is stationed at, as well as his big boi bro.
So, now that we’ve completely destroyed the mere concept of hiding something as important and obvious as that, why not build it **on top** of the mountains instead? That way you're way harder to attack, and way easier to defend. The canyon makes it *so* easy to siege it. All you have to do is camp around the entrances on each side and ambush every supply they try to call for. And slowly thin them out until they either surrender or their reinforcements arrive. You can even drop rocks or boiling liquids from the mountains above, possibly even blow up part of the mountain if explosives have been invented in this universe, which is so far unknown.
And those battlements, their merlons are all extended outwards, but there are no signs of machiculations. Battlements have crenulations for cover, extending them out without allowing the people on it to look straight down defeats the whole purpose of even building a wall in the first place. Machiculations are basically holes between merlons, the “teeth” in the crenulations, which allow someone on top of the battlements to look straight down the wall and attack anything down there, either by shooting arrows down their eyes and skulls or, by dropping heavy objects on them, or by throwing boiling liquids on top of them. Doesn’t sound very PG-13, I know, but that’s medieval warfare.
And these engravings on the foundation of the cat castle? It offers no tactical advantage whatsoever. The wood on the side just seems like an invitation to the roof of the castle too, in a world of anthropomorphic animals that can jump a lot higher than a human. You have to take these things into account - would this thing be effective against these things?
The wolves also don't *ever* seem to have proper gatehouses, or towers, or bastions.. and these are supposed to be the greatest armed forces in the whole continent? I’m sure you get the point by now, though. Castles are military bases, and if a garrison near enemy territory was as badly made as that one nowadays, it’d be ridiculed out of existence through artillery and just good old sieging. And no high ranking officer would be allowed in such a well designed death trap.
The fights also almost always seem to begin like all those cliche swordfights in movies, with both swords locking one another. Lame! And even after that, they all love to overswing and give their enemy a huge window to attack - even the wolves do it. I get it, you want it to be dramatic and cool and EPIC, but you can have realistic and sensical combat without sacrificing tension. I'd even argue it'd be MORE tense if the fights, designs and equipments were more inspired by HEMA and history than by Hollywood. I recommend looking into the subject as swordfighting and medieval martial arts in general are really interesting subjects to study and get into.
The authenticity issue only really breaks immersion and believability to anyone that knows a thing or two about medieval accuracy, while the pacing issue is majorly lessened once you can read it all in one go rather than waiting for each page release, and the fantastic art is always there to account for any loss of interest at the end of the day. However, I can't help but feel like the side stories should have been relegated to completely separate strips rather than pausing the main story for a few months, even if they serve the purpose of giving the artist a break. Just putting it somewhere separate would’ve done wonders. Overall? Like I said at the start, it’s one of my favourites of the bunch. Needless to say I recommend it. Highly. Just be aware you might end up having to read through someone else’s story every now and again between chapter pages.
As a side note, I saw that a group of fans made a movie adaptation of the comic, and it's up on YouTube. From what I saw, it's basically the comic panels but with music, SFX, panning and voice acting. I haven't watched it all the way through myself, but it might be worth checking out instead of just reading it. At least, as far as the comic has gone plot wise. You'll have to read the rest anyway. It also seems to use sound effects from Bethesda Game Studios, so that’s interesting. I wonder if they voice the cats like they’re khajiit.
Anyways, thanks for giving this major L a read. I don’t do this kind of thing often, and the last time I did do it was for Half-Life 2, so if you want you can check that out in the link below. Other than that I hope you enjoyed and I hope you give at least one of these a try. Maybe you’ll disagree with literally everything I said and hate every comic here except The Sprawl, who knows.
Links to the comics + number ratings because everyone likes those:

Note: These all lead to the first pages, rather than the default landing page, as those tend to have the latest page on display, in its full, spoilery glory
Space Pawdyssey (8/10): http://spacepawdyssey.visualvoodoo.ca/comic/in-the-jungle/
College Catastrophe (10/10): https://www.tigerknight.com/cc/2000-11-10
Nine to Nine (sequel to CC) (9/10): https://www.tigerknight.com/99/2014-01-01
Swords and Sausages (5/10): https://www.tigerknight.com/ss/1-1
Chronicles of Atlum: Cross (7/10): http://chroniclesofatlum.thecomicseries.com/comics/1


Beyond the Western Deep (8/10): https://www.westerndeep.net/comic/comingsoon/
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