In this edition of Fresh Friday Features, we bring you four comics that invite you to step into the lives of their characters, experiencing their triumphs, challenges, and ordinary moments that make life extraordinary. From bustling city streets to garbage collection centers in space, these comics offer glimpses into the lives of their heroes.
This week, ArtCrumbs picked four titles that'll give you a peak into the ordinary lives that maybe aren't so ordinary anymore!
- Comic - Don't Spit in the Wind: When one of Travis’ crew members goes missing near an old nuclear facility Travis’ job becomes a bit more complicated.
- Comic - Dusters: Ash, Emily, Jacob, and Lee face dangerous demons that threaten their island home.
- Webcomic - My Life as a Strawberry: Alan is in his senior year of High School, he must find his identity before graduating.
- Manga - LIFESTEAL: After getting a promotion, Myoga Kohana finally gets to lead his own police department, but something about this promotion seems fishy...
Don't Spit in the Wind, 96 pages - Published by Mad Cave Studios, (cc/ @chrisfernandez)
One man’s trash is another man’s living. Since earth became inhospitable, humanity escaped ages ago to live in a space station floating above the atmosphere. Now Travis and his crew of garbage men are tasked with cleaning up mountains of toxic waste, working for a company called Atomic Bros INC., to create a ‘Clear World’. But when one of Travis’ crew members goes missing near an old nuclear facility Travis’ job becomes a bit more complicated.
Story and Art by Mad Cave Studios
Comments from @ArtCrumbs:
My thoughts on issue one here are "Wow, I wish I could read more than one issue for these reviews". I love the unusual set of characters, being garbage men, but I think more appealing is the art style. The pen strokes match the chaos of the story itself, garbage men cleaning up toxic waste left on earth forever ago. It's messy, not always 100% consistent, but that's the charm of it. There is a high level of detail even in the most inconspicuous of things. Something else I enjoyed was the uniqueness of each of the character's suits, it definitely makes each of them easier to identify since it's hard to see faces with the nature of their suits. I especially loved the one with Santa Maria drawn all over, a really nice touch to understand each character better.
This will be added to my weekend reading list so that I can follow up on that locust swarm and figure out what's really going on! Great job, team!
DUSTERS, 29 pages - Published by Jet Monkey, (cc/ @JetMonkey)
Join Ash, Emily, Jacob and Lee as they face dangerous demons that threaten their island home. UPDATES EVERY FRIDAY
Story and Art by Jet Monkey
Comments from @ArtCrumbs:
Kanti is easily my favorite character in Dusters, sorry, not sorry! What a fun comic! I love the way Episode 0 is structured so far, as it gives us a chance to see each of the unique characters in action and a glimpse into their skill sets. The coloring is fantastic, and values are great as well, which can be hard to do when you have some many different colors going on at the same time. Dynamic action, perspective, poses, it's all here! I really can't praise it enough. By the end of the current run, Episode 13, we are ready for the final boss showdown of this introduction.
My only real point of feedback I'd like to offer is some of the text could be made larger. I don't really suggest making the text smaller to fit into a smaller/average sized bubble. I'd make the text either less wordy, or make the bubble into multiple bubbles to accommodate. I did have to zoom in a few times even on my large monitor just to read a few bubbles. Personally, it's a small issue and the rest of the comic was so good that I didn't mind. Tightening up those small areas of lettering would really take this from a really great comic to amazing. Other than the occasional small text, there was nothing I'd change!
This is definitely going to be a series that I'm going to be following up with, I'm excited to see where it goes. Fantastic work, and I'm so glad I picked this one up!
My Life as a Strawberry, 52 pages - Published by Kajiuna, (cc/ @Kajiuna)
Alan is in his senior year of High School, he must find his identity before graduating while balancing the frustrating challenges of young romance.
Story and Art by Kajiuna
Comments from @ArtCrumbs:
The art style was admittedly what drew me to this comic in the first place, but I stayed for the wholesome and funny story! It's not the typical style I like to read, and the limited color palette just fits in perfectly with the comic itself. It's soft, pastel, and doesn't impede on the story at all. Contrast and sihlouettes are clear and dialogue feels very natural. The littke bits of bonus material at the ends of the releases are nice to see too! I did have a laugh at this part:
"My last strawberry, used for that."
The only small nitpick I might have is the text and lettering. It looks handwritten, which is a nice touch, it does match with the story and feel like we're reading a diary with it being from the MC's perspective. Sometimes it feels a little harder to read, or might have an odd letter here or there that made me read a word twice. I LOVE the handwritten text here, so maybe double-check your handwriting to make sure it's clean. It's already extremely neat, but tightening that up would really level this up. Another option would be to make a font from your own handwriting! It saves creators some time and can keep that feeling of being handwritten.
It's a wonderful art style, coloring choice, and story to boot. Overall, I loved the first 2 episodes, and I'll be adding this to my weekend list to catch up! Great work, Kajiuna, I love your webcomic so far!
LIFESTEAL, 20 pages - Published by Midori Jen, (cc/ @MidoriJen)
After getting a promotion, Myoga Kohana finally gets to lead his own police department, but something about this promotion seems fishy... Expecially after getting a file cointaining a 'secret case'. The young detective is determined to solve said case no matter what... morality is a subjective matter after all.
Story and Art by Midori Jen
Comments from @ArtCrumbs:
Originally I was going to feature the oneshot of this manga, however I noticed there was going to be an update literally the day before this article went live. I wanted to include this manga, as I really liked the oneshot! That's how wonderful a manga this is! Now, onto the review-
Ahhh I love this new rendition probably more than the oneshot. The oneshot didn't get to explore a lot of the characters that much, and was more focused on the case. With this, we get to see the backstory, understand the characters motives and see how they interact. Myoga is definitely a fun character and he was an instant hit with me. He's fun and light-hearted it looks like, but by the end, as he gets details of the case, it's clear the impact this makes on even him.
The art is smooth and clean, the expressions are on point and clear and easy to understand. The motives and such as clear on these characters, the lettering looks good and I didn't see anything too small or hard to read. Great work Midori Jen! I can't wait to see more!
That's all for now, but we'll have another set of Fresh Friday reading recommendations next week. If you're looking for more recommendations, make sure to opt-in for our weekly reading list email! You can find that in your User Profile Notification settings. You can also browse through our Featured Comics news section!
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