Webcomics - Reviews of The Fox Sister, Derelict, and The Situation - a podcast by Stergios Botzakis & Derek Royal

It's time for another episode in The Comics Alternative's monthly webcomics series, and for May the Two Guys with PhDs discuss three must-read titles. They begin as they usually do by looking at two current and ongoing webcomics, and this time they're Christina Strain and Jayd Aït-Kaci's The Fox Sister and Ben Fleuter's Derelict. Both of these began in 2011, and even though the intentions were to update them weekly, the creators of these titles have had to pause occasionally or slow down the frequencies of their narrative installments. So with each, we are still in the middle of the story four years into things. But that's OK, because both are engaging narratives that are worth the wait. The Fox Sister revolves around Yun Hee, a young South Korean woman who's family has been the victim of a kumiho, the legendary nine-tailed fox who assumes the shape of a beautiful woman -- in this case, Yun Hee's older sister -- to seduce and murder young men. While hunting down the kumiho,  the protagonist befriends a young American missionary, and in this way Strain injects both romance and culture-clash twists into her tale of horror. Yet while The Fox Sister is set in 1960s Korea, Fleuter's Derelict is a post-apocalytic -- or at least some kind of post-tragedy -- narrative where the world we may recognize is infused by gargoyle creatures and fantastic technology. As the guys point out, it's not that easy to describe Derelict, in that the story can be confusing at times, and there are several segments where it's difficult to tease out the action. Derek highlights one of those points in "Book One: Deluge" where it's unclear if there's a flashback, a series of flashbacks, a psychological alter-state, or what. Andy agrees, but he firmly believes that the story's momentum, along with Fleuter's compelling art, more than compensates for the momentary confusion. It's the kind of webcomic that, while ambiguous at times, drives you forward because you want to be immersed deeper into its storyworld. Finally, the Two Guys turn to their already completed webcomic for the month, Jeff VanderMeer and Eric Orchard's The Situation. Released on the website of Tor Books, it's a fantastical story about interpersonal relations in the workplace. Yet it's more like something you'd find from Terry Gilliam than you would from watching The Office. Andy is a big fan of VanderMeer's prose fiction, and he points out that this is great demonstration of the author's skills at world-building. This is a short narrative, yet one that packs a big punch in its ability to literalize the metaphoric. And with Orchard's art, it's certainly the most visually striking webcomic of this month's selections.

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