Tall Tale Features / Tall Tale Radio

Today, the TTF crew will review “Moon Town”, by Steve Ogden. You can go read all of Moon Town, from start to the current installment over at http://www.moon-town.com.

Reviewers: Brian Anderson & Irma Eriksson

ART

Brian: If you’ve seen Moon Town I’m sure you’d agree there is no need to review the art. It is insanely beautiful. Each comic looks like stills from an animated movie. The art sucks you right into the panels and you are there, on the moon.

Now beautiful art is one thing. Add on top of that Steve’s clean, crisp sequential abilities and you’ve the got the makings of a hit. His use of special effects blends right into the story. No jarring motion lines or forced Photoshop effects (unless Steve has a secret ILM plugin he’s not sharing).

Irma: The art for Moon Town made a huge first impression on me. I immediately liked the style of the art from the first page that loaded. It’s just beautiful and inspiring to look at. Smooth lines and solid, bold colors. There is attention to detail, but at the same time it’s not so much that it would distract from that cartoon feel. And I really like the cartoon look of it. I feel like I can easily see this in animated form.

The palette Steve has chosen for this comic is perfect to set the mood of the strip. Dark shades that help portray that something sinister is going on, something hiding from us in the dark (both literally and figuratively). There’s a lot of contrasting combinations of blues/purples and orange/yellows that is really pleasing to the eye. You get the feeling that you are in the monochromatic wasteland that is the moon, but with something beautiful and exciting about it.

One thing that always sticks out for me: Steve really knows how to make lights shine and glow. as if there was a real bulb glowing right there in the strip. Very effective.

WRITING

Brian: Far to often in comics, the opening is piled high with back story. Steve jumped right into the story and keeps things moving. Word balloons aren’t stuffed to the bursting point with back story. Characters aren’t rattling off information that other characters should know.

Steve’s characters talk like you think they should. They fit in their world. In chapter two, Simon wakes up to the news, brushes his teeth and heads off for work. Now, in many stories you would skip scenes like this, except here, Steve brilliantly offers up some exposition in the form of the news all the while using his stellar sequential skills to show the drudgery of Simon’s daily routine. Artists take note: this is how you do it.

There are a few shaky moments. When Simon heads off to find Sinclair, things slow down a bit and Flagg prattles on and on. And when Simon picks up Quinn, it’s a touch odd that Quinn thinks Simon is guilty of shooting her down. We’ll see how that pans out in future episode.

Irma: The things that are most important with me when it comes to writing are pacing, and believable dialog between characters. The strips flow well from one to the other. The pacing of the story is good. I don’t feel rushed through it, and I don’t feel it dragging either (besides wanting the next update to be up already yesterday!). At the the latest point in this story, the characters are concerned about some mysterious and serious happenings on the moon, but this concern is mixed with some banter which I find fun and engaging. There is a good balance of dialog and art used to tell the story. The silent strips are just as important to the plot as the rest of them. And even in strips that aren’t silent it’s sometimes the silent elements that are cleverly used to reveal something more. (I won’t give an example as I don’t want to spoil the fun for new readers).

A final little note on the writing (perhaps this is more appropriate in the “art”category): I like the use of yellow speech bubbles vs. white speech bubbles to differentiate the character speaking over a transmission vs. “in person.” It works quite well and makes the dialog easy to follow.

CHARACTER DESIGN

Brian: The concept work is amazing. Everything fits. Like any animated movie, you get the sense that Steve put enough work into the preliminary designs that there could be an “Art Of” book.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Brian: This one is visually one of the best comics out there. The story starts strong without the shackles of back story. The one negative I can think of is that not an awful lot happens in each episode. Yet the strip updates three days a week and the oversized panels are powerful landscapes of sequential bliss.

Irma: As someone who knows something about web design, I have to give the website design a big thumbs up. I think, personally, that it’s important to have a good, personalized design to your site that compliments your comic and is consistent with the mood. Putting some work into how you present your comic on the web shows something about how serious you are about it. The design of the Moon Town site is clean and consistent with the comic. The dark, cool colors of the site both match comic and help it stand out from the page without clashing.

Finally, the only bad thing I can say about Moon Town is that I can’t stop worshiping it. And I’m not so sure what that says about my skills as a critic.