Comical Musings

So lately, a lot of the comics I’ve reviewed have been fairly well established. Whether they’re popular or obscure, the comics have been around long enough to garner a dedicated fan base and gain a certain momentum that keeps them going. There’s something about having several hundred comics in the archive that keeps a cartoonist willing to keep making them until the plot ends or the ideas dry up completely. With the younger comics, though, there’s a certain temptation to skip an update if things are a little busier than usual, or you just don’t quite feel the urge to finish a comic. Sometimes, the cartoonist has to scale back the updates while things get hectic.

Such is also the case for the nascent Guardians: Land of Legends, by Kaitlin Callahan. As she posted recently, the demands of the school year are cutting into her comic time. I can sort of relate, having had to post similar messages once or twice on my own comics. Of course, those posts usually signaled that either a hiatus or the abrupt end of the comic was near, and in the case with Guardians, that would be rather a pity.

Callahan seems to have more than a decade’s worth of work into developing the story, if the dates on that notice are correct, so she at least has the motivation to continue the comic and complete the story. As it stands so far, the story has a sort of “The Olden Days have lost their magic . . . or have they?” feel to it, although as is often the case with such stories, the sense of mysticality is quickly pushed aside for mundanity, although by genre laws, I assume that this is only for the first chapter.

The focus of the story seems geared more toward lovable spaz Vincent than on vaguely magical Kate, however. There’s also queen bee Fleur, who’s likely to wind up tangled up in the plot, if not the outright antagonist. A few wacky minor characters round out the ensemble for now.

I have to admit that I dig the art style. Lines are very fluid, progression shots are done rather nicely, and you can tell when characters are related. I’ll admit that Mr. G. seems a lot more like a caricature than the other characters, and occasionally people say an awful lot without opening their mouths. (That last panel also has a certain “Hey, Macarena!” vibe to it, but I digress.)

So far, Guardians looks pretty promising. The plot may have a slight potboiler fantasy feel to it, but the characters are entertaining. And it doesn’t hurt that it’s very, very pretty.

Comic Rating: Four sparkly streaming sunbeams.