Review: Harkovast

When you start to read any kind of epic fantasy, the comparison to Lord of the Rings is inevitable. And I'm gonna label that both a good and a bad thing. Why good? Because Tolkien had such a huge impact on the world of fantasy, from his tall noble elves to the maps that are now fitted as standard in pretty much any epic fantasy novel you might pick off the shelf. You can't ignore his influence on the stories that followed his.

And why bad? Because it's tempting to nitpick so much that the comparison spoils a genuinely fun story like that of the webcomic Harkovast.

Let's scroll through the obvious similarities, just to get them out of the way. All the nations of the world - including an unspecified number of magic-users who can't join the fight directly - are moving toward war with "the Enemy". This Enemy is implied to live in the East, commands legions of faceless evil soldiers called the Nameless, and has as one of his minions some asshole who can compel you with his voice. Even the first chapter's opening sequence gave me deja-vu, so similar was it to the prologue of the Fellowship of the Ring movie. (A huge armoured guy waving a spiky ball on a chain? Really?) So far, so Middle-earth.

But for all that they've borrowed freely from Tolkien's premise, Harkovast creators Daniel and Julie Anne Stribley do so with such gusto and obvious enjoyment that it's hard not to like their story anyway. For such an obviously plot-driven comic (the characters are cool, but they seem content to stay neatly within the roles handed them by the genre), it's a little frustrating to see elements lifted wholesale from Lord of the Rings, but readers can take solace in the fact that what they do with this premise is very different.

A wizard called Quinn-Tain, who clearly violates every rule of D&D by striding around with two blades strapped to his back, has his friends the Ano-Chee (essentially, Native American foxes) magically resurrect a Nymus (bird-dude) assassin with a bad attitude so that the Nymus can take down the "agents of the Enemy". Meanwhile, one of those agents - Saruman's long-lost twin brother the Speaker - is gathering minions for his own unspeakable purpose. And making them drown themselves when they disrespect him, just by telling them to, which you have to admit is pretty damn cool. And then, just in case that wasn't enough to pay attention to, a half-senile Darsai (cat people) knight and a Tsung-Dao (Oriental lizards) who was rescued from the Nameless join forces to track down Shogun, a warrior who might be able to kill the Speaker.

Dogpile on the Speaker! I'm starting to feel a little sorry for that guy.

Oh, and you did hear me right about the talking cats and bird people. See, each race resembles a different animal: lizards, cats, birds and dogs all run around within their own somewhat segregated kingdoms, occasionally forced by the war to travel around and work with (or against) each other.

Yes, it's a furry comic. But don't run screaming. No-one's had sex yet.

The Stribleys do manage to one-up Tolkien by addressing the racism in their world: for example, there's a sequence where Chen-Chen, the Tsung-Dao woman, is given short shrift in the opinions of the Darsai when compared to one of their own kind. That said, though, they seem content to lift whole cultures from Earth into their world: it's easy to recognise the Tsung-Dao as traditional Asian, for example, or the Darsai as fairytale Medieval English. (As an aside: if anyone reading this thinks that knights in Medieval England really rode around all day being noble and chivalrous and saying things like "wherefore", then go and shut yourself in the stocks for a day as punishment. Well, except for the "wherefore" part. But they only said that because it wasn't posh yet.) And I'm not even going to touch the Native American foxes.

Sure, it makes the cultures distinguishable from each other at a glance, and keeps them from becoming the homogenous "mud-hut-and-castle" flavoured locations all too popular in fantasy. (Okay, one of those does appear, but only as the background to a battle.) But what about some mixing and matching? Earth cultures are rich and fascinating, but the point of fantasy is to speculate, not to copy and then paste on fur or scales. How about seeing how a Chinese-like culture might evolve in a tundra environment? Or experimenting with the kinds of cities that might be built in the heart of a desert or the side of a mountain?

The Stribleys try to make up for this by dropping in a lot of throwaway references to unearthly concepts - but then they never revisit these concepts, leaving them as blink-and-you'll-miss-them loose ends rather than using them to create the sense of a truly fantastic world. Take Technomancy; how come we don't hear more about that? Does the Enemy use it? Is Shogun the last living creature to remember its secret? Who's this Lel guy who apparently built it? None of these questions are answered; all we get is a two-panel "okay, so this hand is a marvel of technomancy, now back to the battle and let's never mention this again".

For context, Harkovast is nearing the end of its fifth chapter, and that technomancy thing was mentioned halfway through chapter one. Okay, it might be too early to declare it a true one-hit wonder, but it's been long enough that you can't help but despair a bit.

Let's summarize what we've got so far. An interesting story, played out by characters who manage to be cool despite being derivative, with the stage a world that you've seen a hundred times before. And there are plenty of clichés thrown into the mix, such as a sword called "The Hidden Fang" (although it is an overgrown flip-knife. That's something I've not seen that before), and narration that tends to come off as pretentious. Is there a hook here that will bring Harkovast above the average?

So glad you asked that, imaginary interrogator. You saved me from having to segue into talking about the art.

The art is where the comic stands out. Daniel Stribley draws the comic, and his lineart is solid but has a lot of improvements to make. His anatomy is awkward, and his battle scenes are stiff, with each panel feeling more like a still life than a section of flowing movement; however, he still puts in a lot of cool details such as tears in fabric and the realistic shapes of the animals' teeth. Even if he needs some practice, it can't be claimed that he doesn't put the effort in.

But it is Julie Anne Stribley's colouring that really steals the show. She has an instinct for colour that is admirable, especially when it comes to the genuinely lovely and detailed landscapes scattered throughout the comic's panels. In fact, I've seen few things that she can't render in coloured pencils: liquids look a bit too much like fabric, but she manages sleek scales, grassy hillsides, stones and stained-glass windows with panache. Together, they may not draw to a professional standard, but they're a damn sight better than a lot of the webcomic artwork out there. I for one am suitably impressed.

It was the art that first drew me to it, in fact. Well, that and the fact that they were all talking animals. I've never quite grown out of Farthing Wood. And I have to admit that, despite my complaining, I'm a fan. Like I said, nitpicking about a story's similarity to Lord of the Rings can be good up to a point, because we all like a bit of originality and it's a good idea to keep reminding writers of that. Can't have the buggers getting complacent. But there comes a point when a ride is just so fun that, even though you've been round this track before and know the loops off by heart, you just have to sit back and enjoy it.

And hey, at least no-one is collecting plot coupons.