Our second selection is Cy-Boar, a team effort by Lou Graziani.

An ordinary boar who was taken into a secret government research facility and experimented on. These experiments and military training molded Cy-Boar into a deadly weapon. Cy-Boar realized that he was being controlled though, and broke free… Now, he is trying to figure out where he belongs in this world. He thinks like a human, but can’t live among them. He looks like a boar, but is no longer one of them. He’s like a domino chip lost in a game of poker – no place, no home, and no one to go back to.

Cy-Boar is formatted in “issues,” which date back as far as 1987! There are 9 issues so far.

Additionally, if you’ve enjoyed reading Cy-Boar, please consider voting for it on TopWebComics!

Read some comics, share your thoughts, and have fun!

(If you’re looking to get ahead for our next round, we’re currently reading through Messenger by Bugbyte! We’ll be reconvening to share our thoughts on September 6th! See you then!)

On August 27, 2010 Messenger will have been online and updating since 2004! To celebrate six years of making comics and exploring the wasteland, a fanart contest is open to all readers with categories for Visual, Written, and Multimedia works. Entries are due by midnight EST on August 25th. (Click here to read the complete contest rules!) All submitted entries will be displayed on the site’s main page as they are received!

Messenger is a sci-fi/fantasy comic which takes place in Earth’s post-apocalyptic future, and follows the stories of the survivors as they try to scratch out a new life in a world populated by warring tribes, dangerous disasters, and genetically-altered lifeforms. Is it too late to save the world?

Our first selection is Footloose, a team effort by Alice Nuttall and Emily Brady.

Footloose is a fantasy comic following the adventures of Keti Jones. Keti has some seriously mixed up DNA and inherited Primary Protagonist Syndrome. Supposedly this means she needs to train in a Faerie Dojo, and her weapon of choice…? A shoe.

At approximately 350 pages, Footloose has a pretty hefty archive to dig through. The artist has suggested that if you do not wish to read the entire thing, starting from chapter six would be the next best thing as it is the start of the current story arc.

Additionally, if you’ve enjoyed reading Footloose, please consider taking a moment to vote for it on TopWebComics!

Read some comics, share your thoughts, and have fun!

(If you’re looking to get ahead for our next round, we’re currently reading Cy-Boar by Lou Graziani! If you can’t get through the entire archive in that time, Lou has suggested reading through only the most recent chapters of the comic. See you on August 16th!)

Looking at it now, it kinda feels surreal

1) What is your comic about?

Messenger is a story that takes place in a post-apocalyptic future on Earth, where everything has changed following a catastrophe that people only remember as “The Incident.” Society has broken down into a collection of tribes which are constantly at war with one another over supplies and resources. The comic follows the stories of Akiara Kenakobe – and her dead best friend, Luke – as well as two young creatures called Chios in their effort to save their people.

2) How did you get started making webcomics?

I’ve always been interested in comics in general, and I drew all kinds of them (mostly silly ones) while I was in school. Around the time I started college, I also started regularly keeping up with a few comics and made friends with a few people who did their own comics. Eventually, I decided that it would be a fun experiment to try doing my own comic. That was six years ago, and I’ve been doing it ever since!

3) Five years from now, what do you see your comic becoming? Will it be over? Will it have grown larger?

Messenger is written in three major arcs, and it’s taken me about six years to get through most of the first one, so in five years the comic should be about two-thirds complete. The first arc will likely be about 250 pages when it’s done, so it should also be about 500 pages long in five years! Just thinking about it makes me feel like I’ve got to go draw more right now just to keep up.

I’ve also been working on printed versions of Messenger, because I enjoy reading comics in print format and other people do, too, so it made sense to me. I have a degree in graphic design, so it’s also a lot fun for me to have a project in print that’s 100% my own, from concept to final execution. Right now I’m doing single issues for each chapter, but in five years I hope to be able to do a larger collection of the comic to-date in one book.

4) Tell us about your main character. What are his/her motivations? How did he/she join up with your other characters and why?

Well, I really have two “main” characters, so I’ll describe them both. Akiara is a teenage girl who was part of the Kenakobe tribe – a group of fierce warriors with a well-defended fortress out on the wasteland. When her best friend (and a member of an opposing tribe) was killed before her in battle, her world changed, and she’s since decided to strike out on her own and see what else the world has to offer. In her journeys, she meets up with a strange young man named Nekos while they’re both prisoners in a hidden cell. Things take an odd turn from there.

Eldora is a young human/animal hybrid creature known as a Chio – vaguely kangaroo-like in appearance with characteristic ears. She and her younger brother Finnegan are part of a group of Chios living in the desert. When the entire village falls gravely ill, Eldora sets off on a quest to find a cure. Knowing only to look for “a city in the north,” she leaves everything behind to save her people.

5) Who is your favorite secondary character and why?

She may be completely inanimate, but Eldora’s stuffed doll, Icy. Icy leaves a lot of opportunity for bits of silly humor in an otherwise serious scene as well as being a fan favorite. It’s really fun to write parts of the story where Icy will be part of the action, because it’s equally fun to see the fan reaction when the pages are finally released online.

That, and she’s cute.

6) What is your favorite comic page?
So far, my favorite pages are the “I’m a brave Chio!” scene in Chapter Five. I was experimenting with some new things at the time, and I really like the way that section turned out. This part also gets a lot of fanart and has become its own mini in-joke, which is fun to see as a creator.

7) Is there a storyline you’re really looking forward to? What is it about? Give us a spoiler warning if necessary!

Since we’re nearly there, it’s not terribly spoilery, but if you want absolutely everything to remain a surprise skip this part!

I’m especially looking forward to the last few chapters of the first arc of the comic, because it begins to tie up all the odd threads that have been developing since the beginning. Our heroes finally reach the mysterious city, and that’s where things really start to happen.

8 ) Can you give us a short explanation on how you make your pages? If you have a tutorial or anything, please link it.

Right now, I lay out the pages in pencil on regular 9 x 12″ sketch paper. Then I ink the outlines with a brush and erase the pencil. I color in characters and some objects with Prismacolor or other types of markers, and wash in the backgrounds with watercolor. Then I scan the pages in and adjust them as necessary in Photoshop. Sometimes this means fixing places where the watercolors bled in a strange way, or just adjusting the contrast on the page. The last step is adding in text and effects. I made a font based on my own handwriting just for the comic, which is used for all the speech. Lastly, I save and upload for the world to see!

My methods tend to change pretty frequently, because my goal in starting the comic was to experiment. I usually try something new in each chapter, whether that’s a new tool or a new method of coloring or inking. It keeps things interesting.

Sometimes I also do videos while I’m working to show the process.

9) Be your own critic! When it comes to your comic, what are you looking to improve upon?

In general, everything. I can always do better at something. I might be totally satisfied with the chapter I’m working on right at the moment, but a year or two later I look back and I’m always amazed at the things I’ve gotten better at, whether that’s art or writing or storytelling. Messenger is a learning experience for me.

10) How many more chapters does Messenger have left?

Assuming I don’t change anything, about 20 chapters!

“You need the latest version of the Adobe Flash player to play the trailer.”

“If you want to learn more about LadyStar and all the assorted coolness that is our site, drop by the Tree Shores High School Band Room. If it’s worth talking about, we’ll be talking about it.”

“We’re going to start updating five times a week soon.”

“Yay! Be sure to go see all the best comics at Palace in the Sky, which is my favorite. Tell me what your favorites are! You can send me e-mail at Jessie’s Letters or you can come visit me and Teko on Twitter! Ja ne minna-san!”

Cy-Boar escaping across the roof of the US Capitol

Cy-Boar has been gaining fans on the web and at comic conventions since it debuted online in 2005. The strip currently has thousands of readers from around the globe.

You can read the whole story up until this point at this link!
Cy-Boar: The Assassination Conspiracy

Derrexi Tzelan, protagonist of Nahast: Lands of Strife

Derrexi Tzelan, an accomplished swordsmistress with a past she’s not very proud of, is tasked by the Empress of Solerne to open a branch of the order of the Hawk Maidens in the city of Beldatz, training a cadre of girl warriors to serve as the city’s defenders when the beleaguered City Watch is away. She will soon find herself in the middle of a shadow war between the city’s political and supernatural factions that might threaten the fabric of the Empire itself.

Nahast is based in a fusion of Asian and Mesoamerican myths and cultures rather than the more common European legendry. It is a world where spirits can coexist with mortals, and gods are in a constant state of celestial war. The world is undergoing its Fifth Age, after all previous ones ended in a great cataclysm as the dominant race of each failed the Time of Testing, a period during which the greater forces of the universe present an existential dilemma. The mortal races of the Fifth Age are just beginning their Time of Testing, and whether they are even able to recognize what the test is -let alone succeed in it- will determine whether the world continues, or it ends to begin anew.

Nahast is not only a webcomic, but a grand work in progress that includes original fiction that fleshes out the world and the characters, and also a fully-developed fantasy world for use in role-playing games. These two other parts of the project are represented in the sister sites:

• Nahast: Chronicles of the Fifth Age: Free web-based fiction in the world of Nahast.
• Nahast: Legends and Heroes: Setting and role-playing information detailing Nahast, its people, organizations, magic and mysteries.

About the Author

Alejandro “Al-X” Melchor is a freelance writer from (and currently in) Mexico, moonlighting as a translator to pay the bills. Although experienced in a variety of fields, his favorite professional activity is writing for role-playing games, and he has worked for Mongoose Publishing (several d20 sourcebooks), White Wolf (Trinity, Mage, Exalted), Green Ronin (Blue Rose, Mutants & Masterminds: Mecha & Manga), Fantasy Flight Games (Grimm: the Role-playing Game), and the defunct Guardians of Order.

He’s a self-taught artist who keeps trying new things and refining his methods and is an avid reader of tutorials on several things artistic.

Sample Page

Nahast: Lands of Strife - page 244 - "The Scales Tip"

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