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The Chronicles of Wyrden

Genejoke
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I kind of like chronicles of wyrden but I do agree with a number of your points. Where it seems to fail for me is that it lacks punch, it builds and develops but rarely feels very dramatic. Still it is on my favourites list so that tells you I enjoy it enough to keep reading.

RED_NED
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The best part about this comic is that the bad guy looks like patrick moore. What a pimp.

harkovast
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I really did have high hopes for this one, but it just let me down on every count.
Bad writing, dull art, boring conversations, a bad guy who I kept sympathising with, good guys with really disgusting sexual habits and eye rolling levels of fan service.

Though I must admit…Red Ned's observation has made me like it a little bit more!

Canuovea
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Hmm. I dunno. I'm not entirely sure that the Patrick Moore imitator can really be called a "bad guy" I mean, at most he's a "convenient asshole plot point." He doesn't really have the level of evil to be a "bad guy". Then again, I think the whole corrupt church thing works for me, that has "bad guy" written all over it. That could be my personal biases showing through as I freely admit to not harbouring much trust for organized religion.

That being said, I didn't sympathize with the guy. The biggest thing he had going against him was that he was a bigoted jerk who took things too far. See, divorce your wife if she cheats on you, or forgive her, but don't send her off to some kind of hellish torture hole. It's just stupid.

That being said, the promiscuous pirate didn't garner much sympathy either. And I found myself wondering where all of the characters popped up from. Sometimes character introduction was too abrupt and I kinda glossed over it, often getting lost. That isn't to say multiple characters cannot be done well, (I believe that Charby does it well), but that this may need some polishing here.

I tended to more or less gloss over the sexual habits of the good guys. I don't mind that the comic displays that activity, I have no moral problem with it that is, but sometimes it distracts from the rest of the comic.

The art worked for me, then again, I'm fairly easy to please in that department.

The script needs some polishing, however, I found it to be far from terrible. And, like the plot, sometimes very predictable.

As far as the plot is concerned, it is easy to get lost from time to time… possibly because it goes from sexual encounter to sexual encounter with stuff happening in between, which is the problem with all the sex. This is what it appears to me.

I agree with the eye rolling levels of fan service. Mob Ties was more discrete about it, though that may have something to do with rating rather than anything else.

Nudity, sex, fan service, etc, is the author's choice. There is nothing wrong with that until it negatively effects the comic, such as by becoming pointless and overused. At that point it's being played for cheap, somewhat pornographic, effects that contribute nothing and just slow the pace of the comic. The bath scene with the first mate, Silver I believe, comes across this way. She's bathing, we get it, we don't need to see everything page by page.

This all being said, I believe that the comic has potential. Some kinks have to be ironed out a bit though is all.

Oh and Hark, some of the bad guys have sexual habits that match the good guys just as much… like that cardinal person who is controlling the Church.

harkovast
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Canuovea yes, some of the bad guys probably have disgusting sexual habits…but then again I don't think there is a woman in this comic who isn't a complete ho!
They needed to put some clothes and give the fan service a rest.

As you say yourself, the "bad guy" was not really that bad, and yet the story seemed determined to heap every punishment imaginable on him while having EVERY character in the story (even ones who had barely met him) say how much they wanted to see him die!
Interactions like "I want to rip out his heart!" "Does he even have heart?"
What the hell did this guy do to get so much hate?
Yeah he seems like a jerk, but they talk about him like he's the second coming of super hitler!
The guy finds someone is shagging his wife AND both daughters (urrggh!) they brutally shoot him the face and then his soul gets eaten by a giant demon wolf!
Even fucking death insults the poor bastard!
The universe lines up to piss on this man and everyone says he deserves it.

Having characters say things over and over does not make them true! You have to SHOW us that a character is evil and deserves to die, not just announce it to us!

Canuovea
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Aside from bathing naked, I don't think the first mate, Silver, has screwed anyone yet. In the comic so far.

Oh I agree about the bad guy. The comic never really established the "super Hitler" bit. He was an asshole though. Still, I tend to have difficulty feeling sorry for someone who would consign anyone to the mortal equivalent of hell over sleeping with (insert race here) people. He even stated it was only because it was one of those (insert race here). Still, yeah, he's a bigot. Not super Hitler. And the hellish convent place is, again, only mentioned as hellish, never shown as such.

Showing, not telling, is actually important in almost every medium of storytelling, even written and spoken things!

But I think a better job is done with the that lady in charge of the Church… why? Well, it may be stereotypical bad guy, "oh no you know too much" reaction, but at least it gets shown. And this lady really seems to be the "Super Hitler" of this story. The real plot is going to, as I see it so far, focus on the Church, not on Keys Leyland (who, it turns out, wasn't really Keys Leyland, but some kind of shapeshifting imposter… I think?).

Yeah, comic begins with Leyland, but I don't think that he's particularly important.

harkovast
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"aside from bathing naked"
Why is she shown bathing?
Why are all the women shown naked…all the time?
Its embarrassing and childish.

Canuovea
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My point in bringing her up was that she isn't a complete "ho" as you mentioned earlier. And if she is a "ho" then she's less of one then ALL the other female characters, hence not a "complete" "ho". In fact, I think she would have to be my favourite character, partially because she's different (and she kills things, I guess that's a plus in a comic).

That being said, yeah, I used that bathing scene as an example of how things, such as pacing, didn't work due to overloads of fan service and sex. I agree completely that it was not needed.

Perhaps the issue is a need to show more of some things and less of others. However my concern is strictly based on flow and comic quality, something that I felt had been negatively effected.

As for the embarrassing and childish comment… yeah, I see your point… but, to play devil's advocate here: showing sexual content can be seen as a kind of maturity, shying away from it could be considered childish (eww, cooties). It is natural, and so there!

As I see it, the problem with that argument in this case at this time in the comic, is, as you point out, the degree of it! Almost everyone behaves in a certain way, almost all the time. The sexual content out paces everything else (which makes the step to pornography plot much closer, though not quite there yet), and as such damages the story as a whole. As well as making it most certainly not natural.

Again, it's up to the author though, and the author's priorities. I'm interested in seeing the story develop more than seeing naked women (does that put me in the minority? I dunno).

harkovast
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The women in the comic all look kinda the same (as do a lot of the characters) so I honestly started to lose track of who was who…especially since all of the women seemed ot be naked at some point.

Yes, nudity can be used in a mature way when it is meanngful to the story etc but here it isn't there for any purpose other then fanservice.

Do we need the women to keep taking baths?
Would the plot or the characters not come across as clearly if they were fully clothed?
The only purpose it serves is as a cheap gimic to try to attract readers but I just found it alienating. It just made the whole story seem ridiculous and made it impossible to take the serious elements seriously.

Also…sex magic? Where you have 6 people shag in order to open a portal? Was that supposed to be funny? The characters seemed to be trying to make it seem dramatic but it was unintentionally hillarious.

Canuovea
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Agreed. Sometimes it was difficult to tell who was who. Lets see, someone has a scar… someone has a fancy gun… uh… yeah. Oh and this one guy has a cat on his shoulder. There are a handful of people with pointy ears. Then that woman with the heart shaped birthmark. There are distinguishing features, but it still is difficult sometimes.

Agreed about the fanservice.

Yes. We need women to keep taking baths. Some of them get just as smelly as men sometimes. Do we need to see it in the comic repeatedly? No. That being said, I only recall one bath scene. Still, the clothing optional option has been used a bit much and detracts from the story.

Sex magic? Why not? In any world with magic rules based around emotions, and their strengths, one would expect sex magic to be relatively prevalent. As such a potent sensation/emotion, sex has a wide potential to be a very powerful aspect of spell casting. It's like using "love" as an excuse for magic (read, Harry Potter), except far more materially based! Any realistic magic setting should take it into consideration! There would be magic duels invo…

HarHAhehahahheheh. Ahem. Yeah, okay. I can't finish writing that. But now that I'm done giving ideas to the porn industry… yes, I agree. Thinking back on it, that scene was hilarious!

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