Freakangels

Rating 4.5 stars

Much better than its title and its character designs and its colouring. Something about the art screams webcomic, maybe the number of flat colour segments and the absence of brushstrokes. But it’s no Book of Dave. The book is centred around the Freaks’ reparations for causing the apocalypse. Except half of em don’t seem contrite (“it’s quieter now. Remember how everyone used to kill themselves just getting through the day?”) The Whitechapel commune is presented as a lovely sexy anprim haven. But they don’t produce any industrial stuff, they’re running out of salvage, and god knows how they keep their steampunk vehicles going. The short term dream. Lots of audience applause shots of London landmarks underwater, including my manor. Not doing it for me though. Interesting touch on p21: a ghostly panel line dividing one panel, in which a characters muses on the nature of time; he says 40 words in this panel, so maybe 10 seconds. And yet by the magic of comics these seconds happen to the reader despite him not moving.

I can't believe it's over! I've been following this series for quite awhile now, so to see the words 'the end' seems almost impossible. A fantastic series, simply amazing and I thought the ending was beautifully done. I had no idea how they were going to wrap it all up, but the way they did it, with a little ambiguity and more unsaid than said, worked perfectly with the story.

Meh and stuff.

I have only read the first issue of this ongoing series but I am already captured by certain elements in the story. What happened to the world? Why is everything now steam based? Who are the freakangels? The art by Paul Duffield is amazing and serves the setting perfectly! I cannot wait for the next one.

I'll be honest, going into this I had low expectations. I saw that it was free and published online before being later compiled into a hardback form. And I judged it harshly for that, completely unfair. But the artstyle was great and whilst the plot was slow the characters were so alive and so very British. I loved the colouring and tone of the comic, it really suited the themes and I think I may continue reading this series sometime. I love the character of Arkady, she was simply wonderful and she really helped to lighten the mood of the comic. It sort of reminded me of Fallout in a weird way though I can't quite place why.