The Belfry WebComics Index

I’m normally pretty hesitant to start reading webcomics that look professionally designed. To me, it seems that the project will have most of the work go into the presentation, with the story left to suffer. In fact, most of my favorite webcomics started out looking very choppy, but the story was attractive enough to keep me reading. With more professional-grade webcomics, it feels as though the opposite is true: they use attractive art to encourage readers to dive in, which is just cruel when the story is so shallow. In spite of that, I did try to have a hopeful outlook going into Turbo Defiant Kimecan, which only made it worse when it let me down.

The presentation for T.D.K. is really good, better than 99% of the stuff you get on the internet, even better than some things people try to make you pay for. The art is good and character design works well, even if it all is blatantly ripped off from The Big Book of Anime Art Clichés. Then it gets better: the comic uses a very impressive technique in which each panel, even each speech bubble, is given separately upon the reader giving the screen an encouraging click. This provides a double bonus: it firstly adds to the story’s suspense by keeping you from seeing the end of a page until you’ve seen everything leading up to it, preventing the problem I sometimes have with my eyes uncontrollably twitching to the final panel. Secondly, it helps the reader feel immersed into the story, as though the reader is driving the events. Certainly not as interactive as something like a video game, or a choose-your-own-adventure book, but it was enough to pull me in and see the story through. And that’s a big point in its favor, because the blasted story sure as heck didn’t do that.

I came into the story of T.D.K. knowing nothing about the comic or the plot. I’m not sure how it’s possible, but I somehow know even less about the comic now that I’ve read it. The story keeps hinting that there are bigger forces going on here, the people we’re watching are just part of a grand mix of powers that operate beneath the watch of normal humanity, but none of it is ever explained. To make it clear, here are a few questions I had that I thought would be answered, just in the first story arc: Who are the main trio of heroes? What’s so special about this seemingly normal if horribly unlikable boy? Why does he keep crossing over into this “dream world” wearing a cat suit? What exactly is a “Defiant?”

Please note that by “arc” I am referring to the strips between the beginning of the story and the time the boy joins with the heroes. It was not a short arc. And yet, none of these questions are answered. The boy was apparently special because of some latent power within him, which might have been given to him to compensate for having been born without a personality. The villains took him as the main ingredient in a summoning ritual to summon I Don’t Know What in order that they may do…Something, Take Over The World Maybe? It’s never explained. And when the heroes pop in to save the idiot kid, I kid you not, one of them attempts to arrest the villains in a very civilized way. No gun, no clue what organization he represents, and let me inform you here that the villains are all eldritch demons. Amidst a flurry of emotions, I find the word “Seriously?” fall out of my mouth.

However, lest you accuse me of being too thick to really understand TDK, allow me to compare it to another webcomic: Gunnerkrigg Court. Both comics like to keep details under the hood, revealing a mystery but keeping the details secret. However, G.C. is superior to T.D.K, for the following reason: in G.C., the plot centers around the lives of the main characters, focusing on their struggles and development. Because of the round, likable characters, G.C. can be forgiven for going so long without explaining this or that mystery. T.D.K.’s characters are peripheral to the incomprehensible conflict between the demons of uncertain motive and the superheroes of unknown affiliation, so it can not. Also, as I may have mentioned, the most important character in T.D.K. is unlikable, bland, and not worth the attention several forces in the universe are giving him, and certainly not worth mine.

I got up to date with the archives at the Ouija Board scene, which was setting the stage for yet another mysterious faceless evil entity…or maybe just giving a name to the same one, I don’t know. I couldn’t even be sure if any of the demon-things died in the final battle. To put a cap on this all, this webcomic is like a bucket of buttered popcorn: it’s presented extremely well, it’s tasty enough on its own and you can read through it in big bites, but once you’re done, you’re going to feel empty and dissatisfied, and will probably have a few kernels jammed between your teeth.