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yuuagoWhile I've flailed a bit over A Redtail's Dream previously, I wanted to make a more detailed entry about the comic and my impressions of it. I found it a delightful read, and I hope that anyone who is even a little bit interested in it will give it a try.
A Redtail's Dream is a webcomic by Minna Sundberg, who is also the author/artist of a currently-running comic, Stand Still, Stay Silent. As the author puts it, A Redtail's Dream is a story about " a young man and his shapeshifting dog on an involuntary journey on the other side of the Bird's Path in the realm of dreams. They have to rescue their fellow Villagers before their souls pass on to Tuonela, the land of eternal sleep." Complete at roughly 550 pages in length, ARTD is long enough to have some meat to the story, but short enough that it doesn't take terribly long to read. It can be read here, and is available in both English and Finnish.
While A Redtail's Dream draws inspiration from Finnish mythology and the Kalevala, it's possible to jump in and enjoy it without knowing those stories. The comic is able to stand by itself, developing in its own way. A knowledge of Finnish mythology is not required to understand this comic - though it might make the reading experience richer.
In terms of narrative, A Redtail's Dream is structured like a fairytale. Hannu and Ville are given eight tasks that they must complete before they will be able to successfully rescue the people of the village from the land of the dead. There are eight people they must find. There are eight problems that they need to solve. And so on. For some, this structure might make the story predictable. But, if you go into it expecting a fairy tale, then it's satisfying enough, because that is exactly what it delivers - with plenty of action, friendship, and self-sacrifice along the way!
One of the biggest strengths of the comic is Minna Sundberg's art. All the pages are full-colour, with characters rendered in a charming style, and beautiful backgrounds. The chapter title images are absolutely stunning, and the regular comic pages are also lovely.
Art can prop a comic up pretty well, but it can't stand on art alone. While the story is relatively simple, I find that the way it is done is satisfying, if one expects the kind of story that it is. On the characters front, Hannu and Ville are a well-matched duo. Hannu is an unlikely hero: lazy, a bit grumpy, not very social. But he understands that if he and Ville don't succeed in their mission, the village will be lost to Tuonela, and he bravely presses on - while complaining about it the whole way. As for Ville, he's adorable in all his many forms, and while he loves Hannu dearly, that doesn't mean he isn't willing to criticize his actions and his attitude when necessary, especially in cases where not doing so will make things difficult for both of them. Their dynamic works very, very well. And not only that, but their interaction is at times very funny - I laughed out loud several times while reading this comic.
As for the secondary characters, the villagers that Hannu and Ville meet along the way are varied in personality and appearance, and the "leaders" that they need to talk to include women, children, and seniors, among others. I found them interesting, and some of them very memorable - Åsa and Paju in particular have a lot of presence to them. One thing that I really, really appreciated is that Sundberg included a lot of older characters in her comic; this isn't something that I see very often in stories featuring a protagonist under 25, so I think it's worth a mention.
While I love this comic, it isn't without some shortcomings.
Though A Redtail's Dream is very good on several fronts, there are some places where it is not very effective. While I enjoyed the story, it took a while to get into it. I found that the prologue somehow managed to move both too fast and too slowly at the same time; I had to push myself to get through it. Ordinarily, I don't have much difficulty with prologues, but I found this one clunky and confusing, as there was so much dialogue and so much going on, and because I didn't know any of the many, many characters yet, I had trouble keeping track of who was saying what, and who was doing what, and I had trouble caring about anything.
Chapter 1, and the beginning of the actual story, starts at Page 15. Can the Prologue be skipped? Not necessarily. The Prologue opens up the supernatural background of the story, and many of the human characters that appear in it will appear later, and familiarity with them can make the story richer. Personally, my best suggestion would be to push through it. Though if one decides to begin at Chapter 1 instead, then there won't be total confusion, as Puppy-Fox explains the situation of the supernatural unbalance to Hannu in that chapter. But in general, I favour reading things from beginning to end.
Experiences with the beginning of the comic will vary. For me, I didn't truly get into it until about halfway through Chapter 3. Prior to that, I'd been reading it, but didn't feel an uncontrollable urge to keep going; it was easy to pick up and put down. In addition to that, the first two chapters are very short, while the other chapters get longer and longer. This could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on one's reading habits, as it is a personal taste issue more than anything else.
As for the comic after Chapter 3 - I read the entire thing in one night. I simply couldn't stop myself; I had to see what came next. Naturally, this won't apply to everyone, but for me, this comic made an excellent binge-read. It helps that it is relatively short.
In addition to the issue of pacing, especially in the Prologue, there are other aspects of this comic that didn't fit well for me. Though I listed the humour as a positive, it can also at times be a negative. While I laughed more than I expected, and the banter between Hannu and Ville is delightful, there are other times when the humour seems, for lack of a better word, dated. The comic ran from 2011 to 2013, but sometimes the punchlines give the impression of a story that was written between 2005-2009,.
The "dated" aspect is, of course, very subjective, and is hard to pin down, and could actually be an indication of nothing more than a difference between my tastes and the tastes of the author/artist. An example of what I mean: on multiple occasions, Hannu says and does strange things because he is on a long and impossible quest, and his odd behaviour causes bystanders to speculate as to whether he is mentally ill, or whether he has been consuming drugs. This is a kind of punchline that I saw a lot in the 2005-2009 period and earlier, and had been under the impression that it was used less frequently now, though I might be wrong about that.
Another aspect of the dialogue in the comic that is not to my taste is the casual use of the word "retard". This, combined with the occasional verbal jab about Ville's weight, is an example of the kind of thing that I prefer to avoid in stories I read. Every day, I interact with people Hannu's age (~24 or so), and they speak in the exact same way, so the dialogue does ring as realistic. But realistic or not, this is one thing about the comic that I really do not like. There are some aspects of realism that I do not like to see in the fiction I consume.
I'm unsure if the humour and the slang is similar in the Finnish version of the comic. It is possible that in that version, the jokes are not the same, and that the humour scans differently. But since I can't read Finnish, I can't comment on that part of the comic.
These aspects of the comic - rough pacing at the beginning, the occasional dated humour, and the unfortunate slang - might turn some readers away. For me, there is enough space between the dialogue issues that I am still willing to put up with cringing occasionally, because I love the rest of the comic so much. And after one steps through the Prologue and the first few chapters, the pace proceeds at a very good clip, so the pacing issue was thankfully not huge for me.
I'm very glad that the comic's shortcomings did not turn me off, because it really was a charming read, with beautiful art, engaging characters, and an interesting fairy-tale story. Currently, A Redtail's Dream is only available online; a few years ago, Sundberg ran a croundfunding campaign to print the book, which was a huge success. The print version is no longer available... but I hope that some day, there will be a second printing, so that I can have a personal copy for myself. :)
A Redtail's Dream is a webcomic by Minna Sundberg, who is also the author/artist of a currently-running comic, Stand Still, Stay Silent. As the author puts it, A Redtail's Dream is a story about " a young man and his shapeshifting dog on an involuntary journey on the other side of the Bird's Path in the realm of dreams. They have to rescue their fellow Villagers before their souls pass on to Tuonela, the land of eternal sleep." Complete at roughly 550 pages in length, ARTD is long enough to have some meat to the story, but short enough that it doesn't take terribly long to read. It can be read here, and is available in both English and Finnish.
While A Redtail's Dream draws inspiration from Finnish mythology and the Kalevala, it's possible to jump in and enjoy it without knowing those stories. The comic is able to stand by itself, developing in its own way. A knowledge of Finnish mythology is not required to understand this comic - though it might make the reading experience richer.
In terms of narrative, A Redtail's Dream is structured like a fairytale. Hannu and Ville are given eight tasks that they must complete before they will be able to successfully rescue the people of the village from the land of the dead. There are eight people they must find. There are eight problems that they need to solve. And so on. For some, this structure might make the story predictable. But, if you go into it expecting a fairy tale, then it's satisfying enough, because that is exactly what it delivers - with plenty of action, friendship, and self-sacrifice along the way!
One of the biggest strengths of the comic is Minna Sundberg's art. All the pages are full-colour, with characters rendered in a charming style, and beautiful backgrounds. The chapter title images are absolutely stunning, and the regular comic pages are also lovely.
Art can prop a comic up pretty well, but it can't stand on art alone. While the story is relatively simple, I find that the way it is done is satisfying, if one expects the kind of story that it is. On the characters front, Hannu and Ville are a well-matched duo. Hannu is an unlikely hero: lazy, a bit grumpy, not very social. But he understands that if he and Ville don't succeed in their mission, the village will be lost to Tuonela, and he bravely presses on - while complaining about it the whole way. As for Ville, he's adorable in all his many forms, and while he loves Hannu dearly, that doesn't mean he isn't willing to criticize his actions and his attitude when necessary, especially in cases where not doing so will make things difficult for both of them. Their dynamic works very, very well. And not only that, but their interaction is at times very funny - I laughed out loud several times while reading this comic.
As for the secondary characters, the villagers that Hannu and Ville meet along the way are varied in personality and appearance, and the "leaders" that they need to talk to include women, children, and seniors, among others. I found them interesting, and some of them very memorable - Åsa and Paju in particular have a lot of presence to them. One thing that I really, really appreciated is that Sundberg included a lot of older characters in her comic; this isn't something that I see very often in stories featuring a protagonist under 25, so I think it's worth a mention.
While I love this comic, it isn't without some shortcomings.
Though A Redtail's Dream is very good on several fronts, there are some places where it is not very effective. While I enjoyed the story, it took a while to get into it. I found that the prologue somehow managed to move both too fast and too slowly at the same time; I had to push myself to get through it. Ordinarily, I don't have much difficulty with prologues, but I found this one clunky and confusing, as there was so much dialogue and so much going on, and because I didn't know any of the many, many characters yet, I had trouble keeping track of who was saying what, and who was doing what, and I had trouble caring about anything.
Chapter 1, and the beginning of the actual story, starts at Page 15. Can the Prologue be skipped? Not necessarily. The Prologue opens up the supernatural background of the story, and many of the human characters that appear in it will appear later, and familiarity with them can make the story richer. Personally, my best suggestion would be to push through it. Though if one decides to begin at Chapter 1 instead, then there won't be total confusion, as Puppy-Fox explains the situation of the supernatural unbalance to Hannu in that chapter. But in general, I favour reading things from beginning to end.
Experiences with the beginning of the comic will vary. For me, I didn't truly get into it until about halfway through Chapter 3. Prior to that, I'd been reading it, but didn't feel an uncontrollable urge to keep going; it was easy to pick up and put down. In addition to that, the first two chapters are very short, while the other chapters get longer and longer. This could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on one's reading habits, as it is a personal taste issue more than anything else.
As for the comic after Chapter 3 - I read the entire thing in one night. I simply couldn't stop myself; I had to see what came next. Naturally, this won't apply to everyone, but for me, this comic made an excellent binge-read. It helps that it is relatively short.
In addition to the issue of pacing, especially in the Prologue, there are other aspects of this comic that didn't fit well for me. Though I listed the humour as a positive, it can also at times be a negative. While I laughed more than I expected, and the banter between Hannu and Ville is delightful, there are other times when the humour seems, for lack of a better word, dated. The comic ran from 2011 to 2013, but sometimes the punchlines give the impression of a story that was written between 2005-2009,.
The "dated" aspect is, of course, very subjective, and is hard to pin down, and could actually be an indication of nothing more than a difference between my tastes and the tastes of the author/artist. An example of what I mean: on multiple occasions, Hannu says and does strange things because he is on a long and impossible quest, and his odd behaviour causes bystanders to speculate as to whether he is mentally ill, or whether he has been consuming drugs. This is a kind of punchline that I saw a lot in the 2005-2009 period and earlier, and had been under the impression that it was used less frequently now, though I might be wrong about that.
Another aspect of the dialogue in the comic that is not to my taste is the casual use of the word "retard". This, combined with the occasional verbal jab about Ville's weight, is an example of the kind of thing that I prefer to avoid in stories I read. Every day, I interact with people Hannu's age (~24 or so), and they speak in the exact same way, so the dialogue does ring as realistic. But realistic or not, this is one thing about the comic that I really do not like. There are some aspects of realism that I do not like to see in the fiction I consume.
I'm unsure if the humour and the slang is similar in the Finnish version of the comic. It is possible that in that version, the jokes are not the same, and that the humour scans differently. But since I can't read Finnish, I can't comment on that part of the comic.
These aspects of the comic - rough pacing at the beginning, the occasional dated humour, and the unfortunate slang - might turn some readers away. For me, there is enough space between the dialogue issues that I am still willing to put up with cringing occasionally, because I love the rest of the comic so much. And after one steps through the Prologue and the first few chapters, the pace proceeds at a very good clip, so the pacing issue was thankfully not huge for me.
I'm very glad that the comic's shortcomings did not turn me off, because it really was a charming read, with beautiful art, engaging characters, and an interesting fairy-tale story. Currently, A Redtail's Dream is only available online; a few years ago, Sundberg ran a croundfunding campaign to print the book, which was a huge success. The print version is no longer available... but I hope that some day, there will be a second printing, so that I can have a personal copy for myself. :)
Yuu. Fic writer & book lover. M/Canada.
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