[Rec] Slavonica
Jul. 23rd, 2017 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yuuagoI've stumbled across a webcomic very relevant to my interests: Slavonica. Short fantasy stories inspired by Slavic mythology and culture, oh yesss! Specifically, drawing on/setting in Poland - the artist/author is herself Polish.
Some of you might have seen the short comic "Deal" on tumblr, in which a witch tricks the god Veles (!!!). Well, "Deal" is the first story in Slavonica. In the next (much longer) story, "The Warlock's Apprentice", it jumps to another character - dear Sambor (I adore him). And then the third story, "The Snake King", currently in-progress, centres around yet another character. I expect that when "Snake King" is finished, we'll come back to either Sambor or Mojmira the Witch again, if the author's comments are anything to judge by.
The setting + source folklore are obviously a huge draw for me, but the art is pretty cool too, if that style is to your taste. It certainly suits my taste, anyway. And I like what we've seen of the central characters so far. (I want to give Sambor a million hugs and feed him all kinds of delicious food and braid his hair, pffff... Help, I think I've fallen in love with this poor kid.)
A neat thing: while this is a minor detail that has only come up in the author's notes, and is unlikely to appear in the comic itself - the author has stated that Sambor is nonbinary*. I just kind of appreciate that they have decided to make it clear that they see their character that way, regardless of whether the subject will come up in any of the stories Sambor appears in.
So! I'm glad I took the time to read this - I've been meaning to ever since it came onto my radar a couple of weeks ago, but wasn't able to set aside time until this weekend. The comic (or comic series, perhaps one could say) isn't actually very lengthy, so if you do decide to check it out, it won't take long to get through it. The above Tumblr post for "Deal" contains that story in its entirety, and "The Warlock's Apprentice" is only 38 pages. I have no idea how long "The Snake King" will be when it's finished.
A few caveats:
-Slavonica is hosted on Tapas rather than its own website. I am not a fan of Tapas' site layout; maybe it looks better on mobile (I have no idea) but on desktop it feels kind of cluttered and scroll-y and I just... don't like that.
-Some portions of this comic are marked as Mature due to situational nudity/violence (nothing graphic, though). So, you need a Tapas account in order to read those pages, which is kind of annoying.
-The updates are erratic. Following this would necessitate subscribing, I think, since it doesn't adhere to a regular update schedule.
But, those are all fussy details, really, and don't have to do with the content of the comic itself. So, if you liked "Deal", I do suggest reading "The Warlock's Apprentice" at least, since that one is complete.
Some of you might have seen the short comic "Deal" on tumblr, in which a witch tricks the god Veles (!!!). Well, "Deal" is the first story in Slavonica. In the next (much longer) story, "The Warlock's Apprentice", it jumps to another character - dear Sambor (I adore him). And then the third story, "The Snake King", currently in-progress, centres around yet another character. I expect that when "Snake King" is finished, we'll come back to either Sambor or Mojmira the Witch again, if the author's comments are anything to judge by.
The setting + source folklore are obviously a huge draw for me, but the art is pretty cool too, if that style is to your taste. It certainly suits my taste, anyway. And I like what we've seen of the central characters so far. (I want to give Sambor a million hugs and feed him all kinds of delicious food and braid his hair, pffff... Help, I think I've fallen in love with this poor kid.)
A neat thing: while this is a minor detail that has only come up in the author's notes, and is unlikely to appear in the comic itself - the author has stated that Sambor is nonbinary*. I just kind of appreciate that they have decided to make it clear that they see their character that way, regardless of whether the subject will come up in any of the stories Sambor appears in.
So! I'm glad I took the time to read this - I've been meaning to ever since it came onto my radar a couple of weeks ago, but wasn't able to set aside time until this weekend. The comic (or comic series, perhaps one could say) isn't actually very lengthy, so if you do decide to check it out, it won't take long to get through it. The above Tumblr post for "Deal" contains that story in its entirety, and "The Warlock's Apprentice" is only 38 pages. I have no idea how long "The Snake King" will be when it's finished.
A few caveats:
-Slavonica is hosted on Tapas rather than its own website. I am not a fan of Tapas' site layout; maybe it looks better on mobile (I have no idea) but on desktop it feels kind of cluttered and scroll-y and I just... don't like that.
-Some portions of this comic are marked as Mature due to situational nudity/violence (nothing graphic, though). So, you need a Tapas account in order to read those pages, which is kind of annoying.
-The updates are erratic. Following this would necessitate subscribing, I think, since it doesn't adhere to a regular update schedule.
But, those are all fussy details, really, and don't have to do with the content of the comic itself. So, if you liked "Deal", I do suggest reading "The Warlock's Apprentice" at least, since that one is complete.
Yuu. Fic writer & book lover. M/Canada.
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Date: 2017-07-24 08:59 am (UTC)Mélusine
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Date: 2017-07-24 03:10 pm (UTC)Mm, yeah, the update schedule (or lack of it) is quite a bummer. It really makes me appreciate people who are able to do regular updates.
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Date: 2017-07-24 09:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-24 03:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-24 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-24 03:12 pm (UTC)The artist's stand-alone illustrations kept coming up in my searches and it was a while before I realized there was a comic to go with the pretty art as well....
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Date: 2017-07-24 02:21 pm (UTC)How do you find these webcomics? I wonder how many other myth-based webcomics there are out there since I love these. Especially things with witches/mages. :)
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Date: 2017-07-24 03:15 pm (UTC)With this one, I came across it because the artist's work kept coming up in my searches for stuff related to Slavic folklore/mythology - they've done a few illustrations and such relevant to the traditions (like this one for example). But it took me a while before I realized there was a comic too.
For other ones, though (Yih & SmT)... those were through recs from SSSS readers, I'm afraid. xD I bet there are a ton of other good ones out there that I don't know anything about.
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Date: 2017-07-28 10:26 pm (UTC)