Parallax

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Rating Summary

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Background
This comic was brought up in the forum by the user Cinnayanny, calling it like not an aggressively bad webcomic, but an “uniquely type of bad” webcomic. Since it is a really short one, I decided to read it entirely and check how true these statements are. Not only had i discovered that all that they said is true, but (to my surprise) there are even more problems than they described. So let’s see the problems with this…

Downfall
The technical downfall is between the second half of the second chapter and the third chapter, but my personal downfall is the third page, where we see the protagonist crying because his DS’s battery died. Yeah, we start really strong here...

Story and Plot
We follow the life of Lomax Torchstone, a 17 years old edgy crybaby loner trapped in the most boring town in the history of existence, aka Silverdalen (even though it looks like an average town, meaning that Lomax is even more of a whiny bitch), until his physics professor, Dan Rogers, recruits him with a piece of magic glass (called Raiments) for some random paranormal exterminator of “Matter-horners”, creatures that can be best described as Sirenhead-like monsters, but instead of sirens they have geometric obsidian objects for heads. From here we follow their adventures full of mysteries, battles, betrayal, coming-of-age, long scenes of walking and talking, and more for 6 chapters and 305 pages. These chapters are:

Chapter 1/0: Shard/Up is the Only Way We meet Lomax and see how “miserable” his life is, how he met his teacher, and his first transformation.

Things to highlight:


 * The first three pages are used for a zoom out of this strange machine. It looks important, no? Well, hope you don't forget it. It'll be next seen at the end of this comic.
 * The previously mentioned DS cry scene.
 * Apparently, Lomax is in a major that he doesn’t like because his parents forced him to do it. Sounds like exigent parents, but later this fact is totally contradicted.
 * The delivery of the magical object. Put a pin in the runes that are on the outside of the box, it will be mentioned again later.
 * This dream sequence. It's the one plot thing that's not a character that shows up consistently, not in a good way.
 * The first magical girl transformation of the protagonist. Oh, and get used to seeing Lomax crying. We will see it a lot.
 * The protagonist calls Dan for help.
 * It’s the only chapter that has double the number and double the title. The author was too stupid to make the first chapter a real chapter

Chapter 2: Pierced by Starlight Lomax fights his first monster, and we see the series of events that derived in this battle.

Things to highlight:


 * We meet the father of Lomax. The mother appeared in the first chapter, and with that scene combined with this scene, it shows that both are the normal type of parents. So, the whiny attitude of the protagonist is more unjustified.
 * This last-minute news about a seven year old dead girl. Pin this too, it will be mentioned later.
 * Lomax collides with a creepy, in trench coat man. Remember this face; it's a main character.
 * This page may or may not imply that Dan is a pedophile. Take your chances.
 * Lomax encounters a golden ring that belongs to Dan. Pin this too; the reason of why this ring exists makes no fucking sense.
 * Dan does a little of info dumping about the monsters, the Raiment and why he is there. Later, Dan trains him a little to control the shard.
 * Lomax discovers with his powers that Dan apparently is disappearing. It’s a little early to say it but fuck it; this disappearing is the cause of death of this guy. The reason of why he is disappearing will appear in the sixth chapter.
 * Lomax’s first mission: Kill this cube thing. Lomax almost dies because he is paralyzed of fear, and the only reason that he is alive is because of a Deus ex machina. Also, this battle is a little confusing because it interludes between the past and the present.
 * Lomax ended up in the hospital. At first it looks that his crybaby attitude toned down because of the trauma but looking at the later chapters it confirm it as only an illusion.

Chapter 3: Hazy After the hospitalization, Lomax explores his powers a little, and while he is in another monster extermination mission, he meets another mysterious raiment user that tries to kill him.

Things to highlight:


 * We meet Sosanna and Elin, a pair of paranormal investigators. They are not of much relevance, except for two things: They work for the trench coat man, and that Sosanna plays a mod of Dark Souls.
 * This Shonen anime. Apparently, this show inspires him to be a hero, or some shit like that…
 * The power of the raiment cures all injured bones at a really impressive speed. Pretty convenient for his next mission, ay?
 * We meet this other raiment user, who starts trying to kill Lomax (thanks god). Put another pin in for this woman. I forgot to tell that Dan sends Lomax alone to this mission, because he was late, so this save is really convenient too. Pin the entire mission and tardy arrival to the list too.
 * Lomax confesses what he viewed in the second chapter to Dan.
 * This scene confirms that the trench coat man has some type of connection with Dan.
 * The before mentioned ring it turns out that is a communicator. Also is the first appearance of Master Ari. She explains about the fading of Dan, saying that is a side effect of the raiment. Pin this side effect.
 * We see the reason of why Dan is doing what he is doing. It's his big brother, and he is dead. The reason why he is dead is explained in the sixth chapter and is very stupid.

Chapter 4: Blue Dan and Lomax go on another hunting mission in Central Park, and meets a blue haired Raiment user that Dan mistrust instantly.

Things to highlight:


 * We start with the same dream scene from before. Wait, never mind. Some tiny changes were made, totally new scene.
 * Dan's plan to clear the park for Lomax. He is really lucky that the police are the slowest of the entire world, because in any other place you would already have them in your ass in minutes.
 * We meet the blue haired Raiment user Lewi Kanzinshy, aka the hot dog guy. We will go to expand about him in the writing section, but for now my only question is: Why he is the only raiment user that has a boob window in their costume? Because he is literally the only one that has it in the entire comic.
 * Dan entrusts Lomax to watch the new guy, because he doesn’t trust him. This leads us into a really long scene of them both bonding that I had to inject myself coffee directly into the veins to keep me awake for. Also, this bonding time it transforms into a super close relationship that comes of nowhere in like, what, three pages? Oh wow! What good character development, I applaud you!!! Oh, and how he obtained his Raiment is because he entered the forbidden excavation zone and encountered the piece of glass in the ground. What a joke.
 * The trench coat man is starting to plan confronting the duo personally.
 * Except for some things here and there, this chapter feels like a filler chapter.

Chapter 5: The Conductor We finally met the real enemy, and we see the real colors of Dan.

Things to highlight:


 * The trench coat man pays a visit to Dan. Yeah, that was his plan… Also, he is the father of him, and apparently had something to do with Marcus’s death, either directly or indirectly.
 * Dan gets another videocall from Master Ari. He’s began considered for a good “firing” from whatever the fuck he's in, if you understand what I mean. She gives a second opportunity to Dan, but also prepares a plan B, because she realized that Dan is unreliable.
 * Lewi gives a tour to Lomax around Silverdalen. This is an excuse for some more info dumping that will not be used. The only thing that's important about all this boring exposition is that archeological excavations and their sites are forbidden, because the government wants to hide something from the public. Pin this information too.
 * Dan calls Lomax for a reunion. Later in the chapter, the blue haired guy sows the seed of doubt about Dan, but I believe it was unnecessary because of how strange his requests were.
 * Lewi guides Lomax to “The Library”, a cave full of runes. Before you ask, no, it will not have any repercussions for what’s left of the comic at all.
 * Lomax arrives at the reunion, and Dan confesses the truth about his reason of being there. Here he tells us that the ring is the symbol of an organization/cult called “The Circle” and confess that he is part of them, and he was using him.
 * Master Ari and her two henchmen arrive conveniently to interrupt their reunion. Basically, this starts a battle for survival, since they only need the Raiment. In this battle, it is revealed that Dan also is Raiment user too, and his power is summon Matter-horners. This implies that Dan is was training Lomax and not hunting monsters. Also apparently summoning these monsters is the cause of his fading.
 * Both of the teens are saved by the purple Raiment user, in a really convenient way. Also, both of them fainted during the saving. Because of this, Master Ari has a temper stratum and takes it out on the entire town.

Chapter 6 The outcome of the rescue of the duo.

Things to highlight:
 * The purple Raiment woman arrives to the workplace of Sosanna and Elin. We discover that the woman is the father of Dan... WHAT?
 * We discover the Nil. Basically, it's some type of ancient dream internet that they over-explain and over-complicate.
 * The… Soul? Of Dan infodump his past. Apparently when he and Marcus ended up orphans because of an accident; they were adopted by Walt (the trench coat man) and Martha, his wife; they ended divorcing because he was too absorbed in his work; causing Marcus took it out on the machine and ended disintegrated for it. Another pin.
 * An ethereal voice helps Lomax back to conscious. It’s the same voice of the Deus Ex Machina from the second chapter. Lomax also gives the bad news about his son to Walt.
 * The end of this comic is with the dream, but this time Lomax doesn’t drown. Let’s not forget that Lomax has spent at least 24 hours out of the house, without notifying his parents about anything. This will the last pin for today.

Art Review
When someone says that something is eye candy, this comic is one example of it. The colors, the shading, the effects, how the panels are distributed, the backgrounds, and the covers; there's almost nothing bad about art that you can complain about… Well, except for one thing: the characters design. In specific, four characters:


 * 1) Lomax: If you read until the third page, then you probably noticed that he has really thick and long eyelashes. The question is: why does he has them? These things are out of tune with the rest of the characters, since the only other character that has them is his father. Nobody else has them, not even THE ONLY THREE FEMALE CHARACTERS OF THE ENTIRE COMIC. Perhaps the author just wanted a girly looking protagonist? If this is the case, then I say: Go full femboy or don’t do it, don’t stay halfway.Lomax.jpg
 * 2) The cat: Look at him, look at the eyes: Ramsay.jpg Doesn’t he looks like he will be an important character, like a sidekick or something? Well, no. That cat is only a background character. So why give him such detailed and humanoid looking eyes, if he will not be important to the story? It looks like that at any moment, he'll stand up on two legs and start singing. I believe that the author realized this, because later appearances of this cat always have his eyes closed, or backwards, or with his head outside the panel.
 * 3) The blue haired guy: Again, WHY THE BOOB WINDOW?!BlueGuy.jpg
 * 4) Walt/The purple raiment: No matter how much I read and re-read the comic, I still can’t believe that these two characters are the same person. He is the only raiment user that has this; the rest of them maintain the gender and body structure. The comic never explains why or how this happens.Comparación.jpg

Writing Review
Now here is where the real shitstorm starts. Let’s begin with the protagonist, Lomax. He is basically an edgy loner who can’t seem to even speak to other people... not exactly a character you want to emphasize or root for. The worst part is that there is no justification for this attitude: his parents are not pressing him to study all day or anything; there are no bullies or people judge-whispering; or anything in his environment to cause or sustain this depression. The pressure of the school, maybe? He says that he didn’t want to be in a science major, but from my view, it's not because his parents forced him to study that career, but because his parents suggested that career and he accepted it, just because he is incapable of saying no. It’s the most logical conclusion by looking at his attitude in the entire comic. And don’t make me start with all the times he cries. The comic literally starts with the main character crying for his DS’s dead battery, BECAUSE HIS DS’S DEAD BATTERY!!! Man, grow some balls. The only valid reason to cry for a console is because your saved game gets corrupted and leaves your console useless. The only character that I can think of when I see Lomax is Shinji from Neon Genesis Evangelion, but at least Shinji doesn’t reveal how much of a weak cowardly bitch he is in the first episode! This makes the finale feels empty, because it does not feel that Lomax deserves this end. Also, with his withdrawn attitude, he has the annoying character flaw of not really wanting to be the main character in anything - he does not seek adventure: he's trying to avoid it - but the comic seems to treat him as if he's seeking out adventure. All the adventure can be defined like "I'm an edgy loner, nobody understands me" to "what? mystical powers? eww, I don't want this". Normally a good story would have that turn into "I accept my new powers and responsibility, and grow with the task", but this never happens. Or who knows... Maybe in the sequel will appear this feature, but I'm getting ahead in the review. This is a little similar to the transflake from Forward, but less in your face.

But the problems don’t stop with Lomax, next we will talk about Lewi. There two problems with him: First, his friendship with Lomax comes out of nowhere. Like, in the end of the battle where he is introduced, they have a relationship comparable with months of knowing each other, and at the end of the comic, Lomax and Lewi have a super close relationship that comes out of nowhere. And guess what? I don't care about this blue fucker! I have no reason to care about him or his interactions with Lomax; and that is the second problem, he is of zero importance to what's left of the plot, and he doesn’t add anything to it. He is literally used for only two things: being a joke because his keyword is ass, and showing Lomax the surroundings of Silverdale (apparently, it's a country, what the fuck?), something that Dan could have easily done instead. Hell, it would have been infinitely better if in the fourth chapter Dan showed that he is a Raiment user, instead of this irrelevant guy. Talking about Dan, until you come to the fourth chapter, you will spend your entire time thinking of why this teacher randomly gives his crybaby student a shard of magic glass and forces him defend the local town. But even with the explication, doesn’t answer the question of why he chooses him specifically, or why he didn’t search for another solution for his situation that he is in doesn't involving killing himself by summoning monsters. I can continue ranting about the rest of characters, but it will go on forever, so let’s go to the final point.

Finally, we have the pacing, the length and the finale of the comic. As you will have noticed, this is a coming-of-age story, but you also noticed that it has 305 pages and six chapters. It's few, too few for this type of story, because it doesn’t leave you much space for developing. How do you solve this problem? Well, not by speeding up the pacing like it was chased. The start is really slow, where you are looking at solid half of the pages consisting of Lomax moping and being a whiny bitch, but around the halfway point of the second chapter the writer gets real sick of writing and starts speedrunning to get world record for ending a comic. This disinterest of the author is denoted with the sixth chapter because 1) This is the chapter with the least number of pages; 2) The chapter is not even named; and 3) the author doesn’t even bother to put a hotlink for it in the archive. But at the same time, somehow the pacing feels like a glacier at some points of this acceleration. I guess is because the comic spends so much time making the characters walk and talk, and the interesting moments are really short. How the hell you can do this, by accident?

Talking about the finale, the ending is by far my least favorite part. Mostly because it's not an ending. It's a climax, a sequel setup. We've practically lost the school roots. And this leaves a lot of questions without answers. What questions? Well, let’s bring back the pins here: What are the runes for, since the only thing that we see doing is glow with the shards? What does the plot have to do with this 7 years old girl in the news? And why was this little girl in an archaeological area alone? Why a cult, organizations known for use worthless things to manipulate their members, gives gold rings for symbols? Why not a glass ring, where it would have more sense with the theming? Why is Walt being the only Raiment user that changes gender with his transformation? Did Dan plant the monster of the third chapter then hid somewhere to save Lomax in last moment; or plant the monster, go to his house, and come back to the site? Why are there clues that both things happened? Why Dan is the only one has a side effect, since the rest of Raiment users spam their powers and don’t experience any? Since the government of Silverdale is interested in the occult the secrets of the archeological excavations, why don't they put out a special security to patrol the zone? Why did Marcus fault the machine and not his father for the divorce? Why did Lomax's parents straight up fucking vanish from the third chapter onward, even though they are an integral part of his character development? None of these questions have answers, and those are the questions that I remember. What a good finale, no?

Author Biography
I tried, okay? I tried to find information about M. Falke, but the only things that I found about him is this reupload in Pinterest, where it says that he is a cartoonist, illustrator, game artist and “all-round creative person”; and the Twitter of the comic. But there is no more information about him… It looks like the author came out of the ground, spawned the comic, and went back to that ground hole.

Update: The user Taim Safar came to the forum with new information. Apparently M. Falke had a personal twitter account called FIGHTBEAST, which was suspended under the accusation of ownership of CP drawings. Basically because he was drawing NSFW ship art of Randy Cunningham and Howard Weinerman. Here some twits about it:



If you search for “FIGHTBEAST Weinerham” results in some the Weinerham ship art. There also a post on reddit asking about the whereabouts of FIGHTBEAST:



Oh, and he appears to have an NSFW account named Betobetolove, which he used to publish two comics named Baron’s Black Book and Sparky’s Magical Cam. I also add that in one their grammatical revisions of Cinnayanny, they mentioned that M. Falke had a Patreon that he tells us that he has money problems and he lives solely off his artwork, but also was deleted of existence because of the polemic and only is findable by wayback machine. I would have put it before, but since didn’t find it I decided to leave it out of the initial review.

Conclusion
The best analogy for this comic it is this: You find a gold nugget on the floor, you grab it, and then you discover something strange with the nugget, you scratch it a little, and discover that your dog ate a Ferrero Rocher. If there ever will be a sequel, I doubt anyone will be interested in it. At least I’m not.

Links

 * TV Tropes page of the webcomic
 * Twitter of the webcomic

And since there is not much else, I will list of the artists that been featured in the webcomic with guest comics:


 * This one and this one is done by Clairie Duffy.
 * This one, this one and this one is done by Bergzeker.
 * This one is done by Willim.
 * This one is done by Mr. Domon.
 * This one is done by Wendy Lian Martin.
 * This one is done by Anna Landin.
 * This one is done by Koti Saveedra.
 * This one is done by Eyugho.
 * This one is done by Don.