Afterwar

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Rating Summary

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Background
The webcomic was presented in the forum by the user rov2002, claiming it was boring and that tried too hard to be a mature comic. I read it whole and despite I agree with the second point, I’m not so sure about the first one. What I believe is this is wasted potential of an author that doesn’t know what kind of tone wants for the comic, and that is a little sad. Anyways, let’s go to the review to see what I was talking about.

Downfall
Around the page 39 (the shower scene) starts the nudity and sex which clashes tonaly with the war story theme. Although in the plotline part is in the page 11 with the confusing use of flashbacks.

Story and Plot
We follow the misadventures of Pharia Yatte, a female elf and mecha co-pilot; and Tiavo Redfang, a female lizardfolk and Captain/Leader of the Redscale Squadron. All this happens during the end of the Endless War, a conflict between The Confederation and The Empire (I guess it is pretty clear what they represent), until the Confederation surrender, and both girls get captured and prosecuted by The Empire. Then we see what happen to them and how they handle their lives under the oppression of their enemy.

The rest of the plot will be a big spoiler, and believe me, these comic deservers at least a good reading. But I will leave some more information which are more or less relevant for the plot:


 * 1) All the species presented here are species from the high fantasy, but inserted in a futuristic scenario. Some new species appears later, like the Sand Giants; the Nezumi (Ratfolk); the (probably) Beastfolk/Beastmen; the Harpys; the Kitsunes, etc.
 * 2) There are three more major characters in the story: Lieutenant Sareph "Tiny Copper", a female lizardfolk with mechanical upgrades that is the intelligence of the Redscale Squad, and she will the one that spend more time with Pharia, since they ended in what I can describe like a futuristic mega-gulag; Countess Alexandra Rodianova, a female Ice Giant that was the leader of the Empire force that captured Tiavo and her squadron, and basically is her master since she reclaimed her like a slave; and Operative Grey One (aka Sapphire), a kitsune bio-soldier that spies Tiavo by order of Alexandra, and that I felt is getting a little attached to her objective.
 * 3) There is a side-story of an ex-sergeant called Sara where she was fired and imprisoned for disobedience and ended being recruited by Alexandra. This probably end combined with principal story in some point.

Art Review
The art style... it's hard to describe for me. I mean, in the early pages the style is serviceable, but the faces sometimes are simplified and looks weird, other times, the frontal view of faces of the lizardfolk don't looks good, and I'm not sure what is happening in the first panel of this page. As it progress the story, the art looks that improves, but there still some problems like: the proportions of the perspectives, the side mouths, that Sara has the stuffy nose like the tumblr style mandates. It looks like the author spends more time on the coloring and shading, than getting basic anatomy to look good.



Other thing to say is the strange decisions in the art style, some of these decision are: the letter font selected for some onomatopoeia, like for example this page, it doesn’t blend absolutely with the pages and looks strange; the mouth vapor of this page that, sincerely, looks like a hentai scene; that sometimes the author uses chibi style in this semi-realistic style; and finally we have lots, lots, and lots of females using belt sized tops. I mean, I’m not complaining about the last point, but it seems strange to me that is so popular in this universe. Despite all that, it’s not the worst art style I ever see.

Writing Review
The thing what stands out the most is that the author in not a native English speaker. You will encounter lots of spelling errors, so many which look like potholes interrupting the ride. I'm not sure if too much work doing it, but typing the text into a spell-checker before inking is ask too much? Even some of the titles of the pages has spelling errors, have a look to the archive. Though I’m not position of complain much, since I'm also not a native English speaker... Update: According to this comment in this page, she actually uses a spell checker, but truly it doesn’t denote in later pages.

In case of the story itself, it's interesting enough to keep your attention. Some people may find the pacing a little too slow, but the content compensates it. But sometimes there are some events that are not explained and/or some people are a little confused with the plot and express it in the comments, and the author respond them. Some examples are these fluorescent tubes; the ASC (Aggression Suppression Chip) chips; the why the mechanic eye of Tiny is working again (I will explain this in the next point); the what is this new wolf-girl; etc. In the case that the author is kind enough to guide the lost people, I will not complain, but about the parts about the things that comes out of nowhere I say: if you are aware that you've made a mistake while doing the plot, then why you publish the page without correcting it? Again, I'm not sure if too much work for do that. Also is worth to mention that the transition of Tiavo from a hardcore, abusive lizard warrior to a vulnerable, weepy, insecure lizard wimp is too abrupt, but since recovers nicely within a few pages, it's not a big deal. I guess that the transition can be explained a little more, like being illustrated somewhere earlier in the story before the chip insertion happened.

Talking about the story, there are other types of pothole distractions besides the grammar: the NSFW. In lots of points there is nudity and/or explicit sex that it goes out of the story's tune, some more than others. Look, compared with the spelling errors, these are just distracting add-ins, but they still pretty distracting though. Some of the most distracting ones are: The before mentioned shower scene, where Tiavo gets raped graphically by one of her crewmates, as fucked up as it sounds; all the scenes where we see Alexandra fucking, because is hard to take seriously a villain when we see her cuddling with her sex slaves and wearing kitty panties plus her tits bounces like we are in a hentai; this couple fucking in the communal room, since we have to keep in mind that this scene happens inside of the futuristic mega-gulag, and I believe that fucking is the last thing I will thinking to do in a place like that; this bonus page, since we have take into account that before this her brain was literally fried by a technology deactivator and ended up with the mentality of a child... Yeah, kinda fuck up; the mercenary commander of the right because… just look at her; all the scenes with this Nezumi pimp, obviously; this boob hug, because it was necessary; the scene where the jail companion of Pharia meets with his jail contact, because we know how it ends. Although if you are willing to read this, this potholes are really bearable. Besides all that there is some "..." moments like this meme introduced in middle of a serious conversation, but nothing else to talk.



Author Biography
Striga (TrueGhul) is a trans Polish artist, according to her Twitter. She has a Patreon, where besides the entire patreon exclusive content, it offers a pin-up monthly Calendar and a vote about in what location will be located the next spin-off comic. There not much else about her. Oh, before I forgot, this webcomic is one of the few survivors from the imploding black hole of SmackJeeves according to this comment and the name of this page, so hooray for her.

Conclusion
Although all the negatives, this webcomic is not so bad. If you don’t find it too heavy to read, I recommend it. It's a really enjoyable reading. Regarding to the implementation of the porn in the comic... Well, sincerely, I saw much worse cases in similar genre webcomics, believe my word.

Links

 * The Thewebcomiclist's site
 * The author’s Comicfury profile
 * Striga's Furaffinity account
 * Striga's DeviantArt account
 * Striga’s Twitter account
 * Striga's Reddit User, (apparently, she likes the YouTuber The Click).
 * Striga’s Tumblr account, abandoned since 2018.