Moonlace

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Rating Summary

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Background
Trying to be serious in a porn comic. Some comic artists it would never in their mind try doing that, other have already made careers on it. In this last case, some do it right and/or do it interesting, like Skinny Dip of Funkybun; and other do it wrong, really wrong, like this case.

I remember found this comic in Myhentaigallery. I couldn't go on with it the tentacles in the prologue chapter appeared. Not only because I dislike tentacles, but also because the story went crazy and off the rails without direction. Bolt on your chastity-belt, because this is furry tentacle porn.

Downfall
Around the sixth page we started with the tomfuckery, with the succubus girl using the red shining eyes trope for the foreshadowing of incoming porn-splosions.

Prologue
With an inner monologue and a close up of the medallion we meet the two first protagonists: Martin, a heterochromatic doggo boy; and Jessie, a wolf girl with a makeup line in her right cheek of the same color of her hair and eyes, because reasons. Both of them are going to their favorite restaurant for the birthday of the girl. On the way, Martin gives the medallion to the girl, like a birthday present.

In the restaurant, we meet their friends and the other two protagonists: Shizuka, a fox girl; and Zu, a dragon boy. The four talk for a while until we are introduced (in not at all subtle way of foreshadowing) to Chandra, a "mongoose" girl that is the waitress of the restaurant. She leaves the menus and informs to the guys that the bar of the restaurant will have an open night. They pass their night chatting until the closing time, and then the group invites Chandra to Jessie's apartment. Here we have the warning that something is off with Chandra seeing two other girls in an alleyway.

In the apartment, Chandra gives hints to the group; and seeing that isn't work, she decides to going to the kitchen with the other two girls and show her true colors. After that, Chandra goes to the guys in underwear and also stings them with her tail that somehow instantly knocks them out. We finally start the mind control foursome, starting with a bit of forced swinger sex - apparently the knockout poison sting only has a duration of "as needed by the plot". The four protagonist fuck until they blackout, and Chandra decides to take Jessie with her, in a not so discreet way, while the two other girls from before (two wolf girls, to be specific) see how her evening went. But before she goes, she force Shizuka to take the two boys alone, probably to prevent them from following her immediately when they snap out the mind control.

We get change of scenery to a warehouse at the docks; Jessie awakes, no longer mind controlled, but naked and confused, until Chandra enters to the building and immobilizes her with tentacles. We come back to Jessie's apartment with the light of the morning sun entering the windows, where Martin, Shizuka and Zu are still unconscious from their last threesome from yesterday. They wake up, sore and confused for the rough night; until the dragon notices that the half of the collar that Martin has is shining and say that they can find Jessie with that because who cares about plot that makes sense. We come back to Jessie, who is getting the tentacle struggle-snuggle in every orifice, because of course. Chandra stops the rape for a moment and asks her to join her cause.

Meanwhile, the three protagonists arrive at warehouse via flying, thanks to the dragon boy (never mind the implications of a civilization where people can freaking fly, but who cares about worldbuilding when there's porn), and they faces the two wolf sisters. Zu and Shizuka distract the sisters, allowing Martin to enter the warehouse, but he gets intercepted by Chandra's tentacles. She says that is too late, because Jessie accepted the proposal! Chandra explains that she seeks out special people for a special mission, that she doesn't force people to join her group and other bullshit that completely contradicts what the comic showed earlier. She tosses the would-be rescuers out the warehouse, and flees of the place flying because she can do that now too. We end this chapter with our protagonists talking about what the hell just happened.

TL:DR - evil succubus makes people fuck, and converts a normie girl to join her and probably become a succubus

Chapter 1 - Heritage
We are introduced to two twin redhead catgirls chatting a little about the bigger one of the two going on a journey. She leaves her little sister a box that belonged to their mother that has a medallion in it (I wonder what type of medallion). Both of them say goodbye and the big sister leaves. The little sister decides to stay awake that night playing Fallout 4, meanwhile Chandra is stalking out the apartment, in a not very discrete way like before because in this world you're apparently invisible if the plot calls for it. On the fifth page of the chapter, it is finally revealed that the name of the big sister is Coccoa.

Anyways, we suddenly change scenery to a university, where the little sister is talking to a panda girl that apparently is a really close friend of hers. The girls decides go to their new job in the library, talking in their way about how creepy is the female librarian and other things. The girls arrives the library, were we are introduced to a familiar face. So both of them decide that the catgirl (On the page 11 we finally learn know that her name is Moccha) will take the Saturday shift. Meanwhile Mocha and her friend say goodbye for the day, Moccha is having a really bad headache. Suddenly, a domestic ferret girl called Amarissa (Ama for short) appeared out of nowhere and offers her a massage for her headache in a flirtatious way.

The panda girl appears and interrupts them, so Ama invite both of them to eat pizza at her house, but the panda girl say that she can't go because her mother is expecting her to come home. While this happen, Moccha has a second headache that makes her to go home. She arrives at the apartment and instantly lies down in her bed. She apparently has a dream where she ends up fucking Ama, until she awakes abruptly. We have another not discrete foreshadowing while Moccha is showering. She ends up deciding to go to Ama's apartment and pop the question, with the same clothes of the dream. When the ferret girl opens the door, purely by chance she also have the same clothes of the dream. After an awkward chitchat, Ama let get in Moccha to her apartment.

"Hi, I dreamt we were fucking - wanna fuck?" - the smoothest of pickup lines ever.

While the ferret girl goes to prepare coffee, the phone of Moccha vibrate just in the exact moment that predicted the dream. In the kitchen, Ama is surprised by Chandra. Apparently, both of the girls are sisters, and talks about a war or something. So Ama makes ups an excuse to get the girl out of there and Moccha leaves the apartment. Then Chandra says that she has to leave the town and Ama refuses. When the two succubus start a battle for Moccha, the catgirl realizes that she forgot her phone and comes back to retrieve it. When Ama is about to attack Chandra, Moccha knocks the door, which disrupts her and her spell goes out of control. To avoid having Moccha learn about her true nature, she pricks her like Chandra did with the other girls of the prologue with her tail stinger, which suddenly triggers a happy fun side effect of acute poisoning.

So Chandra decides to take Moccha with her to give the antidote, but Ama negates it. We have the "plot twist" that Moccha is descendant of Chandra. Ama finally gives up and let Chandra go with the catgirl. We end this with Moccha awaking in her room, with the panda girl (Called Lin, yeah just in the penultimate page we finally get the name of this girl) sleeping next to her, for some reason, and we are introduced to cervine girl who apparently helps people out by surprising the shit out of them.

TL:DR - one of the evil succubus's converts prevents said evil succubus from running off with another innocent

Chapter 2 – Crossroads
We start with a little of backtracking to the morning of the first chapter. We are introduced to an energetic white fox girl called Holly; she is a traveling actress that wanted to inspect the collection that has the library where Moccha works. She meets Chandra, and before she continues her search, Holly asks for the directions to the esoteric section of library. This surprises Chandra and makes her keep an eye out in her.

We come back to the present, where the last chapter left off, and Moccha is confused with the presence of the new deer girl. Lin informs her that she is called Jennifer, that she is an emergency contact of her phone and tells about the fire that happen last chapter. Moccha snaps out of it and asks about Ama. Jennifer says that the fire consumed the apartment and Ama's body didn't appear in the two weeks that passed. Moccha ask to be alone, and we found out that she accepted that Jennifer moved in to Moccha's apartment. It is obvious that Moccha has memory loss, since Jennifer re-comforts her with the same sentence that she said in the hospital of the day of the incident. Then both girls leave the room and we get the chapter introduction cover.

We jump to the library's roof, where Chandra calls someone, and then we get a wolf boy and an antelope girl having sex. The antelope girl (called Moira) answers the phone and we have a really awkward conversation. Anyways, Chandra asks to meet her in that roof in the next day evening, and we see how Moira absorbs all the wolf's energy and leaves him unconscious, because sex during phone-calls makes for amazing comics, amirite?

Next morning, Moccha is walking in the park, stressed and confused about her memory loss. This is right until she meets a black fox boy with a scar (called Faolan) that apparently works in the Lemon Tree restaurant. Moccha asks to him about the fire incident, but he answers that she has to ask her friends. Before Faolan go, Moccha asks if he know Jennifer, and he answer that he saw her twice, but only once with her.

Next scene is at a restaurant (the same restaurant of the prologue? Who knows) with Moccha and Jessica talking each together. Jessica tells that she is the friend of her sister, but their relationship is complicated and Coccoa never tells their of relationship with her to Anybody. She also mentions that she is about to be evicted for not paying the rent. Moccha invited Jessica to her apartment, and at first she refuses, but with some insistence from Moccha, she accepts.

We jump to the park again, with amnesia-girl thinking about what happened in the restaurant, feeling insecure about the situation. Meanwhile this is happening, we pass to the library with Holly meeting Lin, and have an awkward conversation, until Lin denotes a strange book that Holly pretends is hers. Then we have a little bit of exposition, and we jump to the reunion of Chandra and Moira, where we meet a black feline succubus girl called Schylla (aka Illa), that has some small talk with Chandra until Moira appears. Illa informs that Ama was relocated to a small town between 50 to 150 miles of the city where they are. Chandra orders to keep an eye in her. Then she asks to Moira about what happen with Moccha after the fire.

But before anything is said, we jump to Moccha entering to a restaurant; she meets with a cheetah girl and asks her about the incident. At first, she is doubtful about that since she is working, but her boss, a bird boy, tell that she can take a break and she accepts. We jump to two nights before the incident, where Jessica, Lin and her toasting before going to the bathroom, as it is explained by Moira - we have have two narrators here, which only makes things more confusing - then she heard Faolan talking outside the bathroom and followed him, and in a long story short she ends fucking the guy because she is liberating her succubus side of her and absorbs a little of his vital essence. Lin calls Moccha and she leaves with Jessica, but not without a another bit of really obvious foreshadowing. Subtle, this comic is not.

The girls go to park and the obvious bad guys follow them and surround them. Jessica says to Moccha she has to run, then starts an epic fight with the other two girls escaping in the background. Two of the gang guys chase them and almost reach the girls, until Moccha decides to tackle one of them and says to Lin to escape. Here is showed why the catgirl has bandages in her stomach in the end of the first chapter. The guy that stabbed her loads her on his shoulder and leaves her in a tree. He tell her that she is a chimera, then we jump to Lin, where she found Faolan, and he defend her with some type of supernatural power, then he runs to the park.

Meanwhile, the gang guy rips the shirt of Moccha with his knife and has a monologue with her, until Moccha enters in her succubus form, stabs him and mind control him to get out of there. Moira appear behind her, and Moccha tries to attack her, but fails and Moira make her faint. We come back to Jessica and the rest of the gang, where we see her losing the fight, until a humanoid (the knife guy) jump of nowhere and kills one of the gang. The rest of the gang flees horrified, and Faolan founds Moccha and takes her in to the hospital with Jessica. End of the story time. Wait, was this a flashback? I'm confused now... and so will you likely be if you try to read this comic.

Anyway, the cheetah girl says that the crazy gang guy killed the rest of the gang. Before she parts, Moccha asks for the phone number of Faolan. We jump to the roof reunion, where Chandra finds out about that Moira didn't steal her because of her wounds. After some melodrama that I don't care about, she orders Moira keep an eye in Moccha and flies away from there.

We jump again to Holly and ask about the seal of a book, and Lin recognizes the last name as the Moccha's family name. Holly asks for the number of Moccha, and we jump to her trying to call Faolan, but she is really ashamed and stressed with the situation that she is in. We end this chapter with Jessica moving out to Moccha's apartment, until Holly irrupts in the apartament with Lin accompanying her, and everything is happening so fast that Moccha is overloaded mentally and emotionally.

TL:DR - lots of weird shit happens, and someone gets attacked by a gang, but its not even that clear that it has any impact on the story other than to give a flimsy excuse to have a fight scene.

Chapter 3 - The Hermit
I will not resume the third chapter because is still ongoing, but with a quick peek I saw a goat girl trying to seduce Moccha, so you have an idea that what will happen next.

Art Review
Well, to Caesar what is Caesar's, the art is the best thing that has the webcomic. I'm a fan of the art of ABD, and at least this section was done with passion, unlike other webcomics. I mean look at this:



But one thing you can say about the art of the prologue and the rest of the chapters are a little different. Why? Because the people of the producing group is changing continually. If you look the description page of the prologue, the author has a colorist and a background expert. In the page 25 of the second chapter the background expert is gone, and in page 39 of the same chapter they replaced the colorist. The changes are too minimal to highlight them, but it's noticeable.

Writing review
We will start with elephant in the room. What is the point of the prologue? I mean, we are presented to Chandra and her method to recruit minions, but except for her, nobody of this cast ever appeared again in the comic, not even the twin succubus wolf sisters. There's nothing that connects the prologue with the first chapter, except for Chandra. Not even her never mention anything about Jessie or the twin sisters in the rest of the chapters. So why ABD introduce us to them, if they are not the principal cast? He could put at least a newscast or a diary talking about the incident, and Moccha watching/reading about it. That will the minimum for interconnecting the story, but no, we will not have even that. And that is the least of the problems.

In terms of story, it just sucks and tries hard to have porn be part of the story, when it's just better off having porn be not important to the story or just have the porn absent entirely. It never bothers going into detail of its lore nor shows it off, just throws in exposition without any regard to how it halts the plot when an exposition dump is thrown at the reader.

Another thing I have to say is that the speech of the characters is just porno level of cheese and cringe while the scenes with dramatic/action is hard to take serious. It's like the writer just handwaves information and such so the porn can be part of the story with no consideration on how it'll affect the story, that itself follows its own rules and it's sense of believability. Why ABD believes that I'm interested to know that the chimeras are sterile or other things of the lore? I can't believe that this comic has a script advisor, but she never say anything about the blatant foreshadowing or the info dumping that can't be taken seriously. I don't believe that four people accepte- look, look... Is better to look it yourself to understand it:



If you don't understand the context of this page, don't worry, I DON'T EITHER. I mean, I was understanding everything that was happening in the previous pages, until this page enters in the scene. I never was so confused with so little dialogue. Is the Lemon Tree the same restaurant of the prologue and chapter 1? Why Moccha is acting like this, out of nowhere? The fire incident happened two weeks ago or two nights ago? Who the hell is Mihari?! Oh, and before I forgot, we have to talk about the names. For some reason, the comic has the priority of introducing appearance of the character BEFORE their names. This in the prologue is not remarkable, but after chapter 1... Here some examples:



Dammit, ABD, it's so hard to do a cast tab for know who is who? Or at least a character chart in the start of the chapter? Or put a sign with the name next to the head of the character? I'm inclined to believe the author takes for granted that the reader knows the characters and tries to mention the less possible their names. This probably will lead readers to forgetting those characters more often. Then again, having a cast page would be annoying to ABD because then it would hinder constantly introducing new characters who are never properly introduced who disappear again shortly thereafter.

Author Biography
ABlueDeer (ABD) is pretty well recognized furry/manga artist in the community. Not much is known about him, since he don't talks much about his life. He has produced other two comics: Bethellium, a furry fantasy comic that is hosted in the Kemono Café website; and C-Chan's a Catgirl, a weeaboo four panel comic where apparently Moccha makes cameos sometimes.

Suddenlytsumi (Tsumi) is a degree-having writer, poet and wordsmith, or at least that says in her Furaffinity. She is dedicated to write short stories, edit for sci-fi and fantasy periodicals, table-top games and screenplay work in the movie industry. In addition of be an editor of this comic, she also is editor of the Bethellium comic; editor and writer of The Order of the Black Dog; English translator and co-writer of CATastrophe; and writer and editor of some characters of the furry porn game Amorous.

Conclusion
If you want to do a porn comic with a serious story, you can do it, but you have to know where is the line that separates a credible story to a "nobody can take seriously" story. It is very clear that this is the first comic that ABD has done, and he is trying to patch the holes that this comic has as it goes along, but it's not working... because why fix your shitty worldbuilding and character development when you can have another porn scene? Where have we seen that before?

Unless you want a fast wank with the short scenes of sex, I would recommend that you search for his other works, because although he is a really bad storyteller, he still is a really good artist. Although I would think twice about buying his commissions, with the prices he charges. You can get as good quality for a better price if you do some shopping at the art sites.

Links

 * A Webcomiclist's page of the webcomic.
 * Furaffinity of the artist, apparently is a really close friend of an artist called Shana.
 * DeviantArt of the artist
 * Website of Bethellium, and actually is really good, at least compared with this one...