The Chronicles of Huxcyn
Original review author: | ZenForce in February 2023 |
Webcomic name: | The Chronicles of Huxcyn |
Author: | Alexandria Bowersox (aka Jiynxxed), artist; Alex Masson, editor; Sarah Buerfeind (aka ZombieD), colorist and co-artist of the filler chapters. |
Start Date: | September 3, 2019 |
End Date: | Ongoing |
Genre: | Self-insert D&D Campaign in a webcomic, aka Adventure/Fantasy. |
Defining Flaw: | It's too animu for its own good... but in a comic from an author who has a comic in Kemono Café group, what would you expect? |
Rating Summary
Art: |
The combination of Chibi and old animu style with the toxic-bright and the space that the dialogue bubbles occupy results into something that is hard to watch for too long. Although in favor of the author, I like the design of the Chimera main protagonist, so mini half point for that. |
Storyline: |
It's about a guy being forced to gender bending searching the way to revert it and get revenge of the one who caused it. Surprisingly there are less panty shots and bouncing breasts than usual in this type of story. |
Characters: |
What you think will do a horny bard and an Amazonian-sized paladin in a D&D campaign? Well, that describes both characters. |
Miscellaneous Details: |
The author loves to play D&D, and it’s noted… in the design of the website, in the webcomic itself not much. |
Overall: |
Compared with the comics of her compatriots, it's not the worst one of Kemono Café (even though not installed in Kemono), but it's doesn't automatically make it a good comic. Hell, it's even better than her other comic. |
Background
Chronicles of Huxcyn was presented in the forums by our beloved Russian comrade, Nolan Daneworth. He tore into the comic's art, but had little to say of the story since he didn’t bother reading the comic itself.
Funnily enough, this was the second webcomic I'd read of which someone later suggested a review, Moonlace being the first. In fact, I would have suggested this comic myself, but at the time, I'd forgotten its name. (With a name like "Chronicles of Huxcyn", it's not hard to see why.)
Going back to the forum, nobody else was willing to touch this comic with a ten-foot pole, not that I blame them, so I decided, "Fuck it, I'll do it myself."
And now, here we are.
Downfall
Past the 8th page, the author started to do pin-ups in extra pages, from there it gets hornier bit by bit.
Story and Plot
We follow the adventures of Ezuuimi Thatcher (aka Ezuu), a blonde female paladin that measures over 1,80 meters; and Huxcyn, a HORNY male bard elf that was tricked by a wizard and ended cursed, not only transforming him into a chimera, but also gender bender him. From here the story goes for a search about a method of reversing this curse.
Basically, this story can be resumed by: An opening with info dumping of 4 pages long; a beast attacks a town and Ezuu finds it about to kill a kid; she saves her but is about be killed (or raped?) by the beast, but is saved by a convenient arrow and faints; when she awakes gets admonished by her leader, Azuray and gets in the bar; encounters Huxcyn and tells her about a method of ridding the monster permanently; she has a little doubt about it but finally joins her; a group of Kobolds tries to assault them and fails epically; the two girls arrives to the wizard's house that put the curse in Huxcyn; the wizard tries to kill them and... We get interrupted into a filler Halloween chapter, but somehow is canon because it explain how she gets this gem pedant of her cape; we come back to wizard battle and we see how he fails epically too (don't worry, he is still alive); the wizard gets arrested and gives the macguffing to continue their journey; they return to the attacked town and party hard, until Azuray arrives and basically she fired Ezuu and put a price for both of their heads; we time skip to a side-mission in a church in an island; they encounter a 16 years old Kitsunii cleric girl called Nommiekay that is searching a cure for the father of the church and all their members and joins their party; they come back to the principal mission to search a boat to travel into the Feshion capital in a tavern; they meet a female "Khajiit" goddess-touched bard with a heavy accent called Kapo (though that accent is later forgotten) and a male engineer orc called Elliston; the party get informed about a sea beast that destroy boats and nobody wants to sail; conveniently the duo they just meet offer themselves give them a ride, for a price; we get more infodumping; Nommiekay pays the price and start the journey; we have a little more of background for Kapo; the party arrives to the underwater capital and our principal group consumes a "multijuice" potion (I don't think is a good idea to give that thing to a person that already has a transformation); Ezzu and Nommiekay transforms into mermaids and Huxcyn transforms into, of course, an octofolk; Huxcyn disappear and we have a cliffhanger foreshadowing; and finally we are interrupted again with another filler chapter that I hope that it don't have more canon information because I will get angry...
Art Review
I believe that you are wondering why a comic really related to Kemono Café comic has the NSFW tag and not the Cheesecake one. No, the comic is not sincere with its nature and show sexual things, is because it show gore scenes. Two scenes, in specific, the first being the battle of the wizard, where Ezzu stabs him with a spear from behind; and the start of the side mission, where the duo encounter the father of the church eating the bowels of a victim which is the missing father of this kid. Is curious that the author is braver to show blood than exposed breast, not? But enough talking about BBFC ratings and let's start talk about the art itself.
The art style is basically what I describe as "old manga". With this I mean that most of the characters have the pointy chin that is characteristic in the style, but this is combined with a chibi, rounded style and its look really weird. The side mouths are the menu of every day. Also the perspectives are fucked up, like really fucked up. The chibi style seriously does not help this strange perspectives. Sometimes there are faces that I believe I saw somewhere else, and the author likes a lot doing duckfaces, like a lot. All this is combined with the fact that Jienxxed limits herself in an A4 or A5 size format, the love of close-ups shots, that a good portion of the panels are eaten by very big dialogue bubbles and spacing between lines and the blinding blight palette of colors makes a really crude experience. Some optimization of the placement can help a lot.
I can't say much about the character design, not in a good way. To make it short, the humans are meh. The orcs? They are humans with a green skin and big fangs. The demons? Humans with a pink skin, horns, tails and pointy ears. The "Khajiits"? Humans with other color of skin, long ears and tails. The Kitsunii? Well, Nommiekay is a human with another color of skin, ears and tail that can change forms, one these forms is a quota human. Not only it looks like the author has a cookie molder to create her bestiary, but also she is the type of furry artist that draws the fur like skin. Literally the only design I like is Huxcyn, and don’t know why. Maybe I like chimeras? But having into account the background and the personality of him... Puaj, next point!
Finally we have to talk about the fanservice, we have less to talk than I expected... I mean we not have lots of topless woman and implied sex like in Las Lindas, but I can’t say that sexuality is absent either. The first examples of this are the pin-ups between chapters, that goes more and more explicit the years pass. I will deepen about the fanservice in the writing section, because is really tied to it.
Writing Review
Okay, we will start with the character that gives the name of comic: Huxcyn. In universe, is supposed that he is horrible chimera monstrosity by rest of people, but I say if this is considered a monster, then my husky fursona step into the "reincarnation of devil" category:
Ejem, Huxcyn is basically the pervert male character that almost every comic has in Kemono. It has all the premium starter pack of traits: it gets knocked out by looking at cleavage; it gets always in compromising situations; when he gets tentacles takes advantage of them in the first seconds; etc. And yes, I call him pervert male, because if you remember the previous section he is supposed to be a male elf and not a female human or whatever, and you know... I always thought that the elf race is supposed to be stoical and restricted with their emotions, but I guess when you select the bard class automatically makes you horny. I also thought that the elf race is an intelligent race, but Huxcyn does not show this trait, the best example of his stupidity is the scene of the tavern party: Azuray arrives and starts to stripe down the entire career of Ezuu, Huxcyn notices her and tries to seduce her, Azuray tries to cremate him alive and Huxcyn dodges it by purely luck and don't notice it, when he notice it, is scared for life from that experience but he still tries to sweet talk to this enraged lady and is saved by Ezuu, even looking how heated the situation is, he still insist in seduce that woman, and even when Azuray picks him up and orders Ezuu to kill him, HE STILL TELLING PICK-UP LINES TO GET THAT PUSSY. My god, can you stop thinking with the other head? Wait, he doesn't have it anymore... nevermind. And he doesn't limits with one woman. Sorry if go on for too long, but since this character is the self insert of the author (according to this page), I'm breathless. Because if half of this is actually how the author it behaves in real life... well, I will talk about that when the moment comes.
But all this is not the only example of sub-normality. How about the fact that we have 4th wall breaking? And not only once. I mean, Jiynxxed wants you to take seriously the story with things like the 4 pages prologue, the introduction of Nommiekay, the info-dumping of the goddess of this universe and the goddess-touched, the background of Kapo, that the author takes the trouble of create a idiom for the world (even though apparently only uses it for insults, and we don’t have dictionary to understand it), etcetera; but then we have all the things we talked before plus all the fanservice that does not involves Huxcyn like the chapter 8, that is a excuse for have the girls in bikinis. Hell, even the cover of the chapter has Ezuu trapped between tentacles. C'mon, don't do it so noticeable, woman! Also there are some contradictions, for example the name of leader of the paladins, everyone call her Azuray, but in the tavern party scene, she calls herself Azyray. Looks like someone don't look their scripts before write it in the page. There are more things, like a moment when the monster from the first chapter looks like it will rape Ezuu, instead of kill her, but there are too little to talk about.
Author Biography
Alexandria Bowersox (Jyinxxed) is a cartoonist/streamer raised in Toledo, Ohio, and now based in Holland. Besides drawing, it looks like she works in a hearing aid department. She married with a man called Karl, has multiple pets, and express she likes to tell stories, making the people laugh, playing D&D and learning to play the guitar, all according to the about page. When I said that I'm breathless is because the fact she is married, I can’t imagine their marriage, but since this story is heavily changed, can be only an exaggeration, but... I don't know. It also takes ideas from her discord, and it looks like her husband it helps her. Apparently, she picked that nickname because "Coz anyone would have to be jinxed to be this bad at games...". She also has another comic in Kemono Café called Caught in Orbit.
Sarah Buerfeind (ZombieD) is a lesbian artist that helps with Jyinxxed in the filler chapters, and also both have an extra Furaffinity page that both do My Little Pony comics. She also has an OC of her in a furry comic called WarpZone. According to her group spam in the description of her Furaffinity, she atheist, open to critique, likes the goth style, zombies and history.
About Alex Masson I can't say anything, because there are dozens of Alex Masson in internet, and I'm not sure who is him...
Conclusion
I readied other fanservice comics before, and this is the softest one of all. It can be worse, seriously, but also the all the other things its show us doesn’t make this a good comic neither. If this comic belonged to the Kemono Café group, I would put it between Bethellium and the rest pseudo-porn garbage of trashcan of website, but since is not the case, is just big meh.
UPDATE: Jyinxxed apparently decided to move the comic to the Kemono Café site, according to this post, but the comic will still update in the original one until the rent expires. For the bright side, the comparison I made before is valid now...
Links
- Jyinxxed's Redbubble shop page
- Jyinxxed's Twitter
- Jyinxxed's Twitch channel
- Jyinxxed's YouTube channel
- Jyinxxed's Patreon, The higher tier of donation apparently offers an “ask the cast” section.
- Jyinxxed's Furaffinity
- Jyinxxed's Ko-fi
- Jyinxxed's Discord server, Some of the functions of the same are blocked via Patreon.
- Jyinxxed's Instagram
- Jyinxxed's Picarto channel
- Jyinxxed's Tumblr primary account, is used for repost fanarts.
- Jyinxxed's secondary Tumblr account, Here she publish her commissions.
- Jyinxxed's PayPal
- ZombieD's Furaffinity