The Wallachian Library
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CODE RED: PORN
(STRONG NSFW WARNING)
The following comic contains naughty parts on full display, and more than likely includes banging, screwing, porking, jacking, etc. Whether or not it's actually arousing is up for debate. Be on the look out for more extreme fetishes as well, such as scat, vore, bestiality, and so forth. Getting caught with this comic in your browser history may lose you some friends... or gain you some unwanted ones. View with extreme caution, preferably in a deep, dark cave, far away from anyone you know. |
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WARNING: This webcomic will nauseate many readers. This can be for a whole slew of reasons, including graphic depictions of gore, grossly unappealing depictions of sexual behavior, offensive descriptions of sexual abuse, and so on. In any case, this webcomic (and maybe even this review) is not for the weak of stomach. |
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This webcomic has had a reboot since this review was written. It may be the case that the creator has used this opportunity to improve the webcomic to the extent that this review may no longer apply. But probably not. |
| Original review author: | ZenForce in October 2023 |
| Webcomic name: | The Wallachian Library |
| Author: | TheHereticLocomotive |
| Start Date: | Jan 1, 2015 |
| End Date: | Ongoing |
| Genre: | Fantasy, Fan Fiction, Furry (According to the Comic Fury's webcomic profile) |
| Defining Flaw: | The story is an absolute mess in general. |
Rating Summary
| Art: | BCh13: 
ACh13: |
| Storyline: |
I gotta be honest, regardless of the emotion you will have when you read this comic, I assure you that the story will not leave you indifferent. That the story is good or understandable is another theme. |
| Characters: | 
The only character that I kinda understand is Lenin, just because he is as confused as the reader with the events of the comic. |
| Miscellaneous Details: |
Man, you want your story to be taken seriously or not? Make up your mind! You can't have both things at the same time! |
| Overall: |
Look, if you don't like that someone bastardized a historical character or your favorite character of your cartoon/videogame, avoid absolutely this comic. If not, I recommend you to read one chapter at time and not consume it in one sitting like me, unless you want a big headache or an embolism. |
Background
Fanfics. If you've spend enough time in the internet, then probably you known them. These pieces of literature from people fan of some type of media and decided (whether seriously or not) to write something with their own canon, sometimes mixing it with other type of media, whether both fit or not in universe. The results are varied, usually in entering in these four categories: An Interesting Take/Story; A Dull Text; A Laughable Mess; or Something that Will Torment your Dreams. Why all this meaningless verbiage? Because one thing is write a story and publish it (usually without checking the grammar or if even the text has sense); and another is take your time, sweat and blood, and convert it into a comic. The second case is what The Wallachian Library is.
Oh, and if you're wondering how I found this, I was wandering in the furry tag of Comic Fury's website until I found it. A decision I don't regret, even though I ended up between laughs and headaches/a TIA.
Downfall
In the page 20, not only you discover that Death is a horse, but also that the Death and the Grim Reaper are two different characters. This is the entrance door to the spiral to madness that calls itself "the story".
Story and Plot
Our story starts inside of Lenin's Mausoleum, where a portal opens and a skeletical hand with a skull enters to see if the area is clear. Then jumps out from the portal with a girl with very interesting attire for the occasion. The skeleton sends the girl to watch the door while he is doing his job. We discover that Lenin is still alive inside the glass coffin! This scares the shit out the skeleton, but still tries to free him, so tries to break it with his sickle, failing because the coffin has containment spells. So he goes to plan B, using one of his eyes, which turn out to be a diamond. While this happens, the girl discovers a red head guard closing up to their place, until suddenly is assaulted by a huge force and left unconscious and bleeding dark blood. The girl is surprised from the back by who attacked the android girl: a female white horse. The skeleton finally ends the glass cutting, but the glass breaks in the floor, distracting the horse from the interrogation, and the girl takes advantage of this to attack her and escape. The horse tries to chase her, but she is stopped by the android girl that wakes up and shoots her with a laser, although fails and hits the girl in middle of her escape and ended kicked by the horse again. This time she is still conscious, with her face really damaged though, and tries to shoot them again, but it turns out that the horse has hacking powers and makes her crash. While she is distracted, the girl escapes again. She runs to the skeleton and Lenin’s room and tries to block the door with her body, but is in vain since the horse charges it with an ease. Is notable that the horse and the skeleton has a story, but before any discussion starts, the horse discover Lenin's presence and start a fight for his soul. While this happens, the Android girl boots up a la Terminator. The Girl accidently reapers Lenin while defending herself and the horse steals the sickle, but when she is escaping is stopped by the Android girl and the horse takes her with her. Both falls outside the Mausoleum, and while the horse escape, the Skeleton and the Girl stumbles with the Android girl. This starts a chase for the sickle, and the first step in to the story.
From here is more and more convoluted and hard to describe, then I will explain a little the world of this comic instead. This place is located in an alternate time Russia where the USSR wins the war and conquered the world, but still collapsed just like in our universe (or at least what I believed what happened here, more details later). The technology advanced to the point that some people cheated death using the power of the souls to power robotic bodies. This did not please Lucifer, and decided to recruit souls of suicide people to become Grim Reapers and help to recollect the lost souls from WW2 that still wandering in our plane. This story has a lot of characters, too much in fact, but the principal ones are next ones:
- The skeleton is the Grim Reaper (the original one), you know what he does, he is cranky and hates the inefficiency his recruits. Besides his job, he trains the new reapers. Despite his job, apparently the only idiom he knows is English. He is also known like Adam (more detail later).
- The girl is Katya, a Russian girl that jumped out form a bridge because she was dying from an unknown disease, now she is an apprentice for Grim Reaper. It's implied that in life she was a barmaid/girl of the night. She always goes with lingerie and is the origin of most smut of the comic. She is the co-main character of the comic.
- Lenin, if you already figured it out, is THAT Lenin. He is the classic trope of sleeping for years and awaking confused with all the events and changes, so basically he is the excuse to explain the world and events naturally. Besides that, he acts as you would expect if you had in front of you: Stoic, serious, calm, etc. He is basically the plot point for all what happens in the comic, and therefore, a co-main character.
- The horse is Death, the Pale Horse of the Apocalypse. Basically a talking horse. The Grim Reaper once was her raider until an unknown event makes them take different routes. Just like the Grim Reaper, she also is searching the soul of Lenin, but for different reasons. I´m not going to unravel much the personality of Death, because that is for later, but I will say that she likes a little too much the mass murder.
- The Redhead Android girl is basically the nemesis of both the Grim Reaper and Death, and will tries to recover the soul of Lenin at all cost in most of the comic. More details about her in the Writing section since, oh god, you are not ready to know who is her.
- Stalin, or better described, an arachnid-like robot that projects a hologram of Stalin is what you expect. He is the boss of the Android girl and commands the Russian army. He want retrieve the soul of Lenin because... Sincerely I don't know. Because he has great respect to him? I'm not sure. Don't know enough Russian history to have a conclusion.
The plot for most of the comic is basically of Death trying to bring Lenin to the Wallachian Library (formerly known like The Great Library of Alexandria after a fire broke time ago) while the Grim Reaper tries to reaper his soul take him to hell. I said most of the comic, because that changes in a point, but that is all.
Art Review
Well, the things I said with the art style of Realm of Kaerwyn applies here too, since they are very similar. Realistic art (except for some questionable designs that I will talk later), thin outlines, muted colors with good shading and proportions combined with 3D backgrounds/some characters (Going in details in the Writing section). Even the historical characters like Lenin and Stalin are really spot on with the real deal. The four differences with both comics are 1) Never uses the distortion effect in the backgrounds; 2) Never uses photos or drawn backgrounds, only 3Ds ones; 3) The gore, there a loads of blood compared with the other one; and more important 4) The nudity. Realm of Kaerwyn never had frontal nudity, but this comic doesn’t shy away with this... But only with the females though. Look, the female nudity is not the problem, but how is presented this nudity. Three words: Barbie doll tits, look for yourself:
But I shouldn't call it Barbie tits, since all of them have a lump over it. I mean... What? What is the point of this? You already dared to put pussies in the designs and make them do the love, why not nipples? I understand that the Android girl doesn't have them since, well, she is a robot so why will need them. But why not Katya that is a human technically? Anyways, the sex doesn't contribute much with story, if not is a halt for it.
But something happened, in March 11, 2022 the author posted a blog post announcing that he will change the 2D characters to 3D models because get tired of drawing, and said and done, in Chapter 13 started to use 3D models. What I think about them is the same thing of other 3D comics reviewed here. 3D. CHARACTER. MODELS. ARE. NOT. MADE. FOR. COMICS. Although in favor to the author, compared with other 3D comics reviewed here, it beats them by a landslide without doubt. But is not saying much, the character still looks like robotic, soulless NPCs, especially when comes with sex scenes. For example, in Chapter 15 there is a lengthy lesbian sex scene and... look for yourself, does this seem appetizing to you? But don't believe that the author gives up with the drawings, and for his bad luck it only makes the art style looks worse. Look at this scene and tell me if this looks natural:
Writing Review
The problems are so big with this headline that I will have to give them their own section to make them digestible. So grab snacks and something to drink, because this is going to take a long time...
Historical Characters
Reading through the comic, I have realized something: the guy has no respect to historical figures. We talked a little about Lenin and Stalin, and believe me, they are not exception of this rule, but they fit better in the next problem. We will talk about the rest of them, from the least to the greatest aggravating circumstance.
First we have Sun Tzu. A little of history: originally named Sun Wu, he was a general, military strategist and philosopher of the Easter Zhou period (771 to 256 BC) and credited as the author of The Art of War. In the comic he is the head chief of Hell's prison and guardian of a special prisoner, and sincerely I saw him like that. Good job author, at least nailed it in one. Except that there is the possibility that the guy may not existed, but meh, details.
Second is Hitler... You know who this guy is. It only has one page cameo and it has the punishment it deserves, if you are worried (more of that in the next problem). But sincerely it has no merit; since any normal person will do something to stain his name and other people don't look at you strange.
Third are Paul Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Wilhelm Göring, that both reincarnated into a Rottweiler and a Doberman respectively. Göring was the 16th President of the Reichstag, Chief of the Luftwaffe High Command, Reichsstatthelter of Prussia, Ministerpräsident of Prussia and other titles in the Nazi regimen; And Goebbels was Chancellor of Germany, Stadpräsident of Berlin, Reichminister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Gauleiter of Berling and more Nazi positions. The Grim Reaper takes them both to Hell and gives them the punishment they deserve.
Fourth is Vlad III. Also known like Vlad Dracula or, more popularly, Vlad the Impaler. He was the ruler of Wallachia in 1436; very know for his cruelty, to the point that the legend of Dracula was created inspired in his enjoyment for torture. In the comic he is an ally of Death during the travel to The Wallachian Library. More than bastardized, I believe he was nerfed, since the only things what we saw about him is being a stone face and battle like any other people.
Fifth are Yuki Gagarin and Laika. Gagarin was the first astronaut in going to space both the Soviet Union and humanity, and Laika (formerly named Kudryavka) was the first thing alive to be send to space and a test subject for the spaceships. In the comic they both are working in an orbital laser satellite owned by the Russian Army. Here is where are starting the first signs of historical disrespect, especially with Laika. I mean, the poor thing died in that travel BECAUSE these people, and what does the author? Make her the energy battery for the satellite, since the laser is powered with soul energy. Hasn’t the poor thing suffered enough?
Sixth is Lenin... No, not that Lenin; actually is Lenin from another dimension. Apparently it was removed from the existence not only his dimension, but also in all dimensions. Confusing, barely explained, and worst of all, completely wasted because of an event that I will talk later.
Seventh are Nicolae and Elena Ceasescu. Nicolae was the president of Romania and Elena was the Deputy Prime Minister of Romania, both being part of the Romanian Communist Party. Both know for being totalitarian and take part of a genocide. Both executed by firing squad. How the author represents them? Being ghost full of bullet holes and another thing I will talk in the next point (Sorry for repeat a lot myself). I mean, they are cruel people, I know, but think about it for a moment. When you die, how would you like people to represent you? In your best days, or showing how they killed you? Well that is my point. It's like when Elvis stamp vote and the people chosen the Mature Elvis stamp. For the more young people, it's like in the Krusty's stamp vote scene, the people choosen the "Krusty crashing in the mountain" stamp. Kind of fucked up.
Finally, we have the worst disrespect of all: the Android girl. Why she is here? No reason, except for the little, tiny, itchy, non important fact that she is VLADIMIR PUTIN! Yeah, the soul the actual president of Russia, inside of a big titted, redhead fembot. I swear when I come to this page, I ended hanging on the walls. Look, outside the comic, the reason of why this happens is because the author confesses in the comments of the same page that he was incapable of drawing him. Now, inside the comic, there is no explanation or reasoning of why this happened, or even the reason of why he ended dying and needing a robotic body. I mean, the guy it was still alive when this was written, hell, HE IS STILL ALIVE NOWDAYS. I don’t believe is a trans allegory because in several occasions he demonstrated that he doesn't like this body. If is the case, then it gives the fucked up message of you should transition even if you don't want to do it. I know that Putin it has a really bad reputation since the Ucranian war started and people is making fun of him, but this revelation was published SIX YEARS before this happens, so it’s not a mockery. The only good thing that the author does about him is ending his suffering by the skeleton reapers his soul by accident. Later apparitions of the Android, is not Putin. Oh, I almost forgot that after the event, he gets trailed by the Grim Reaper , and then ended like an employee in a spa. What a way to end a political career.
Mythos Characters
In this aspect, The Train Lover probably only searched in Wikipedia and used that description for create the character, and nothing more. This is more denoted with the principal characters.
Let's start with Bastet. She was introduced in the second chapter, and she was introduced like the Goddess of Love. In Wikipedia is introduced like the representation of protection, love and harmony. But if you search in other places you can found out that she is more related to the domesticity, femininity, cats, fertility and births. People usually associate her with the love attribute because of the fertility and birth part. Just to make it clear, fertility is not the same as love, you can be alone like an oyster and still be fertile. Coincidence is not correlation. And about the birth part, I believe is more related to the fact of creating life. It don't help that the comic converts her into a mercenary. But the author nailed it to make her Death's girlfriend, as strange as it sound, since in the mythology she sometimes guides the dead to the afterlife.
Then we have Mother Russia, a lamia with six arms. Grab where you can, because this one will be a wild explanation. Well, it turns out that she is actually Mother Nature that she associated with the Soviets to protect the Tree of Life. But it turns out that when the Grim Reaper arrives, she calls him Adam and he calls her Eve... Yes, they are THAT Adam and Eve. But wait! There's more! When a battle is about to happen in the vicinity of the Tree of Life, she calls a walking house with bird legs to fight, yes... SHE ALSO IS BABA YAGA. My god, you introduce dozens of characters in your comic, and then you fusion four in one because you can and you want it without thinking that they can contradict each other.
Next, we have some of the historical characters. Nicolae and Elena besides being ghosts, they also are Banshees that has submachine guns in the backs, to add insult to the injury; Gagarin is a skeleton in a space suit (even though he died in an aviation accident); Laika also is a ghost; Stalin and Putin are souls possessing robots, a la Mettaton; Vlad is a vampire (of course!); and finally we have Lenin (the original one) is a lich, just because he searches knowledge. This last one hurts more than anything, since if search a little about them you will discover that the liches are usually represented like evil, lethal and machiavellian and both the real one and the one in the comic don’t fit that description.
The next point is the Horses of Apocalypse. Remember in the art section when I said that there are questionable designs? Well, most of them are in specific with these horses. Death and Famine are okay, hell; I even say that Famine one is artful. Pestilence looks like a ripped off princess from MLP:FIM, only missing the wings. And War is only a horse with a magma skin and a horn glued in his nose. Of course, since the official title is the Four HorseMEN of the Apocalypse, each horse has its rider, but both can act independently of the other. Death's rider is obviously the Grim Reaper (even though they both got divorced by couple fights); War one is Sun Tzu (and also his jailer); Famine one is a guy called Samuel that I will talk about him in the next problem; and Pestilence one is... well unknown to this day, but since she was living with Mother Na- I mean Mother Russia, I bet that she is her rider. Regarding their personalities is what you expect from a family sitcom: Pestilence is the cheerful, happy free sister; Famine is the stupid twins who fight about everything; War is the brother that was sent to the jail because four counts of violent assaults and one count of first grade murder... And he dedicates himself to eat war criminals. You know, the basic pack. As for Death, I'll keep it for the penultimate problem. I only say that I don't believe that their personalities fit with their character.
But the author was not pleased with only invent personalities. Did you know that there are a fifth and sixth Horse of the Apocalypse? Well, first I introduce you to Industry, the Iron Horse of the Apocalypse. A sapient, talking, 3D model train that his things are destroy stuff, going in any terrain and run over anything alive. And second I introduce you to Lord Linux, the Digital Horse of the Apocalypse, and the younger brother of all. Part horse, part drone, part Hal 9000, he has the worst character design of the six. He is dedicated to hack and cracking programs. He has two daughters: Si and Ko, Windows and Mac OS respectively, that is confirmed that these bodies are designed for catfishing, both uses internet slang not ironically and they have USB cables in their vaginas because that is logic, the author is not a pervert or anything. I sincerally have no idea who are their riders, but if I had the option to choose the fifth and sixth Horse of the Apocalypse, I will select Conquest and The Headless Horseman from TBOI over those two things.
Talking about invented things, the Grim Reapers. Like I said earlier, lost of souls were trapped in the mortal world from WW2, plus with mass suicides caused by a closing up of a planet called Nibiru, Lucifer (that in this comic is a dragon, forget about the part of being the most beautiful MAN of the world, my headcanon is better!) needed more helping hands, so he order that the suicidal people the option of become Grim Reapers or continue their travel in Hell. The ones that accept the offer, transforms into a mythical creature, usually between Vampire, Lich, Ghost or Demon. Katyn for example is a Succubus. All about this is interesting, but since Katyn is the only honorary Grim Reaper we see in action is kinda pointless. And since I don't know where I put this, I let you know that Medusa is the owner of a spa in the Hell and a Cherub is replacing Archangel Michael... No comments.
Pop Culture Characters
For this point I have to explain a little about Comic Fury's interface. Every webcomic hosted in this site has a webcomic's profile, consisting in two profile pictures, one being a banner and other an avatar; a Profile and Statistics boxes to the left, under the avatar image; two links to the comic under the banner; under that a description of the comic; the authors under that; the most recent comments in comic under that; and finally between the description and the author, the Tags.
You probably know how tags work, and in case of Comic Fury, the first three tags are the genre of the comic, and the rest are just specifications to facilitate the search. Well, when I saw the tags, I get the surprise in the genre ones: the second one is Fan Fiction, or how you probably known it better, Fanfic. When I discovered this I was around in the second chapter and I ended up confused. "Fanfic of what?" I thought for myself since it didn't seem like was based on anything. So I continued reading, until arrived to this page and I was left with my eyes wide open. The comic has that tag for the cameos. Before I spoil this point, I will do the famous list of this comic, to see the scale of this:
- Queen Tyr'ahnee from Duck Dodgers (Like before showed).
- Sibella from Scooby doo and the Ghoul School (and a cameo in OK/KO).
- Thomas the Train.
- Sir Topham Hatt, Dr. Killjoy from the game The Suffering and Calico Briggs from Swat Cats.
- Percy from Thomas the Train.
- Boris and Artyom from the YouTube channel Life of Boris.
- Doctor Mario and Medic from TF2.
- Emily from Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go.
- The Ambulance from the movie The Ambulance (1990).
- Samuel that I don't know who exactly is referring, but I'm sure he comes from somewhere.
A crazy cast that have nothing to do with the other, don'tcha? Some readers left comments of how crazy is the story, one even apologizing for how many times repeated this, and the author responded (indirectly) that he does this because he wants to makes sure to people is reading this comic. He does this just because he can and he wants to do it... Okay I respect that, but I warn you that the authors of My Immortal and Sonic College had the same mentality, just saying.
But there is something more important in question: Why there are fictional characters coexisting with historical figures? Their presence has no fucking sense because: One they are fictional characters, of course; and two, this is a universe where the URSS wins the war, thus the history changed significantly, thus there is a great possibility that the movies/series/videogames that they appears were never created. You see what happen when you don't think about which character is going to appear in your history?
But the most enraging thing is how the author presents some of these cameos. Sir Topham is a skeleton for some reason, Thomas and Percy had a skull in their model to avoid copyright, to the poor of Emily turned her into a hybrid of woman and train. What the fuck, man? She comes from a preschooler TV show! Why the hell is Youtuber doing in middle of the Russian army? Does he even know you used his image? And finally, the cherry of the cake, Sibella is the daughter of Vlad. What a good idea, making Sibella, a main character of a movie for children, has a blood connection with a mass murder that enjoyed lunching while watching his victims die, I don't need to think twice, PUT IT NOW!
The Excess of Characters
As you have seen, THL LOVES to put characters in his comic without thyme or reason. These introductions hiders a lot with the story. Most of these characters do, like, one thing of importance that justifies its presence and then they become irrelevant, two examples: Callie only exist to active the machinery of the library and then only reacts to the events; and we have Emily, which her only reason to exist is scare the shit out Boris and making him get out from the building before the event happens. Some even does nothing at all and are only a narrative cone, like Dr Killjoy, he is supposed someone important for the crew of Industry, but the only thing we see he does is observe and narrates like he was in Dragon Ball. This comic needs urgently a reduction of cast, or at least a lower the importance of those who do not contribute directly with the main cast.
Oh, and I don't started with the OCs. Yes, there are OCs. Basically they are (besides Katya) the robo-soldiers, the elf girl (or more precisely, dark elf girl) and the friends of Katya. The only role that has the Robo-soldiers is being meat cannon, and that is okay, they not need more relevance. The friends of Katya? Follow her around Hell and talk, nothing more. What is their point? And the elf girl has two roles: activate the flashback of how Katya becomes a Grim Reaper and have long sex scene with Katya. Nothing more... Yeah, you don't need more characters.
World Building
In this comic we are introduced with a lot of concepts that or are not developed enough or we are promised it will developed later, that it takes so long to the response to come that the reader forget about it with the craziness of the plot. Let's start with Russia itself.
In this universe, Russia is a superpower and has a great dominion in the world. I say Russia and not the USRR by the fact that Putin exist and that there is a President of Russia, confirmed with this conversation. In the Story and Plot I mentioned that I assumed that the URSS won the WW2 and conquered the world because there is no confirmation that this has happened, except for the fact that the Russians are really technologically advanced and that in chapter 6 is mentioned that the soviets get hands on the Tree of life, but also they still need a "dead hand" button. Is really confusing what the state of the world is right now. Talking about the world, Lenin reads a newspaper where informs that USA goes bankrupt and gets conquered by China, what? Oh, don't believe I was ignoring it; The URSS get hands over the Tree of Life. The most important tree of the world, in hands of the URSS, and no country did anything to prevent it. Mother Russia says that she help them to advance their technology, so I assume that they used it to conquest the world, even there is no confirmation of this happen. Am I wrong to take that position? Also, how the hell the Tree of Life helps the soviets to get their souls into machines? They take leaves from the tree for a ritual? It's never explained.
Then we have the Wallachian Library, the Mac Guffing that spins most of the comic. I introduced it before like the Ex Library of Alexandria after a big fire destroyed it (I guess is referring to this fire) and since Vlad was a regent of Wallachia, I assume that he is the owner of the place, thus he went to the place and rescue all the knowledge he can carry to preserve the history. This makes no sense when you take into account that that Vlad was born between 1428 to 1431 AC, more than a millennium later from this incident happens. Anyways, the purpose of this place was being a safe house for Lenin and the minions of Industry, to prepare for something bigger: defeat The Ultimate Tsar. Who is him? No idea! But you remember before I mentioned that plot changes in a point? Well, it turns out that Death was bugged and gave away their location; the Russian army arrives to attack, the Industry's crew tries to escape activating the airship (yes, the library is also an airship, one with the shape of the Serpent Rider's Symbol from the game Heretic), but it fails since is too big and don't have enough propellers for a fast departure and... You remember Gagarin and Laika? Well, Linux deep faces Stalin and orders them to shoot the laser, and the same completely obliterates the place!. Yeah, EVERYONE THERE DIES AND THEN THEIR SOUL IS HARVESTED BY KATYA! (Yes, her sickle is a tractor, don’t question it) Vlad and Sibella? Dead. Sir Topham and the trains? They kicked the bucket. Lenin 2? Sleeping with the fishes. The shooted couple, Dr Killjoy and Callie? Walking between the undead. Doctor Mario, Medic and The Ambulance? They spent their last life. Death, Bastet, Industry and Lenin 1? Actually, they are the only ones that are MIA. After this incident, the plot changes to Katya and her adventures in Hell, completely ignoring the fact that important knowledge from one of the most important library of the world is lost forever. Who cares about that, when we some more tasty nudity here!
Talking about Katya and Hell, this is the Hell of this universe. This is Hell. THIS. IS. FUCKING. HELL. I mean, the only place that you can’t fuck up in how represents it, and you do this! If this is Hell, then how is Heaven? Literally the only place that resembles to hell is the prison zone where War is imprisoned. What a way to get you out of the reading, man.
But the hell is not the only wasted location. It’s the planet Nibiru. In the travel to the library, Death tells to Lenin about the planet and the mass suicide, and Lenin confirms that the planet was getting closer when he was in the Kremlin... And that is all the information about it we have until today. Um, Russian Train Driver? Don't you think you should develop this a little more? If this planet is so close to Earth that it looks bigger than the moon then is should be mayor plot point for the story and not something that is said in passing, like filler. Imagine the stories that would be written with this topic, but do what you want.
Pacing and Structure
The biggest reason that the story is so crazy and confusing is because happens too many things at the same time and the chapters covers. For an example for the first problem we will take the entire scene where Lenin and Death visit the underground location of the Tree of life: Both enter the bunker, Lenin goes ahead, Death does a comedic fall in the stairs and broke a leg, Lenin encounters with Mother Russia, she hugs him and invite him some tea, it's revealed that she is Mother Nature and that she mutated because all the contamination caused by the humans, Russia calls Pestilence to help Death and she infects her with Congenital Analgesia (Congenital Insensitivity to Pain), then she draws Death away to have sisterly quality time while the others talks, the Grim Reaper arrives and has the most degrading fight I saw from magical creatures, Lenin calms them down and Russia forces the Grim Reaper to sit down for tea time, they have a little chit chat about their circumstances until a explosion interrupts them, Death takes advantage of this and tries to capture Lenin, Industry does his great entrance, Russia calls her house to battle, while both fight Mother Russia was saved by Grim Reaper from being crushed, Industry and Death escapes with Lenin and Russia orders Pestilence to chase them, and while Pestilence fights with Death, Mother and Grim had sex (in this cases, think in laser sables), finally when Stalin and his crew is closing up, mother takes the sickle, opens a portal to Hell and tackles him in to save him. All this happens in 76 pages, and if you feel that the summary was rushed, then you have no idea how is accelerated is the pacing. But well, I cheated here, this don't happens in one chapter, if not in two. And that is where the second problem comes: the chapter's covers, or rather the absence of them. I'm not kidding when I say that there is no chapter separation until chapter 11. Why? Simple, is because, and I’m not kidding, the title page appears IN CHAPTER 10. Yeah, all the nine chapters before this are a prelude. Look, Mr. ILikeTrains, you know how the titles introduction works? You have to put it between the first pages, the start of the comic, in the first chapter. Is that why is called "introduction", because is the first thing you show to identify your project. You simply can't take four years to present the intro, out of the respect for the readers. Excuse me if I use what I call "Una Latinoamericada" but this remembers me to the movie Argentino QL when they put the title screen after the movie started twenty minutes ago. And that movie is a shitty comedy about a comedian that nobody knowns outside Chile. You really want to be in the same level? Anyways, with the absence of chapters cover, happens often that you move on from another chapter without noticing, fortunately, this is corrected from chapter 11 onwards.
Smut and Tone
This is the thing, the author wants you to take seriously the comic with all the exposition of the plot, cool designs and epic scenes, but at the same time in middle of these scenes wants you to laugh with goofy, stupid moments that slow down the pace, but also at the same time he wants you to get horny with plastic boobs (or CGI boobs) and out of nowhere lesbian sex scenes that encumbers even more the pace. THL, look at me... Take a deep breath, and listen: Focus on just one Tone, and lower the level of the other two, because you can't have the all three at the same time and expect the people understand what you write. If you want a recommendation of what thing to tone down, I say the smut since holy shit; you really want to jack off.
Well, besides the occasional topless girl, there two sources of the NSFW of the comic. One is Katya, where the most notable scenes are distract Putin to help to the Grim Reaper sneaks in, and even when this is done, she take advantage to enjoy it, only to backfire her for being horny; and then the sex scene with the elf girl before mentioned, that is caused because the flashback. And the other is Death, oh god Death... You remember I said that I will talk about her personality here? Well, she is basically the pervert character from most of the animes, only that instead of being a comedy relief, she is a principal character. The only thing she has in her head, besides capture Lenin and have piles of corpses in front of her, is have her head buried between a pair of tits. The problem comes when she is supposed to be in couple with Bastet, but she is constantly unfaithful with her and tries to get her hands (or hooves?) in any woman or man she encounters: with Katya, with Putin, even a little with Mother Russia. I don't know what see Bastet in Death to like her, they fight constantly even in the bed. Oh but the worst infidelity is by far with... Well, you remember the scene I described in the previous topic, when Pestilence drags Death to a sister's reunion? Well what that actually happens is- OH MY GOD, MY EYES! Death, what the heck, is your sister! Actually, all of her encounters with other Horses of the Apocalypse have in a point an incestuous air around it. And I'm not over-reacting; the author takes great care of her vocabulary. Besides their names, the only term she uses to describe them are brother/sister. No comrade, no friend, no co-worker, only brother and sister. I know that there a lot of inbred in the mythos, but that usually are in civilization's mythos like the Greeks, the Nordics, etc. The Horseman of the Apocalypse comes from the Bible, a modern belief. Even if they are bad guys in that book; I don't believe that the persons that wrote it will give them that bad trait. Sincerely, I don't want to continue talking about this woman, so to the last problem.
Internal Logic
Besides that this comic is historically mean spirited, has a lot of wasted world building and get focused too much in the sex, there are events that even in the logic of the comic's world don't makes sense in any way. First we have the literally start of the comic, when Katya and Grim Reaper enters in Lenin's tomb. The real one was built in 1924 in the year of death of the owner of the tomb, so if we have one in this comic then the events have been the same, not? Okay, if we consider that Linux exist and the year of the newspaper that Lenin reads (without ignoring the possibility that it is an old newspaper), that means that Lenin has been unconscious for over 106 years until the Grim Reapers duo enters the tomb and conveniently awakens confused of why he is in there. How the hell he exactly awakens in that moment precisely, and not before?
Then we have the sex scene of Katya and Putin, where the girl accidentally pulse the dead hand button, when is deactivated we have this scene. Is Putin fucking stupid or is so clumsy that he keeps pressing it by accident so many times that is a common incident? Because no politic is so fucking crazy to press that button voluntarily, not even Putin itself!
Next we have the planet Nibiru. I'm not going to lie to you, if a planet get as close like Nibiru, we will be really fucked up. If already only if we were closer to the sun will kill all the life in the planet, then I cannot imagine what will happen if a rocky planet, with its own gravity and atmosphere enters in our orbit. Then I don't understand why they still have forests. The only thing that this occurrence affected the earth is the mass suicide because of the panic. I can go on and on with these shootings in the foot, but I guess you get the idea.
Before we end, I can't go without talking about:
The Railroad to the Afterlife
This is the first comic that the author created. Is a full 3D CGI comic of the genre Fantasy/Erotica/Furry. Is a story about ghosts, skeletons, succubus, soviets and trains... Okay, I'm guessing that you are wondering why I bring this comic that has nothing to do with the one I reviewed a while ago. Well, is because it has something to do with this comic: The Wallachian Library is a soft-reboot of The Railroad to the afterlife, believe it or not. For those who are not familiar with the term, a soft-reboot it's a resetting of a story usually used when the story ended or it's jammed to the point where it can't be resolved, but instead of discard everything to start from zero like normally do, you instead preserves some parts of the storyline that suits you for the story in a different context. It can be a time skip, it can be an alternate timeline, and it can be a prequel, there a lots of examples. In the case that concerns us, it’s probably the second example.
The chapter's one of both comics are practically the same. The same scenarios, the same characters, the same situations, the same dialogs, it's almost 1:1, like you will see the sample comparison image provided. There are slightly differences; the more remarkable ones are the slightly different presentation and quality of the scenarios, the type of artistic style (3D to 2D), that Death instead of being a horse is a generic gothic girl, and in the chapter's end, instead of Death stealing the Grim Reaper's sickle and runs away, Death brings Lenin to her train and drives it away. From there both are two completely different stories. This comic is about Lenin's travel through the Purgatory and, especially focused, in the sexventures of Katya. I'm not kidding, just look the archive.
So the why this happened, apparently is because the models looked horrible (not my opinion, from words of the author) and he doesn't liked how was going the story. So he decided to delete the comic totally together with other comic he was working at the same time, and then created a new one in the same universe to better exploit it. But for some strange reason he regretted deleting them and in 2019 he started to re-upload them both together with the soft-reboot. Taking into account this context, this makes the style change looks worse than before. I mean, man, you deleted the comic and then started a new one with a new art style because you wanted it to be different from your previous job, why the hell you come back to the 3D renders? If you decide to do a 180° turn with your art style, is for a reason, you should stick with it and don't look back, except to see how much progress you made from there.
Author Biography
TheHereticLocomotive has practically no internet presence. The only thing I found about him is his Deviantart where besides his bio is exactly the same of his Comic Fury's one, we known that he is Romanian, loves the Trains Simulators and, taking into account the theme of his comics, the soviet stuff and lesbians. Besides this comic and TRttA, he is also the author of Fair-y-Tail a comic about a Tiger-girl hunter and her adventures (Warning: it has futa). Is the referred other comic deleted together with his first comic. Also, according to this blog post the first name of this comic was The Industrial Library.
Conclusion
Despite how harsh I was with the comic, I kinda like it, but I don't believe the way the author wanted to like it. I love how extremely stupid and unpredictable the plot is, how hard it tries to makes me want to care about the characters and failed epically, and I just want to read more, I just can't hate it. It's a good crossover story? No, but I wouldn't put it in the category of "it's so bad it's good". It's a mid tier, aiming for the second category. I don't recommend it if you don't like how he uses the historical characters or how it changes to 3D, kind lost me in the second reason. What surprises me about this is when I took a look at the comic's statistics; this comic had over 167.000 visitors. Other comics in the site don't even reach half of the visitors.
