Letter From Here

A dark Fairy tale where Josh is spirited to a disturbing world. Danger is everywhere and he is never given a break from the insanity. He can never tell who is allie or who is a enemy. Will he survive his trip through the unknown, or will it consume him and drive him mad?

The creepiness factor of Letter from Here is very well-played! The designs of the characters are clever and unique and sprinkled with just enough of the bizarre to be unsettling (in a good way, of course). The art has a lovely sketchy and painted style that gives it a dreamy, otherworldly feel. I particularly like the color schemes. The calligraphy-esque writing is beautiful. Even though it can be difficult (but not impossible) to read in places, I think it works better with the overall feel and tone of the comic than any font could. I like how the backgrounds don't distract the reader from what's going on in the foreground, but they are still rich and filled out with just the right amount of detail and texture. My minor complaint is that the profiles and close-ups of the main character Josh are very feminine, even though he is a boy. This could be done on purpose, though.

Storywise, I enjoy the dream-like pacing and structure. This can be a bit confusing at times, but I'm willing to bet this is intentional. The dialogue is a bit stiff, and the characters haven't really developed three-dimensional personalities yet. As the story continues and we get to spend more time with the characters, I think this will change. I was very intrigued with the evil little twist the story took in chapter two. ^.^ I'd like to see more attention paid to scripting action sequences. So far, they've been unclear to follow and over entirely too quickly - the only way I knew what was happening was through reading the author's notes.

Overall, this is still a relatively young comic with lots of promise and a huge dose of personal style. It's intriguing and sinister and really quite pretty. Nice work, Esyntha!

I like the story, it's quite intriguing. The style is very unique and, I think, well done. The messiness of it makes it much cooler than if it was neat. It can get confusing at some points and it's hard to tell what is happening. The characters haven't completely developed yet for me to feel anything much for them. I do agree with Amanda in that Josh can look very feminine at some points. But overall I think this could get very interesting.

"Letters From Here" is a nightmare, or drug-trip-gone-bad style story. It's crazy wall-slashing art compliments the story as the blood dripping finger paint text tells the tale.

What works: Some panels have a "painted then scanned" look which adds to the muddle-brain darkness effect. The bright color schemes of many of the panels enhance the evil and creepiness concept. I bought that the art and writing could have been done by a mad man.

Picky, picky, picky: On the Alex panel, script avoid hyphenation and widows. They make text harder to read and no one writes long hand with hyphens. I'd like to seem more foreshadowing. For instance I assumed that you were picking up the Josh thread after the Alex panel but was confused by your "Isn't the child Important to you?" panel as a child was not introduced in later panels.

What I would like to see: More Alex. I like the idea of Alex being the reader's surrogate. And having sanity in the midst of madness makes the madness darker and scarier.

Hmm... Letter From Here is a rather surreal journey into a mad, mad world somewhere on the edge of reality. Not 100% sure where the story is going, either.. it's almost like a dream that you can only JUST remember, settled on the edge of your consciousness.

Artwork

The surreal factor is REALLY played up in the artwork. The overall inhabitants of this... world, I suppose, for lack of a better term... are macabre and would fit in quite well with most horror movies.

Some of the initial pages were rougher than the current ones (which is understandable as the artist ramps up into the characters and gets familiar with em). Some of the dimensions could use some work... http://www.drunkduck.com/Letter_From_Here/index.php?p=551216 for example. The man's arms would easily reach below his knees if you moved him into a standing position at the current dimensions. That's simply a matter of practice, of course, nothing that can't be worked on as you go along.

Writing

... surreal. This comic embraces it, takes it for its own, marries it, has children by it, then eats the bastards for dinner. It really feels like a dream sequence almost from beginning to current page, and it wanders down some confusing pathways that only enhance this effect.

As a side note, I HATE HATE HATE HATE the writing on the actual pages. As I mentioned in the Goblin Apprentice review earlier, I would MUCH rather read legible text done after the artwork is complete and embedded via your art/paint program of choice over trying to cross my eyes to read it where it's been splashed into the page and is running in and amongst the artwork.

As a suggestion, find a nice and freaky font (try http://www.blambot.com/ for a start, they're free to use) and then make a suitable creepy captioning box/text bubble that you can use instead.

Overall

A bit too surreal for me, but a good comic so far. More pages would help start to make sense of the plot threads you've dangled for us so far.

>Net

Thanks everyone for the reviews ^^ I have actually made some new pages and I am making this chapter to flesh out the story and make some things clearer before I progress down the pit that josh and alex have been thrown down ^^

I just moved, I am getting my computer set up with internet and getting my art program running better. I am trying to make the artwork better and listening to your criticisms and honestly, It makes posting and making this comic completely worth it ^^ Thanks for drudging through my shoddy lettering, wacky plot, and inane sense of style. Letter From Here will be updated soon ^^ If I could find my USB >..< It would be up now! I am no longer homeless so updates will be going back to the daily update ^^

The lettering will be improved, I just can not seem to find a premade lettering style that suits my comic. The scratchings of a mad man are seemingly better than the subtle tip of a lord ^^

It's kinda odd that you all think the comic is scary ^^ I think most of the characters are amazingly cute, although the subject matter is dark and creepy. making this is very therapuetic for me ^^

thanks for all the reviews and info! any new comments and reviews would be AMAZING

Well, obviously I'm a fan of "normal enough guy gets sucked into some weirdo world!" stories, so that in and of itself is a plus. The story starts off with just that. Easy enough to follow for the first couple chapters. But then... hoo, boy. I was dumped straight into a big pile of "Uh... did I miss something?" A few pages later, we hit the last update. Since I think the story itself kind of depends on the mystery of what's going on to compel you forward, I don't want to focus on the specifics of the plot. So instead I'll address some of the more formal graphic stuff.

The art is competent, and at times very striking. I do get the feeling in some of the "muddier" pages that the author rushed it a bit, but perhaps that's just a personal preference, as I tend towards more linear, detailed stuff. Because of the... well, odd nature of the comic, I'm not at all bothered by inaccuracies or distortions of the figures. While I'm usually a bit zealous about that point, here it sits right on the border between intentional and unintentional, so I'll lean towards the former and let it slide. It works with the story and it didn't distract or bug me, and that's the important part.

The designs of the more surreal characters- the dog creature that brings our protagonist into the nightmarish realm, a clown thing seemingly guarding a door, are interesting. In fact, each time a new character is introduced, I instantly want to know more about them.

This is one of my favorite pages - although sometimes throughout the comic the backgrounds seem a bit hasty, I think this one's a perfect blend of that vague, expressionistic background style, and those interesting, creepy creatures! Another page I love , for the dreamy atmosphere. In fact, I'm gonna call this one the best page, although that's merely my opinion. For the first time here, we're given a sense of the "world" into which Josh has been drawn- and again, I wanna know more! What's in that city he's headed towards? Let's explore! Unfortunately... well, we never get there. But you can find out why yourselves.

Probably my main issue with this comic is that a good deal of the "narration" seems superfluous. "Show, don't tell!" Remarks like "This place is huge!", or to the disturbing nature of a disturbingly rendered creature- well, we can see that for ourselves. The lack of integration between the text and the picture plane further gives the impression that the author isn't confident that we'll be able to figure out what's going on, or imagine how a certain character might feel or be thinking at the moment. It appears as scrawled addenda, needlessly clarifying what ought to be clear enough. Thankfully, this annoying tendency mostly confines itself to the first chapter, with occasional lapses throughout the remainder of the story.

Sometimes the text seems crammed in wherever it will fit on some pages . Sometimes this cramped kind of composition detracts from some pretty nice art- like here , where the lovely fox lady is squished into a small box and crowded with text, when there's plenty of "blank" space in the panel below. Again, this gets better as the comic progresses, but I do think it requires some keen attention!

Because of the surreal nature of the art and the story, I think loopy, scrawled, overly elaborate or otherwise "irregular" text could be fitting; as could the ambiguity between thought and speech. I think the first panel of this page comes close to what I mean, although the linework of the text could benefit from the same care given to the figure below. Here the words seem to emote; they have more of an illustrative quality. But still, it's only half-achieved here, and leaves me wondering if it's at all intentional.

And back to those creepy, interesting characters that I'm dying to know more about- well, maybe it comes, uh, later? Problem is, as of yet I haven't really been given a reason to care about any of them. Everyone seems so... sedated. I think the zenith of emotional expression is where the fox lady gleefully announces that Josh is going to be her delivery boy.

This last point is the heartbreaker for me. Because as much as "Letter From Here" is "my kind of story"- madness! gore! surreal trippy WTF sequences! bird-lookin' masks! cool creatures!- it's really not sucked me in at this point. It's one I'll check back on, eventually- I think there's a lot of potential for excelling in the "phantasmagorical horror epic of madness and murder!" category. But it's just not there yet.

Omg you so hit the nail on the head with every part of your review. This being my very first comic, I am not at all used to taking the moving picture that this comic is, add in stationary dialog, and leave it coherent. To me the story is so 3-D its hard to translate it into a comic format. As for the rushed pages, you are dead on. I often times rush the backgrounds which shows that I am not good or used to doing them. I am forcing myself to get better at this as you will see later on. Right now the main character Josh will reach the very bottom and darkest point in his story, like falling down a pitch black well. The story line will be fleshed out soon.

As for the writing. I now understand what you mean. I need to actively work on writing for its atleast 1/2 of the comic. I can't win by pictures alone it seems ^^ I have the next 7 or 8 chapters plotted out and then the wire frame story extends for a while.

I am sorry that my comic is not up to par with what I wish it was ^^ To me this is like trying to find a kitten in a cave, the meows echo so it may take a while to get it. I will practice a better forme of lettering, although I still am shying away from computer text.


Blessed be all who reviewed my comic ^^