Full Moon stories ticks the first box for what I like to see in a comic.
It is original and different to other comics I've read.
It follows a strange, unnamed weirdly masked narrator who spins sinister tales of supernatural woe and cruel poetic justice to the reader when the moon is full at midnight.
Rather delightfully, the narrator takes no part in the stories, and yet appears throughout them, as a reflection in a mirror, a member of an audience, or just leaving his grotesque mask laying around-
http://www.drunkduck.com/Fullmoon_Stories/index.php?p=246104
He tells us a series of stand alone morality tales, which invariably seem to involve the unwary falling foul of a an unspeakable fate!
I really enjoyed the art of Full Moon Stories. It is not always flawless, with a few of the characters faces and shapes being a bit inconsistent and in places the images seem a bit crude, but in other places it has an astounding level of detail.
For example-
http://www.drunkduck.com/Fullmoon_Stories/index.php?p=111734
There is such a rich level of detail added in here, you can play a sinister version of Where's Wally? with the narrator.
I felt that some pages seemed to receive more love then others, with some receiving huge amounts of care and others being more rushed and simplistic.
The author needs to work on maintaining a consistent standard, though I am happy to report that the art does improve significantly as the comic progresses.
Rather fittingly, the backgrounds in the comic are often out of proportion. This is not an error from the artist, but a deliberate choice to make the world of these Stories strange and dreamlike, and very nice it is too.
The comic also uses a lot of Interesting page layouts, which I greatly enjoyed, such as this one-
http://www.drunkduck.com/Fullmoon_Stories/index.php?p=266482
The text in the comic is almost always done in short sections of poetry from the narrator, as he spins his dark tales.
This was actually my biggest problem with the comic. Not the concept, which i love, but occasionally the execution was off.
The rhythm of the poetry is sometimes wrong, for example-
"The Old General lost it all in pursuit of power and glory,
it is quite a sad story"
This should be something like-
"The General failed in his quest for glory,
now addled by drink, he repeats his sad story"
As someone who dabbles in poetry, I think Full Moon Stories really needs more attention to this aspect.
Also, when writing poetry one should always make each line of the verse get a new line of text.
For example
""The Old General lost it all in pursuit of
power and glory, it is quite a sad story" is how the text appears in the comic.
The poetry should be presented like this-
"The Old General lost it all in pursuit of power and glory,
it is quite a sad story"
This would make the rhythm of the poetry far easier for the reader to follow.
Full Moon Stories is something bold and different. The author is really attempting something challenging and while not achieving total success, does create a unique and interesting comic that I would recommend everyone check out, I think it is going to garner a strong following.
And because of the miracle of the internet, you don't even have to wait till full moon at midnight to read it! (though that might make it even creepier, I haven't dared try it yet...)