.......next comic up for review is:



Killing Tree Quarterly

I can't believe that no one has given this comic a review yet!

First, the artwork is strikingly black, white, and exacting. It has dynamic elements that are reminiscent of the best poster layouts and pulp serials. At the worst it's stiff, like everyone has put a cup too much starch in their underwear. And, since the overall style is one of barely contained madness and the most far-flung, tail-twisting whoppers you ever read.

I don't like any of the characters, and find it hard to relate to them. A bad thing? Not always - it just makes this more like reading about events than getting immerse in events. And with the introduction of a new, somewhat naive character (okay, only naive in the sense that he hasn't met the Killing Tree crowd before) we have a chance to learn more about them. I mean, aside from them being vicious, effective killers.

Which may be all they are, but I have the feeling that there is much more going on in this story, and suggest that more people give it a read. I admit that it isn't one of my favorites, but the technical skill and excellent writing impel you to see if it is your sinister flavor of a madcap Western!

i know people are reading this comic... but how anyone can read it and not have anything to say about it is beyond me.

the artwork is the first thing that really grabs you; the shading is absolutely phenomonal. the black and white contrast very tastefully, and the fading into grey is always at just the right point. wisping clouds in a black night sky, reflections in a pond on a sunny day, he knows how to draw it, and more importantly when. not to mention that that actual drafting is great as well. expressions, designs, anything requiring explicit detail is drawn to a t. the style is an old fashioned black and white comic book syle with a bit of a modern twist to it, and i love love love it.

as for the writing, i have to also commend it highly, but there is a very specific reason.

this comic reminds me a lot of nick cave. the stories and backdrops are normal things you read about in books and see in movies all the time, but here there's this strangely dark element added. this is far from typical, is what i'm trying to say. the style is very dark but it's never overdone, and the story itself is always compelling.

i haven't read many stories on here, and most have been decent at best. this is absolutely solid, and frankly more people should be reading it.
5/5

Everyone is starting with a critique of the artwork, and so let's follow the flow and begin there. It's black and white and shades of the same, people. It started off good and looked as if figures were pulled from film frames and then worked over to turn them into noir style. This may or may not be how it was done in the beginning. I found the author-artist's 'How I Done Did It' information somewhere back when he started this sequential work of art, but I can't find it now to refresh my memory. It doesn't really matter, though, how the work start out, because by the time he's finished manipulating the images they are wholly his own. He started off good and is now top-notch so far as the art work goes.

I have a problem with it though, and that is that as Keith McCleary progressed his work became a bit too artistic for my tastes; well, actually for my viewing comprehension. There is now so much happening per page that I find it difficult to follow the action and remain on the mark so far as the unfolding storyline goes. The writing doesn't help much to fill in the comprehension gaps either, because generally the main characters speak minimally or talk about anything but the tidbits of information that would help a lost reader figure out just what the hell is going on. Now this just may be a problem with the reader - meaning me - but I thought it worth mentioning in case others have experienced the same problem.

I suspect that - aside from my own density - that Keith McCleary is struggling with the problem of keeping his protagonists mysterious and eccentric; i.e., firmly in character, while still conveying enough information or clues to keep readers informed.

The above caveats aside, the writing is overall as brilliant in nature as is the artwork. You never quite know what is going to happen next because the protagonists are so very eccentric.

Keith takes his time and gets everything as nearly perfect as possible before offering it up to the public. It doesn't get any better than that.

The stories themselves are brilliant. Oh, and violent. Did I mention the violence? This is very violent stuff people; but in a good way. Oh . . . and it is a western.

I featured it I liked it so much :)

Hey all - I wanted to chime in and say thanks for the commentary. I actually wrote pretty copious notes responding to it all, but then my girlfriend pointed out to me that critiques are about other people responding to my work and interacting with it, and not about me going to great lengths to explain myself and talk about a project that has to, for better or worse, stand on its own.

If Mina, IFDTS, CharleyHorse or any future commenters would like to know my thoughts on what you've said, PM me and we'll chat. As it stands, I really appreciate both the wonderful, flattering compliments and the fair (and terrifyingly on-point) criticisms.

Oh, and if skoolmunkee wants to email me she can too, because I'm relatively sure I have an internet crush on her. ;)

And just so you don't leave empty-handed, let me explain one more time how I do the art for the book, since everyone seems to have questions about it and I myself can no longer remember where I wrote about it on this site.

I use a program called Poser, which is basically a hobby tool used to make 3D art and animations. It's not nearly as deep a program as professional software like Maya, but I've found it to be versatile enough that I can almost always get what I want out of it.

Anyway, the characters and scenes are predominantly built in 3D, and rendered using a variety of black-and-white textures to give it a "pen and ink" look. Then the panels are assembled into pages in Photoshop. I draw in some details with a stylus, and I also have a wide variety of Photoshop brushes that help out with a lot of the background. Occasionally I've spruced up some pages with copyright-free images grabbed from the 'net and manipulated by me, but I could probably count the number of times I've done that on one hand.

I've seen other webcomics on DD using Poser, but because of the program's aforementioned versatility I think I've been able to maintain a unique style. Or I hope so, anyway.

Okay dudes, I'm out. KTQ wraps in a few weeks, so I hope you'll all stick with it till then.

Hey hey, your reviews aren't done yet. I've got a little break in my schedule and took some time out to read your offering.

First off..

Artwork

Oddly enough, I was going to say that it looked like you did the artwork in Poser and then put it through some filters to disguise that -- and then I read your explanation telling me I was spot on. Poser has some tell-tale signs and whenever there's a close up with expression it gives itself away. Usually when a character is surprised.

Normally, Poser based comics stink horribly -- the characters look creepy and artificial, the person has NO idea how comics look and so the whole thing looks painfully bad. With your comic, thanks to the time and effort you put into the characters and backgrounds, artful use of a black-and-white palette with dynamic shading, and skillful knowledge of how a comic should look, it took me reading awhile before I realized how you had created it. I hope people who don't use traditional methods of artwork (AKA a pencil and paper base) take a long, close look at your comic and learn that effort and skill makes a huge difference.

That said, there are times when it's hard to tell what's going on due to the nature of the strict black-and-white palette.

Writing

Heh, another thing that separates your comic from a lot of other poser-based ones is the writing. Sometimes when I review a comic -- even good ones -- I have to force myself to read the whole thing. I don't want to get bogged down in it, I just want to get a feel for it and write my review. With your comic, the initial story really caught my attention and I was disappointed when I came to the end. It strikes me as a story where the characters of importance aren't the title characters: it's about the situations and people they encounter. It's a lot like Sergio Leone's movies. That being said, the main characters aren't as interesting as Leone's characters. They just seem to be in a grimacing "Who's the Baddest Ass" contest with each other, except for Wesley who appears more educated and easy-going, and his guide who seems to be mostly comedy relief. Like I stated before however -- the actual storytelling seems to be with the people and situations they encounter over anything else, so the lack of depth they seem to have at this point is forgivable.

Style

I have to give you style points for this work -- you make excellent use of your tools to put together a really good piece of work. The filtering you apply blends things together very well and you made a lot of smart calls with your creation.

Overall

KTQ is a fine piece of work, and a great read for anyone who's a fan of movies like "The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly" or other gritty Westerns.

Er, at the risk of being a feeble echo...

I normally strongly dislike (okay, "hate") Poser books, which I recognized KTQ as immediately many moons ago when it first appeared. Everything tends to be very artificial looking, & the people tend to look like stuffed, rubbery mannequins (sp?). To be honest, it's why I haven't read KTQ until now. Even though Keith does a surprisingly excellent job of covering up the Poser flaws, I still couldn't get past my own distain for Poser books.

That said, KTQ is a strong, very creative book. The writing is pro quality, & shows a depth & maturity that treats the reader with a good deal of respect. It's a very engaging read.

I would easily recommend KTQ.

It's not bad... Ya know, fer a Poser book, 'n' all.

Seriously, it's excellent.

Later,
Chip

Obviously these few new reviews have been up for a little while, but for some reason I hadn't had the urge to respond directly right away. But now I do, and here I is, and that's that.

smkinoshita : I appreciate your breakdown of my stories as "situation-based" instead of character based. I think it's something I've written myself when organizing my thoughts on KTQ privately, or in an email to a friend -- so it's really nice to see someone outside of my circle repeat the idea back to me, because then I know it works. Not for everyone, I realize -- but you got it, so I know that it's there to get. Whew!

And I can't comment on anything related to me vs. Leone without sounding totally ridiculous, so I won't.

cs3ink: Right off the bat I gotta say that a review from you is in and of itself a big deal to me, because I think it's pretty obvious that you're one of the biggest creative talents on DD. And at the risk of sounding weirdly paranoid -- I KNEW there was a reason you weren't reading KTQ! (Don't ask me how, but I did.)

Okay, now -- the "Poser" issue. I'll be honest; I'm glad that when I started KTQ I'd never heard of Poser before buying it, and by the same token had never seen a "Poser book." If I had I probably never would have attempted this project, under the assumption that it wasn't as flexible a program as it is.

As it stands, I saw the quality of the basic renders upon the first day of owning the software, and my first month or so was spent on figuring out ways to make it work towards the comic I saw in my head instead of against it. That was really all there was to it. Now that it's all done I've been able to look back on the pages with more perspective and yeah -- it's still more "Poser-y" than I would like. Especially now that I've seen a lot of comics done in Poser that I don't like, but that are basically working against the limitations of the medium in the same way I am. It's hard for me to quickly just say "well, those books suck," because I get a conscience pang reminding me how freaking hard it is to use the software to your advantage.

Anyway, I really appreciate everyone writing in about the book. And guess what? Now that KTQ is over, the next project I'm doing is gonna be IN COLOR! So don't worry -- probably all the good things I've figured out how to do in Poser when it's black-and-white will fall apart once I switch to color, and everyone can safely say that it looks like butt without having to think so long and hard about it. ;)

Kidding! I'm kidding!

Just because KTQ is over, you ain't gonna get rid of it on DD, right? The prose is so f-ing pro, I gotta refer back to it time and again.

This is definitely 1 of those comics where I come back mainly for the writing, but don't get the wrong idea - the art is like few you've ever seen. Genuine creativity and authenticity going on here, even if it's not up everyone's alley (read: bland and mainstream).

It's been a really long time in comic world since the last review was written on this comic, so I think it's time someone else take a swing at it.

Killing Tree Quarterly, which is an interesting title in and of itself, steps forward to me as one of the most comprehensive comics I've seen on DD. Now, I discovered it only after it was completed, but for me that made its discovery as exciting as finding that long lost gem amongst the hundreds of cardboard-boxed comics at a local bookstore.

I noticed the poser look, on the cover more than inside, but it didn't bother me at all, which is unusual since I normally really don't like poser comics. They look stiff and artificial. But the smart use of blacks, silhouettes, and shadows helps to overcome that here. Whenever whole figures do appear, the filters did their jobs well and made this comic look hand-drawn, which I assume was the goal. Not only that, but the character designs themselves are an achievement, and the variety of each character is outstanding.

The story is very intriguing. The first thing I wondered upon seeing it was, "How did this Indian, woman, and Chinese man come together? What's their relationship? How do they split the money? Do they ever talk? Little stuff like that. But this story is the dark stuff that draws me to comics. It's a very short "Unforgiven" in comics form. These dark westerns with their anti-heroes really captured my imagination when I was a kid, and the flavor of that comic noir is all over this comic. I had no complaints about the story, but I would love to see more and more to reveal more and more about these characters (a bull-riding Chinaman?) If only Keith could be persuaded.

This comic is so cinematic to me, in fact, that I would think Keith could produce a very nice film. If he can tell a story and build it this well, then he has great vision of what his final product must look like. That is important in film. You have to have vision and it shows here, too. The schooling wasn't a waste. All in all, it was one of the most entertaining reads I've experienced on DD. And I hope to see more some day. Nice typography, too.