Webcomic Roundup – 09/29/19 to 10/05/2019, part 2
First of all, thank you for the all of the likes on my previous post. I’m glad people are enjoying reading about my opinions. Second, I’m going to stick with limiting each post to about 1000 words. I don’t know how many comics I’ll grab per post, as I have more to say with some comics than others. Lastly, no one’s complained about it yet, but it should go without saying that I’m discussing the latest pages of the webcomics I’m following. If you’re not caught up, there could be spoilers.
With that out of the way, onward to this week’s continuing roundup.
Rebecca Immelmann has been on fire with the last three issues of The Order of the Black Dog. In these issues it has been revealed that Julia is indeed alive, is partially infected with The Black Idol (or as some like to call it, The One Who Crawls), and life isn’t going well for the rest of the cast.
- Melissa has being trying to find a way to cure Julia of her Black Idol infection, while telling everyone else involved that she’s in the hospital sick.
- Melissa has also enlisted Rhoda’s help, who has been taking trips to the spirit world to find Julia.
- At the same time, Julia’s been keep under lock and key at high tech science facility where three scientists, Sedjet, Dara, and Xijo have been tasked with studying the and finding a way to stop the Black Idol.
While Dara and Xijo focus on their tasks (studying its biology and building testing machines), Sedjet interacts with an infected Julia. From her he learns that the true forms of the people of Earth may be the Black Idol. To that end, he runs a test on himself, cancelling out all of the background radiation that kept the Black Idol in check and transformed into the idol. He proceeds to merge with Julia. Just as her sense of self is being subsumed into the collective consciousness of the idol on the spiritual plane, Rhoda is working on a way to save her. We haven’t gotten to that point in the story yet, but it’s clear a showdown is coming. Rhoda has already sacrificed some important aspect of herself to save Julia to a powerful deity, but it’s unclear what.
As for Sedjet, we can safely assume that he’s gone and there’s no coming back. Of course, I wouldn’t mind being proven wrong, because that means it is possible reverse the effects of the Black Idol. At this point, it’s hard to say where The Order of the Black Dog is going, beyond learning more about what the Black Idol is.
Again the BI, an amorphous black blob with a collective conscious, is the people of Earth. However background radiation, called Shankar Radiation, keeps people in their human (well, anthropomorphic animal) forms. Earth has a usually high amount this radiation, and the story is hinting that this is on purpose. High doses of Shankar Radiation cause the BI to mutate.
My theory is that eons ago the Earth was home to the Black Idol and it brought destruction to other lifeforms across the universe. So one race, or several races came to Earth, found a way to raise Shankar Radiation levels, and that mutated it creating the first intelligent lifeforms on the planet. Any Earthling who leaves the planet and isn’t exposed to this radiation reverts back to the Black Idol. (This is the case with Julia’s BI infection. She wasn’t infected, it was her own body.) This explains why some other alien races people view Earthlings with disgust.
Again, this issue could reveal how an entire race of people was formed from this monster and if there’s a way undo the effects of the Black Idol. That and I hope that Julia isn’t lost as a person.
No denying that City of Trees is on hiatus. Author SanjanaIndica has revealed through updates on DeviantArt that her home life has been rough, so she hasn’t been able to work on the comic. The last update was on September 7. At the moment the story is focusing on Sanatani’s budding relationship with Adi—be it romantic or surrogate family. Sanatani had been cornered by her father, Ashoka who as a parent has unfairly pushed his guilt regarding his life choices into his daughter. He was interrupted by Sanatani’s mother, Tadaka who demanded to know why her mate was badgering their child. Sanatani had a panic attack and ran off. Fortunately, Adi saw her panic and took the time to comfort her.
Meanwhile, Tadaka gathers some of the dholes including Ashoka to help find their daughter. Instead, they find the tiger, Shivali who kills Tadaka’s brother when the clan gets too close to her cubs. The fight ends when the tiger takes her cubs and leaves. As this happens, Sanatani begins to ask Adi about his family, possibly getting one step closer to realizing it was her dhole clan that killed the stag’s mate and unborn calf. Or not, because Adi then asks Sanatani about the dhole he killed before the two of them became friends.
At this point, I’m theorizing that Sanatani and Adi’s odd relationship despite the former and latter being predator and prey will be found out. Either by Sanatani’s clan or Adi’s herd, and the two will be chastised. Or we may get further into Tadaka and Ashoka’s back story, learning why Ashoka left the humans that raised him in favor of the wild, and why Tadaka chose him as a mate.
There’s no denying that Africa is a bit of a slog because author Arven only releases pages twice a month. The latest pages have been a lot slower since the big reveal of Africa learning that Chui cheated during their last contest in order to steal her territory. The leopard sets out to confront the larger male, leaving her cubs behind in the care of the hyena matriarch, Faida.
While we wait for this epic showdown, the story has been focusing on the herd animals in Africa’s old territory– namely, the gazelles Paa and his mother Nadira. Paa has been depressed ever since Africa broke off one of his horns in said contest with Chui. In an attempt to cheer up her depressed son, Nadira cleverly points him to a female gazelle. He goes to make small talk with the newcomer, but she seems to be blowing him off with simple “yes” answers to his questions. Finally it becomes clear that she’s actually listening to her friend (or perhaps brother) Jamal, who’s prowling around pretending to be a predator. The introduction of Nia and Jamal could be interesting, but so far I dislike their attitudes. At the very least, things will be interesting for Paa.
The roundup for this week will continue shortly!
