The Dragon Slayer had a short life as a comic before it was cancelled. It started on December 7th, 2024 and ended abruptly on September 9th, 2025 at 180 pages. This comic had problems from the start. I talked about how SleepySundae mishandled the heavy themes in her comic in a thought piece back in August. Pushing beyond the first 20 pages where I initially stopped reading in February was not easy for this review. At the end of it all, I found myself surprised. TDS actually starts to improve when the journey that makes up much of the myth of Perseus is about to happen. Unfortunately, that’s right where the comic ends. This story had potential, but it is weighed down by its many flaws.
Calycanthus tells King Crisis about the prophecy.
One night lightning strikes a tree, and the next morning Calycanthus (Polydectes), a priest of the Immortal Dragon interprets a message from the Dragon to King Crisis (Acrisius). Next summer he’ll have a grandchild that’ll grow up to be strong and will eventually challenge him for his kingdom. The King assumes the foal will be a colt, but the priest never mentions a gender. Afraid, King Crisis asks which one of his daughters will birth said colt, and Calycanthus immediately singles out Princess Dandy (Danae). Her firstborn will be the child that steal’s Crisis’ kingdom. With that Calycanthus notes the Immortal Dragon permits King Crisis to take any measure he sees fit in order to avoid the prophecy.
As Dandy reaches heat (or the time of urges), she’s approached by various princes, and turns them all down. One tries to force himself on the princess, but he’s attacked and driven away by her father. Later, Calycanthus returns, surprised that Dandy hasn’t been banished from his kingdom. Crisis thanks the priest as the Immortal Dragon has granted his wish. He’ll finally get to keep one of his daughters for himself. Later that night he tries to force himself on Dandy, but she’s rescued by Dyktor (Dictys), the ruler of a neighboring kingdom. He takes Dandy to safety, and she’s allowed to stay in his kingdom if she wishes.
She ultimately stays, terrified of her father. There she learns King Dyktor runs his kingdom differently from King Crisis. His mares are allowed to turn down his advances, mate with other princes, or leave of their own free will. He’ll only intervene if a stallion can’t take “no” for an answer. He also doesn’t mind if his sons leave the kingdom early. Dandy falls for his gentle personality and reveals she’s always wanted to be a mother, but can’t because of the prophecy. Dyktor insists her foal would be safe in his kingdom. So she chooses to mate with him. Eventually after showing leadership skills, Dandy is made his queen.
Dyktor comes up with Pierces’ name.
Queen Dandy gives birth sometime later to a filly, and Dyktor names the foal Pierces (Perseus). It’s because she pierced her mother during birth AND the act of conception involved Dandy being pierced. (Yes, it’s a dick joke.) From the moment Pierces is able to walk, it’s already clear she has a combative personality. She immediately spars her father, and even her colt sibling. During the winter, Dyktor is killed by a lightning strike when defending his kingdom from another king. In actuality, his brother Calycanthus arranged for him to be murdered by the lightning strike. Now in charge of the herd, Dandy keeps them safe from princes during the winter. As summer approaches the threat of princes harassing them is real, and Calycanthus offers to be their temporary new king. Having picked up on the priest’s true nature as a manipulator, Pierces does everything she can to keep the kingdom and her mother safe from his clutches.
I would argue that until maybe the last ten pages of The Dragon Slayer before its discontinuation, this was an extremely loose adaptation of Perseus. For the sake of this review, I read about the mythology and doing so makes this adaption all the weaker. In other words, it’s easier to enjoy TDS the less you know about Perseus. This could have been its own story. I will say, the renaming of the characters is at least more creative than another Greek mythology adaption like Roar, Howl, Run. Still, the characters aren’t a one-to-one representation of themselves in the myth, and there are no gods.
Which is a bit baffling since they were central to Perseus’ story. For example, Danae was actually impregnated by Zeus, making Perseus a half-god. (This comes in handy when he’s aided by Zeus, and later by Athena and Hermes.) Polydectes was already king, and while he lusted over Danae, he kept away because of Perseus. Dictys found Danae and the baby Perseus, but otherwise he was a simple fisherman while his brother ruled. It feels like a mistake to go with semi-realistic horses and deciding to remove all supernatural elements from the story. Also, why does it take place in America instead of Greece? (Cougars are unique to the Americas.)
Calycanthus chases a mare to her death, and explains it away by claiming he’s a priest of the Immortal Dragon.
The Immortal Dragon isn’t real because again there are no true gods in TDS. It was concocted by Calycanthus to cover up the fact that he chased a mare until she was struck by lightning as he pursued her during a thunderstorm. He lied on the spot, and for whatever reason the horses who witnessed the mare’s death just rolled with it, and the religion spread through all the kingdoms. I guess horses are just that gullible?
Since they are religious some horses like Smelie (pronounced “smelly”), have interpreted the actions of humans as something from the Immortal Dragon. Maybe incidents like these help support Calycanthus’ lies? I’d imagine to wild horses the intervention of humans would seem supernatural. Add religion and it becomes a divine and otherworldly experience. Even so, I think this religion should have been better defined or existed prior to Calycanthus. Perhaps he could have just warped his position as a priest into a personal cult for his own twisted desires.
Dyktor knows Calycanthus is lying about the Immortal Dragon and him being a priest.
I do have a problem with the sole horse who’s not a believer. Dyktor knew his brother started this religion, and promised to keep the fact that it’s all a lie a secret as long as Calycanthus didn’t involve his kingdom. So naturally, he never warns his queen, daughter, or anyone else in his herd about his brother, despite Calycanthus taking an unhealthy interest in Dandy. At a bare minimum he could have told Dandy to be careful around him. I get not wanting to shatter someone’s faith, but at some point it should have been obvious that his fake priest brother coveted his queen. He was so worried about Dandy thinking less of him for ruining her religion that this form of enablement literally cost him his life. Worse, that leaves Calycanthus’ lies about the religion completely unchallenged until Pierces comes along. Even then, she doesn’t know the Immortal Dragon itself is a complete fabrication.
Speaking of Dyktor’s death, Calycanthus’ knowledge of metal attracting electricity should have been better explained. The scene feels so out of place. We know humans exist in this world because of the trash heaps and later Smelie’s story. We also know that the priest uses lightning strikes to interpret the will of the Immortal Dragon, and has developed the skill of guiding horses he wants dead or harmed to where it will strike. But how did he know that metal attracts and conducts electricity in the first place?
Calycanthus placing a metal wire in Dyktor’s mane unnoticed.
A scene where he observed metal being struck by lightning, or if he had been a horse temporarily taken by humans would explain how he knew this fact. Instead, we’re just supposed to go with him being that smart and resourceful? Did he test this method out on other unfortunate horses before making a victim of his brother? The metal wire really breaks the semi-realism here, especially when other horses never think twice about metal or lightning strikes. I can at least accept the good priest murdering another horse via yew since it occurs naturally.
I don’t mind Calycanthus being a manipulative asshole to nearly everyone he encounters. Or the fact that he coerces mares into sex, which is a form of sexual assault. It just shows how he’s used his poisonous words and his brain to get what he wants versus brute force. Even so, I wish the author didn’t insist the mares he raped consented to it under “dubious” circumstances. Smelie (a terrible name for this character considering all she goes through, by the way) was sexually assaulted because the good priest took advantage of her coming off of her contraception after being released by humans and lied about her foal being the son of the Immortal Dragon. Had she been in a normal state of mind, she would not have mated with him out of season, or maybe not at all.
Smelie explains how she was taken advantage of by Calycanthus without even realizing it.
The same with Dandy feeling like she had to mate with him in order to appear to be his queen for the herd’s sake. Had that threat of princes not been there, she would have never submitted to him. I only bring this up because it’s in the author’s notes on ComicFury and in a reply to other comments. (The author’s notes, comments, and the entire comic on ComicFury have been removed as of November 19, 2025.) Sex via coercion, manipulation, or deception is still rape. It feels like Sleepy is trying to downplay the severity of his actions for no good reason. Just let the evil priest be a rapist and murderer who took advantage of mares. I don’t see the need to insist that his manipulation was anything but that, and the act was consensual especially when Smelie and Dandy are shown to be afraid of Calycanthus later. It’s not like he’s getting redeemed, especially since he’s slated to die– if the original myth has any role to play.
Calycanthus manipulates Dandy into mating with him to pull off the appearance of being the herd’s King.
Since I’m on the subject of sexual assault, there’s no dancing around it. The Dragon Slayer features a lot of attempted and actual sexual assault. There’s at least a half dozen instances. Unnecessarily so. I think this type of behavior should have been limited to Calycanthus and more males should have been shown to think like Dyktor in terms of consent. After all, in real life a stallion can’t force a mare to mate if she isn’t ready. That would be the evil brilliance of the good priest. His ability to manipulate mares into sex with words via the religion he started instead of by physical force. But no, we get a world where more often than not, males are pushy assholes, and we nearly watched a father attempt to rape his daughter within the first 20 pages of this comic after she’s nearly attacked by another male.
Why not just have King Crisis keep Dandy on a tight leash in his kingdom? Then make it obvious that she wants to be a mother. And despite the prophecy, she eventually mates with a passing prince. Deciding not to kill his daughter, Crisis instead banishes her far away, and she eventually ends up in Dyktor’s kingdom. That would be closer to the myth without all the attempted incest.
Pierces smacks Smelie’s foal in a fit of anger. She apologizes later, but the damage is done.
Another huge problem I had with The Dragon Slayer is our eventual protagonist, Pierces. Despite the origin of her name, I’m not too bothered that Sleepy didn’t go with Percy. I just don’t like Pierces herself. She’s a deeply unlikable character for no good reason. From the moment she could walk, she turns out to be a brat. She’s supposed to come off as fierce and masculine as positive traits, but instead she’s an aggressively violent jackass. Even if she apologized and stopped before going too far, she did smack a dying foal. She also recklessly rushed at adult horses with no regard to her own safety or any consequences. Worse, she’s the only one who discovers Calycanthus is up to no good, but doesn’t tell anyone else. Not unlike her father. Unlike her father, who wanted to protect a brother he couldn’t see was rotten to the core, it’s unclear why Pierces didn’t pull Dandy aside later and relay her fears and suspicions. By the time her story becomes semi-interesting with a possible chance of redemption for her character during her journey, the comic is over. So yeah, we’re stuck with said jackass.
Pierces siblings leaving after Calycanthus takes over the kingdom. Shame these characters were never named or shown interacting much with Pierces.
What makes it worse, is that she has siblings who share a disdain for Calycanthus. Yet we don’t have many scenes with them together, and they don’t even have names. It seems like a massive missed opportunity to soften Pierces’ image and flesh out the background characters. I would have loved to know more about her brother and her two sisters who left with a pair of gay bachelors to get away from living under the priest’s rule.
Hell, with the exception of Smelie and a few kings, very few of the horses are named. This strikes me as egregious as we spend a bunch of time with the mares in Dyktor and Dandy’s kingdom. They at least deserved to have names, especially since they were given some personality. I still can’t get over the rest of Dyktor’s children not being named. It feels like he didn’t care much about his children until Pierces came along, and that’s only because the narrative needed her to be special. If Dyktor is as loving as the story wants the audience to believe, he should be shown loving on all his children. And maybe giving Pierces special treatment, after seeing how aggressive her personality is in order to channel it into something less destructive.
Pierces’ tokophobia.
I do feel Pierces’ tokophobia was handled well. And the visual depiction of it was clever. It was relatable to not want children while people fantasize what your children will look like without even asking you if you’re interested. You don’t have to be asexual like Pierces to understand her fears, and the expectations of a larger society. Again, that part of the story really resonated with me. I would have loved to see more of that side of Pierces.
I haven’t talked much about her, but poor Dandy spends way too much of this comic either as a victim (nearly sexually assaulted twice in the first 20 pages!), or worried about her child. Her moments of happiness with Dyktor become fleeting. At least she finds a loving companion in Smelie, but even that is cut short with Calycanthus being a creep. I know Pierces is the main character, but I feel like her mother could have been given more moments of happiness. Her story is suffering for the sake of suffering, but it’s not clear she even has to be a tragic character.
Dyktor playing with a very young Pierces.
I normally adore Sleepy’s art style, but it didn’t work for me in TDS. There’s just too much happening with a mixture of toony, anime faces, and suddenly realistic horses. I just wish she picked one style and stuck to it. I couldn’t get over the horses essentially having Pac-Man mouths, then having flat teeth, then their teeth being super realistic. Sometimes all on the same page! The butts also seemed overly exaggerated, and at some point tails just became string like– especially Calycanthus. Necks were also weirdly long.
Two different panels of Furie from Viewerpoint. I like how the faces on the horses are actually horses while being expressive. The teeth don’t jump to overly detailed either.
I didn’t realize how much the art bothered me, until I came across another horse webcomic called Viewerpoint and found the art style, anatomy, and faces of the horses to be more pleasing to me.
Sleepy insisted some of it was a stylistic choice in TDS, but I think she pushed some facial expressions way too far, made them way too human, and they became an eyesore to look at.
I’m sorry, I just couldn’t get behind Dandy’s face on this panel.
I do appreciate the amount of research Sleepy put into some scenes, such as newborn foals having feathery down on their hooves, so their mothers aren’t uninjured during birth. Some realistic horse behavior such as clacking, and how stallions often fight over mares. Also, Smelie’s time in captivity, her interpretation of it, and how wild horses are captured and given contraception for population control before being released back into the wild. This shows that the author can research when she really wants to. I just wish that same care had been put into the sexual themes and how they were depicted. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have happened, but there was a definite lack of research and maturity.
Calycanthus sends Pierces out on a quest. We’re finally at the Perseus part of this story.
All in all, The Dragon Slayer had potential once Calycanthus became king after stealing his brother’s kingdom, and he decided to send Pierces on a journey that he hoped would kill her. Getting to that point left a lot to be desired. The sexual assault and harassment could have been handled much better. Pierces was way too unlikable for way too long, while Dandy suffered prolonged periods of misery for no good reason. Also, entire premise of the religion surrounding the Immortal Dragon (and the priest being the one to start it) felt half-baked.
Did this comic ruin Sleepy’s reputation as she fears? Only a little. Her handling of criticism didn’t do her any favors. The comic itself is problematic, but I don’t think it’s career ending. I just wish she’d let this story cook longer in the oven, purged more of the controversial elements, fleshed out more of the characters, and maybe stayed a little closer to the original myth. It really does come off like the first draft of a story. I get that she was working though her own phobias through The Dragon Slayer. Nevertheless, her lack of research regarding sexual assault, her own flippant nature in the author’s comments, and her lack of emotional maturity handling heavy subjects doomed this comic. It didn’t help that she was overly protective of Pierces and criticism of her was taken personally. Given all that, this probably should have remained a private or Patreon-only comic.
I can’t recommend this one unless you want lessons in how not to handle a story and a segment of your audience disappointed in you. That said, I hope Sleepy sits back and dissects where TDS went wrong.
I’d love her to either redo this story, or start with something new that she can be proud of and is a lot less controversial.
Update 11/19/2025: The Dragon Slayer has been completely removed from ComicFury. Links to pages on CF have been replaced with links to DeviantArt. Though its unclear at this time if Sleepy’s account will remain active on DA in the near or far future. Author’s comments that were directly linked to CF have been replaced by screenshots. One from SincereDragonSlander on Tumblr, and from my own Tumblr blog. Yes, I’ve uploaded them to this site instead of relying on links. A redo of this comic is now unlikely. This also reinforces the fact that she wants to distance herself from TDS, and does not want to be contacted about the discontinued comic.
Update 11/24/2025: The comic has been archived on The Wayback Machine. I’d recommend saving all the pages while you can if this story interests you.
aye, its here and really well done! :]//
imma post my long ass essay that was also posted on one of the “last pages” before the final wave was posted before cancellation. it contains many points covered up here and digs a little deeper into other issues left unmentioned.
mild context – sleepy requested her readers to give critiques on a specific page after repeatedly closing comments. saying on the pages author notes –
“This comic is now official on hiatus. For at least a month. I found out recently that a few comic creators here have blocked me and it all just kind of hit me at once. Am I ruining my own reputation by making this comic? I’m too paranoid to talk to my fellow comic creators now for fear that they feel the same way. I was really proud of this story and it means a lot to me personally, but some of ya’ll really know how to whittle down a person’s confidence to a fine thread. I can only take so many people telling me this comic is misogynistic before I have to stop and consider the possibility that it really is.
I really appreciate the support and kind words many of you have sent me already. Unfortunately negativity always hits harder than positivity. I really just need a break from it all and to consider whether or not this comic makes me happy to create anymore. Either way I’m probably ditching the “SleepySundae” brand, either after the comic is finished or if I decide to cancel it. I don’t like the attention I drew to myself. I long to return to obscurity and start over.
Comments have been open again. I’m not so much look for support as I’m looking for genuine, honest opinions about the comic so far. Constructive criticism is always appreciated (fyi pointing out all the things you don’t like about the comic and nothing else is not constructive criticism).
See you all in a month.
UPDATE: To the person who keeps messaging other comic creators about this, kindly FUCK OFF. Way to absolutely drive the nail into the coffin about ruining my reputation amongst my peers.
Comments are off now. A lot of conversation are getting out of hand. ”
gaining a flood of comments speaking on the issues they had, praising the story, or well wishes on what her decision would be in the end. eventually that comment section was closed when arguments began stretching on. (all of this on page 141- the dragon slayer- comicfury )
—
Oh, sleepy.
I’m not sure where to start this.
#1 DON’T toss the sleepy sundae you are. You are a great story teller, you’ve handled past serious themes well. That’s what got you such a following and admiration in the first place.
People looked up to you and were inspired by what you made. That can equal higher expectations. Which is not something you should fear. It is the respect and love of a community that look forward to great things from you. #2 you really can’t just run. Your style is recognizable. You’d have to change it so extremely. Or else people will go “hey, this sleepy?” running away will not help you. You have to stick with it and learn from the mistakes you’ve done. You can fix this, but you really need to open your eyes on what went wrong.
This story. As its portrayed.
There’s a lot of issues with this story. Themes of misogyny are at the veeery bottom of the totem pole for me. I’ve read so many heaping story’s around dark subjects. ESPECIALLY rape, Child Sexual Assult, Many of them by first time creators, teens, who treat the serious subject of rape as just a plot thing. Without the proper weight and handling it needs.
You made the same blunders a kid would do on their first dark comic. Which is not okay. You are an adult for one. You don’t get the grace I would give an irrational teenager. I WILL be harsh because it HAS to be said. You can wear the horse blinders, but that will not help you. This is the prime time to sit and learn from your mistakes. It’ll hurt, its not personal, its for you to move forward and be better.
This story feels greatly rushed, improperly researched on its dark subjects, mishandling its dark subjects because of the previous point, and a failure to read the room and act appropriately.
#1. your warning page was the first red flag for me. NOT because it was a dark story after a lighter one. Its Because of its overall looks, and how you put the warnings.
– it doesn’t look like a warning page at all. It looks like those dime a dozen comic intro pages that dulls over plot elements before the actual comic starts. This is very bad and can lead people to assume its the above and completely glaze/ skip over reading them. the page is a warning to be taken serious and prepare your readers for whats to come. It should be as straight forward as possible with little to no art.
– mislabels. This is especially egregious. You admitted that you didn’t add or properly label something because you didn’t see it as that bad or important. The warning page is not for you. Its for your readers. You could be okay with something, but others will not and you need to prepare them as much as you can.
Which is why, throughout this thing I will bluntly put rape and sexual assault. (as long as CF doesn’t flag anything.) because these subjects can’t be tiptoed around or “fluffed”. If just reading the words bluntly in this whole thing makes you overwhelmed. That’s a sign you should have been more mentally prepared to write this story. You need to firmly grasp the subject of rape, sexual assault, and face it if you want to write about it.
#2. basically why make the dad a rapist. Having him just try and kill her would have been fine. Have dandy meet threats outside the kingdom. But a bit of a nitpick at this point.
#3. the joke “he bit the butt.” sleepy, you need to really think WHY you thought that was okay. An attempted sexual assault was happening and you joked about it.
My only guess is you were used to doing those on your other comics. Maybe you wanted to lighten up the mood, but this was definitely not the place. When you make a comic with serious dark matters you have to shift gears on how you treat it. You can’t treat it the same as white tail, or TCAS. This is a whole different environment you are stepping into. It has expectations, rules, and absolutely requires a level of care, professionalism, and research. This is no longer just a greek fantasy comic with horses.
#4 mild pacing issue here. There are more pacing issues, but this was the first one and its important to point out. Dandy, after escaping a sexual assault attempt, story wise wants a kid rather soon. Its not wrong that she wants a kid, its that there was no healing for her. Going through something like that is traumatic. It makes people fear being touched, fear of the gender that caused said sexual assault, general fear of others, being alone, anxiety, PTSD etc.
This was a mild disservice I begrudgingly would let pass because we want the story moving. As a saying goes “you want a depressed character, but no body wants to read a character struggling to get out of bed for 20 pages”. But this is also a red flag that your not giving the dark subjects its proper dues. Your going down the hollywood line of “eh, it happened. She’ll move on now.”
#4.5
There are many times where you needed to give in comic time to characters. Instead of letting her have a child that year, show her healing from trauma first. Hints of yeerning for a child, but the fear is gripping her. A change of story would have helped here if it wasn’t dyktor alone who helped her, but the mares as well. A women who was almost raped will be fearful of another huge man appereing. Even if he just saved her because she really doesn’t know him. And unfortunately there are real cases when women who got “help” weren’t safe with those very people either. Dandy would have latched on more firmly to other mares. Either them being there to see whats going on, or dyktor goes to get them for dandy to feel safer.
From there she enters the healing arch. (This could have served as the first hole into calys predictions and showing that he was a farce all along. With dandy not having a foal, on time, as predicted.)
Fearing dyktor but slowly approaching him throughout the years. Instead of leaving when ever he appears she stands her ground. Being helped by other mares that its okay to be near him. Her fearful shaking lessens and she begins very small talk. Laughing with him, hanging out, a lack of fearful shaking or shrinking. Then after a year or two passing, have her break down to dyktor that she truly does want a child. This would feel better paced, give a more positive atmosphere to dandy wanting a child and that she actually got to know dyktor, feeling safe enough beside him.
#5 it should have been better established how herds work. They don’t follow real horse herd behaviors. Since we get the narrowest view, readers can only assume that dyktors kingdom is special. And that all others are misogynistic and treat mares as medieval brood mares unless they run away. Which feels pointless because dyktors is so special. Kingdom take overs just means a new stallion is in charge of them. but nothing changes.
What can a mare do in this world? Just get pregnant? Because that’s what were shown, excluding dyktors special kingdom. But, still, what do they do besides getting pregnant.
#6 you got characters that are cardboard cutouts. They’re there, in the background, as background. Maybe gossiping in the background.
They needed some characterization allll the way back to page 23. you could have had them talking with dandy, introductions, comforting etc. done before caly arrives. Greek storys can really throw its weight here and its use of archetypes as a foundation to start. The overly cheerful one, the serious one, one who loves rocks, etc. and in time give them storys of how they met dyktor. Who away? Did one get lost? Their happy family died in a tragic accident left them alone? Maybe One just wanted to travel. This not only would give them character, but show that dyktors kingdom isn’t that special and that crisis herd is actually a more fucked up one. Could have also used this to show mares don’t absolutely need a station to do things. They can go off and do what they want. (at the risk of other wildlife.)
#7 another read the room, poor joke. I know pierces is a regular name and its not just a dick joke.
But think how this is coming off. “hey, my wife who was almost sexually assaulted and had no time to heal. Who broke down crying about having a child whos future you’ll be fearing for. I’d like to name our daughter this. By the way remember how we had sex? Heheheh.”
like, great, every time I read pierces name now, I’ll just think of -dick.
If we had a proper healing arc, you could have done this joke and even have dandy do it. As a show of dark humor which is a way of healing and how the brain avoids depression.
#8 you can’t defend dyktor as a good guy. You want him to be good, but you failed to write him that way.
He knows calys a fraud, knew the prophecy was bull shit. BUT he didn’t tell dandy any of this. This is outrageous.
This shows that dyktor knew his brother got dandy kicked from her herd and almost sexually assaulted by her own father.
Which allowed. Caly to continue to try and force dandy out of dyktors herd. Getting to a point she was almost sexually assaulted again, twice.
And what did dyktor do about it? He lightly shouted – equivalent to a wrist slap. Still refused to tell dandy the truth and, maybe shooed off his brother. Didn’t seem super clear where there relationship stood.
This was an extreme under reaction on dyktors part. He should have gotten furious about what caly tried to do. He may not have known the favor bit, but he was def told “the dragon wants her to leave” and dyktor outright called him on it after.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you wanted dyktor to be good, you should have made him far more aggressive toward caly. Confronting him on the fake prophecy, what are you planning? Etc.
you could have kept dyktor mild at first, against caly, in a naive – I trust my brother- way. “maybe he was trying to help somehow?” “I saw the king hurting her, so maybe he was trying to make the king nicer in a -if you dont change before X?” etc. we should have been shown this thought process.
but as he learns more from dandy and calys lies start spiraling/ getting too aggressive with dandy. He should have literally slammed his hooves down and disowned caly. “Not my brother anymore, fuck off, never come here again! I’m done defending you! Ill tell everyone this dragon stuff is crap!” leading into caly more desperately out to kill dyktor and the possible tragedy of dying before he could inform dandy and save her from the misery to come.
What you wrote, made dyktor into a rapist apologizer.
I won’t tell anyone your priest business its a huge pile of horse shit.
I won’t tell dandy you forced her to flee her home, from her rapist dad. (that both is and isn’t influenced by calys actions.)
I won’t tell her shes fearful all this time of a non existent prophecy. (To the point of nightmares.)
I won’t warn her that you almost raped her, twice, for a “favor” that was a lie attached to another lie.
Because we’re brothers. 🙂
s/ gee, dyktor sure is a swell fella! s/
#9 pacing/ story tie in. its extremely jarring to have the great dragon be known every where and followed so fearfully close in such a couple years and with no show of guidelines to how it works at all.
My guess to why you did this was the same for a lack of healing arc. You want to keep a fast pace, and showing a proper build up would slow it all down/ be too boring for you, but again you are now failing to build something and rushing your story.
This whole religion thing banked on a random herd being too stupid to recognize plain old lighting in a storm. And believe a random stranger to be a mighty talker for the dragon. Which they’ve never heard of any of that. To then believe that a strange mare was a “sinner”. But what does this herd know of the term sinner and what sins are?
Some story telling like this I’d turn of my brain and just accept it as – we want to wrap this up in a summery. The details are interesting to ask, but do we really need to know them. me/ readers can fill in the pieces, lets move on. –
but the story’s whole plot is in a vice grip of this religion, so it IS important that it must have a proper break down. Like what commandments/ sins are there for horses anyway??? whys a dragon bothering with horses anyway?
Really this should not have been made by caly, it should have been around long before. It really crippled this plot aspect and you could have gone way farther with it not attached to caly. If it was attached to humans from the get go it would have made the religion more menacing and otherworldly. Maybe have caly and dyktor be escaped horses/ work horses. It would have given caly extreme knowledge and visions of the “great dragon” to mystify others and pull off tricks he watched humans do that wild horses have never seen before. Tying in with his knowledge of lightning/ metal. (and would have tied in to s’melie better.)
#10. I guess a personal nitpick, due to all the above. I dont care for the cutsy flashbacks of dyktor and caly. I hate caly and I see dyktor as pretty shitty too. I’d rather have flashback storys of the other mares.
A simple “he was a good brother.” from caly would have wrapped it up.
#11 another story nitpick? Is nobody gonna talk about the other prince got shocked/ pierces as well? If being struck is such a huge deal. Why was there no gossip about it. Dyktors death sucked away too much plot and s’mellie came too quick for it to come up.
There should have been some negative talk over pierces cursed mark at least.
#12 how s’melie/ little dragon was handled. Why did you name her that? This gives us a negative view of her from the get go + that shes acting a bit of an ass. Of course people were gonna jump her with so much vile insults. You insulted her first with the name. Filed her into a “jerk squad” folder. People saw right away “I’m a villain! Hate me!”
Why not name her “smile”. It would have been dark irony with the broken jaw later.
She was adored at first by the knigdom then dropped like a rotten tuna the moment little dragon was born. They also didn’t watch him after dandy asked. Allowing pierces the chance to beat him up.
And clarifying that her smacking him over the head didn’t kill him really doesn’t do much for her case. “golly, I beat up a kid with cancer, but hey, the cancer is what did him in. not the concussion I caused!”
and the other mares are just coming off as catty gossip girls who follow whos most popular.
#13 now I really have to get into how you handled the comments. You, very badly, really committed to putting your head in the sand. You were not prepared at all for this. Like how I said earlier, your entering a new environment with different rules. Thats applied to inside the comic and outside with readers. You cannot treat it all the same as white tail or TCAS.
A lingering problem around this environment is, there are bad commentators with negative intentions. And because the subject of focus contains dark matters, their comments can get extremely vile very immediately.
And the key here is to remove them, but not shut down comments. Because now you have snuffed out the positive side that helps others feel your space is safe. – I have no control and have to go scorched earth every time. – Just shutting them down also shows the aggressors that your an easy target. “oh, comments are open again? Round two boys!” and again and again and again.
What also didn’t help was all the “pleasant commentators” backing you up. It feels nice, but all it did was scream “hey, we’re a raw nerve too! Yank on us and we’ll keep replying!” that should have been stopped as we’ll even if it felt good having someone on your side. You have to be the adult. You have to kick the bad kids out, but also make sure the good kids aren’t making victory faces to get a rise out of the bad. Its a cycle that doesn’t improve anything.
The only time you fully close comments is when you’ll be gone a while. Because understandably you can’t be there to do proper modding.
You also snuffed out many opinions. The opinions were fine, but understandable you didn’t like them. you can’t just hide a comment you don’t like. Many “I hate dyktor.” or the “dick joke name.” if you shut down those people, they’ll just go somewhere else and really speak there mind. Which by your description you now fully see is really catching up to you. You, as a long time comicer, I feel I shouldn’t have to say this, but when you see a comment you don’t like, ask:
Do I need to hide it? Is it bad or do I just not like it?
#14 your comments and ideas around rape/ sexual assault concern me.
You say s’melie was “taken advantage of” and dandy gave “dubious consent”
Both were raped. You are “fluffing” what happened. Or horribly ignorant on what rape is.
Smelie was forcefully given drugs and even thought they left her system, she was still acting abnormal and that can be said as still under the influence. Those under the influence of any drugs/ alcohol, cannot give consent. People not in their proper mind cannot give consent.
Caly also lied about the dragon crap which is rape by deception even if she was of right mind/ sound body. There’s no “consent under false pretenses.”
The only “dubious consent” is if both partys were black out drunk and had sex. Note: black out drunk does not strictly mean they were knocked out. It can also mean a lapse in memory. Victims of unknown drugging/ too much alcohol can be up, walking around, dancing, talking, and such but have absolutely no memory of it. But even then, the law really really doesn’t believe in dubious consent. Consent is given, or isn’t, case closed.
Dandy did not give consent. She was raped by Coercion/ false pretenses. Caly lied that this is the dragons will that he help and surely there will be no attachments. “if we don’t hook up, bad things will happen.”
Why did you try and label these as anything other then rape? You didn’t want them to be raped, trying to make caly seem less of a sexual predator, or that the mares aren’t weak??? you honestly didn’t know the severity due too lack of research or straight up didn’t care?
#15 mares are all weak without a stallion.
Those gosh darn urges make us a house of cards who fall for the first stallion to cross our path. We couldn’t possibly ban together to defend our self’s! Dandy broke a jaw, but oh no a stallion would be just too much. As weak little mares we must all roll over for every stallion because we’re not as big and powerful. We NEED a stallion, not we just want one and we adore having kids. Its to handle the urges and protect us from everything. Because we can’t handle a thing ourselves.
Oh yes, dandy, please choose our stallion for us. Who’s suppose to bail on us next year because a phony baloney dragon said so. Because we still believe it after our last stallion refused to warn us its a bunch of horse shit.
They have no personality or story beside background gossipers. They should have been established eons ago.
#16 dandy still hasn’t done much or has much motivations. Same for pierces.
She moved the herd while dyktor was fighting. Because the other mares are useless.
chose a stallion without hearing what the others could want first.
Raised her kid.
And is just walking her kingdom.
Wheres the motivation to do anything? How can I help X. improve my kingdom? Make it better for us and especially my child. Is there a safer place then here? Maybe I can be that better space?
Shes just, there.
Pierces needs something other then, I hate caly and am a tuff and rumble gal. Does she have any goals for her future? Does she like anything? Quirks? Or is it all just – I’m a tuff hero who hates evil dude.
What life do either of them have?
#16 this is extremely long, so I’ll try to wrap up the rest.
Fear of pregnancy and lack of sexual interest I resonate with highly. Very nice to see it shown more closely and not just a swept over “I don’t want kids.”
I love greek retelling, your choice of which story to represent these subjects was an incredibly odd choice. The one greek story to NOT have rape in it. It seems like the more obvious prime choice would have been medusa. There are many versions one of them, two would have worked excellently.
– medusa is raped by posiden and punished by the very god she worshiped to be a terrifying monster. It would have been a great way to explore the themes of how sexual assault can force women to be ostracized from the society they grew up in. labeled “broken” or a “whore.”
– same thing, but instead of cursed, it is a blessing. To be given power, to fight for others and never fear such a vile act again.
Possibly both tackling the fear of pregnancy as that is a possible outcome of rape that many women have had to go through.
This retelling to me has greatly been erased. The only thread holding it on is the names. A couple minor nitpicks maybe.
That’s as much as I could think to get out. I feel there’s even more points to be made, but I’m tired and have no idea if you’ll get through reading all of this. Overall this could have been a really great story if proper care had been done with it. Better pacing and story building. Better research of what terms mean to listening to all the readers trying hard to warn you that things are wrong. Please look at all the points people are saying are wrong or coming off too poorly. Don’t just absorb the positive and snub the rest. It won’t help, you can do better, keep learning and improving yourself.
Thanks, Red!
And thank you for resharing your super helpful comment from CF. You brought up a ton of good points about where TDS could use some serious work and went wrong.
I hope that maybe one day when Sleepy is feeling better and curious about helpful critique, she’ll come across this for her consideration.
I… Sheesh. I had a rough job with scrubbing out a poopy kitchen today, but somehow it feels like you had the way more unenviable task here. I’m left boggling over the choices that went into this comic, after I did my vent and walkout months ago.
…And yes, while I feel I don’t have much room to criticize, given my wonky wolf faces, the horse expressions do bother me a lot. I feel like this comic really would have benefited from a style/turn around sheet for the key characters, to use as a reference and help stay on-model.
At this point I think I’m just going to dig into Viewerpoint, Redemption, Water Demons, The Light Within, etc, for equine comics. And also wonder over how Flood My Heart took the same formula (mare gets pressured to have sex/babies, doesn’t want sex/babies, runs away… Meets an awesome merhorse girlfriend) and did way more with it in a fraction of the pages.
Well, I kind of made it super comfortable for myself to read. I reclined on the couch while reading from an iPad, took breaks when I needed, vented a little to my spouse, and went back to it. TDS does pick up in the later pages, but by the time you start to feel invested it’s over.
It’s funny, I think Sleepy did have a turn around sheet for To Catch A Star. Wonder why she didn’t do one for at least the main character of TDS. The faces were… Yeah.
I do have to thank this comic for helping me to find Viewerpoint. I haven’t heard of the other horse comics, but I will give them a try. And Flood My Heart is from Tessu, right? The author currently doing Ginga Legend Pinku. I’ll have to check that out as well. I’d add Horse Age to the good horse comics list, hopefully one day it returns to updating.
I tried to read The Dragon Slayer when it first came out but had to stop for an extremely nitpick-y reason only 30ish pages in; I can’t fucking see the darker characters. I rarely, if ever, have my laptop’s brightness above 50% because the battery dies quickly, and bright screens hurt my eyes. But unless I turn my screen’s brightness up to max, I cannot tell where the black-furred horses begin and end. The background’s are way too saturated, and every horse with black fur has fur SO dark, I can’t see the line art, and they end up looking like blobs. Good examples for me include the goddamn cover, with me being barely able to tell where the second horse from the right’s mane ends and the background grass begins, page 12 and 13 where I can barely see Dandy’s legs on the ground, and page 32 where I can barely make out Dandy’s face because it melts into Dyktor’s shoulder. This could have easily be fixed with two small changes; 1st, de-saturate the backgrounds. They’re ALL way too dark if the scene isn’t winter or a sunny day. 2nd, de-saturate the characters, OR make the lineart thicker/darker. You can color a character grey and say that they’re actually black on their profile sheet. People will understand you used grey so you could see the other details (like their basic anatomy) in each drawing. And while there is some attempt at conveying dimension by adding shading (especially under their necks and around their stifles, it seems) a lot of pages seem to simply shade the characters with a very light vertical gradient? (or maybe it’s a very light highlight on all their backs?) no shading plus thin, light line art makes every horse drawing look flat and 1-dimensional. I can’t imagine how hard this comic would be to read for someone with visual impairments like colorblindness.
a second, even more nitpick-y reason I stopped reading was because I find all the eyes drawn wayyyyy too big, and it looks unsettling to me. (and sleepysundae has always drawn animal necks oddly long. it doesn’t bother me so much for TDS or White Tail, but it drove me nuts in TCaS when the wolves had necks as long as deer. Ash on Page 419 was particularly bad; https://www.deviantart.com/sleepysundae/art/To-Catch-a-Star-Page-419-1005235639 )
Even on my PC monitors and tablet, the darker color horses were a little difficult to see at times, so I completely understand where you’re coming from. Good advice for Sleepy’s next comic, or maybe anyone else who uses thinner line art and very dark furred characters.
The eyes are big, and only occasionally unsettled me, usually with faces that were way too human. XD I mostly didn’t mind the long necks in TDS, except when they were bent into impossible shapes, like an L. And yeah, the long necks would be a minor nitpick of mine from TCAS, even though I immensely enjoyed that comic.
goddammit. please delete one of my comments if it ends up posting twice and fuck my stupid baka life.
No problem! I’ve approved you, and removed the duplicate. Now that I’ve approved you, you can comment freely now. (Sorry, anti-spam protection and all that.)
I remember encountering this comic in its earlier stages, and as a fan of Sleepy’s previous comics I was particularly curious about this one as I found the premise very interesting. However I quickly lost interest during the early fallout with Crisis and the whole “he bit the butt” thing. I was just very put off by how Sleepy reacted to the criticism (which was more or less just her shittalking in the CF comment section which I thought was very unprofessional) and some of my respect for her was lost. Regardless I simply went and looked elsewhere.
It wouldn’t be until a few months later where I saw the comic again and thought I would give it another chance. It was getting quite popular after all and I wanted to see if Sleepy had at least learnt anything from before. I had fun reading through it (you don’t see horse xenofiction often so it scratched an itch!) and had even commented once or twice in CF. Although I could see other problems were arising and I was beginning to wonder if, again, this comic was worth my time anymore.
It of course all came to a head when she went on hiatus following more criticism and the blocking from other artists, which would later lead to her discontinuing the comic and making her exit. And while I ultimately don’t blame her for this decision, I can’t just help but feel disappointed. Disappointed on how a lot of this could have been prevented if she had just set aside her pride and actually *listened* and taken accountability. It’s clear this comic meant a lot to her and she poured a lot of love and research into it, which I respect, but what I absolutely do not respect is how very flippantly the themes of rape and sexual assault were depicted throughout this comic. That’s not even getting into how the occasional incest was portrayed (seriously, what does ‘incestual thoughts’ even mean???). There’s a post on Tumblr about how depiction isn’t endorsement but the more sensitive the topic the more harsher the criticism if you fuck it up, and that’s exactly how I feel about it here. It seems like a lot of people came away from this thinking Sleepy was unfairly cancelled by the naysayer “media illiterates” who couldn’t handle the dark themes in her story, and I just really wish we can have a discussion about how even those with the best intentions can fuck up these themes if they’re not careful. Yes, depiction isn’t always endorsement, but it shouldn’t just end there. And it isn’t always with malice.
I had a lot more to say but I’m currently bedridden and struggling to articulate thoughts into words lol. I did want to see this comic reworked as I saw a lot of potential in the story but it seems unlikely now that Sleepy is working to distance herself from it. Which I respect and I do feel for her, but I hope that she has at least learnt something from this. Considering how she never publicly acknowledged the critiques that even her fans have brought up, however, I’m not too hopeful on that.
The “he bit the butt” comment is about where I dropped off and lost some respect for Sleepy’s handling of the criticism as well. I do think it’s a real shame that all criticism of this comic by its supporters has been boiled down to media illiteracy or prudishness when that’s not what a lot of the criticism was about. Again, a lot of it was about Sleepy’s mishandling of sexual assault and even incest. My hope is that maybe Sleepy will see some of these critiques divorced from the controversy of her comments section and think about what went wrong with TDS and where.
The fact that the comic has been removed on ComicFury isn’t giving me high hopes for a reboot either. 🙁