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Broken
(Things) [See review]As a note, this webcomic is entitled Broken. But another webcomic exists on Drunk Duck by that name, so the creator chose to add Things to the Drunk Duck title. Broken is a dramatic story of a young boy dealing with the loss of his mother. The circumstances behind his mother's death are as of yet not entirely spelled out. It's been suggested that his mother was murdered by his father. But this could not be proven, so the father walks free. We follow the daily life of a young soul as he fights to survive the pain of each day. Hints are made at something otherworldly going on as well.
Steely Dan, the young star of the story. Steely Dan isn't his real name, but one his friends refer to him as. Like many young men his age, Dan is broody and silent. But he has far more reason to be. His mother has been murdered. His father probably is the murderer. And he must protect his sister from his father if that's the case. He is almost a loner, and a misfit or outcast in his school.
Sheriff Tilby, a man who wishes to prove Dan's father murdered his mother. He is in many ways the stereotype of the police man you shouldn't trust. He seems dark and creepy. He's not above using psychological games to try and convince Dan to testify against his father, using even Dan's sister as a tool.
The Mystery 1 and 2, my own term for it. One would be involved with the occasional use of red and I will expand upon it in my final thoughts. Two would be the hint at something otherworldly. A voice with a different style speechbubble. An undefined face seen in a few panels.
The style of Broken is very different from most webcomics. It's presented in mostly black and white with gray shading. Eyes are left out or put in to fit in with mood and expression. Expression itself is well depicted, and there is seldom a doubt of what a particular character is feeling. Backgrounds are lush when needed, and absent when superfluous. Attention to detail is excellent, especially in terms to making a character unique. Character designs themselves are well thought out. Whether it be a simple nose ring or style of hair it is easy to keep track of who is who. The best part is, paying attention to detail will reveal deeper parts of the story and keep the reader guessing.
If the artist does have a weakness is is most likely hands and feet. A pretty common weakness. Hands and feet are often avoided using tried and true tested tricks. Hands in pockets. Legs that go straight into the ground without feet, helping define the style. The weakness especially shows when the artist does need to draw hands. Sheriff Tilby in particular holds his index finger away from the other three fingers which are grouped together in a way I'd find unnatural and uncomfortable. There is also the occasional sketchiness that leaves an unfinished feel.
What I like about Broken is it feels real. Characters have accents (Steely Dan especially), which are (more importantly) easy to read. Each detail matters. What a character is like. How they feel. Motives come out. Or sometimes lack of detail adds to the story. The lack of color is first and foremost the best example of this. The black and white shading actually lends to the feeling of loss and emptiness that Dan experiences. The grey point of his life where he questions everything, if life is even worth.. anything. Then there is the red. It shows up right away, and is something I feel very significant. I admit myself suspecting that the red animals that seem to watch over him may actually be his mother. Which in itself would be -why- it is color where everything else is not. Another place would be scenes of rain. Perhaps one of the most beautiful rain scenes I have seen in a very long time. (One such scene pictured at bottom) The rain drops themselves almost seem to form the picture, the person, the trailer, whatever they hit. As though without the rain nothing else would exist.
If I had any true complaint, it would be the way the webcomic is currently presented. The artist finishes each page and then breaks that page into three tiers which are posted one at a time as individual pages. This has two problems. It slows down pacing to a near crawl. And it also causes the page as a whole to lose effect. The artist does a wonderful job of linking every panel together and making whole pages interact. But seen in just the tiers much of this is lost. Watch for a newspost that gives a link to forums where whole pages are posted. The artist has also tried to address this by changing the posting so that; week one we see tier one, week two we see tier one and two, and week three we see the entire page. This at least lets us see the entire page. But it doesn't address the pacing problem. It also makes going through the archives clunky. A suggestion would be to remove week one and two after week three is posted with the entire page. And to go back and combine all the tiers into pages. But this would drastically reduce the size of the archive, something webcomic readers tend to pay attention to most.
But it's something well worth putting up with for a story so vivid and almost personal, and art like this:
