Chasing the Sunset

So I've been offline for a while for a few reasons. Those reasons are for another post. I do want to get back into the game, not sure if I can, though, but I will try.

But enough talk about that. Let's talk about Chasing the Sunset.

As of now, Chasing the Sunset is reaching the high middle part of its overall story (if I'm reading right). The world has been defined, and the main characters are introduced and have been given a chance to grow, change, and build a group dynamic. The group has long since past the point of no return. For now they can only go forward.

Chasing the Sunset is about an elf named Leaf who decides to go on a quest searching for his long lost father who may or may not be dead. Joining him are Myhrad, a dragon who was friends with him from a very young age, Ayne, another elf who forces him to take her along, and Fieht, a pixie who has for some reason decided to follow them around.

At first when I was reading this comic, I was unsure what to think of it, which made me mostly bored trying to read it. Was it a normal fantasy story, was it trying to parody fantasies, or trying to subvert its conventions. It really looked at first like the comic was making an effort to poke fun at fantasies, but for some reason it wasn't working in that style. Later on a realized that the authors were more attempting to build their own world, which draws on fantasy conventions, but doesn't necessarily follow them. It's sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and sometimes just enjoyable. It could also be just because the writing got better. The jokes got better, and I started to enjoy the interactions between the characters. There is a huge difference in the comic between the earlier strips and the later ones, apparently both in story and art, although I can't tell as much with the art. The comics got bigger, and I guess sometimes the art looks better, but I suck at seeing things such as this, which is why I never review art.

One character who I've definitely changed my opinion about was Feiht (thief spelled backwards(most pixies have names based off this concept)). At the beginning, I found her incredibly annoying. She would go around, acting like a little kid, stealing things whenever she could. She said "Wheee!" way too often. All in all, she was just an incredibly one-dimension character. Now.. Well... Actually everything I said about her before still applies, but I look forward to it rather than hating it and wishing the character would die. One reason might be because the writing is better, and Feiht is more dynamic, and characters react to her better. Another reason is the author has had time to flesh out what pixies are. Understanding how they work and what their lives are like make the character more enjoyable. Pixies are immortal beings with very short memories. Either that or they just get bored of ideas and forget them. I'm not sure how it works. Part of the reason they can live so long is because of this ability to forget, and the ability to defy the laws of physics, but whatever. Anyway, pixies see the world as their playground and are constantly cause trouble for other people so they can have fun. They are especially attracted to anything shiny. One of the few ways for pixies to die is of boredom. That's basically pixies in a nutshell. There's a place on the site where you can read all about them. However, I do think Feiht is becoming stale again. There are only so many jokes you can make about such a narrow character, and I feel they are starting to run out.

As far as the other characters go, they're okay. Leaf is a little naive and often thinks up incredibly crazy schemes which usually require doing something incredibly dangerous and leave a lot to chance, but somehow still work, at least when he's allowed to try them. Myhrad is usually the voice of reason and very cynical. Ayne is the warrior of the group. (Amazon. Whatever) See also keeps Leaf in check, but sometimes acts before she thinks. There's really not much else to say about them (well, not without spoilers, anyway). They have good dialogue. They just don't do much to stand out.

All in all, Chasing the Sunset is a fun comic. The story is nicely paced, it improves drastically as it moves along, and it's on my reading list (though how long it'll be before I get back to that is anyone's guess. I'm still in the middle of the world's longest archive crawl). Give it a look. It should be worth it.

(Yeah, there aren't any pictures. I'll be posting pictureless reviews for a while until I find a better way to post pictures (or maybe someone who's willing to do it for me (yeah, right)). Imageshack just isn't very kind to me)