Feuerkind
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Hey guys, my name's Izzi. I'm 8, but I totally look 10. When I was born, my parents forgot to pay the hospital bill or something and left me behind. I had to live at an orphanage with a bunch of nuns, which is about as fun as...living anywhere with a bunch of nuns. They're all old and look like pigeons who haven't got to peck anything in a long time, except the new nun, Sister Seventeen, who looks more like one of the girls from the really fuzzy TV channel. I pretty much just spend my days hanging out with my best friend Keeven. He's also my only friend, so it's good he turned out to be the best. I also have to deal with Hanny Bundler, who's pretty much the Devil...if the Devil has flat feet and eats raw asparagus. I really hope she doesn't make it in issue 2. She should drown in a pile of elephant barf...from elephants that have just eaten a bunch of skunks. Dead skunks. Anyway, this is about my giant big adventure that starts when the Happy Faced Man comes to the orphanage and is a huge jerk-butt. I get to travel all around the world, get caught up in awesome danger, learn about where I came from, and I even get to see girl's underwear...I swear! ... Oh, and ever since I was born, I've been completely covered in fire. Jeez, I can't believe I almost forgot that part.
Very cool, loved the open ending. Lots of motion and clever bits like the photo memories page. The bully girl...Elmyra Duff from Tiny Toons anyone? I'm an a-hole!
damn i was hoppinh this one could have won. i wish u good luck and hopefully u get snagged by a major comic company and if u do i would like to have a lifetime membership to this comic because its hot pardon the pun. so anyways good luck in ur next challenge and hopefully u get where u want to go laters.
I really liked this one. :D
Yeah, Steven, FEUERKIND is on my list for the Reader's Choice showdown as well.
This comic really should get continued somewhere.
-Rob
Well, you got my vote. And I put your name in the hat for the July invitational as well. Rally up, Feuerkind fans and send in your nominations! Hopefully we'll get to see the continuation of this one right here on Zuda in a couple of months. Good luck!
I like this one a lot. There's a lot of neat things happening- and best of all ITS FUNNY! Hope to see more...
<3 Pimpie mclure
This comic made me laugh out loud. Also, great work on the unexpected twist on the final page - it gives the readers a reason to want to see more - smart thinkin'!
Still my second fav comic this month, but #7 -it should be much higher than that!!!
Any plans yet on keeping things going after Zuda???, or encouraging people to vote you in the Zuda Invite???
OT: I got a thing for three ??? marks, can't help myself...
I liked this one a lot. I hope there is plenty more to come!
Omg, this comic is sooooo good!!! It's by far my absolute favorite. Judging by your art alone, I am so freaken attracted to you, whoever you are. And the heart-felt/cleverly witty story line? *dies* Do you have a gf? If not, we should hook up so you can do me sometime. Let's say... this weekend?
DUDE MAKE MORE THIS WAS SICK!
The art is crude but very effective...love the story line!!
man this is good little tale. So hard to choose this month. as always more would be good. very hard to vote after only a few pages.
Nice concept and nice cliffhanger-ish ending.
i think the art could be touched up (use of color variation? i dunno) a bit but i like the style of it. like, the guy's mask on page 8. it's right up my alley. kinda funny but i detect a little bit of family guy in the nuns' faces. interesting. i dig the art and think it could be a rad story. good luck!? seriously, though... it's almost depressing how many FANTASTIC comics there are this month.
We should post the hell outta this forum...that should give this one a kick in the ranks right?
Must be higher up. MUST.
I am seriously in love with this comic. You made me lol - twice. So getting my vote.
I wish Zuda would make the voting so that everyone could arrange the comics as 1-10 while voting. I liked this comic and definitely think it should be higher than 7. Good luck.
HAHA IT'S FINISHED, BITCH!! It's on kwanza's desk ready to get updated at his leaisure.
SHAMELESS PLUG!
I really need to keep up with these better. *DEEP BREATH*
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DShide: Hakuna Matata. One of my writing teachers noted that I could never write a comedy script without injecting a little heart into it. After that he waved a rubber chicken in my face then exploited my innocent body *single tear*
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Flatster: Me too! *hugs*
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mpd57: It makes me cry-faced to think think that "Maxy" was misunderstood. It's one of my personal fav's. I think I said before about how I don't like making promises beyond what is shown on the 8 pages, but I can tell you the art would be tighter. I'm not sure what I was thinking. And who can't connect with a hydrocephalic headed orphan boy on fire?
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Dr Penman: My dream is one day, Jhonen Vasquez will do something and people will say "that was too Steven Wilber for me" ...as long as its not some sort of sex crime or anything.
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longabaugh: I smell crossover potential. Get this, Izzi and your flame powered hero both get wrongfully accused for this epidemic of serial swing meltings. Now, the have to put their differences aside and work together to find the real melter. I can practically feel the Eisner award softly caressing my cheek.
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sisterjezebel: Your words make my heart warm...and my left arm numb...and vision blurry....
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robberry237: The $5 and the pizza coupons are in the mail
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BlueMaxx:Yes, but my goofy names have more than one syllable. SUCK IT JHONEN!!!
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dmeredydd: MY SKELETONS HAVE BEEN UNCLOSETED!!! Who are you? Show yourself, grim spectre!
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bewarethewolf: Why does everyone think he's German? He's clearly Austrian. Derrrr
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chibicelina: I dig your mo-HEY WAIT A MINUTE!!! I KNOW YOU!!!
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SamLittle: Thanks! If I can creep into your heart half as good as I can creep into your bedroom, I'll be your favorite in no time!
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DANC: I didn't mean to rip into "Melody." I want to honestly critique all the comics, its just I've only gotten around to "Melody."
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Sheena3745: For you, anything...wink. ...I didn't actually wink. I feel like such a fake.
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ptimony: COMING TO A HOT TOPIC NEAR YOU!!!
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Scadilla: Oh no, I'm whoring myself out like nobody's business! It's just that I have a inferior comic.
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DShide (again, jeez): That's how I roll, foolishly, and with little tact.
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sheldon: WHY ARE YOU WASTING TIME SHOWERING ME WITH PRAISE WHEN YOU COULD BE WORKING ON SUPERTRON!?!?!
Well, I've still not voted this month because I was the one suggesting we watch how the NYC Con and other exterior marketing this month will effect the numbers. But I've definitely decided that this is the best all-around offering of this month's competition. There's just a lot of good things happening in this comic and I'd like to see them continued here at Zuda where they can be given a solid cross-market chance.
So, no vote yet, Steve, but I'm happy to lobby for you, man.
There's some good comics this month. Is there one funnier?
Is there one that is as charming and entertaining for weekly, continued reading?
Is there any other comic this month that feels so uniquely a webcomic and not like a print comic waiting to get it's "big break" to become a graphic novel?
Is there any other comic this month that as completely feels like it's giving you something you wouldn't be likely to find anywhere else?
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Comics are, when they operate at the edges of other established media, one of the most dynamic art-forms for exposing us to popular ideas through a personalized vision. They're an art-form that possess a pure fusion of written and drawn symbols and, in an increasingly rapid world of layered visual and linguistic stimuli, their modes change incredibly fast when their at their best. The style and approach Steve shows here in FEUERKIND is more unique than most the other offerings this month while still really complete in it's presentation. I think that's new comics in a new form working at it's best.
Seriously. Read it again and see if it's charm doesn't grow larger.
-Rob
haha...and page 7 killed me. You've got a fantastic story here, PH. You definately shouldn't be 7th.
p.s. rob - fantastic. just awesome.
DANC: When did he thrash Melody? I haven't even done that.
This should be far higher than at 7. I hate the whole networking voter thing. GUH!
Maybe as a promotional gimmick you can start marketing asbestos ties!
Loved it! Perfectly snarky, funny, & scary. More, please?
Funny and clever. I enjoyed this! I like that some of the nuns already have character. I'd love to learn more about the nuns! However, I was disappointed by your thrashing of 'Melody' (which deserves a high finish, and has my vote). Sometimes silence is golden.....
This comic is far too entertaining to be in 7th place. After going through all the entries again this one is creeping to the top of MY list at least.
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As much as I like Melody and Brave Ulysses, somehow I think Feuerkind is the comic I'd be most interested in reading on a regular basis.
I dig the art!
The panel breakdowns make this a confusing read at times, and besides page 1 & 8, the story glosses over as far as interest goes. Quirky and fun though. With the added original synopsis presentation, makes a good formula for online publication, despite a lack of quality. Still, sadistic happy faced Germans ... almost gets my vote!
Wow, this gave me a real . . .psychic headache! I haven't had one so bad since Eastern! Good to see you are still putting out crazy stuff.
I really liked this story. It is quirky and dark-humored, and cutesy artwork adds to the absurd plot. It is a little Jhonen Vasquez...the art...humor...character names izzi and keeven are similar to goofy Vasquez names; Squee, Zim, Gaz, Gir, etc. But the writer makes it his own. There's always similarities with stories, doesn't make them unoriginal. Four stars from me and likely my vote...once I finish the others. Cool work, Psychicheadache!
Wow, who woulda thought a sci-fi comedy, would garner such a long insightful post. Way to tell it Rob.
Hmmn, I'm not sure I completely agree about the Jhonen Vasquez comparison, but there's a certain relationship to this work and his worth mentioning.
It's easy to look at the ten comics exhibited each month and categorize them based upon visual or genre style. There's certainly nothing wrong with that for gaining a first impression of the work. Unlike print comics, webcomics and the stuff before our attention at Zuda is drawn from a much wider range of artistic approaches. The print world after all, has a pretty well established sense of what works there; what its fan-base and retailers are interested in as well as the generally accepted notions of styles and genres that will sell to those readers. The webcomic industry is much more wide open and doesn't have any established market rules as of yet, so it becomes natural for us as readers to categorize them more broadly before voting. HIGH MOON and NITE OWLS are both really successful strips here at Zuda, but they each come from very separate places in terms of approach and intent and, therefore they are difficult to compare to evenly. But neither of those comics are competing with one another any longer and are now just two separate approaches by Zuda to provide high quality webcomic material to a diversified market.
When I look at the ten competitors from any month's competition I try to ask myself what type of artistic approach to this market each demonstrates rather than just it's visual style. Unlike the drama and power-fantasy stories that predominate the print market, i think a lot of people look to webcomics to provide humor and brief escapism in the middle of a workday. I think there's a reason that gag strips have so far predominated the successes of this industry and that quite a lot of readers are looking for an on-going and serialized story, delivered regularly, to entertain them at work or make them feel connected to a unique fan group outside of their work environment. It's similar to the situation that newspaper editors saw in the 70's when they moved popular strips into the body of the paper to break-up the tension and give readers more reason to look deeper into the large areas of text. Unlike graphic novels, which are the current real success of the print comic market independent of genre type, webcomics are more of an abbreviated bit of regular reading than concentrated leisure time. Both are unique approaches to entertainment through reading, but both are distinctly different.
The point I'm making here is that like an earlier couple of favorites here, DEAD IN THE NOW, MAXY J. MILLIONAIRE and SUPERTRON, FEUERKIND has an interesting stripped-down style and mash-up of genre types that is told with talent and humour. It's a very good, fast read, but has a potential for an engaging longer "over-story." It's got more sophistication in its approach than the average gag-strip and seems to utilize some of the creative freedoms of the Zuda model to work better here than in any other print application. It's got a core idea as a property that makes me see it easily crossing over to other venues (cartoons, license property and collected books for young and adult readers alike). I think that's a really important consideration for what will help sustain this site in particular and increase the popularity of webcomics in general. I think its just got more legs than the other properties I've seen this month and that I'd enjoy reading it here.
So the comparison to Vasquez is solid enough, I guess, since it the re-packaging of comic-styles into a an unique expression that made his work popular in the first place.
Good job, Steve. I'm not voting yet, but this one's got my support.
-Rob
This is great! Love the style and the story is very original.
I really enjoyed this! Violent nuns and masked german machete killers! All to my taste. Funny enough, I even put a melted swing in a story I wrote about a flame-powered hero. Great minds think alike.
i liked the idea but the art was too jhonen vasquez for me
Not sure where the 'German Killer' idea is taking us but I'll take a chance. I do like a great many aspects of the design, especially the simplicity of the main character, though I'm not a fan of the artistic style overall. Great to see Izzi as a normal baby on the opening page which grounds the character in some kind of reality. Also loving the wit in the writing. I wouldn't be surprised if this was very popular, but then I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't either! It's an oddity for sure. It might come in for the same kind of misunderstanding that Maxy J came in for – the mix of childish and adult themes confusing the audience. You'll remember Alpha Monkey not being the most sympathetic character whereas Maxy J was slightly more likeable, so I hope Izzi will lean more to the sympathetic rather than the aggressive – the playground scene works almost identical to that of Alpha Monkey and doesn't really help you warm (pun intended) to the character. Can't help feeling the nuns are going to get the sharp end of the knife being either monsterous or sexual stereotypes. Is Sister Seventeen seventeen?
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In the end I'm not likely to connect with the central character as I'm not really interested in cartoon kids – orphans or otherwise – but if the level of wit is continued and the design refined a little more I'd be interested to see it continue. I guess I'm sat firmly on the fence with this one. Best of luck.
Nice art, nice leading story. Will be interested to see where it goes :D
I wasn't saying the heart and feelings were bad, it's just the statement Izzi made about why his parents gave him up was a bit to serious in such a fun romp for me. I understand why completely. A good joke did come from it after all. I mean he told that snot nosed, coottie cushion huh.
Hey everybodies, Steven here. I'm the excreter of "Feuerkind." I'm both honored and humbled (honbled?) to be this month's competition. There's a butt-full of awesome looking stuff that I'm too afraid to actually read. Now, I guess its about that time for me to do the obligatory "respond to comments by order in which they were received, beginning with the oldest."
famished: "Butt Monster" will now be my next submission. Cross your fingers!
Albatross + johnzakour: You guys should have a baby so they'd love my comic.
Magookin: You completely rip-off a guy's art style 6 years ago and you never hear the end of it. Still beats my Akira Toriyama phase.
kingofsnake: The amount of time it took me to "crap the art down" was staggering not saying I'm hot poo when it comes to doodling to begin with. I really wanted to strip it down like "Dead in the Now," but it didn't work out and has a lot of problems. Still I was so far into it and I thought it kinda fit with the story, so I kept going with it.
Right here was where I was going to talk about the stereotypical Keeven and where his future lies with the rest of the story, but It really burns my butter when the creators make promises about things you can't see on these 8 pages to try to get votes.
robberry237: <3 <3 <3
Illinist: I'm not sure why the last page insinuates that there won't be any more nunnery...I'm not saying there would be, I'm just not getting why it seems that way.
aztecskin: That's how I get ya. One minute you're laughing at a kid on fire. Next thing you know, BAM! Dead Catholic!
Lude: Your avatar reminds me of Izzi.
stvfoolery: Your avatar doesn't remind me of Izzi.
rudis: Does she have a sister?...Or, to a lesser extent, mother?
SamLittle: If my cap didn't get eaten by bears, I'd tip it in your direction.
RKB: And you are my second favorite PERSON this month...yeah, doesn't feel too good, does it? Seriously, thank you for your words. I'm not a proud fella most of the time, but I really thought I had something with Izzi. His character gives me more personal victory rump-pats than a varsity lacrosse lockerroom.
SuprrEgo: This coming from the mind behind the genius (dare I say underrated) "Starfish" multiplies the aforementioned rump-pats by 7.
Matthew Matthews: Fun Fact! The surname "Laserdragon" has Welsh origins from "Laserdragone." Izzi discovered it while flipping through a book about prominent naysayers in Wrexham County government.
DShide: Less heart, more boob kicking, got it.
bornieo: I PROOFREAD IT SO MANY TIMES!!! WAHT DID I MISS?!?!
frequentcontributor: Me too! Lets all vote for it!!!
Thank you to everyone who's giving this a chance and enjoying it. And lets hope I get the opportunity to draw more picture of hot, flaming boys.
...what?
Funny, and I'm curious to see where it's headed, but I'd like to see more story at the orphanage...
Ok, this is damn funny and hope you take it further. It could get annoying after a while but if you're smart about it - more power to ya. Other than some spelling issues, it was great. Congrats!
Pretty good. I liked the humor minus the serious orphan stuff. Overall quite good. I although most likely won't vote for it, but I would like to see more.
I liked it. The art was different, to say the least, but the humour and story was great. I especially like Izzi's surname.
i didn't think I was going to like this one for some reason... But, I gave it a chance and found I enjoyed the hell out of it, RKB is right, it's got everything, the nuances of character so that the reader actually cares and the strong sense of direction in STORY. I would not mind at all tuning into this on a regular basis.. great work, my friend!
Great synopsis and a great character in Izzi. The art/colors/letters all fit the story but what really makes it is the writing. Izzi meeting Santa, and telling how his parents wanted to love him but couldn't high drama (also from the earlier panels seems to be wishful thinking on his part), plus plenty of humor with nuns being kicked in the boob, and Izzi working on his cover story. Screen 3 was one of the best to show you how his life has went as a outsider. Izzi looks like the ray who looked like sunspot, but how is he wearing a tie? The happy face guy has a anarchy symbol in back nice touch. I think sister seventeen might end up being a protector of his??? You got comedy, drama, and scares all in 8 screens very good pacing for Zuda. This is my second fav comic this month. 4/5 stars and really great writing you nailed your lead (Izzi) in these 8 screens.
This rocks. Great art. And Fuh-Nee!
hahha. i basically loved it. my girlfriend heats up like an atomic bomb and thinks she is going to end up exploding. funny stuff, and i really dig the artwork and coloring. good job.