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HERO review
By Kaj | August 25, 2007
Well kiddoes, we’ve got a different one this week, that’s for sure. Usually, I find change to be good or at least something I can get into. Unfortunately, that’s not quite my feeling on HERO, this week’s overly avant garde webcomic.
While not done badly per se, I simply couldn’t get into HERO. I’m not particularly a fan of bishounen Yoshitaka Amano style art and the story, told in esoteric rambling, well, escapes me. Try though I might, I found it hard to focus on anything in HERO. In a way, it reminds me of a piece of classical art that I feel should be considered good, but I can’t personally appreciate.
Maybe HERO is a little too high class for me, I don’t know. The bubble text narration appearing from the cursor running over the panels really didn’t sit well with me. I can understand that it keeps the art looking quite clean and uncluttered, but it makes the writing squashed and awkward, like I’m reading cliff notes written for people with double than normal vision.
While the art is technically well done, in my less than professional sensibilities, I just don’t like it. Everyone looks like a Final Fantasy character combined with the most indistinct parts of a cloud (no pun intended). The fashion designs seemed rather sensible yet gaudy and I really just couldn’t get into the idea of who I was looking at.
That said, the writing is what really drove me off. Narration, as an approach is fine with me, but the text frequently seemed too poetic or pointless. I could never really believe anyone was saying or thinking these things, and once more I’m driven away from the characters.
I don’t know. I feel a little bad that I really couldn’t appreciate this webcomic for what it is, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t someone else’s flavor. That said, I can’t recommend or deny it. In my opinion, HERO just doesn’t work well enough in execution to casually grab someone looking for a new webcomic to read, unless you’re really into the Amano-like art. A person shouldn’t have to read something that makes them think ‘What?’ every other page.
I give HERO a three of ten stars.
Mea culpa.
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