Introduction
Sequel time already, huh?
I was actually very excited to read Mythics 2. I’ve been picking things apart for both official review and my own improvement for quite awhile. But this is the very first time in my life that one of my criticisms has reached the creators to possibly influence later work. Upon an initial skim through the comic while I was multitasking, I was thrilled. It was immediately obvious that all of my art critiques landed. I was looking forward to seeing if the same was true for the writing.
Unfortunately… I’m reminded of a quote from Jurassic Park 2.
—————————————————————————————
“Don’t worry, I’m not making the same mistakes again.”
“No, you’re making all new ones.”
—————————————————————————————
DISCLAIMER: Since my reviews of the original Mythoverse releases a year ago, I’ve made decent friends with a lot of the creators and then some. You know, we’re not talking every night but we interact online often. I should also disclose that some have come directly to me for advice since my reviews. Despite my admittedly growing bias towards the series and its creators, I still have absolutely no intention of allowing it to affect my review. As usual, it’ll be strictly about the abject quality of the work. I won’t be boring you all with my “super cool” insider perspective, that’s what investigative articles are for. Reviews are meant to be made so that you know if you should spend money or not.
Except now, this is my website. I can make this as long as I need without worry. So let’s start with a recap, shall we?
For those of you who don’t want to or don’t have time to go back and read my review of Mythics: I basically said it was bad in literally every way and you shouldn’t even consider buying it, in the nicest way I possibly could.
Let me be clear from the outset: I do not feel that Mythics 2 is nearly as poor quality as the series’ initial outing. There is notable improvement across the board here. The issue lies in where. Quite literally all of it seems to harkon back to critiques myself or others made. Which is not nothing mind you, the ability to take a harsh critique in stride and address it directly is invaluable. But if you only rely on others’ feedback to improve, you’ll find yourself making all new mistakes.
=======================================================
Writing
For example: I actually know what’s happening in Mythics 2. But unfortunately, it’s because Matt (the writer) seems to have shifted from explaining absolutely nothing, to explaining absolutely everything. “Vaguely communicating information” is one of the two things I ever mentioned that wasn’t completely addressed in Mythics 2.
Now we have the opposite problem: Characters telling and not showing. Sometimes it’s not even worked into conversation. A character will just be thinking about what their stuff does and how it works, for some reason. Or another character might straight up call out what someone’s feeling even though said feeling was perfectly communicated by the artwork and a vague narration comment in the previous panel.
On the back of that, we have another strange issue with the narration boxes. Simply put: They’re used interchangeably with dialogue bubbles. Granted the characters are out of view whenever this is done. But that still leaves the reader with essentially nothing but context to figure out that this particular narration box is actually meant to be vocal speech. These also need to be differentiated. I understand trying to fit characters into every frame they’re speaking in is unrealistic. But we need a way to know that the thing we’re looking at is speech and not thought at a glance.
Before it was unclear who’s narration we were looking at. That’s been addressed, they’re now color coded and introduced properly. But now we have the very new problem of those boxes not being identifiable at all from a completely different type of dialogue.
It’s admittedly a delicate balance. “When should we say something, when shouldn’t we? Should we really have four dozen different types of text boxes for any occasion?” Thankfully, the answer to these questions is often found by answering much simpler ones: “Can this confound my audience? If so, is that my intent?”
If a little vagueness isn’t bound to completely lose people, all but the hopelessly clueless will gather what’s going on, then things don’t need to be explained further. If a certain someone is libel to dehumanize a character in their mind simply because of the dehumanizing circumstances they were brought up in, then maybe that’s the very kind of person your story is meant to expose, and you shouldn’t worry too much about what they might think.
These are questions I have to ask myself when writing all the time. Specifically, that latter bit was in reference to my current work (at the time of this review). When I asked myself whether or not I should be making a “so obvious it hurts” hint about the cloned nature of the protagonist to make it clear to my audience that is indeed a thing, all I had to do was ask myself if all of the previous much more subtle hints already did that job. I cut it immediately. When a friend posed the concern that their numbered name on top of their “manufactured in a tube” origin might make them less relatable to some, my response was, “Those people probably aren’t gonna get much out of the story anyway.”
It is my intent to make my audience think about the implications of what’s happening. A few little hints as to the origins of the character and their lot in life is enough to get the ball rolling on that. I don’t need to baby talk people who intend to read a genre where complex worldbuilding and philosophy are practically mandatory. And I do not need to pander to those that would dehumanize someone like that just to call out that very selfish behavior.
If you’re writing a hot and heavy romance story and you don’t describe just how unreasonably attractive the love interest is at every given chance, the audience is probably gonna be a little disappointed. If you explain absolutely every little detail in every moment to an audience that wants to read about magical secret societies and conspiracies, they’re probably gonna feel a little insulted.
I’m not gonna pretend it’s easy to always know the best answer for any given situation. Sometimes you’ll be completely caught off guard as to what might confuse a reader. But when you’re doing things like using narration boxes for speech, or having a character completely explain information that was already communicated in just the previous panel, I have to wonder if you’re asking yourself these questions at all. That one example was hardly the only instance. Don’t just put something out and wait for the critique to tell you what was wrong. Question yourself. Hell, question the critique. Ask yourself if it makes sense.
You can imply information. You don’t need to withhold it, and you don’t necessarily need to explain it either. Say for example you have a character preparing for a situation. If you show exactly what precautions they’re taking, the reader can easily infer things about the character’s background. They don’t even necessarily need to explain the logic of said actions, as that should be evident now if not later. The way they explain things might give it away, or how they approach it. The mere act itself implies either experience or forethought, often both. The way they actually deal with that situation can imply strategy, the behavior or attributes of what they’re dealing with.
It’s important to have a tight grasp on the rules of your world so that you can do things like that. Information can be inferred by the reader based on the consistent details they’re seeing. That’s why people like hard magic systems. Not because they necessarily want every single little rule explained to them, but because it keeps things consistent when you’re writing. The actions of the characters make sense based on what you see them dealing with. Because it would be really unfortunate if you just got done explaining a rule, and then immediately show your character doing something that is excessively risky based on those rules which in turn makes them look incompetent. Yeah we’re on to the next writing issue.
—————————————————————————————
—————————————————————————————
I was gonna wait to show this in the art portion, but I quickly realized it wouldn’t hold much weight aside from asking, “Why did her hoodie change pattern and color from page to page?” Now, I think I know why. I think she turned it inside out. But first of all that’s the quickest “remove hoodie, turn it inside out, put it back on” I have ever seen. It also wasn’t communicated very well. Or at all, really. It also makes me wonder why she wouldn’t already have it turned inside out instead of waiting for shit to go South.
Now you on the other hand might be wondering why in the hell she would turn it inside out at all. That’s because as a previous scene very clearly explained: Spriggans (the monster they’re dealing with in this issue) have a weird magical weakness that makes you invisible if you turn your clothes inside out. Dumb, fun, they poke at it themselves. But I’m sure you can already start to see why this hoodie thing might bug me.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I don’t much care about sexualizing characters. I grew up with Mortal Kombat and loved that shit. I would start to feel like a dumb SJW for doing this twice in a row in most cases. But in Metal Gear Solid V, where a female character is wearing one of the dumbest outfits I have ever seen, there is still a point made about why she needs to be wearing next to nothing. In Mythics, it is equally as clearly explained why this character should be covered more than a nun on Sunday morning.
This is a problem you created. I wouldn’t have even noticed if it wasn’t just explained to me why this shouldn’t be a thing. I don’t care if she’s wearing spriggan proof nipple pasties, as long as it’s justified. In Mythics however, we are very clearly told that this trick only works if at least 50% of your body is covered. So why in the thot simping fuck would you choose to cover only half of your body in one of the loosest articles of clothing you can possibly get your hands on?
Did I mention she’s supposed to be afraid of these things? You should be dressed like a prodestant gimp ma’am. A body suit with enough zippers and clamps to lock down a government black site. You are going into a situation with a creature that was at the heart of a traumatic experience, and you have a golden ticket to make it harmless. You do not want that shit coming off. Or jostling up and down making you repeatedly visible when you move like at all.
That is four hundred and sixty words about why that outfit is just… dumb. And I haven’t even mentioned the fact that she’s running across a sandy beach. You see that gremlin dude in the bottom right? That’s a spriggan. He can’t see her. He can’t see the footsteps of a woman running through the sand in flip-flops. So everything people using this trick interact with is also invisible? Is the earth itself invisible to him? Do you see why consistent, well thought out rules are necessary?
Consistency is key. If there is no consistency, the reader is left to assume the writer is just making things up as they go along. A lack of consistency makes the reader wonder why they should get invested at all. If the writer doesn’t care enough to take their own established rules into account, why should the reader care to learn about them?
=======================================================
Art
This lack of consistency is not unique to the writing of Mythics I’m afraid. It also affects the art. Yes, just like the writing basically everything I pointed out in my review of the first issue was addressed in the artwork. Unfortunately Beth (the artist) too, makes all new mistakes that I just wouldn’t be doing my job right if I didn’t point out.
I’d like to acknowledge the positives first. It was immediately apparent that small fundamental issues like the face shapes of the female characters has been fixed.
—————————————————————————————
—————————————————————————————
Beth even gave Elthia the original shape, seems almost like a nod to the first Mythics. But yeah, I don’t think I’ve seen one “same face” in this. Even Galatyn got a small redesign, looks good.
Her color work is also still very good. Though I’ve now noticed an unfortunate trend with that: It only seems to be the case specifically in outdoor scenes at night. Daytime, inside, rather bland. Especially indoors. In fact, many of the indoor backgrounds seem… unfinished.
—————————————————————————————
—————————————————————————————
The bland pallet aside… Why are there blank tapestries on the walls? Why would you bother putting them there if you’re not even gonna put a simple design on them? I get redrawing the same intricate design every time is a panel continuity nightmare, but you can at least do something simple with colors and shapes. Why put them there at all if you’re not? And this panel actually has the best indoor background in the entire comic.
—————————————————————————————
—————————————————————————————
There are little mistakes like this all over the place (there’s even one I didn’t circle in this image). Now they’re understandable, I make them too. But they wouldn’t have been missed if even a single person reviewed the comic. I caught every single one of these on my second look through.
Honestly stuff like this gives the impression that production on Mythics 2 was extremely rushed. But unfortunately, it doesn’t quite stop there.
Before I move on, I’d like to explain myself a bit. Last time I kinda dug into my own art when picking apart the art of Mythics. But unlike last time, I feel like the issues are fairly obvious. It’s not something subtle and fundamental that needs to be explained. For example: The reason Elthia’s torso is transparent is because Beth simply forgot to put a foundation color underneath the material texture. It happens. What surprises me is how many of these little obvious mistakes made it to print. Did no one look over this?
I saved the worst for last though. This one… this one baffles me a lot more than the simple mistakes above.
—————————————————————————————
—————————————————————————————
Now I’ll understand if it takes you a moment to figure this one out. Took a minute for me to really notice. The irony is, the only reason I did was because I was drawn in for a closer look by the nice color work. If you still haven’t noticed, I’d recommend opening the image in a new tab, and zooming in on the city and trees.
That’s right, they’re all stock PNG’s you could find on Google Images. What’s worse, they’re not even lawyered or colored properly. And for some reason Beth also used a pixelated texture on the beach? I… cannot fathom why this is in the comic.
This isn’t the only time these tricks are used, but it’s by far the worst instance. And it’s used so seldom, it makes these panels really stick out. When most of your comic has this nice flowing linework with pastels, it’s really noticeable when your cityscape is made up of floating power line PNG’s.
It’s made all the worse by a later panel that has a city backdrop, except it’s actually drawn.
—————————————————————————————
—————————————————————————————
Messy and archaic? Yes, but that fits with the rest of the comic’s style. The first one looks like a concept mockup for what would eventually become the second. But these panels are six pages apart in the same comic.
Simple graphic design tricks can be used to great effect. I don’t have an issue with them being used in a comic. The problem is the frankly blatantly unfinished execution. How did that happen? There’s no way you didn’t know that wasn’t finished. I noticed the first time I squinted my eyes at it. The inconsistency of its use is part of the problem. If you’re only going to use it on three out of the twenty three pages you work on, why use it at all?
Those panels don’t even have the same type of trees.
I showed this to a friend of mine while I was working on the review. No context, no well poisoning. I sent both images to them. What they said I thought was poignant.
—————————————————————————————
“It seems like they don’t care enough about what product they put out.”
—————————————————————————————
That is the impression these muck ups give your audience. The first time someone sees it, they think you don’t care. They think you’re just shoving some product out the door for the sake of it.
=======================================================
Conclusion
There are mistakes like that all over. From typos, to sentences that just don’t make sense. Colors missing, lines bursting through panels. Things that would’ve been caught in a once over by any editor. Do you even do your own editing? I genuinely have to wonder. I don’t understand how any of these issues make it to print if you weren’t rushed in production.
I make a point of keeping my “insider perspective” out of reviews for a couple of reasons. First of all it’s just not relevant most of the time. Second of all, I figure it’ll make any readers feel like I’m trying to sell (or prevent sales of) some product I have a personal connection to. But this is one instance I genuinely feel I’d be doing people a disservice if I didn’t mention it.
I know they weren’t rushed. In fact, I’m fairly certain they had extra time. How on earth does a project that had extra time, feel rushed?
There are a bunch of little things I just didn’t specifically point out in this review, as that would needlessly bloat it. As I said, they’re all fairly obvious. But there is one more thing that I need to talk about specifically, and I’m putting it here because I honestly don’t know if I should call it an “art” or “writing” issue. All I know is: Someone, somewhere, did not get a fuckin’ memo.
A scene at the very end of the comic shows the main character lamenting their lack of action in an earlier scene. She felt guilty that she didn’t act, that she “froze” in a situation where she was needed. The problem is, that moment was the hoodie scene. The one where she apparently moved so quickly, she could goddamn Superman her garment inside out and was already bolting towards her foe by the time we laid eyes on her again. That is apparently the moment when she “froze”, the moment when she locked her opponent by the neck against a tree.
The witch only escaped because she actually had a backup plan for fuck’s sake, what do you mean you “froze”? Again, another problem that any single person can spot on their first time reading. I know I did. How did this make it to the final version? How did it even happen to begin with? They’re two contradicting events!
This is basic stuff guys, and it’s not nearly as complex or nuanced as something like “character design” or “setting up narration boxes”. This is one thing happening, and the characters talking about a completely different chain of events like that happened instead. A character locking up in the presence of a mythical creature at the center of a traumatic experience isn’t even a bad idea for a story, it’s just not what happened!
I think… I think I see now, why I’ve heard some people say they feel this is worse than the first entry of Mythics. I’m still not sure I agree with that (basic comprehension of the plot certainly helps), but I get it.
I hate doing this again, honestly. On a personal level, these kats took the last review really well. I still felt a little bad about it basically all the way up until reading Mythics 2. Now, I can’t say that I do anymore. There are just too many things in here that shouldn’t have made it into the final product. They’re not first-timer fumbles with the fundamentals either. They’re problems that anyone can see.
I should not be your worst critic. You should be. You need to look at your own work harshly, because most people aren’t gonna try to be nice and unbiased about it. If you are not constantly critical of your own work, mistakes like this will always be common. It can be done without making it an unhealthy habit. You just have to think critically and objectively about your own work.
No matter how bad I want to, I cannot in good faith recommend people buy Mythics 2. There’s just too much wrong here. I wouldn’t have allowed it to release if it was my own work.
It’s disappointing, honestly. I really was excited.
