Second Verse, Not Quite the Same as the First

If nothing else comes of ComicSpace, it has already done me one great service - it has reintroduced me to the works of Corey Marie.

Some years ago, when the internet was young(er), she was the artist of a strip called Life's So Rad. It was a brilliant fun little comic - and then it went away. It was taken down for personal reasons, and I can't find any fault in that, though I remained sad to see it go.

Fast forward several years. Corey Marie apparently has a new comic: Scene Language. It's been around for almost half-a-year now, but as is often the case, I only discovered it through sheer chance.

I will momentarily pause to belabor a point I've touched on before - keeping track of comics or artists who have gone on hiatus is difficult. I don't know how many strips are out there that I once read, paused when they stopped updating, and never checked back with when they returned to action.

That's one of the reasons I make posts like this, both for comics new and old - a comic tends to be almost entirely carried along by word of mouth. Advertising can help, sure, but that only does so much. A group can notice new comics (or returning ones) much, much easier than a single person can. That, in my opinion, is one of the real values of the webcomic blogs and news sites.

Anyway, back to the comic itself.



I'll be the first to admit that I know very little about the scene. I enjoy music, but my knowledge of the subject is supremely limited. All I know about rockers I learned from... well, from webcomics much like this one. There are certainly comics with all manner of inside jokes that I just don't get.

Fortunately, this isn't one of them. My knowledge (or lack thereof) does little to impair my appreciation for the comic. Despite the setting, the subject isn't really about bands and music - it's about people. Which people isn't entirely obvious at the start - we follow the misadventures of Phil for a bit, but he's hardly the hero of the story. (Or, really, at all...)

The cast page lists four main characters. It seems clear the story is going to be about them, even if it isn't entirely just yet. One of them has only just arrived, and the connections between the four are still immersed in a mess of other people and other lives.

It's interesting, seeing where a story is going, and how far it has to go.

The comic is only in it's infancy, despite already having 64 strips under the belt. But I can already tell that I like it. The art is solid and lively, a stronger version of the style I liked from Life's So Rad. The characters are... well, human, to start, which means they are engaging, interesting, and flawed.

Which, really, is about as good as it gets.

It's not Life's So Rad, but it isn't supposed to be. It's good, and that's all that matters. I know I'll be watching it eagerly.