3 out of 5

Well, I reread ‘Feather,’ as per master Steve Uy’s recommendation(s) in his exhaustive backpage editorials, as he told me (time and time again) that I was probably too dense of a comic reader to get the themes and hints he’d elaborately woven into his 5-part series.  Which I suppose might be true.  But I think, also, that when fanboys experience true love or something and then write poetry about it and then write a comic about the nature of emotions but dress it up with action and fantasy that they imagine themselves as scripting the Holy Grail of complexity because you gotta think about this stuff, you know, i’m not just a dragon and dwarf magic spell caster.  Also: dropping connections within a self-contained world to other aspects of that self-contained world is fun, however, this is self-imposed depth.  I might be giving m’self too much leeway, but I’m okay with not realizing that a name you drop in one panel is a nickname for a character you mention in another panel and that this is a wink wink connection.

So I reread it, and I guess I’m realizing: I like Feather.  There’s a lot to like, actually.  …I just might not really like Steve Uy.  It’s nice that he included so much extra stuff in each issue – lengthy blabber, a cutout of a 3D model used for an air bike in the series, a history of his previous work – there’s this ridiculously inclusive mindset to it, like we’ve all been following Steve’s ascent to greatdom since his days in art school.  Which would be fucking impossible, because all of his half-finished projects were unpublished until Feather.  And yet he lectures us on the history of his world, and mentions a fanbase discussing such matters on a board somewhere.  Okay.  I buy it.  That exists.  And maybe on one hand it’s actually not boastful but short-sighted, Steve assuming that only his existing fans will have been buying the comic, but by the same token he mentions considerations of bi-monthly pacing that would only impact those who hadn’t really experienced the tale yet…  Whatever.  If there was a benefit to my reread, it was to skip all of the extras and just read the story.  It is enjoyable either way, but you don’t have to separate the man from the end product as much if you, eh, ignore it.  My last caveat to this (before actually mentioning the book, heh) is that I’ll allow that this might’ve helped the story in the long run.  Pomposity or confidence or whatever, Steve has labored on and laid out the worlds and characters within his story at length, and it pays off in that he feels fine leaving all the extras floating in the ether, versus someone wanting to jampack all their fantasy goodies into a prelude or extraneous narration.  ‘Feather’ instead focuses on story, with enough of the world of Rakkon’s history poking through to get all the gist you need.

‘Feather’ is about Sehven and his brother, Clip, who live in a tree in the middle of a field, lamenting the change in the world post a war with some dragons that cost the kids their father… as well as civilization its technological advances, apparently.  Both the boys seem to have a fascination with pre-war ‘relics,’ which are more recognizable to us readers as everyday human items.  Sehv and Clip are halfbloods, you see, which we’ll take to mean some kind of dragon-blood mixing, I guess, and they resemble humans otherwise except for not having a nose.  Clip’s the elder and tends to the field to pay the bills, allowing Sehv to pursue his dream of becoming a dragonslayer.  Which might be at odds with the boys’ friend Leeka, who is a full-blood dragon.  She and Sehv have your classic romantic comedy relationship that plays cutely between friendship and something more that never quite materializes.  In the hopes of helping Sehven achieve his dreams, Leeka and her mother – a slither dragon – plan to stage a battle for the boy.  Things go rather wrong.  And the series turns from light-hearted into a surprisingly dark tale that quite skillfully avoids becoming overwrought.

And those are the contents.  It’s a fairly straight-forward story, but surprising in how dedicatedly it’s written character-wise.  Steve doesn’t back away from death or try to foolishly summarize heavy feelings with pithy pragmatics.  There are a couple of mis-fires with the text in terms of almost leaving too much unsaid – which is part of the skill of scripting a visual medium, determining the line between what should/could be assumed and what, if left open, is potentially plot-holey – but the overall well-partitioned pacing of the story gives you enough rest to chew on it while the plot evolves.

The art is: great, and the art is: confusing.  Steve has an anime influenced style (spiky hair, simple figures) but an American sense of paneling, which ends up blending really well.  As was true with Eden’s Trail, he shown a good mind for space and page layout, using the slimmest of panels or the most giant of panels to properly break up scenes.  Included in one of the issues are a few samples of his pencils of the college draft of this book and they are gorgeous, even if he feels he’s improved in his draftsmanship since then.  For this version of the book, it was mostly redone and blended with computer tones and colors, which is where the art becomes ridiculously confusing.  The tiling of patterns on backgrounds butts up against the organic foreground figures, and all the blurring effects used during action sequences makes them horrible to understand.  And, well, overt computer coloring / fill in comics is akin to poor CGI in movies: it never really works.  Also, the book was all Steve, editing and lettering included, and after reading this, I have a better understanding of the responsibilities of a letterer and agree with the reviewer – once you notice Steve’s novice lettering abilities, they become distracting.

So that’s that.  ‘Feather’ is richer and more serious than its initial tone and general poppy look would imply.  At the other end of the spectrum, its rain and blood soaked issue 4 cover belies over-dramatics that are tactfully avoided in favor of sticking to its story.  There’s a rich, unexplored world in the book that, overall, would have distracted from the book, but it’s still disappointing that ‘Feather’ hasn’t been able to expand into another series.  Uy’s editorials distract from the contents unfavorably, making you feel dense for not getting something that you’re probably already getting, and the art style – the figures graceful and fun – gets a frustratingly jarring computer makeover.  The experience is thus half and half, but the good half does win out.  This is an unusually told story for the comic format that needs more exposure.  People use the descriptor ‘cinematic’ all the time, but Uy’s use of space and silence evoke the term moreso than most of the books lumped with it; unfortunately, the look of ‘Feather’ (an anime influence) will probably prevent people from accepting its graces.