Webcomic Spotlight: The Wormworld Saga
This Webcomic Spotlight is unique in that technically, this is a comic that has so far only released a single page. But that one page is so amazingly good that I had to bring it to your attention.
In the early days of webcomics, a lot of artists played around with the “infinite canvas” that a web browser provided. The idea was that since the reader could scroll around, you could think of the screen as a sort of window through which you could view a virtual canvas that could be as big as the artist needed it to be. It was a way for webcomics creators to explore the unique possibilities of their new medium and it produced some interesting results. Here’s a popular example, and you can find out a lot more about the topic on Scott McCloud’s site.
The infinite canvas never really caught on in a big way. Today, the vast majority of webcomics are formatted like traditional comic strips (The Checkered Man), or comic books. They are intended to fit on a standard computer screen with little or no scrolling.
The Wormworld Saga, by Daniel Lieske, revives the infinite canvas, and does so beautifully. Lieske’s art, rendered in a warm, painterly style, is gorgeous. He makes excellent use of the limitless space at his disposal, with establishing shots that spill off the screen. The first chapter is a giant column of continuous artwork that is probably equivalent to fifteen or twenty comic pages and every inch of it is a delight.
I realize I’m talking primarily about the art. To be honest, there’s not enough content in place yet for me to comment on the writing style. The story seems engaging enough, and I have nothing bad to say about it, but so far, the artwork is the real star.
I also am not sure when the next chapter will be released. A quick scan of Daniel Lieske’s blog indicates that he was working on the first chapter for about a year. But that included a lot of development work, so I presume that the next chapter won’t take as long. Even if it does, it will be worth the wait.
So give it a look. Then pick your jaw up off the floor and bookmark it. It’s definitely one to watch.
That is wonderful, thank you for sharing!
Wow! That’s a great looking webcomic! Wonderfully painted.
great comic but i didn’t really look around the rest of the site whens the relise date of the next one
I don’t think that there is a projected release date yet. I imagine that it would be pretty difficult to gauge how long one of those giant installments would take to create.