comics | St. Gallen's Scribblings

The Legend of Whomper: Dreamcrafter

The Legend of Whomper, Book 3: Dreamcrafter by Chris Farrington

The third installment of author Chris Farrington’s The Legend of Whomper series opens with the titular protagonist, a chubby blue fox, seeking a healer for his instructor, the Edgemaster (or just “Edgemaster” as he’s awkwardly called throughout the graphic novel). After finding a temple of healers in comas, Whomper dreams of interacting with the rabbit Remmy, one of the eponymous Dreamcrafters, with he and Skyla flying to the jungle to another shrine where they sleep and enter the Dreamscape. Whomper reunites with Remmy while dreaming and is shown a system of visible dreams and nightmares where he can battle imaginary monsters.

Grescam, the Dreamdragon, attacks the dream city of Lagos-4 with Whomper and Skyla training so they can better deal with him. This includes tasks such as the fox fighting a doppelgänger in his dreams. Grescam reappears, after which Whomper travels to the god Lord Hypnos’ chamber, where the backstory on the Dreamdragon is revealed. Meanwhile, Remmy and Skyla battle the Lord of Nightmares, and Whomper retaliates against the Dreamdragon with help from a mystical hammer called the Dreamsmasher. After the conflicts, Whomper and Skyla travel to Hammer Forge, where the latter goes to a bar to discuss her lover’s youth.

The third entry concludes with an entertaining look at Whomper and Skyla in prehistoric life, followed by a nice anecdote featuring minor characters. In summary, I enjoyed this graphic novel, an excellent continuation of its predecessors, given the second entry’s foreshadowing of its events. As before, Farrington’s character designs are cute, colorful, and unique, even if the story isn’t wholly family-friendly. Moreover, issues from its precursors return, like awkward dialogue and punctuation errors. Furthermore, all text is capitalized, making it vague whether important terms are capitalized at their beginnings. The story also didn’t fit my entire iPad, but I would recommend installment number three to those who enjoyed previous books.

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Mental Spring Cleaning

Posted on April 18 by Remy St. Gallen

After struggling endlessly to read traditional textual books, I decided, for sake of my mental health, to stop, even though I was in the middle of a fantasy trilogy, which to me is no big loss since I didn’t really care about the characters, the setting, or whatnot, and the books will probably never be adapated to feature film, anyway. From now on, I’ll only be reading books that have been adapted into film or will be adapted into film, are part of series I genuinely care about and love (like Star Wars), graphic novels, comics, nonfiction books that aren’t puff pieces or hatchet jobs or in any fashion political or antireligious, and so forth. Decluttering my life in this regard has actually been mildly therapeutic, surprisingly.

The Legend of Whomper: A Thousand Men

Posted on April 7 by Remy St. Gallen

The Legend of Whomper, Book 2: A Thousand Men by Chris Farrington
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The second entry of Chris Farrington’s Whomper graphical novel series, mostly a collection of previous comics sharing an overarching story, opens with the eponymous pudgy fox protagonist training with his new master, the Edgemaster. Meanwhile, his partner and dragoness love interest Kayla is at magic school, given the advice to purge her “logical side.” Furthermore, the armies of the hostile nation of Menevo are on the march, with Whomper yearning to confront them and their enigmatic leader, Emperor Nocturn. However, the Edgemaster warns him not to rush into combat, with the Emperor’s three generals having conquered many nations.

After reuniting, Whomper and Skyla fly to Valgus, battling a pig captain and his unit of earth elementals. Following this conflict, they receive information about Emperor Nocturn’s generals, which include the black female science-loving unicorn Limerick, the male “undefeated” tiger Haiku, and the vague and possibly two-headed Couplet. After battling a few more unit captains, they fly to Fox City, with Whomper reuniting with his father, with the vulpine warrior running away from his family when he was seven. The novel further reveals Whomper’s backstory, encompassing his training with Gryzak and Lyktor.

The imperial army invades Fox City, with Whomper and Skyla flying to Emperor Nocturn’s airborne fortress, where they battle his generals (whose backstories come to light) and confront the imperial leader himself, with the graphic novel exposing secrets that include his appearance and species. After the conflict, more of Whomper’s backstory is revealed, including what became of his mother and what motivated him to become a warrior. The graphic novel concludes with Whomper confronting a priest worshipping Xilinx in a Raccoon City graveyard, followed by an anecdote with Dextrose and his wild cat, Taffy.

Overall, I enjoyed the second installment of Farrington’s graphic novel series, having enjoyed its predecessor. While the animal character designs are beyond cute, there is some mature content, like occasional cannibalism and blood, exemplifying the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” The action is easy to follow, the continuity between it and the first book is clear, humor abounds, the character backstories are intricate, and the battle scenes are astounding. However, issues exist like the often-unreadable font and maybe some name inconsistencies. Regardless, those who liked its precursor will enjoy the sequel, and I will continue reading the series.

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The Legend of Whomper

Posted on March 11 by Remy St. Gallen

The Legend of Whomper, Book 1 by Chris Farrington
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There have been times when I’ve often gotten burned out on traditional textual literature without illustrations, so I figured I would alternate between reading them and graphical novels like this by Chris Farrington, whom I highly respect as an artist in the furry fandom and had commissioned a few times in the past. The titular fox hero, Vulpie Whomper (who doesn’t look vulpine but is cute nonetheless), has trained for years to master the war hammer and embarks upon quests to prove his worth. Each chapter (one divided into two parts) follows his various trials.

Whomper’s first trial opens with his initiation into the Brotherhood of the Hammer, after which he must visit several secret cities and prove the supremacy of his order’s weapon. A thief curses him with kleptomania, and when he gets the curse lifted, he chases after the culprit following a visible knife symbol (though this is unclear) to deal justice.

His second trial opens with guards of the Bridge to the Sky initially denying him entry, after which he must defeat a monster.

The third has him join Dextrose, a furred warrior whose specific species is unclear and seems somewhere between horse and kangaroo, as they battle slugs tormenting a town.

The fox’s fourth quest sees him seeking a town’s serial killer but ends without the said murderer subdued, Whomper needing to find another way to apprehend him.

In his fifth, he encounters a weasel thief ostracized by his fellow purloiners.

The two-part sixth quest sees him battling the slave-collecting Warmachine, piloted by two members of the vengeful Komodo Clan.

The seventh has him partner with a dragoness named Skyla Thornweaver, who remains with him for the rest of his adventures as they battle a new enemy, Gryzor.

Whomper’s eighth quest sees him and Skyla entering Brotherhood of the Arrow territory and battling pig-men bandits.

His ninth has Skyla kidnapped by a rodent princess, Grisella, whom he must rescue.

The tenth has Whomper going to a raccoon-populated city with a zombie problem, where he confronts Gryzor and the necromancer who created him.

The final chapter concludes the graphic novel with Whomper meeting a goat sage called the Edgemaster, under whom he begins apprenticeship after battling an ancient evil known as Xilix while having a final confrontation with Gryzor.

Overall, I found this a cute and enjoyable graphic novel, with my instincts about giving it a read well justified. While the animal characters are incredibly adorable (even if some of their species are vague, given the artist’s style), it isn’t one hundred percent family-friendly, given some occasional blood, albeit not excessive. Some plot points like that in the first trial seem to come out of nowhere, and the typical grammar and punctuation errors associated with standard comics abound. However, I highly recommend this graphic novel to those in the furry fandom seeking a fun and quick read.

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RIP Akira Toriyama

Posted on March 7 by Remy St. Gallen

He was 68.

He created the Dragon Ball animanga series and was the character and monster designer of the Dragon Quest franchise and Chrono Trigger, among others. This leaves only Yuji Horii, the scenario writer of DQ (composer Koichi Sugiyama died back in 2021), and it seems the twelfth promised mainline entry (The Flames of Fate) is now far greater vaporware than it was before, and since Toriyama to me is somewhat irreplaceable (and Sugiyama too to an extent), I doubt it will become a Franchise Zombie like other game franchises have become (i.e. Final Fantasy). Rest in peace, Toriyama-san.

The Marvels

Posted on February 23 by Remy St. Gallen

The latest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe follows the events of Ms. Marvel, also being a sequel to Captain Marvel, with the titular characters banding to battle the alien Kree, afterward another nemesis named Dar-Benn. Every time they use their powers, the Marvels swap places, like Freaky Friday in a superheroine setting. I thought it was a typical MCU film that attempts to fuse action with lightheartedness. While the cast performances were solid, with Samuel L. Jackson, as always, doing an excellent job as Nick Fury, along with a surprise after the ending credits, I honestly think that the superhero movie market has somewhat become oversaturated, and ultimately hope that the Marvel Cinematic Universe finds a satisfactory grand finale as it continues the next few years.

Ms. Marvel

Posted on February 18 by Remy St. Gallen

This Marvel Cinematic Universe miniseries follows Kamala Khan, a 16-year-old Pakistani-American high schooler who loves the Avengers, specifically Captain Marvel, but has trouble fitting in with society until she discovers her inherent abilities and becomes the eponymous superheroine, with the show ultimately tying in with the MCU film The Marvels. It starts a bit human-interest-centric but gives some decent insight into Islamic society in sync with Disney’s contemporary DEI approach and intensifies in the last few episodes. In brief, I didn’t think it was an excellent series, but I don’t regret watching it and will gladly see The Marvels as my next weekly film.

DC League of Super-Pets

Posted on January 5 by Remy St. Gallen

This independent animated DC Comics film opens with the standard origin story of Superman, with the infant Kal-El sent by his parents from the doomed world of Krypton. However, their Labrador Retriever (or whatever Krypton’s equivalent was), Krypto, accompanies the future Man of Steel on his journey to Earth. Years later, Krypto feels neglected when his superheroic owner starts dating Lois Lane and has a falling-out with his master. Around the same time, Lulu, a hairless guinea pig and former test subject of Superman’s archnemesis Lex Luthor’s corporation, now in an animal shelter alongside other various beasts, retrieves a shard of the orange kryptonite the Justice League stops Luthor from using, both gaining superpowers and escaping. Simultaneously, the other animals receive its effects and seek to rescue the hero group’s members once Lulu subdues them.

The most notable voice performances include Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Krypto and comedian Kevin Hart as Ace the Boxer, whom Batman, voiced by Keanu Reeves (a role he does much better than he would have Superman when propositioned once upon a time), ultimately adopts, the other Justice League members, in the end, fostering the other empowered animals from the shelter. Overall, this was a fun rewatch that I enjoyed far more than most entries of the DC Extended Universe, which may have had to do with the animal cast. The tone is light-hearted, enforced by the nonstop humor (and while some of it is on the toiletic side, it’s strictly urinal, which was fine by me), and given the post-credits scene, I hope it receives some form of continuation, which I would gladly watch.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Posted on November 17 by Remy St. Gallen

The second animated Spider-Man film gives greater focus, especially initially, to Spider-Woman (or Spider-Gwen) in her respective universe, where she mourns the death of her reality’s version of Peter Parker, who had transformed into the Lizard. In his universe, Miles Morales confronts the villain Spot and encounters an interdimensional organization comprised of countless versions of the web-slinging hero. The various visual styles are trippy, and it does have some commentary about keeping secrets from family, with a good balance of humor and seriousness.

Beastars, Volume 22

Posted on August 26 by Remy St. Gallen

BEASTARS, Vol. 22 by Paru Itagaki
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As with its predecessors, the final installment of Paru Itagaki’s Beastars manga opens with a synopsis of preceding entries and a visual depiction of the dramatis personae. The main action begins with the media questioning a gazelle who claims to be the father of the half-gazelle, half-leopard villain Melon, and proves to be the key to stopping the riots that have ensued around the black market. The gray wolf Legoshi continues to battle Melon, who invites his lupine adversary to kill him. Gosha, the Komodo dragon, recalls his interspecies relationship with his wolf wife, Toki, which included obsessive disinfection given his poison.

The citizens get a good view of the black market, with Louis, the red deer, wanting the carnivores and herbivores to glimpse the truth. However, their reaction is surprising as Legoshi and Melon continue their battle, with the underground district changing in recent years. Louis wants to involve himself in his friend’s battle, with Melon doubting that carnivores and herbivores will never be at peace. After the black market turf war, Legoshi prepares to bid farewell to his spotted seal apartment neighbor, Sagwan, who yearns to return to the seas. Meanwhile, Louis must choose between his deer fiance, Azuki, and his school girlfriend, Juno, the wolf.

Legoshi’s relationship with his girlfriend, the Netherland dwarf rabbit Haru, receives resolution, as do many of the other notable characters of the Beastars universe. After the main chapters, Itagaki reflects upon creating her magnum opus, including a deleted scene where Legoshi interacts with Gosha, the giant panda psychiatrist who worked in the black market. Overall, the twenty-second volume nicely resolves the Beastars manga, with the carnivore/herbivore relations reflecting racial tensions in human society. However, the biggest issue remains the absence of any mention of omnivorism, which exists beyond the human world.

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