Why I Read: Stupid Snake

This week’s “Why I Read” webcomic review is brought to you by John Kratky of Coffee Time Comics.  He’s starting a similar style review blog called “Read This Webcomic“, and has agreed to let me repost them here in the “Why I Read” format 🙂 This review originally appeared on his blog here.

Synopsis:

We live in a world of noise, chatter, and a constant dialogue. In a time where access to media is a simple click, we (as in me, I can only really talk about my experience) never seem to get silence. So when they say “silence is golden”, which may be a cliché but it is also truth, it’s an understanding you’ll come to that much easier by reading the comic Stupid Snake. Stupid Snake is a long-form story told without a single word bubble (though the occasional image bubble, but it’s never overused, and I feel always used correctly). The only reading you’ll be doing here is through the pacing, action, and expression of the panels & characters. As a guy who writes comics, I look at this as an accomplishment. I’m not sure I could sit down and write something as long as this story solely by describing the imagery within the panels. This type of writing seems more the task of a single creator and not a team, as is the case with Stupid Snake’s creator, Aviv Itzcovitz. I’d actually love to learn about his process in creating this comic. Was there a script? Or did he write by roughing out the panel set-up?

Back to the silence. Although I love writing dialogue, I’ve found the art of silence to be a great opportunity as imagery is what comics is all about. You should be able to look at any comic and get the gist of what is going on without actually reading words. You might not get all the context, and sometimes imagery contrasts with the words being said, but generally, you understand what is happening within the story. That’s because a simple look can tell the tale of a desperate human being, or a simple action can foreshadow things to come. The spacing of panels, the lack of panels, using a splash page, or having a ton of panels can build atmosphere and pacing. These are ideas that people intuitively know. A first-time reader of comic will understand this immediately because this has been ingrained in our minds through centuries of storytelling through pictures. Usually this kind of storytelling is for shorter stories, but that isn’t how Aviv sees it. His vision was big. Hundreds of pages big. Stupid Snake is a silent comic, the art is even muted to black/white/grey tones, and is the first of its type that I have read at such length (and the first on my new Kindle which may be the easiest way to enjoy a webcomic). So finally, here is why I recommend Stupid Snake.

Why I Like It:

The story takes place in an original fantasy world and tells the seemingly separate stories of many characters who remain nameless, even in the Characters section of the website. You can almost consider the characters in this story a puzzle. We are often introduced to them in the middle of their story: a starving man in a troll costume, a lovelorn four-eyed pterodactyl man, and a dwarf who rides a duck are just a few. And of course the mysterious stupid snake. These characters are very much distinct from each other, and we immediately know that the world they live in is vast to house such a variety of interesting people and creatures. When doing any comic you have to design much of the personality right into the look of the character, but I would say this is especially important with a silent story. You need clothes that tell us how they live, and an expressive face that tells us everything else. You can also use their look to work against type. Your first reaction to the look of a character may not actually be who that character is inside.

Take the man in the troll suit, he’s scrawny, unshaven, beat up, and his suit looks on the verge of falling apart. Initially, I thought this character was a weak loser type. I mean, it looks as though he’s been out in the woods for some time and he hasn’t figured out how to catch any kind of food. As the story progresses you start to lean that he is a man who has lost much of his identity, and has not been able to get beyond that loss to find out who he really is. All of the characters in the story are on a life-changing journey, even the ones you didn’t expect like the troll under the bridge. For a while, I thought he was just an obstacle for another character. The story is very character driven and much less about plotting. The themes of the piece hold much more weight over the details of exactly what is going on. I’m not saying there is no plot, forward momentum, or climax, because it has all that, but the story plays out in a way that it is largely open to your interpretation. I have a feeling that you could pick it up again and again and get something new from it every time. I would like to get into more detail here, but to say too much might hurt your reading experience.

A lot of the themes are very simple universal truths, confirmations that your own journey in life is important and that there is palace for us all, but you can take it much deeper. Aviv is not only skilled at putting an interesting story together, but he is a very adept artist. Even if black and white isn’t your thing, his pages are very satisfying visual feasts. It’s hard for me to describe the style of his art. It feels very much his own, this mix between very practical, butvery detailed. His focus is almost always the characters, but he never skimps on background sir small details of the world. He uses a lot of texture within his panels and it never feels like too much. His pages have a very balanced feel to them and you get every bit of information you need. You never have to second guess what a character is feeling or thinking because he is also very skillful at presenting emotion. I’m happy that Aviv has chosen comics as an avenue of artistic creation and storytelling. You will not get bored clicking through his comic and only time is your enemy in reading his work (unless you are one of those readers who can put aside hours and hours of time) because you’ll want to keep going. Lucky for us he has put his work for consumption for free on the internet, and this really is what webcomics are all about. This is the type of comic that probably has to be self-published because it is so different. Not that there aren’t publishers that take risks out there, but if more time was put into tracking down a publisher and putting a package together rather than just making it, would Stupid Snake have seen the light of day? Probably not and I’m glad Aviv put his time towards creation. Of course, you can easily help support him by donating or buying the print versions of this comic.

Final Thoughts:

Lastly I would like to say congratulations to Aviv for completing this story. there are mini-comics with an incomplete finish, but the main story is all there. Bringing a webcomic to completion is not an easy task. Whether you do it alone, or with a team, there are a lot of factors against you. Time, money, and motivation just to name a few. For some of us, it isn’t just a hobby, but something we want to do for a living, and for misty of us we will never get there. It will remain something we do without ever gaining a penny from it, but putting a lot of money and years into it. Comics are life-consuming work, and I have a huge amount of respect for those who complete monumental books like Stupid Snake.

Lets hope we see more work from Aviv in the future. If this is it for him, then lets hope he keeps it online for future generations to enjoy.