Phoenix Everette

Tumblr page:

Now, since this is a comic blog on tumblr, I believe it was worth going into how it manages its presentation, and I'm confident that it has a very well structured profile! The pinned post is very well done, with clear content warnings, easy to access extra content such as character sheets, discord server and the personal blogs of the crew behind the comic. 

One thing that I feel the main profile is missing though is a short synopsis on the story or a sort of welcome message on the pinned post. Something along the lines of “Join the Lost Cure crew on their quest!” or “Will they succeed on their quest and save the world? Join them and find out!” would be enough. I feel that for newcomers that are just getting familiar with the story, getting a bit of a heads up on what to expect will benefit the comic a lot, it doesn't have to be super detailed, just a quick explanation on what this comic has to offer. 

Another small tangent I have is in regards to Dregoons world wiki, I have some mixed feelings about its existence. While I do believe its useful and cool to have a place for others to get to know your stories better, I feel like having to go here in order to understand certain parts of the world building of the comic and such could lead to the feeling of having to do your homework to understand the story and like you have to investigate beyond the comic itself to understand it. It's pretty “Tell, don't show” at first glance, but to its credit, much of the information shared there isn't necessary in order to get a grasp of the narrative in Lost Cure and its more of an extras thing in case you WANT to learn more about the story, but you don't NEED to know any of these things, and if you do then its shared on the comic itself, to which im pretty glad is the case and with that understanding of its purpose, I think Dregoon can get away with it.

The visuals on the profile page of the blog, such as the header, profile picture and decorations on the pinned post, are also very stunning and well done. I find it very appealing how the shades of golden yellow bring everything together and sort of acts like the signature color of the blog. The profile picture is incredibly well done, although I do find it to be a little over detailed for a pfp, since a lot of those details get lost by the image shrinking on the main page and posts, It could really benefit from being more simplified and focusing mostly on the key aspects of it, but overall, the visuals on this tumblr page are marvelous.

Narrative:

The premise of the story is centered around our main cast searching for the cure to the blot, a disease that is a major threat to many toons in this story, in which Boris serves as our main guy to learn from this illness, due to himself suffering from it. In the original Quest for the ink machine, it was Bendy who had the illness in the group, so this change is definitely something note worthy, as of now we haven't seen Boris getting any blot attacks on screen or more focus being put into the blot in general, which is definitely fair considering that the comic its just now on its first steps so I believe that as of now, that aspect can be excused.

Back to the main story, something that surprised me when I read the comic again for this review, is that the comic seemed to have a great focus on Bendy and Cuphead. The entire prologue is dedicated to their first and, as of now, only meeting from when they were teenagers(I presume due to their appearances and behaviors, I'm actually not totally sure on that fact), which I've really enjoyed reading. Bendy and Cuphead have very great chemistry, their bickering is very charming and the more fluffy and sweet moments they share are very heart warming and also I am totally NOT biased because it's bendystraw, I swear Im not you guys gotta believe me plea- /j

I really enjoy how Bendy and Cuphead are set up for the story going forward, although it does give me some concerns. Since Bendy and Cups, from what I have gathered, are set up to be the main two of the cast and how much focus is being put on their relationship, it gives me some worries about the rest of the cast getting kind of side lined. 

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the two of them, if you know me you know damn well im a sucker for bendystraw, but as of now, a big chunk of the story has been dedicated to their relationship and the lead up to their re-union, leaving only a couple of scraps for their brothers and as for Fanny and Felix.. Well they didn't even show up yet(WHICH IS NOT BAD, I LIKE THE BUILD UP). Especially in the case of Boris this concerns me, as I previously mentioned, he's from the get-go set up as the reason and catalyst as to why the premise of the comic takes place, but currently, despite how important he is for the story to just.. work, we haven't learned a whole lot about the guy in a more personal level like with Cuphead or Bendy, which could lead to him ending up being used as a plot device, and especially considering that he's the younger, disabled brother of one of the main characters, that would be pretty bad, to put it bluntly. 

This does not mean that every character that isn't Bends or Cups is doomed for irrelevancy tho, we have seen Boris and Mugman's personality and sibling dynamic with their corresponsive brothers spark and personally I think they're very neat and have enjoyed what we got from them so far, but I do really hope that we get more from them and their personal lives OUTSIDE of their family in the future(which I trust that it'll most likely be the case) and not only have them as the other guys or something like that.

Overall, I think the comic has a very solid start, the style of writing has a sort of essence that reminds me a lot of classic cartoons and anime which I find very endearing and charming. The changes they implemented to the story and characters have so far been beneficial for what it's going for, another thing that I believe it's worth mentioning is Fanny's inclusion on the main cast, which I think it's a great idea! Since she has been done INSANELY dirty on quest and given way too much screen time for an extra character that had no influence on the main plotline, so I believe having her be part of the group is a good way to reverse that damage and justify the attention being put on her, plus more women on the main cast YAAAAAYYYY!!! 

Also lastly, something worth mentioning is that, if you go WAAAY back on the tumblr page, you can find an older version of the comic before the prologue, in which Dregoon has clarified to me that this section of the story is not canon. The story has since been reset and the only canon stuff from the comic, as of now, is the current prologue going forward. This decision was presumably made due to those very early panels being more of a proof of concept than anything and just a way for Dregoon to test the waters. Personally, pre-current canon lost cure it's pretty rough admittedly and to be honest, I'm glad that the creator took the decision to reset the story entirely, but I also appreciate that the former panels were kept intact since I do believe there is some value in them in the sense of seeing how far the comic has come. It's important for everyone to have a baby steps phase when starting a new project, some decide to roll with the old stuff, others just retcon it for the sake of the story they want to tell and their own sanity, to which both are very valid on their own aspects and can definitely work when done right.

Visuals:

Since this is a comic, I'll also be talking a bit about the visuals. Starting with the character designs, I think they're okay but they do feel pretty flat. I completely understand why they would go for a more simplistic approach to the visuals in order to cut time when drawing panels, but I feel like for the most part is kind of difficult to tell what their roles are without having to look at their little character sheets, not to mention the colors feel a bit dim and most of the casts color palettes consist heavily of pure grays and browns, which seems pretty unfitting for a story and characters that are very lively, emotional and cartoony. It's not all bad though, there's some good apples there, a notetable one being Boris's design, I consider it being the strongest out of the cast since it communicates his character and background pretty well and has very nice colors. What I would recommend is to give them a bit more diversity in the way they dress and the colors they have, while also communicating some of their major attributes(Ex: their personality, roles, jobs, hobbies, etc.), the power in simple character designs is on how it tells you so much with so little, so make the most of it! 

Moving onto the comic itself, I like the wacky proportions the characters have to enhance their emotions and the decision to keep it mostly on black and white, only implementing color in certain panels to make them stand out more(I love it when comics do that muehehe), although something i've noticed that was bugging me for the majority of the comic its that the line art is VERY thin, like to the point is difficult to tell what is going on. I have two possible solutions for this issue:

Make the lineart thicker.

Put a gray scale map on the characters to make it easier to make out their figure.

The comic is for the most part drawn by Dregoon themselves, but in recent updates more artists, along with the previously mentioned co-writers, have been taking it up to draw the panels, to which is a very positive change to implement on the production of the comic since it allows for more variety and also for Dregoon to not have to compensate on the visuals too often at the price of getting the updates done sooner. Kudos to the artists for their amazing work!!

Final thoughts:

Quest for the Lost Cure is a comic with a very strong start, great characters and overall a lot of potential for the future. It does have some flaws and concerns but in the grand scheme of things, it's a very solid story and I believe it's worth giving it a shot! 

Dregoon and the rest of the crew have done some amazing work on this and I encourage all of you to go out there and at the very least read through the prologue.

Special thanks to Dregoon for allowing me to write this review and use their comic as my guinea pig for this new blog, I'm really looking forward to writing more comic reviews sooner or later so if any of you have any recommendations for rubber hose media inspired tumblr comics you can drop em in my inbox! 

Peace out!