Halo_Ja

May 20th 2008

Halo_Ja is a wonderful example of the comic arts. StplMstr, has taken an understated approach with color, using all soft pastel blue and pink figures set onto a more neutral cardboard beige. Even the lineart is taken down into a more friendly chocolate brown, rather than the typical harsh black. Space is broken up by the white of the page gutters, and by figures and type being allowed to break the frames, giving dynamism to images that would otherwise have been so soft as to create a loss of visual focus. Instead, the viewer's eyes are kept active, allowing a full appreciation for the cute, quirky drawings and beautiful hand-done typography that make up the story. The pacing is generally relaxed, with a kind of giggling tension flowing through it, until the final revelation of a moment of benign, appreciable culture shock.