Broken Frontier

Those of you who have read my reviews any length of time will know two things. One, I tend to like Dominic Deegan a lot, and two, I seem to have an opposite reaction to The Dreamland Chronicles.

It’s not that I don’t like Scott Christian Sava’s CGI webcomic opus The Dreamland Chronicles. It’s certainly one of a kind; a hallmark of professional quality webcomics. It has a good story, great characters and an engrossing and dynamic look. But for everything it has going for it, I still find flaws which I believe need correcting for The Dreamland Chronicles to reach its full potential.

But that’s old news – here’s what’s new. The Dreamland Chronicles is breaching into some entirely new territory. And while this new territory might conflict with the basics of “suspension of disbelief”, it does raise quite a few interesting points in this whirlwind webcomic fantasy. For the entire webcomic, protagonist Alexander Carter has been alternating between real life and the fantasy adventure of Dreamland. Now, however, all of his adventures are about to land under the microscope of modern psychology.

Through his skeptical friend Nicole, both Alex and his brother Daniel are forced to defend and perhaps even question their earlier presumption of the nature of Dreamland: is it real or imaginary? Perhaps most interesting, Nicole actually finds a historical basis for thieving cat-girls in the Greek philosopher Artemidorus, who commonly interpreted cats-as-thieves in many such dream analysis. Suddenly Alex’s Dreamland Chronicles (and much of fantasy webcomicdom) start showing cracks under the microscope.

Still, I like that Daniel provides the funniest – and best – defense of Dreamland so far: do you really think Alex, described as over-confident, self-centered and simple-minded by even the author, can come up with all of this on his own? Though I’m sure Nicole has similar comeback probably to do with mass hysteria or contagious delusions, it does raise a good point about the level of detail in Alex’s extra-curricular activities.

My biggest problem with Dreamland Chronicles remains the hook, or lack thereof. It just seems Sava doesn’t always have a good way to end the strip interestingly enough to keep want the reader glued to the strip. Like when Nicole first mentioned Artemidorus in one-work ending of the strip, we’re curious who Artemidorus is, perhaps intrigued, but not necessarily hooked. Even page needs to cement the reader into coming back for more. It’s hard to do consistently, but it’s an absolute must in this medium.  

Ultimately, The Dreamland Chronicles is showing a lot of originality in raising these questions so late into the narrative. Most fantasy stories just let “willing suspension of disbelief” kick in and all traces of doubt or rational simmer out of the pot as it starts to boil. This could lead to an extremely interesting conflict, if Alex starts to doubt the existence of his fantasy friends when they need him the most. By setting modern psychology against amazing fantasy, The Dreamland Chronicles is really starting to branch into uncharted territory.