Broken Frontier

Melody by Ilias Kyriazis is a quest for the greatest song in the world. And though there’s not much to be seen in this latest Zuda winner, it’s already burning up the charts in terms of premise alone. The story follows Mel, a young woman on a quest to find the greatest song in the world. Mel receives part of the rhythm from Robby Caldon – a washed-up pop star trying to sell his soul to a muse, before being struck down when Mel unwittingly interrupts.

Upon his death, Caldon hums some of the song to Mel but she’s not the only one interested in the song. From religious authorities to ad executives, everyone wants a piece of the song, and some – like ruthless ex-spy Damian – are willing to kill for it.

In premise alone, Melody is definitely one of the more original supernatural thrillers out there, but in art and execution, the webcomic is fantastic. From the appearance of the lightning bolt-like muse to the beautifully-rendered state of mind the song produces, Melody is hands-down one of the best illustrated webcomics on Zuda. There’s only nine pages posted so far, but Melody has certainly set the standard pretty high. The exposition is intercut through the perspectives of an ad executive, several priests and even a President desperate for re-election – each with their own different uses for the song. The current story ends with Mel setting out to find Caldon’s former band-mate for some help. Excellently-paced and brilliantly original, Melody is a definite must for any mainstream comic book fan.

Zuda’s other winner Celadore is also off to a great start, although the plot is a little bit less clear than Melody. The story starts off with a quintessential female vampire slayer named Celadore, who interrogates vampires with a water gun bought at Target – and filled with Holy Water.

Unfortunately, Celadore is ambushed by her arch-enemy the vampire Christian and his mystics. Her soul has been ripped from her own body and transplanted in the previously comatose body of eleven-year old girl Evelyn Massery. All the while, the understandably angry Celadore is haunted by the displaced soul of Evelyn. That’s about it – but isn’t that enough?

The pacing is exciting, the characters engaging and the synopsis alone worth buying at a local bookstore. Unfortunately, we just haven’t seen most of the involved characters yet, so its hard to judge the real tone and direction Celadore will take. While Melody has shown the view from the top, Celadore has started from the ground up – and firmly established Celadore has one heck of an attitude. The possibilities of where it goes from here, and how Celadore interacts with Evelyn’s ill-suffered parents, are endless. We need to see more to judge, but creator Caanan Grall has succeeded in making us want more – and that’s achievement enough in eight pages!