10-22-05

When Good Isn't Good Enough

I've actually been sitting on this review for a while.  The thing is, I knew when I started doing reviews that I would have to do this one, and I had a pretty good idea what I would end up saying.  I just didn't want to.  I like Elf Life.  I like it a lot.  I also hate it.
          Before you start asking me about my meds, let me explain.  Eric Gustafsen, who writes and draws Elf Life under the pseudonym Carson Fire, is good.  He's very good.  Under normal circumstances, I'd give Gustafsen's comic a short "attaboy" review, slap five stars on the link and drop him into the Honor Roll.  But these aren't normal circumstances, and sometimes good just isn't good enough.
          Because Elf Life is good.  The tale of Baughb the Elf, an ancient hero, Gustafsen's comic follows his trials and tribulations as he emerges from a "Faerie Gate" at the right place but in the wrong time, and his seemingly hopeless quest to fulfill his destiny and save the Elven Race.  It's meticulously plotted, and each of its many characters is true to his or her established personality.  The dialog rolls trippingly off the tongue, and every character has his own unique (although sometimes subtle) manner of speech.  Each panel leads logically to the next, and each page leads to its successor in the same fashion...usually.
            And here is where we run into the greatest difficulty with Elf Life.  The story jumps.  Lately, it jumps a lot.  Gustafsen has always had difficulty with tying off his story arcs.  More often than not, something would happen just as an arc was winding down that sent the comic in an entirely different direction.  For a long time, this was fine, because it always seemed like the story was going somewhere.  Last year, however, the "Baughb's Wedding" story arc, which was begun in 2003 before Gustafsen's hiatus, branched out into a number of equally important arcs all following different guests and members of the wedding party.  Two of the threads were more or less completed, and another begun when, early last year, Gustafsen stopped the story entirely, and, after reworking some of his earlier strips for an upcoming book, he shifted entirely to a "prequel story" that almost immediately became as complex and involved as the Wedding Arc.  More recently, Gustafsen, has switched (yet again), to a series of single and four-panel shorts featuring his "Sprite" character.
          All of this jumping and switching is exacerbated by Gustafsen's inconsistent update schedule.  I started reading Elf Life in 2003 and finished his archive just in time for his hiatus from the comic.  There's a long and ridiculous story in that fun period, but it has less to do with Gustafsen's hiatus than it does with the uproar that commenced when he offered some of his original artwork up to sale while explaining that unless he made some money, he wouldn't be able to maintain his archives.  The short of that tale was that certain persons in the webcomics community took the juxtaposition of those two events as a threat of some kind, and accused Gustafsen of holding his readers hostage.  So, disdaining to defend himself too vehemently against the unreasonable shouts of the rabble, Gustafsen instead took a hiatus from the comic while he worked multiple jobs (so he wouldn't starve or get evicted).  Since Gustafsen's return, the comic's update schedule has been erratic at best.  Mind, I am not finding fault with Gustafsen for this.  Most times that he's had to drop updates for an extended period, he announces that a break will be forthcoming, and generally, these breaks are the direct result of Gustafsen needing to feed himself.  His real life notwithstanding, the comic updates inconsistently, with bursts of daily or semi-weekly updates mixed in with long periods of no updates at all.  If you don't have an update notifier, and you don't check all of your faved comics daily, you may want to give it a pass.
          Despite the excellent characters and story-telling, I'd have long ago dropped Elf Life when the plot-jumping and scheduling difficulties manifested were it not for the artwork.  There are very few webcomic artists who do the kind of work that Gustafsen does.  Not only is it clean and professional looking, Elf Life is drawn in a style that plays well in color, grey-scale, and even newspaper black and white (except the recent sprite strips which rely on manipulated-photo backgrounds).  Even if you don't have any intention of marking Elf Life as a regular read, you should at least go by and stroll through the archives.  And if you like what you see, click Gustafsen's paypal button.  People who do what he does as well as he does shouldn't have to make apologies when they ask to be paid for their work, nor should they have to interrupt that work to support themselves doing something else.

Elf Life by Carson Fire (Eric Gustafsen)
Caveats:  Skimpy clothing, implied nudity, inconsistent updates
Rating: