Blackblood Alliance - Consider It Dead

Before I began, no this isn't another bash Blackblood Alliance post. While I do agree with the majority of the criticism about the webcomic itself, it's not why I'm here.

First of all, if you haven't heard from deviantart, a quick google search, or even the infamous post by Encyclopedia Dramatica, Blackblood Alliance is basically a popular webcomic by Kay Fedwa and E. Siegel. The plot from what I can surmise is about an ongoing war between the sabertooth tigers and the wolves of Inaria. The wolves are losing the war and call aid to their former elite guard known as Blackbloods to aid them. Some of you may be wondering what's the reason for the war between the sabertooths and wolves? And importantly what's in it for these Blackbloods for helping the wolves of Inaria? I honestly don't know, but I assumed that would have been later explained in future issues. But in all honesty at this point, that's a giant if.

Before I explain any further, I'm going to start with something complete different. First, I will give both creators of Blackblood Alliance some amount of credit for making a decent opener and present a scenario that leaves us as readers guessing what's going to happen next based on what they have learned in the beginning. Second, for giving us good artwork, unique designs for the characters, and even most of the panel layouts. However, that's where my praise ends and my criticism begins. First off, most of the characters other than Swiftkill and Bloodspill are flat, one-to-two dimensional characters who have nothing distinct about them personality wise. Some of the dialogue for the characters is formal and slitted. And the pacing itself, while okay in some pages, comes off as too quick. Particularly with pages six and seven, it's still too quick for my liking. Why not have an extra page in-between the pages actually revealing the two sisters Swiftkill and Bloodspill and show them tackling the scouts? This way it won't seem too abrupt rather than having the "Meanwhile" caption, which really screams laziness.

While all three points are personal nitpicks of mine, one particularly beats them all out. I was hoping that many of the issues would be resolved in future pages, so far I've been disappointed. It's been since the beginning of July when page eleven of issue two came out. Where the hell is the next page? It's almost the end of November and we haven't had a page in almost five months? If you haven't guessed it, one of the biggest problems with the Blackblood Alliance is inconsistent and bordering-on painfully long updates. Multiple times Kay says (on her deviantart page) that she'll update the comic regularly and yet she hasn't. Repeatedly, this is due to some major events in her life and I'm sorry for being insensitive for saying this, it has become quite possibly a lame excuse. I have teachers, sequential art teachers mind you, that not only have their teaching jobs but also juggle their families, jobs from major publishers like Oni Press, Dark Horse, and Marvel, and even their own side projects. Grant it with their side projects and their job at the comic book publishers (whether it is writing, penciling, inking, coloring, or all four, perhaps more) there might be delays, but generally all of them try to get their work done as quickly and effectively as possible. I understand this is a hobby for her, but for god's sake, her readers are counting on her to advance the story and so far, she's not doing a very good job. At this point until she has fully get her life on track (supposedly), she might as put the comic on an indefinite hiatus and work a way into having regular updates again.

And this hiatus wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't for this one thing that lead me to speculate she's not taking the comic seriously anymore. On the official website for the webcomic, the most recent updates in August mind you were about having more figures of her characters Swiftkill and Bloodspill for sale as well as an near completed online game. So let me if I got this straight--Kay's selling off the figures of her two characters as well as helping to develop an online game for her Blackblood Alliance universe while issue two of the comic itself has barely been completed. UGH, logic fails me here! J.K. Rowling and Jeff Smith were thankfully not anywhere near this level of stupidity (sorry for being harsh, but it's the truth). At least they waited awhile to see if their books were sell well before even considering grant the okay for licensing merchandise relating to their respected characters and universe. What Kay here is doing to promoting merchandising for a comic that only a small a small following of people know and not even focusing on the advancing the plot and wait out for at least a few more issues. Yes, one can agree about tie-in materials such as for majority of the Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and such comics and even the movies, but here's the thing--most of these particular tie-ins came from sources that were already well established and therefore a lot of people know them. With Blackblood Alliance, only a small following on deviantart know about the comic. And yes, I don't think it was meant to be an all around commercial success, but hey, at least webcomics like The Meek and The Phoenix Requiem, both creators were smart enough to keep things simple if only to see if their comics would be well received and then make the choice of whether or not to publish their comics in print form and/or have merchandise for sale.

My general advice to Kay if she really wants Blackblood Alliance to be a success and taken seriously: stop focusing on merchandise and creating games and start working on advancing the plot and developing her characters, and get your life on track to focus more time on updating regularly. If she can't do that, then I'm sorry to say this comic is a dead project and is not worth your time. Instead focus your attention on good webcomics that at least try to update as frequently as possible and have distinct characters and are further along plot wise. My recommendations: Wurr and Off-White.