Awww man... I've really let this get away from me! My own fault for not being vigilant.... here, let me roll up my sleeves...
Wonderful, simply wonderful! 😀
Great quality story there, as per usual. 😛
Wouldn't expect anything less from you. 😉
Your compliments and confidence are heady, refreshing brew, Buddybob! A bit daunting, as well... you make me abundantly cognizant of my storytelling responsibilities. Just as I ought to be, in fact, with so much tale left to tell! Thanks so much for the boost! I'll do my very best to maintain whatever standards I've established!
Wow! After the long wait for the previous chapter that was really fast! And awesome! I just finished reading this new installment, and yet again I must say this story is getting better and better (an darker -which I like 😉 ) The timing and rythym is just perfect. The panel where the mysterious stranger turned out to be a withered Mercy Mew came as a total surprise (more of a shock, actually -as I was getting really into the story). Your attention for detail is stunning; the market atmosphere in the first few panels is rendered perfectly, the professor-like man selling books, the snake man and his conversation partner, the villagers... there's the turmoil of a typical market scene, yet there's a brooding calm emanating from the shadowed "stranger".
What a surprise to discover the noble knightly "spirit-guardian" is a dream version of Persephone! (a character that I really grown to like)
This chapter, together with all of the previous installments has some of the best drama I've ever seen in a tickling comic. (how sorry one feels for the soul-robbed Mercy, and the relief after she awakes to feel spiritually healed!) While Tickling is one of the main themes of your comic, it goes way beyond it. You have achieved a balance I've rarely seen in any other ticking-comic project. This is what I would call Tickling-Literature. Really, your comics should be published in printed form, Littlebighead! I'd buy them for sure! 🙂
Also I liked the tributes to other artists you've done in this comic. Sammi looks so deliciously wicked I'm tempted to do a Sammi-tribute myself... and katie looks fantastic too (along with the one socked foot -great attention to detail!!)
I'm really looking forward to the next installment... I bet It'll be even better than this one! 🙂 🙂 (it always gets better and better 🙂 )
Thank you for sharing this wonderful story with us, Littlebighead!! 🙂
Good heavens, Scav! What a wonderfully thorough assessment! It's enormously gratifying to think that so many of the details in this chapter, ones which I wanted so desperately to work, have worked so effectively for you! The emotional investment, in particular... that's the crowning success! It's so heartening to hear the concern you express for Mercy! It's the very best reaction I could want! And your in-depth examination of mood... you've enunciated these details with more expert insight than I ever have, even during their creation! Thanks so much for the "literary" allusions... that's certainly what I've striven to achieve. I see the Low Roads not so much as a Tickling Story, but as a Fantasy/Adventure story in which the intrinsic element of tickling provides a pit-of-your-stomach frisson... a spice to add distinctive flavor. Not all elements of the plot need be slaved to the fetish (a good thing, then, that the story is so lengthy! Plenty of opportunities to slip fetish material into inconspicuous crannies!) And I'm so pleased you've come to identify with Persephone! While turbulent, petulant, self-willed, flawed Mercy is the story's focus and will receive the lion's share of the attention, the unbending, disciplined (and likewise flawed) Sephie is no less integral to the stories developing themes; she, in fact, is the character I like most, despite her autocratic manner. Upcoming revelations will, I think, soften any harsh assessment of her character... at least make her motives easier to understand. Both ladies must grow a great deal toward the end, each in their individual way. Man, I've really begun to gabble now, but your enthusiasm's got me a bit jazzed! Thanks a million, Scav! To have my contributions taken so seriously means the world to me!
I can't wait for one of these to come along...
You know what this is, at least partially? New England Gothic, Hawthorne- and Irving-style. The forest of nocturnal autumn seals it, I think, though I could be wrong. Love the Sammi-cammi...o... annnnnnnd... I'm sure you've heard this before but your style brings to mind Fleischer and, even more, Felix the Cat. That sort of vaguely nightmarish 1930s style... you can see echoes of it in R. Crumb's work, too.
Anyway... this is great. Can't wait for the next chapter. 🙂
Brad, the thick deciduous forestry of autumnal New England is
precisely what I had in mind for the Gloominvald! You've hit the nail square on the head, even though I've gained my sense of potent rural east-coast imagery from H.P. Lovecraft, more so than Hawthorne or Irving. You're quite right too about the influence of early cartoon styles on my own. As I grew up in the late '50s/early '60s, such fare was an inescapable staple of kiddy TV broadcasting! Particularly the Fleisher stuff and early Merry Melodies... it had a lasting effect! The gritty Robert Crumb style is also a great favorite of mine, though I came across his stuff a bit late for it to have been very influential... I suspect our respective styles must spring from similar inspirations. Regardless, thank you for the kudos and the spot-on insight! I'll get Chapter 8 out as quickly as possible... I want to have at least one more finished before the hot weather sets in and I slow waaaaay down....
Props for the Sammi cameo ^^. It's nice to see Mercy actually catching a break, albeit it is now from the frying pan and into the fire ^^
Very nice of you to say so, Abadon! Many thanks for your compliments! Though, any success for the Sammi cameo derives from Sammi's acumen in creating a very well designed character which I've done my best to duplicate. And yes, I was pleased to grant Mercy a bit of breathing room... though, as you say, conditional; soul safe, skin still in peril! Oh, there'll be plenty of roller-coaster ups-and-downs for our plucky heroine yet! I'm sure none of us would have things any other way!
Brad beat me to the Hawthorne-Irving comparison, but it holds true. Excellent work, LBH!
Thank you, Hawkeye! I know... the Gloominvald setting sends out distinctively east-coast vibes (nothing about it suggests the more open, airy environs of my native California), one I could only have earned through literature or visual media, as I've never visited the New England states. And while my familiarity with Washington Irving is limited, one need only have read "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" once for it to leave a lasting imprint! Excellent authors are a common bond for us!
I can tell you right now that you can do whatever you'd like with this one. No need for any sort of permission. If you feel like using me, use to your heart's content (Sounds naughty. 😛).
My thanks HDS! I deeply appreciate the confidence, and I have an keen cameo idea that should thoroughly justify it! No hints, then... I'll let surprises develop as they may!
Hey !!, excellent labor !!, nice artwork, beautiful scenarios, really well done drawings, good narrative and dialogues, in few words, fantastic job !! 🙂. I'd like to talk you about some things that i haven't totally clarified yet, you're the creator, so that you'll can explain them in the best way !! 😉😀.
I'm delighted so many aspects of this story have worked so well for you, Cos! I know that much in it is still mysterious... even to me! I haven't worked out all the plot kinks yet, but am fully confident that I'll bring the tale to a satisfactory conclusion (a few years down the line, probably. The
Low Roads has a loooong history ahead of it!) Till that time, I'll be pleased to clarify any aspect of it I can, any time I'm able! Thank you for taking so much interest!
