Marla by Felise Norris and S. Blake Ervin

                I like graphic novels. There I said it. I’m a nerd. Anybody who writes reams and reams of posts about obscure bands usually is a nerd. Oddly I have not written about a single graphic novel on here. With ‘Marla’ that changes right now. 

                ‘Marla’ is an online graphic novel following the exploits you face after you’ve defeated everything. The characters have won. Evil is defeated. You won. But what do you do after that? Are you willing to do it all over again for mundane, near pointless tasks? Felise and S. create a single minded existentialist graphic novel. It is so deep they need to update it twice a week, on Mondays and on Thursdays. 

                A few characters populate this hand-drawn universe. Hink and Carmickle populate the prequel section. They run about, just trying to survive. Not once do they succeed at anything and they are always chased out of some sad-ass looking village. By the end of the prequel they are tired, hungry and poor, willing to do anything to get some cash flow. In the prologue we are introduced to the question mark ‘?????’ who has conquered death. People appear to be happy about his return. 

                 Colors appear for ‘Act I’. The watercolors look fantastic. While Felise does a great job with the animation in general, the colors announce ‘let us begin’. And boy, do they begin. They begin a storm of fury and wrath unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my short time on this big old rock known as Earth. Some of the bizarre creatures flowing out of Felise’s mind are magnificent.

                Felise Norris is in charge of the animation. I’d heard of her before. A few people told me she’s liked more things on Facebook than anyone they’d ever met. Of course, they were referring to meeting people online. She’s from Brisbane, Australia, and has yet to tour the world off the popularity of her artistic skill. 

                S. Blake Ervin is even stranger. For one, I don’t know his first name. I don’t know why he chooses to be anonymous online. People who are anonymous online confuse me and cause me great distress. Someday I hope to meet him, as he’s from the great US of A, the greatest country ever to grace God’s green-bluish Earth. He is in charge of the strange, morphing plot of this story. 

                Together they’ve created this deeply affecting, weird, and wild comic. I wish I knew how they came to work on this despite the large geographical distance. Guess when you’re that artistically inclined, there ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no Pacific Ocean wide enough.