n the year 2040 the world of today has become dominated by a huge, totalitarian, "mediatech" empire called ZoneWerks, commanded by the megalomaniacal Ty Harden. Only a small band of rebels is willing to oppose Harden's tyranny, but luckily they have on their side Kia Cross, better known as WhirlGirl, a sexy superhero who likes to fight evil while wearing wraparound polarized shades and scant else. Cross struggles to keep the different sides of her life--relationship, career, superheroism--in balance, but her spirit is indomitable. Wisecracks are, perhaps, her most important power.
WhirlGirl is a Web-based comic published in weekly episodes. It is designed with television-top Web browsers in mind, but can be viewed on any graphical browser, and comes in both "lean" and "loaded" versions. The difference is that the loaded version has larger pictures, plus music and sounds.
Each page contains a single frame of the comic, which is drawn in fairly traditional superhero style: in color with some added computer art effects like lens flares. The dialog appears below the frame, so no speech balloons clutter the picture. Every page also has either a looped sound effect, such as a scream, or a snippet of music by the band Halcion.
A Gen X Star Wars with Ted Turner as Darth Vader
With its combination of text and graphics, the Web seems like it would be the perfect medium to publish comics, but such endeavors have always been crippled by scanty bandwidth. The folks at Visionary Media clearly understand this, and they have worked very hard to make WhirlGirl a satisfying experience. In the lean version, each frame is only around 13K and downloads in a jiffy. Even so, they have upwards of 35 thousand colors, creating smooth gradients and sharp visual impact. With a monitor set to a resolution of 640 x 480, the frames are big and easy to make out, and even at 800 x 600 they are quite distinct. Users who connect to the Web by modem should try out the loaded version first, as even it downloads fairly quickly.
The sounds add to the feeling of being immersed in this future world, although the endless looping can become a little annoying after a while. The art is high quality, equal to or better than print comics, and uses dynamic, exciting composition. It would be nice, though, if the "next page" button were on the bottom of the pages, instead of the top.
As for the story, only the first episode has "aired" so far, so it's too early to make a strong judgment. Episode 1 has a little action, a lot of setup, and loads of snappy one-liners. The whole rebellion thing isn't too original, but in this case it's implemented with very creative characters and setting. All in all, WhirlGirl has the potential to develop into an energetic and lively story.
