Review: Ava’s Demon

I am almost certain that whenever I find a new webcomic I love, I tell you guys it’s the best thing in the Universe.

Well, Ava’s Demon IS the best thing in the Universe.

Very similar to End of Infinity, Ava’s Demon has a truly innovative presentation and overall story-telling technique. Instead of getting a succession of panels, we get about one picture per page. This technique works so wonderfully and I’m beginning to prefer it while wondering why more creators don’t use it! Visually it’s easier to follow, and I feel more comfortable pausing to take all the details in versus a multi-image panel where I tend to skip artistic details to focus on dialogue and story progression.

Honestly, the crown jewel for Ava’s Demon are the colors. While the art style is adorable though at times flat, Czajkowski’s colors are pure magnificence. They’re very vibrant, and each person is comprised of so many different hues and shades. Such as when Ava is sent to the principle’s office, which would be completely dark if it weren’t for the bright blue LED lights streaming from the propaganda. Another great use of color was how each character got their own stylized font, which made it easy to follow who was speaking and an overall joy to read.

The plot was slow to unravel – there’s no info-dumping, or flashbacks to fill readers in. In this way, Ava’s Demon is similar to End of Infinity because you discover the events of the world just as Ava is being dragged along. I hadn’t realized how much explaining comics did until I found myself searching desperately for tidbits. Eventually, questions got answered, and I became much more content with how the story continued to unfold.

But how can I skip over la piece de resistence? At the end of each chapter – of which there are currently two – Czajkowski has created short videos that continue the comic’s story. In the first video, we see Ava watching from her planet be destroyed as the ship she’s abroad jettisons off into outer space. Each video is accompanied by a lovely song (no lyrics) that match the contents very well.

Ava’s Demon has a neat feature that I really appreciated: you can use arrow keys as you read which is beyond helpful. I don’t know why more webcomics don’t have this as I’ve found it oddly exhausting to have to click NEXT or an arrow every time I want to head to the next panel.

While this comic is still very new, Ava’s Demon has certainly made it on my “Must Read” list – which is steadily growing! – of all the webcomics I check throughout the week. I hope that you guys will enjoy it as much as I do!