Alice Hunt – Writer & Creator

Tracy Williams – Current Artist

Aisha Nasir – Prior Artist

Goodbye Chains is an adventure packed webcomic and a funny one at that.  When I heard it was a western comic with a gay communist main character I was intrigued if not a bit baffled.  I’m glad I gave it a chance because I was laughing right from the first few pages. 

Our main characters include Colin Lord, the gay communist who battles against capitalism every chance he gets, and Banquo White, the half Swedish/half Mexican thief who saves his hide early on in the story.  Colin is a highly educated man from Boston and rather happy go lucky (although he’s got quite the itchy trigger finger) while Banquo is more street smart, quite ornery and definitely hot for the ladies.  How these two managed to partner up and NOT kill each other is beyond me.  Either way, the fiery chemistry between them is fabulous, fun and funny.

The plot of this story takes place in Colorado in the 1880’s and is really about these two oddballs melding together as partners, mostly in crime but also as friends, albeit reluctantly.  They go through various trials and tribulations, which help them to trust more in each other as time goes on.  But what about the sex? Keep your pants on! This isn’t an explicit webcomic (kind of skips over the details of the sex) although there are sexual situations and yes, there is man on man action.  I won’t give away who’s hooking up with whom but it’s not just Colin and Banquo in the mix.  For you romantics out there, there is a slowly smoldering romance building between two of the characters so don’t feel like it’s all action and no romance.

With this being a webcomic, I’ve adjusted my grading criteria and added “posting consistency” as a grading factor since that can be an annoyance if there is no consistency or it seems uncertain to continue.  This webcomic is at page 243 (1^st act complete, 2^nd act started and will end after act 3) and over the last month has updated twice weekly, either on Monday and Wednesday or Tuesday and Thursday although it states on the site that it is updated Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  I’m assuming this is old information and that it is only twice weekly.  Either way, it seems consistent and long running so no worries there.

If I had to pick one thing that bugged me a little it would be the illustrations or I should say the progression of change of the illustrations throughout the webcomic.  Now, to be fair, there was an artist change after the first 70 or so pages so SOME change is to be expected.  However, there is still substantial change from when the current artist took over to now.  Colin went from scrawny to brawny and I think had the biggest change in his appearance.  I’m sure if one was reading the updates as they came out, the change wouldn’t be as jarring so I can be somewhat forgiving for that but reading two hundred something pages in one sitting did make it quite noticeable. 

Overall, I really love this webcomic.  The plot is very original, very entertaining and quite funny and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed watching Colin and Banquo grow together as friends and partners in the West.  My recommendation? Make this one of your frequently checked feeds.  You won’t regret it.       

Plot = A

Characters = A

Illustrations = B

Sexual Content = C+

Posting Consistency = A-

Final Grade = B+

www.goodbyechains.com

Download Act 1