A Matter of Life and Death – Webtoon recommendation

In case this is your first Monday here, every week, I plan to tell you guys about a webcomic I am enjoying so that maybe some of you will discover a story you like. For now, I plan to concentrate on webcomics that are posted by the author and as such completely legal to read for free over the internet.n I may eventually venture into scanslations or pay to read comics if I think something is really worth it but I wanted to give you guys some options that are easy to find and accessible to all. Since a lot of us are still spending a lot of time indoors, it’s a good time to expand our libraries a little with some new reading material.

I was planning on waiting a bit before getting to this one but something happened…

Last week I recommended the LGBTQ+ friendly webtoon High Class Homos and I figured I would wait a bit before bringing up A Matter of Life and Death since it is technically a yaoi title. But I can’t. And this is why.

I actually just discovered A Matter of Life and Death. As in just a few days ago. And I read all 130+ available chapters since then. I love it. I really love the artwork. It’s got fun designs that bring to mind an undated Chuck Jones aesthetic, a deeply shadowed black and white palette and my favourite stylized doodle line work. I love looking at it.

As for the story, what would you say if I said to imagine Neil Gaiman’s fantastic Sandman a little more casual in tone and with a homosexual romance storyline? (I mean Sandman had tons of LGBT storylines but a lot are a bit more tongue in cheek and not as central).

It still has a lot of the grandeur and all the mythological feel though. After all, it’s literally a story about Death falling in love with Life! How more mythological can you get?

And I personally loved it. It does get a bit dramatic at moments but usually, it doesn’t last and that didn’t start until I was so invested in the characters that it felt earned. And like any story with its own Dogma, it does require quite a bit of reading but how is that a bad thing?

I think A Matter of Life and Death is a fantastic webtoon that a lot of my readers would enjoy. But that’s not why I needed to tell you about it right away.

The last available chapter was uploaded in May of this year and it was followed by a heartbreaking letter from the author. It seems she was losing confidence in her art and herself and was starting to doubt anyone still cared about her webtoon. And I absolutely needed to somehow make it known that I still cared. I just discovered it now so I hope it’s not too late but if I had known then, I would have written her right away.

As it is I became a patron and liked it on webtoons. I also felt this huge sense of urgency to let you guys know about it. It’s so sad to see a talented artist lose their passion for their art. And of course, on a selfish level, I would like to see A Matter of Life and Death continue. The story isn’t over and I have grown very attached to these characters. But I understand and respect that solo creators occasionally need to move on to different projects do they don’t burn out.

However, I think it would be dramatic to have such a talented author and artist give up on creating altogether. I don’t really know how to fix that. But I at least had to try in my tiny little way. So this is me trying. I hope you guys enjoy A Matter of Life and Death as much as I did.

I promise a change of pace next week.