Mind Control Comics Forum

So, now's your chance! Through the end of the year, we'll be taking votes for everyone's favorite comics for 2010. You can vote for up to three. Once the poll has expired, we'll announce the winners.

And thanks, everyone, for a great 2010!

I noticed The Green Sign didn't make the ballot  :(

Whoops, fixed!

You didn't put Mommy Issues or Go Forth and Multiply up either.

Three?  Yikes!

See, this is peculiar.  Ellspeth completely turned around Cuckoo's Nest for me.  It was interesting, but her presence and promised return made it really interesting.  Oral Traditions seemed to be a one shot with her that was very entertaining and might hae her loose in modern times.

Should Oral Traditions be combined with Cuckoo's Nest?

I think all Bertram comics have combined into the "Bearing Gifts" vote.

I had a hard time narrowing this to three.

Definitely Hidden Knowledge (my favorite series so far this year)

Ellspeth made Cuckoo's Nest my second favorite comic--which then combines with Oral Traditions (which is why I voted for Oral Traditions).

However, there are a LOT of good comics.

Convent of St. Nicholas, Wedding Ceremony, Homecoming, Bibliomancy, and 4F all look like really interesting one-shots.  St. Nick's is probably my favorite, but, Bibliomancy (or the concept of Bibliomancy) looks like the easiest to spin off.  It looks like "Hidden Knowledge through history."  We could find out who wrote the tome and exactly why, and whose hands the book passed through before Davvid found it in his bookshop.

#4 Pumpkins is really entertaining and looks like it has continuation possibilities.

I'm a sci-fi and Superheroine fan.  Stream and Free Trade Zone both have potential, but you'd really need to see another episode or two to see how they develop.  I tend to like the art for Stream better.

Good People seems like a Fair Folk variation on Martian Harem.  Both are quite strong.

I could go on, but that suppose that defeats the purpose of the poll.

I Really Hope That U Decide 2 Continue The "Bearing Gifts" Series They Were My Absolute FAVORITES!

Most of the stories are good, some are better than others. I really like the stories that are done so the MC content really comes into play early and often. Love to see more soon. I know how hard it is to get the time during the holidays.

Well, THE HIDDEN KNOWLEDGE went in at the top of the list, no contest.

Then.... Well, then it becomes more difficult.

I really enjoyed the BEARING GIFTS stories but we've had an awful lot of them and I think they've  run out of places to go.

I did enjoy THE MARTIAN HAREM and THE GREEN SIGN but I'm less eager for them to continue.

If you didn't bother with any more of CUCKOOS NEST or TERROR IN THE LOST COLONY  I would feel no disappointment.

So I put down FREE TRADE ZONE and BEYOND RUBIES because although I don't think they have much more left in them I do actually want to see them come to a conclusion.

Those are all under the Bearing Gifts series.  Arguably, "Oral Traditions" should be under Cuckoo's Nest, but c'est la vie.

Only 3? It's so hard to choose the top three. There have been some really great ones.

What makes it especially difficult is when individual issues are lumped in to the series. For instance, the rest of the Bearing Gifts story line were good, but no where near my favorite. However Mommy Issues is one of, if not my absolute, favorite issue on the site. But that alone isn't enough for it put the series into the top 3.

On the other hand, several of the ones that just have one issue so far haven't really gotten going enough to be able to recommend them. I had a really tough choice between Drains and Stream. I had to finally give it to Drains though, just because there wasn't as much MC content in Stream (though I think that Stream might have more potential than Drains does).

In the end, my top list would break down like this:
Mommy Issues
Free Trade Zone
Beyond Rubies
Drains
Stream
Oral Traditions
Obedience

What each of these have is something a bit different. Mommy issue has the betrayal, and the BE. Free Trade Zone has an awesome transformation scene (by far, my favorite). Beyond Rubies has some BE, and this slow, unknowing descent. Drains has a hentai feel. Stream has superheros. Oral Traditions has the corruption of one of the girls into being a Mistress over the other. And Obedience has a "surprise" ending, in that, while you knew she was going to be enslaved, you didn't know that she'd already been enslaved right from the start.

Thanks for such detailed feedback!  (In particular, thank you jmundt29 and jlpicrdh; BorisL too, although it sounds like you didn't like anything besides "The Hidden Knowledge." :) )

Given the popularity of the "Bearing Gifts" stories, is that a vote for more "hardcore" MC (in the sense of the MC intensity)?

Might as well give some detailed feedback:

Top 3:
Beyond Rubies, the Hidden Knowledge, and Bearing Gifts.
 
The artwork for Beyond Rubies was fantastically done, and the story was great. It gets the nod over the Hidden Knowledge in large part because the sex scene art was significantly better and not nearly as crowded. I also tend to prefer more subtle MC, which this has to some extent over the Hidden Knowledge and especially over Bearing Gifts. FWIW, Talked Themselves Into It is by far my favorite EMCSA story.

The Hidden Knowledge - has the best story overall. The sex scenes aren't great, as I mentioned, but the concept is a huge turn on, which mitigates that to some extent.

Bearing Gifts was consistently good, excepting Mommy Issues, which I skipped (not an incest guy.) The cover of the first Bearing Gifts is what brought me on to the site.

Contenders:
I could easily have swapped out Bearing Gifts for the Convent of St. Nicholas or Drains. Both had great art and solid stories. I'm not a tentacle guy, so I'd love to see more of the anime art style without the tentacles.

Solid:
Homecoming
Pumpkins
Cuckoo's Nest - the first few issues were slow, but the later ones with the Princess got much better.
Obedience
Excerpts from a Found Travel Guide - very strong story, artwork was very difficult to get into the mood with.
Oral Traditions (not an  FD guy, loved the concept though)
Bibliomancy

Incomplete:
Saint James Infirmary - the scene with the TA was a good start, but we're a few months in and there's been very little action.
Stream - this looks very promising, but it needs another episode or two to fulfill it
Green Sign

Didn't Like:

Art Reasons (mostly that the artwork was too busy):
Signal Failure
4F
Free Trade Zone
Wedding Ceremony
Public Access

Story Reasons:
Martian Harem
Terror in the Lost Colony
Giddyland
Good People (I like the art - just not into fairies).

Overall, I'm torn on the CG vs. hand drawn art. The CG is consistently good - it avoids the lows of hand-drawn, but also the highs.

 

My votes go to the following (with reasons):

Drains: The manga style is different and fun, the brainwashing and action are both hardcore,
          and the mind-control / tentacle genre blend is fertile ground for all sorts of great stories.

Beyond Rubies: The art is ASTOUNDING, the story is evocative and intense, the mind control
                      style is intriguing, and the B.E. elements don't hurt either.

The Green Sign: The setting details are great, the story is complex and engaging,
                       and three little words: STEAMPUNK. MIND. CONTROL.

The Hidden Knowledge comes a close fourth, but in comparison to the above, the mind control
elements and the sex scenes seem a bit abrupt at times - almost "skipped over."

The CG works are also good, but they lack a certain intensity that the 2D artists
bring to faces and actions. The rendered art feels more like sculpture (extremely detailed
and pretty sculpture, mind you) than real events.

In general though I am very pleased with what's been posted, and eagerly await
whatever is to come (as well as the return of downloads!).

OK, so some thoughts on the ones I voted for, and some of the ones I didn't

Convent of St Nick: Nunsploitation--it's a classic for a reason (even if Firefox's automatic spell checker doesn't want to recognize it  :) ), and it was done very well.

Drains: Serial Recruitment, with elements of betrayal are good button-pushers for me.

Terror in the Lost Colony: This, Cuckoo's Nest and Martian Harem are kind of in their own little section, it's hard to compare longer stories to one-shots directly, they're just two different animals.  So I was going to put one of them in, and I just am liking Terror a bit more.  Possibly because I've been following Vice's artwork for years now.

For ones I did not vote for:

Bearing Gifts: There are some sections/panels of some of the stories that I keep coming back to.  However, there are enough fetishes covered that it, unsurprisingly, hit a few I'm not all that fond of.  Also, putting them all into one option tends to remind me of the holes in the overall narrative--the hypnotist goes from creating part-time whores to full time whores to some sort of A-Team-ish troubleshooter in the series.  As one-shots, that's not too much of a problem, he's just Generic Universal Evil Dude, but if you put them all together, then I'm going to think about such things.

Wedding Ceremony: Great writing, could easily been top-three material had the art been salvageable.

Green Sign: I'll probably go back and re-read these when/if the next issue comes out, but I recall being confused as to what, exactly, is going on in the comic. 

Which actually reminds me of a more general point for something I've seen in several comics--there are times where, I think, more care needs to be taken to make sure that the writing doesn't result in more characters than the artists are able to easily distinguish.  Much as I liked Convent, trying to distinguish between the brunettes or the blondes when they were naked was largely an exercise in futility.  It didn't really hurt things there, but I think it has in some of the other stories.

• Terror in the Lost Colony
• Bearing Gifts
• 4F

Free Trade Zone would have been my fourth choice. It was an exceptional comic that was a marked difference from the other styles and stories, practically bordering on Hentai.

Personally, I say absolutely. My top picks are all on there because they feel the most intense.

In Mother Issues, you've got a mother actively helping betray and turn her own daughter, and then the daughter doing the same to her friend afterwords. Free Trade Zone has a dramatic transformation (both mental and physical) from a sort of Han Solo type character to a near bimbo sex slave in just a couple pages. Drains is intense mainly for the method of MC, rather than the results. There are plenty of mindlessly obedient characters on here, but only one hypnotic tentacle monster. Oral Traditions is cool because of the enslaved to be a Mistress concept, more like corruption rather than enslavement, which is one of my personal hot buttons.

Stream and Obedience don't really feel that intense. But I like the theme of Stream, and I like the twist nature of Obedience, where you're waiting for her to be enslaved, only to find out she's been enslaved since almost the beginning of the story.

I encouraged other folks to be more detailed and learned my own response was incomplete.

Personally, I'm not a hentai fan, but the MC as a result of the hentai in Drains looked like it could be quite interesting.  I'm a sci-fi and superheroines fan, but because I'm not a hentai enthusiast, I had reservations about Free Trade Zone (why it didn't make my list), but I'd like to see both develop more.

For whatever personal reason, I found that I wasn't a fan of Bertram's escapades.  Just my loss.  The art was eye-catching, the stories incorporated a variety of elements into his standard MO, but...

The succubus character, her shennanigans and her snarkiness really helped Cuckoo's Nest and the best part of the series so far (although there is great pontential for continuation with our "Time Tunnel Team" as they continue to bump into the nefarious one in their misadventures) was Oral Traditions.

As a superheroine fan, I'd like to see more of Stream, but it feels like we'll need a couple more episodes just to see where it's going.

Terror in The Lost Colony and St. James' Infirmary seemed to suffer from the same problem--they scattered all over the place.  St. James' is rather like your nighttime soap (Melrose, Beverly Hills 90210, etc.) but telling entire episodes in single panels feels like trying to tell original flight 90210 in two minute shorts.  After the first three episodes to introduce the St. James' occupants, we go all over the place on campus for various intrigues and forays and I felt like I wasn't sure who some of the characters we glimpsed were, or how they connected to the housemates, if at all.  With Lost Colony, after they were captured, we had attacks from outside forces, delving into the mental defenses (or lack thereof) of the crew and the story seemed to range all over so that I lost the thread at times.

With the diary format, the dashes of political intrigue and the overlapping mechanics of the MC, Martian Harem is still developing.

Bibliomancy--I realize the monastic inferno look and storytelling format were a nod to the time period in which the prequel story takes place, but the art and narrative of The Hidden Knowledge were appealing and more connectible.

I actually really liked the art on Wedding Ceremony.

I voted for Hidden Knowledge and Beyond Rubies. Definitely the high point of Mind Control Comics so far. Nothing else on the site really even came close.

Ah, so many to choose from. ;D

For me it isn't what is my favorite three, since I like so many for so many different reasons. It is the ones I dislike that stand out.

First the ones I liked:

I picked Hidden Knowledge because of story.  Sex scenes seem to be undeveloped and incomplete but the story keeps you there. The art is good. I want more more and more.

I liked Terror in the Lost Colony, a cliffhanger, Batman and Lost in Space style.  Good artwork.

Convent has great artwork probably best on the site and although not a nunsploitation fan, great story.

I liked Giddyland.  Great story and artwork.  Keep it coming-please, please, please.

Oral Traditions was beautiful and timely.

Bearing Gifts is wonderful. Keep it coming-please please please.

Mommy Issues was also good.  Not into the incest thing, but this was tastefully (tactfully?) done.  I wouldn't mind seeing more.

Obedience was great. I would love to see more. I think this would have made a great illustrated story.

Pumpkins is also a favorite, but too quick.  This should be continued, although you probably already have enough on your plate.

I loved Homecoming.  This should be continued, although you probably already have enough on your plate.

Cuckoo's Nest is fine, last issues took a weird turn, but that can be good.

Wedding Ceremony had a good story, but I am still undecided on the art. 

Martian Harem is okay.  Neither good nor bad.  I will still watch/read it, but would prefer your limited time be spent on other, more needy projects.

Drains, 4F and Green Sign have okay stories as well. Not into tentacles, but I do appreciate it if done well.Waiting for more, but prefer your limited time be spent on other, more needy projects.   (am i repeating myself?)  :)


Now for the three I dislike the most:

Signal Failure.  Not a bad story, but artwork was not my cup of tea.  :P 

Bibliomancy- ugly art. But I love the idea of an illustrated story. That has more potential.  I love to read a story with the illustrations go along with it. Best of both worlds.  (This one just needed better illustrations)

Illustrated Stories are easier on the eyes and mind than trying to keep track of a story in a comic with all of those bubbles all over the place inside the comic. ( Who said that, this character or that character. Did he say that first, or did she? Where am I now?  Gosh, I forgot what the story is about  ) I also love that this is a prequel to Hidden Knowledge and both are based upon a real ancient manuscript.  You just can't make that stuff up!  :D 

Extreme Makeover- A powerpoint presentation?  RU Kidding me?  Maybe its just I have to make those things up all the time for my profession.  But Powerpoint?  Sheesh.   ::)

Seriously, Extreme Makeover was a great idea. It was different and that, in of itself, is a good thing. Possibly if the artwork were photographs instead. Maybe CG? That would be more Hypnopics Collective, but still.  (don't even ask me about the possible legal copyright issues of using photos, that is outside of my paygrade)

In summary:

I like Poser/Computer Generated as well as hand drawn art so neither is a turnoff. I just don't like ugly artwork. 

Bring on more hardcore!  That's what we want!  Just don't forget the story, I think context is important.  Explicit sex is just part of the story, not separate.  But I am probably being greedy.  :)

My main suggestion is that I want to see more complete stories, i.e. completed multi-chapters. Not exclusively, mind you, there is a place for cliffhangers and serials, but just to vary the site content a little. Currently, we have a whole bunch of uncompleted serials going on, no one is really satisfied.  It's like a bookstore, sometimes when you buy a book you want the whole book, not just a chapter at a time.  You want to lay back and read the whole story, especially if it is a good story.  If it is just a single chapter, one off or part of a series, that's wonderful, but every once in a while a complete "graphic novel" would be nice. 

That is my story and I am sticking to it.

My 3 favorite comics are:

The Hidden Knowledge, the characters are well defined and the story is very good.


Bearing Gifts, The whole idea of 1 man being able to wipe women's minds and turn them into SEX ROBOTS for any man's use and pleasure is any man's wildest wet dream.

And lastly, Drains, where a scientist creates a creature that can also wipe a girls mind and make her a slave to that professor, is awsome!!

Bearing Gifts could be made into a movie, when you start to think of what you will do for 2011, Daphne.

Beyond Rubies landed at number 2!

You win this round, Hidden Knowledge!

But it. is. on.

"I didn't hear no bell!" - Rocky

"If you stop this fight I'll kill you." - Rocky
 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

I wish I had seen this thread while the poll was still open.

I would have voted for:

1. "The Hidden Knowledge"--Your best comic.  Great writing, great art, great story.  Kayleigh's subjugation at the end of Part 2 is insanely hot.  Thanks, again, for restoring the ability to download, so fans like me can keep this one.
1a. "Bibliomancy"--I'm regarding this as the prequel.

2. "Beyond Rubies"--also superb in every way.  I like stories where the victims struggle against what's happening to them, and fail.

3. "The Convent of St. Nicholas"--A model of efficient storytelling, along with, again, excellent art.  This website has led me to discover that depictions of a group of naked women kneeling in front of a dominant Master is a turn-on for me.

Honorable mention--

1. "Obedience".  Shouldn't be forgotten.  Like how, as in "Beyond Rubies", the victim realizes what's happening and fights back.

2. "Free Trade Zone".  I like stories about sisters.

3. "Pumpkins".  Only regret is that it wasn't a two-parter alloting more attention to both girls.

4. "4F".  I like stories where the victim knows what's been done to her.

Worst stories (in no particular order):

1.  "Terror in the Lost Colony"--Boring.  Glacial pace.  The last one featured several panels of one victim running while others chased after her.  And the computer modeling style of art suffers badly from Uncanny Valley effect.

2.  "The Cuckoo's Nest"--see above.  Further plagued by the lack of any single story.  Honey just keeps blundering into one MC story after another.  (It is our bad luck that two of the worst comics are also the most frequently updated.)

3.  "Giddyland"--a guy in a bear suit with his dick hanging out is so ridiculous that the mood is ruined.

4. & 5.  "Signal Failure" and "Public Access"--terrible art.



And I'm sorry to keep harping on this, but the insanely slow pace of updates is a big problem with the site.  I might have listed "The Green Sign" as one of my favorites, if it hadn't been abandoned five months ago after only two installments.