Why are we scared again?
Prague Race, aka Prace, is a defunct webcomic "about friendship and adventure", by a Finnish artist Petra Erika Nordlund, better known as LEPPU. Its update rate was somewhat irregular.
The story (not counting the prologue) begins when Leona, a jobless belle, and her neurotic friend Colin buy a poster labeled "Prague Race" from a strange shop that is manned by even stranger people. Soon enough odd roach-like creatures start appearing all over Leona's apartment and the group of friends (with gentle animal-lover Miko completing the Trio) find themselves involved with weird shenanigans that surround the shop, and the "other side" that it appears to be a portal to.
The author's DA and Tumblr account are filled with sketches and additional art that promise a lot for the story to come. Leppu's DA account is here
and her Tumblr account is here.
CoLab HQ has started a let's read.
The comic moved from Smack Jeeves to its own site before Smack Jeeves shut down.
In 2021, the comic was taken down by Petra, who expressed no desire to finish it or leave it up for reading. And so they could focus attention on their other comic, Tiger, Tiger. The url has since been taken over by an online comics store.
This webcomic contains examples of:
- Action Girl: Sela, the shop owner. If the scars are anything to go by.
- All There in the Manual: The author's DA account contains many doodles and sketches that promise a lot of the story to come.
- All Trolls Are Different: The actual, Scandinavian, horns and cow-like tail type. Not the internet one.
- Alternate Universe: The magical world where trolls and other creatures come from.
- Art Evolution: The art isn't at all bad to begin with but as the comic goes on, the style gets more fluid and the character designs evolve.
- Artistic Licence – Biology: One of the werewolves is a hyena, even though hyenas aren't actually canines.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Miko is a Gentle Giant, a Supreme Chef, and a Friend to All Living Things. He is also trained in martial arts and can take on people much bigger than him.
- Bland-Name Product: Banana Computers instead of Apple.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: The writer is Finnish so it is bound to happen once in a while. You can still understand it but occasionally there is an awkward grammar problem.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: The patrons at Fatta Morganna find a kidnapper's motivation to be a heartwarming tale of love when they hear that someone made an ill advised attempt to gain some money for their partner and lost their voice and now their partner wants to kill Colin and cut out his heart for a spell to regain it. So they have no issue with a murder so long as it regains the voice of the murderer's significant other.
- Cats Have Nine Lives: Played with. Death is attracted to cats because they have nine deaths.
- Cheshire Cat Grin: Toska gives one almost constantly. It's the first hint that something is... off about him.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Toska, the man from the shop. So much. For example, when Toska is fighting Miko, he complains that he shouldn't be losing because he was made to kill. Miko points out that the difference is that he has actual training while implying that Toska is animalistic and clumsy. Toska then asks for training despite the fact that he already told Miko he's trying to murder him. Miko is flabbergasted.
- Cool Airship: The Vivencia, a huge sailing ship that flies. Also a venue for legendary parties.
- Cow Tools: Sela's shop is chock full of strange things, some of which can be identified like suits of armor and masks and some of which can't even by those trying to sell them.
- Death of a Thousand Cuts: A thousand punches. Although Toska doesn't die from it.
- Disney Death: Colin was eaten by a supernatural shark. The strip for the actual scene is blacked out. Since it's a main character we're talking about, it doesn't stick.
- Fanservice: Every now and then on the author's accounts. There's also that shot of Leona's bare back... And also with Sela's cleavage later on.
- Foe-Tossing Charge: Inverted with Toska and Miko. Toska does the charging and ends being the one tossed.
- Forced Transformation: Leona has Miko turned into a werewolf in order to save his life. He's initially quite bitter about not having been given a choice in the matter, but later seems to come to terms with it.
- Friend to All Living Things: Miko, to a fault. Toska uses it against him by throwing the Conecow at him as a distraction then tackling Miko.
- Invisibility: There's an apparently empty shelf in the shop labelled "Invisible Stuff".
- Jar of the Bizarre: Amongst the many strange items in Sela's little shop that wasn't there yesterday there is a sealed jar with some kind of dead bird-like thing inside it.
- Losing a Shoe in the Struggle: In chapter 2, Colin is eaten by Fishsticks, an oversized walking shark, and is presumed dead. The creature hawks up one of his shoes so his friends can be tracked by it's scent. Later on, in Chapter 4, Colin is vomited out into the magical world and, of course, one of his shoes is missing.
- Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Colin repeatedly says this about Leona. For example, Leona first buys a creepy poster and later she excitedly claims that they should kill Toska with the silliest grin on her face. It gets worse: with even bigger grins, Leona threatens to attack the crew of the Vivencia or even crash or burn the ship to get Colin back.
- Prolonged Prologue: The comic takes its time setting up characters and their relationships to one another before throwing us into the actual plot of the story.
- Pun: Pam, the lead werewolf, loves inflicting terrible puns on people. At least the were-hyena laughs.
- Shout-Out: There are a ton of these in Prague Race, as the author is known to include inside jokes and even her friends' characters (or characters from her other projects) in her works.
- "Little Shop of Rare Goods".
- The Deathly Hollows symbol appears on one of the books in the antique shop.
- Sela's antique shop also contains a stuffed crocodile holding a clock in its mouth that looks rather like a smaller version of the crocodile clock tower from Hook
- Pearl is one of the patrons at Fata Morgana.
- The Slacker: Tahvo, who according to his official cast page "works at the Rehoming Center for the Accidentally Immigrated, where he spends his days trying to avoid doing anything."
- Slice of Life: The story takes its sweet time to get on to the more fantastic stuff, so most of the comic so far is mostly about a group of friends eating pancakes and throwing out the trash.
- Weak, but Skilled: While Miko is strong for a human, he is weak compared to Toska, a minor Humanoid Abomination. However, Miko easily bests Toska in hand-to-hand combat because he has actually trained to fight.
