Fotis, one of the main characters
Without Moonlight is a war drama set during the Nazi occupation of Greece during World War II, a group of Athenians attempt to resist the enemy and pass on vital information that could win the war. Fotis, a young boy who receives a microfilm from an injured British spy, is captured by the enemy as a prisoner of war while his friends and family wage war with the Nazi invaders on their own doorsteps.
Read the comic here
, and see also Brave Resistance, by the same author.
This webcomic contains examples of:
- An Arm and a Leg: Part of Basil's backstory, where he got serious injuries during a mission resulting in an amputated arm.
- Badass Preacher: Yiannis is willing to make enemies of some pretty dangerous people.
- Big Damn Heroes: Basil carving his way through a military post to rescue Fotis.
- Children Are Innocent: The kids sometimes try to exploit this in order to fool the enemy, but with little to no success. In reality, this is averted; given the setting, innocence is a luxury they can’t afford.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Happens to Fotis in the prologue when he's being interrogated.
- Cool Old Lady: Grandma Pelagia and her pleasant but sassy personality.
- Cultural Translation: In the English version, Yiannis's accent is rendered similarly to rural/mountain American English, and he's native to Crete, a place with many similar cultural stereotypes to Appalachia and the Ozarks.
- Dark Is Evil and Dark Is Not Evil: Characters wearing black in the comic are frequently associated with death, but it's used equally for murderers, people in mourning, and people helping the bereaved.
- Death of a Child: First with the kids in the unnamed family during the block, then with Anna. It is WWII, after all.
- Defiant Captive: Fotis refuses to talk, despite everything he goes through. He even tells off Arthur when he tries to ply him into confessing, calling him out on the Nazis' hypocrisy.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: At the end of chapter 3, Raban dies in Arthur's arms.
- Elites are More Glamorous: Averted. The two we see are a harassed middle manager and a wannabe Man of Wealth and Taste, with desk jobs.
- Every Scar Has a Story: Basil got his facial scars from a mission he doesn't want to talk about.
- Foil: Yiannis and Bohm. Both wind up in charge of prisoners, both effortlessly see through people (although Bohm's arrogance gets in his way at times), and they both wear black to work. They even look pretty similar.
- Funetik Aksent: Father Yiannis seems to have a more rustic accent than the rest of the cast.
- Good Shepherd: Yiannis is kind, nobody's fool, and basically the Team Mom to an entire neighborhood.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Martha can pick off her targets even with a scopeless rifle.
- Kid Hero: Reconstructed. While the kids shouldn't be in this situation and forced into taking on the roles they do with occasional sides of Troubling Unchildlike Behavior, they do some undeniably heroic things, Fotis especially.
- Kill the Cutie: Anna gets shot in the head during a raid.
- Last Words: Raban says "Every single one of them is the enemy" right before he dies.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Basil when carrying a badly hurt Fotis out of the building and meets Arthur.
- Arthur when realizing several of his fellow soldiers are likely already dead, including Raban
- People of Hair Color: Nicely averted. The ethnic groups shown have a realistic range of appearances.
- Scenery Dissonance...the comic. It's a dirty war taking place in some of the most beautiful tourist hotspots of Greece in spring. You do the math.
- Those Wacky Nazis: A dead serious example. The Nazis are occupying the area and treat the local people with smug disdain at best.
- Plot Device: The microfilm holding important information for the Allies to use against the Nazis.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Some of the Nazi soldiers are portrayed as merely doing what they do to serve Germany.
- Shown Their Work: There is an impressive collection of historical context and background information accompanying the comic. It’s not necessary to read it in order to understand the story, but it does shed more light onto some of the more obscure elements of the setting.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Turns out randomly beating up a teenager into an alternate state of consciousness isn't actually that effective of a way to find a tiny object in a big city.
- Translation Convention: Different languages are signaled by different font colors. Most of the dialog is understood to be Greek, but for the benefit of the audience, it’s all written in English.
- We ARE Struggling Together: There is abundant bickering within the Greek Resistance, and Basil doesn't trust it enough to join.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Raban and Arthur are this, being Nazi soldiers who don't especially like what they have to do, but feel it's for the greater good.
- World of Badass: In a setting where war and death is a constant threat, even the kids have to be pretty tough.
- Would Harm a Child: Bohm and his brutal interrogation of Fotis.
