Demon's Mirror
is a fantasy webcomic written by Harry Bogosian. It began in 2013 and ended in 2015, totaling some 350 pages. Harry then proceeded to make a comic called A BETTER PLACE, which turned out to be a Stealth Prequel.
The story is a reimagining of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen. A demon named Cezar is tasked by his master with the delivery of a cursed mirror to Heaven. However, the mirror unexpectedly explodes, and its shards embed themselves in a human named Kay. Kay is then abducted by the enigmatic Snow Queen, prompting his friend Gerda to set off on a journey to find him - but the demons are after him as well.
A backup of the comic can be found here. On 22nd of July, Harry started reuploading pages daily to a new website partnered with Hiveworks starting from here, and ending a year later. The reuploads also contained added snippets of background lore with The Rant and the announcement of a sequel Angel Orchard which would continue Gerda and Cezar's story.
Angel Orchard would start two days later on the same website starting here.
Demon's Mirror contains examples of:
- Appendage Assimilation: Gerda uses Jahi's severed arm to replace her own missing arm. Nina explains that demonic flesh has a basic will to survive independent of its original owner, and body parts will graft themselves to any living host with an open wound. In the final battle, Gerda tears apart a room full of demonic corpses to give herself a desperate power boost, resulting in her body becoming a hideous mass of stolen organs and limbs.
- Art Evolution: The art style gradually changes over the comic's two-and-a-half-year run.
- Big Bad: The Snow Queen initially appears to be this, but the Master is the true villain.
- Bittersweet Ending: They rescue Kay and bring the Snow Queen to her senses, Nicki is reunited with her long-lost sister and all of the named characters with the exception of the Master survived, but Kay ends up morbidly depressed and resentful of his rescue. Gerda, Kay and Cynthia are irrevocably altered by their contact with magic.
- Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: In the end, Kay wishes he had died beholding the Infinity Brain rather than live knowing he could never see it again.
- Creepy Blue Eyes: Jahi and the Master have them. Gerda gets them when her body becomes more demonic, and keeps them at the end of the comic.
- Cyborg
- Nicky has robotic arms. In fact, all of her body below the head is mechanical.
- The Master has demon cyborgs at his disposal.
- Did Not Get The Guy:
- Distressed Dude: Kay is kidnapped by the Snow Queen.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Crow is a crow.
- Enfant Terrible: Nina is bloodthirsty when it comes to demons and has no problem killing human clones, either. Losing her parents might contribute to this.
- Expendable Clone: The characters don't consider killing cloned guards a big deal.
- Extra Eyes: Cezar and Scrambles each have four eyes.
- Flight: A power possessed by demons and a few other characters.
- Heel–Face Brainwashing: Cezar is mind-controlled by Queen Augustine to serve as Gerda's friend, protector and guide on her adventure. When Cezar is driven to attack his demonic allies, Scrambles realizes what has happened and casts dispelling magic to restore his sanity.
- Living Weapon: Beckett carries a disconcertingly toothy sword that can bite.
- Lovecraftian Superpower: It starts when Gerda takes Jahi's arm as her own, declaring her decision to take the strength she needs so she can rely on herself. But it really becomes a textbook example when she's trapped with a lot of freshly dead demons, she's wounded, and demon parts can be attached to a human if they have open wounds... Next time we see her only her head looks remotely human and she's driven solely by the need to find Kay. It's unclear whether her berserker fury is caused by the assimilated demon bits or if she decided to take them because of it. Later, once she passes out from exhaustion, almost every bit rejects her and she needs intensive care and some cyborg alterations.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: The Snow Queen turns out to be Nicky's long-lost sister, assumed kidnapped and killed by the demons.
- Made of Explodium: The Mirror of Perception explodes for no apparent reason.
- Magic Kiss: The Snow Queen uses a kiss to control Kay's mind and later to put him in a stasis.
- Magic Mirror: The Mirror of Perception causes anyone who touches it to see the flaws of anything not perfect.
- Magic Staff: Queen Augustine has one, which she uses to mind-control demons. She eventually gives it to Nicky.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Nicky has six mechanical arms which she uses to channel magic.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Nicky is a cyborg witch.
- Punch-Clock Villain: In general the demons, despite devouring humans, come across as disposable pawns of the Master who've been taught that humans are lesser rather than wholly malicious or mindless monsters. Cezar even befriended a human and taught her some magic, and was very upset when she was taken away and experimented on.
- Reality Warper: The Infinity Brain makes the Snow Queen one when it's completed.
- Recycled In Space: It's The Snow Queen in a setting with demons, witches, and advanced robotics.
- Robe and Wizard Hat: Nicky's usual attire.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Augustine leads an army against the Snow Queen.
- Schizo Tech: There are swords, cyborgs, and carriages pulled by robots.
- Tainted Veins: Kay gets these after being infected with the mirror shards.
- Tele-Frag:
- In her first appearance, Nicky teleports Cezar into to a rock, but he blasts his way out and is fine.
- Jahi is bisected when Gerda shoves a magically-packaged furniture set into her chest maw, which unfurls into a full dining room table when the demon bites down it. While Jahi survives the injury, she's reduced to a one-armed torso until she eventually regenerates.
- Took a Level in Badass: Gerda is able to fight after she attaches Jahi's arm to herself. She gets even stronger when she incorporates more demon parts.
- To Serve Man: Demons eat humans.
- Was Once a Man: The Snow Queen is a human who was modified by the Master.
- Working with the Ex: Cezar and Jahi are shown to be bitter exes, and are forced to work together by the Master after Scrambles is incapacitated by the exploding mirror. It's eventually revealed that they broke up because of Cezar's friendship with Cynthia, which the Master had outed to the school and presented as humanophilia. They manage to reconcile by the end, however.
- World of Badass: Most all the characters can fight. The ones who can't quickly learn or wind up dead.
