First post on the art board *UPDATE*...

ShadowBlade

My cousins asked my to do a comic for their site. First time I have ever drawn a comic.

They gave me the premise. I did the pacing and dialogue.

How'd I do?




Ok this one is my own idea and yes this really happened, well... the first two panels any way. I am speaking on behalf of the pickles though. :P How's this compared to the first one?



BTW this is just a fun pastime for me. I am not looking to be the next Penny Arcade or anything. I just like to draw. I like my art to work well though, so please, crit away.

Mustang

Do you have anything else you can post up? I feel I can critique you properly just looking at this one, especially considering the story was handed to you. I don't like the story, the "it was him" joke is as old as the hills and I'm really tired of it. I also am not fond of the bold white outline, I understand people do it to define their characters from the background, but it rips them from the background to the point where it looks like they're standing in front of a green screen. I think there are more effective ways of doing it than just dropping a white stroke around them. Also the gabe haircut on the last dude......change that, because it looks like a gabe haircut.

NakedZergling

um....i dont get it? I mean i get that it was Spider-Man shooting some rocker dude in the face and blaming a kid, buttttttt......i don't get it.

JLM-AWP

NakedZergling wrote: »

um....i dont get it? I mean i get that it was Spider-Man shooting some rocker dude in the face and blaming a kid, buttttttt......i don't get it.

The hand gestures being made.

Honestly, I think it would be tons better if he wasn't saying "It was him", but rather just pointing at him. You'd have to define the hand a bit better if that were the case, but I agree with Mustang that the joke is pretty overdone.

Grenn

The timing between the first and second panel doesn't really work for me.

It would convey a far greater sense of him suddenly being thwip-splat'd in the face if the dialogue in the first panel was "Let me hear you SCREAA-"

As it stands, I simply read the first panel as "Let me hear you!"

It also isn't funny.

There could be something funny drawn out of Spidey going to a rock show, throwing the horns and accidentally slinging web... but this isn't it.

ShadowBlade

I don't get nearly enough time to draw these days so I was not really wanting to post more work at the moment. Here's some stuff I have on facebook though.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mike-Hearn-IllustratorGraphic-Artist/127731223914426?v=photos#!/album.php?aid=14724&id=127731223914426
(I hope linking is OK in the middle of a post. As I say I am not really wanting to directly share everything at the moment.)

I agree on the white lines. It was done hastily as I could not think of a better BG on the last panel.

Not sure I agree on the pacing of the dialogue. Only because I wanted Ozzy's mouth as wide as possible for the thwip-splat.

I may play with that last panel in general now. The idea of no dialogue, just the pointing sounds good.

Sorry I did not hit the funnies. Thanks for the crits so far though.

@JLM:
Not sure if you are being sarcastic, but here's the explanation... which ruins any funny there was. :P
People give the "devil horns" at rock shows. Spider-man's web slinging pose for his hands is basically the devil horns flipped around. Spidey accidentally webbing Ozzy in the face is really more the joke and the "It was him."

Oh and as to the hair cut, sadly I did not design the character... That's the way he looks... Like Gabe. I will have to talk to my cousin about that.

Heartlash

The execution of the punchline has pacing issues. I think you may either need to change the third panel to give it more of a set in stone setting, where we see the full environment of the stage, audience, and spidey; or you need to add a panel between 2 and 3 where you have spidey silently standing in a web shooting posture among other people also in web shooting posture.

Also, if you can make the rocker more clearly Ozzy Osbourne it would add an extra layer of meta-humor.

squidbunny

Heartlash has pretty much got it.

Panel 1: Establish rock concert with singer opening
Panel 2: Singer gets web in the face
Panel 3: Spidey in amongst a hugeass crowd of folks all throwing up the horns, looking sheepish as everyone else has turned to look at him. If we see him with everyone else it's immediately "Oh HAHA I GET IT SPIDEY'S WEB-SHOOTING HAND GESTURE IS PRETTY MUCH THE HORNS TEE HEE" vs "Wait what? Oh, right. Hands. Gotcha. That guy looks like Gabe."

"It was him" belabors the joke rather than underscoring it.

ShadowBlade

Thanks guys, but I wonder if I am not understanding some of the things said here. Are you saying the main joke is not well explained because I do not show Spidey's hand in the pose? If so I find that really surprising. The "pose" is well established in the first panel. The webbing in the second tells you Spidey was there and the third panel is the reveal. Considering the audience a comic like this would be seen by, I was under the impression that the implications were pretty clear. Apparently not funny, but surely not unclear. Am I not understanding that crit?

JLM-AWP

@JLM:
Not sure if you are being sarcastic, but here's the explanation... which ruins any funny there was.

I wasn't being sarcastic at all. In fact, I was trying to help explain the comic to NZ without just spelling it out. I got what you were going for, no doubt, but I think you could have done better.

ShadowBlade wrote: »

Thanks guys, but I wonder if I am not understanding some of the things said here. Are you saying the main joke is not well explained because I do not show Spidey's hand in the pose? If so I find that really surprising. The "pose" is well established in the first panel. The webbing in the second tells you Spidey was there and the third panel is the reveal. Considering the audience a comic like this would be seen by, I was under the impression that the implications were pretty clear. Apparently not funny, but surely not unclear. Am I not understanding that crit?

The lack of clarity will be the biggest killer of your comics. If people here are saying they don't get it, then that's a problem. These folks see a LOT of comics come through these parts, and if they have trouble with a strip, chances are you won't have much more success in other places. Trust me, I have had to learn this the hard way.

This is more general advice, and considering this is the only strip you've done/we've seen, it might not be the MOST helpful, but it's always good to get into good habits: 3 panels strip are tough. You have a lot to explain and get across in a short amount of time, so learning to manage the pacing is CRUCIAL. In the first panel, you don't really establish a whole lot. Yes, we see the rocker up there yelling at the crowd, who are all throwing up the horns. Keep in mind that we, as the readers, will see the hands down below as a typical concert thing. They aren't the focal point of the panel. The singer himself should have been throwing the horns as well, so we as readers see it and carry it with us to the next panel. Maybe he could be saying something like "Put those hands up and let me hear you screeaa-".

Second panel is pretty good, as long as you move "screaa-" to the first panel.

Third panel, no words as I said before. You might also want to consider having Spidey holding the horns up himself, with his other hand pointing to the dude next to him. I think that adds a lot of clarity without shoving it in people's faces.

In any case, a good thing to always consider is how the reader is going to see the comic. I know exactly what it's like to mill something over in your head for a few hours, then write an extremely unclear comic simply because you yourself know exactly what's happening. It makes complete sense to you, but you need to do some more spelling out for us.

Anyway, I always type too much too early in a crit, but I'd really like to see some more strips from you. Keep them coming!

smof

I gotta say I missed the hands in the first panel completely, like they were just part of the background. I didn't notice them at all until you mentioned them. To be fair it did make things funnier once I did.

ShadowBlade

Thanks for the further explanation JLM. As to the sarcasm, I think my eyes jumped to your name, but it was NZ I meant to question. I really did not see that particular crit about that part of the pacing. In my head this is clear as crystal. Why aren't you all in my head? GAWD! :P

This is my first and only comic so far. I consider myself an illustrator, well it is my job, but is really more of creative drafting. This fun stuff is a hobby of mine, so I am just trying something new with the comics. Glad you want to see more. I have a couple more ideas of my own. I have the roughs, but we are talking thumbnails. I will try to work them a bit further and post as the advice here has been very good and constructive.

Thanks again! I will get back to you all.

NakedZergling

im a huge comic fan and spiderman fan. At no point did i get that the horns were supposed to be triggering his web.

As a matter of fact to shoot a web spiderman has to double tap his palm excatly so this type of thing wouldn't happen. Maybe you could make a joke about how this is why he realized he has to so a double tap instead of a single.

Panel 1
parker testing out the web shooters for the first time saying "I just tap my palm to shoot the web ...perfect!" (and show him in the horns position.
Panel 2
rocker throwing up horns screaming "let me hear you screa......."'THWAP'
panel3
either the same rocker with web on his face and a word balloon saying "Maybe two taps instead" or a shot of spiderman saying that.


i don't know if this is actually any better, but i think its more clear.


EDIT
actually 2 could just show the singer taking a web to the face while saying the "let me hear you scream" with an off panel balloon saying "oops"
and panel 3 could be just like panel 1 with him back in the lab saying "ok i just double tap my palm to shoot the web...perfect!"

ShadowBlade

New strip in the first post.

Wassermelone

Its... a comic strip alright.

Im not sure what was supposed to be funny about it.

wanderlike

Well, let me see. The artwork, I would say, is well above average. So this is something to be happy about. In any critical process, be happy for any positive angles. (They can sometimes be rare or nonexistent - that makes people cry.)

The writing, on the other hand, is iffy. (And doubly so, since someone else came up with the joke for you - especially since the joke was weak.) Two things can kill a strip dead. One is being so obvious the reader knows what's going on before he gets to the end. He will, of course, feel like he wasted the trip.

A second killer is not being obvious enough. Ever had a joke explained to you that you laughed at for the next hour? Nope. Never. Because once it has to be explained, it's no longer a punchline. It's like a slow lecture on the merits of humor. To sum up, blah.

Your first comic was muddy. I got the joke. At the same time, some people would have missed it. You have to make these things crystal clear. Otherwise, it's not even a joke. The second joke was a bit too obvious a play on words. I saw it coming. And the actual final panel was a weak way of doing the joke. When the guy asked how they were being abused, I would have preferred seeing a creepy man with a pile of pickles saying, "You girls look reaaaaal nice tonight." And the cashier says, "I'd rather not say."

On the plus side, even minor tweaks can turn duds with potential into pure hilarity. Good writers who suck at drawing can do well for this reason. Your art seems good - if you take the time to hone your writing, you could be very good at this.

ShadowBlade

Thanks Wander. Writing is definitely not my area of expertise. I have been drawing for as long as I can remember, so I am glad it is is above average. My writing has never really been exercised well. I can see that these would vastly improve with a better writer. I think I am going to keep at them for now though as I needed a new creative outlet and this is working well for me. I like the old man and pickle idea, but I just cannot see the lack of clarity on the Spidey piece. I am not arguing, if it is not clear, it is not clear, but I guess this is still just one of those perspective moments. The biggest problem I am having with the Spidey crits is that all the suggestions so far seem to want to completely remove the reveal/subtlety. Not that I have any better suggestions, mind you. Just makes it more difficult to see how best to change it.

Thanks again to all the advice guys. I have one more already done at the pencil stage. I will post it once I have the ink and colours done. I get the feeling it will be more of the same responses, but I figure this can only evolve and help me more.