Bog's Comic...

TheBog

Yep. Sorry folks. I have to take the comic down for now.

So here's my short little comic. Check it out, and sorry for the crappy grainy scans. I'll have to rescan them later. Naturally any constructive criticism is appreciated. I will also try to tone these things in this Manga Studio trial thing I downloaded. Pretty tedious work.. I hope I finish.

Anyway, tell me what you think!

Are there some things I'm happy with? Yes. Are there some things I'm unhappy with? Yes.

Kewop Decam

I didn't look or read the whole thing caus I'm tired, but your "SKREEEEEE" should have the form of the sound. Like, it should be jagged or something, not all straight edged. I'm pretty sure someone could explain it better than I

Virum

I liked it, but I'm not getting any German or Russian vibes from the dialog.

TheBog

Gotcha on the Russian/German vibes.

And yes, I understand what you're saying, Kewop.

Virum

I re-read this and it seems to me it feels like all the characters are the same person talking if that makes sense.

One thing I'd keep in mind is that German is full of intensifiers as opposed to softeners in there language. In English you can soften something up by saying "I think blah blah blah" but it's less likely to hear that from a German....they have words like "Doch" - a contradictory yes, which english doesn't have at all.

So she's not coming tonight?
Doch. (Yes [no], she is coming over tonight). One word for that whole sentence.

They'll even throw in random "ja"s into sentences to reinforce the idea.

My point is, when I studied it, it seemed a lot more direct to me than english or any other language I took. There's only one way to pronounce the words, you can throw in all sorts of intensifiers.

I guess my point is, I'd see a German saying:

"Slow the fuck down; we are [ve ah ?] driving through ruins."

as opposed to what you have now.

You might want to stay away from written accents; those are hard.

THAT SAID.

I really enjoyed reading it, and the art is cool. Even if you didn't change any of the dialog for future pages I'd still read it.

I'm also confused on the time setting?

TheBog

Thanks a lot for those critiques. Yeah, I admit, I don't know jack squad about German. I do however know Russian. I guess I could've spelled things like you suggested to indicate accent, I just didn't want them to be stereotypical.. but I can see how it could really help with immersion and clearing things up. I'll definitely take that into consideration. I can still copy a word bubble on a separate sheet only with new dialogue and scan and paste that in.

Oh, and I realize it's difficult to tell what time period it's in exactly. Thinking back on it I really wish I gave it a proper intro, but I'll be damned if 10 pages aren't restricting. I've never done episodic work like this before, much less sat down and actually worked hard on a comic. Perhaps I still might do a page explaining some things in narration.

It's post apocalyptic semi-steampunk Russia. Most Russians have been wiped out by German bombings and big robots.. heh And these two have taken it upon themselves to turn the tide. There is definitely more to it than that, and there's plenty of back story, but I had a feeling that would take at least a few pages so I was better off just going with a cheap thrill ambush. Besides, I really wanted to fit some action in.

Fugitive

I can easily suspend my disbelief on the accent thing since both the Russians and the Germans are speaking English, so I just assume it's being translated or something.

Heartlash

Artistically its a nice start. There are a few hiccups (i.e. the smoking guy in the 3rd panel on page on looks a little awk, etc), but the more you draw the easier dynamic poses will become.

In terms of writing, it absolutely sounds like all the characters are written with a single voice. This is very common for early writers (as I've found in College writing courses, working with friends, etc), so don't sweat it. What you really wanna do is make your dialogue a bit more subtle. For example, "Enough chit chat! I'll trust ya for now, but try anything funny and I'll blow your head clean off!" is both cliche and involves a character saying exactly what they are supposedly feeling. In reality, people do not do this. It may have made more sense for such a character, whom you've established as exasperated, angry, and bored with their situation to say something like "Whatever, grunt. Just take us where we wanna go."

Also, Valentine feels a bit too talky, especially for the situation. Try to shave down his lines, you'll find it makes them sound less contrived.

All in all, great start and keep it up.

TheBog

Thanks a lot. I agree with everything you said. My writing needs work and I guess I was worried too much about being too subtle and confusing the readers what with the lack of clear background plot and all. I'll definitely work on it!

StealthNachos

I definitely agree with everything said so far (especially the "one voice, 2 countries" crit. Not just that they're not different culturely, they don't seem to have different personalities either).

I've got nothing to add except that you should (at least) flat out some color. I think it would go a long way in seperating the elements a little better.

Also, mawr germene rowboughts plz.