Could I get a critique on my comic? (Don't worry its not low quality garbage lol)
antleonardi01
Registered User
Registered User
Hey there, I've been running a webcomic for awhile now and would like some genuine feedback if at all possible. I put a lot of effort into learning how to make a decent website, learning how to write jokes, and bumping up my art skills to an acceptable level.
So please let me know what you think about the website design, the writing, and the art. (and if you're feeling particularly awesome check out the 'support anthony' section to show your support lol!)
There's also a book I wrote on the site involving enlightenment if thats your thing too.
Thanks, and I love you all!
-Anthony
So please let me know what you think about the website design, the writing, and the art. (and if you're feeling particularly awesome check out the 'support anthony' section to show your support lol!)
There's also a book I wrote on the site involving enlightenment if thats your thing too.
Thanks, and I love you all!
-Anthony
Grifter on
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We want to help you, but I'm not totally sure that's what you want, yet. It's a time commitment, and it can be tough to be told that you've got a long way to go. But the end result is almost always significant improvement.
You really should read the rules, then.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/165388/the-rules#latest
Aside from the one comic where you just used a stock image of Mickey (and poorly added a lightsaber) the art isn't bad, but using those ghost things with no real anatomy just makes it a basic talking head comic and if you're going to do that your humor really, REALLY has to carry the strip.
Your line weight, shading, backgrounds, etc show potential so try drawing actual people to sell the jokes and it might help, but writing is definitely the pitfall so far. Your font placement and choice of font and word bubbles are all well done too. You obviously know what you're doing so you should push yourself to do better.
The art is serving its purpose, but you could use some more confident lines, and some more interesting expressions to really sell your jokes.
I would really like the jokes to be better, I agree. Its tough... after staring at the strip for an extended period of time I lose all perspective of whether or not its funny. Guess its all just practice.
Some turned out better than others I suppose. Here are some more.
I would suggest you stop doing 4th wall breaking comics about people making comics or being aware they're in comics. It's been done WAY too much and became a pretty bad trope of the early webcomics that most people agree just isn't funny.
I really don't have problems with the art at all, it's simplistic but you do good work with props and backgrounds and your word placement and pacing is good, you just gotta work on the humor.
You just need to work on your source material. If you want to see humor in an all ages format look at something like Dave Kellett's "Sheldon" to see how far you can go while still keeping it kid friendly.
If you want to learn more about writing comedy and how that process works then watch interviews with writers of tv sitcoms or movies and read books about comedy writing or go see some local stand ups at an open mic, but don't ever think that just adding a little more to panel 3 is going to instantly make something funnier because it will likely have the opposite effect.
Also don't stress it too much, when I gave my critique that's not my way of saying "your comic sucks, start over"
EVERYONE'S first 100 comics are going to suck. The first 100 pVps or Penny Arcades were very weak compared to what they are now, same goes for any other strip out there. You have to make 100, 200, even 300 shitty comics before you get a rhythm and a style that's all your own.
For the art, I am not a fan of this kind of character design. It limits a lot of emotional language that can be communicated visually. Don't get me wrong, I like simple characters, just not as simple as you have them here. It might just be me. I do like it when you work in the more complicated backgrounds. The two with the sky, those are nice. You might have choose these designs on purpose and you might want to stick with these characters for one reason or another, but let me say this: No comic ever got worse because the artist improved. Check out Iruka's "Art Blog" link in her signature for tons of great resources.
Good luck and welcome to the AC.
In truth, I'm a pretty serious / intense person. It's really challenging for me to write a humor strip! But I'd rather die than not be successful at it lol.
The character designs are very deliberate. I spent the last ten years of my life meditating and contemplating existentialism. I think that having the characters be super simple ghosts is making a statement that we aren't really what we think we are. Like we're really ghosts wearing man-suits. Gate is plain so he can "put on costumes" and fill roles as both a plot device and a statement on how we're all just acting our roles in the world. Rumi looks very much like a zen monk so I can throw in some buddhist wisdom without seeming too douchey. The devil is kind of symbolic of selfishness or a person that is very identified with their ego structure (somebody that takes themselves too seriously.) I suppose I could've designed some more complicated characters, but when I first started this I was not confident in my artistic ability, and I thought it would be a good idea to make things very minimalistic so I would actually have time to do things like shading and backgrounds.
I hope you guys don't think my comic is complete trash. I've only made 31 of them so far, and I realize that I probably won't hit a stride until #100 or so... I'm just hoping that you guys (actual artists) see something of value in these.
I'm no comic artist, but I'm a comic reader. Like the others, I think there's potential, but I have to be honest I do have a problem with the basic characters. They are so formless it's very hard to be interested in them or feel a connection. They're neither charming enough, naive enough, ugly enough or cute enough. It's like you want the jokes to carry the strip, but without a character to connect the joke to, that's very hard to pull off. You have to be as funny and intelligent as xkcd.com to pull off that kind of a gambit...
Not saying the humor is amazing, but the formula for success if there, and it isnt completely lacking. However, you need more than the one formula, cause otherwise the expectations will be exactly what you give, and reversing it wont have any sort of funny impact.
The current strip I have written is a jesus joke, but struggling to make it work. Gotta get busy!
I'm very into this whole comic thing and taking it very seriously. I've wanted to do this since I was a 13 year old videogame obsessed nerd drooling over penny-arcade. As I grew up I realized that I was really into philosophy and always wanted to try to make a philosophy comic. Gonna do my damnedest to make something out of this.
If you're set on using mostly words then I'd check out some stand up, anything from Milton Jones in the UK (surreal but funny) to that Canadian guy who's name I'll probably edit in here later but he does these one liner jokes that are sort of old fashioned but genuinely really funny. It doesn't take a lot of set up to do something that'll genuinely make people laugh and isn't obvious.
On the comics you've posted, I liked the 'I knew you'd say that' one because it felt like the punchline to the joke you weren't telling and I enjoyed that. The last one with the pie... the set up was solid but the final remark fell a little flat. Maybe think up some alternatives and see how far you can push it, like showing Carl Sagan eating pie with God or having your guy hold up a mini universe he created in a jar. (Don't use those, they suck, I'm not funny) You can do it though, it just takes practice and a small part of your soul.
...but if thats meant as an insult I'm gonna go with "put-up or shut-up" dude.
I laughed really hard at this joke.
I recommend you take a look at happle tea
Even the strips where people are just standing around talking, they are doing something or moving somewhere or there is some small change from panel to panel.
http://www.happletea.com/2012/08/21/fireflies/
http://www.happletea.com/2012/09/25/toilet-humor/
http://www.happletea.com/2012/10/23/love-potion-9/
this one and this one have a better sense of movement than the chess one.
I took an improv workshop once - it's really difficult to improvise a fictional conversation off the cuff, because you're desperately trying to be funny for the audience and you're anxiously trying to get it "right," so you end up nervous and awkward. They advised we should mime an action while talking. Walk around, do something with our bodies and hands. It engages your brain and helps to get you into character, and helps give a sense of place to the scene.
One thing I tried was miming taking laundry out of the dryer and folding it. The anxious part of my brain that would have been overanalyzing each line looking for the wittiest response was distracted. My conversation in the scene with my partner went much more smoothly.
Like, in Calvin and Hobbes they don't just stare at a table while having a philosophical conversation. They famously hurtle down dangerous ravines in a wagon, or they climb trees or take a walk in the woods.
I'm not sure how but I think you have avoided sounding too preachy or pretentious in these comics. I think you are off to a good start and you will just improve through practice! Your cartoony style is very cute and appealing.
EDIT: Also, even simple white-sheet-ghosts don't typically look like stick figures with pointy robes on. I failed to identify them as ghosts until I read your explanations.
I really do appreciate that avaraham. I do love Calvin and Hobbes. Checking out happy tea as we speak thank you.
this comic is a good example of why I enjoy your comics but feel they lack that spark
you tend to have too much exposition in your final panel - borderline "explaining the joke" so to speak
this is a good joke
it's funny, and I laughed.
But it would have been even better if the character wasn't saying anything in the third panel, and we could just infer what he's doing from the piece of paper
punchlines that are inferred correctly by the reader are always funnier than those that are explained - obviously it isn't always possible to draw the situation in such a way that the punchline is clearly obvious, but when it is, it's better to let the art do the talking.
For a good example of a popular webcomic falling into this trap, this is a recent penny arcade strip
This comic would have been better if gabe didn't say his last bit of dialogue.
I don't think he was insulting you. At least, not so clearly that it was worth immediately jumping on the defense. To me it just read like "oh, these are like those cool tissue paper ghosts from primary school!
I feel the same way. Something is missing in my formula. The art part is subjective, some people are going to like it and some wont, but there is no denying that I'm falling slightly short on the execution.
for example, the chess panel.
That one would have been a lot cooler if stuff was happening on the chess board while they were talking. maybe the heaven and hell pieces are fighting each other during the comic and at the end there's only two left.
Penny Arcade does this a lot with fruit fucker in the background of some comics just doing stuff while everything else is going on.
Equally worth noting: this is the Artist's Corner. This section exists to help people with their art, not writing. There is a section for that as well, and if your punchlines are the only thing you desire to be critiqued on, perhaps you best move there.
Do you actually want help with the artwork in this comic of yours? If not, please state so and we can move this over to the Writer's Block.
Help away. I'm under no illusions that I'm a terrific artistic.
Do you do any drawing outside of your comic? It would be great to see something outside of these characters to help me get the extent of your range, but I can scrounge up some cartooning tips when I get off of work.
Here is something I drew a year ago.
edit: to be more specific, post everything you have scanned, doodles, sketches, things you may think are worthless, everything counts, the more recent the better, if you kept the rough sketches for the comics, or sketches of how you organice the strip, everything counts.
Do you draw every day?
I will join the "ghosts are too vague and expressionless" camp on this one. I feel like they could still be ghosts and be drawn with a ton of personality. They have a weird vinyl doll flatness that keeps them from being totally successful in conveying emotional range. The lack of real limbs makes it harder to read the activities they're doing in the strip. I would really recommend if the hands are going to be disconnected from the body form, they should be more clearly shaped like a real hand. Another nitpick I have is the body shapes don't read well; they're really dimensionless and the extreme length and slenderness of the neck doesn't look like a sheet of fabric.
I do feel like the simplicity of the characters is a bit of a crutch here. It is possible to do simple well, but the devil is in the details.
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
And I'm asking for something else.