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Webcomic help
TehChowd
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I know these kinds of threads are fairly frowned upon, but I'm willing to take the risk for a little criticism and feedback. My friend and I have been working on a webcomic for 2.5 months (she does the art, I do the writing), and I'm seriously dying for some feedback. So far all I have to go on is what a few of my friends think of the comic, and while I'm grateful for their support, I'm a little nervous about emperor's-new-robe-syndrome (i.e. my friends are just being nice). I'll post what I think are some of our best comics, and hopefully, if you would all be so kind, you'll help me figure out how to improve, or tell me if I'm doing anything right. I'm interested in the full spectrum of criticism here; writing, art, font, color, love, hate, life, death, you know, the whole deal.
I have my own concerns about the quality of the comic, but I'll wrap those in a nice little spoiler box at the end of the post, so as not to taint your opinion of the comic too soon.
Thanks so much in advance for any opinions/advice, it is vastly appreciated.
I have my own concerns about the quality of the comic, but I'll wrap those in a nice little spoiler box at the end of the post, so as not to taint your opinion of the comic too soon.
Writing-wise, obviously my first concern is whether the comic is funny or not (as the writer, it's kind of hard to tell. I'm pretty much running on intuition here). Stemming from that, I think the dialogue is too wordy/jammed up sometimes, I'm nervous about the absence of a central theme, and I have a nagging concern that it's too much of a vanity strip. My desire is for anyone with a similar sense of humor to mine to be able to appreciate the strip, but the worry is that my friends have an easier time getting it because they have more background on the characters (the comic is only semi-autobiographical, but you get the idea).
As for the art, I don't really know what to say. Overall I'm very happy with it, but I'm no artist, so my happiness is more "hurrrrrrrrr pretty" rather than any actual critical insight. The only things that I can think to say is that I'm not thrilled with the reusing/copy-pasting of some art, and there are occasionally issues with the word balloons.
As for the art, I don't really know what to say. Overall I'm very happy with it, but I'm no artist, so my happiness is more "hurrrrrrrrr pretty" rather than any actual critical insight. The only things that I can think to say is that I'm not thrilled with the reusing/copy-pasting of some art, and there are occasionally issues with the word balloons.
Thanks so much in advance for any opinions/advice, it is vastly appreciated.
My comic -- http://www.leadpaintcomics.com
TehChowd on
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I am not frowning.
Quote of the week.
I'm no writer but I definately found the writing stronger than the art, and considering the art is pretty solid you can take that as a compliment, a big one!
The real thing I found lacking with the art is that the expressions don't seem to come across as well as I think they should. I'm thinking it may be more to do with the composition than the actual art though, they just don't seem as instantly obvious as they should.
I'd read it!
Although your 'Point/counterpoint' comic, i thought frame 1, at first glance was a reporter in front of a nuclear explosion.
Very nice. You have yourselves another reader here
Plufim, I will find out what the font is for you. All I know is that we used to use a different font, and it was horrible so Dana (the artist) found a new one with her artist-powers.
Winter Combat Knight, I laugh every time I look at point/counterpoint now.
Thanks for the input about the character expressions too. I will keep that in mind in future scripts, and will pass the word along to the artist as well.
these are fantastic!
for the art, some of the line art is a little thin, darken up the lines a little, i'm looking in particular at panel one of comic one. You need to draw more attention to the characters, and have the settings be secondary unless the setting is more crucial to the strip than the characters, which in all of these cases, it is not.
but definitely a big thumbs up from me, i really enjoy reading these
edit: oh god this is amazing:
man all these great comic postings lately make me want to find a good writer so's i can illustrate a comic.
do you all love how instead of pressing "edit" i pressed "quote"? i also love that.
i am such a noob when i'm at work
it's like i lose all my internet cred
i actually search using yahoo while i'm here.
love the art. Writing is solid. Good job!
This one right here made my day.
It's Creative Block from Blambot. It's the one I used to use, and my favorite of his dialogue fonts--for a humor comic at least.
Also, comic is good. I second the motion to get the artist in here. My reactions so far have ranged from mild amusement to large grin. My fav of which so far has been the Cap'n Planet one. Some of the writing feels a little wordy too me; I think you might be able to rely on the visuals for some of the info and emotions described in the text. Or even if some of the larger blocks of text were broken down to multiple linked balloons. That way the reader's eye is moved through the image better.
These are definitely going in the right direction, though. I fucking love the sleeping cat, and I'm sure one'll break out a full audible laugh from me.
Which is difficult for net-based stuff to do. Seanbaby's SuperFriends pages being the most memorable exception.
and you have proven me wrong for doing so
these are fantastic
the art is excellent, the writing is fantastic, and you've got a knack for delivery
keep it up
i've gotten criticism on pushing the facial expressions from other people as well, and it's definitely something i'm working on. i also agree that i need to pay attention to the line consistency... not a huge deal but something that should be addressed. i guess one of the things that i'm more concerned about artistically is the strength of the paneling/layout of each comic.. i'm an animator so i thought this project would help out with my boarding skills.
i don't have much comic drawing experience nor do i read a lot of comics, so it's good to hear from people who are probably more familiar with the medium than me.
I'll check the rest of you guys' comics tomorrow. That's a compliment.
Haha, this is me EVERY weekend.
I think you guys have got me as a regular reader, that's only happened with one other comic on here.
Thumbs up!
The only con that really stood out for me was the profile shot in the second panel of the first comic... it just didn't really feel up to par with the rest of the work. Of course profiles are always difficult, particularly with pseudo-realistic comic drawing... partly because they're rarely used so the rules for tweaking it to work haven't been firmly established... and partly because it's the one time you have to actually deal with the thin neck without just obscuring it's source.
Since I'm feel stupid saving you should fix something without even knowing if I could pull it off myself, I tried a little sketch of your character in profile mode... it's not very refined... but at least it's a view on how someone else would do it.. so it might be helpful.
I of course deal with the issue in my own work by... rarely drawing realistically at all, so on that level you're ahead of me anyway... by... uh... I don't remember where I was going with that thought.
But anyway.
Again, very nice work, and as with anyone doing good work I'm sure it will only get better.
Oh, one other thing though... the "previous" and "next" buttons on the site seem a little small... it's a little complaint (ohhh... pun) but if it was just taller or something I think navigation would feel smoother.
PS: Hey, we use the same font!
In which you watch my shameful life and hopefully laugh at me.
@ ManonvonSuperock: I'm glad you noticed that about the writing. It once of my larger concerns about the quality of the scripts. I haven't quite got the hang of sensing "frames of time" appropriately, and combined with an urge to over-stuff dialogue with jokes, some of the dialogue comes out really poorly in my opinion. It's interesting that you mention that Captain Planet comic as your favorite, because that's maybe the first strip that I really paired down the dialogue content and let it stand at basically one joke. I was nervous about posting it up on the site because it was so short comparatively, but I've gotten a lot of positive feedback on it. I would say an unusual amount of good feedback actually, so I'll take that as good sign.
To help get my dialogue-ing right, I've been storyboarding my strips out more often, and also trying to make a habit of reading the dialogue out loud. I feel personally that it's making a difference, though none of those scripts have been drawn yet, so I suppose we'll have to wait and see.
@ Falconire: The rest of our comics are about 2 roommates who play a lot of video games and disagree in opinion sometimes. Also, they have a talking xbox that enjoys booze and foul language. How's that for a solid, original premise?
@ 8bitloser: First off, let me say that your webcomic is very good. You have slick presentation and artwork, and I'm a little jealous of your site design. Also, your "Watchmeh" comic was really great and I'm pretty pissed that I didn't come up with that idea first. I especially like the logo at the end. Nice job catching the goofy neck in that comic too. I probably never would have noticed that. See the bullet below for comments on site design.
@ Those who have visited the site: I was wondering what you all thought of the overall layout. I (predictably) have mixed feelings. I think the color scheme is pretty so-so/good, and the overall layout is okay, but I have this odd sense of everything being out of scale. I think by that I mean a lot of the fonts are too small compared to the massive holding boxes/logo/comic, but I'm not entirely sure.
From the logo to the bottom nav buttons I think works okay, it's the news section that I think looks horrible-ish. Also, I've been thinking about redoing the logo and nav buttons and links, making them all images instead of text links. On a scale of one-to-ten (ten being most urgent), how badly does that need to get done?
Thanks again for all the previous compliments, especially those who promised to keep reading.
"The Quad" is pretty win and only has 3 relatively small text balloons, and two panels with no dialog at all. It's OK to be a "talky" comic -- Achewood is successful in many ways despite, or perhaps because of, having lots of dialog. And I'd argue that you're not too talky.
It actually took me a short while to find the navigation buttons on the home page, since they're small and plain text.
Some of the comics that are up on the site definitely have the feel that they came more from an animator than a comic writer, simply because the frame looks like it's written with movement in mind, but since it doesn't actually move, it's not very dynamic. The "junior's department" and "floorpunch cowboy 2" ones stand out as having a lot of dialog and the idea that, hey, these people should be moving, but since they're one panel, they don't really work. For example, the floorpunch cowboy 2 one would probably work better if you cut the second thought balloon, added a panel with the girl walking away and looking over her shoulder suspiciously, and then a 3rd panel with her at the t-shirt booth asking to buy 3 shirts. Or something like that.
But even that's a pretty minor thing. Overall I'll echo people above -- it's good stuff.
edit: in the 2nd comic, it's the 3rd level of battletoads that is impossible. for some people.
This is fantastic.
@ Aldo: The font we're using now is georgia for the site-text. I think it it looks okay myself, though I'll admit it is occasionally very ugly because of goofy numeral placement and all the serifs (that's what the little "wings" on letters are called, right?) I'm not married to the font by any means, and will definitely play with some new fonts when we make some other improvements to the site (fixing nav buttons, etc). Do you have any recommendations besides arial or verdana? Also, do you mind elaborating on why the font didn't sit well with you? Just general ugliness, or is there something more specific we could keep in mind while looking for a new one?
@ Eggytoast:
I think I understand this comment, but I'm not artistically smart enough to comment intelligently. I will pass it along to the artist. On a rough tangent to this though, we've recently added glasses to Colin (visible in the point/counterpoint comic a few posts up). My reasoning was is that he looked a little generic before and even the small amount of detail and black color makes him stand out a bit better. Agree/disagree/apathy?
If my writing was as good as Achewood's, I wouldn't living in my parents' attic, surrounded by empty cherry 7up cans, Gamestop bags, and a few boxes of oreos (obviously I would be in my own attic instead. Oh, and maybe I'd be eating those classy organic oreos from Whole Foods too).
How I took ManonvonSuperock's comment was not that I'm being too wordy, as well-executed wordiness can be awesome (see Achewood, dinosaur comics, etc), but that I'm jamming too much into each word balloon/moment. I think you sort of sensed the same thing in a few of the comics, like with the junior's department and Floorpunch Cowboy 2.
Incidentally, I found your comment about those two comics to be fairly insightful. I had written them as single-panel comics to try and cut the artist a break, but you're definitely right in that they both would have worked better as multi-panel comics.
Of course, as I type I've actually been thinking of Battletoads and that speeder level. I guess it's "technically" the third level. It's been years since I've played it, but doesn't it go: Above-ground level, underground level, then at the "end" of the underground level, don't you hop on the bikes? I'd always thought of it as a continuation of the 2nd level, since you stay underground, but you're definitely right because it's clearly distinct from the preceding beat-em-up section.
@velcroshoes: Yeah, now that I look at it, some of the characters have "muppet-mouth" here and there. Will pass it along.
@notacrook: I have no idea who Rhia is, but thank him/her for me (thanks for the compliments too).
@Those who have visited the site: The bottom nav buttons are now a high-ish priority to be fixed. I was thinking of making them into arrows that will have the same squeezetube look as the main logo. I wanted to ask also, what do you guys think of nav arrows being added to the top of the comic too? Achewood and XKCD do it, and I think it works well for them. I was just thinking that 1/3-to-1/2 the issue people are having with the nav links is besides being small, they're kind of hidden beneath the comic.
Also, after all the wonderful feedback I got here, I'm going to try and re-enable user commenting on the site. I have to survive upgrading my wordpress and comicpress files first, but I wanted to thank everyone who posted here again for giving me a lot more faith in the comic.
I don't have any other suggestions, but generally I prefer neutral modern ones over faux-classic stuff. Which is also my main complaint, it's a font that's trying too hard to look like something from a few decades ago.
I'd say you having growing popularity dead ahead! 8-)
I think both the writing and the art are quite good. My only problem is I don't like how big the characters heads are...but that might just be because I hate those Bratz "dollz". I personally like if their heads were just a little bit smaller, but still bigger than normal.
Since it's easier for me to show that tell here's what I mean:
Here's the original for comparison
Anyway...I don't know if anyone else agrees with me. Also, I looked back through the comic to see if everyone's head is quite that big. It seems like a some of the one-shot characters they aren't quite as big.
Regardless, I really do like both the art and the writing quite a bit!
Is that a stylistic choice or do you think it makes your figures easier to read?
Personally i think it would look a lot better if you kept the background fluid and together.