Comic Genesis Forums

I'd accept "perfect" as a description, too, but that may not fly.

http://oblivion.comicgenesis.com/

This comic I started a few months ago but in the past couple of weeks I've been updating more frequently and with much more enthusiasm. Every comic is in pencil, 99.9% unaltered except for many of the middle comics being artificially darkened by one of my "teammates" (Not really an equal distribution of work lately, maybe I'm just disgruntled...). I dislike the smudgy appearance this process brings out, so the past five or so have gone back to regular pencil, and I think it's much better than either my earlier drawings or the darkened ones.

Is it too smudgy? Blurry? Light? Small? Does it look too weird? I'm going for a simple, coloring-book style, and the most recent comics are headed in the right direction, I think. Is digital editing the way to go, or should I give up and find a darker stationary to use? Or is the pencil fine, just needing to be fine-tuned? Thanks, and enjoy the crazy.

I generally prefer comics with a more realistic style, so your style is not really my cup of tea, as the saying goes (not a criticism, just personal preference). But the last few scripts actually grew on me. I like your weird sense of humor. I agree with you about the digital darkening - it brings out what looks like eraser marks, I think you're better off not doing it. However the penciling does seem a tad light on my screen. Have you tried darker pencils? I've had good luck with 4B in the past.
Cheers.

I wonder what program your teammate uses to adjust the contrast. I use the GIMP, and using the Curves tool instead of just a straight brightness/contrast adjustment, you should be able to get rid of those smudges. It's a lot easier to read when it's darker.

I also think the comic would work better visually with outer panel borders and not just divisions.

Thanks for the responses; I'm glad the humor was able to appeal to you, Koad. I think I'm going to try darker pencils (it seems so simple...!) because I've been able to achieve somewhat better contrast by applying more force and going over lines multiple times but it's never always enough. In the meantime, I'm messing around with the GIMP, which I just got. Could come in handy...

I'll also experiment with outside borders but I can't guarantee anything because of how it's scanned. Hopefully I'll work something out or it magically becomes more comfortable to look at.

Thanks again!