Constructive feedback for "Inexplicable Adv. of Bob!"

[Bobadventures]

Hi. I'd like some feedback and constructive criticism for my webcomic, "The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!" at http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com

Here's a sample, from last Tuesday's strip:



Please give it a look and tell me what stuff you like and what stuff you don't, what stuff works and what isn't working. I really don't get to hear about the comic from many people other than my friends and family. My reader emails are generally positive, but I don't get as much reader feedback as I'd like.

--Thanks!
--Jim

[Bobadventures]

Anybody...?

[mikemacdee]

The art is cute, character designs mostly consistent. I also got a couple laughs out of the goings-on and the visuals (giant dragon lying across a mountain in depression, underlings laughing at their masters and whatnot). Overall it's better than I expected, and probably an above-average webcomic.

Panels and word balloons (especially the latter) seem scattered a lot of the time, and when the word balloons bleed outside the panel it looks really amateurish. So page composition is your biggest deficiency. If you polish that I think you'd have a nice little piece of work here. Use bigger panels so the balloons all fit, and spread the action/conversations out across more panels when necessary.

Do you storyboard your page before drawing and inking it? That will make a huge difference and give you a chance to get the page layout straight.

[Alias Pseudonym]

Maybe some spot colouring, or just colour certain days? The cartoony art looks like it would benefit hugely from some bright, primary colours, and it looks really great in your avatar and the banner and everywhere else you coloured it.

[Bobadventures]

Hi! Thanks for answering.

Regarding color, yes, I would love to color it, but as it stands, the only way I could do that right now (or at least do it at all well) would be to drop down to one update per week instead of two. I've often wondered whether, if I ever actually do find some extra time, it would be better to spend that time adding a third update day, or coloring the two I've got. I'm keenly aware that there aren't many black and white strips on the net these days. Maybe, as you say, I could do a color strip once in a while for special occasions, even if I can't do it regularly. Anyhoo, thanks Pseudonym, I'm glad you do like the color in the banners and avatar.

As for page composition, yes, I should try to get the four-to-six panels to mesh better. I produce them individually and then arrange them on the ol' infinite canvas, rather than making them all on one giant page, and it shows. I disagree that it's bad to have things bleed outside the panel at all, but I agree that it's bad if the result is that the panels end up spaced apart weirdly, as I have them now. It would be better if the bleeding bubbles (ooh! horror movie title!) overlapped their neighboring panels, so the panels could be properly adjacent to each other. Thank you mikemacdee for drawing my attention back to this. I'll have to see what I can do.

Any other comments on the art or the story?

I'm concerned about the mediocre webpage design, and I keep wanting to snazz it up a bit (despite being an html klutz), but what do people think of the design as it stands now?