All right! 100 strips = time for a plug

Cortland · Post by **Cortland** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 5:13 am

Wow! Has it been a hundred strips already? Time flies when you

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 5:32 pm

100 strips already? Whoa.

http://cortland.keenspace.com/d/20040702.html
8) Okay, so it took me three weeks to notice. Thanks 8)

You don't mention your characters' names very often. There are places where it's hard to tell the difference between Terry and Todd. It was a lot easier when they were in color. Once I figured out that Todd got his job back but Terry started working freelance things got easier. It didn't help that the blond girl (Angie?) appears both at work and at Terry's house.

You might consider developing your backgrounds a bit more. Maybe make some back drops that you can add after you finish drawing, something to define a comic as "at work" or "at home" like the way Real Life uses the bedroom background with the Master Sword or the airport background.

Story-wise:
I started reading Loxie and Zoot but I couldn't get past the first page with Tex Tyler. He was a bad guy straight out of Dick Tracy with an entire personality diametrically opposed to the "good guys" and his theme entirely based on his name. Cute, but no. When I started reading Cortland, the Consultant had the exact same feeling for me. He just seemed like a character added to the story to be the bad guy. One-dimensional is the term I'm reaching for.

You should really develop your characters, even if they aren't supposed to be likeable. Tell a story from Chad's point of view, from Angie's point of view. Make the little things count for something. What did happen to that shadowy figure from the first story?

Hejhox · Post by **Hejhox** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 2:55 am

Since you were kind enough to respond to my pitch, I'll have a go.

The art is good, and the humour quietly funny the only real issue I have is with the shading and lines. I don't know, but to me all the lines can merge into each other making it difficult for your characters to stand out. I think this is particularly the case with Chad and his suit. And the hair. I'm being picky and you probably don't want to change that as it's distinctive and has been established for a while. I suppose the return of colour would solve it for me though. To be frank, I thought Todd and Cortland were the same person until I noticed them together in the earlier strips. Sorry!

Anyway, you seem to have a lot of good material to keep 'em coming.

I hope that was useful. Hehe.

Cortland · Post by **Cortland** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 11:25 am

Very good suggestions there, guys! Faub, you're definitely right. Chad seems to have become the one-dimensional "stupid boss" character, much like the pointy-haired guy from Dilbert. I'll take all your suggestions and let them simmer in my brain for a bit and see what I can do to make things work a bit better. I'm learning more and more about layout and designing the strips, so with a little more practice, hopefully I can make the characters stand out a bit more and make it easier to see whether everyone is at home or at work.

One thing you guys both brought up that really threw me was that you had trouble telling the difference between Terry and Todd. (Yeah, I know it was a mistake to give them those first names, bit I'm working on it).

When I created Todd, I did everything I could to make sure he looked as different from Cortland as possible--blonde hair instead of brown, black t-shirt instead of the red flannel over white shirt, those geeky little dark glasses... where did I go wrong?

I was planning to alter Todd in some future strips, maybe give him a haircut and a new first name. Any suggestions as to how I can make him a bit more distinguishable from Cortland? If ever there were a time to change anything, it's now!

So, thanks for the suggestions. Maybe by my 200th strip I'll have some of the kinks worked out!

K-Dawg · Post by **K-Dawg** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 3:34 pm

Wow 100 strips, time just seems to fly so quickly!
I also never noticed that strip faub linked before. But nonetheless congrats on 100 and may you continue for hundreds more!

Komiyan · Post by **Komiyan** » Sat Aug 14, 2004 1:46 pm

Woo, read it all through, and it was a worthy read indeed.
Gotta love the nice, crisp cartoony style. It's simple in places, which works nicely, and then you go and surpirse us with things like the second panel here, the random evil lair, which is really, really nicely designed.
I occasionally confused a few characters, but on a second read through, it was jsut me being stupid.

I have to admit, I didn't get some of the jokes, but I'm a staunch PC user, cause I'm too lazy to learn a new system. I still got the majority of it, though, and it raised a grin more than once

I was confused as to why the villians are out to ruin Cortland in particular, though. I'm assuming it's a whole `argh, life is out to get me!` thing, which i get. Or did I miss something?
It would be cool if you did what Faub said about having some stuff from some other character's POV, too, could be interesting.

All in all, bookmark'd. Nice art, good jokes. Awesome.