Please Insert Humor: Not "stickmen". "Detail challenged".

[Plague]

Hey guys, just thought it was about time to give you the scoop on "Please Insert Humor", my latest webcomic venture. Please Insert Humor follows the hilarious daily exploits of Mick, Frizz, Jeff, Sally, and all their fellow stickmen (and stickwomen!). It's fun for the whole family. Oh, and orphans too!

Please Insert Humor

[Harishankar]

I'm sorry, I see no point in drawing stickmen myself. Your own stick figures look decent enough, but surely you can do better than that!

Use a bigger font for your text as it appears too small. Also where is the punchline? You have to work better on the humour aspect as it requires some excellent writing to make a stick figure comic work. Also the sexist aspect on some of the toons make me cringe. It seems the easy way out for so many stick figure cartoons.

You also seem to be influenced by xkcd (http://www.xkcd.com) a lot, which is not GOOD!This laser vision toon, for instance (http://www.drunkduck.com/Please_Insert_ ... p?p=361082) seems to be lifted straight from xkcd. Some of your cartoons are very reminiscent of xkcd without the "geeky" aspect.

I know this is a negative review overall, but please take this in the correct spirit. In community of artists, you're bound to face some criticism for using stick figures.

[Plague]

Hey, it's cool. I don't mind some negative criticism. Although honestly, I'm not sure how I could be inspired by xkcd, other than the whole stickman thing. Has xkcd made a comic about laser vision before or something? >_>

[Harishankar]

Yes, there was a toon about laser vision.

But then I'm not a fan of xkcd either. In fact I hate xkcd.

I think you're definitely better than xkcd. I just think that if you're an artist (and I'm sure you are a good one), it's a waste to draw stick figure comics -- It's something I used to do as a 5 or 6 year old kid, but then moved on to normal drawings.

I can understand that it is a bit of a fun to draw stick figures sometimes, but as a regular series of comics, I'm not a fan.

To be fair, I think I've been a bit too harsh. I'm sorry for the negative review, but stick figure comics have been annoying me recently, especially xkcd. I think I used to draw and write better stick figure comics when I was 6 than xkcd.

So I have nothing personal against your comic. If I've conveyed the impression of being negative, it's not against your creativity. Cheers

[Deathbringer]

If you don't want to use stick figures, but arent confident enough to draw realistically, you could always steal my old drawing style:
http://www.fagshategod.co.uk/comics/the ... book1.html
http://www.fagshategod.co.uk/comics/the ... book7.html
http://www.fagshategod.co.uk/comics/the ... ook10.html
The people have joined-together eyes, like Dennis The Menace, and thier bodies are circles with arms and legs sticking out, and most people's hair is some half-hearted squiggles (but then again they are soldiers). But at least they arent sticks .

[Plague]

Haha, nah. I personally like the look of stickmen when done right. They don't have to be an eyesore.

[Boozeathon4billion]

I like XKCD quite a bit, and yeah, there is a laser vision comic on there somewhere. I'd find it but that would take too much time and I don't care that much. Plus, most of those kind of comics are stealing their material from Xmen or other superheroes anyway. So, I don't really think its that big of a deal.

I did stickmen for a long time (and do a complex stickfigure kinda style for my gag-a-day style comic now) but I do think there are a lot of benefits to doing a more complex style. The color ones are much more fun to read however, so keep that up. But, I think the main rule for comics is to do what is most comfortable for you and just keep experimenting with new stuff in your freetime. Keep on doing your thing and good luck on drunkduck.

*cough*comicgenesis_is_better*cough*

[Plague]

lol, speaking community-wise, I really do love the CG community. It's just that DrunckDuck was much easier to set up. And all I was looking for was a place to get my comics up as quickly and effortlessly as possible. Once I think my comic's big enough to worry about website design, extra pages, and such, I'll pay more attention to my comicgen domain. (Which I have already, I just don't have it updated, hah)

[Jaybob81]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with stick figure comics. I'm a firm believer in joke delivery, and the art can be anything as long as it helps get the punchline across. One of my favorite webcomics is OOTS. That man take stick figures to a whole new level, though.

Like Booze said, do what you feel comfortable with. As long as its funny people will read it, and then you can play with the art along the way.

[Xwhy]

I like stickfigures myself. I used to do a hand-drawn comic with them back in high school and my English teacher made me keep at it. (He was a big comic buff.) They were actually challenging to do to get some perspective, making them distinctive, giving them facial expressions. At the same time, I could cheat with the arms and I didn't have to draw fingers.

I've used them a couple of times when drawing the real person would take too long and wouldn't add much to the toon. I'd compare it to the folks that do talking head cartoons of two characters talking with nothing happening (no action) and with little or no background. In this case, the bodies are superfluous as well, so the stickfigures just leave them out, too.

[EvilFlea]

I do stick figures too.

They're quick and fairly easy for a fast output, but at times quite difficult to figure out how to get them to convey the right emotion - I never put faces on mine.

I'm a busy boy - full-time teacher and involved in various other voluntary pursuits - I don't have time to spend ages laboriously getting the detail right - because that's what I would do if I tried to get the characters looking realistic. And I like how my backgrounds and objects are gradually getting more details whilst still maintaining stick men characters.

I imagine some people wouldn't like it because of that.

But if the joke's still funny on a crap drawing, then the joke's funny, full stop. I like the comic you've posted on this thread, btw. That was kinda my main point.