Rebirth of Webcomic Above Discussion

[Hallonpress]

First of all, I'm sorry if I seemed a bit irritated in my comments. I tried very hard not to be. I will admit that I have a history of not being able to handle critique very well. That is part of the reason I post in threads like this one. I want to learn to listen to what people say, take it into consiteration and emerge with my confidence still intact. I think I'm getting better at it. I DO listen to what people say.

And you don't have to respect my opinions -- I'm a rank amateur compared to the artist of What Birds Know. If it comes down to a matter of disagreement, the person who has demonstratable knowledge wins, and that isn't me.

Yes I do. I have to respect what everyone says. At least when you give such thorough feedback. You tell me waht you like and don't like and why. I'd be an ass not to listen. I don't have to agree, but I have to ask myself why I don't agree.

And I don't believe you have to be an artist at all to give critique. You just have to have opinions.

I don't think it's necessary to redraw them, they still look good.

We absolutely do not want to get trapped in the endless circle of redrawing pages, that so many comics suffer from. Some comics seem never to get anywhere, just because the creator isn't happy whith what she/he has done before. So we have limited it to the first 23 pages.

Also, we will probably not ever replace any of the pages on the website, but if we do get the comic in print one day, we'll redraw them for that version. If that ever happens. It's a dream.

No, no, no! Your perspective is *never* wrong, it's well-done everywhere. What I mean is that there is usually a reason for extreme tilting and strange POVs -- they're used in action scenes, to show disorientation of the POV character, etc. They make the reader uneasy or excited. But your perspective gets crazy during the calmest periods of the story. It's the timing in your use of perspective that I don't understand.

This seem to be a valid point, and I will keep that in mind in the future. I don't think we have overdone it, myself, but as a general rule, to draw things in a strange perspective for no reason, is not a good thing to do. The reason we do it, as you say, is to make it more interesting and more dynamic and alive. I dislike comics being to static. Some people have said that they like the many perspective changes, so I suppse it comes down to personal preference in the end.

I'd like to hear other people's opinions, if anyone reads this..

Examples:
http://whatbirdsknow.atspace.com/wbk10.htm (2nd panel)
http://whatbirdsknow.atspace.com/wbk66.htm (4th panel)
http://whatbirdsknow.atspace.com/wbk119.htm (2nd panel)

I don't understand your issue with page ten. There is nothing special at all with the perspective on that panel. It's from an eye level and it looks straight forward, so what's so strange about it? That the characters are so small?

As for the other panels, I understand what you mean. But I don't personally think it disrupts the calm mood. Anyone else?

Not hard at all to buy that. But it hasn't been revealed to the readers yet. Almost nothing has been revealed to the readers about this world. I understand that the story is rolling out slowly because of the focus on characters, but right now (with nothing more fantastic than a mysterious explosion and a mushroom-induced hallucination) it looks like it's set in a normal medieval society. If you don't tell the readers vital information, they will make their own assumptions. As a writer you can use that to your advantage, but it can also bite you if you're not careful.

It would have been easy to drop hints about extended life span. Mention a number of years during the talk with Alvan. Mention anyone's ages other than the girls -- if Alvan is in his 50s and still spry, that's a clue. Similarly with the mushrooms. Have the girls recognize the potential danger, even if they dismiss it immediately afterward.

Excuse me, but I find that reasoning VERY strange. Does it really look like a normal medieval society? We have three unmarried teenage girls going to school, camping in the forest alone, wearing pants, smoking a pipe and having issues with their parents. There is no religious presence at all, just a vague honoring of a distant past. There is no indication of a feudal system.

I would've thought this was clear indications that it is in fact not a normal medieval society, but a different society that is made up for this comic. And I would've thought that the reader should take it for what it is, instead of just assuming that it is a normal medieval society anyway, and that we have just made lots of mistakes. Huh?



Dammit, I have to go, now... I'll just post this. I probably will have more to say later, though. Sorry.

-Mattias

[C.w.]

Why would writing out all the dialog for the comic benefit blind people? They wouldn't be able to read it either.

As for the search box thing...he has no search feature, and his archive is done well enough that you don't need one.

Well, i was partly referring to that, but partly just getting results from search engines altogether. When a search engine looks at your page (lets say google for now) it can only read the text on your page. (Although i'm sure they're working very hard for OCR on images, but that's beside the point.) So, when google looks at a comic page, it tends to get something like this -
(In case you're wondering, these are just opera 9.1 with emulate text browser turned on.)

• 

See? There's not a lot of information on what's going on in the comic, so when google archives the page, it gets a tiny bit of text to work with. It's why people see their comic's name and then loads of weird stuff in their search strings - there's just not much to go on,

• 

compared to that, which essentially has the entire comic there and ready for google to index. I get search strings that are related to things actually happening in the 'comic' - things like peterson's disease and katie gibbons.

In a perfect world you could handle all of it with tags within the IMG tag, or some sort of semantics in the ALT tag, but because you can't specify ALT or TITLE with CG, a transcription works best. You don't even have to show it, you could just hide it with .transcription {display:none;} in your CSS.

It's a twofold win - anyone with a screen reader or a braille thing or a text browser or whatever will at least be able to get the gist of your comic, and you'll probably generate more and more relevant searches.

[Rkolter]

Hallonpress -

Do you know just how many people have taken time to review you now? I see several who have talked about your comic and gone out to look at it, and responded.

You have, not entirely, but overwhelmingly gotten defensive over the reviews you've received.

I'd like to hear other people's opinions, if anyone reads this..
...
Anyone else?

Stop asking for reviews. And people, stop feeding this. If Hallonpress wants another review... hallonpress should make it a point to review another comic.

I would've thought this was clear indications that it is in fact not a normal medieval society, but a different society that is made up for this comic. And I would've thought that the reader should take it for what it is, instead of just assuming that it is a normal medieval society anyway, and that we have just made lots of mistakes. Huh?

Do you see where the problem is? You thought this was clear. Fair enough. It obviously wasn't entirely clear to the reviewer. This doesn't mean the reviewer is clearly wrong (as you are obviously suggesting by your tone and comments). It means that there is something you should take a look at. And if you're satisfied with it, be satisfied with it. That's fine. But don't DEFEND your comic.

You have admitted to taking critiques poorly. That's good - you realize it. Now do something about it. Stop taking it so poorly. You are probably not always right. The reader is probably not always right. Instead of defending what you have done, take a good hard look at the things that are criticized. Maybe there is room for improvement.

Or, maybe not. Maybe you LIKE the way your comic is. That's good too.

But stop asking people to make their own comments on your comic - you've had lots and lots and lots of that - way more than you are entitled to. And stop turning your critiques into chances to get upset. That's not what a critique is for.

[[geoduck]]

Why would writing out all the dialog for the comic benefit blind people? They wouldn't be able to read it either.

As for the search box thing...he has no search feature, and his archive is done well enough that you don't need one.

Well, i was partly referring to that, but partly just getting results from search engines altogether. When a search engine looks at your page (lets say google for now) it can only read the text on your page.

The website http://www.ohnorobot.com offers a free service where you (or visitors to your site) can type up transcriptions of your comics, which then can be searched by anyone. I've only got about a third of my strips entered in, but it's still been helpful to me a couple of times, when I couldn't remember where a specific comment was made.

[Rkolter]

Why would writing out all the dialog for the comic benefit blind people? They wouldn't be able to read it either.

As for the search box thing...he has no search feature, and his archive is done well enough that you don't need one.

Well, i was partly referring to that, but partly just getting results from search engines altogether. When a search engine looks at your page (lets say google for now) it can only read the text on your page.

The website http://www.ohnorobot.com offers a free service where you (or visitors to your site) can type up transcriptions of your comics, which then can be searched by anyone. I've only got about a third of my strips entered in, but it's still been helpful to me a couple of times, when I couldn't remember where a specific comment was made.

... woahhh... *favorites*

[Dr Legostar]

Well, i was partly referring to that, but partly just getting results from search engines altogether. When a search engine looks at your page (lets say google for now) it can only read the text on your page.

The website http://www.ohnorobot.com offers a free service where you (or visitors to your site) can type up transcriptions of your comics, which then can be searched by anyone. I've only got about a third of my strips entered in, but it's still been helpful to me a couple of times, when I couldn't remember where a specific comment was made.

... woahhh... *favorites*

i'd need to pay someone to make transcripts of my archives.

[Jackhass]

Yeah...I know the text might help with search engines, but it still looked strange written out right underneath the strip. I've *never* seen any other comic do that. And my point that it would be better to actually use that space to explain some of the obscure references and whatnot still stands.

[RemusShepherd]

Yeah...I know the text might help with search engines, but it still looked strange written out right underneath the strip. I've *never* seen any other comic do that. And my point that it would be better to actually use that space to explain some of the obscure references and whatnot still stands.

If putting text under the comic bothers you, look at my comic. I have a short 'Switch Content' javascript routine that hides all the comic text beneath a small line of text that says '(Click here to view comic text)'. Click on it, and all the dialogue pops out. Click it again, the dialogue disappears.

I have to add the text myself, but it's not hard. And I plan on putting up a Google search bar to look through that text, making my comic searchable.

I found that script originally from the comic Concerned. The javascript is viewable (and copyable) in the source of my page, or you can get it (and instructions on its use) from http://www.dynamicdrive.com/.

[RemusShepherd]

Examples:
http://whatbirdsknow.atspace.com/wbk10.htm (2nd panel)

I don't understand your issue with page ten. There is nothing special at all with the perspective on that panel.

Whoops, I meant page 11. Because the comic pops up in a separate window with no address bar, I copied the URL from the 'previous' link at the bottom without thinking. Sorry.

There is no religious presence at all, just a vague honoring of a distant past. There is no indication of a feudal system.

Well, there is that ruined castle...

As for everything else...I don't mind at all your asking questions about my review. But, well, I don't know what else to tell you, as we're down to just matters of opinion. While reading, I came to assumptions. I can't help that. I told you what those assumptions were, as possible problems. You can dismiss them as not actually problems, or you can try to fix them. But I can't change what I thought I saw.

Don't worry about it so much. When all is said and done, you have an excellent, professional comic. Relax. Most of us would kill for what you have.

[Biev]

I don't think we have overdone it, myself, but as a general rule, to draw things in a strange perspective for no reason, is not a good thing to do. The reason we do it, as you say, is to make it more interesting and more dynamic and alive. I dislike comics being to static. Some people have said that they like the many perspective changes, so I suppse it comes down to personal preference in the end.

I'd like to hear other people's opinions, if anyone reads this..

(...)

I don't understand your issue with page ten. There is nothing special at all with the perspective on that panel. It's from an eye level and it looks straight forward, so what's so strange about it? That the characters are so small?

As for the other panels, I understand what you mean. But I don't personally think it disrupts the calm mood. Anyone else?

Actually, I think this is one of your strongest points! And I liked the way it was used in the examples shown. I thought the choices were very appropriate, for me it didn't disturb the calm feel at all. I think it would be really sad if you got rid of the dynamic angles. Not many people are able to pull it off like that.

If putting text under the comic bothers you, look at my comic. I have a short 'Switch Content' javascript routine that hides all the comic text beneath a small line of text that says '(Click here to view comic text)'. Click on it, and all the dialogue pops out. Click it again, the dialogue disappears.

I was wondering what that was! Personally I just use invisible keywords. It's just a few words the same color as the background, and more representative of the comic than the dialogue is.

[Jesusabdullah]

Yeah...I know the text might help with search engines, but it still looked strange written out right underneath the strip. I've *never* seen any other comic do that. And my point that it would be better to actually use that space to explain some of the obscure references and whatnot still stands.

If putting text under the comic bothers you, look at my comic. I have a short 'Switch Content' javascript routine that hides all the comic text beneath a small line of text that says '(Click here to view comic text)'. Click on it, and all the dialogue pops out. Click it again, the dialogue disappears.

I have to add the text myself, but it's not hard. And I plan on putting up a Google search bar to look through that text, making my comic searchable.

I found that script originally from the comic Concerned. The javascript is viewable (and copyable) in the source of my page, or you can get it (and instructions on its use) from http://www.dynamicdrive.com/.

I've been looking for javascript code that does something very similar to that for the sidebar navigation in EHM Online! Awesome. I'll have to read that sometime.

As far as the text goes, could you put it in the image's alt field? I know that when viewing stuff in text mode browsers, they usually display what's in them instead of just putting in an [image] placeholder. I'd think that clever braille/voice readers could pick it up too...but I wouldn't know not being or knowing anyone who is blind.

Edit: Good God that javascript is big and confusing! Why is javascript so complicated?

[Hallonpress]

Oh no. Did I just...

Oh my god. I just realized I've become the kind of person that I've swore not to ever become.

RemusSheperd, rkolter, and everyone else that I might have offended, I sincerely appologize! I knew I was bad at taking critique, but that what I wrote came out so... arrogant, I never realized. Shows how blind you can become when looking at yourself. I feel so ashamed now, and I'm going to admit it right away.

The reason I have problems with critique is that I have had a very low self esteem throughout my life, and the only thing that boosts my confidence is the comics I make. I have felt better about myself lately, and that's why I dared to start posting on this forum in the first place. Recieveing critique for not taking critique well was hard. But I had it coming to me.

I know we have had more reviews, and praise, and constructive critizism than we deserve. I shouldn't ask for more, and I won't. I absolutely don't want to be the kind of person that only care about himself and what he's done.

I try to learn from the comments we get, and try to reason out what is wrong, why I agree or don't, and if possible, change things. It wasn't my intention to get defensive and angry. Obviously I did, and stepped out of line. I'm very, very sorry. I thought I was better at it than I was.

I am going to learn from this. I'm actually going to say thank you, rkolter, for pointing it out to me, so I can change.

...

This is the reason I've started adding my name at the bottom of my posts. I figured that if I did say something stupid, it would be MY mistake, not my parter Emelie's, at least.

So again, I'm sorry, and I will try to be a nicer person from now on.

-Mattias

[RemusShepherd]

As far as the text goes, could you put it in the image's alt field?

Theoretically you could, but I don't know how to create customized daily ALT tags for the Comicgenesis auto-updater. I'm not sure it's possible on CG.

You can (and I have tried to) just include the text in a HTML comment. But that doesn't help the sight impaired, and Google does not search on comments.

Hallonpress/Mattias: Don't worry about it. We've seen worse around here. Hell, *I've* been worse around here.

[Dragonkingdoms]

Yeah, someone whose name escapes me actually ended their comic, (which I wanted to check out) after a review. I've got the same problem as hallonpress/ Mattias has on critique, too. It honestly burned for the week or so after the review, when posts on here included snide comments about my comic in OTHER reviews (i.e. though bad, still much better than anything Dragonkingdoms has/can make) or something to that effect.

*scrounges around looking for readers lost since The Great Shredding of 2007*

I do like some of the solutions that have come out of this thread, such as hiding text under the comic, improving the website, angles and colo(u)ring techniques, etc.

[Jesusabdullah]

a) Sounds like you're still bitter.

b) Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone ever said, "at least it's not as bad as DragonKingdom's comic, I mean..."

Remus: I'd forgotten about that little thing with CG.

[Legendary]

b) Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone ever said, "at least it's not as bad as DragonKingdom's comic, I mean..."

I think Neko said that when he reviewed Serge.

[Jesusabdullah]

Ah yes, I think you're right. Still, that's one post, not multiple posts of us raggin' on him like he's making it sound.

[Black Sparrow]

That, and it's neko. He likes to take snaps at everyone.

[Dragonkingdoms]

I don't really know this The Neko that well, but there was another post, where his comments about the art for another comic were similar to those of mine. So it's not just one post, but two.
There was one post by someone else saying how it was soulless- I don't know if he was referring to the comic or the review. That's three total.

Anyway, is The Neko always like that? Is there something I'm missing here?

[Keffria]

It's pretty bad form to start a conversation like this. This thread is supposed to be for discussing the Webcomic Above thread, and a subject line [as in conversation topic] like "Is Neko a crabby bastard?" is a surefire way to both derail it and get it locked. If you feel like someone is treating you unfairly, the best thing to do is to take it to PM with them (or an admin) rather than dragging it out for the whole forum to see or being passive-aggressive in your signature about it.

And... Ah! So that's what that text was for on Remus's website. It had me confused. ;>_>

*Edited for the sake of clarity, though my point seemed pretty evident.