Webcomic Hate

[Yeahduff]

Reminds me of a Wilco song.

And you're repeating yourself.

[Td501]

With thousands of crap comics and only a few hundred good ones, the percentage of comics better than mine is kept encouragingly low.

[Dreamaniaccomic]

Who's Wilco?
Td501 has the right attitude. We should all keep in mind that while we are no where near the best, we are also no where near the worst. Of course, due to everyone having wildly different opinions, it's completely impossible to define either of these. My own defintion?
The best: Something which not only displays incredible effort, but displays a result equal to or greater then that effort. As far as comics go, this means the comic not only looks incredible (defined as being at realistic and detailed, not abstract) and has fantastic age-spanning humor and/or plot, but also displays a sincere effort on the part of the artist and writer, who may be the same person. I have yet to find a comic which fits this criteria, although my personal favorite is Real Life, by Greg Dean. (Check it out at www.reallifecomics.com.)
The worst: I don't like defining this, both because it conflicts with my beliefs and because the worst (insert noun here) is constantly being replaced by a new, even worse (same noun.) In comics, I guess the worst comic would be one wherein you could not actually tell it WAS supposed to be a comic, until someone else explained it to you. Again, haven't found this, because I don't want to even try looking for it. I don't have a least favorite comic for the same reason. I enjoy ALL the comics I read on a regular basis.

[Dreamaniaccomic]

You know, I went way, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back to the very first post in this thread. Go read it yourself, I'm not going to quote that entire thing, but it did make me realize that 1. This entire topic has kind of gone off course and 2. I don't think the name of the thread was quite what Guildmaster Van was looking for. "Give some honest, brutal criticism of someone else's work" would have been better.
I actually support negative criticism, at least to a certain point.
I have this book called How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James N. Frey. In the last chapter, it describes the importance of honest, brutal criticism to your writing thusly:
"It's hard to take, but you don't make steel in a hot tub; you make it in a blast furnace."
Or: The only way to get rid of the useless crud is to beat it and rend it until you've got a damn good piece of culture out of your work.
This advice can actually be applied to any sort of task: To win a marathon, you need to train until you feel like you've tortured every cell of your body. To make a game, it has to be playtested and playtested until the testers faint from effort.
And to make a damn good webcomic, you gotta take some damn tough advice.
Of course, blasting another guy's work dosen't do much good if you don't explain WHY it sucks.
Which is where I draw the line. Also, insulting the actual person and not the work dosen't do any good- it's the same thing as failing to give a reason WHY the comic sucks, only in this case there is a reason and the reason itself sucks.
Everyone, I want you to go to my comic, read it, come back here, and find as much fault with it as you can. I will ignore any criticism that dosen't explain what is wrong with whatever part of my comic. Ready, Aim, Fire.

[Wendybird]

Yay! For the first time in this thread, a comic to pummel!

You really need to draw in the borders of your word bubbles, to define what is text and what is image. Some people can pull off borderless word bubbles, but usually it's in a small but legible typed font with lots of empty space around it. Even then I don't particularly like the method. Also I have nothing against hand lettering, except you don't really have the skill to make it work.

When you have more legible words in your comics, you can make the images smaller. Images wider than the average monitor make people scroll sideways, which they find annoying - especially since your site is just tall enough to make me have to scroll down to get to the "next" button. I try to stick to the conservative 600 pixels wide, but most people have at least an 800-pixel wide monitor, so 750 wouldn't be too bad. Besides the scrolling factor, it's also nice to be able to take in the comic as one image. It also makes art look better when you scale it down from its original size.

A smaller image size will also allow you to put more colors into your .gif without having a humongous file size. That would take care of the splotchy pixellated background. What program do you use to edit your images? Some work with levels or curves (GIMP tools) could also help with the clarity and light levels of your images.

Besides the fragility of your most important wall, the writing seems all right...not all the jokes are original, but not all of them have to be if they're executed right - which mostly means bringing them across well with clear writing and pictures.

The rest will only come with time.

[Rcmonroe]

The best: Something which not only displays incredible effort, but displays a result equal to or greater then that effort. As far as comics go, this means the comic not only looks incredible (defined as being at realistic and detailed, not abstract) and has fantastic age-spanning humor and/or plot, but also displays a sincere effort on the part of the artist and writer, who may be the same person. I have yet to find a comic which fits this criteria, although my personal favorite is Real Life, by Greg Dean. (Check it out at http://www.reallifecomics.com.)

Here we have a good example of how radically people's perceptions can be while viewing the same work. From what I've seen of it, Real Life to me is an example of a comic which does not display incredible effort (since the artist uses cuts and paste about as liberally as anyone I've ever seen) and which usually does not have age-spanning humor (since a large percentage of the jokes seem centered around computer games or game systems, which targets a pretty specific—albeit large—age demographic).

Interestingly, someone in a forum once likened my strip to Real Life—they didn't mean for it to be taken as a compliment.

I'm not picking on Greg Dean and I have no interest in debating Real Life's merits (or lack thereof); it seems to me a very competent work and the worst thing I can say about it is that, like 99.99% of webcomics I run across, it's targeting an audience of which I am clearly not a part. That doesn't make it bad or good, it just makes it something that's not for me.

I would caution against making your definition of what makes a "good" comic too rigid—it has to look like this, it has to be about this subject matter, it has to take this amount of time; great art often eschews convention (one might even argue that great art usually eschews convention). I don't like gaming comics and I don't like cut and paste comics and I don't like fantasy-based comics and I don't like geeky comics but I love Elf Only Inn, especially the early strips. In spite of breaking almost every "rule" I have, EOI is exponentially more than the sum of its parts, and is one of my favorite webcomics. Just goes to show you what you can discover if you open your mind up occasionally.

[McDuffies]

Yeah, "Real life" comics take, like, 15 minutes to make each, including writing. He takes already-made figures in Illustrator and just arranges them in scenery. In most of cases, they don't move much, so he usually doesn't have to change many things from panel to panel, just facial expressions, speech baloons, perhaps to tilt them left or right a bit. Compared to, say, John Allison who also used Illustrator, but to build his characters from scratch every time - that's amazingly little effort. Also Dean drew for years and haven't learned to draw hands. His characters have hands in their pockets even when they're running. It's not exactly what I'd call competent.
Actually, everything that I just wrote reffers to "Real life" from about four or five years ago, which is when I last read it (I've rarely stumbled onto comics less engaging than RL). It is possible that meanwhile, he changed his direction, improved greatly and actually started making a comic that is less verbal and more visual.

I would caution against making your definition of what makes a "good" comic too rigid—it has to look like this, it has to be about this subject matter, it has to take this amount of time; great art often eschews convention (one might even argue that great art usually eschews convention). I don't like gaming comics and I don't like cut and paste comics and I don't like fantasy-based comics and I don't like geeky comics but I love Elf Only Inn, especially the early strips. In spite of breaking almost every "rule" I have, EOI is exponentially more than the sum of its parts, and is one of my favorite webcomics. Just goes to show you what you can discover if you open your mind up occasionally.

I always believed that art should be judged on case-to-case basis. I think, every time a society tried to make some rules about what constitutes good art, someone would eventually come, subversive and talented enough, to prove that art can be good beyond those rules too.
Generally, if I can fill a page with things that are good in a comic, then I consider that comic good.

[TheSuburbanLetdown]

Reminds me of a Wilco song.

And you're repeating yourself.

I've said it once before but it bears repeating now.

[Dreamaniaccomic]

Man, that hurt...
But it was good pain. I think I was ranting for a bit, and got off topic- oh well.
Thanks, Wendybird, I'll try to outline everyone's words in future strips, but don't expect anything for a couple of weeks- I already inked, scanned, and uploades comics 1-10, and I'm not desperate enough to go back and change every single one. Fortunately, I am deperate enough to go back and resize every picture, so by tomorrow they should all be a pretty reasonable size. I don't actually edit them in the computer- basically, I make them look as pretty as possible on paper, then scan them in. I guess my main problem is that the size of my paper (and scanner) limits how much I can trace out and fit into each panel, so when I've tried to put bubbles around the dialogue, it makes the entire panel look crowded the smoking areas in airports. Wow, look at me whine. I'll fix up as much as I can.
As for the humor, yeah, whatever. I really like 4th wall humor, but I have managed to force myself to not break it every single week. If the comics for next week seem like rip-offs, it's purely unintentional; I haven't heard any of those jokes online or in the paper.
Keep criticizing, I need the help.

[Dreamaniaccomic]

Oh, yeah, McDuffies: Four or five years ago, I would agree with you. Now, even though he still uses copy and paste, the comic still looks great. And so what if he can't draw hands? I've practiced enough to fill an entire sketchbook, and they're still f******* hard to draw. Which is why my characters hands are little circles.
For those of you who didn't realize, my sig is a link to the comic. Again, go and find as much wrong with it as you can.

[Dreamaniaccomic]

Oh, yeah, Rcmonroe: I was ranting. If I start talking for that long and sound that opinion, I've had way too many Coca-Colas. Like I said before I started ranting, I don't like to define stuff.

[Turnsky]

you know you can edit your posts instead of making a new one =p

[McDuffies]

And so what if he can't draw hands? I've practiced enough to fill an entire sketchbook, and they're still f******* hard to draw. Which is why my characters hands are little circles.

Yes, hands are very hard to draw, but they're also very important. Asides from face, they're the most expressive parts of human anatomy, and the one you are going to need to draw most often - basically after the head, they're the most important part to learn to draw. You can hardly draw a cowboy comic without knowing how to draw a horse, or a space-opera without knowing how to draw a space-ship - and you can hardly draw a comic involving any kind of humanoid creatures, without learning to draw hands. "Real life" proves this point more than anything, it has characters doing various things all while holding their hands in pockets, and it looks completely ridiculous.
Everyone here will probably agree that hands are really difficult to draw. But most of people here still know how to draw hands. It's something you can't avoid. You can only draw circles instead of hands for so long before realising that that system simply doesn't work for you.

[Paul Escobar]

Everyone here will probably agree that hands are really difficult to draw.

I find hands easy to draw. However, I admit to having difficulties drawing bicycles.

[Industrialpowersart]

You asked for it, dreamaniac. But feel free to return fire. Let loose on Industrial Powers, everybody. I am well aware of several problems, but I won't mention what they are. It'll be interesting to see if we agree.

On Dreamania: I really wouldn't hand letter. It doesn't look terribly professional. Unless that's the point, of course, in which case, carry on. Ditto your kind of wavy panel borders. Your sin is mine, but rulers are cheap. Speaking of, what ARE you using for your media? Your art style is not terribly sophisticated, but it IS kind of cute. I am reminded of Klayman from The Neverhood, which is one of my all time favorite wastes of an evening. The comics are humorous enough. The timing's all right. But. . . I hate scrolling. HATE it. (sounds like youre fixing that issue, though) There, I am wasting a strong emotion on something trivial.

Oh, and just for the record, I am a fine artist by training. I couldn't read Real Life. It may be a great comic. The art made me twitch. A lot of art makes me twitch. Want to guarantee i won't read something, even if the plot is worthy of Henry Fielding? Draw it "realistically", but without awareness that eyeballs are in the center of the skull.

[Metruis]

No, I disagree--hand lettering CAN look VERY professional when done right.

It's just that Dreammaniac isn't doing it right.

Now, I could go on at both of you and easily fill a few pages in Word, but Industrial didn't leave a URL, doesn't have one as a homepage and doesn't have it in his sig.

But here, for all the critics here besides me...

http://industrialpowers.comicgenesis.com/

You asked for it. >.>

I'm not going to bother with Dreammaniac yet... too lazy since I already actually read Industrial Power's archive a few days back. In the meantime, Industrial! Who's complaining about not so professional looking comics. Art is... well... okay. I guess. Needs to learn about line varience and how to pose people and how to not letter in Paint. Or it looks like it. Also, needs to learn the font Webletterer, Digital Strip, A.C.M.E. Special Agent, or HECK EVEN COMIC SANS WOULD LOOK BETTER THAN WHATEVER THIS THING IS YOU'RE ATTEMPTING TO PASS OFF AS A LETTERING FONT IS. Also needs to learn the term anti-aliasing.

Also needs to learn that red serif fonts on gray are not legable and I have to highlight to read your news boxes.

I have read through the entire archive of Industrial Powers a few days ago when they joined Comic Genesis. The saving grace? It's an interesting story. It looks like it could be taking some neat turns. The art... the art, the art, the art...

1) Learn to letter.
2) Learn to color.

No, no.

Learn to do things on the computer.

Your traditional art looks fine, not print comic quality, but fine. There's a reason most comics are inked: pencils don't print very well. And though you proportion your faces right, as you say clashes with you, your poses clash with me. Take a look at this page. http://industrialpowers.comicgenesis.co ... 80706.html

Nice pencils, sure. Quite nice pencils, great shading, etc. Momentary amusement by the graffiti, even if it's a serious page. But it looks incomplete. It SHOULD be inked, there should be more line varience, and the lettering makes my brain hurt. See, I'll read a comic if the story is amazing even if I'm not a fan of the art and... I don't MIND the art but it could easily be better, but when the lettering is bad, you've lost me. The lettering is the story.

On this page... http://industrialpowers.comicgenesis.co ... 80708.html That's probably one of the more interesting pieces of art, actually, for an extra... but below, you guys say...

It's not that I don't have the more expensive programs like photo shop and paint shop and a few others.

Good.

Use them for lettering. Photoshop is AMAZING for lettering and I would have paid JUST FOR THAT TOOL. Paint Shop Pro is pretty good for lettering too.

-Center.
-Default leading (the spacing between line breaks) on most fonts is bad.
-Any font that is not for lettering comics is bad, usually. Even Verdana would've looked better here... I gave you a list of free fonts. I do not recommend Comic Sans. I do recommend Digital Strip, Webletterer, or A.C.M.E. Special Agent.

http://industrialpowers.comicgenesis.co ... 80709.html

Also, I recommend multiply layers for your lineart if you have to put a gradient behind it.

Anywayyy... all in all... it could be worse. I've read through worse. The story is interesting, it's a classic sort of super hero story. The BIGGEST problem in my mind is the lettering and the site layout, as well, the art passing off as realistic, with realistic faces and even usually realistic torsos and proportions, while having severe posing issues. The people tend to look unnatural. The drawing of Marge Towers on July 10th's comic looks GREAT, nice and natural pose and everything, but the guy with her looks horrid. The traditional coloring looks great, the traditional pencils look great, it's just the things done digitally that hurt.

I highly suspect it will improve, seeing how you're opening up yourself for fire...

I also should probably make a comic review blog because I tend to do far too in depth of critiques for my own good. XP

I couldn't read Real Life because the WRITING made me twitch. It began with "hay let's make a comic!" for a joke. -_- Sooooooooooooyeah.

[Pimpette]

Your traditional art looks fine, not print comic quality, but fine. There's a reason most comics are inked: pencils don't print very well. And though you proportion your faces right, as you say clashes with you, your poses clash with me. Take a look at this page. http://industrialpowers.comicgenesis.co ... 80706.html

Nice pencils, sure. Quite nice pencils, great shading, etc. Momentary amusement by the graffiti, even if it's a serious page. But it looks incomplete. It SHOULD be inked, there should be more line varience, and the lettering makes my brain hurt. See, I'll read a comic if the story is amazing even if I'm not a fan of the art and... I don't MIND the art but it could easily be better, but when the lettering is bad, you've lost me. The lettering is the story.

I dunno, I like the pencils a lot more than I like the attempts to digitally colour. The papyrus font isn't bad either, though the text boxes should be a bit bigger, give the text some room to breathe.
I do suggest trying to darken the pencils a little after scanning them in (levels are your friend), but even grey they look sort of nice. I would darken the text a little bit - make it at least as dark as the darkest shadows of your pencils. Soft grey text is hard on the eyes. Or at least on mine.

I really do recommend getting to know whichever digital image program you use, be it Photoshop, Painter, the GIMP, etc. If you're doing a webcomic, it is to your advantage to fiddle around with a page until it looks good on your screen. The boxes around your text are neat... until you notice the white rectangle behind that. Ruins the look of the page a little.

*skips through the next few comics just to poke around*
Oh yeah. When you colour digitally.. layers are your friend. I'm sure it's already been said before, and it's true.

The colouring on this page is very nice (though I will quote an elementary school teacher and say THOU SHALT ALWAYS COLOUR IN ONE DIRECTION... but even so, I like how it came out).
http://industrialpowers.comicgenesis.co ... 80710.html
My one complaint lies with your text bubbles again. The lettering and the text boxes you used on the page I linked earlier actually fit the page (despite the white rectangles, but I didn't even notice those right away). Try to use something other than MSPaint. IF you don't want to fork out the money for photoshop (unless I heard you say you already had it, in which case USE IT), there's always free things like the GIMP.

In conclusion... your pencilled art is actually very nice, but your font choices and your text bubbles definitely need work.

[Yeahduff]

Reminds me of a Wilco song.

And you're repeating yourself.

I've said it once before but it bears repeating now.

You hipster.


Stop drawing circles, start drawing hands. Even if they suck, that's how you get better.

Having unprofessional looking lettering isn't a problem if you have unprofessional looking drawing. Get better at both at the same time.

And this is what's more important than things like effort and detail: tone. Your lettering has to match your drawing which has to match your writing, and they all have to work together to convey an idea, your voice, your tone. Doesn't make sense to go and find a clean font if you're still gonna draw like that.

[TheSuburbanLetdown]

Reminds me of a Wilco song.

And you're repeating yourself.

I've said it once before but it bears repeating now.

You hipster.

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

[Dreamaniaccomic]

Still working on fixing the sizing problem. And again, everyone will have to wait a bit for comics with bubbles. So the first ten are just going to have text with lines indicating who is speaking.
As far as hands go, while I won't be adding any new hands to Dreamaniac (the circles are fine- the comic is supposed to look kiddy) But I'm working on a new, much more actionish comic, so I'll have proper hands there. And I DID get a ruler. It should show for the rest of the comics I'm putting up there.
Alright, industrialpowers, get ready for some criticism.
Your story rocks. Admittedly, I'm a total super hero geek, but oh well. Your art is pretty good, although some of the action scenes seem less dynamic then they should be. Now, I ink all of my outlines and for the first ten strips darkened everything that wasn't white with pencil. I recently picked up a inking set for $18.00 at my local officemax, and it has an excellent range of grays for darkening, so I use that now. Your latest strip fixed most of the text problems that everyone else is complaining about, but there is a strange, empty white space near the bottom right of your comic. And the cactus joke clashes with the tone of your comic. Also would it hurt to make it clear which character is using which speech bubble? A characters personality isn't enough for the average reader to identify who is saying what.
Your strategy of twelve comics at the beginning of the month, all at once, is kinda weird- I myself update three times a week, but to each his own. Having all of those at once kinda spoils it though.