Webcomic Above You 2014 Review and Discussion

[JSConner800]

I haven't gotten to Steel Salvation yet, I'm working a temporary full-time teaching job for a few weeks woooo and so I have more work outside of school time than normal and am still trying to find time to work on my own comic. I'll aim to at least have my first readthrough done sometime this weekend.

No worries, it's not going anywhere. The more feedback we get before starting part 2, the better, but considering how long it's gonna take for that train to leave the station, there's no rush. Come back when your pockets are full and you've either lost or reaffirmed your faith in humanity.

[RobboAKAscooby]

Oh damn, I just saw that robybang post that was actually above mine, when I posted it wasn't there, probably because he wasn't approved yet or something.

If he hasn't already done the review he should probably just jump back in at the end, otherwise I can try to throw something together for his comic as well.

If there's any outstanding reviews at the end I'll probably do them or anyone who volunteers

[RobboAKAscooby]

I'm working a temporary full-time teaching job for a few weeks woooo and so I have more work outside of school time than normal and am still trying to find time to work on my own comic. I'll aim to at least have my first readthrough done sometime this weekend.

I forgot to say way to go Cuddly!!!
How are you enjoying the teacher time?

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

Come back when your pockets are full and you've either lost or reaffirmed your faith in humanity.

I forgot to say way to go Cuddly!!!
How are you enjoying the teacher time?

Getting by okay so far, though it's only been three real days- the most challenging thing has been trying to find ways to use the chunks of free time I have efficiently. It's nice though now that I actually have the same kids every day I know pretty much all of their names (at least in a classroom context, we'll see if I'm still able to do it if I see some of them at the Memorial day parade), and I know which ones are gonna try to "pull a fast one" and which ones I can trust not to take a mile when I give an inch.


I'm also really tempted to bring my comic stuff to work on in the office if I have down time, but it's so far been too unpredictable to know whether it's worthwhile or whether I'll have to do some other task for that time period.

[djracodex]

List so far: ...
Red Slime being reviewed by Djracodex DONE

ha HA, now it is!

Red Slime Magazine - Completed
Red Slime is a series of short story comics of all different styles, themes, and levels of talent. Though mainly sci-fi or horror, there are some other genres thrown in to making 11 issues of delicious comic goolash. This was a tricky comic to review. I mean, it's completed, so what can I say to really improve it? I am so sorry it has taken so long, I'm the worst! Anyway, here's my best shot.

Site:
Nice and simple to navigate, but not overly pleasing to look at. The top "comics rock!" banner doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the theme. I understand it's part of the original design, but even looking at the screencap from the original, it lacks an agreeable and cohesive color scheme.
I really appreciate the archives page and how clicking once on the cover will give you a small intro page/table of contents before jumping into the issue. I also enjoyed the Extras page, my only regret is that there is not more; I love concept art.
I wish the pages themselves reflected an obvious "home" link to the main or archive page.

The Magazine:
Some stories were more professional looking than the rest. Speech bubbles were properly sized, flow was smooth, story was fleshed out and tied up at the end. Those stories that lacked in these areas made the transition harder to hold on to. Issue #5 didn't feel like it was in the same magazine, it seemed like a concentration of off-theme comics like the powers that be had no place else to put them really. Most issues had a good enough blend, #9, #1, and #8 to name a few.
Stories ranged from one-pagers like the Science Fair(s) to taking up the whole issue, like Night at the Diner. I liked the idea of the science fair series, Non sequitur and silly, but in practice it seemed to fall flat, like I never got the joke, but nobody wrote one...? Being a sci-fi comic, I can only imagine the crazy scenarios at a science fair like gerbil breeding gone wrong, or what actually happens when your eat pop-rocks and drink coke, but what we get are oreos, socks and water...I might be reading/expecting too much of this, but I don't think I'm asking for much.

Stories of the caliber of (to name a few, not exclude) The Myth of the Chupacabras, Down the Hole and Icarus really made this series stand out to me. Red Slime is full of these gems, and you never have to sit through many "wtf did I just read?"-stories to get to one you wish was a couple pages longer.

Overall
I wish there were more things like Red Slime out there. Maybe there are, I just don't look hard enough. If Red Slime ever spins off another product, I imagine they learned a lot about constructing the first one to help the next be more cohesive.


Noooow to catch up on what everyone's been posting because I have felt to guilty about my review to even visit the forums lol Caaaan't wait!

[RobboAKAscooby]

List so far: ...
Red Slime being reviewed by Djracodex DONE

ha HA, now it is!

noted

[robybang]

Steel Salvation
Reviewed by Robybang

Steel Salvation is a science fiction post-apocalyptic webcomic about a robot named Dy-Gar, a robot conqueror that wants to escape a planet that he has laid waste to so he can expand his wave of destruction to the rest of the galaxy. However, there appears to be some indication that things aren't completely as they seem as his memory is spotty and characters such as the Goddess (who could possibly be his manifestation of a woman from his memory banks) and a robot arm named Roger give some indication that Dy-Gar might not be the genocidal robot he thinks he is.

The strongest point of this comic is in the writing. At first glance, the whole “Robots who turned on their creators,” and using amnesia/memory as a plot point sounds absolutely trite. Robot overthrowing their overlords has been done since the word “Robot” was even coined and far too many movies/shows/games use amnesia to start the character off as a blank slate and set up a cheap plot twist later. But here it's used well, often by taking a different approach. In other works, the robot overthrow is usually from the perspective of the humans and has to be ended or prevented. Here, the revolution has long ended and every living thing on the planet is dead, leaving Dy-Gar desperate to escape because his bloodlust cannot possibly be quenched. And here the amnesia angle works because rather than the blank slate style amnesia that's often used, Dy-Gar's memory problems start at one particular point. And while even this could have been misused to just throw in a cheap plot twist later on, Roger and the Goddess make it clear that Dy-Gar is probably a female companion bot for Treya in the first chapter, likely being part of a series of reveals.

Another strong point in the writing is the dialogue. Some writers have a problem with dialogue, resulting in characters that sound like they're all the same person rather than characters with different levels of education, occupations, and individual personalities. Here, the dialogue definitely works towards characterizing the cast. Dy-Gar tends to speak in a more elevated and grandiose manner reflecting his meglomania, saying things like “I have deleted more files than most robots will store over a hundred incarnations. I have not the time to waste on a … [Personal Prosthetic Assistant].” Roger tends to speak more informally, reflecting his past as a bootlegger's assistant.

The comic looks like it is drawn and colored digitally, and the lines look like they're possibly vector based considering how smooth and geometric the lines look. The lines work well with the robots given their artificial nature, the lines are a little too smooth and clean for toppled structures and clouds. On the plus side, there is enough variance in line width to imply differences in proximity. Color contrast is also an issue, as the comic tends to stay in a small range of midtone gray, even in environments that are supposedly dark. Finally, with word balloons, the tail should always point towards the speaker's mouth. If not, you have cases like this, where in the fifth panel the tail looks like it's pointing towards Roger, giving the impression that he's making a quip about Dy-Gar rather than a continuation of Dy-Gar's thoughts.

Overall, I'd say the comic is pretty good in the writing department, taking some old tropes and breathing new life into them with well-written characters, though the lineart could look more organic, there needs to be a wider range of tones, and the word balloon issue, which is easy to correct.

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

If not, you have cases like this, where in the fifth panel the tail looks like it's pointing towards Roger

Did you have some URLs in here that got lost in the process of copying from the original source to BBcode?

[JSConner800]

Thanks Roby! Glad you enjoyed the comic. You seem to have a pretty good idea of the bigger picture, which is a relief to me, because in retrospect I can see just how slowly part 1 progresses. I'm far more experienced writing prose than comics, and one trait I've noticed in most successful comics is that the stories move very quickly - often too quickly for my tastes, but I think there's a happy medium somewhere in there that I should strive for. I was concerned that there's not enough going on in part 1 to keep readers reading, because there's a lot of setup and really no payoff yet. As long as we can give off the impression that there is a payoff, that should at least carry readers into part 2, where the story will really take off.

I have one question for you, though. In LibertyCabbage's review, he said he thought that the artwork got gradually worse as the comic went on. Did you find that to be the case as well? We specifically discussed strip 21 and strip 2, and while I think 21 is clearly better than 2, LC said he thought strip 2 was better overall. I was under the impression that we were improving, but if we're getting worse or, hell, even if we're just staying the same, we need to reevaluate what we're doing.

Thanks again!

[RobboAKAscooby]

I have one question for you, though. In LibertyCabbage's review, he said he thought that the artwork got gradually worse as the comic went on. Did you find that to be the case as well? We specifically discussed strip 21 and strip 2, and while I think 21 is clearly better than 2, LC said he thought strip 2 was better overall. I was under the impression that we were improving, but if we're getting worse or, hell, even if we're just staying the same, we need to reevaluate what we're doing.

I know you didn't ask me (and I haven't read your whole archive) but off those two pages I'd have to say that substantively the art has improved, the overall structure and detail looks better, only thing I'd work on is the line thickness.
Again I haven't looked at it all so that's the only thing I can say.


Also that skeleton on p21 is creepy *thumbs up*

[JSConner800]

I know you didn't ask me (and I haven't read your whole archive) but off those two pages I'd have to say that substantively the art has improved, the overall structure and detail looks better, only thing I'd work on is the line thickness.
Again I haven't looked at it all so that's the only thing I can say.


Also that skeleton on p21 is creepy *thumbs up*

Thanks Scooby! The more opinions we can get on this the better, and I appreciate you taking the time to give it a look even though you weren't obligated by the ancient and unbending rules of WAY to do so

The difference in line thickness is actually a result of a change in our methods around strip 9 or 10. For the first 9 strips, Evan drew the pencils and photographed/scanned them, at which point Alex traced over every line in Adobe Illustrator. This meant that he could do a lot of varying line thicknesses and make things look very clean, but it also meant the whole process took forever and drove him slightly insane. To fix that, he built a light table and now he traces Evan's pencils in pen before uploading them to his computer. There's a function in Illustrator called Live Trace that automatically converts dark colors like pen into vectored lines. That means the lines are thicker and messier, but Alex much prefers this system and I think he's getting better at it (he's certainly made some progress since strip 10). He still does some small details like Dy-Gar's face with the old method, but I'll mention that to him when we do our big "gettin' ready for Part 2" meeting.

And yes, it's such a relief to hear that Evan's skeletons have improved and I'm not crazy. This was his first skeleton from the strip 2 storyboard:



He really puts the chill in chilling.

dear god I'm so sorry

[RobboAKAscooby]

Cope - I know your review was weeks ago but (because of boredom/artist block) I've been re-reading a few threads tonight and I wanted to just ask you something about this:

I assume you're putting Alexis up on a pedestal and are loath to imbue her with anything that might make her interesting.

Now I'm totally in agreement with how poorly I've handled LTD (new acronym for the comic's name) so far - and I'm giving lots of thought as to how I'm gonna continue - but I thought I might address this one, in case you (or anyone else) has advice...

See my aim was, since we're basically being introduced to her through Ash's eyes, to present her first how Ash saw her and then build on flaws as Ash started to see her more as a real person than as this amazing force in his life.
Obviously I didn't get anywhere near that point, as I didn't really get anywhere plot-wise really, but I was just wondering if you (or anyone else here) thinks that is an interesting idea? Taking her from the OMG on the pedestal to a real (but still fascinating to him) person by his side?


Oh well just pondering things, and this place makes a good sounding board.


Of course right now I'm contemplating chucking the whole intro and just starting with the relationship in progress so that would make a lot of things moot.
But then a lot of the culture shock jokes would ring false, maybe I should restart with them just starting to date (which is kind of where it would be now).

I dunno, I've got to try and reconcile my ideas with my original concept of "Can celebrity and geekdom mix?"
I mean there's plenty of material to be mined out of that question, I'm sure that there'd have to be some amusing reactions/interactions with a superstar celeb going from red carpets to comic conventions (and vice versa too). Not to mention how would someone who's used to dealing with bullies and critics head-on adjust to suddenly being tabloid fodder (since Ash is very new to mainstream attention)?

Guess I just have to focus on the jokes and questions that got me interested in this project.


Apologies for another word-vomit post.

[Sortelli]

WHAT NONSENSE

What Nonsense is a funny animal comic about a brutal murderer named Ryan Razorback. Actually it's about Pike Swinson, who is probably Ryan Razorback. And if he's not, the rest of the world seems to think he is.

The prologue is gruesomely dark, describing the elaborately cruel murder of Ryan Razorback's daughter at the hands of her father who is also said to be a serial killer. While the police try to interview Mrs. Razorback, she throws their surviving daughter Marjolaine off the Golden Gate bridge and swears to follow her to hell as soon as she catches up with Daddy.

Next we fast forward three years to Pike Swinson driving to a place called Nawncentz. Swinson is a boar, like Razorback, and he is immediately set off into a rant by a news report covering the Razorback case. He drops a lot of exposition that explains how he's been ordered away on vacation and concludes with a tirade about how terrible family is and how he's "done away with the whole business."

And this sets off a family of nosy giraffes, the father of which literally sticks his neck into Swinson's business to scold him for his point of view. And then he announces that he will steal Swinson's Cheetos.

"Giraffes..." Swinson grumbles, "...always after me damn Cheetos."

That change in tone sets up the rest of the story really well, because it's strange and entertaining, but you never forget that it's just the surface of something very wrong and probably dangerous. Nawncentz is a rural hellhouse full of violent eccentrics run by a dragon named Doctor Roofadoodle Draboosternunny who is almost certainly the devil.

The other residents are open about the fact that they've had problems or "incidents" in the past, but they are tight-lipped on the specifics. For them Nawncentz is to be a second chance where they can get a handle on things and heal, or at the very least it's purgatory and Roofadoodle is the devil. Roofadoodle is supposed to be taking care of the building and the residents but the place is falling apart and Roofadoodle seems devoted to tormenting his residents because he is the devil and he is scourging their souls rather than helping them.

Swinson himself is actually a pretty swell guy. Even though the story leads us to believe that he's a serial killer on the verge of snapping again, it also casts him as a reasonable everyman dealing with nutcases. Sure, he's an anti-social workaholic that doesn't want to be your friend, but neither does he mistreat anyone else, and he takes issue with how Roofadoodle treats the other residents. When he does finally snap at the end of part one, his behavior remains entirely reasonable.

Only a strange deus ex machina speech from the final resident of Nawncentz convinces him to stay, although Rosalinda doesn't remember how she managed to expertly push Swinson's buttons into seeing his time at Nawncentz as one more piece of work to endure because she was possessed by Roofadoodle, the devil himself.

No seriously, Roofadoodle put her up to making sure that Swinson doesn't leave and she doesn't remember doing it.

And one other thing: Mrs. Razorback? She's there too. And she has a stuffed kangaroo in her pocket named Marjolaine. She's concerned that it isn't safe for Swinson to be around, both for fear of what he might do or what might happen to him. And as much as I want to believe Swinson is just a normal guy, his time at Nawncentz keeps reminding us that he literally has a Ryan Razorback shaped hole in his memory and the other residents seem to think his arrival is a bit beyond the pale even for them and their own checked histories.

The rest of the story involves getting to know the other residents at Nawncentz, and the strange animal world they live in. This can lead to some of the weaker parts of the story because it often involves a long lead up to a dialogue heavy infodump when someone sits down to explain a character's past and motivations (all the while dancing around some kind of incident that got them in hot water). But these events also helpfully lead Swinson through his own growth.

The current chapter doesn't seem to be about anyone in particular though, just the residents spending the holidays together and splitting up at a theme park. It's a nice diversion and helps to illustrate how Swinson's acclimated to the others and vice versa. The problem is that this particular part's been going on for two years of sporadic updates, which is the onnnnnly reason I can't follow the comic regularly.

BUT HELL WHO AM I TO CRITICIZE THAT.

For writing, I give What Nonsense four stars out of five. Likewise for the artwork which is perfectly suited to the story it is telling. It was dark and gritty when the story started, and as the plot has mellowed out it has become cleaner and more expressive.

Roofadoodle is the devil seriously he is red and he is a dragon and he's antagonizing a bunch of sinners to challenge them

[Dranxis]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on What Nonsense Sortelli! You're right, from now on I will have to think about how to reveal things without doing a dialogue infodump. I'm glad the current chapter is a 'nice diversion,' I wanted to lighten the tone after the melancholy chapter 3. There will be a little more character development in the final scene of the chapter.... whenever I get there. Yeah my updating schedule is really really bad! I can't blame anyone for not following it regularly. What Nonsense is intended to be a self-contained graphic novel, so I'm mostly concerned about how the story will read all together, rather than update to update. It's a wonder I've kept any longtime readers at all, they are saints.

I'm getting closer to finishing my read of Red Slime, been typing up thoughts on the different stories as I go.

[Cope]

Cope - I know your review was weeks ago but (because of boredom/artist block) I've been re-reading a few threads tonight and I wanted to just ask you something about this:

I assume you're putting Alexis up on a pedestal and are loath to imbue her with anything that might make her interesting.

Now I'm totally in agreement with how poorly I've handled LTD (new acronym for the comic's name) so far - and I'm giving lots of thought as to how I'm gonna continue - but I thought I might address this one, in case you (or anyone else) has advice...

See my aim was, since we're basically being introduced to her through Ash's eyes, to present her first how Ash saw her and then build on flaws as Ash started to see her more as a real person than as this amazing force in his life.
Obviously I didn't get anywhere near that point, as I didn't really get anywhere plot-wise really, but I was just wondering if you (or anyone else here) thinks that is an interesting idea? Taking her from the OMG on the pedestal to a real (but still fascinating to him) person by his side?

Kind of reminds me of how Jaka was portrayed in Cerebus. In High Society, we only saw her through the title character's eyes as his love interest, and she seemed almost ephemeral. Later, the story shifted to her perspective so she was humanised and came down to earth (and from there, she was vilified as the author's misogynistic attitudes developed and took over the comic, but never mind that).

It's an interesting idea on paper, but of course, like everything else it all comes down to execution. Was the scene where Alexis turns out to be a terrible cook part of this plan? Becuse that's one of those shallow flaws that are often given to female characters; the most impact it has is being a vehicle for a few cheap gags and that's pretty much it. (another common one is "she's cute and charming, but she's also clumsy!")

[LibertyCabbage]

Yeah, that's nonsense. Every handful of pages there's a nondetailed chest or butt and that's about it. Furry porn is so abundant that no one would read a comic just to see some softcore nudity, and the comic was already fairly popular in its early days when Flora wore pants and Natani wasn't even in the comic.

In the section I read, the main "plot" is that Natani's naked. You'd think that this would be a pervy gag that gets resolved in one page, but most of the chapter revolves around her nakedness (while the "subplot" revolves around another character being naked). So, no, I'm not going to ignore a comic's story when I'm evaluating the quality of the writing. I'm also not going to pretend to respect Fischbach or his fans. Fischbach's a sell-out, and his fans are hypocrites. I'm not a social conservative (*shock!*), but it annoys me when people are stroking their dicks with one hand while typing "It's not porn" with their other hand. And the reason why Twokinds is more popular than hardcore furry porn webcomics is that its fans feel ashamed of their fetish, and since Twokinds doesn't have nipples and sort of pretends to have a story, its fans can feel slightly less guilty about jacking off to it. As for its early days, Fischbach started it in 2003 when he was 16 years old and couldn't draw worth shit. It was popular because it was a furry manga webcomic back when people barely even knew what webcomics were yet.

The reason Twokinds is popular is simply because it's drawn very well. It's kind of sad, but that's the #1 determinant of popularity by a long shot. There are plenty of anime-style comics that aren't furry that boast similar popularity despite equally cliched storytelling.

Furries and tits-'n'-ass are both more important than good artwork. Twokinds is as popular as it is because it has all three. And if you're talking about manga webcomics, then no, there aren't "plenty" of them that are as popular as Twokinds.

I think it got a significant response because it's a load of crap, to be totally honest. I don't see a lot of people getting defensive about their enjoyment of furry comics, most of the responses seem to be various people telling you that you have no clue what you're talking about.

I think I hit a nerve. And from what I remember, the responses have been fairly personal and nonsensical. I think I've been called so far, like, a pedophile, transphobic, a statue-fetishist, and I don't even remember what else. All just for daring to criticize Fischbach's writing skills. It's really more absurd and funny than anything.

If you look at reviews of other media, like games for example, it is indeed the ones that are just totally divorced from reality that get the strongest response, so I suppose if you mission was just to stir up controversy that's the right angle, but it probably hurts the site more than it helps because now people will be wary of your opinions on other things.

I actually get a lot of search strings for "furry porn," "natani porn," and "twokinds porn," so I think most of the people commenting on that review are people who are specifically interested in Twokinds. But if anything, I'll be doing more reviews like that one, because it's obviously a controversial subject that people are interested in.

That's fine, I'm sure there's a bit of an art to doing this kind of thing, I'm just pointing out things that can be improved.

It'll be nice once I have it down and can really kinda crank 'em out quickly.

I don't think Schoob was saying that Crumb's work is messed up, but that he felt it was kind of a messy comparison to make between his comic and Crumb's. Not making any commentary on the quality of Crumb's work, just questioning its relevance.

It's a b&w comic about a dorky, unattractive cartoonist who becomes a celebrity that gets "hot" chicks that are actually kinda ugly. The main difference between the two is that Crumb's work's a high-quality autobiography while Robbo's is low-quality fiction. I don't think it's any messier of a comparison than any two works that aren't the same exact thing.

And I don't think he was suggesting here that you ought to be promoting his comic, at all. A person worse at taking criticism than Schoob might say that, though. He's also referring to the idea that if a reviewer says they don't like somthing, or that they prefer something else, "Don't like don't read," which we can all agree is a foolish response. I think the first sentence there is what Schoob really meant to be the focus of that point. I don't think it's as important as he does, but I do think you're misreading what he's trying to convey.

I read it correctly.

I mean, I haven't seen this degree of butthurt around here since the last time we had an absolute noob get their work torn apart.

I'm not "butthurt." I just choose not to waste my time responding to defensiveness and self-pity.

You aren't usually this dismissive or argumentative alternatively.

I am being dismissive, because I'm not going to waste my time on pointless arguments. The only thing in this discussion that I take offense to is when cartoonists like Fischbach sell out by making money off of porn comics. It's not even the "porn" part that I have a problem with; it's just how commercial and lazy it is.

This was a tricky comic to review. I mean, it's completed, so what can I say to really improve it?

I was mainly interested in how you perceived the concept since it's an unusual project.

my only regret is that there is not more; I love concept art.

I think I have more concept art and scripts saved that I never posted. Maybe I'll add 'em now. I kinda lost interest in Red Slime once I was busy doing Freakboy and Webcomic Police (and, plus, the traffic was basically zero, anyways).

Issue #5 didn't feel like it was in the same magazine,

I forgot to mention that it's a special Comic Genesis issue that had samples from various CG comics. It was a last-minute improvisation that didn't work out that well.

Stories ranged from one-pagers like the Science Fair(s) to taking up the whole issue, like Night at the Diner. I liked the idea of the science fair series, Non sequitur and silly, but in practice it seemed to fall flat, like I never got the joke, but nobody wrote one...? Being a sci-fi comic, I can only imagine the crazy scenarios at a science fair like gerbil breeding gone wrong, or what actually happens when your eat pop-rocks and drink coke, but what we get are oreos, socks and water...I might be reading/expecting too much of this, but I don't think I'm asking for much.

I think I figured that some people might like that they're cute/kiddy, but now it doesn't make any sense to me either why they're in there.

Stories of the caliber of (to name a few, not exclude) The Myth of the Chupacabras, Down the Hole and Icarus really made this series stand out to me. Red Slime is full of these gems, and you never have to sit through many "wtf did I just read?"-stories to get to one you wish was a couple pages longer.

Myth of the Chupacabras was sent to me by Longoria, but I worked with the creators on the other two and was really pleased with how they came out. Stories like those made the experience worth it even if the project was generally too much of a hassle.

I wish there were more things like Red Slime out there. Maybe there are, I just don't look hard enough. If Red Slime ever spins off another product, I imagine they learned a lot about constructing the first one to help the next be more cohesive.

I'm not aware of any other projects like Red Slime. It's really kind of a ridiculous idea to try to put out a monthly web magazine for free and with no budget. It was fun, though, and it was at least an interesting experience.

Thank you for the review. It was kind of a random request, but it's nice to get a chance to reflect on my past failures like this once in a while.

[robybang]

@VeryCuddlyCornpone: Yeah, I copied from a word document to the forum, and I lost all my glorious links. I converted it to BB and tried again, but I exceeded the maximum number of URLs I could embed. I'm having trouble posting here and one post I wrote keeps getting blocked as spam, so I'm going to avoid doing any linking or anything fancy and just say it's page 32 of his comic.

@JSConnor800: I had this long detailed post written out, but the forum keeps blocking it and I really don't want to rewrite it. tl;dr the later pages are better because they have more tonal range and variance in line width, though the earlier page you mentioned is more ambitious in that you were depicting more details of the city rather than the broken buildings and rubble in the backgrounds. The later pages use a thicker line which rounds out the jagged buildings and makes them look less destroyed, and the page you linked to has some issues with perspective. Other than that though, I do prefer the later pages in general.

[Sortelli]

It's a wonder I've kept any longtime readers at all

I keep coming back whenever I see your banner or any other mention of your comic. I know it's good, so regular advertising reminds me to catch up where I left off.

[Terotrous]

]In the section I read, the main "plot" is that Natani's naked. You'd think that this would be a pervy gag that gets resolved in one page, but most of the chapter revolves around her nakedness (while the "subplot" revolves around another character being naked). So, no, I'm not going to ignore a comic's story when I'm evaluating the quality of the writing. I'm also not going to pretend to respect Fischbach or his fans. Fischbach's a sell-out, and his fans are hypocrites. I'm not a social conservative (*shock!*), but it annoys me when people are stroking their dicks with one hand while typing "It's not porn" with their other hand. And the reason why Twokinds is more popular than hardcore furry porn webcomics is that its fans feel ashamed of their fetish, and since Twokinds doesn't have nipples and sort of pretends to have a story, its fans can feel slightly less guilty about jacking off to it. As for its early days, Fischbach started it in 2003 when he was 16 years old and couldn't draw worth shit. It was popular because it was a furry manga webcomic back when people barely even knew what webcomics were yet.

I dunno, it sounds to me like if anyone's in denial about being attracted to furry characters it's probably you, because you're making a huge deal about a comic that's really very tame by most standards. I'd probably put Twokinds on about the same level as something like Ranma 1/2 - There's some occasional nudity but it's played for laughs rather than for sex appeal. That's about a 2/10 on the perversion scale as far as anime / manga is concerned.


You should probably check out something like Jack, it's also not a porn comic but it's far more graphic than Twokinds, it's probably around 5 / 10 or so by that same scale. It'd help give you some more perspective or at least something else to rant about.


In any case I didn't intend for this to turn into a discussion about Twokinds but silly reviews where people clearly aren't familiar with the genre are kind of a pet peeve of mine.

[RobboAKAscooby]

It's an interesting idea on paper, but of course, like everything else it all comes down to execution. Was the scene where Alexis turns out to be a terrible cook part of this plan? Becuse that's one of those shallow flaws that are often given to female characters; the most impact it has is being a vehicle for a few cheap gags and that's pretty much it. (another common one is "she's cute and charming, but she's also clumsy!")

The cooking thing, not so much a flaw but more a sort of hint that not everything Ash knew about Alex was completely true (and a bad cliche-joke).
(I had written a bunch here about both of their flaws but decided I was going too specific into things, so I deleted it all.)
The thing is, while both characters do have a bunch of personality flaws, it is less about flaws but more about making them...less polished I guess. I'm reluctant to call it flaws as it feels more like quirks to me.
To a degree their backgrounds have coloured their views/opinions/whatever but they also share a lot of the same experiences like bullying (side note: I was gonna call it A Shared Story but then I realised the acronym would be ASS so...).

Of course since the idea is to make this funny I won't be going too deep into all this.
Also, since I am contemplating a new starting point, the whole idea of going "from the pedestal to his side" may be less of a thing as I may just start with more of their quirks on display.