Little Hooded Men

[Simbrie]

Since it's too early for a plug. and I'm currently in hiatus (damn that sketchbook what eludes me!), I've decided to nip whatever problems I have in the bud before I go too far into the comic. =/

Little Hooded Men

Any criques and/or insights?[/url]

[Joel Fagin]

I've already read it, actually, and I was struck by a number of points.

The premise is original and interesting and the artwork is stylised and unique which made the whole thing very attractive for me. I really wanted to read it and see what it was about.

But...

The jokes are really bad. In fact, usually there isn't one, just people swearing or violence which, compared to the rest of it, is tragically dismal. It looks like something really special until you read it.

I also feel that if you need the word "Amused" and an arrow pointing to one character, you've failed, especially if the punchline is that character being amused. If you have to explain the joke, the joke's flopped already.

- Joel Fagin

[LibertyCabbage]

yeah what joseph father of jesus said

i thought the action stuff was pretty confusing, mostly because they both look the same... you should try to make them look more unique

i really like the art and the way it's designed, but the writing is lame. I enjoy all the cursing a lot but other than that it's very bad.

It's cool how you do the speech bubbles... they're cool!

When you get enough strips done you should make a thread in the comic pitching forum

[Corgan_dane]

The things Joel said.

All of that is true. I came across your comic a while back, and thought the artwork was phenomenal, and nicely stylized. Then I started reading the strips, and just lost interest for all the reasons Joel gave.

Also, unlike FF, I'm not a huge fan of a lot of random vulgarity, so that threw me off, too. That's just a personal taste thing, though.

[Gengar003]

Well, I love it. Especially the scribbly outlines of the speech bubbles. The photographer guy wasn't really consistent, though... in the first strip with him he's all cute like a little kid, then suddenly he's young-adult age... Maybe that was on purpose, I don't know.

Really like it though.

[Oualawouzou]

Pretty much agree with what was said above. A well-timed "fuck" delivers much more than 10 "fuck" randomly tossed around. You've got a lot of neat concepts (how often do you see a soul get stabbed by glasses?) but they are not very well used, IMHO.

[-Fanny pack]

What others said.
It's interesting but, for me, while I can appreciate swearing, even in excessive amounts, I think this is a bit much. Perhaps cut down some.
Secondly, add your comic to The Web Comic List. That way I (and others) can keep track of its updates.

[Simbrie]

Aww, I suppose the humor only works with me and my freind then. But you're right, now that I look at them again, I see it not all that really funny. But it's not really a gag comic, where there's a gag for every strip.

I suppose that doesn't really keep people's attention. I'll reworks the dialog for the future strips, or would you recomend me reworking the past strips as well?

And for all the excessive violence and swearing, the character that really does it is the Vulgar One. He's angry, he's vulgar, he's suppose to cuss out everything. =/ The Dead One is just bad tempered.

I've been thinking of distinguishing them somehow, like giving them slightly different colored robes, but initially their personalities were suppose to do the job. I guess that didn't work. =p

Thanks Joel, and everyone else that replied. =)

[-Fanny pack]

I've been thinking of distinguishing them somehow, like giving them slightly different colored robes, but initially their personalities were suppose to do the job. I guess that didn't work. =p

Perhaps you should do something like what I do in my strip and give each character a visible, distinguishing trait. Perhaps one could have an amulet and the other have, uh, no amulet or something.
Alternatively, you could make those little shiny things on their hoods a bit more obviously colored and differentiate the colors a bit more. That'd serve as a sort of differentiation, but it might need to be a bit more obvious. Hmm.
Your strip does look quite interesting. If you work out its problems, it could end up popular. Good luck to you.

[Hiye]

I'd have to agree with everyone else on the writing. As for your art, you have a very interesting style. Stick with it.

As for character differentiation, why not try various body structures? You could have perhaps, a really tall hooded man.. and a ridiculously short one.. or you could have one that's horribly obese. Weight is a good way to tell characters apart, and posture also works. You could have a guy who has a hunch back or slumps all the time, for example.

But, yeah. Those are just suggestions. Definitely work on the writing and perhaps clean up the language somewhat, and stick with your art style. It's unique and very nicely done, and I'd say that, in itself, is a great achievement.

[Funkychunks]

This is what I like to see...

Note the word: see

Visually, this comic has GREAT potential... everything from the drawing style to the speech bubbles, really draws me into the whole theme.

Then I read. There was probably a dozen strips and I gathered very little from them. I didn't find any depth or attachments to the characters.

You have a lot of potential with this, just backup and rethink your story... you can still have the traits of the characters that you are trying to portray, just tone it down and add some reasons for us to hate/love/cheer for the characters.

[Yeahduff]

OK. Great potential here, so let's see what we can do.

I think you put yourself at a great disadvantage by trying to have us associate with the hooded men right off the bat. One thing you can do is do what you pretended to do in the beginning: have an outsider take us into the world of the Little Hooded Men. This character will have no idea what's going on at first (like all of us right now) but we'd learn about these beings as your character does.

Since you probably wouldn't like that option (judging by what's in your archive), instead introduce us to one of these hooded fellows, get us to learn about him, what he's like, how to identify him, and then draw us further into this world.

As mentioned, differentiating between each character is very difficult. Your relying on characterization to make distinctions, but the characters are not strong enough as they currently stand to do that. So go back to the drawing board and figure out what's different about each one: what motivates them, what their experiences are, how they see the world, their attitude toward the Little Hooded Men hierarchy, etc. You'll still have to make them distinguishable by sight, though, so come up with some subtle but solid traits to tell each one apart. Different color robes (all dark, cool colors, of course), some different shapes, different color glowing balls, extra wrinkles, dust clouds, medals, sashes, anything (the glasses were a nice touch).

It's fine that one swears a lot, but it doesn't really seem like he's the only one that does. For it to work, I think, you need most of them to behave the way you'd think a buncha strange creatures in dark robes living in a creepy mansion that sprouted out of the ground and answer to someone called The Dead One would behave. To be honest, I don't know if there are five of these guys or fifty. But some if not most should be solemn, cryptic, withdrawn beings that chant tongues to some flaming idol in the middle of the temple.

If you dismiss everything else I say, listen to this: You need things to work off of each other. You need characters that foil for one another, bringing out each others characteristics. Which means you need a straight man. What you got is a buncha weird stuff happening but it doesn't mean anything if you don't have a frame of reference.

This can be great. The art already is. But you need to work on the writing more.

[Simbrie]

Wow, thanks everybody for the advise. =D I'm sorry I couldn't respond earlier, school's been hectic.

Yeah, I'm definetly working on the writing, reworking the script at this moment. I've also decided to give the men colors to differentiate them.

Once again, thanks a lot, I apreciate the fact all of you took time to give some advice.

[Magius del Cotto]

I'll just add my two cents here: you don't need a face to get facial expressions across. Since this is an artistic medium, feel free to treat the upper 'brim' as the characters' eyebrows. I've seen this done, and done well, and I think that it would add quite a bit to your comic (and help you keep from having to tell us what their emotions are).
Magius out.

[Simbrie]

Ooh, that's a neat idea. I'll try that out and see if it works out. If not, they already have an emotion indicater, their amulets.

[Oualawouzou]

I just noticed something... The links to "Goodies" and "Characters" on your archive pages do not work. They have an extra "/d/" in the address.

[Simbrie]

Hey they do. o.O Thanks, I'l fix it right away.

[Kirb]

I'll just add my two cents here: you don't need a face to get facial expressions across. Since this is an artistic medium, feel free to treat the upper 'brim' as the characters' eyebrows. I've seen this done, and done well, and I think that it would add quite a bit to your comic (and help you keep from having to tell us what their emotions are).
Magius out.

You stole my post!

*Shakes fist*