[Untitled] Comic Progress

HMC · 06-20-2012, 05:59 AM

Been toying around with some webcomic ideas lately. Namely this idea about a weirdo comic art collective headed by an eccentric charlatan named Steve Mills. I'm still trying to formulate a lot of the ideas and character backstories, but basically the idea is that all the characters have different styles and idiosyncrasies that would allow me to do a running series but not have to be locked into a single particular style. I've got a few comics I've been playing around with.

As well as these two comics that I've finished already:
http://i.imgur.com/M0Rs0.png
http://i.imgur.com/Exi6Q.png
http://i.imgur.com/lGMdi.png

These are all works in progress, and obviously still have a long way to go. I figured I'd post previews of the stuff I've done so far:

Compcat · 06-20-2012, 08:41 AM

I'm not sure I get any of the jokes, but the art is fantastic.

Eukos · 06-20-2012, 09:32 AM

Haha when he turns into a cacodemon corpse

Gorosaurus · 06-20-2012, 01:59 PM

Some interesting ideas here, but I can't be sure that they will mesh. Other long-running comics are able to switch up the art scheme based on the perspective of a particular character (Family Circus, Hobbes, Peanuts), but it is done infrequently so as to not wear out its welcome.

I understand that you want to do something new and experimental, and I'm all for that! I am simply saying that you might best be handled by choosing a main character (Steve), and basically telling the story through his POV with a few extra perspectives thrown in on occasion. On that note, the existing comics are extremely well done- beautiful even. One assumes that Steve is basically a caricature of yourself, what with art and school pressures and constant game references. In the pictures posted in this thread, however, he seems more like the straight man, with another character taking up the rabid comic-game-internet mantle.

As for the art itself, it's very well crafted. Your work with color and shape here really stands out. Each character has a different defining set of features. I'm not quite sold on the vertical snake-eyes look toward the bottom panels on this page, but it is quite distinctive.

And finally, I know that this is a personal project and not necessarily intended commercially viable, but have you considered an audience? The comic jokes, style, and story appear to cater specifically to you. That's absolutely fine and all, but taking this thread as a small example, a lot of the humor might go right over the heads of people who would otherwise be considered 'nerdy.'

HMC · 06-20-2012, 05:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Compcat

I'm not sure I get any of the jokes, but the art is fantastic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gorosaurus

And finally, I know that this is a personal project and not necessarily intended commercially viable, but have you considered an audience? The comic jokes, style, and story appear to cater specifically to you. That's absolutely fine and all, but taking this thread as a small example, a lot of the humor might go right over the heads of people who would otherwise be considered 'nerdy.'

Yeah, I'm not sure if the first two comics I made would be part of the overall canon, as they're essentially one-offs. The comics I'm working on now would, I hope, have a less esoteric appeal, although I still gotta draw the punchlines, so I guess that remains to be seen. It's certainly true that I may not find an audience.

Thanks for the feedback!

Dominator Dan · 06-20-2012, 09:13 PM

yeah if part of individual comics haven't been drawn it's hard to form an opinion on the approach to humour, at the moment yeah it's not really getting through to me.

echoing what others have said certainly can't knock the art, though it seems very experimental, got a lot of different things going on here, these seem (and probably are) like a random assortment of preliminary designs, would be good to see some full on pages/strips like the ones you've linked that you've posted on facebook before (that you've divided into TWO SEPARATE IMAGES?!?!)

would be great to get a proper grasp on what's going on here, it's cool that you're sort of straddling between running series and not limiting yourself storywise, i'm trying to do that myself, but i find i keep getting great ideas that would require one-off random characters, but tbh, as long as the drawing style is consistent, and certain characters appear most of the time, IT'S FINE

HMC · 06-22-2012, 05:50 AM

Here's a quick mockup of the comic I'm working on now. Still got work to do (backgrounds, colors not yet finalized. gotta make the panels flow together more, esp. with regards to text, gotta make it look like he's walking in the fourth and fifth panels, etc) but I wanted to get some feedback. Is this funny? Does it mostly read ok? All suggestions welcome.

Gorosaurus · 06-22-2012, 08:05 AM

For this one, it seems as though you are trying to write a short animation/skit, and without the timing and such of a TV show, it's not exactly easy to follow. The wording is a bit convoluted to really be conversational, but for all I know that's part of the characters.

But on to things I am more qualified to speak about. Your use of color is, as I have come to expect, your strongest suit. That first frame is beautiful (and there's almost nothing going on in it)! I got a little confused with who was saying what because the actual lines are pointing to the character in frame 3, though they are not supposed to be related.

The hand in frame 2 has been bothering me. It's just sorta sharp and knobby; almost doesn't read as a hand at all. One of the issues I have with your design of Odell is that it is completely 2-dimensional. That face could not possibly exist in a 3-dimensional environment, and the face isn't bi-symmetrical at all. Many cartoons do this with their designs and simply cheat when characters have to move their heads around, but it's my own personal feeling that that is a bad attribute to character design. Watterson redesigned all of his characters in Calvin and Hobbes after a year or so for this same reason; the changes were minute, but they made every frame so much stronger and opened more possibilities for different, creative perspectives.

The background in 2 is gorgeous.

The design of the elemental is wonderfully done, and it made me smile. I'm not sure if it's a reference to anything or not.

Although I did chuckle at the end of this comic, I can't say that I 'got it.' The immediate thought that I had when I first finished it was "Good God, I hope a comic could actually be sustained at this level!" You, sir, create art.

Phil Williamson · 06-22-2012, 09:51 AM

Yeah man I'm gonna have to echo Compcat and Goro and say that these look absolutely amazing but I don't get them at all

HMC · 06-22-2012, 06:31 PM

Valid points. I'm giving consideration as to how I could reword the dialogue in the first few panels. The message is a little muddled, and it could probably be replaced entirely, as long as I can link it to the punchline.

Gonna take into consideration the comments about Odell's design. He IS pretty 2-dimensional, and that makes him difficult to color using 3-dimensional lighting considerations. The composition of his face needs work, too. I noticed the color was kind of over the top when I shrunk the panel down.

Does the punchline work? I felt like Ernie Bushmiller's style would be the funniest, but I dunno how ubiquitous the style of Nancy comics are, compared to, say, Garfield or Peanuts.

Breed · 06-22-2012, 07:49 PM

ahahhaahhaahahahahah I really liked that last one

Gorosaurus · 06-23-2012, 04:55 AM

You chose the right style for the last panel. Peanuts or Blondie would simply just muddy the water

HMC · 06-26-2012, 03:58 AM

Playin around with character design

Bobby Swisha · 06-27-2012, 06:29 AM

I don't want you to take this the wrong way but I think they're a little pretentious. The comics look like you spent hours on the drawings but the story isn't really funny or anything, it's just like... Your life all glorified in amazing art, basically. I'd rather you spent less time worrying about art and more on the story, since your art is great even if you don't spend a crazy amount of time on it.

Bown · 06-27-2012, 07:49 AM

With the noclip strip, while the second page is beautiful I think the joke works a lot better without it. The self-awareness of it made it work really well as a one-page comic and I feel like the second page just took the joke way too far, followed by an obvious ending.

HMC · 06-27-2012, 09:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BR

I don't want you to take this the wrong way but I think they're a little pretentious. The comics look like you spent hours on the drawings but the story isn't really funny or anything, it's just like... Your life all glorified in amazing art, basically. I'd rather you spent less time worrying about art and more on the story, since your art is great even if you don't spend a crazy amount of time on it.

Yeah, seeing the comic as a whole it doesn't read too well, both in terms of the dialogue and coloring. I'm currently redoing it with a simpler style (see above). The dialogue definitely needs to be punchier, and I'm gonna try drawing each page as a whole so that it's more cohesive.

I'm not a very good writer, so yeah, I admit that I tend to put the most effort into art because that's where I actually have fun. Writing is just like any other creative skill, though, so I guess that's something I just gotta do to get better at it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bown

With the noclip strip, while the second page is beautiful I think the joke works a lot better without it. The self-awareness of it made it work really well as a one-page comic and I feel like the second page just took the joke way too far, followed by an obvious ending.

Interesting perspective. I hadn't considered that. I'm not sure I'm totally convinced that the comic would necessarily be better with the second page omitted, but yeah, I think you're right that the intended tone comes across better without it.

Dr Ashworth · 06-28-2012, 01:35 AM

Fantastic art, as always. I agree with everyone else about the material though. That last one worked because it was more unified/organized. I think if you keep this thing tight, people will appreciate it more (I think the way you presented it, disjointed like this, didn't really show off its true potential).

06-20-2012, 05:59 AM	#1
HMC Super Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 8,715	[Untitled] Comic Progress Been toying around with some webcomic ideas lately. Namely this idea about a weirdo comic art collective headed by an eccentric charlatan named Steve Mills. I'm still trying to formulate a lot of the ideas and character backstories, but basically the idea is that all the characters have different styles and idiosyncrasies that would allow me to do a running series but not have to be locked into a single particular style. I've got a few comics I've been playing around with. As well as these two comics that I've finished already: http://i.imgur.com/M0Rs0.png http://i.imgur.com/Exi6Q.png http://i.imgur.com/lGMdi.png These are all works in progress, and obviously still have a long way to go. I figured I'd post previews of the stuff I've done so far:
HMC Super Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 8,715

06-20-2012, 08:41 AM	#2
Compcat Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 8,810	I'm not sure I get any of the jokes, but the art is fantastic.
Compcat Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 8,810

06-20-2012, 09:32 AM	#3
Eukos Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2012 Posts: 3,133	Haha when he turns into a cacodemon corpse
Eukos Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2012 Posts: 3,133

06-22-2012, 05:50 AM	#7
HMC Super Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 8,715	Here's a quick mockup of the comic I'm working on now. Still got work to do (backgrounds, colors not yet finalized. gotta make the panels flow together more, esp. with regards to text, gotta make it look like he's walking in the fourth and fifth panels, etc) but I wanted to get some feedback. Is this funny? Does it mostly read ok? All suggestions welcome.
HMC Super Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 8,715

06-22-2012, 06:31 PM	#10
HMC Super Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 8,715	Valid points. I'm giving consideration as to how I could reword the dialogue in the first few panels. The message is a little muddled, and it could probably be replaced entirely, as long as I can link it to the punchline. Gonna take into consideration the comments about Odell's design. He IS pretty 2-dimensional, and that makes him difficult to color using 3-dimensional lighting considerations. The composition of his face needs work, too. I noticed the color was kind of over the top when I shrunk the panel down. Does the punchline work? I felt like Ernie Bushmiller's style would be the funniest, but I dunno how ubiquitous the style of Nancy comics are, compared to, say, Garfield or Peanuts.
HMC Super Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 8,715

06-20-2012, 01:59 PM	#4
Gorosaurus Super Moderator Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 16,146	Some interesting ideas here, but I can't be sure that they will mesh. Other long-running comics are able to switch up the art scheme based on the perspective of a particular character (Family Circus, Hobbes, Peanuts), but it is done infrequently so as to not wear out its welcome. I understand that you want to do something new and experimental, and I'm all for that! I am simply saying that you might best be handled by choosing a main character (Steve), and basically telling the story through his POV with a few extra perspectives thrown in on occasion. On that note, the existing comics are extremely well done- beautiful even. One assumes that Steve is basically a caricature of yourself, what with art and school pressures and constant game references. In the pictures posted in this thread, however, he seems more like the straight man, with another character taking up the rabid comic-game-internet mantle. As for the art itself, it's very well crafted. Your work with color and shape here really stands out. Each character has a different defining set of features. I'm not quite sold on the vertical snake-eyes look toward the bottom panels on this page, but it is quite distinctive. And finally, I know that this is a personal project and not necessarily intended commercially viable, but have you considered an audience? The comic jokes, style, and story appear to cater specifically to you. That's absolutely fine and all, but taking this thread as a small example, a lot of the humor might go right over the heads of people who would otherwise be considered 'nerdy.'

06-20-2012, 09:13 PM	#6
Dominator Dan Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 11,564	yeah if part of individual comics haven't been drawn it's hard to form an opinion on the approach to humour, at the moment yeah it's not really getting through to me. echoing what others have said certainly can't knock the art, though it seems very experimental, got a lot of different things going on here, these seem (and probably are) like a random assortment of preliminary designs, would be good to see some full on pages/strips like the ones you've linked that you've posted on facebook before (that you've divided into TWO SEPARATE IMAGES?!?!) would be great to get a proper grasp on what's going on here, it's cool that you're sort of straddling between running series and not limiting yourself storywise, i'm trying to do that myself, but i find i keep getting great ideas that would require one-off random characters, but tbh, as long as the drawing style is consistent, and certain characters appear most of the time, IT'S FINE

06-22-2012, 08:05 AM	#8
Gorosaurus Super Moderator Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 16,146	For this one, it seems as though you are trying to write a short animation/skit, and without the timing and such of a TV show, it's not exactly easy to follow. The wording is a bit convoluted to really be conversational, but for all I know that's part of the characters. But on to things I am more qualified to speak about. Your use of color is, as I have come to expect, your strongest suit. That first frame is beautiful (and there's almost nothing going on in it)! I got a little confused with who was saying what because the actual lines are pointing to the character in frame 3, though they are not supposed to be related. The hand in frame 2 has been bothering me. It's just sorta sharp and knobby; almost doesn't read as a hand at all. One of the issues I have with your design of Odell is that it is completely 2-dimensional. That face could not possibly exist in a 3-dimensional environment, and the face isn't bi-symmetrical at all. Many cartoons do this with their designs and simply cheat when characters have to move their heads around, but it's my own personal feeling that that is a bad attribute to character design. Watterson redesigned all of his characters in Calvin and Hobbes after a year or so for this same reason; the changes were minute, but they made every frame so much stronger and opened more possibilities for different, creative perspectives. The background in 2 is gorgeous. The design of the elemental is wonderfully done, and it made me smile. I'm not sure if it's a reference to anything or not. Although I did chuckle at the end of this comic, I can't say that I 'got it.' The immediate thought that I had when I first finished it was "Good God, I hope a comic could actually be sustained at this level!" You, sir, create art.

06-22-2012, 09:51 AM	#9
Phil Williamson Super Moderator Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 16,900	Yeah man I'm gonna have to echo Compcat and Goro and say that these look absolutely amazing but I don't get them at all

06-22-2012, 07:49 PM	#11
Breed Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Posts: 7,768	ahahhaahhaahahahahah I really liked that last one
Breed Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Posts: 7,768

06-23-2012, 04:55 AM	#12
Gorosaurus Super Moderator Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 16,146	You chose the right style for the last panel. Peanuts or Blondie would simply just muddy the water

06-26-2012, 03:58 AM	#13
HMC Super Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 8,715	Playin around with character design
HMC Super Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 8,715

06-27-2012, 06:29 AM	#14
Bobby Swisha Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 46,012	I don't want you to take this the wrong way but I think they're a little pretentious. The comics look like you spent hours on the drawings but the story isn't really funny or anything, it's just like... Your life all glorified in amazing art, basically. I'd rather you spent less time worrying about art and more on the story, since your art is great even if you don't spend a crazy amount of time on it.

06-27-2012, 07:49 AM	#15
Bown Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 18,740	With the noclip strip, while the second page is beautiful I think the joke works a lot better without it. The self-awareness of it made it work really well as a one-page comic and I feel like the second page just took the joke way too far, followed by an obvious ending.
Bown Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 18,740

06-28-2012, 01:35 AM	#17
Dr Ashworth Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 2,302	Fantastic art, as always. I agree with everyone else about the material though. That last one worked because it was more unified/organized. I think if you keep this thing tight, people will appreciate it more (I think the way you presented it, disjointed like this, didn't really show off its true potential).