Web comic: Chronicles of Elementias

[Harakiri]

I personally saw "Webcomic" and thought, "Well, nothing could be worse then all the sprite comics based on Sonic the Hedgehog my friend made me read with him last night".

 

To put it bluntly, I would rather relive last nights 250 Tony The Hedgehog comics then your four comics. I guess you are trying to be funny by adding in random stuff about "peeps" and "I haven't hit puberty" or whatever. Comics are not a good way to do that random kind of humor like Caboose does in RvB where he interjects in the middle of a conversation to say something stupid. At least when he does it, it's funny.

 

The art style is horrendous. It looks like MS Paint meets a preschool art class.

 

I have to agree with others and I think you should quit while your ahead. Do it for fun at home to practice drawing skills maybe, but I would definitely not post it anywhere else because it is one of the most god awful things I have seen in a while.

 

Just take my word for it, because we're being nice. Post this on some other forum based specifically on webcomics and I don't think you will want to even continue drawing or doing comics.

 

Next week we will begin experimenting with backgrounds.

 

Please don't.

 

To bad we will =P

 

 

Don't treat this as a game. If you were just posting this at the website specifically and not advertising it, then that would be fine, but advertising this was opening you up for criticism, especially here. I wouldn't treat it as funny or a game that my work was being laughed at. You don't have much talent in this area, you or your friend. If it is for fun that is fine, but treating it seriously is not the right approach, because this isn't what you two were apparently born to do. Maybe if you practice you might get better, but to me, doing comics isn't your calling. Neither is being a comedian.

[cretureisland]

I am fine with criticism since it will help me know what to improve. Trust me I have read some web comics which started off absolutely horrendous but end up quite good. The cover page for the comic was the first thing I had actually colorized, and I think I have improved since then. The main problem right now is that I don't have a tablet, which means I have to use the mouse for everything. I also am working on getting him to cut out a lot of the jokes. Give us time and we will improve.

[cretureisland]

I have gone back and reworked bits of the page, and text.

[Harakiri]

Whatever your doing isn't helping because it still look like a crappy webcomic. I'd scrap it and restart with everything perfected. Then I'd repost it. I wouldn't keep editing it because it doesn't help the comedy and the godawful writing. Might want to find a friend with a bit of writing talent to help.

[ElkNight]

Might want to find a friend with a bit of writing talent to help.

Yes. This, please.

[Wongtong]

I think you have chosen a poor font to use - it looks tacky and it is a bit hard to read.

If you compare it with other fonts from other comics, you will realise that your text is blurry and too light. Here's an example of what I mean.

Take this comic:

Look at the text from that comic and then compare it with yours. Do you understand why yours is harder to read? I think it's the choice of font plus how light it is - too anti-aliased.

 

The bubbles are also too anti-aliased and aren't dark enough. They're too circular and symmetrical and should be a bit irregular shaped, like this comic:

 

That's my opinion anyways.

 

What you should do is look at other webcomics and see what's different between theirs and yours.

[Nadril]

You need to decide on a style too. Having a generic anime style is fine if you're trying to, say, make fun of that sort of thing but if you're trying to be serious (I have no idea if you are or not) than you want something different. Really though when it all comes down to it I feel like we can give all these advanced pointers but if you don't have the basics down it's hard. For one if you can't draw then switch your art style to a less demanding one that could still look good. Cyanide and Happiness's style, for example, is very simplistic but still very solid. Of course you need good writing too for that.

 

 

And you are right that web comics do improve over time. My favorite example is penny arcade:

 

 

to

 

 

As you can see the first comic wasn't the best. The punchline made no real sense, the art was lacking and it wasn't too interesting. However they still did have the basics down on what made a decent web comic, and they learned quickly on how to make a good punchline. The new example I posted is a great example of how to do a punchline correctly. The key is to not overexplain the punchline like some other web comics tend to do (cough CAD cough). You can also tell just how good and clean the art has gotten for Penny arcade.

 

Some other good examples of web comics (and why):

 

 

This is the Perry Bible Fellowship's last comic. I will say that he tends to overuse the "happy happy happy LOL TWIST BAD ENDING". Still this is an excelent example of a great web comic. It also is a great example as it symbolizes how the artist has felt. People keep asking him to continue ubtating PFB even when he had no artistic inspiration. Just like the comic they wanted to keep him making them laugh, even after he was done.

 

 

Pictures for sad children is another example of a web comic that (used) to be good. Sadly it's gotten a lot worse and the artist has just sort of ran out of ideas, but the main story arc was really funny. You can see that the art is very simple but the characters still have plenty of personality to them, and the writing is great.

 

 

Now that I've shown some good examples, lets show what not to do, and then a good version of the same idea:

 

 

This is CAD. It also is one of the worst web comics online to-date. There is a lot wrong with this. THe first is that the characters are stiff and boring. Everyone in the CAD universe has the same boring slack-jawed look. The real issue, however, is the writing. Buckly has a terrible terrible habit of over explaining stuff. No, it's not even that, he has a habit of explaining [cabbage] to death, like we didn't understand the point of the [bleep]ing joke. The point of this comic and what was supposed to be funny is the ridiculous idea of having these warriors playing a puzzle game. Of course the first mistake is he overexplains the rules of the game. Ok, great, we understand you're playing a game instead of fighting. He also lets the actual punchline out prematurely even in the first panel. Of course he lets his "own" punchline happen in the 3rd panel, nice random violence LOLOLOL. Of course he then needs to explain why that violence was so funny (because his readers are too dumb [bleep]ed to understand).

 

Now lets show a good version of this same idea.

 

 

First of all you can instantly tell how much more style there is to this one. One of the next things you notice is it follows a very logical setup, setup, punchline format. The first two panels show this epic setup to a fight, which then (funny enough) breaks down to them just playing a puzzle game. It's such a better play on the joke.

 

 

That being said all of this is more relevant to a standard joke comic instead of if you're trying a serious "manga" type comic. Of course I've got no [bleep]ing clue what you're trying so either listen to this or not.

[Wongtong]

Some good advice there Nadril. :P CAD doesn't seem that bad, but when you compare it to the second comic.. yeah.

I guess we shouldn't really expect much from him at such an early stage though.

 

cretureisland, I hope you're reading the stuff Nadril posted.

[cretureisland]

Thank you Nadril and wongtong. I am indeed looking at your advice, and will be discussing it tomarrow.

[cretureisland]

Ok the new page is out. Any advice as to what we should work on?

[ElkNight]

The plot is still stupid and its still not funny.

[cretureisland]

I know I know still working on that. I had been annoyed at the large amount of text on the page as well.

[Georgelemmons]

Work on your dialogue a bit. The grammar is pretty bad, there's little or no punctuation, and it just seems flat and boring. It's also confusing, with one random, unexplained frame being put in among the first comic that actually made some sense.

[ElkNight]

Honestly, I think it's in your best interest to just quit whatever you are doing now. It's not good at all, I'm just being blunt about it. Come up with a better storyline/jokes/whatever and work on your character design and whatnot. I think just getting some ideas and working on your design would be much more beneficial then putting out a crappy comic every few days.

[deathdrow]

One of the problems with the story in my opinion is that it's not something you can really build a webcomic around, you have it stuck to some wierd [wagon] anime [cabbage] that doesn't make any sense, make it so you can have a broader kind of comic to write.

[Danqazmlp]

I'll give you a chance on the whole text and getting to know layouts better, because obviously as you gain a bit of experience things will improve, it would be ridiculous to think you would be perfect off the start.

 

However, i'm still confused with the story. So far what i get is:

1. its a fighting tourny
   
2. some competitors are different elements
   

 

And thats all i've managed to figure out, it should not be like that 4 comics in. Where are they? Why are they fighting? What was that all about with container 666G? (one of the sections in that comic was missing the pictures, it just had text btw). Who is the centre of the comic, the main character?

[Skull]

Unless you start drawing a lot of violence, you're current idea is never going to work out. It's like dragonball z without fighting, there's just nothing there worth paying attention to.

[cretureisland]

The main character is Blaze. As for what they are fighting for see page 3 last panel. Yeah the artist drew that panel as pure text it annoyed me greatly. I will be sitting down tomorrow and setting some goals for him to do which should help with improvement. I still wish I had a tablet. Expect more action in the weeks to come.

[cretureisland]

We have decided to switch to a 3 panel format starting next week so we can focus on quality of the panels rather than the quantity of panels.

[Nadril]

If your web comic is a comedy one than a 3 panel setup is easy to do. It's just Setup > Setup > Punchline.

 

I'm still not sure if yours is a serious or not-serious one though. A serious comic may not fare well with a 3 panel format, especially if it's more like a manga then a web comic.

[ElkNight]

If your web comic is a comedy one than a 3 panel setup is easy to do. It's just Setup > Setup > Punchline.

 

I'm still not sure if yours is a serious or not-serious one though. A serious comic may not fare well with a 3 panel format, especially if it's more like a manga then a web comic.

Especially with your plot.

[cretureisland]

It is actually supposed to be a mixture of comedy and seriousness.

[Nadril]

I can't say I've really read a web comic that has managed both.

 

Either way you're probably going much more down the manga line than a traditional web comic, which I don't really know much about.

[rangeor]

Misfile is a pretty decent manga-style comic. It's a serious comic and has a great story. If you're planning on having a serious comic, you should really get your storyline down before you start anything. I honestly think you should start over. It's fine if you want to have a manga-style half serious half funny comic, and if you want to keep the story that's fine, but it's really confusing right now. You need to re-do it from the beginning and make sure the story is clear enough for a 10 year-old to follow it.

 

Although I suggest you re-do it and make sure you stay either serious or funny, because half and half is too difficult to pull off. That's why you don't see it very often.

[Nadril]

Misfile is a pretty decent manga-style comic. It's a serious comic and has a great story. If you're planning on having a serious comic, you should really get your storyline down before you start anything. I honestly think you should start over. It's fine if you want to have a manga-style half serious half funny comic, and if you want to keep the story that's fine, but it's really confusing right now. You need to re-do it from the beginning and make sure the story is clear enough for a 10 year-old to follow it.

 

Although I suggest you re-do it and make sure you stay either serious or funny, because half and half is too difficult to pull off. That's why you don't see it very often.

 

I'm probably going to get a lot of hate for it but I really dislike Misfile.

 

Half and Half is possible but you have to be good at it. Really it's just all about timing, you can't really mix them more as you have some seriousness, some comedy, some seriousness, ect. Plenty of Anime (that were Manga before it) have a serious and a funny side to them. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimiya are probably two good examples of how to do it right, and Lagann does it all in a very ridiculous universe.

 

I've never read the manga of them though so I'm not sure how they handle that.