Trying to get into web comics - Critique?

[Master_Craig]

Hey everyone.

A little nervous about doing this and rather than post in the Artistic Endeavours thread, I decided to make a new thread. I'm trying to get into drawing webcomics, working with my older brother (my brother does most of the writing, while I do the drawing and media side). The webcomic has no plot or storyline, it's just simple "gag a strip" comics about all things geeky - video games, pop culture etc. I know this has been done over and over again, but it does involve two passions of mine - drawing and video games.

We don't have an "official" website at the moment so... we're currently, and temporarily posting our works on our blog over at Blogger.com until we get our own site.

I was going to post a couple comic strips up here and I'd like some critique, thoughts and feedback on the drawings (the art style, presentation etc) as well as the writing. It'd be great to hear your thoughts and criticism.

So here we go...

"No Wonder" (Batman: Arkham City)

"Am I Right?" (Resident Evil 6)

"Evolution" (Pokemon)

"Employee of the Month" (Hitman: Absolution)

"Interchangeable" (ZombiU)

With every comic, we also have a blog post/commentary from either myself or my brother. If you'd like to check it, the web address is on the bottom left corner of the comic strips.

Cheers guys, hope you like the work.

 

[used44]

The Pokemon one was actually really great. Perfect for a three panel gag. And it seems easy but I hadn't seen it done before.

 

[Master_Craig]

Thanks used, I appreciate that. I was really happy and proud with how the Pokemon comic turned out.

 

[Rakon]

I really enjoyed the Batman one

 

[danielrbischoff]

These are pretty good! It seems like they've gotten progressively better. I think most webcomics don't hit their stride until they've been at it for a year or more so I'd say just keep going!

 

[Lien]

All of these are awesome and i wholeheartedly encourage you to make more! Keep it up and please... please don't put drama. It's all i ask.

 

[Master_Craig]

Rakon - Thanks man. This was my first comic of 2012 when I started to experiment with high resolution drawing, which to be honest I wasn't very used to at the time. I was happy with how it turned out art-wise and I love the joke.

Daniel - I really appreciate that, thank you. I would post up some of my very older works (2008-2009) but they're on my old packed away computer. At the very least, I am happy that I have improved. I will be trying to do this for as long as I realistically can and believe it or not, it's so much easier when there's a second person onboard (my brother) who helps with the writing and generation of ideas.

Lien - Thank you Lien! I will try to keep going... and of course, I will not be adding in any drama. I do want to introduce "characters" to the comic, but I don't wanna do any "storylines" or anything. I guess to give an example, Penny Arcade and VGcats both feature a cast of regularly used characters, but do not have serious storylines. When they do have plots, they're unrealistic but funny (e.g. Penny Arcade's "Armadeadon" story arc). If I ever did do a "story arc", it'd be something stupid and hopefully funny (note: that's a big if). I do NOT want to be Ctrl+Alt+Del or MegaTokyo. In my opinion, their "serious" story arcs became one of their biggest weaknesses.

 

[GiftedMonkey]

When I go to recklessabandon.com, I get a "coming soon..." message...I hope this is your doing? Because you really want the name of your comics to be your web address. You don't want people saying "Oh, I should check out this reckless abandon comic...Is it recklessabandon.com? Nope. Is it recklessabandon.net? Not that either. Can't find it, I will just stop looking." (Never overestimate attention spans on the internet). Register the domain, change the name of your comic while its still young if you have to. People don't want to deal with a lot of nonsense when looking for a comic.

Also, when you get your permanent site, do your readers a favor, and make sure the newest comic is the first thing we see upon visiting the site. Comics like Penny Arcade "hide" the comic behind blog posts, links, etc. and its annoying. People come to see the comic. So show them the comic. They'll check out blog post, links, previous story lines, and the rest if they want to.

Also, what is the medium for your work? Its got a neat style.

 

[Master_Craig]

When I go to recklessabandon.com, I get a "coming soon..." message...I hope this is your doing? Because you really want the name of your comics to be your web address. You don't want people saying "Oh, I should check out this reckless abandon comic...Is it recklessabandon.com? Nope. Is it recklessabandon.net? Not that either. Can't find it, I will just stop looking." (Never overestimate attention spans on the internet). Register the domain, change the name of your comic while its still young if you have to. People don't want to deal with a lot of nonsense when looking for a comic.

Also, when you get your permanent site, do your readers a favor, and make sure the newest comic is the first thing we see upon visiting the site. Comics like Penny Arcade "hide" the comic behind blog posts, links, etc. and its annoying. People come to see the comic. So show them the comic. They'll check out blog post, links, previous story lines, and the rest if they want to.

Also, what is the medium for your work? Its got a neat style.

Hey man. Cheers for your input . I have registered the domain name of Reckless Abandon (however, it's at http://www.recklessabandon.com.au) - I chose "com.au" because... I'm Australian, and want this comic to be recognised as an "Australian" web comic, since there aren't many (or any) web comics from Australia - I think.

Also, my location on Blogger.com (http://racomic.blogspot.com.au) is a temporary location. A friend who runs his own IT business has offered me his assistance in developing a full and "proper" website free of charge, as long as I design the layout... which I have yet to do. My brother suggested for now, put the comics up on a free blog site, then when we're ready we can move to our future "official" website. It's a slow process, but unfortunately at times it can be difficult to be motivated to develop my website, especially when things like full time work, training, video games, drawing comics and a social life come into play.

As for the process and medium behind the comic... it's a mix of traditional and digitial. I won't bore you to death on how it's all done precisely but if you are interested, eventually on the blog I'll be posting a "how we make this" blog entry with one of the comics. However to nutshell it quickly for you -

-All comics are hand sketched on A4 paper with either pencil or pen. I've printed over 100 pre-made comic panel templates (which I made myself), so I sketch the comics onto those.

-Using a scanner, I scan the sketch to my computer as a "raw" .PDF file. The .PDF file is imported in its original size (A4, 300 DPI - high resolution) into Adobe Photoshop CS5. I draw to high resolution because if I ever print it, it'll look good, plus looks more detailed and better on screen, even if screen resolution is 72 DPI.

-Using a WACOM Intuous3 graphics tablet, I digitally "ink" the comic - characters only. Once that's that, a new layer is placed -behind- the characters and that's where the digital colour comes in. Once all coloured, I do the same thing for the backgrounds.

-After all the inking and colouring, I finish off the comic with appropriate speech bubbles and dialogue and any special effects that may be present (glow, bloom etc).

-When I have a finished comic, I downsize it to a smaller resolution and overall size for the purpose of web presentation. However, I will keep an original copy of the high resolution A4 comic, for the purpose of potential printing.

-That's it!

 

[MattAY]

Hahaha, I enjoyed the RE6 one the most. (<3 Leon).

These are good Craig, if you had a website full of them a la Penny Arcade I could see myself reading them for a long night!

I also love Wacom tablets. Have you seen the gizmo by Wacom that you clip onto your paper like a bulldog clip, then it automatically turns what you draw into a vector?! It costs over £100 but I really want one.

 

[Master_Craig]

Hahaha, I enjoyed the RE6 one the most. (<3 Leon).

These are good Craig, if you had a website full of them a la Penny Arcade I could see myself reading them for a long night!

I also love Wacom tablets. Have you seen the gizmo by Wacom that you clip onto your paper like a bulldog clip, then it automatically turns what you draw into a vector?! It costs over £100 but I really want one.

Hey MattAY, thanks man! I'm glad you like them. The RE6 one was fun to draw.

WACOM tablets are the bomb. I really like them. I never heard of that gizmo you mentioned... I just looked up online now and wow. It looks pretty bad arse... £100? That's just over $150 AUD... Goddamn. A little pricey. It does sound pretty cool. When you say vector, does the gizmo come with some kind of software? Can it work alongside Adobe products like Illustrator or Photoshop?

This is the tablet I use, at this stage. It belonged to my oldest brother before he handed it down to me. It cost him somewhere between $200-300 AUD. He bought it a while ago... I think it was the end of 2007?

If I lived in a perfect world, I'd love to one of those monitor style tablets...

(That isn't me, just some lucky bastard with a monitor tablet )