mcDuff's reviewalicious thread

[Redshine]

Been following this thread for a while now ... lurking though.

I thought, if you get a bit of time, maybe you'd like to give this one a try? http://redshine.comicgenesis.com/

[McDuffies]

I am probably going to regret this, but as I'm not taking any studio art courses this semester I'm quite starved for any form of artistic feedback.

So I'll ask for a review of AntiBunny
http://antibunny.com
It tends to be confusing so you may want to limit yourself to either Just the Gritty City Stories or Just the Nailbat stories. Though they do intertwine in places, either can stand alone. I'd advise making use of the archive page to avoid confusion.

Yes I already know the art is inconsistent, and that again it's confusing. The inconsistency I'm still working on, confusion is by design. But I should leave you something to tear asunder.

You might regret it in short term. But I'm sure that any reviewer would tell you what I will, and probably in more harsh terms. Problems don't go away themselves, you note them, then you work on them.

The comic indeed is confusing. I am not willing to accept that all the confusion is there intentionally, being that much of it is obviously due to lack of drawing skills.
When it's not apparent whether main character is male or female - that might be intentional. When one has to put an effort just to figure out what is going on in the panel, that can't be excused.
There are two basic clarity-related problems here:

1. As I said, one can not always tell what's going on in panels.
Sometimes, it's unhappy choice of camera position (like in first panel here, or 4th and 6th panels here which look like droodles more than anything). Most often, it's dramatic close cuts which lack the level of detail needed to identify objects. We just see several lines, and try to identify them from context (panels 4 through 9).
Other times, panels are incomprehensible because of overall messiness. I am a big fan of sloppy-looking art styles, but this one isn't sloppy - it's better described as messy.
Sometimes, the way you draw the rain or shade will obscure important things on the page. Other times, the whole page starting with the lineart is a general mess.

2. It's a strange observation to make, but panels don't connect to each other. There's no sence of time and space in which particular scene is happening. For us, they could as well be images that are in no connection to each other. I guess what I'm saying is, continuity is very poorly established, often abrupt changes in styles and mood, abrupt flashbacks and visions just additionally confuse matter.

Clarity is the basic, most important quality of the comic. I should not have to gaze at your page to see what's going on - I should be able to instantly see it. If a comic is inaccessible, it should be inaccessible because the build-up to this base is difficult for general audience - not because general audience has to struggle to figure out simple events.
After all said, is there a point in telling that there's no sence of detail in this drawing? That I am not able to tell that one character is dressed as goth, until other characters explicitely say that?

Writing adds to this confusion a lot, I think. Story seems like it is made out of scattered pieces of different stories. Overal style seems to be one of a realistic angst-filled story with homeless rabbits and all the racism-related, "humans are bastards" moralizing, and perhaps elements of noirish crime story of the later chapters fit in.
But there are also outbursts of manga-ish "baka" moments, magical characters with their magical stand-offs, violent slapstick that completely undermines attempts to make this story gritty and somber. There's a lot of struggle among different elements, but it builds up to nothing. There's nothing of interest there.

There are some attempts of clarificalion through comments written under the comics, which, as anyone who's followed this thread knows, I consider a deadly sin on a webcomicker. Comics should be able to work on their own.

I've also read Nailbait, which is somewhat more comprehensible. This is probably because it belongs to a particular genre so there isn't so much promiscuity in mixing opposing elements, but also because story has much more verbal storytelling, so we don't rely on images that much.
It's another wordy superhero story where characters talk a lot about moral rights to share justice and other ethical issues in very simplified terms that are told in a tone of a great significance. Though, if we've read "Lightbringer", dillemas that "Nailbait" goes through seem actually deep. It's an interesting premise for a comic, though not lacking in contradictions (why is he able to change other people's destinies if he isn't able to change his own?).


Now, what should be done to make it better?

First, you seem to make your comic with little to no planning. Page layouts are, for instance, obviously not planned or sketched beforehand. We can pretty much see how panels are being stacked on top (or in this case bottom) of each other. Some things make me think that individual panels are also drawn without sketching (like second panel here where the way their feet are cut off at the bottom suggest that you didn't compose a panel before drawing it).
This is simply no way to make a comic: we all make many mistakes and a lot of mess, but we try to keep them in sketch stage, so that it can be erased and what's left in the end is representable. In your comic, all the mess is present in the final product.
And then, is it wonder that there are problems in narration if, while drawing a panel, you don't know how it's gonna connect to the rest of the sequence?

Start outlining pages before you draw them. Sketch a page in light pencils before you actually draw it. It will take more time and perhaps not be as spontaneous as you used to, but results will soon be better.

Second issue: you are constantly biting more than you can chew. You insist on drawing with tools that would trouble more experienced artist and trying to draw things that would give headaches to better artists than you are.
I applaud your need to explore and experiment, I really do (god knows there's enough "talking heads" comics around). But I feel that at this point, acquiring skills is a handfull, without additional attempts to complicate things.

For instance, you shade most of panels with pencil, for greyish atmosphere. Sometimes you get away with this. Other times, you just pile up mess. You drew a bulk of comics only in pencils, and pencils aren't a very handy tool for comics. I know only several artists who can get away with drawing a comic entirely in pencils and make it look good.
You seem to occasionally draw with some kind of brush or a very thick marker, and I'd reccomend some finer tools that are easier to handle.

Again, I respect your desire to be different, and I hope you'll stay that way. But in order to break the rules, first you need to know the rules. You seem to be jumping too far ahead in drawing game, and for now, perhaps, your main preocupation should be learning to draw on a more basic level. You can always grab a thick brush and gray out entire areas once you're more sure of what you're doing, more skillful and confident artist.

A technical advice for the end:
Your images should be a tad bit smaller. This width makes a reader have to scroll horizontally on many pages, and readers don't like that.
Btw this seems to be a broken link: http://www.antibunny.com/d/20060421.html

[Levi-chan]

I'm planning on a new comic, and am hoping that I learned enough from my previous project to make it good. But additional insights from you could be good. Can you check out: http://hopscotch.comicgenesis.com, if you have the time?

[VinnieD]

It's a thorough review no doubt about that. Sadly...I really DO sketch beforehand. I can't draw without a sketch in fact. It's just that I'm THAT BAD at pacing. Still working on it. I've lately been considering reducing the number of panels per page to allow for greater detail at the expense of slowing down the pace of the story, though with weekly updates I fear complaints on that level as well. I had hoped that between 2006 and 2008 I'd addressed and fixed the "messy" complaint I've received before but since it still seems to be an issue even in the recent comics I'll just have to bite the bullet and go with more focused panels. Perhaps I'm still having trouble though, in figuring out how to turn multiple stills into a sense of flow from scene to scene. Sadly I'm only told to "fix it" rather than get any suggestions on how to do so. Art instructors are of little help since they scoff at comics on principal. If you've any information on how to accomplish this I'd like to hear it.

Now in terms of plot. Abrupt flashbacks, hallucinations, and plot shifts. Yes a valid complaint but part of what I deemed "confusion by design" Some parts aren't made to be read only once. Though I'm well aware this sounds like justifying mistakes. Maybe I could do something about transitions to flashbacks and hallucinations. I started by changing art styles to stark black and white when something isn't "Real", which helped but to a new reader I realize that isn't clear. Again suggestions are welcome.

The shifts in storytelling between Noir style and the more lighthearted "magic" characters is more of a personal thing I suppose. I just can't emotionally handle writing Noir all the time, so after an intense chapter I need to bring everything back to something light and fluffy to keep the whole thing from drowning in angst. Thus the characters such as Juju, Euclid, and so fourth. To keep things from getting too out of hand I did address that they live in different areas. AntiBunny I tend to think of as a world where many different kinds of stories can take place and occasionally cross over. Though I do like to use chapter breaks to cleanly separate them. I had hoped that occasionally lightening the tone wouldn't be so off putting. Though again, don't think this making justification for errors, only I wish to explain the motivation behind why I took that route.

Last thing. "Humans are jerks" Actually in my comic. Everyone's a jerk. Hannibal is probably the only decent one of them.

[McDuffies]

I've lately been considering reducing the number of panels per page to allow for greater detail at the expense of slowing down the pace of the story, though with weekly updates I fear complaints on that level as well.

It's an infinite canvas, you can stretch it in length as much as you want, but limiting the number of panels that are visible on screen at once was a good idea.
Nailbait is generally less messy than Gritty City. I don't know why, for some time I thought that the bulk of this comic was drawn after Gritty City.

I had hoped that between 2006 and 2008 I'd addressed and fixed the "messy" complaint I've received before but since it still seems to be an issue even in the recent comics I'll just have to bite the bullet and go with more focused panels. Perhaps I'm still having trouble though, in figuring out how to turn multiple stills into a sense of flow from scene to scene. Sadly I'm only told to "fix it" rather than get any suggestions on how to do so. Art instructors are of little help since they scoff at comics on principal. If you've any information on how to accomplish this I'd like to hear it.

The reason why you don't get suggestions is probably because most of people don't think about it, it just comes to them. Some suggest that you watch a film, freeze particular frames and observe how these frames connect into a story, though film narration is different from a comic narration so it might be a questionable advice. Others will probably say that it'll eventually come to you. It's perhaps illustrative that how-to-draw books never deal with this aspect of making comics, asides from a few of Will Eisner's books, which were more of theoretical than how-to-draw kind.
I think that working on making your characters drawn more consistently would be a first step, and adding more detail, specifically to backgrounds, might help establish the whole scene.

Now in terms of plot. Abrupt flashbacks, hallucinations, and plot shifts. Yes a valid complaint but part of what I deemed "confusion by design" Some parts aren't made to be read only once. Though I'm well aware this sounds like justifying mistakes.

Nah, on a second look it makes sence. But other, unintentional things were confusing matters additionally, it was all in all just more confusion than story could handle.

The shifts in storytelling between Noir style and the more lighthearted "magic" characters is more of a personal thing I suppose. I just can't emotionally handle writing Noir all the time, so after an intense chapter I need to bring everything back to something light and fluffy to keep the whole thing from drowning in angst. Thus the characters such as Juju, Euclid, and so fourth. To keep things from getting too out of hand I did address that they live in different areas. AntiBunny I tend to think of as a world where many different kinds of stories can take place and occasionally cross over. Though I do like to use chapter breaks to cleanly separate them.

There are shifts within segments too. Scenes where Pooky beats up her friends also have slapsticky feel that contrasts her overly dark monologues. But have you considered toning down both emotional angst parts and lighthearted parts and bringing them closer to each other?

Last thing. "Humans are jerks" Actually in my comic. Everyone's a jerk. Hannibal is probably the only decent one of them.

It's actually "humans are bastards" - it's a phrase for antropomorphic animal stories where humans are portrayed as opressive force. I think it was primarily used for ecology-themed stories, but anthropomorphic comics often use them as metaphore of discrimination issues.

[McDuffies]

IMPORTANT NOTE:

I'll be taking requests till the end of the week, after that I'll review what's left of requests and that will be it for this time. I'll have too much work to do after that and I didn't intend this thread to go infinitely anyways.

It's been long time since anyone has reviewed my comic...

http://rumfus.comicgenesis.com

Caution-there are a lot of strips, so be prepared. I suggest you pack a lunch:)

Mark.

I'm starting to wonder whether characters with big ears are some sort of new webcomic trend.

Anyways, Rumf Adventures is playing like a retro newspaper adventure comic strip, all with cliffhangers and recaps. It's not a revisionistic or subversive comic though, it approaches the format with honest intention to tell adventure stories of a monkey-like character Hobbes in service of a rather malicious king. Other comics that come to mind are Raymond Macherot's "Clorophylle and Minimus" and "Collonel Clifton", which were similar to Rumfus in that they tried to merge adventure with comedy, by telling more serious plots with caricatural, "cute" drawing style. I don't think that direct influence exists here, as author probably namechecked most of his favourite comics by now.

The comic starts with some interesting backstory about how the old king died, which sets the tone of a humour comic, which is a pitty because that's the wrong first impression as the comic concentrates on the "adventure" angle. That is to say, apart from visual elements characteristic for comedy comics, in writing, comedy is limited to occasional comical reliefs, usually at the start of the comic, related to Rumfus's unfortunate house.
Personally, I'd prefere a comic that integrates humor into a story more, where plots are humorous themselves and comedy is derived from them. First storyline of Rufus tells of kidnapping of a royal plumber, but asides from that detail, story is serious and could have been about kidnapping of a royal advisor as well. Other storylines don't even have this much humor in them.
However, it doesn't automatically mean that the comic wouldn't is bad. I've seen a lots of serious comics told in comical art style. Problem is that these comics largely depend on strong plots, since humor is out, and art style doesn't lend itself much to character drama or atmosphere.

Unfortunately, plots of "Rumf Adventures" are little more than this:
1. Rumf makes a quick survey about antagonist in no more than a few scenes
2. Rumf faces antagonist in a showdown/fight and wins.
And that's about it.

Even in recent story with sugar-eating monster where showdown isn't a conventional fight, plot is so short that you might miss it if you blink. Consider a character named Buck, defined as "super-spy", who always posesses just the information Rumfus needs. He exists specifically as a device to jump big leaps in plots and to deliver to Rumfus informations which lead directly to antagonist. He saves writer from writing more intricate and involving plots, as he can deliver most of the solution on a plate (without explanation of how he got to it) and Rumfus can proceed directly to a fight.

It is surprising how much Rumf Adventures relies on pure fistfight action, considering that drawing style doesn't lend itself to action scenes at all. Characters are comical, violence is slapstick, camera is anything but dramatic - not quite a food for someone who likes action comics. And then, even if plots were longer, richer and more imaginative, every storyline ending up with a big showdown - that would get old quickly.

Author should either work more on his plots, or make this officially an action comic, which includes working on making action more dynamic and and a sideproduct of that, his drawing less cartoony.
Comic could also make more use of it's setting. Particularly the king and his relation to Rumfus could be explored more, and so could the overall rural setting that lends itself to a sort of mythological approach (Rumfus himself is a sort of mythological person in this world). It is an unusual setting for a comic, and could be integrated into plots more. First 20 or so strips were in my opinion the most interesting part of the comic, and while this may be disheartening, it could also point to where real potential of the comic lies.

Not that there aren't redeeming values. While not quite fit for action, art is generally rich and dynamic enough. This is in good part due to a good use of benday dots, which are often contrasted with strategically places pitch black areas. This makes art good looking even in limited comic-strip format.

[VinnieD]

Thanks for the followup. It was quite helpful. I think I see what I can improve now. Got to work on consistency, and decompress a bit. Maybe experiment a little less in favor of artistic consistency.

[Rumfus]

Now that's what I call a review!First off, thanks for taking the time to vist and read the strip. I can't really disagree with anything you've written.You pretty much nailed it. All I can say is, it's all a work in progress.I do hope you stick with it and me. Oh, and I like to think of Rumfus as more mouse than monkey.(There might be a little lion mixed in there too)...That is all.

Mark.

[Koad]

I'll be taking requests till the end of the week, after that I'll review what's left of requests and that will be it for this time.

Oy, I guess all good things must come to an end eh? I've been stalking this thread since the beginning. Thanks for putting in all the time and effort to write these reviews.

[McDuffies]

Well, I may be doing it again some time. I just don't have the kind of time to review comics on a regular basis, but I do get the urge to read and review once in a while.

[Redtech]

Thanks for the followup. It was quite helpful. I think I see what I can improve now. Got to work on consistency, and decompress a bit. Maybe experiment a little less in favor of artistic consistency.

Fuck no!
The only way I am gaining some sort of consistancy is by experimentation! Never, ever go 'boring'. It's like chemistry, sex, food and art in general, if you don't at least know what is not working, you can't find out what is working right. Anyway, you have skills and draw attractive charismatic rabbits far better than I can, it's a matter of finding a way to present that reliably.

Ever checked out Scot McCloud's stuff? I know his final book had some good ideas on camera and positioning/pacing. And http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... reBastards is the link McD is referring to. Good reading in general actually.

[McDuffies]

What can I say? I usually encourage people to experiment. But I don't believe in generalizations when it comes to art, and judging on case-to-case basis I felt that Vinnie needs to set his foots firmly into some conventions before trying to break them.

[SpasticDisaster]

Ok, I guess it's time to see what needs done to my little slice of webcomic pie.

http://www.beyondgoodnevil.com

I have a pretty decent archive, but be warned, this comic is in a constant state of flux.
You'll see the transition as you move through the archives. I've only started in the last few years to find myself as an artist, to the point that it drove me to start art school at 23, which I'm only a few weeks into. You'll see the style steadily change, as it's still doing now. It is by no means something I'm content with. I plan on taking the art and style in new directions, including making it more dynamic and visually appealing(i.e. getting away from the "side view of two guys talking" thing) so it's a perfect time to get some criticism on what I already have.

[Redtech]

What can I say? I usually encourage people to experiment. But I don't believe in generalizations when it comes to art, and judging on case-to-case basis I felt that Vinnie needs to set his foots firmly into some conventions before trying to break them.

I do tend to jump the gun far too often. It just sounded like Vinnie was going to quit being creative and draw VGRabbits when translated though my mind. As far as art goes, (especially in Keenswim) I can't flame the linework , it's the inking and post-production that makes one scream "where am I?"

[Alien]

Wow, am I happy I came across this just in time!

I would very much love a review, harsh is good, so please be honest.
My comic is Chasing the Sunset, a fantasy strip with chaotic pixies and snarky dragons. It celebrates its 500th update today, so there should be more than enough to get the gist of the comic.

Any potential readers also welcome, of course.

[VinnieD]

No need to worry. I won't end experimentation to the extent that page 200 will look the same as page 100 but certainly I'd like it if with practice I could get Panel 2 to look like Panel 1.

When I started AntiBunny I mostly did stand alone sketches and commission work. The ones I really poured effort into were quite good and according to my clients at least, worth the money. (sorry though I don't repost my commissions out of respect for the buyer.) The thing is at the start of the comic I wanted to do something entirely new, so I tore everything down and started over looking for a style to call my own. Which is why you see things like chapter 1 looking super simplistic, while it's growing steadily more detailed as I find myself in a new style built from the ground up. But that does mean a lot of changes, a lot of trial and error, and a few experiments that occasionally don't pay off. (Like that Ultra thick line art a few pages back which was pointed out in the review.) It's a learning process. I guess you could say I broke my artistic legs and learned to walk all over again.

[McDuffies]

Hey ! My "comic" could always use some harsh words! Banner below!

Modern love is a mized bag of goods. While it updates daily, large part of updates is one or a few panels. Anything constitutes updates: from sketches, to finished one-page comics. From purely visual experiments to visually represented strange thoughts, to gags that author comes up with during the day.
But the bulk of the archive are comics which play along as comic strips but don't aim for a gag or punchline, rather for a kind of a humorous miniature. It is more interested in mood, mindset, rather than for qualities usually expected from comics. We could say that it's one of those rare webcomics that explore poetic possibilities of the medium.

On one hand, this is nice. On the other hand Modern Love could be much more selective about what it displays and with much tighter concept. While some of comics are genuine jewels, others are plain, in-jokes, perfectly useless.
This is of course because Modern Love is a sort of sketchbook, or rather bulletin board on which author pins whatever came to in those days, and that it's main quality is spontainousness - and audience for this is not to be underrestimated: many people like to have the chance of peeking into someone else's daily thoughts, much like in blogs. But I, personally, have a feeling that, because of no selection, and because of lack of focus, sensibility and ideas are being under-used.
Consider this: large majority of comics are experiments of some sort, visual or narrative. Mostly, these experiments seem to result from random, even aimless sketching, like how our phone doodles will sometimes be more creative than our comics.
Naturally, I wonder what it would look like if author summed up results and knowledge of his exeriments and tried to apply them to larger narrative structures. To make something more ambicious (and perhaps more consistent) with same poetic explorings in mind. How his experimental layouts could be utilized to tell a story.

I think that this is the reason why I can think of several comics (like Cat and Girl, for instance) that offer me basically the same thing as Modern Love, but in much superior version.
In the end a dropdown that contains Modern Love's "best off" was a good idea, and perhaps I would have different experience if I started with that, but... what can I say? I'm not crazy about best-offs.

Visually, Modern Love is marked with experiments with layout, which almost conceal the fact that largely it's (or it used to be) a stick-figure comic. Those were some elaborated stick-figures, with shading patterns, intentional smudge lines (there is no real smudge in a comic drawn on tablet) and always present play shades of gray, which, arranged in big blocks, rule the comics.

There are some memorable moments though. I was by far the most impressed with a segment called "My father's notebook" which, in small space of a panel whose content slightly varies from comic to comic, we see a poignant and personal portrait. It's a kind of comic where you never see any characters, but you feel like you did, such is the strength of portrait. Images that follow the text are suggestive, and small format lends itself to imagination. Perfect.
Another particularly poetic segment was a series of images that where household items are speaking. Things are shown in "character", each one of them has concerns native to it's purpose; but also, their remarks represent projections of ourselves on them. No humans appear, and the segment has a somber look, as if items are abandoned and begging for attention, to be used.
This, and some other segments among which meta-stories with comic gag improving with every iteration, or where artist tries to piece a comic together out of a few random scenes, convinced me that the greatest strength of Modern Love is in these segments consistein of 10-20 mostly one-panel updates, which are connected but then not quite narrative. It's in those moments when pieces that make up the rest of Modern Love come into a sum that's greater than it's parts.
But let's be frank - I want to read a comic with the feeling that excellence is a result of conscious effort, not of chance and hit-and-miss approach.

Which brings me to the website issue. I didn't feel like current website was the best surrounding this comic could have. A moody comic like this could use a site that supports that mood - and large banner of "Avatar the airbender" doesn't exactly do that. But I guess that's a neccesity and it wasn't the biggest issue.
Modern Love is a specific comic, unlike standard daily webcomics, it doesn't quite fit into Comic Genesis system which is tailored for those standard comics. 1-2 second wait for the page to load was an issue for me because of one-panel nature of the comic. While one-panel is integral part of it, at times reader should be able to read through a comic as if flipping through a slide show - format in which panels repeat with minor changes often lends itself to fast reading that almost has a feel of animation. In those times I wished some kind of Flash site that would load bulks of comics and allow me to flip through them, similarly to how Kid Radd site worked. At other times, presence of sketches and standalone short comics made me think that it was a blog material.
Modern Love possibly also has to struggle with expectations that readers have. A daily reader must be frustrated when he finds an update to be what other webcomics would constitute as a filler.

(Don't take this as if I'm urging you to change host, redesign site with flash, pay for hosting or something like that. Ultimately, I don't think that is going to be decisive to how your comic is seen.)

[Moder]

Hey mcDuff, I agree with you.

I wouldn't want to make the content itself consistent (even though that was my initial intention, with the "fake smudges" and "stick figures", as you noted), but I agree the whole thing could be "tighter" and a more reader friendly.

I've been thinking about ways to solve that - maybe separating experiments/randomness from the "normal" stuff...

Thanks for taking your time for doing such a carefull review and i hope you drop by once in a while to look for some "hits"

[Dallawalla]

Hey, I know the week is up... so this request is if you have time, or are bored... I'm sure you won't feel pressured to do it if you don't want to.

http://www.eandmu.com

There are only 72 single panel comics. Probably about 20 minutes. I suggest starting at the beginning.

Cheers

[McDuffies]

I guess one more or less won't make a big difference.

Review mine if you feel like it — I have many people that tell me what they like and don't like about my comic, so another opinion is always helpful.

"The end of things" is a comic that deals with a college life, interested mostly in internal life of characters. One could say that the comic is pretty uneventfull, so much is it uninterested in plot, favouring sketching careful portraits of his characters. Trying to picture what happens in minds of characters is always a big challenge.

Evan is of course a centerpiece of the comic, even if he was a secondary character he would probably be a scene-stealer: troubled, socially unfit, almost arrogant in refusal to conform, sometimes difficult, he is a character that invites us to try to understand him, and in return we expect from a comic to tell us all this is coming from. There is a danger of neglecting other characters in favour of Evan, it's certainly important that other characters are more than background from which he can bounce off.
I applaud the comic for trying to show what happens inside of our character's minds without telling us directly, trying instead to make us realise it ourselves. Many silent scenes that the comic is specific for seem to serve this purpose, to let us see what characters are doing when they are alone, also illustrating how the comic is interested in personal aspects more than the social ones (unlike almost every other college comic). These scenes are a mixed effort, but they easily infiltrate into comic's style of storytelling.

Unfortunately, this kind of character-based storytelling has it's downsides. Primarily, the comic looks aimless at times, distracted. Having characters wandering around the campuss and running into each other casually works for some time, but as some story progresses, it demands that you concentrate on the story more, digress less, and progress towards some kind of conclusion.
This doesn't seem to happen in "The end of things". Consider the last storyline which lasts for last three years, unlike earlier ones that were much shorter. "Severed ties" is, of course, the first story that deals with a serious subject, and that's the point: while you're telling little stories about campuss guys shooting water pistols at each other, you are able to wrap the story up in decent time. As soon as you grab a serious topic, this loosely structured and very digressive storytelling approach produces seemingly neverending stories that last long after we feel like moving on.
Consider the most succesful works of this type of storytelling, like, say, Linklater's "Slacker" and "Dazed and confused". Upon analyzing you notice that, even though these stories favour incidental happenings instead of some conventionally concieved storyline, still they aim to some kind of resolution, culmination. Progress towards this culmination doesn't have to be expressed through events, it can be through through increasingly intense emotions and mood, character's change or faster pacing... Early stories of in "End of things" favoured to, instead of ending with resolution, just kind of fizzle out. If "Severed ties", after several years, ends that way too, that'll be very anticlimactic.

Art seems like a product of a constant struggle. It's good all right, the quality of which seems like careful labour not to make a mistake. But that's ok, and the only complain I have is that those detailed, precisely drawn backgrounds sometimes tend to overwhelm the page. I contemplated their importance in depicting art college atmosphere and found that (being that college is portrayed mainly through tharacters that attend it) there's no more in backgrounds than author's pechant for drawing them. Which is ok, I guess, but you don't wanna risk giving them too much importance.

Hm. Well that was uncharacteristically short.