best and worst pages

[Phact0rri]

ironically my worst is the newest one... the first three panels are awful. I however think that by and by my newer ones keep getting better.. just this week I was totally unmotivated.

[MariaAndMichelle]

They're all pretty awful >____<

Michelle's favorite, however, would have to be this one (in which she tested a new inking style). Or, perhaps, this one.

[Patrick_Shannon]

I have two favorites that I have done so far:

http://www.mywarwithculture.com/comic.php?cid=32
http://www.mywarwithculture.com/comic.php?cid=34

The first one I liked because 1.) it's Spiderman and Doctor Octopus, and 2.) it was a chance to think outside the box do some more dramatic comic book-like shading. The second one was just plain silly political satire and it gives me the most chuckles when I look back at my stuff.

My most hated one is:

http://www.mywarwithculture.com/comic.php?cid=15

This comic was really rushed and badly drawn, and it really shows. I've often thought about going back and redoing it, but that's kind of silly. The strange irony is that this comic is by far the most popular one of them all, I've received a ton of email from people who busted a gut laughing at it (all PC gamers, I suspect). They loved it for the satire, I hated it for the art.

[Pimpette]

Worst:

http://pimpette.keenspace.com/d/20030926.html
I hate the colouring in this one - it's before I figured Photoshop out completely, so there are white lines surrounding everyone.

http://pimpette.keenspace.com/d/20031027.html
This one I did in five minutes... but it remains in the archives because (to me, at least) it's hilarious.


Best:

http://pimpette.keenspace.com/d/20031124.html
Originally just a drawng in my sketchbook, this one came out surprisingly well in full colour and everything. Especially Parakas (the dragon).

http://pimpette.keenspace.com/d/20040105.html
Experimenting with special marker paper and Prismacolour grey-tone markers.

http://pimpette.keenspace.com/d/20040119.html
I just love the last frame of this one, with Balintor (the gold dragon).

Seems my best comics were the ones based in Hell. Go figure.

[Grayswandir]

Worst:
http://tanked.keenspace.com/d/20040312.html
Now, this page is just stupid. The drawings aren't that bad, but the text is too small and the joke is completely moronic. Which kills off the upside to the page.

http://tanked.keenspace.com/d/20040313.html
I completely messed up the muzzle flashes on the last panel of the page, I didn't make the sound effects big enough, and I could've used a ruler.

http://tanked.keenspace.com/d/20040321.html
I messed up the third panel dialogue, originally, there was going to be a different line where it didn'tt repeat itself. Also, in the last panel I made Harry's head too small and the bullets coming out of the TV are at the wrong angles.

Best:
http://tanked.keenspace.com/d/20040401.html
I liked this one because I can't draw cars (usually they end up too long or too short) and I actually was able to draw the car to my liking in this one. Plus, I just like the dialogue.

http://tanked.keenspace.com/d/20040505.html
I enjoyed making this page, which is one reason I think its one of my best. This is the one I did for the May 5th, National Cartoonist Day.

http://tanked.keenspace.com/d/20040723.html
I was happy with this one. I was able to make up something that made the people who read it before I inked it laugh out loud, I was able to hint at something that would relate to an event later on in "Tank'd", and I was able to get May's expression in the last panel drawn prefectly (I've never been able to do that before)

[LAGtheNoggin]

Just to be different;

Best:
My first comic http://www.lagthemodeller.com/Noggin/Co ... ?ImageNo=1

Worst:
My latest comic
http://www.lagthemodeller.com/Piccies/C ... omic04.png

*shudder* - It seems I lose artistic ability over time... =/

[Melody]

That's a badass freaking ability.

By the way, I like how your comic shows instead of tells what is going on. Good job.


__________
Limp Bizkit - Nookie

[Jim North]

Worst: A tie between this one and this one. The former was my first stab at inking the strip, and it just turned out horrible since I was still in the process of learning how to ink in the first place. Fortunately, the strip right after it looked much better. The latter was my second attempt at bringing full color into the strip, and somehow it ended up looking worse than my first try. The table, Jim's hair, the complete lack of background color . . . eegh.

Best: Strip #50! Going into this strip, I had a definite plan of what I wanted to do. This was not that plan. This was better. I was amazed even as I was drawing it up how well it was coming out. I also liked writing it up, since the extra size gave me room to pack a few extra jokes into the panels. Boo-freakin'-yah.

[LAGtheNoggin]

That's a badass freaking ability.

No, just bad.

By the way, I like how your comic shows instead of tells what is going on. Good job.

Heh, ta and thanks, I like to think it forces people to oggle the artwork (not that that's a good thing)... I'll be swapping the imagery with dialouge soon (in Noggin' terms) though, plain drawing is far too much work...

[Fi13r]

My first is and always has been my best.

It's all been downhill from there!

[Jackhass]

The latest comic I did is probably the worst.

Usually I work much larger, and use bristol board. But I ran out and had to do a comic on just plain old printer paper...and the results left a bit to be desired in my opinion.

As for best...one of these 3 I wager...

http://monkeys.keenspace.com/d/20040702.html
http://monkeys.keenspace.com/d/20040726.html
http://monkeys.keenspace.com/d/20040802.html

Oh, and this is purely art-wise. I have no idea which is best in terms of writing...I've read them all so many times they all ceased to be amusing to me ages ago.

[Wp]

Great examples, guys! One thing I'd like to note, though, is that you shouldn't be bashing on your first several comics. Most artists I know improve over time, so the art you feel is awesome in the beginning will still be worse than the recent art you feel really badly about.

I also really like your comments about the content of the strip rather than just the art. I wasn't really thinking about that.

Waf: Hehe, I like the stone guy too. What is that red ribbon around his waist? A cumberbund?

Evil Jamie: I can't believe you've never felt good about a single strip while you were making it. I've had plenty drawings where I felt really good right after I finished, but then one week later would wonder what I was thinking. But I still liked it when it was done.

Berserkercrew: I don't know if it's the thicker lines or what, but that second one does look stylistically better. Nice cross-hatching. I actually like the second one more than the third.

Lintjinks: Well, I can't stress how important it is to try different styles. It helps you discover what works for yourself. And if you don't have time to experiment on your own, why not post it as one of your comics? Just don't disappoint the fans too much (I doubt they would be though).

Melody: call me a philistine, but I have no idea how to interpret your abstract comics.

Midgear: SHOW ME!

Christwriter: wow, you have a really vivid way of coloring and choosing colors. Even in your "bad" strip.

BryanOlsson: hahahaha! I'm sure that was a shock for your fans.

TheBladeRoden2: Er... that doesn't count as a worst page. But yeah, I remember the ruckus with Janet. How worthless...

Geez... gonna stop with the comments. I need an ergonomic keyboard.

[KathleenJ]

Hm, interesting topic.

I could pull out links from three and a half years ago that would truly make your eyes bleed...but I think I'll stick with stuff from the second incarnation of my comic (the past year or so).

Worst:
http://www.intershadows.com/?date=20031013
This is one ugly mofo. The characters are off model, the backgrounds are minimal and don't fit, the colors clash, the pacing is shitty, and what should be important dialogue gets a really subpar execution.
Also not too keen on this.

Best:

http://www.intershadows.com/?date=20040801
This current one is probably my favorite right now. It's a nice, subtle piece of character interaction, and I think it turned out well.
Another coupl'a random favorites...
uno, dos, tres

[BERSERKERCREW]

Berserkercrew: I don't know if it's the thicker lines or what, but that second one does look stylistically better. Nice cross-hatching. I actually like the second one more than the third.

thanks, wp.
i do love to crosshatch, gives the image a gritty, noirish look that
can't be beat, i tend to that time to time, but use much more fairer lines when it comes to female characters.
so it's fun to jump from one style to another, but yes crosshatching is very cool.

[Ratbert]

Since I don't wanna go back past the 200-strip mark when I was using the animals (even though a lot of people told me I was funnier back then), I'll just post these recent ones -


The worst is most certainly here:

http://newtraditionalists.keenspace.com/d/20040426.html
(I had to make a comic in less than 10 minutes)

And the worst picture comic:

http://newtraditionalists.keenspace.com/d/20040322.html

The best ones?

Well one of my favorite picture comics is here:

http://newtraditionalists.keenspace.com/d/20040414.html

And my favorite drawn one:

http://newtraditionalists.keenspace.com/d/20031219.html

Because it's hard to laugh at your own jokes, but I think I laughed at that one most than anybody else ever would.

[Alun Clewe]

Eh... what the hey. I guess I'll join in.

I'm not going to attempt to judge my strips on humor value or writing, because I don't think I'd ever be able to pick a "best" and "worst" on that basis (though there are definitely some I like better than others), but as far as art...

Well, all my early strips are pretty bad, I think. But if I had to pick one as "worst", it would be this one.

This was the first appearance of Drv'dxx, the demon bartender, in the strip, and, all things considered, I think he turned out pretty good... except that I shouldn't have given him eyelids. I've since decided that canonically, he doesn't have visible eyelids, and the eyelids he has in the penultimate few panels of this strip were a mistake.

But that's not the worst thing about this strip. As I said, Drv'dxx turned out pretty good. Erlak, on the other hand, looks absolutely awful. Especially in those first three panels of the middle row. Ick.

But, honestly, Erlak (along with pretty much every other character) looks awful in all my early strips; that's not what elevates this one to the worst of the worst. No, what really sets this strip apart is the almost completely illegible font I used for Drv'dxx's dialogue, its unreadability compounded by the fact that I saved this strip as a gif instead of a jpg, and the color limit meant there weren't enough grays available for the text to be antialiased properly. I simplified this font somewhat before it was next used to make it easier to read, but in this strip Drv'dxx's dialogue is far too hard to make out. (And the fact that somehow I accidentally put Drv'dxx in front of his dialogue balloon in the first panel is just the icing on the cake.)

At some point, I may go back and re-save my old strips, the Sunday strips in particular, in png format to get them down to smaller filesizes so they'll download quicker. If they do, I'm going to change Drv'dxx's font in this strip to the new, actually readable version. (And maybe remove the eyelids, too, though that much tinkering with old strips may be cheating.)

As far as best strip... hm. I dunno. Honestly, I don't know if there's any strip I'm completely happy with. But, I guess the most recent Sunday strip is as good a choice as any. Though it's not without its flaws... I don't like the streaky black and yellow background of the third-from-last panel, and Erlak's borders should be much fuzzier in the second-to-last panel to make it clearer that he's disappearing... but oh well.

[Nightgaunt]

My least favorite is this one.
But let's not dwell on the crappy ones, instead allow me to mention that I have a few favorites, from a sort of gag standpoint, from a creative standpoint, and finally, the first panel here from a more art/style standpoint.