Webcomic Above You 2014 Review and Discussion

[RobboAKAscooby]

Okay dudes and dudettes, this is where you post your reviews and discussion.

I'll try to keep a running tally of who's reviewing who and which reviews are done.

Try to keep things civil... and if you can't be civil, at least be entertaining

[RobboAKAscooby]

I remembered this post (or at least one like it), so, OK.

As for me, how about Red Slime. It's a bunch of short stories by different people. It might be a little weird to review, but just do whatever makes the most sense.

Oh fuckity fuck fuck damn...

*sigh*

[LibertyCabbage]

Oh fuckity fuck fuck damn...

*sigh*

[RobboAKAscooby]

List so far:
Scooby's comic being reviewed by LibertyCabbage
Red Slime being reviewed by Djracodex
Masadjra being reviewed by IVstudios
Inhumation being reviewed by Cuddly
Loud Era being reviewed by Terotrous
What Lies Beyond being reviewed by Scooby
Scooby's comic being reviewed by ............

[LibertyCabbage]

[JSConner800]

Well I'll be damned, it's a review that talks! Just when you think you've seen it all...

[RobboAKAscooby]

Thanks LC.

I have not had this much anxiety going into a review before...

I'm breaking my rule about taking time before responding so as to jot down a few thoughts I had as I watched it:
- A VIDEO? Oh man this is gonna hurt, why couldn't he just post a text review.
- Where the heck is he going with this Robert Crumb thing?
- Marrying Taylor Swift....oh come on that is a joke...at my own expense I should add.
- Pretty fair description of the writing, I screwed up big time.
- Hey! only one good looking guy has been a jerk so far.
- Nailed it on the art. Still learning on the black and white, I think I even mentioned that in an answer to a comment.
- Good tip on the photo thing.
- McD keeps pulling me up on the thin wrist/ankle thing, I am trying but bad habits and all that...
- ...and on the general skinniness too.
- The Beauty and the Beast dress... well I'll just say bad joke prefaced on the similar looks hair-wise.
- My depression would be more interesting to read about but it's fucking painful to write about, I want to write a fun project.
- Deep breaths it's over.
- Actually this wasn't as painful as I expected.



Now the actual thoughts in regards to the review (that don't involve the psychoanalysis):
Writing
Can't disagree with you here. What exists so far was supposed to be a quick set-up to get to the real idea which will be (and was supposed to be) a "gag-a-day" about these two seemingly different people and their two different worlds and how those worlds react to them.
There will be conflict, just not so much "romantic conflict" as that is boring and overused, every rom-com and sitcom since the early 90s.
I could go into more on this but frankly I'd rather focus on actually showing it as I continue.
Probably would have been better if I just started with these two in the relationship (which still really hasn't happened yet) but perhaps further down the line I can just chop off the intro and pretend this mess never existed.
Art
Again can't disagree much here, although I do think there's a little improvement lately.
I went into this comic with a few self-set restrictions (1 A4 page only, no fixing errors in photoshop, a few others not worth mentioning) and also as a learning experience artistically, mostly to work on my line art and such.
I would like to point out that (at least when I've drawn them properly) the girls aren't that much smaller than the guys, Alex is only slightly smaller than Seth for instance, but they do have narrower waists (supposed to be about head width). The skinny limb syndrome is something I am conscious of but still struggling with.
Overall
Nothing I can really complain about.
Once the video got past the intro there wasn't much said that I wasn't expecting.
Before I kicked off the WAY I went back to double check the links (and a few were broken so that was clever) and realised just how bad, and how far from my plan, the comic is.
Thankfully I'm pretty much done with the set-up so I can put this nightmare behind me.

The truth behind this comic is I mostly started it so I could join back in the fun around here, but I wouldn't mind it becoming something decent in the future.



I will say though DON'T POST A FUCKING VIDEO!!!
Jeez that was terrifying at first.

[RobboAKAscooby]

oops

[RobboAKAscooby]

stupid loading issues causing double posts

[RobboAKAscooby]

List so far (updated):
Scooby's comic being reviewed by LibertyCabbage DONE
Red Slime being reviewed by Djracodex
Masadjra being reviewed by IVstudios
Inhumation being reviewed by Cuddly
Loud Era being reviewed by Terotrous
What Lies Beyond being reviewed by Scooby
Scooby's comic being reviewed by Cope
Cerintha being reviewed by JSConnor800
Steels Salvation being reviewed by...

[LibertyCabbage]

Well I'll be damned, it's a review that talks! Just when you think you've seen it all...

Well, if you wanna watch a better video review, Riiser has, like, a million of 'em.

Thanks LC.

NP.

I will say though DON'T POST A FUCKING VIDEO!!!

Why not?

[RobboAKAscooby]

I will say though DON'T POST A FUCKING VIDEO!!!

Why not?

Well I was mostly just being over dramatic there but I have to admit I did have a "Oh shit this isn't good" moment when I saw it was a video.

[LibertyCabbage]

Well I was mostly just being over dramatic there but I have to admit I did have a "Oh shit this isn't good" moment when I saw it was a video.

This particular comic actually isn't the reason I made a video. I planned on doing video reviews for this year's W.A.Y. a while ago, and I thought it'd be more fun to have it be a surprise. Soooooooooo, yeah, more videos are a-comin'. I would've done another placeholder by now, but I just reviewed Steel Salvation, so, nope.

[RobboAKAscooby]

Well I was mostly just being over dramatic there but I have to admit I did have a "Oh shit this isn't good" moment when I saw it was a video.

This particular comic actually isn't the reason I made a video. I planned on doing video reviews for this year's W.A.Y. a while ago, and I thought it'd be more fun to have it be a surprise. Soooooooooo, yeah, more videos are a-comin'. I would've done another placeholder by now, but I just reviewed Steel Salvation, so, nope.

Oh yeah I realised it wasn't personal.

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

LC I feel like I've met you in real life but I know that can't be true


You look NOTHING THE WAY I EXPECTED. Hopefully I can move past this so that I can actually watch & consume the information in the video

[Terotrous]

Loud Era by VeryCuddlyCornpone
Reviewed by Tero

A warning: this review will contain some spoilers. I'll try to keep them to a minimum but for a story-based comic it's impossible to talk about the plot without spoiling a bit of it.


As its name implies, Loud Era is a slice-of-life / drama comic set in the early 1900s with a slight focus on the performing arts. At the time of this writing it is partway through it's sixth chapter.

The main thing that sets Loud Era apart from other webcomics is that it is a period piece, it's set in a specific point in history and generally tries to be authentic to its setting. This is conveyed in several ways, but there's no question that the most effective one is through the art. Loud Era genuinely looks like a comic that might have been produced in the early 1900s. The art style is heavily inspired by traditional western cartooning, with heavy caricature and a lot of facial definition, which creates a unique look by today's standards all by itself, but what really separates this comic from others is the authenticity in the production techniques. Loud Era is inked, lettered, thatched, and coloured by hand, which goes a long way towards recreating the retro look. For example, in old comics, colours are not totally uniform, as they are in comics that are coloured using a computer, there are gradients and patterns in the colours, all of which are faithfully reproduced here. This even extends to the colour scheme, which is generally a bit too bright by modern standards and has a slightly faded look, which again matches the less advanced printing techniques of the day. And I have to give special credit to the backgrounds. Take a look at the first panel in this strip, for example, the level of detail here is incredible. Once again this is a callback to the golden days of cartooning, which were generally drawn full-page and featured elaborate hand-drawn backgrounds. Overall I really enjoyed the art. My one minor beef is the way Leon's glasses are drawn, the opaque lenses seem a bit out of place with the rest of the comic. I suspect this is a more modern artistic convention compared to the rest of the art style.

Unfortunately, I don't feel the writing and plot contribute quite as much to the theme of the comic. They're totally serviceable, but unlike the art there's not a lot here that really establishes Loud Era as a period work. The major plot threads so far have dealt with the high school prom, a musical, and a camping trip, which are basically staple storylines of any high school story written between 1900 and now, and the ways in which the time period would be relevant are frequently glossed over. For example, the first part of the story deals with graduation and the prom, and while I really enjoyed the twist ending at the very end of chapter 3, there's nothing here that wouldn't fit in any other high school strip. This is definitely a missed opportunity, because if the characters were to discuss their plans for after graduation, that would likely be totally different from how that conversation would go in a more modern setting. Even more unfortunate is the character of Ulysses, who serves as the comic's main tie to its time period. Unfortunately, he gets virtually no screentime and isn't connected to the main plot in any way. I was actually pretty confused by the new intro because it made it seem like Ulysses was the central character in the story and I kept trying to figure out how he fit into it before I finally clued in that he actually wasn't involved in the main storyline. Given his general non-participation in the plot, it probably would have been better for the intro to focus on Joseph, Eddie, or Marie instead, it'd make the first chapter a little easier to follow for new readers. The strip also tends to fade back and forth between characters using generally period-appropriate dialogue and more modern slang, which is a bit jarring at times. This strip is probably the most egregious example, besides sounding out of place there's also no way a 1919 paper would ever allow that type of language, they'd have to be a lot more subtle about it. In general, I feel it would help a lot to always keep the time period of the strip in mind and look for ways to contrast past and present.

Beyond this, I have a few minor issues regarding pacing and overall writing style. One fairly typical issue is that the comic suffers from some degree of "show, don't tell". Cuddly gives a little commentary on each page, and in some cases they contain vital aspects of plot information that aren't located elsewhere in the comic. The most prominent example of this occurs when one character's religion becomes a plot point. This has never been mentioned previously in the comic, nor has anyone treated this character differently up until now, it's just kind of mentioned in the commentary that this kind of thing was an issue at the time. I think it would have been a lot more effective if we had seen some backstory for this character (he's the only one who doesn't get a scene devoted to him in chapter 1) where his religion was established, and if his boss acted like a jerk to him about it, that way it wouldn't seem to kind of come out of nowhere. The cast page also contains some pretty vital information that the site unwisely advises you not to read for fear of spoilers, even though it doesn't really contain any. I was definitely a little confused until I read through the bios for the main characters because the story starts off right in the thick of things and it introduces a half dozen characters in so many strips. Speaking of which, I feel the pacing in the comic could use a little fine tuning. From a plot perspective, chapter 4 is the most important one in the story, it contains several major events that shift the tone of the comic. It is also by far the shortest chapter, chalking in at less than half the length of the previous chapter, and much of that is an unrelated scene with Ulysses. I definitely would have expected to see more discussion of these events from the other characters in the story. These are really pretty typical issues when writing fiction that are pretty hard to avoid unless you plan everything you write really far in advance (which is hard with a comic), but they're worth noting anyway.

Overall, Loud Era is definitely a solid effort and I can tell a lot of love goes into the production of this comic. The various issues I had with the writing didn't significantly impede my overall enjoyment, though I feel it could become something really special if the art and the writing meshed a little more cohesively. At the very least, the lovingly detailed backgrounds, expressive characters and vibrant colours elevate it beyond the typical high-school comic to become something more memorable.

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

TEROOOOOOOOO THANK YOUUUUUUU <3


time to digest before i respond properly thank u

[RobboAKAscooby]

UPDATED:

List so far:
Scooby's comic being reviewed by LibertyCabbage DONE
Red Slime being reviewed by Djracodex
Masadjra being reviewed by IVstudios
Inhumation being reviewed by Cuddly
Loud Era being reviewed by Terotrous DONE
What Lies Beyond being reviewed by Scooby
Scooby's comic being reviewed by Cope
Cerintha being reviewed by JSConnor800
Steels Salvation being reviewed by Cuddly
Loud Era being reviewed by Scooby
??? being reviewed by JSConnor800
Steel Salvation being reviewed by...

JSC, I'm assuming you're reviewing my comic but I'll leave the ??? just in case.

And I think I might tap out soon, already up for three reviews, but we'll see where things go.

[LibertyCabbage]

Well, I was gonna wait so LC could do some more video reviews, but since he's already done one for Scoob then I might as well double dip

I have a big stack o' requests to get through, so more video reviews are coming regardless of what goes on with W.A.Y.

[JSConner800]

Well, I was gonna wait so LC could do some more video reviews, but since he's already done one for Scoob then I might as well double dip

I have a big stack o' requests to get through, so more video reviews are coming regardless of what goes on with W.A.Y.

Oh good, in that case I'll triple dip if another comic I want to review comes up for grabs.

JSC, I'm assuming you're reviewing my comic but I'll leave the ??? just in case.

Oh yeah, I should have specified. I'd like to take a look at your webnovel, unless you'd rather have another review of your comic. I'm open