SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

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SergeXIII
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SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by SergeXIII »

I feel like reviewing some web comics, and since no one is biting in the "Web Comic Above" thread, I figure I'd just make a thread where I would review a comic without obligating anyone to write one as a consequence. Just point me in the direction of your comic and I'll work my magic.

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VinnieD
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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by VinnieD »

Well I can always use feedback on AntiBunny especially the more recent stuff. Most of the reviews I get focus on the early work, which is fine for an outside reader, but doesn't tell me much in the here and now. The fact that a bunny version of your own avatar appears in it, hopefully won't cause any favoritism. :P

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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by Dranxis »

I always appreciate feedback and criticism on my webcomic What Nonsense. Unfortunately, its not yet long enough to do a comprehensive review of the story (I'mma drawing page 33) but hopefully there's enough material for you to get an idea of what the story's going for. It's a comedy with dramatic and somtimes horror elements, but I'm still establishing character dynamics so there's more comedy than actual plot so far.
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SergeXIII
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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by SergeXIII »

I'm currently in the middle of reviewing Anti Bunny. Just a heads up, it'll be long. I'm not even done with the archives yet and the story part of my review is 2 pages already.

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SergeXIII
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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by SergeXIII »

ANTIBUNNY

Story
Anti Bunny takes place in Gritty City, and it’s a place that looks exactly like it sounds. Gritty City is home to two races, you got your rabbits whom the story follows, and you got your humans whom live to harass their cuter piers without end. This already brings us to a small snafu in the plot, if only a nit pick. This relationship is seen a good deal so it may be easy to take it for granted that the audience will understand but there is never really a reason given for this behavior. Do the humans just see themselves as superior? Do they hold the rabbits responsible for some historical crime? Are they second class citizens? Its never quite clear and the immersion suffers for it. The comic lacks a human in the main cast too, which further alienates us from this important aspect of the setting. Instead Anti Bunny follows the life of several of the rabbit citizens of Gritty City, at first a Goth by name of Pooky, another Goth by name of Hannibal, and a cutesy girl named Petunia. Unsurprisingly the atmosphere is very Goth-esc, with poetic like narration and themes of suffering and nonconformity, no doubt embodied in the rabbit/human relationship.
Anti Bunny’s writing is a roller coaster ride of quality. The inner dialogue and narration typically fit the Goth theme and is genuinely interesting. There is not much of an overall plot at first so the comic instead focuses on its characters, and this is where the comic suffers a bit. Characters are developed directly, either describing themselves to the audience or someone else doing this for them. It’s cheap and in genuine and immersion suffers for it. Likewise dialogue tends to be a sore point as characters address each other two dimensionally, making observations and judgments but lacking any subtlety or meaningful depth. It may just be my taste though, as anime and manga tend to do the same thing, and they seem to be doing something right. All the same, I see a lot of influence from Japanese cartoons in Anti Bunny, sometimes too obviously like in this scene.
On that note, Anti Bunny jumps from dark writing to humor very often. It keeps things fresh but sometimes it happens so abruptly and passes so quickly that it can be jarring. Its not bad, its interesting, but if Anti Bunny has one issue in its writing its in its pacing. It needs to slow down a bit and spend some more time establishing its characters, at least the first three. The second chapter, the Nail Bat chapter fares better but suffers a new issue. Nail Bat takes its time with its origin story and establishes the fear and trepidation in its hero by his actions and thoughts, like its supposed to be, and then how he changes when he discovers his power. Nail Bat runs into the Grim Reaper and is able to see the date at which he is to die, doing so forces him into a metaphysical loophole. Essentially he knows that he isn’t to die for about a year, and as such cannot be killed for about a year. He kinda gets drunk on the power and decides to follow his dreams and childhood love of a comic book hero, complete with an additional ability to see the dates where others are to die, a skill he uses to seek out people who are about to be murdered and save them. It’s a cool concept complete with a fleshed out character who is dynamic and relatable. Its easily the best story in the Anti Bunny universe. Its odd but another thing about this story arch is that characters previously established with the poor dialogue I mentioned earlier noticeably improve in quality when injected into the Nail Bat plot, probably because they have a slower pacing to develop in. Thing is the story of Nail Bat is told in a fashion alternating between his story and the story of the rest of the bunnies every comic. It gets confusing especially when some of the cast are in both comics.
Anti Bunny pays homage and relies on many previously established archetypes and devices, and while this is fine sometimes this hurts the originality and uniqueness of its characters. For instance, Nail Bat follows the Batman archetype, which is fine, but there is a distinct difference in the two that complicates their flaws. Batman became Batman out of a hatred of the criminals that killed his parents and the weakness that allowed it to happen. He has a flaw of vigilantism, in being just some guy that put on a costume and declared himself the law. He’s no different from the villains he combats save for everyone enjoys the results Batman brings more than the Joker, and that’s why violating his own laws, like killing, is such a temptation. Nail Bat never showed any signs of hating the crime he saw, he was just afraid of it. His origin wasn’t a tragic one, but one where he found himself outside of the metaphysical laws that apply to everyone else. His flaw should be one of a God complex, and while it’s present in his first struggle with resisting to kill a thug, it is no where to be found elsewhere.
Okay, holy hell that was long. Anti Bunny has a lot going for it. It has grown from something that was pretty two dimensional to something that’s pretty interesting. Its major problem is its pacing. It should slow down a bit to let the characters grow on the audience a bit more but most importantly needs to pick one story arch to work on at one time. I cannot stress that enough. It’s CONFUSING to jump from Nail Bat to Pooky with every update. But yeah, if you devote some time to Anti Bunny you won’t be bored.

Art
Anti Bunny is done by almost entirely traditional means (i.e. nothing digital). There aren’t many other comics like that and its charming but isn’t without room for improvement. The older Anti Bunny comics were dark with plenty of pencil shading as a color leaving little to no white space. The newer comics have dropped this for more color and white, and frankly, I don’t think this is a step forward. I think the older methods actually fit the mood better than they do now. Although the comic looks a lot cleaner the way it is now and is not without appreciation. Gray markers may be the key, and perhaps using black as a color more often.
I think the line work needs help. Cartooning seems like a simple man’s attempt at fine art but there is a lot particular to the methodology. One is that lines need to be intentional and look that way so as to confidently portray an image as a simplification of something as opposed to a doodle. Anti Bunny looks like it has many lines drawn with the “scratchy style” (as I call it) of drawing consisting of several short lines next to each other to appear as one as opposed to one smooth flowing line. Even with fur involved I think a focus on singular lines will improve the art.
There is a lot of diversity in the action in the panels of Anti Bunny, and that’s quite enjoyable. The rabbits are stylized and have a certain charm about them. Backgrounds are pretty developed too, although interior rooms are sometimes empty. All in all there’s a lot to look at and a good flow going on in Anti Bunny.

…but hey, what’s up with the clothing? Are they nude under their clothes, or is it just optional like Mickey’s pants or Donkey Kong’s… um tie? See sometimes the rabbits react aversely to being seen without garments on but other times they’re totally cool with it.

Site
There’s a major problem with side scrolling. Since we typically have to make this adjustment more than once it’s frowned upon. The comics should be a bit smaller than they are. Other than that the color scheme is fitting and everything looks nice.

Overall
Anti Bunny is interesting to say the least. The pacing needs some work, but there’s something nice for those who stick with it to overcome the problems that the poor pacing brings. The art is unique and dark, and while it’s not very clean it’s fitting and flows well. Anti Bunny is a roller coaster with its dips but also its notable peaks and you’ll likely be satisfied with the ride when all is said and done… especially if you have a thing for rabbits and anime.

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VinnieD
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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by VinnieD »

Thanks. That's pretty comprehensive there. And without undertones of "ZOMG FURRY KILL IT!" That I get sometimes. Much appreciated.

Pacing I think is pretty weak early on, and I've been working on it to some degree, expanding chapters as I've progressed, but I'm also an impatient person and while I want to slow down and tell the story, part of me is screaming "Why draw this junk Get to the POINT!" I tell it to shut up, but sometimes it wins me over and I skip over planned scenes that I SHOULD have drawn. I occasionally insert them later as flashbacks, but that only leads to a disjointed flow. Sometimes that works for a psychological effect. Only sometimes though.

The anime influence I can't say is intentional. I was doing my best to move away and embrace the art I knew from my childhood which was very much the art of the 1980's from Disney and universal, particularly the works of Don Bluth, but I've watched so much Anime recently that it does bleed in. Though when you get back to that old style of wide eyed funny animals the distinctions become less clear. Especially since Tezuka's style which brought about the origin of the anime style we know today came from Disney originally. But I'm drifting away from the topic of my own comic and getting into art history.

As far as ink versus pencil. A few people have told me they like my pencil work, even my instructors, and when I do create stand alone pencil drawings it works, but as previous people have told me and I have to agree, pencils just don't look good in comics. Comics do need nice clean inks. Pencils would look good in full page illustrations but not tiny little panels. It's the only real point I'd disagree with your review on. But yeah my inked line art could always stand to have more confident strokes, something that only comes from practice practice practice, forget sleep, practice some more, and making not to draw on days when I get a case of stupidfingers. But as noted above...sometimes I'm impatient.

Edit: Almost forgot.

The clothing question. This is another reason why I should make a World page. A short answer was given by Pooky in Chapter 5. "There's nothing to see." The long answer has to do with the rabbits assimilating human culture into their own. Different characters do this to different degrees. They could well walk around with nothing and still be decent. You might consider it full body underwear, so clothing is mostly just fashion for them. Some may consider modesty a point as well but not all of them, so it really is up to the tastes of that certain character. The amount of clothing a character wears actually is a good sign of how assimilated they are into human culture.

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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by Yeahduff »

Have you considered a blog? All the cool kids are doing it.
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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by Redtech »

Well shit, I'm just the unhippest cat in the lickety-split universe Maaaaaan!

Still going to carry on with this?
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SergeXIII
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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by SergeXIII »

Yeah, I've just been busy the past few days. I plan on resuming soon, maybe even tomorrow soon.

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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by Lianweijun086 »

Hey, are there any restrictions to getting our comics reviewed? I'm kind of just starting out (again) only 11 episodes up so far, the story is really just getting started, and the website is currently undergoing MAJOR renovations (designing offline, of course), so what you see isn't really what you'll see for long. But I'd love any kind of pointers your willing to give! I've already gotten some great ones from a number of people, but more never hurt anyone, huh? Thanks in advanced!

http://twfc.comicgenesis.com
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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by Marooned »

Feel free to review Marooned - in my sig.
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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by Cxm »

I need to start getting feedback so I can make my comic less crappy, so here it is.

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SergeXIII
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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by SergeXIII »

Alright, I'll be coloring my next comic today but all thats next on my to do list.

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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by RobboAKAscooby »

I would definitely appreciate a review for Sh!t Happens.

I'll warn you in advance I redrew the first 5 chapters while doing 6, 7 & 8 so there is a sudden drop of quality at chapter 6 which might be a little disconcerting.
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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by Randyraven »

A review of "No Time For Life" might be cool. I've got 58 up (at the time of this posting). There is no storyline or plot to follow. There is no characters to fall in love with. It has an MA rating. The artwork is gradually getting better. The spelling and grammar remain terrible.

Yeah... I think I could go for a review to plaster on the front page as a chain of ten pop-ups!
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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by Lianweijun086 »

Hey! Do you happen to review websites? I JUST completed a 3 week face lift on my comic. I'd say that I'm about 95% happy with it, I feel like there are still some tweaks to be had. I'd loove your (and anyone else's) input on the site or the comic!

PS. Best viewed in Mozilla. IE is ok, but it won't have the spin menu. Safari and Chrome are seriously messed up, and I haven't a clue about Opera... Input would be terrific!
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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by SergeXIII »

What Nonsense

Story
Perhaps out of an existential epiphany of web comic culture, Catlin Crowley has placed a band of anthropomorphic characters in a nut house in What Nonsense. A grumpy workaholic, Pike Swinson, is forced into a vacation against his will by a concerned boss. Swinson is assigned to Nawncentz, a small home out in the middle of no where occupied by five nut jobs and a maid. As Swinson settles down he wonders why his boss sent him there of all places, was he trying to tell him something? That’s as far as What Nonsense has come, the characters and settings are still being established but there is enough to bite into and be satisfied. Swinson is developed primarily through an angry monologue on his long drive to Nawncentz and while I generally despise direct characterization but it works in this case because talking to oneself and bitching about the events that caused the unpleasant commute is something that people actually do, so it is a genuine device in this case. The crazies in the cast are of your goofy variety ala Looney Tunes, which sounds cliché, but before you enter Nawncentz you witness a scene staring one of the insane committing infanticide, which causes the audience to suspect the charming antics of the loony bin to be fueled by more sinister catalysts and intent. It has a lot of promise, but as I said, hasn’t gone anywhere yet.

Art
I like the way What Nonsense looks, I’ll give it that. You got your humanoid animals as cast, which is par for the web comic course now a days, but most share more the physical features of the animals they are derived from than the furry standard of sticking an animal’s head on a human body and covering it in fur. The end result is a cast that brings childhood stories to mind more than that bothersome web phenomenon which contrasts with the darkness of the plot and characters and drives it all home. The coloring is executed via classical comic book techniques using flat colors and cross hatching for shading, again, bringing innocent youth to mind and serving the same end.
While the anatomy is typically convincing it isn’t entirely consistent. There are a few times when hands and feet are drawn too small and when characters are far away their proportions tend to suffer. The cross hatching does not look entirely intentional. It is in the right place, but the lines look scratched in at a whim instead of carefully placing each one. Oh and rooms tend to be really big, making it a bit difficult to wrap one’s head around the environment. This is all nit picking though, the average reader will be very satisfied with what they see.

Site
The site is pretty simple, you got your navigation basics and a simple links page. Fans can comment on or tag each comic. The archive page is pretty interesting in that you can get a preview of each comic when you hover over it, something I personally haven’t seen much. Anyone looking for neat bonuses like extra art, wallpaper, or even a forum will be disappointed, but the basics are all there and that’s all anyone could really demand.

Overall
What Nonsense
has a lot of promise and has set itself up to be something unique. The story is full of goofiness with a sinister shadow as a foundation. The art is charming and fitting. There is some room for improvement, but they are all fine touch ups and not an overhaul. All you can really ask for is more.

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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by Dranxis »

Thankyou so much for the review. You raise alot of good points about the art, especially the rooms being too big. Looking back at some pages I noticed that the room sizes were really inconsistent and I wondered if it was something a reader would notice. I'm glad its not glaring, but I'll have to be careful about that in the future.

One of the reasons I began the story with that scene is because while there is alot of humor in What Nonsense, its not a happy story. What exactly is the nature of the plot doesn't become clear for a while because, like Swinson, I want the readers to wonder what exactly is the purpose of Nawncentz and why has he been sent there. I was told in another review that the opening scene was so dark it left a bitter of a taste on the humor, (admittedly, its over the top and I'll probably rephrase the dialogue to make it less graphic) but I'm glad that it served its purpose, in assuring the reader that bad things are going to go down later. I'd hate to reel readers in with a cute animal comic strip, and then suckerpunch them with a dark ending. Without the opening scene I think readers would be surprised in a bad way by the actual story.
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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by Lianweijun086 »

Great reviews, I really hope you continue! I'm coming up right after Meiosis! ^^ I'll definitely have a couple more episodes in by then! Keep it up!
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Re: SergeXIII wants to review your web comic

Post by Lostmind »

I would be most gratefull if you reviewed my comic, Demoralized Logic.

Thank you again.

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