Comic Genesis Forums

Like, general advice. I don't know if this is kosher, and if it isn't I would ask that someone lets me know and closes the thread or whatever, but I'm not looking to advertise.

Anyway, my comic is called "Billy Stupendous", and I am looking to re-launch it as "Billy Stupendous is Awesome", with a cleaner art style with more minimalism and a more sparse coloring scheme.

Here is the comic: http://www.the-misc.com/bs.php

Well...I defenately like it. ("OH GOD MY FACE!" ) You've got GREAT comedic timing.

I'm the wrong person to talk about minimalistic art, but to my eyes it's already very minimal, almost too much (it's stick figure art. That IS minimalistic). Pallate is also very restrained.

The biggest suggestion I'd have would be to not use bright red as a website background (my eyes! my eyes!).

I'd say you've got it down very well, and all you need to do is make more of them.

CW

christwriter wrote:Well...I defenately like it. ("OH GOD MY FACE!" ) You've got GREAT comedic timing.

I'm the wrong person to talk about minimalistic art, but to my eyes it's already very minimal, almost too much (it's stick figure art. That IS minimalistic). Pallate is also very restrained.

The biggest suggestion I'd have would be to not use bright red as a website background (my eyes! my eyes!).

I'd say you've got it down very well, and all you need to do is make more of them.

CW

Well, I guess if you put it that way, I am reducing the backgorunds (it is time-consuming and I'm not really re-using any of them) and making the characters NOT stick-figures, so I guess I am going minimalistic in one way and less-minimalistic in another. Which is very confusiong, I suppose.

I'm hoping to get that background changed to something less eye-raping (maybe just going for white- I mean, I didn't design the site in the first place and I didn't want red but the guy was like, 'come on man red is cool' so I was like, 'whatever, dude').

But hey, thanks for the criticsm and compliments!

Woah there...no back or next buttons.

Opening the drop down menu is waayyyyyy too difficult for me and soon for everyone when you have a larger archive.

my only suggestion, make navigational buttons.

everything else looks good, keep it up!

Biggest problem I see is that the comics are consistently too long. Work on having less panels, especially since there's usually a lot of blank space and most of the art is very cut+paste so it gets too repetitive when you have too many panels. I could analyze each one but for just the most recent comic, you could just use panels 1, 3, 6, 8, and 9 in that order and put an exclamation mark at the end of the sentence (screams of pain always have exclamation marks.)

The other problem is that the characters are too simple. Even with only two dozen comics you're already squeezing jokes out of them. All of the characters are highly generic. You need to do something to make the characters special and unique.

You also really need to create a level of dedication to your comic. Two dozen copy+paste stick figure comics in two years is pathetic. I understand that you're restarting the comic so hopefully you'll be able to have a better schedule.

nonoon don't you dare change the beautiful beautiful example of inifinite canvas. i love it. so much. keep the format, but if you have to, chop some comics shorter, i suppose.

i rather like your stick figures, really. but i was the stick creatorix for a long spell. still am, sometimes.

i do agree with LC about developing the characters more- make a lil more 3d, i suppose. make billy stupendous lose something, maybe? *shrug*


i like, and i can't wait to see it restarted


*whallops lc for good measure. goose.*

Well...it's yet another webcomic done using stick figures. I honestly don't know why so many people who can't draw think they're going to have any sort of success in a visual medium.

Your writing isn't terrible...you write good dialogue, and the characters are pretty good. You manage to cook up some amusing scenarios too...but you don't seem to be able to make them pay off.

For example, so you have a father mistake a robot his son built for his son, and the robot goes along with it...it's a funny concept, but it doesn't go anywhere. It seems like the comic's all set-up with the joke consistantly being missing. That's fine sometimes, but not the majority of the time.

Also as others have said, they're sometimes too long...most people aren't going to be willing to do that much reading for a stick figure gag comic.

thirdworldvillian wrote:Woah there...no back or next buttons.

Opening the drop down menu is waayyyyyy too difficult for me and soon for everyone when you have a larger archive.

my only suggestion, make navigational buttons.

everything else looks good, keep it up!

The weird pointing hands at the bottom of the strip are the forward and back buttons. Once again not something that was my idea or that I supported in any particular way, but the webmaster insisted! He was a "rad dude".

LibertyCabbage wrote: the comics are consistently too long.

the characters are too simple.

You also really need to create a level of dedication to your comic. Two dozen copy+paste stick figure comics in two years is pathetic. I understand that you're restarting the comic so hopefully you'll be able to have a better schedule.

1. Noted. I'm changing the format of the comics to include smaller panels and more than one to a "column" (or whatever one defines a line of panels as).

2. I will consider this. What I wanted to convey about the character's world really doesn't seem to be coming across, so I'm probably going to work on that a bit (more on that later).

3. I, uh, stopped updating a bit over a year ago, so I'm not sure where you're coming from here. I mean, I see your point and all, but when the comic was coming out, it was doing so pretty consistantly. Not as much as I would have liked, though, so this is further advice to take into consideration.

RA wrote:i do agree with LC about developing the characters more- make a lil more 3d, i suppose. make billy stupendous lose something, maybe? *shrug*

1. Well, honestly, the way I see the world of the comic working, Billy wins everything and is happy, but everyone around him is miserable. I don't really see any comedy coming from him losing something, he's eternally delighted by how incredible his existence is.

2. I also regret to inform you that, as stated above, the "Infinite Canvas" pistache is being dropped due to a total lack of reasoning behind it being there. One of the guest artists really used it to its full potential, but I could never quite utilize it properly myself. I'm sure I will use the technique again later, but not until I can come up with an actual reason to do so.

And hey- thanks for the kind words. It lets me know that I'm at least doing something right (though probably not alot!).

Jackhass wrote:Well...it's yet another webcomic done using stick figures. I honestly don't know why so many people who can't draw think they're going to have any sort of success in a visual medium.

Your writing isn't terrible...you write good dialogue, and the characters are pretty good. You manage to cook up some amusing scenarios too...but you don't seem to be able to make them pay off.

1. You should never tell people not to make comics. I mean, I see what you're saying, but at the time I thought that this was the only way I could get them done. I've discovered in the time since that I can draw, which I never would have realized had I not I tried it myself. Comics are important, and I would encourage anyone who wants to do them to try, even if they're going to turn out something terrible. It's true that some may never improve and keep churning out worthless garbage, but there are plenty who won't. Honestly, I think that's the best part about webcomics as a whole- it's a great opportunity to actually go ahead and try sequential art thing, with the benefit of an actual audience willing to tell you what you're doing wrong and what you're doing right. So hey, if stick figures are your thing (and I want to point out that they're no longer mine), I say go right ahead and do them.

2. Well, the comic you're referring to specifically was written by my co-writer on the series, and I understand that this is a problem that we will have to work on. Check out some of the ones I wrote; I think I'm pretty good at wrapping up a joke neatly, but it's entirely probably that I'm not, so please let me know.

I suppose there's a reason why the lad's name's Jackhass.

RPin wrote:I suppose there's a reason why the lad's name's Jackhass.

Now, now, that's no way to be.

Trystan K Nielsen wrote:
1. You should never tell people not to make comics. I mean, I see what you're saying, but at the time I thought that this was the only way I could get them done. I've discovered in the time since that I can draw, which I never would have realized had I not I tried it myself. Comics are important, and I would encourage anyone who wants to do them to try, even if they're going to turn out something terrible. It's true that some may never improve and keep churning out worthless garbage, but there are plenty who won't. Honestly, I think that's the best part about webcomics as a whole- it's a great opportunity to actually go ahead and try sequential art thing, with the benefit of an actual audience willing to tell you what you're doing wrong and what you're doing right. So hey, if stick figures are your thing (and I want to point out that they're no longer mine), I say go right ahead and do them.

Good spirit, keep it up.

I'm not a fan of infinite canvas comics, but you definitely have the funny.

Focusing on the art (not the site design, which has problems but which I have no qualifications to help with), I see one thing you could immediately improve. All your lines are the same thickness. Your stick figures will look much better if you vary the line thicknesses a bit. If nothing else, making objects in the background have thinner lines will give a better illusion of perspective.