Online graphic novel

[medicalman]

If anyone is interested, I have a complete graphic novel "Observance" on my website, and another online graphic novel "Fabricator" that is still in the process of unfolding. "Observance" is best described as a cartoonish and surreal story that pokes at reality, it has multiple layers of meaning if you read between the lines.... it has been described as "trippy". "Fabricator" is just starting but it is also surreal and has science fiction elements. Thanks!- http://www.brettharder.com

[NeuroticThunder]

Honestly, I don't know what to say. I don't want to say it's bad, but there was a certain lack of something. The story was indeed interesting, though, so it can't be that.

[W M]

I think the problem is the rhythm of your panels--they seem inconsistent. Sometimes you dedicate a large number of panels in a row to the same action or object, and other times you only dedicate one panel. This can mess with the reader's idea of the passage of time in your comic. My advice is just try to keep a consistent pace, and cut down on extra panels.

Besides that, I love your comic! It has a sort of "Surreal" feel behind it, complemented with nice bold lines and effective use of negative space. I like how you kept the dialogue to a minimum, letting the character's actions speak for themselves. You make the reader (me) really pay attention in order to fully understand what's going on, which makes for a good, interesting read (to me).

That cover picture you posted is great.

[medicalman]

Hey thanks for checking it out! I agree that there is "something" missing from Observance, and I've known it since completion but I could never put my finger on it. It actually probably is the sense of timing in the story due to poorly executed panel transitions coupled with lazily executed drawings. Its funny, the panel transitions were what I thought about a lot when creating the comic.... I wanted to give the story a slow pace and make certain scenes read almost like an animation, I guess it didn't work as well as I thought it would. I'll definitely try to work that out better in future projects. I'm glad you guys liked the story though! I have many ideas but unfortunately my comic making skills are still developing, (Observance being my first "real" attempt) so for now I'm trying to learn as much as I can. My new webcomic "Fabricator" should be of a better quality.... and like good old Gary Panter says, "You'll be better 300 panels from now"

[Jin-roh]

I think you did a great job with keeping a "page-turner" feel for a very simple concept. It seem to have small elements of horror in it. I kept going to find out what kind of genre it might be.

I will have to say, that the observer's exposition at the end was a less than clear. I'm a philosophy grad student, and I could only tell it was something vaguely Hegelian and metaphysical.

[medicalman]

Hey thanks for reading! The story is actually pretty simple but I intended to use it as a kind of large metaphor that went deeper than the story itself. The story is actually representing the current picture of reality available to us through quantum physics. Before any "thing" exists it can be looked at as a wave of probability, and it takes an "observer" to collapse the wave function. But who or what this "observer" is, is not very clear. Is it the act of consciousness itself that collapses the wave function? does is matter "what" is observing?- for example, the story begins and ends with a bird observing. The "observer" asks the main character what is actually observing, could it be the "I" of nature? which would imply that the observer would include anything and anyone.... this takes us to the "source" which is a metaphor for quantum physicist David Bohms "implicate order" - a higher dimensional space in which all forms are "enfolded" in and "unfold" from into the "explicate order" (consensus reality)..... the story basically came about just toying around with this paradox of the "observer". Heh now that I think about it, this seems to be a little pretentious.... but it's all in good fun, for people who enjoy thinking about these things... by the way, my new graphic novel "Fabricator" is up and running if anyone would like to check it out.

[Jin-roh]

I very good. I bit to much of a philosophical dinosaur to really grab on to the quantum physics stuff. My first thought was, "Oh, he's looking at the forms" when I saw the river.

Very good job though. After explaining it, it makes more sense. The symbolism is artfully placed.