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Webcomic Rants Must-read Comic Posted 14:13, Wednesday 26th July 2006 Hey, I have something positive to say today. I just finished the archives down at Penny and Aggie and it's well worth a look. Funny, well-written and well-drawn - everything a comic should be. Except without evil toasters. Try not to draw too many parallels between the titular characters and Charlotte and Amy, it's pure coincidence. In the original design Amy was going to be a red-head and I didn't know Penny and Aggie existed until a couple of days ago. Incidentally, I discovered them through the WCCA's. Unhatred Posted 02:13 (GMT) 18th January 2008 I really think that hatred, relentless hatred, will save webcomics. By railing constantly against artists, writers and even whole genres that I hate or even ones I like but with which I can find some kind of fault I believe I can push the universe in the direction of being slightly better. For example, every time the comic has changed - and you will have noticed changes along the way - it has been as a direct result of someone criticising it. I hated it at the time, as someone might hate bad-tasting medicine but by God it pushed me to improve and I want everyone else who isn't perfect to get a taste of the same medicine. Hate will make everything better. That said, there are occasions when a comic comes along which I do not hate. It's a rare and beautiful thing. I started off with this whole hate spiel because I want you to know that when I praise these comics and do not criticise them, it really does mean something. And I feel that by not bringing these comics to your attention I am doing you a disservice. Because, if you like Life on the Fourth Floor you will also like... CONvicts - This strip reminds me a lot of my strip. We have similar art directions, similar humour, similar characters. Not similar enough that I can be accused of plagiarism, just similar enough that I think you'll really like it if you stuck around here for 100-odd strips. But whilst my strip is about... God knows... this strip has a premise which will really hook you. It's about people trapped inside a convention. I wish I'd thought of that. Damn them. Check it out. Draw. Write. Play. - The art in this strip is really good. Penny Arcade good. And there are laughs here, genuine ones. I will just ask... what's the deal with that picture in the top left of the site? I thought the strip was going to be about demons. Lesbian demons. I would have read it anyway, I promise. Check it out. Marry Me - This is the sweetest comic ever made. It's so sweet. The URL is marrymemovie.com and that's really appropriate because reading this strip is like watching a really good romantic comedy. You must check it out. Starcrisp Slices! Posted 14:39 (GMT) 5th March 2008 I really need to update the Links page to better reflect the internet's comedic landscape. Some strips are getting overlooked altogether, such as Starslip Crisis. And that in itself is a crime. I don't post a link to strips until I have completely read their archives. And Starslip's been running as long as this strip has, only with five times as many updates. I put off reading it for far too long, which I now regret because when I finally got round to it I found it an enjoyable and rewarding read. You will rarely find a story told with such intelligence, ambition and heart outside a Brad Bird movie. I was actually moved to tears reading it at one point - not because anything particularly sad was happening, just because Kris Straub has made me really care about these characters and this plot point was paid off in just the right way. It was really satisfying and heart-warming; I couldn't help but get a lump in my throat. That hasn't happened to me since the last time I watched the Iron Giant. God, I love that film. "I'm Superman." Sigh. Ahem. Anyway. Starslip. Good. Read. Webcomic Haiku Posted 06:04 (GMT) 2nd June 2008 I have written summaries of other, more successful, comics in the form of delightful Haiku. Apologies if you don't know any of these comics - honestly I'm flattered that you only read mine. If you're a fan of any of these strips don't take the Haiku too seriously, it's just a bit of fun: Penny
Arcade PvP Ctrl+Alt+Del Sore
Thumbs Atland xkcd Starslip
Crisis Least
I Could Do Three
Panel Soul Have fun writing your own! Feel free to e-mail them to me and I'll put the best ones up on the site, assuming any are submitted. So Many Ninjas Posted 23:50 (GMT) 2nd July 2008 I don't know when you're going to see this but I apologise for the radio silence here on the site. I've been having problems with my FTP program, which is what I use to put content on the site. You can see why this might be problematic. The catching up continues, during what has to be the most visually ambitious storyline I have ever undertaken - I'm not going to lie to you, it's kicking my ass. And whilst that may mean more delays as I wrestle with each new update I believe there are some things more important than professionalism and one of those is storytelling. Another is aesthetics. I hope the latest strip, now you finally see it, lives up to that ideal. I'm always painfully aware of LotFF's elders and betters, precursors, inspirations, potential sources of plagiarism and, perhaps worst of all, shitty comics which are unaccountably more popular, to whom popularity is everything. Since this storyline started I haven't really talked much about what's going on, what I'm trying to do. Well, I'm trying to explore the conflict between secularism and religion, use it to characterise key members of the cast and explore how it can affect friendships without picking sides, lecturing, straw-manning or blaspheming. I don't know how successful I've been but at least you get to see Michael lose a finger. It's funny because it's not happening to me. While we're on the subject of webcomics, I would like to address directly every cartoonist whose strip appears on the Buzzcomix list of webcomics. Are you all sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin: Stop telling me how much you suck. Perhaps I need to explain myself. If you vote for the strip by following the link at the bottom of each news post you can follow a link to see our standing on the Buzzcomix Top 100 list, of which we have never been a part. We're usually somewhere around the 400 mark. Anyway, in this list of comics people have voted for there's a title, a display of the number of votes and then a short spiel persuading you to read the strip. Or rather, persuading you not to. For reasons I can't completely fathom, the vast majority of these blurbs describe their comic as stupid, unfunny or inferior in some way or, worse still, don't bother to describe anything. Here are some real-life examples from the Buzzcomix site: "Poorly drawn comics about a small, violent elf and his drunken adventures. Often described as hilarious or retarded." "We're the C-grade Sonic comic that the D-grade Sonic comics make look like a B-grade Sonic comic. So go read those, THEN read us." (Don't even get me started on Sonic sprite comics) "Kinda leaves you with that 'what the?' feeling." Yeah, I'll say. The internet is full to the brim with comics that are convinced they suck. They have one paragraph to convince me to read them and all they can tell me is that they're rubbish. If your work is unfunny by your own standards, what chance do the rest of us have? If your project sucks so much ass, why are you even doing this? Is it a purely self-deprecating thing, like they have to pretend to hate themselves just to appear modest? I don't get it. Worse still are the hopelessly vague or generic descriptions: "A funny single panel comic about anything!" Great. That narrows it down. "OMG ANGELS AND DEVILS. GRARRR LOVE!" That's not even a sentence. "i promise there will be no TENTACLE SEX." What, are you just going to list all the things that aren't in your strip? "So many comics, so little time..." That's not a description! That's just an unrelated statement! "The unluckiest girl in the world has to face the new chalanges [sic.] life brings upon her. Can she remain the same?" That could apply to any story about a girl. Someone is faced with challenges, whilst alive, and changes? Way to stand out from the crowd. Seriously, is that the best you can do? Your one chance to sell your webcomic to me and you can't even be bothered to tell me anything about it? I'm not sure which is worse, the descriptions completely lacking any descriptive detail or those which are just an ecclectic list of things: "Violin playing, awkwardness, and stupid, stupid decisions...sometimes." I really can't picture those things together. "Two scientists, a malfunctioning teleporter, and an alternate universe. What could possibly go wrong?" I smell a zany adventure. "Gore, Sex, Yaoi, Demons and Angels. There will be no regret in doing the sin." Oh Christ no. "Love, Maids and the Apocalypse." And videotape, I imagine. "Crazy Vietnam Vets, Talking Mops, and Wizards!" Ker-azy! "A goth, a geek, a coffee drone, a ninja, and... Tyler." "College life just like your remember! Except with more maniacal corporations, Evil Living clothing, Secret Government Agencies, Robots and Ninja Assassins then you had..." "In Which Japanese Mythology, Lost Ninja Clans, High School, and Kids wielding magical weapons are intertwined into a simple comic." "Three superheroes in love battle giant zombie turkeys, redneck cyber ninja monkeys, and Tim Curry's evil twin." "Pimps, Ho's, Ninjas, and cannibalistic street gangs." "Demons, robots, ghost pirates and zombies. And ninjas. Don't forget the ninjas." You know what? I won't forget the ninjas. It seems no list of seemingly-unrelated tropes would be complete without ninjas. I'm detecting a recurring ninja theme in all this. Clichéd internet humour aside, I would like to question the wisdom of presenting the entire plot of your strip as an unordered list of ingredients. That's like describing Lord of the Rings as "short people, wizards, eyes on fire and jewellery" or Jurassic Park as "frog DNA, sex changes, amber and flea circuses. Also a fat guy gets black sludge in his eyes". I'm not saying these things are not present in the story but I don't see how listing them is going to persuade anyone to watch the film. I like chocolate chip cookies. I think few people will argue that they are anything but delicious. Imagine you had to sell chocolate chip cookies. Would you walk up to someone and say "hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose; glucose syrup; rice starch; sodium bicarbonate"? No you wouldn't. The webcomic will not improve until we all collectively improve and if the standard we are setting for ourselves is "make something badly-drawn and unfunny that includes x, y and ninjas" then we might as well commit suicide en masse right now. I know it's not fun toiling in obscurity, I know nobody reads your comic or votes for it. On the other hand, if you're doing your best to drive readers away with these kinds of bullshit descriptions then you only have yourself to blame. I'm not saying these strips are bad, I'm saying they're underselling themselves. One of the comics is called 'Pointless' for God's sake. Stop telling me how much you suck. Two Tentative Thumbs Up Posted 08:45 (GMT) 20th August 2008 by David J. Bishop I have more comics to recommend but I don't know if I should. I am always in two minds about recommending anything, just because I worry about how it reflects on me and my own comic. Like if I told you I'm huge fan of Celine Dion. I'm not by the way, but you would draw conclusions if I said I was, which I am not. Also, my recommendation seems to be the touch of death for any strip. For example, I recommended Marry Me to you all just for that comic to end - turns out they were just turning the script for a movie into a comic to better its chances of being optioned, which was disappointing. The kind of story they were telling would have fit better with a webcomic format, and would have benefited from a more prolonged and detailed exploration of the characters and story possibilities. I recommended it in the first place because the excellent opening made made me excited about where they were going with it - turns out the answer was nowhere. Three cheers for wasted potential! I also recommended you check out a comic called Draw Write Play which on paper looked like Penny Arcade but with girls. However, the writing was competent, the art was excellent and, you know, like with Marry Me I wanted to know where Miss Caroline Dy was going with this. Then practically the day I post the link she stops updating the comic and then Draw Write Play transforms itself into a blog. Where's the comic? I'm damned if I know. It's all rather bewildering, to be honest. I'm not saying you shouldn't check out the blog, I'm not saying Caroline Dy isn't still a very talented artist. But it's rather like recommending a restaurant to a friend only for the friend to find a furniture warehouse in its place, a warehouse unaccountably still called Joe's Diner. So, allow me to recommend some more comics! Here's hoping these ones won't disappear without a trace as soon as I post this: The Non-Adventures of Wonderella: There are comics with an axe to grind, there are comics trying to tell an epic story, there are comics centred around a single hobby like playing video games or collecting toys and there are comics copying the comics about video games. And then there are comics that are just trying to be funny. The Non-Adventures of Wonderella is just such a comic, and I declare its noble efforts a success. A tremendous success. Dude, I laughed my ass off. My Stupid Life: This strip is simple, endearing, witty, stupid, true, heart-warming and funny. Sometimes it is all those things at once, sometimes it is just four or five of those at once. But it's always funny. Kind of makes me want to get married, though. That isn't a bad thing in its own right except that I'm alone in the world. Hey, at least I've got My Stupid Life. Chainsawsuit: Okay, this one definitely isn't going down the tubes because it's drawn by the always-professional Kris Straub. Listeners of the now-dead Daily Affirmation podcast Scott and Kris used to do will know that Kris is an exceptionally funny man who can take ideas down bizarre and entertaining tangents. This comic is that part of his brain condensed into a comic and it warrants a read. Check it out. |
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