Originally posted by Cardinal Fang

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Never, EVER, go for quantity over quality when making comics. While your lineart is very good, the jokes just aren't all that good or funny.

Try getting a writer if you ever seriously consider doing comics. It would help a lot.

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Originally posted by Cardinal Fang

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Never, EVER, go for quantity over quality when making comics. While your lineart is very good, the jokes just aren't all that good or funny.

Try getting a writer if you ever seriously consider doing comics. It would help a lot.

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Originally posted by Peardian

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This is a really stupid question, but does the cat explode?

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Originally posted by Teddylot

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If you want to get better, then you need constructive criticism ... thus, me.

Alright, I'll do this one comic at a time 'cause I have a lot to say. (Note: This is actually a good thing, since I don't comment on hopeless cases. =P )

Comic Number One:

Your lineart is alright ... but only half of the time. It seems to me that you're not putting in the same amount of effort in the second half of the strip as you are in the first half, where the main subjects are much cleaner and more recognizable. The squirrels don't stand out, ending up blending in with the background. The entire second half of the page looks like a sketch. Very unclean and very unfinished.

The comic is also missing a key artistic principal. That is, when an object is closer to the viewer, its details are very prominent and the lineart is generally thicker than the subjects further away from the viewer. So the tree in the first panel should be more prominent than the general background and the subjects. Of course, you wouldn't want to take away the emphasis you have on the subjects. (Let's say we're working without word balloons at the moment because they generally act as focal pointers. =P )
So, you'd want to dilute the foreground while still sticking to your perspective rules. There's a photography trick to this called a "short depth of field," where there's an object on the field that isn't in focus. In your case, you'd want to focus on only your subjects and not the foreground. Unless you use a few photoshop tricks or color, there's no way to keep the foreground out of focus; thus, you use grey tones. You know them, you love them, you see them in manga all the time. When you apply grey tones to the foreground and the background, the focal point ends up being the pure white of your subjects. Ta-da. Simple solution.

Grey tones are also useful to making your artwork more interesting. Your lineart is boring and ends up being a real turn off to the reader. One point of comics is to use the artwork to attract readers. Unfortunaely, yours doesn't do just that. Cleaning up your lineart, giving it a more professional look, more contrast, and better storytelling will fix that right up quick. Of course, this look comes from more practice and study of other kinds of art forms, drawing styles, and great storytellers. I'm doing that myself, actually ...

Next topic: the writing. Needs work. >.< The joke is dreadfully old, predictable, and has been abused to a point where it, even with a new twist, will get a seriously annoyed groan from me on a bad day. On a good day, I'd just gleefully numb my mind and pretend like it never happened. =o

Like you practice drawing, you should also intensive writing practice. Don't stop at just one punchline; come up with a dozen, then pick the funniest. Try to come up with your own funny and not somebody else's. If "teh funny" isn't your thing and you fail hard at it, try out some sort of amazing adventure tale with a great bunch of characters that people can really get attached to. Remember to try and come up with original stuff. This also comes with practice, so you ought to not only draw daily, but to write daily as well.

Or you could hire a writer.

My contact number is in my profile.

Don't rule out your idea just yet 'cause even a bad idea can be saved with some good execution, good storytelling. Storytelling is basically how you present your comic ... umm, much like how a producer/director presents a movie. It helps make the comic interesting and it also gives the writing some sort of flow.

Let's take the first panel as an example. Why would the boy wonder what it would be like to be a squirrel? Maybe he saw one in your little foreground tree I talked about so much. So maybe you'd want to extend the panel so that it'd include another squirrely subject. It looks like any other normal squirrel, running around on the branch, and it's just enough to get the kid to ask the question.

Furthermore, let's nullify that time box you have up there. Let's extend the branch and have the question-instigating squirrel running into battle with the dreaded Darth Squirrel. Add on to the cooler looking fight scene you have going on ... extend it out if you want a longer comic or keep it simple. Blah blah blah ...

Storytelling is also the viewpoints you offer the reader and is key to making the comic more readable and interesting. I've taken two courses in photography, and it has definitely given me a lot of experience in setting up a scene. I take the principals I learn from the classes and apply them to my own comic storytelling. Reader perspective is something you gain from a class like photography. Giving you the ability to pick out the interesting from the boring and be able to draw an "active" panel. Those last three panels really need the creative juice. The third panel is supposed to look menacing; the fourth panel shouldn't just be our super squirrel, but should also have Darth Squirrel in there as he is part of the action; and the last panel, in the pure art of parody, should take on a same angle of the real shot in the Star Wars movie.

That's all for now.

I'll get to your second comic later ... and when I say later, I mean never. So you'll have to bribe or blackmail or beat me badly enough to get the second critique out of me. Good luck.

Note: Don't give up. It at least has something going for it, and that is ... the characters in the first panels. =O

*dead*

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Originally posted by Ramsus

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I'm applying for a cartoonist position for a University sponsored, student run website, and I really needed to get something to the content editor, so I rushed a few comics with the first ideas I could come up with, spending about an hour or so to actually rough and do lineart for each comic, then an half an hour to scan, letter, and add boxes.

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Excuses aside, it was very helpful and encouraging. I'm a bit ashamed and sorry that I didn't try to do my best work, since such good critiques don't come often online. That's why I'd never ask you to critique the second comic (the thought would never even have occurred to me if you hadn't mentioned it).

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Just a few quick comments though. I get the depth of field concept, but wouldn't using a flash to highlight things on an overcast day be more like the effect I'd be aiming for with grey tones? Just yelling "negative space" at me works too.

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I want to really avoid tones for this project though, so I'll try to figure out how to make the foreground and background into negative space without using gray tones, to keep the focus on the subject. Maybe I'll just avoid foregrounds when they're too distracting. (any extra tips/advice here?)

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Anyway, the only thing I'd really like to ask of you is that if I get the position and keep this up, check this thread every few months and comment when you've found something you don't need to really critique.

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