Comic Fury Webcomic Hosting - Dial-A-Yield Reviews

Back in the good old days of the 1960s, when men were men and two superpowers were constantly threatening to destroy the planet with nuclear weaponry, some general had an idea. "What if", he said, "what if we only need to blow something up a little bit?" The other generals liked the idea, but they thought "What if we still need to blow something up all the way? We cannot just use smaller bombs, as we may need big ones, but we cannot just use bigger bombs because we may need small ones!"

And so the generals went to the scientists, who figured out a way to make a bomb with a dial on it. "Turn the dial to this setting," they said, "and it will only blow up a neighborhood or two. But turn it to this setting, and it will blow up several cities at once."

"What about that one?" asked one of the generals, pointing.

"Puppies. You get an explosion of adorable puppies raining down on your enemies," responded one of the scientists.

"Take that shit out, we don't need it. Just regular, non-adorable explosions are fine."

And thus they created the Dial-A-Yield bombs. Simply turn the knob to the appropriate setting (before dropping it), and you get anywhere from a tiny 300 ton boom to a 340 kiloton apocalypse.

And in that vein, I present:

Dial-A-Yield Reviews

Simply select one of the settings below, drop a link to your comic, and let nuclear physics me do the rest.

Why? Because different people need different reviews. Some people can handle the truth (that their comic sucks), and they enjoyed my Brutally Honest Reviews. Some cannot handle the truth (that their comic sucks) and need someone to give them a bit of hope that they'll get better. Some want a kick in the ass to motivate them. Others want a soft, guiding hand. Some just want somebody, anybody, to read their comic. And so I've made a wide variety of options, and named them after nukes because I like watching videos of massive explosions.

Anyway, your choices are:

1 Kiloton: I will not say anything bad. I will point out only what you're doing well, although I reserve the right to remain silent. This isn't even criticism, this is just "gushing". As such, it's likely to be pretty short.

10 Kilotons: I will focus on what I liked (if anything), but I will point out your weaknesses, at least in general terms.

100 Kilotons: This is a pure constructive criticism. I will look at what you're doing well, and show you what you could be doing better.

1 Megaton: This is the level of my old "brutally honest reviews". I will give you the truth. If your comic sucks, I'll say so. If it rocks, I'll say so.

10 Megatons: This is ruthless. I will tear your comic apart to find anything that doesn't meet some exacting standard.

100 Megatons: This is beyond brutal. Anything is fair game, and I will pull no punches. Only the barest mention of the good points will be made. This is not constructive criticism, this is just cruelty. However, if you're tough enough to handle this, you're tough enough to take ANYTHING the Internet at large will send you.

The Gigaton: Unless you're absolutely perfect, this will just be an unending stream of profanity. I might not even bother actually reading your comic, just make things up.


Example quotes, so you know what you're getting into:

1 Kiloton: "The speech bubbles are good. That's a small detail, but it's really noticeable that you've put some effort into this. And some of the characters were pretty interesting, I'm interested in seeing what you're going to do with them."

10 Kilotons: "The art could use some work (clean up the lines, mainly) but you've got the writing down pat. I laughed more reading this than anything else on this site."

100 Kilotons: "The plot is a maze, the characters are interchangeable, the art is fake-anime bull, and the writing is cheesy as hell. And I'd read it again, because somehow you made it all work."

1 Megaton: "Your jokes are extremely derivative. You're copying gags from pretty much anything. You're good at rephrasing them in your own unique voice so they seem more original, but they're still not truly new jokes."

10 Megatons: "Have you even heard of spell-check? You could play a drinking game - take a shot every time you spelled something wrong - and have passed out by the end of the first chapter. Have to admit that the art is pretty good, but dude, your writing *SUCKS*. I don't think you CAN fix something that bad.

Note: Reviews above 10 MT will be placed in spoilers, to avoid undue alarm to more innocent readers.


Now, a few things first:
1) I will read however much of your comic I think I need to read. I will not promise to read it all, because I don't have that much time.
2) Only one comic per person per month. Don't ask me to review more than one, don't ask me to re-review based off just one or two new comics. Likewise, if you recently got a review in Subjective Reviews or 30 Second Reviews, I may elect to skip you.
3) If you pick a high-power option, and then whine about how mean I was, you MISSED the POINT.
4) People I've ignorelisted will be ignored.
5) Reviews are first-come, first-serve. I won't start out with a sign-up list - I've never needed one before - but I may not immediately get to you.
6) Anyone who doesn't specify either what treatment they want, or which comic is getting it, gets nothing. If you can't be bothered to read this post, I can't be bothered to read your comic.

ok can you do jenffer 's show 5 ??

100 kiloton should be good enough for me.




.... And maybe a gigaton for fun. I laughed so much lol

Edit: I only have 20 pages, so its pretty much a baby. This is my first time putting it on a critique table to be chopped. Chop her well. :D

Okay give my the Gigaton my comic Todd Sweets the shitest there is!

I don't have much so far, but I'll go for 100 kiloton for Cure (Link in my sig) :)

Basic artwork is good. You've got the basics down well. Now you need to start working on the details - the backgrounds, in particular. It's no longer a matter of skill, just a matter of effort.

Also, the faces. Humans are trained from birth to read facial expressions, so those are the *hardest* possible thing to get right. You're halfway there, just need more practice. Maybe study anatomy a bit - it seems as though you're just pasting features onto faces, not thinking about how the face is structured. I know you're using a less-than-realistic style, but it's still good to know how to do real.

The writing is a bit stilted. Sentences don't flow naturally; it's like mediocre actors reading from a script. Nobody has their own voice yet. You get points for having correct grammar and spelling, at least. You'd be surprised how many fail at even that.

Your use of color is a bit... simplistic. You may want to keep it that way, at least while you figure out the more important "faces and backgrounds" issues, but eventually you'll want to look into more varied palettes.

It's too soon to tell on the story front. You've got a lot of stuff that screams "bad plot ahead" to me - the amnesia, the melodramatic narration, the seemingly-throwaway mythological reference. Now, you *could* still do something good with it, but I'm not too optimistic. Maybe that's just me, though.

Overall, you're doing better than most people here. You're at least above-average. Question is, do you have the dedication to become one of the truly good webcomics, or are you content with mediocrity?

PS: Not giving you the gigaton, since I've got too many reviews to do tonight.

thanks for critique :D

I'll be blunt: I don't like your comic.

The art has issues. Proportions are wrong - horribly, horribly wrong. You can draw lines. You can draw shapes. You can even draw basic objects. But you *can't* draw people right. You can do coloring, shading, but that's all for naught unless the figures you're drawing are correct.

The writing is a pile of cliches. "Trendy" words so overused that they've lost all emotional impact. I had a "Abridged Emo/Goth Dictionary" joke here, but I realized I was going a bit harsh with it. Still, wow. Reminds me of the shitty poetry I wrote in middle school.

I burned most of them.

The story seems to be going the same way. In my first draft of this, I had two long paragraphs guessing at the setting and plot. Then I noticed you had a "background info" page - I was right on 9 / 10 things. Only surprise was the frankenzombies.

Look. People don't want a story that's that predictable. I can already hazard guesses at how the story is going to *end*, for crying out loud. I guarantee you, your plot is not as "original" or as "creative" as you think it is.

What you need to do:
1) Study human proportions. MEMORIZE the Vitruvian Man. Read this, then read every link at the end. Break out a ruler and calculator while drawing if you have to.
2) When writing, less is more. Dial the melodrama down. Dial the angst down. Save the hyper-emotional cliche-fests for the actually emotional scenes.
3) Surprise me. Give me something I *don't* expect. Put a twist on something. Do *something* original.

The comic's not unsalvageable. But it's not going anywhere good in the shape it's in.

PS: Sorry if this went a bit too rough on you. I noticed I was probably getting into the megaton range - I tried to edit it down, but I probably still have a very negative tone.

Nah, it's fine. I realize I probably should have waited 'till I got into the actual story. The start is supposed to be over dramatic and emo because, well, the narrator is dying. I understand the issues with it, and I thank you for the time you took to critique my comic. Oh, also, most of what happens involves the frankenzombies, so I guess I'll take the 9/10 predictable in good stride, if that's the one you didn't predict ;)

I thought I asked for the Gigaton not the 1 Kiloton!

I believe Ovid said it best:

"Per assulam vitri tute pedica"

Hey, GMan, you reviewed my comic in your "Brutally Honest Reviews" thread, but that was probably... a month or maybe even longer ago, and I've taken your advice and some others. I think my writing has improved a wee bit and I've been concentrating on the art more. Also, I've incorporated color into my latest page, so do you think you could take another look at my latest 5 - 10 pages? If not, it's cool, I understand. If so, I'll take the 1 Megaton review.

I just figured I'd ask since no one else was next in line and I'm looking for areas to improve in. I'm curious to see if your advice is the same or different. The characters might still be a little stale for you though.

The writing's improving. The pacing is still a bit off in places, but that may be more a speech-bubble-layout thing than a writing thing (still something you need to work on). And you still have some expospeak going on in places, or other odd bits, but the characters are starting to distinguish themselves.

The art is also, slowly, getting better. The color really helps - you really should keep it for every page, simply because it's that much of an improvement. Even if the quality of the coloring slips a bit, it's more than worth it.

Overall, though, your comic's good. Not great, not yet, but getting there. Pretty soon I might even start reading it regularly.

The site brings you back down a few points. The massive banner image that takes up half the vertical space on my screen? Shrink it (trade height for width - most people have widescreen monitors now; you can get just as much content in less vertical space). You could also really use a characters page (especially since the first chapter, which does all the introduction stuff, is a lot worse than the newer pages). Maybe even a brief synopsis of each chapter.

Glad to see you're making forward progress.

PS: Sorry if you were expecting some brutal takedown, but you already know the things that need fixing, and you've already made a lot of progress on fixing them. You're not 100% there yet, but you're on the right path, so there's no need for me to yell at you again about it.

Hey, thanks! I appreciate the good news. And yeah, the site and layout itself needs a lot of work. I'm going to get started on that soon.

*Nervously in head* "I know I just started...but...want...honest...review...of...comic!"

100 kiloton for Gabby's World please, link in signature.

*faints*

I'll start off with this: the writing is surprisingly good.

It has to be, given your art, but you're doing a decent job at it.

Now, I could obviously sit here and yell at you to "learn how to draw PEOPLE" and stuff like that, but it's obvious that a) you can't draw people, and b) you don't need to draw people.

Basic shapes are, essentially, all that's needed, art-wise, to make a comic. Look at stick-figure comics. Look at sprite comics. Barebones art, but, with good writing, they can be good. Never "great", but that's a rare distinction indeed.

That's not to say your art couldn't use improvement. It could. But it seems to mostly be a scanning/editing problem, and *that* is something I have no experience in, and cannot advise you on. Go look for someone who can help you figure that process out. Don't get me wrong - you're terrible at that - I just don't know how to do better, only that everyone else does it better.

I'd also recommend that you take down the "non-Reloaded" pages. It's just a distraction to readers to suddenly be re-reading the last three pages. Put them up in some extra section, perhaps, if you want a "how terrible I used to be" section, but don't put it in the main archives.

Thank you for the review, that wasn't quite as painful as I was expecting =]

Well, here goes. 100 Kilotons for Sancta Terra, please. Link's in the sig.

I guess I can throw my hat in for 1 Megaton.