Comic Fury Webcomic Hosting - One shot crits

Okay here's the deal. I will crit your sequential art, your inserts, covers, pinups etc. Anything you want really.

I'm not really qualified to give you guys advice on your plot, so I'm only focusing on the artistic aspects of your comic (layout, text, character design, presentation, web design, inking, coloring, pencils)

If you are linking me to an entire comic, please also take the time to link me to the page you feel is your best work.

Be warned. I am a bitch and I make critique srs business so my reviews are not for the faint of heart.

Pending Crits
1. KingRandom
2. BeachGnome
3. ElConejo

Finished Crits
1. mushroomisland 2.jenffer

PLEASE!
http://remnants.thecomicseries.com/

best work:
prologue, 7
Chapter1, 2
Chapter 1, 4
Chapter 1, 6

do jenffer's show 5 thanks

@mushroomisland

At first glance, I thought Remnants was going to be your typical unoriginal anime comic. Although the style isn't particularly anime per say, there is definately some Asian style influnce here. The title banner featuring the main character and a female ally remind me slightly of a jRPG.

However, after reading the actual comic in it's entirity, the artist leans more toward realism than anime. The comic has only a few pages, and many characters have been introduced but the artist has taken care to draw them each with accurate proportions and a body type. You can easily tell each age of the characters as well. The color palette features mostly sudued cool colors. It's very sophisticated and works well to give the whole comic a very mature feeling. It also helps to distinguish itself from other comics. The text is well placed. It's easy to read and a good size. There's not too much or too little dialogue and there is the right balance between text and image.

One negative thing that stands out is faces. It looks like a lot of characters have the same face especially the eyes. It seems like special focus is placed on the main character but the rest of the characters have the exact shame eye shape and similar color. Expressions are also lacking. Most of the time an emotion is expressed just with the mouth gaping open in a different shape. Not much is done with the eyes or the rest of the face. Mouths are sometimes filled with just black and it looks odd.

The other thing is the quality of art. The cover and pages to follow introducing Elaine Truth are drawn wonderfully. However, there were some earlier pages that consisted of mostly dialogue that were nowhere near this beautiful or compelling. Sometimes the background would just be a plain white void or just a gradient. If something is going to take place in the room I think the room should have something in it. A few objects won't be too distracting from the scene itself. Looking at the art I think I can tell what pages the artist where motivated to work on and which they didnt enjoy doing so much. There needs to be a little more consistancy. I will note that the later pages seem like the artist has tried to do this but I still have to point it out for the sake of new readers.

Overall, I think this is a successful comic visually because the artist is experienced. They've put a lot of care into little things that most novices have a hard time with. They have a good balance in their page layouts and I think readers will naturally be able to follow along easily despite the comics stoic and dreamy story.

Thanks for critique. I agree with almost all of it. I usually put in backgrounds if I feel like it's needed or if there is a zoom out scene, because I personally find them distracting if its on every panel and colored with details. But I guess I can try to put in some more. And facial expressions are something I'm trying to improve on so hopefully I'll get better. :)

Good luck to you. I think as the story progresses you'll find a way to make your characters speak with their eyes and better express their emotions. :3

crit this please

Come@me bro.

I wasn't sure about asking for critiques, but since you are my Batgirl buddy, I feel secure. My comic is linked in my sig. There is only, what, five pages so far?

@jenffer

Comic: Jenffer's Show 5 jenffersshow5.thecomicseries.com/comics

I said I wouldn't comment on writing because I am not really a good writer nor am I comfortable with analyzing literature

BUT

This comic has really terrible spelling and grammar. There is barley any use of captialization or proper punctuation. These frequent errors are so bad that I feel like most readers will have a difficult time understand what exactly is happening. Text is not placed very well either. It looks like the text is typed first and then the artist attempts to draw a comic bubble around it. As a result the text bubble looks kinda crammed in and out of place. I would suggest drawing the comic bubbles first and then add text. Make sure each line of text consists of more than one word. I would also stop adding elipses (...) in the middle of sentences. Even if there is a pause in dialogue, adding extra periods is distracting.

Also, instead of describing what has happened in the past or describing what is happening in text it would be better to show what is happening visually instead of just telling us about it. For example, in this page http://jenffersshow5.thecomicseries.com/comics/25 the main character says she feels a gun pointed at her. Instead of just saying that actually draw the other character sneaking up behind her. Show him threatening her with a gun. It would be a lot more interesting and dramatic than just writing about it.

The story itself, a gay heroine confronted with death threats, and insane father and other issues could be really compelling but I feel like the drama of the story is lost.

Do you write out your story before you create a new page? You might want to write out a whole chapter of your story and get someone to help you write. Even if you just typed the diagloue alone in MS Word and used spell checker that would dramatically improve this comic's biggest flaw.


Now, I'll get into the art aspects of the comic.


Sometimes the artist reuses a picture they have drawn and blows it up to a bigger size. Unfortunately, this leaves the art looking really low quality and pixelated. (Example http://jenffersshow5.thecomicseries.com/comics/23)Instead of blowing up the picture it would be better to redraw the image. Stretching photos or other images and using them as a backgrounds is also a bad idea.

Consistancy is another issue this comic has. Sometimes pages are colored, sometimes they are not. Sometimes just the characters are colored meanwhile the background is not. Sometimes the artist chooses to draw the background and other time they just blow up a photograph and paste it in. Even the pages themselves are different sizes.

It seems like this comic is created digitally using a simple program using MSPaint. I would suggest getting another program like Paint.net or Adobe Photoshop and learning how to use it. The program your using seems quite limited there are proabably better alternatives.

On the other hand maybe you shoud stop creating comic digitally. Your drawings of the characters themselves are alright but the digital effects are really bad and low quality. I'm not sure if you just aren't aware of the quality issues or if you are not sure how to fully use the program you are using. I think you might want to try just drawing pages by hand and scanning them in. If you don't have a scanner, a lot of times they come included in a regular inkjet printer. Your friends or relatives may even have one you can borrow. Often times public libraries or colleges have scanner and other useful equipment you can borrow.

Overall, in my honest opinion this comic is not very good.The writing is bad and the art is of poor quality. The only saving grace for jennifershow might be the story. This comic suffers from so many issues but I encourage the artist not to give up. It wouldn't take much to improve any of the things I mentioned.

Well, since you're critiquing art alone instead of story and writing and all that, here... Have a comic with no story or writing or plot, or any other form of redeeming quality!

Here it is!

Fair warning: This comic is bad. I'll admit it. In fact, I'll proudly announce it! There is no story whatsoever, the jokes are often cruel and unfunny, and the art looks like the illustrator has a nasty habit of riding the bus everywhere and considering it a good idea to ink while on said bus.

Additionally, the only editing done on computer for this strip is layout... I use a computer to lay the panels together. That's about it.

So, now that we know that it's pretty bad...

Let's hear your view on just how bad it is!