Comic Fury Webcomic Hosting - Critique for my Homestuckesque/ripoff comic Untitled F-ed Up Adventures, please?

To begin with, if you have a million different reasons why you hate Homestuck ripoffs you may as well have not clicked on this topic to begin with. I am fully aware I am "COPYING" something awesome and making it "TERRIBLE".

Though my intention is never to rival or fully copy Homestuck, I more look to Homestuck for guidance, and inspiration. Or whatever, yeah this sappy half speech is pretty much nothing more than a disclaimer to rule out any reason anyone could have to randomly chew me out.

Anyway, I would like critique on my webcomic Untitled F-ed Up Adventures.

I am fully aware that the first 250 pages are well, "what is this i don't even" worthy. And well even some of the pages afterwards are as well. It sort of drifts back and fourth, and the comic is very "gets better as you go", unfortunately that better isn't exactly until around late Act 1, mid Act 2.

As most can probably tell, this comic was sort of an experiment that turned into a realish comic because I actually enjoy writing and drawing it. So basically I'm just curious if the comic is even half enjoyable to read in later pages, and has even the slightest bit of existent humor that I thought I wrote as humor, but that view of the writer and the view of the reader can be incredibly different. I also wonder if it is possible to tell if the story is getting anywhere. I mean it is, but again, that writer/reader perspective.

Some things I am fully aware of are,

1. Yes I know the abbreviation should be UFUA, a comment saying that resides on the first page, and my only responses are:
1. The name just stuck.
2. Two U's look weird to me.
3. I do not tell you how to name your comic.
4. Shut up.

2. Yes the characters need development, when the comic was initially being written, I had to rely on my internet friends for chatlogs..and well, you can see how well that went. If a chatlog comes up in whatever next updates happen, I plan on just role playing as them, and writing chatlogs myself (these friends being all the characters you enter the name of throughout the comic).

3. Yes I know I got lazy in some parts of the comic, thus making shittier than normal pages.

Sooo yeah, to recap all those paragraph things, I would like criticism in writing, and I guess a little bit in the later art when and if you get there.

I also realize the comic is pushing 700 Single panel "Pages", so please take your time before giving your full critique, or just leave this topic to rot, whichever.

as a person that uses CGI, im pretty open minded. ill go with the good points first, the site works.

the flashing panels are not .. as pleasent to look at in the earlyer ones. stay away from flashing bright colors they can be sezure inducing. unless that is what you are going for, then brovo. dont hide the text - it will send people like me away in a heart beat , that text is what drives this comic. period.
it has some witty and charming bits , ( NOT my prefernce mind you but im being fair.) the art does improve ( in its simplistic format. ) some of the charcters are much better drawn than others the single panel choice is nither a negitive or a positive simply a choice. it seems to run to the "gag" style. remember a lot of your readers may not understand or even comprehend a "in" joke. and just be left going WTF..

all in all its a decent comic. taking it as what it is. ( 4 of 5 ) on my scale?

yeahh, I'm kind of holding back on the flashing panels, or at least, in extreme flashiness like the older ones.

The text having to be shown via spoiler tab, I think I shall have removed soon I suppose. The initial point for that was for chatlogs, but there really isn't a need for them there either. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about HTML so I'll just wait until I find someone willing to poke the HTML layout of the comic (though I'm sure it's just a matter of asking the right person).

Ohh yeah, quite a few "in" jokes throughout it, now that I think back to some of the pages.. err well, are you counting direct Homestuck references as "in" jokes? I placed those throughout the comic expecting the main readers would know a fair amount about Homestuck.

Thank you for the critique, by the way! It's good to know that my comic isn't all around godawful! XD

actually ive never heard of homestruck :D
so all of that went right over my head. as far as the text i would just work it into the art. as letter boxes or something . like a standard comic. :D and nope its not godawful , may not be to my taste but i wanted to give a fair review :)

EDIT: accidental post, please delete.

no seriously i was just using this for the link code while i was editing a comic and i accidentally clicked post because my fingers are stupid

I'd say that Prequel is a pretty good example of a Homestuck-styled comic done right. O'course that one started on the Homestuck forums... and many of the people there (including the staff) are monumental dickweeds and pretty much have no business existing.... just not all of them.
BUT I digress.

Prequel is pretty cool... and good inspiration for anyone trying to do something in the same style.



Also I like it because it does a rather good job of portraying what it is like to be kinda awful at everything and totally despondent about it. I probably shouldn't say that though, as it might put someone off.

(Also it is another Elder Scrolls webcomic, so I feel a certain kinship with it... seeing as I also do one.)





Andrew Hussie... in his own particular way... pioneered a sub-genre of webcomics with stuff like Problem Sleuth.
And then he made Homestuck. And then Homestuck became one of the most popular things on the entire internet.
And. It. Is. Totally. Justified. O_O;;



... Sorry. I don't have a signature.
I just realised it makes my posts look really weird as they go right down to the bottom of the screen, where you'd think it ceased to be relevant.
Oh dear...

( Andrew Hussie... in his own particular way... pioneered a sub-genre of webcomics with stuff like Problem Sleuth.
And then he made Homestuck. And then Homestuck became one of the most popular things on the entire internet.
And. It. Is. Totally. Justified. O_O )

I looked up a webcomic by the name of homestruck.. this is popular ?!?!?!
same creator .. I dont know what my actual responce would trigger so ill just say .. no I do not "get" it ..
it doesnt seem funny, or well made. but then masses of people have diffrent opinons ...

I took a look at Prequel, I honestly wasn't impressed by the first couple of pages, since I could honestly probably do a good portion of those animations. Though yes I suppose it would be good inspiration for doing the "MSPA Genre" comics that aren't even anything like Homestuck, but since mine is mainly based on Homestuck I generally look toward Homestuck for art and animation inspiration/ideas/whatever.

Also if this is about to derail into a Homestuck Topic/Debate/OMG I MUST CONVERT THIS POOR SOUL TO HOMESTUCKISM please find some other thread or start a PM pyramid.

Anyway still open to thoughts and/or criticism. Particular maybe tips on animation? I mean I'm a decent animator I suppose but anything that seems missing or could be improved upon I'd be happy to know about. I mean I gradually get better, but yeah. Story's pretty wonky, so I guess criticism on that when and if you make it to some of the recent updates since by then some of the plot holes are kind of cleared up.

Homestuck. No "r". Stuck. As in can't get out.

Anyhow... I can suppose that it might not be everyone's cup of tea. It draws a lot of its early humour from the style of old point-and-click adventure games (as do all of Hussie's creations)... along with a healthy dose of abstraction and pop-culture references. And it takes a bit of time to pick up momentum... but I'm pretty sure it is worth it. =/
Did you ever play such games? Things like the Monkey Island series? Broken Sword? etc etc... It probably all seems a bit weird unless you've played a few of those games.

Plus o'course the "art" doesn't seem that spectacular much of the time... which is part of how Andrew Hussie can be so prolific with it. And then of course you come across one of the [S] animations... and that is where it starts to become clear why Homestuck is as popular as it is.
I only got into it in the first place because I'd read just about every other webcomic I could find on the Internet and wanted to try something new... and I never regretted it for an instant.






So could I... and I can't do much of anything. That really isn't the point of it though. =/

Im sorry I dont understand homestuck at all. Apparently it is huge, but the art is bad and the writing is dull. I read like 20 of them and it goes nowhere. WHY IS IT SO POPULAR

It's not like Hark! A Vagrant where the art might not be amazing but the timing and jokes are brilliants. And even in Hark the art is 5 times better than this. It's just dull and plain. How did it get so huge and make so much money?


Also though what I wonder is, if you're going to spend so much time making a comic, instead of just trying to mimic someone else's style, dont you think that time would be better spent working on your own original style and your own stories?

I might sound like a hater, but im just being honest here.

IDK I never like these threads that are like "please give me critique, but don't point out <gaping flaws in the comic>".

It's strange, I mean, if you have to write a disclaimer saying you already know what people are going to criticize and ask them not to do that, why ask for critique at all? You already know the problem. Acknowledging your comic has flaws doesn't mean they're suddenly not flaws anymore. There is a difference between taking inspiration by someones format or some elements of a comic and just making a carbon copy. Taking the format, the art style, the writing style, whatever. Why? Why not make your own thing. Why make something where when you introduce it to people you have to admit it's bad?

It just feels kinda pointless to make something you seem to be sorta ashamed of

Like picking up a book about the history of bridge architecture, reading the first page, then dismissing it as crap because it doesn't portray fish very well and the plot is going nowhere.

Perhaps a rather out-there comparison... but not as far off as you might believe. Each page is the equivalent of a single frame of an ordinary comic, afterall (except for the heavier animations and the chat logs). Its "art" is stylised, and looks pretty much exactly the way it is meant to.
And in case you hadn't gathered, for the first 100 pages or so the commands were being submitted by readers... so what you expected to see in a mere 20 is beyond me.



You're just being silly now.
Kate Beaton may be rather well informed as to matters of history, but that is essentially the main thing holding her comic together. Her humour relies mostly on non-sequitur and her art style is best described as lackadaisical scribbles... which, while it has its place, could well be said to take less effort than simple low-colour animations.
I like her comic enough, but it is a brief and awkward laugh... and not even in the same league as Homestuck.



Originality, in and of itself, carries no inherent superiority over copying tried and tested styles. Ultimately, whether it works out for the better or not depends on the execution... and obviously the one doing so.

And we get that you don't like Homestuck... though I'd wager that it isn't a very informed opinion. Chances are you resent it for being popular. While I can fully appreciate that sentiment, it is worth remembering that not everything popular is automatically crap for it. =/

If you want to debate homestuck (both of you) please make a thread for it. This is a critique thread and it's rather impolite to hijack it.