Vampires Suck - New Webcomic

Started by 2ma2, Wed 18/10/2006 14:52:05

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2ma2

Yup, I'm at it again. Not too many episodes yet, but it's been around for oh such a short while. Updates every week. Atleast for now. Perhaps twice a week later on. Pity for you who desperatly wanted chapter 2 of Cogs And Robbers but what can I say..

http://www.riotamot.com/vampire

Nacho

#1
Looks funny, and professional, great work Linus. Are this "clans" (Toreador, Nosferatu...) just from the roll game "masquerade" or are they common clans in the vampire culture? I am not very into this...

EDIT: Ouch, sorry, you mention that this clans come form the comic, sorry...

EDIT, EDIT: You misslinked White Wolf webpage, Linus.
Are you guys ready? Let' s roll!

2ma2

Mislinked?! Dammit! Thanks for the heads-up.

Oh, the Clans are from the RPG

DGMacphee

Visually, it's stunning. I'm always impressed when you draw, 2ma2.

The premise is also a good one. Get The Odd Couple and make them vampires. Simple and full of potential.

The gags need a little work though. One of my pet peeves with many webcomics is there tends to be too much talk when telling jokes.

Case in point: remove Garfield's text and the comic gets funnier.

Try less dialogue between characters. Expose more of the story and jokes with the pictures and action. And ninja-kick your jokes.

I think a good example of a well-drawn comic that has many good gags is Perry Bible Fellowship. Not much dialogue, only enough to let you know what's going on. The jokes lie not within the text but the action. It's more effective, I think.

Here are a few examples:

Food Fight
Chew Boy
Mittens
No One is Thirsty
Mimes
Freaking Vortex

What I like most is how the joke gets exposed. Each panel builds on the previous until the big "Ah-ha!" when you piece it together.

Your comic is a different style, obviously, but I think a good way to go about it to use less dialogue and more action in the pictures. The first half of the first comic does this quite well, actually. Each scene builds and builds, tension rising and then it's at the point where he's about to bite the victim... THEN... the light gets turned on and you see the "victim"!

But after that, it kinda fizzles to a second joke about Lucious being a pervert, but there's not much to build up to it. I'd have the second half as a new comic.

Regardless of my advice, I think your comic has some great potential to be one of the funniest, most well-drawn webcomics around the internet.
ABRACADABRA YOUR SPELLS ARE OKAY

DGMacphee Designs - http://www.sylpher.com/DGMacphee/
AGS Awards - http://www.sylpher.com/AGSAwards/

Instagame - http://www.sylpher.com/ig/
"Ah, look! I've just shat a rainbow." - Yakspit

ManicMatt

I pretty much agree with them, although I think the swearing seems unnessescary and out of place. For some reason, the second I got to the 'f' word the comic lost it's professionalism.

ildu

#5
I completely agree with Matt. Awesome visuals, though.

And I never get offended from swearing, only when it's obviously used in a weird or unnecessary place. This is why i hate swearing in games, because the devs just can't fit them in properly and end up overusing them. Just because Tony Montana said a few lines with cursewords in the movie doesn't mean he has to say 5 cursewords in every sentence in the game.

DGMacphee

I think the problem with swearing is it only works is it suits the character. If the character is an aggressive arsehole, yep, he's should swear. If it's a cute kitten with big saucer-shaped eyes, yep, the kitten should swear. (as a joke in extreme opposite to the character type).

But Lucius doesn't seem like the kinda character who'd swear. He seems too classy for that.

ABRACADABRA YOUR SPELLS ARE OKAY

DGMacphee Designs - http://www.sylpher.com/DGMacphee/
AGS Awards - http://www.sylpher.com/AGSAwards/

Instagame - http://www.sylpher.com/ig/
"Ah, look! I've just shat a rainbow." - Yakspit

LGM

What happened to Cogs and Robbers? :(((((((
You. Me. Denny's.

Helm

breaking the fourth wall in the first comic? Nono

also, 'wild horses skullficking' is really a bad turn of phrase I think. Writing victorian-type dialogue which I guess will suit Lucius will be a challenge to you, as you're not a native speaker of english.
WINTERKILL

Mordalles

superb drawings, 2ma2! i love the style and colours you chose!

*jealousy list updated*

... why can't i draw like that...  :'(

"It's a fairy! She's naked! Curse these low-res graphics!" - Duty and Beyond

big brother

I'm not sure he's breaking the fourth wall as much as greeting the inflatable doll. I guess the humor lies in the hypocrisy of Lucius' attitude.
Mom's Robot Oil. Made with 10% more love than the next leading brand.
("Mom" and "love" are registered trademarks of Mom-Corp.)

Nacho

Which is the 4th wall? I am lost...

I am undercultured...
Are you guys ready? Let' s roll!

Helm

Quote from: big brother on Wed 18/10/2006 17:17:49
I'm not sure he's breaking the fourth wall as much as greeting the inflatable doll. I guess the humor lies in the hypocrisy of Lucius' attitude.

That's possible. It was absolutely not clear to me. if a panel showing Lucius, next one the doll, last one Lucius going 'well hello there...' was instead there, I'd have no problem reading that correctly.
WINTERKILL

Scummbuddy

I read it as him talking to the sextoy... perhaps it would be better if he was raising the hand of the toy as in to kiss the hand, or greet the girl.

Farlander - do you know what the fourth wall is and dont understand Helms point, or do you not know what the "fourth wall" is?
- Oh great, I'm stuck in colonial times, tentacles are taking over the world, and now the toilets backing up.
- No, I mean it's really STUCK. Like adventure-game stuck.
-Hoagie from DOTT

buloght

Really enoyed it 2ma2, great visuals!

Nacho

Scummbuddy, I have no clue of what "the fouth wall is"... I guess it' s showing too much of something too early, or something, but I am not sure of the real meaning.
Are you guys ready? Let' s roll!

MrColossal

when an adventure game character says "What a crazy adventure game this is!" that's breaking the forth wall. Reaching out to the viewer and speaking to them as if the character is aware of the real world.

also, MORE MORE MORE linus!
"This must be a good time to live in, since Eric bothers to stay here at all"-CJ also: ACHTUNG FRANZ!

Nacho

Are you guys ready? Let' s roll!

Kweepa

#18
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_wall

There's no doubt he's talking to the doll - just look at the eyes. Also, the punchline would be awful otherwise.

Since you've posted this to everyone, I'd recommend breaking whatever ties it has to the RPG. It doesn't seem necessary, it could restrict storylines, and it could lead to in-jokes. Are these characters new or borrowed?

I agree with DG and Helm that the dialog is a problem. You should put as much work into the dialog as you do into the backgrounds. For example, in the first strip:
- "you just happen to reside in pitch black" is not a natural thing to say - perhaps "it seems you're lurking in the dark with a... a... blow up doll"
- "doesn't come natural" should be "doesn't come naturally" or "doesn't come easily"
- "sextoy" should be "sex toy"
- you've hyphenated beautiful and delicate right off the bat, which makes it hard to start reading
- many lines end with .. instead of ... (or preferably an m-dash, or just a full stop). Too many ellipses make the writing seem sloppy

I'd recommend hand-writing the dialog too. That squashed italic comic font is ugly, and it'll allow you to avoid hyphenating more easily. I'd probably hand draw the balloons rather than them being perfect ovals. And outline them perhaps, so that you can separate Lucius and Abel's speech when they overlap.

The artwork is of course beautiful. There are a couple of panels that don't work for me:
- Abel's expression is rather too blank when he's slouching off in shame
- Lucius' expression isn't quite perverted enough in the last panel
- also for the last panel I would change the tone of the background to pop the punchline, or draw in some background details

[EDIT] I just noticed this wasn't in the Critic's Lounge. Apologies for the heavy criticism.
Still waiting for Purity of the Surf II

2ma2

DG: I kinda like the heavy dialogue within webcomics. The strip medium often demands to cut down on text and deliver punchlines like clockwork. The webcomic medium however can work with changes in lenght and tempo, handing out new storytelling possebilities. I don't think I will cut down on dialogue, I aim for the pseudointellectual approach rather than visually appealing storytelling. But we'll see...

Manic, ildu, DG and Helm: The curseword is there to stand out. Lucius ain't the character to use such language, it is there to emphasize how much he doesn't want Abel to move up from the basement. It is far from Victorian language, deliberatly so.

Helm: Yes, he is greeting the doll. I realised I should have shown the doll next to Lucius to enhance readability. But by then, I had allready uploaded it for two days.

SteveMcCrea: I actually made it for my fellow WW geeks, and others interested in the Vampire mythos. I do however try to avoid injokes, or to explain them within the comic. It will not restrict storylines.

I do work more upon the dialogue than backgrounds. But ofcourse, being a non-native speaker, errors or bad usage of language will occur. It does here on the forums anyway. But with the hyphenation - it is there to better suit the speech bubbles, forming elliptic shapes of text. It is better to hyphenate than to have a poor text mass shape.

I tend to end lines with two dots rather than three. No real motivations for this other than two looks more appealing visually for me.

"Too many ellipses make the writing seem sloppy" Come again?

I lay the text digitally with bubbles so it looks good on screen. If I were to make it for print, I would probably handtext it with bubbles. I have no plans on altering my approach.

None offence taken, apology accepted..

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