A Couple of Comics for my new Website

[PsychicHeart]

hey y'all.
i'm making a website with "Parodied" comics, based on game characters, TV Characters,
etc.
Anyway, just thought i'd post up some of the material.








So yeah, just tell me what you think.
Cheers,
Blake.

[Vince Twelve]

So yeah, just tell me what you think.

I think that unless it's locked, this is unfortunately going to be a really long thread.

Fluke, you should take a little time to work on your sense of humor. 

Do these make you laugh when you read them?  If so, perhaps there is an audience out there of like-minded people who will enjoy these.  In which case, go post them to a website and see what happens.

If you're really looking for comments and critiques from people in this forum, post them in the Critic's Lounge.  But the bottom line is that posting these here is not going to generate a lot of positive comments.

Good luck.

[Squinky]

I think you aren't quite at the website making stage. I don't mean to be mean, but these aren't funny whatsoever...They are mostly confusing...

[PsychicHeart]

  yet another embarrassing, humiliating post. i have just got to get around to creating a new profile.

[LGM]

Or go on a year long hiatus.

[Nikolas]

Wait, wait don't change your profile just yet.

First of all promise me that you will be around tomorrow to see this thread again, and to answer any questions, ok?

Second since you are asking our criticism and usually someone does gives you his/her opinion, and sometimes a lot of us do, try to correct some things. Critiques are supposed to be helpfull and to teach a little bit.

So, ok you want to make a website with parodies from comics, computer heros etc. Ok. No problem here. btw did you ask anyone else, apart from this forum (parnets, friends, girlfriend, teachers) about your comics? IT could benefit you to get a second opinion.

The last one with Mario, wasn't that bad. The other three, I just don't get.

Example: I cannot understand what's so funny with behind the cameras on Sesami Str. I understand what you're trying to do there, but you lack the technique to do it. It would probably take
*more frames
*a little close-up to the faces of the characters
*the audience (small children)
Just like that it ain't funny. There is no real surprise. Have you seen "Who framed Roger Rabbit". The beginning is with a baby. The shooting lasts like 5 minutes. When the shooting ends the baby lights a cigare, talks to the hot babes and generally sounds like a true actor. But it's the surprise. For 5 minutes you see him as an adorable baby and then you see him with a cigare in his mouth swearing, flerting and all.

In Sessami str here, you haven't established the characters. Of course they're well known, but there are differences between your comic and Crusty the Clown. (thing about it, it is the same case. A Clown that gambles, smokes, likes a lot of illegal stuff, but still a clown...)

And this probably should be in the critics lounge.

[MrColossal]

oh stop it...

Just keep making more and more and more fluke, the more you make the better you'll get.

People who are older than Fluke, think back to the jokes you made and laughed at when you were younger and now think on the ones you make now and laugh at.

Everyone has the same comedy genesis and eventually Fluke will find his own brand like most of us have.

I can't tell you how many jokes I blatantly ripped off from Far Side or Bloomcounty and then eventually I found eric through that. The same with tons of "take innocent thing and make it vulgar" jokes.

The only thing you have to do is keep at it Fluke. Just make more and don't stop and eventually you'll look back and say "Here is where I am and this is where I'm from." and be able to note your own progression and you'll love it.

Eric

[Squinky]

I wasn't telling him to stop. To clarify: I think if he want's to do them thats great, but like any comedian/comic writer, be prepared for critique and learn from it. Some Critique is crap, some is good.

I mostly couldn't understand what was going on. If they were made clearer that might help. I also felt that the swearing wasn't needed. I (personally) attribute swearing in comedic works as a cheap laugh, something you throw out there to shock at most. Especially since the humor seemed geared more towards a younger audience.

[MrColossal]

The oh stop was mostly directed at LGM.

One of the problems with understanding these comics is the audience, the pokemon comic is a joke on the fact that you can't talk to anyone in town without fighting them, the main character has a hurt arm and just wants to get help. If you haven't played the game you can't really work the joke out in your head. That's not to say that that is the only problem.

I think the other things are pacing, I agree, add more panels. I don't really know how to get the Pokemon joke across without tons of panels showing many fights or a long story that constantly refers to the fact that everyone in town only wants to fight...

The mario brothers one could be expanded on, just try it, only do comics with that idea, Mario saves the Princess and she's happy as can be but then she sees Luigi, while she's greatful for being saved, just defeating a large turtlesaurus doesn't best love at first site, she starts secretly seeing Luigi on the side and he has no idea she likes him, eventually she leaves Mario for Luigi and Mario is down in the dumps, spying on them by using various bad guys from the games, magic carpets from Mario 2, trying to kill Luigi with Bullet Bills... Mario meets up with someone in a bar asking for help winning The Princess back so he goes out and finds Bowser, nurses him back to health [or rebuilds him as Mecha-Bowser] and programs him to kidnap the princess, Mario just wants it to be like old times and he knew that after he saved the princess she was in love... So blah blah wackiness ensues.. Sorry, I got quite a bit carried away.

People can relate to Mario and Luigi more because they are very well known characters. While Crash is a [was a?] popular character people just don't know off hand all the things he can do and can be done to him[I wonder if anyone even noticed that he was turned to ice in the last panel] and the pokemon games, again wickedly popular but the characters just aren't that well know.

In my opinion...

[Kinoko]

I'm serious man, the Pokemon one made me chuckle heartily and I haven't even played the game.

The others, yeah, not quite there yet but I think anyone who's just plain insulting you is being too harsh. It wouldn't take much tweaking for these to be funny, you know. If I saw these exact things with a slightly different script (you know, a hilarious one, something truly witty) I'd think they were genius.

I'll give you some feedack on each:

SONIC: Okay, this one just wasn't funny at all. I can see where you were going with it, and it may be funny to you but I can assure you that very, very few people on this planet would laugh at it. Humour is a DAMN hard thing to get right, and often we find things funy ourselves that just don't work with the general public. I'd say scrap this one but only after going through it and really questioning why you think it's funny.

POKEMON: Not hilarious, but after I read it a second time, and it was kind of funny! The guy is injured and in need of help, but in trying to convey this message, gets pulled into a classic random encounter (this is the way I was reading it). This is funny because the main character is understood to be as a normal person, but the other guy is a computer game drone. I'd go as far as to say that it's humour in the shadow of Kid Radd.

SESAME STREET: Again, not funny, but the difference between this and the Sonic one is that this -would- have been funny 20 years ago. The problem, I'm sorry to bring this up, is your age... a young age just naturally comes with a lack of experience and worly knowledge and so you wouldn't have known that this joke was done to death 20 years ago. Heck, lots of people older than you still don't know.

MARIO: This is the comic I understand the least. Why does Mario appear distracted in the balloon? Was it him and Luigi in the balloon? Also, 99% of all Mario and Luigi jokes have been done to death much the same as Sesame Street.

Keep trying though! You're better off showing these to your real life friends first though and saving the internet posting for when everyone pisses themselves laughing and you really think you're on to something.

OR of course, you could use the critic's lounge, as suggested

Good luck!

[mätzyboy]

The Sesamy Street one is excellent... Elmo swearing like that just makes it so funny! The Mario one I understood, but it wasn't that funny and the two first images doesn't contribute to the story...

The rest, sorry man, swoosch over my head...

[esper]

I think that the Poke'my'butt one would have been a hundred times funnier with the addition of one line in the last frame. Take out the "What should WEEDL do" and make it say "DAMMIT! I JUST NEED A POTION!" or something. I didn't understand it at all until Mr. McLossal (that was pretty original of me, wasn't it?) explained it. I like it a whole lot better now. That last addition that I mentioned would make it funnier, not because of the line, but because people who don't even understand Pokemon would be able to catch a free giggle off of it.

I hope you haven't actually paid for a website yet. Make it easy on yourself: Go to www.smackjeeves.com and sign up for a free webcomic page. I use it myself. You can take a look using the link in my siggy and see if it's for you before you A) go dishing out an inordinate amount of cash for something that might fail or B) get crappy free hosting that won't do what you want it to.

[Gilbert]

Actually though they may not be really that funny, I think Fluke IS improving indeed, just compare them to the old strips he made that came with joke that few (or no) readers can understand.
So, like Eric said, don't get discouraged FLuke, just keep on going, also, critics by other people are GOOD, you may not see what're the problems with your strips or what they currently lack if you don't get them criticised.

Actually I think the point of the Pokemon strip was that your player was quite helpless yet you're forced to be involved in a battle (like other said). But I'll sum up what I found to be crucial points to that strip that i think was not badly demonstrated, to those who never played the Pocket Monster games at least:

Spoiler

1. The player is hurt (in his arm at least)
2. He's forced to fight, for those who never played the game: whenever most trainer sees you, he'll challenge you into a battle (and I think you can't even escape in trainer battles, can't remember exactly), those trainers were also located in routes that you must pass through, so battles are unavoidable.
3. If you examine the last panel well, you'll see that (a) the player's monster and the opponent's monster are of the same type, (b) the player's monster obviously has less HP, (c) level of player's monster is much lower, so the player is VERY LIKELY to lose the battle anyway.

[close]

Esper's suggestion was somewhat about point 3(b), however, IMO I prefer that it should not be changed, I think, even for people who didn't played the game can make out the joke in the strip by discovering some of the above points, just by reading the last panel, maybe re-reading the strip several times (I need to read it twice to get the joke), adding that line would give a hint that makes things too obvious, and would ruin the humour in it, it'd be more funny if you can get the joke from it completely by yourself.

[Las Naranjas]

Fluke is on the right track with the pokemon comic, the joke itself is funny and his execution will improve.

Plus I'm tempted to scan some of the comics I did at a roughly similar age.

[Nacho]

I don't understand the Pokemon one, but I am not an expert in Pokemons... Should I know the story of the Pokemons to understand it better? Can someone explain it to me?

[Gilbert]

See my hidden quote if you want to spoil it for yourself.

[Nacho]

Oh sorry... So, the fun is that you are going to lose a battle?

[Gilbert]

Actually I think the point of the Pokemon strip was that your player was quite helpless yet you're forced to be involved in a battle (like other said).

[Phemar]

Well, the comics are better than the ones I did when I was 11! (my god, you should seen those, but then I again I suppose I did do all my own drawings).
Anyway here's something to maybe improve doing: Try drawing your own cartoons. Come up with your own characters and create as many different funny scenarios as you can with them. Then you can pick your way throught the ones which aren't that funny etc ... and improve!

[esper]

I think Zor's right... Sprite Comics aren't terribly great, and are just using other people's skills for your own gain, which boils down to "It's A Legal Form Of Plagiarism."

Can you scan pics? I mean, I know we've made our fair share of fun at Sonic the TardHog in the past, but simply put, I can't really draw with a mouse, either. It's almost impossible to get lines to go exactly where you want them. If you could either draw with whatever medium you're good at in the real world and then scan it into the digital one, that's one problem solved. You might also be able to get somebody to buy you a tablet for Christmas. There are some cheap ones for about 20 dollars on EBay, and once you've gotten good with that, you can say "Hey, parent/s or legal guardian/s, examine my mad l33t tablet skills!" and you can get upgraded to the better, more expensive kind.

I love my tablet. It is a 6x8 Manhattan tablet with 1024 levels of pressure, and I got it for less than 50 bucks on EBay.

And a last point, too.. I can draw fun little quick pics in a couple minutes. Have you seen my naked running guy at the end of the John Lennon thread? Two minutes, flat. However, if you look at the webcomic I mentioned, you'll see much better comics that are carefully pencilled, inked, and painted. It takes on average an hour and a half to do one of those, and even that is quick compared to, say, what InCreator or Loominous might spend on one of their pieces. Take a look at Squinky's orcs and see all the detail involved, and try to guess how long he spends on those...

The advice is this: if you really love doing something, and you think it might be worthwhile, and possibly even lucrative, spend your time on it, working it carefully and making it look as nice as you can. Who knows, if you can pull off something that people like, and start building a portfolio now, by the time you are old enough to get a job you
might just be able to get a REALLY GOOD one!

http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/comics/comics.html

EDIT: After reading Niks post a second time, I think I know how to fix the Sesame Street comic. Spend two frames showing Elmo and Oscar being all sweet and cheery, have the cut on the third frame, and on the last frame, have them break it down. Specifically, something like Oscar saying "Finally!!! Can I get a smoke over here!" and Elmo dissin' the kiddies. This technique builds up the humor for the last frame. Like I said about the Pokemon comic (which, sorry, I now understand that I STILL didn't understand it properly) you need to understand what's going on. Sesame Street characters might be popular, but we have no way of knowing that in your comic world, they weren't acting the same way ON set as they were OFF.