Xaviar Xerexes

Wandering webcomic ronin. Created Comixpedia (2002-2005) and ComixTalk (2006-2012; 2016-?). Made a lot of unfinished comics and novels.

23 Comments

  1. The explosion of manga in the webcomic world might be interesting to look at. The appeal of the style for webcomic artists, etc., and how aspiring webcomic artists can make something new out of it, when so many webcomics are mangas already, how to avoid the pitfalls of bad manga webcomics, things like that.

    Mooncity

    Reversing the polarity of the neutron flow since 1976!

  2. It's too bad the vast majority of bad-manga-makers would never listen. They've got their own little comics culture, where critisism is rejected by under a wave of Livejournal whining. If they THINK they're making something decent, chances are they're not gonna make adjustments. Sigh – such is the modern mangaphile…

    Don't hesitate to procrastinate.

  3. Heh, heh! Sad but true! I'm certainly no Bill Watterson when it comes to drawing my comic, but it seems to me that for every really good manga webcomic, there's dozens out there that look… well… like it was drawn (and written) by a kid in junior high school during his or her study hall. Most webcomickers are hobbyists, as mentioned elsewhere, but there's a big difference between knowing how to put on a band-aid properly, and doing open-heart surgery. Both take practice. One takes a dedicated commitment to learning how to do it right.

    Mark

    Reversing the polarity of the neutron flow since 1976!

  4. There are a lot of good, practical themes suggested here already. That's usually what I like to see, but for today, I'm going to go the other direction and suggest some pure fun themes.

    First off, how about a "Villains" issue? That's actually broader than it might sound. First off, you've got the "how to write a good villain" article. You can examine how different comics handle villainy, which play with pure evil and which employ sympathetic villains. Also, there's an interesting phenomenon in webcomics of presenting stories from the villains' point of view: Narbonic, Chopping Block, and Sluggy Freelance come immediately to mind, but there are many more. This phenomenon might be worth exploring–at the very least, these sorts of comics would be obvious choices for review.

  5. Great idea – themes are hooks for me for organizing a month and pitching articles to potential contributors. Fun ideas work as well, or better, than more practical-minded ones.

    ____

    Xaviar Xerexes

    Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Gnaw.

  6. I was going to suggest something similar. Several of the most commercially successful comics target specific niches–videogames mainly. But I've seen comics for librarians (Unshelved), toy collectors (Shortpacked), and the like. I'm sure there are many more than I'm unaware of, being outside the niches they're targeted to.

  7. I like the various art methods being used in webcomics right now, as I mentioned previously. There are some out there which eschew the full-on digital tools, other than the obvious requirements of posting the comics to the 'net. One of the interesting phenomenon is webcomics made primarily in pencil (something mentioned on another site I visit). My favorite of these is "By The Saints", but that's down due to server trouble right now. There are others that use pencil or even colored markers as a base ("Lords of Death and Life"), and then spiff it up with digital tools.

    Along the lines of "Villains", though, how about looking at Heroes in a new light. That is, not how great they are, because everyone thinks it'd be great to be a hero, but rather maybe an article on the down side of being a hero would be fun (the Peter Parker Syndrome). Ever wonder, where do heroes get their costumes cleaned? Where do they get replacement ones, etc., etc…?

    Mooncity

    Reversing the polarity of the neutron flow since 1976!

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