Design
Websites for webcomics need love too
Grey Vampires and Green Cowboys
Submitted by Brian Moore on August 19, 2010 - 14:00
Gus and His Gang by Christophe Blain
First Second
Vampire Loves by Joann Sfar
First Second
This is a quick examination of some color, drawing and design techniques used in two great bandes dessinées. I've kept Vampire Loves close to my drawing table for some time now, trying to glean some ideas and inspiration from Sfar's art. More recently I picked up Gus and His Gang and that's also been both enjoyable to read and to look over, saying "How did Blain do that ...?" Both artists have versatile, energetic, and very "cartoony" art styles, in the best sense of using all the tools of caricature, exaggeration, and symbolism that are available to cartoonists. They are Big Guns and worth close study. Some other artists in this vein that I enjoy, but didn't have time to fold into this post, are Kerascoet and Emile Bravo, both of whom have some work available in English (and probably a much vaster amount in French.) I hope you'll look them up!
Experiments in Notan
Submitted by Pear-pear on January 26, 2008 - 14:11
So, somebody went and bought Dover Thrift's reprint of Arthur Wesley Dow's Composition: Understanding Line, Notan and Color. And that somebody was me. After reading about notan (the japanese word for light/dark balance), I had to play with it. So I sketched the above thumbnails. Intrigued by the possibilities, but not satisfied with the results, I kept experimenting.
In comics 50, 51, and 52, I think Dow has helped me make more conscious choices where before I was intuiting and my composition was hit or miss. Luckily for me I had just introduced the perculator, who lends himself to notan, what with being about a third solid black. And finally, in these last few I'm trying to have the graphics within the speech bubbles respond more directly to the overall composition of the panel, while also cohering as self-contained compositions.
But Dow has me intrigued on a deeper level. If I were still in grad school I would probably already be researching to explore whether or not Dow was influenced directly or indirectly by Saussure's notions of how meaning is constructed, because the way Dow explains the construction of beauty in the visual arts may as well be in the same terms. Reading Dow has made me wonder whether within a postmodern framework, beauty can be truth, and truth beauty.
On Site Design
Submitted by Pear-pear on October 28, 2007 - 09:51
Whenever I start thinking about web design, I think of the term "look and feel," which inevitably makes me think of the hamsters in Microserfs. Then, I chuckle to myself and move on.
When designing the look and feel of pear-pear, my wife and I wanted a site that avoided everything we hate about webpages--ads, unnecessary framing, a crowded visual field. But that's a website in general. We also get pretty opinionated when it comes to how we feel about the design of webcomics pages specifically. If the intent is to focus your audience on the art and the narrative, a lot of those poor website design choices become even more inappropriate. With a nonverbal, single-panel comic, it's especially ludicrous.
Withrow and Danner's Character Design for Graphic Novels Now in Stores
Submitted by Alexander Danner on May 16, 2007 - 09:27
Character Design for Graphic Novels not only showcases the best in character design from the world's leading artists on-screen and on the printed page but also provides a hardworking guide to the process behind the evolution and development of character design, the key milestones of the art, the genre busters, and the genre definers.
Drawing With Graphic Libraries
Submitted by Compugasm on May 12, 2007 - 17:50
Have you ever watched a cartoon on television, and wish that you could create your own characters? Anything that is complex can be broken down into simple shapes. Many drawing programs, like Freehand, Photoshop, or Flash have libraries. Without getting into specifics of the program you happen to be using, I'll show you how to create characters, and do cool things with them.
Vicious and Faust 23 "Prepare to Launch" in graf art style
Submitted by mrmerks on April 24, 2007 - 12:56
Robot is an old character of mine that I've never found a place for.
What Comic Management System (CMS) do you use?
Submitted by zachwlewis on March 23, 2007 - 13:07
I'm just wondering what CMSes you use out there in Internet land to publish your comics.
- Array
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SomeryC v0.2.4 Released!
Submitted by zachwlewis on March 23, 2007 - 12:53
The latest version of the webcomic site script SomeryC has been released!
It uses sessions and other cool things, plus it has cool new features!
CSS Reboot Fall 2006
Submitted by nemu-nemu on November 2, 2006 - 14:48
Just a quick note to let you know that nemu*nemu has again participated in the latest round of CSS reboot! Our entire site has a new layout design which will allow us to do some updates with the theme a bit easier in the future.
I have to admit that participating in CSS reboot is a lot of hard work but it feels great when the site is completed and everything works the way it should.
What makes for good webcomics website design?
Submitted by Surlyben on July 14, 2006 - 20:08
This forum looks lonely.
So what makes for good webcomics site design anyway?
I like a simple, uncluttered design. I think that the most recent update to webcomic should be the first thing people see, followed by any ads, blogs, stores, whatevers, and I designed my site accordingly.
In general I don't like seeing a banner ad right at the top of a page, and I don't like sites where you have to click through a title page, or click over to the comic. Of course there are plenty of webcomics that do exactly what I don't like (pvp, penny arcade, order of the stick...) and those guys are makin' the big bucks, which tells me how much my opinion is worth.
