What Did I Learn?

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Casey and Scotty by Scott and Casey Tapp.

How do I summarize what I like about this comic? Taking my cue from the diamond marketers, I'll harp on Consistency, Clarity and Color.

I'll start with Casey and Scotty's Consistency. That's a good thing for all of us to focus on. There's a reason why this comic is so consistently rendered but it's not as important as what being consistent is all about. Well rendered characters should look the same every time they are shown from the same point of view. To not do so is distracting at best. And yes, I still have to work on that as well.

But it's not just consistency in the artwork. The writing and dialogue is handled in such a way that you understand that different people are speaking. And you know who is who.

This is a nice segue into Clarity. It's very clear what is going on, even when the 'action' is just a word effect like "plickity." If that confuses you (and by itself, it should,) just check out the plickity plickity. The point is that there is very good storytelling and there's a very solid clarity here. There's never any confusion about what is happening (unless there's supposed to be.) [Note: This concept of clarity is discussed in the book Making Comics by Scott McCloud.]

Finally, I wanted to mention Color. The colors and textures are somewhat muted but they have a nice amount of life to them. The brighter colors of the characters pop right off the much more muted backgrounds. This forces the viewer to pay attention to the action. It takes good judgement to find the right colors for a given comic and I think it's worth talking about.

What did I learn? Be consistent in your art and the writing. Tell your story clearly. Use color to focus your audience's attention. Of course, it is overall a solidly done strip and you will want to see Casey and Scotty for yourself.


Next week's review: Cow and Buffalo.

Previous Reviews

Battlegate| Butterfly| Good Ship Chronicles| Evil, Inc.| Madscott| Jefbot| Chronicle| Sheldon| Stardrop| Theater Hopper| Knave| Lullaby| High Moon| Metadawn| Dead Days| PC Weenies| Ask Maridee | Tiny Folk | Gordian Algebra | Starslip Crisis | The Front | Coffee Time Comics | Patches | Little Creature | The Horrible Pirates | Serenity Tales | Crashlander | Girl Genius | This Is Me | Handle With Care | SuperFogeys | Copper | Eskimo Dave | Real Life | Chateau Wonderful | Count Your Sheep | Breakpoint City | Eeekeemo | Boxcar Astronaut | Zip and Li'l Bit | Wally & Osborne | Jump Leads | Dr. Sheep and the Aardvark | Station V3 | Dresden Codak | Lab Ratz | Toyzville | The Boids | Cow and Buffalo | Casey and Scotty | Just Outside | The Pretentious History of Everything | Tia's World | Quirks | Patrick Grey | For What It's Worth | The Sixth Dimension | Max and the Gorilla Goon Squad | Rainbow Orchid | Neko and Neko | Lions, Tigers and Bears | Spacequint | Lessons In Fire Safety | Corrupt Hardware | Enker's Tale | The Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allan Poo | A Rusty Life | You'll Have That | From the Margin | Jitterati

About These Reviews

I love comics and I'm always looking at how I can improve my own work by examining other creators' works. It's such a wildly diverse field that it's not advisable to make sweeping generalizations and ignore special circumstances and subjects.

There's a lot we can learn from one another. And while there are many forums where you might discuss this, I haven't found any lengthy discussion on what we can do to make our comics more successful. There are a few good books on the subject but the aspiring webcomic creator is forced to learn by sheer brute force practice how to adapt his/her personal style to the medium. This is not as efficient as it could be.

Also, there are literally thousands of webcomics but only a handful of places where you can find decent, regular reviews. The focus of my reviews will be on trying to determine what is positive, successful and worth emulating about each comic. You might even get hooked on a given comic you read about here.

You may also wonder where the 'criticism' is and where the negative things about the comics are pointed out. As a matter of fact, I did mention some dissappointing issues with layout and such in my initial reviews. I quickly came to the realization that it's easy for any viewer to know what they like and what they don't. I don't need to call extra attention to the negative. I have, on a few occasions, emailed a webcomic author with a few ideas for improvements but there's no need to make that information public.

I'm not trying to sugarcoat anything, mind you. I just wish to have an open discussion about what good comics do. Hopefully, more voices will join in.