What Did I Learn?

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Cow and Buffalo by Mike Maihack.

First thing's first. It goes without saying that the artwork is pretty catchy. The linework is light but has just enough weight in the right spots. The broad sweeps of color play off the lines and are just enough to dress it up. I also like the tall page format. As a package, it elegantly frames the work and makes me feel something along the lines

That said, veer off with me into a tangent. You know how you can watch some humorous shows and movies that are just too much? There are too many jokes that run into each other and repetitiously hammer the same silly thing over and over? They make a big deal out of something that was maybe worth a side joke and is just unrelated to the overall scope of the movie. Or sometimes they are just so absurd that you can't really make heads or tails of what is going on? The point of all this is that absurd humor is tough to do well, especially over time.

Cow & Buffalo is absurd humor handled very well, week in and week out. Just look at this comic. If you weren't too distracted and actually came back to this review, ask yourself: Could you pull that off every week? When I saw the title Cow & Buffalo I thought it might be amusing but it didn't strike me as a humor goldmine. I stand corrected.

As of this review, there is a particular story arc of Cow & Buffalo coming to an end. It's all about animals becoming superheroes and sidekicks, with all the silliness that comes from really analyzing some superhero tropes. See what I mean? And part of what makes the humor work in this storyline is how the superhero themes are revisited but nothing is over-worked. Humor should never be forced. It should flow naturally from situation and character. This is one area I need to do some work on.

In the case of this Cow & Buffalo story arc, you have farm animals pretending to be superheroes - it's really a bit of absurd nonsense. You just can't take it seriously. And the funny stuff comes out quite naturally.

What did I learn?
How you present your art is just as important as the work itself. What does your audience feel when they first glance at your work? Does the comic cause your audience to respond before they read the word balloons? Is your style of humor (or gothy angst, zany outlook, etc) enhanced by the art? Is the humor sometimes a stretch? We're all our own harshest critic, so we might as well ask ourselves some harsh questions and see some improvement. I hope you enjoyed the review of Cow and Buffalo. You may also read another review of Cow and Buffalo at Comixpedia.

Next week's review: The Boids.

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.