What Did I Learn?

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Dr. Sheep and the Aardvark by James Spence.

I was immediately struck by the successful use of black and white artwork. I mused on it for awhile as I read the archives, and it seems to me that it has a lot to do with the 60%-30%-10% ratio of values. This webcomic is about 60% grey, 30% white and 10% black. I've also seen a successful guideline mentioned as 25% white, 25% black and 50% mid-tones. It makes the art very engaging.

If you look back through the archives, you can see how he came to have this style. It took some time to get a finished and polished look. That is very encouraging to note because I can see a clear improvement over time. It gives me hope that I might see definite improvement when I look back over my own work.

Likewise, the stories are crisper in their storytelling. You can also see an improvement in the dialgoue as well. This reinforces the need to continue practicing your craft. Dr Sheep and the Aardvark is a perfect example of what hard work can accomplish. If you read some of the comments, you can see what adjustments James made. It's very instructive.

The strips are somewhat meandering in content with most not grouped in storylines, especially the early ones. This kind of worked against the strip due to the odd nature of the characters. But later, after a hiatus, the strip was back with more of a guiding vision.

Your audience wants to be entertained, right? They want to be amused and to laugh and have something fun to share with their friends. So what is your guiding vision? What are you offering your audience? Are you consistently guiding their experience as they read your comic day in and day out? If it's just meant to be a daily gag, that's fine. It's something to consider. Think about how chapters serve to highlight special aspects of a book's contents...are your strips building chapters? Are they moving towards a crescendo? It's important for any work to be thematically linked.

What did I learn?
You might not realize that you're improving but you probably are. It will probably hurt due to the time and effort you'll need to expend, but it is worth it. Also, what is it that your strip is building towards? What sort of experience do you want to provide your audience? As always, I have much to work on. Lastly, Dr. Sheep and the Aardvark proves that a black and white comic can be interesting and successful.

Next week's review: Jump Leads.

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.