What Did I Learn?

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Eskimo Dave
created and drawn by Mike Hartigan, layout by Tony Devito, colors by MAD Conk and written by Adam Vermillion

Eskimo Dave is a comic with lots of fun things about it. Since I firmly believe in letting you experience comics for yourself, I'll just say that Eskimo Dave is the main character with a big future ahead of him. He's going to be very busy.

The art is done in a shaded cartoon style with well designed characters and great colors. You can tell the artists are really enjoying their work. Even litle things like the narration and stylized speech bubbles contribute to an enjoyable reading experience.

There are also some clever visual gags to enjoy. I can not get enough of them. These are the kinds of things that you can easily overlook when you have a deadline to meet. It takes not only creative vision but also time and effort to make something really noteworthy.

Complementing the art, we have snappy dialogue and fourth wall breaking comments embedded in the characters' dialogue. You have to pay close attention or you'll miss them. There are also little things the characters say and do that relate to what happens in the next episode. Most of them I didn't catch until my second read through.

What did I learn?
I need to leave more surprises and visual gags in my work. I need to give myself the time to be as creative as possible and create the best work I can. Eskimo Dave has a lot of fun in store for its' audience.

Next week's review: Newt and John.

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.