What Did I Learn?

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Handle With Care by Diana Sprinkle

Handle With Care is a manga styled black and white comic with tones (although it's not quite as detailed as the cover.) It's self described as a "comedy of errors" and "Summary: Eric has too many problems... the worse one is his terrible hideous no good bad luck. It's so bad in fact that if he doesn't make this one last delivery he'll lose his job at Box Xpress. That's bad because this job is literally the only thing he has. Watch as everything including trucks, blimps, and even the box he's trying to deliver strive to ruin Eric's last chance." So you know who's involved, what the problem is and why it is important.

It's only fifteen pages, but it seems to have been done in a spirit of challenge. After all, it's hard to write a story where you introduce the characters, set up the scene and then resolve it all in just fifteen pages. The timing of the resolution is perfect. There were just enough obstacles, events and conversation to be interesting before it ended. I wanted to see a little more of that world than what we are shown, but that's a good thing. That means the audience will return.

There were also tiny comments inserted that add to the fun. Some of them are descriptive and very necessary, like the word "confetti." Others are more like side comments, incidental to what's going on. Some of the comments are background dialogue and presenting them this way keeps the focus on the tighly scripted storyline. Yet others are explanations of some things that there just wasn't space or time to show.

What did I learn?
Short, quick stories will hopefully leave your readers wanting more. Consider adding in comments that enhance the comic or bring out extra things your audience might appreciate. Handle With Care is a quick, fun read that makes you want to come back.

And stop back for next week's review of This Is Me.

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.