What Did I Learn?

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Knave
by Ben Warren, Matt Sangster and Dave Quigley

Knave has some interesting qualities. The first thing I appreciated is that each page is bite-sized. To help you understand what I mean by that - I recently thumbed through my copy of DC's Crisis of Infinite Earths book. It's a good story and everything but it was just way too much going on all the time on every page (not that I dare dream that I am somehow a better 'comician' than Mr. George Perez and the DC Comics staff, but...) I mention this because it was hard to follow what was going on and I gave up trying to reread Crisis because of it.

So I can appreciate that Knave is bite sized. Each page tells something important about the storyline and about the characters featured. Many times, the characters are shown reacting emotionally - a moment of loneliness, curiousity or anger (among others.) It is far easier to have a character say they are confused rather than show it, for example. It adds a nice counterpoint to the art and a very poignant tone to the comic.

I'm trying to think of how to describe what I like about the art. The characters are distinct and have good expressions with a slight twist of humor. Moreover, it has a sketchy, quality that is sooooo misleading. It makes me think that the comic must be quick and fun to draw. (This is something that every comic artist wrestles with. After all, it takes a reader between ten and thirty seconds to read a comic page but it might have taken the artist a couple of hours to create, all said. There's a effort/payoff ratio there that has some sting.) As I said, it looks fun and quick to draw, so much so it seems effortless when you look at it.

So whenever I see art that has a sketchy quality yet still looks great, I put on my mental brakes and take another look. If it looks great, that means it took a lot of work to make it look great. From my perspective, if Knave looks sketchy enough to appear very spontaneous and fun while still having good story and easy reading layout, then it took a lot of work. (Or someone who has done a lot of work in the past, I suppose.) The point is that if it looks great, it took real work to get it there. It might seem uncomplicated but that doesn't happen by accident.

As of this review, the storyline is moving along nicely and is at eighty one pages. The overall story nostalgically reminds me of two classic videogames from my youth combined into something new. It's very fun. I'd also like to see more of the pages colored but that is just the icing on the cake.

What did I learn?
Make the story easily digestible. Let the art affect how the story is told, keep the storyline moving and show the emotional reactions of the characters. And if it looks effortless then it definitely wasn't. You can see what the Knave is doing right here.

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.