What Did I Learn?

Please note: This page is no longer updated.

New reviews are posted weekly on the blog page. These reviews are being slightyl updated and ported over to that blog to be republished every Wednesday. They are all scheduled to post and this page will remain until October 2009. You may wish to change your bookmarks.

Patches by Kelly Vivanco

As you can see, Patches has its own look and feel. Along with the brown paper background and single line work, it has a very particular sort of humor.

In many comics, the humor is driven by the characters. They might have silly qualities or even a funny name. Patches has characters who don't even know each others' names or even what kind of creature they are. Some don't even know what their gender is, according to a few of the comics I read. There are actually a number of named characters listed on the About page, all of whom have a distinct look. But this is not the kind of humor that Patches excels at.



Besides character humor, you also find situational humor in many comics. That's when a character is in an uncomfortable position or suffering from consequences of previous events. Patches has a little of that humor as well.

A third kind of humor you might see in comics is that kind where you have things contrasted with each other that don't make sense at first. The punchline is when you realize what the connection is. It is usually out of left field; totally unrelated to what is going on in the comic. This is where Patches shines.

I could relate one or two of them to you as an example, but that would rob you of the payoff. Once you've put the work in to understand the jokes, the punchlines are more enjoyable and they come easier. You value something more if you work for it a little bit.



Patches is fun. If you let your mind wander a bit, you can easily see how your mind could make these kinds of connections. It's actually kind of astounding how many of these things the artist has managed to draw for our enjoyment since 2003.

What did I learn?
Explore different kinds of humor, but return to what you do best. Don't be afraid to make the audience do a little work to appreciate your work. There's room for all kinds of approaches to comics, so don't be afraid to do something a little different like we see in Patches.

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.