What Did I Learn?

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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.

Starslip Crisis by Kris Straub

Starslip Crisis is about a decommissioned space warship that now serves as an art museum. That's a pretty unique hook to catch your interest. It's also hilarious.

Starslip Crisis is a very popular comic and I can see why. It updates five days a week, the characters are very expressive and if I didn't mention it before - it is very, very funny. It has this vibe where all the characters have this despair that they'll never get anything right, after all. And they are resigned to it.

Also, unexpected and crazy things happen so often to these folks that they just shrug their shoulders and roll with it. You learn early on that you can't use the elevator while the ship is "starslipping" or else really bad science fiction sorts of things happen and sometimes doubly so. You'll have to read that bunch of Starslip Crisis comics to see what happens - it's entertaining. Of course, there is always at least one character for whom the consequences are taken much more seriously and they have to deal with it; usually without help.

Finally, the panels seem to stay a consistent size and exactly four panels wide. That gives room for the setup, the beat and the punchline PLUS a little diversion. Sometimes it furthers the overall story, sometimes it is used as a double beat and sometimes it just adds to the joke. There is also the semi-jagged panel outlines which serve to make the art inside them look crisper by comparison.

What did I learn?
Make sure your character designs are expressive. Make sure your format meets the needs of your work and makes it look as good as possible. There is also a succinct summary of the characters and storyline as it has progressed so far. Also, please note that Starslip Crisis has recently moved from its' old address to a new one, in case you have it bookmarked at the old place.

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.