What Did I Learn?

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Toyzville by Larry Merrill.

Toyzville is a recently retired (early 2007) comic that I have enjoyed for quite a while. I normally avoid reviewing comics that are no longer updated but life is full of exceptions.

Toyzville is cute and full of funny jokes. The cast is well designed and the dialogue is great. There are a number of other things that are well done but all that is not what I'm going to focus on here. Sometimes it's not how you ran the race but rather how you finish it.

There's always some discussion in comic creator forums on if and when to end your comic. No one wants to give up on their projects that they've devoted countless hours to and yet there might be a point where you could be having more success elsewhere. But you just don't know...

There are a few comics out there which imediately catch on. If your audience grows at a 1000% rate every month, you know that you're successful. Most comics languish in relative obscurity and it will be years before you will know if they will ever give you enough success to be worth all the work you put in. You may not even know where it is taking you, so how can you know when to call it quits?

In the case of Toyzville, the creator realized that there was a flaw that prevented the comic from progressing. He talks about it here, but the summary is that it wasn't feasible to continue even though it was what I would call a solidly successful comic with lots of gas in the tank. You can tell that he really wished otherwise, but it was time to end it. This must have been a dreadful decision to make, but it was probably the right one.

What did I learn?
If the comic cannot progress, it's time to end it. This is not the same as deciding not to progress. You might not want to print books or you might just want to make a comic for your friends to enjoy. If you're satisfied then it's not time to stop. That's the difference between choosing to quit and choosing to end gracefully, like Toyzville did.

Next week's review: Lab Bratz.

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.