Asking for feedback on a webcomic before it's too late

Hi.

This summer, I started writing and drawing a webcomic. Mostly, I just wanted to a) write something new every week and b) actually draw something every week, because my skills sure weren't getting any better by not doing anything. =) The comic has now been updated weekly for seven solid weeks. (Incredible!)

The comic is titled "Kara the Assassin", and it's intended to be a fantasy-themed humour comic (for varying values of "humour"). It's based on the fantasy world I've been developing for my short stories, which next to nobody - luckily, or to their disappointment - has yet read, either. Quoting from my current introduction:

Karaydhjenna Bourejenn, or Kara as most people call her, is an assassin working for the the Order of Dried Petals. The Petals worship Carriglena, the Lady of Withering, goddess of sudden death; their aim is to make people think a little bit ahead - they consider their job done well if people say “this death affected me”. Kara is one of the newer members of the order - okay, since the order was only restored lately, there aren’t that many others aboard either yet - but she’s already shown great promise, dedication to the noble cause, and especially great competence and skill… though the dark humour was not part of the training.

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(...I think I ought to rewrite that, I'm not the best person in the world to describe my own work concisely...)

I'm just posting here because I'd like to get some feedback. Feedback on anything, basically - the silence so far is just deafening. I know I'm not too far yet in the comic, obviously, so I know it's not really possible to give really really in-depth critique - I'd just like to know if I started on the right foot... or if my first web comic is too ambitious and I should have tried my hand at making an Unfunny Sprite Comic first. So: Does this work at all?

Most of the feedback I've seen so far has been along the lines of "I don't want to register on a site to read a webcomic" or "that website doesn't work for me". Well, I'm happy to say the comic is now also mirrored on my own web page that doesn't need technical safeguards to shoo off minors - I'm just giving a fair warning instead. (An altogether too infuriatingly excessive warning at this time, but that's not the point!)

So, with the fair warning that this comic may obviously contain violence (at least potentially) and stuff and might not be suitable for the very youngest of the audience members, and another fair warning that while this comic may be marked "adult" in these websites just in case and people looking for actually "adult" material (ifyouknowwhatImean) will be sorely disappointed, here's the comic:

• The official site (possibly involves not-always-so-well-working JavaScript age confirmation thingie)
• deviantART mirror (probably not viewable without an account, no matter what I tell this thing)
• The mirror on my own site (Site layout not tested on anything except Firefox, so...)

Aristocrazy said:

Odd how any drawing, junk or not, can make you a better artist. (although there is clearly more effort in yours than mine haha)

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People have told me that they pay far less attention to flaws in comics than in stand-alone pictures. I've always thought I just simply plain can't draw all that well, but when I was done with the first page I basically thought "huh, wait a minute, this looks almost tolerable."

Aristocrazy said:

edit: not my favorite gag webcomic by any means lol but it still is coming together. Chap 6+7 are definitely a rise above perhaps due to the bit of a storyline being presented.

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Excellent, just as intended. Though I have some worries about my ability to conceivably add "storyline stuff" to the comics - let's just say I don't believe everyone and every organisation needs to have a great big grand plan for world domination... but still, I hope I can keep the comic interesting and add some depth to it every now and then.

Aristocrazy said:

Also it seems your getting more comfortable with the tools which is perhaps the biggest bonus.

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Yeah, in the last few parts I'm basically on all-digital ground - earlier comics were based on working on pen and paper. I tend to abuse the tools at hand to create desired effects, it's just that I abuse my digital tools better than I abuse pencils.

ldc said:

I looked at your comic earlier this morning. I have to say I like this halftone method that you're using for fills.

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Ah, the secret to that is to use halftoning when halftoning is strictly not required. I was thinking "meh, who needs rasters when modern computer displays are quite capable of showing shades of grey", but I was surprised to see how much better grays and halftones looked together.

ldc said:

The first thing that jumps out at me is the gothic font you use for subheadings is almost unreadable. If I stare at it for a length of time I can decipher it, but most people don't have a very long attention span.

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Yeah, I toned down its use in latter comics because people were, to my great surprise, unable to read it.

I was using the gothic font because in my mind, the city is kind of like cities in Nordic countries in late middle ages... with some stuff, like the newspapers, from 1800s. I apparently had "of course everyone can read Fraktur text, duh" in my mind - well, I guess I forgot that nobody outside central Europe and Nordic countries used these typefaces for a good reason. We have long traditions using Fraktur, and this may not be necessarily so elsewhere in the world.

ldc said:

Your lettering font inside the bubbles is much better. Is that something you designed yourself?

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The speech bubble font is an extremely nice one called Tomson Talks. (Curiously, all I can find around the web is the SVG version - the one that is installed in Debian Linux is a plain ol' .ttf font...)

I'm basically plundering Open Font Library to make this comic, just to show my appreciation of freely usable stuff, because my comic is under a Creative Commons license. (The site is at openfontlibrary.org, but don't bother right now, it seems that their domain registration has expired. Hope they return soon.)

I'm actually planning on making my own lettering font, mostly because I really admire the lettering in Finnish editions of Asterix. But we'll see about that later...

dpaterso said:

The art style does the biz, though sometimes I wished it were more detailed rather than sketchy. Laments P.1 has an example of what I mean -- singing Kara looks unfinished, as if she's waiting for a final touch-up, just a couple of extra lines to finish her off.

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Yep. I've strived for adding details to pictures, but it's pretty clear that when I don't have the time to draw the comic in time, it really can show - and show very severely - in the final pages. Oh well, I just need to reserve more time...

dpaterso said:

Fonts are sometimes a problem, again on Laments P.1, top left panel, white text on varied grey background does not make for easy reading. The page title is an odd font, and other page titles are likewise tough to read. Dare I suggest there's a subtle balance to be found between being arty and being legible.

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I definitely need to work on the fonts more... and I'll probably redesign the logo and titles one day, too.

dpaterso said:

Parting personal preference niggle, that red on black template from SmackJeeves makes me feel unwell, my eyes just don't like it. Each to their own but a less forbidding background could do something for the comic.

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That's one of SmackJeeves's stock templates, and yes, the thought of customising it has definitely crossed my mind. I'll make that one of the bigger projects of mine.

Thanks for comments!