TWCL

[pyrobob451]

Hey yall! MY comic is the Adventures of Pyrobob. The art is fairly simple, but it's all about the content. Everything is based, however loosely, on things that have happened to my fiance and I since we moved to NY, NY from peaceful ol' NC. My fiance, Lachi, is a parttime musician, which is a lot more profitable than my parttime comicry, but hey - we're all parttiming someone out there.

Anywhose, check me out, and let me know what'cha think!

My name is Pyrobob, and my hair is on fire. That is all.
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[pyrobob451]

Bumpin' for the updatin'

So I revamped the site (still ad-free!), and I've finally figured out how to use GIMP to clean up my comics. There are also some new characters! I'm still new at this, so any suggestions would be great.

My name is Pyrobob, and my hair is on fire. That is all.
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[GlenGoldentree]

Writing comics purely for your wife and friends is fine, but if you are going to do so... don't pimp them out to an international audience. Because frankly, we're not going to understand or care.

Autobiographical comics are only good if the person writing them has a very interesting and exciting life, or if the person exagerates their situations enough to make them interesting and exciting. Which you haven't. The few of these comics that actually make sense from an outsider's perspective are still utterly boring. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news nearly all the time on these forums, but none of the humor in this strip was funny. At all. This is the second time I have checked this comic out, and I see little or no improvement.

While I can't offer any advice whatsoever on how to write humor better, because it's really a matter of taste and you and I clearly do not have the same taste in humor, I can offer a bit of advice on the art. There's bad art and simple art, both of which are excusable or even preferable in some cases. But then there's lazy art, which is nearly always ineffective and will simply make your audience leave as quickly as they came.

If you have enough skill to make flaming hair using a line tool and a stylized body for your character in GIMP, then you certainly have enough skill to do it better on paper or with a tablet. Cheap but decent scanners cost $30.00 brand new, even less used, for the rare few people who don't own one already. Simple hand-drawn art with a little bit of effort put into it would be MUCH better than this early-grade-school crap you are doing now.

If I had seen this comic anywhere but a board where people are asking for critiques, I would not have read a single strip.
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Pagan Comic - The Many Moons of Astra

[Debt On]

GlenGoldentree wrote:

Autobiographical comics are only good if the person writing them has a very interesting and exciting life, or if the person exagerates their situations enough to make them interesting and exciting. Which you haven't.

I could not disagree more. Ever read Harvey Pekar?
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Primary Source News | Spinzone Comics Collective

[GlenGoldentree]

Debt On wrote:

I could not disagree more. Ever read Harvey Pekar?

Never even heard of it.

But if your life is boring, and you write about your life without trying to present it in any other way, then it's going to be boring. I don't see how it could not be.

I got up this morning and had a piece of toast. Do you want to see a comic about it, with nothing added in to make it remotely interesting? I really doubt it.

I have read stories about ordinary people doing mostly ordinary things, but the writing was poetic or insightful enough to keep me enraptured. I have read stories written with less skill about people doing interesting things that have also kept me interested. I have never read a story about someone doing something completely uninteresting in any way without some sort of hook to draw a reader in.

And that's what this comic is to me.

Combine that with the fact that it's almost completely inside jokes that apparently only his friends would get, and it doesn't leave much good to say about it.
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Pagan Comic - The Many Moons of Astra

[Debt On]

GlenGoldentree wrote:

I have read stories about ordinary people doing mostly ordinary things, but the writing was poetic or insightful enough to keep me enraptured. I have read stories written with less skill about people doing interesting things that have also kept me interested. I have never read a story about someone doing something completely uninteresting in any way without some sort of hook to draw a reader in.

This is what I was getting at. You don't have to have a particularly wacky or interesting life, you just have to write with insight. I'm not saying this comic is a good example of that, but what you said would seem to discourage many from writing about their own lives, and that would be a mistake. You should write what you know.

Harvey Pekar, BTW, is a file clerk from Cleavland who created a comic series called American Splendor written by him and drawn by various artists such as Bob Crumb. The stories were all adapted from Pekar's own life and experiences working, dating, collecting jazz records, shopping for groceries or shoes, and other mundane stuff. To me, though, his stories are so insightful they're more entertaining than the most action-packed fantasy comic.
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Primary Source News | Spinzone Comics Collective

[GlenGoldentree]

Debt On wrote:

This is what I was getting at. You don't have to have a particularly wacky or interesting life, you just have to write with insight. I'm not saying this comic is a good example of that, but what you said would seem to discourage many from writing about their own lives, and that would be a mistake. You should write what you know.

Yeah I'm sorry, it was badly worded. One of my favorite movies is Clerks. Even though very little happens in the movie, the conversations they have and their every-day lives are presented in a way that makes the audience care, laugh... maybe cry... though I doubt it.

Anyway, I didn't mean to suggest that unless you are a rock star or hollywood stuntman you shouldn't write about your life. But it has to be presented in an interesting way. You can't just present the events that happened in the same way that they happened if they weren't all that interesting to begin with. You may have to combine things, or change things, or at least add a bit of "poetry" to the writing.

A character walking down the street is not interesting. A character walking down the street thinking a profound thought may be interesting. A character doing something interesting while thinking a profound thought is far more interesting.

Thinking Ape Blues is a good example. Surrealism aside, those guys don't do much, really. But it's one of my favorite comics because the writing is freaking brillliant and the art is also great.
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Pagan Comic - The Many Moons of Astra

[NobleSavage]

Hm. I really enjoyed the few strips with the "new dog" bit... but the rest, eh. See above posts.
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Oh, and read 'Culture Plop', too.

[Debt On]

GlenGoldentree wrote:

You can't just present the events that happened in the same way that they happened if they weren't all that interesting to begin with. You may have to combine things, or change things, or at least add a bit of "poetry" to the writing. A character walking down the street is not interesting. A character walking down the street thinking a profound thought may be interesting. A character doing something interesting while thinking a profound thought is far more interesting.

Agreed. To pull it off, you still have to be a good writer. Possibly an even better writer.

A little confused about the Thinking Ape Blues example, tho.
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Primary Source News | Spinzone Comics Collective

[GlenGoldentree]

Debt On wrote:

Agreed. To pull it off, you still have to be a good writer. Possibly an even better writer. A little confused about the Thinking Ape Blues example, tho.

Yeah, I think you have to be a much better writer, because the draw of the comic won't be the action at all, but the writing. The art would just offer a structure for that writing to take place. So rather than the art sharing the load, the writing carries the whole project.

Thinking Ape Blues is simply the only comic I read where what the characters are doing is completely beside the point. I know it isn't an autobiographical comic (so far as I know, hahaha) . But the writing is really the emphasis for the vast majority of the strips. The characters are usually doing something interesting as well, but it usually has absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter.

Probably a bad example. I need to read more comics I guess.
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Pagan Comic - The Many Moons of Astra

[pyrobob451]

GlenGoldentree wrote:

Combine that with the fact that it's almost completely inside jokes that apparently only his friends would get, and it doesn't leave much good to say about it.

Actually, I don't use any inside jokes. What sounds like an inside joke? I explain everything pretty well in the blog - unless, of course, you didn't read that. Not that I blame you I guess, but that's kinda like playing a video game and not reading the instructions. You see the same thing, but you don't really know what you're supposed to do with it.

If it's the 'Emergency Rashins' joke, no one else seems to get that one either, so don't sweat it.

GlenGoldentree wrote:

A character walking down the street is not interesting. A character walking down the street thinking a profound thought may be interesting. A character doing something interesting while thinking a profound thought is far more interesting.

Well, I'll let you know when I do something more interesting than walk down the street thinking stupid things. Otherwise, since I bore you so much you feel obligated to let me know how uninteresting my comics are, then you should probably just not read it. You burned my comic once, and while I appreciate your tenacity, I really didn't need you to burn it again. I remember.

And yeah, no one in my comic is a monster, or sensually drawn, or involved in a love triangle, or own weapons, or have major antagonists, or fight zombies, or know kung-fu, or have a secret past that will reveal the End of Times, or have furry bodies, or curse a lot, or pose intriguing questions, or were touched as a child, or be drawn by hand, or have backgrounds, or have a rich uncle who just died and left a fortune, or face inner demons, or whatever it is that makes a good story a good story.

My comic is simply me and my friends living fairly normal lives. A comic about nothing. I'm neither creative nor artistic - my fiance has all of that. I've been reading webcomics for years, and have always been amazed by the balls it takes to put oneself out there, naked and unsupported, for all the world to see.

Most don't make it. Either the artist stops from lack of support, or even if they tough it out, they spend a significant amount of time and money on a project that will never give them a return on their investment, and may even just embarrass themselves day in and day out.

I'm fine with this. I know my characters don't have much to their look, but beleive it or not I do have access to a scanner - only none of my hand-drawn attempts have any potential as far as I'm concerned. I like how they look, I like the simplicity involved in manipulating them to how I want them. And it is a format that is easy to add on to and to play around with. Just like PlayDoh ^_^

And yeah, the jokes are corny. They get better (I've got updates set up for the next month and a half), and I even have a small subplot coming up. All of my content is something that had to do with my day. The people I tell my stories to seem interested, atleast vaguely, so when something particularly peculiar happens to me, I make a comic. Think of it like a blog with pictures.

In fact, there you go: for those who don't like the comic aspects of my work, atleast it's more appealing than reading a blog by itself. My pictures may not be worth a 1,000 words, but its worth a couple hundred atleast.

Did anyone find anything redeeming about this? atleast the website?

My name is Pyrobob, and my hair is fire. That is all.
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