TWCL

[the_comrade]

We recently started doing online comics and would like input by readers, critics, or anyone. The comic is a quasi-biographical account of our lives in college, and has a style similar to that of RealLifeComics. Feel free to give us suggestions, ideas, and or criticism.

[fesworks]

The best suggestion I could think of would be to post a link to said comic
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[eSJayBee]

fesworks wrote:

The best suggestion I could think of would be to post a link to said comic

Good suggestion.
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Quarter Four

[the_comrade]

my bad, i figured it was already on the site...

http://ussrcomics.vaev.net/

[GlenGoldentree]

Hm... it's always sad when someone comes in here with a college roomate type comic, because everyone knows it's going to get shredded if it gets any replies at all. What makes it worse is that most of these comics aren't bad, really, they are just overdone cliches that we are all tired of seeing.

Yours is one of those, sorry. The subject matter has been done completely to death. While your writing is pretty solid, and some of the strips are even pretty funny despite the cliche, it's just so stale that it will never get much attention. If this comic had been done about 10 years ago, it would have been okay. Maybe not the best, but okay. Now it's just another college roomy comic.

The art doesn't do it any favors either. This may be the stiffest comic I have seen in ages. Everyone looks like they are doing bad Frankestein's Monster impersonations. Also, the massive cut and paste is a real turn-off.

So sadly, while this is just a mediocre comic, by no means a bad comic, it will be largely ignored or even bashed because it is some of the most overdone material on the net, and has lackluster art.
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[the_comrade]

fair enough.i've been working through the art, and have yet to be personally satisfied with the final product. i guess there are a lot of college humor comics out ther right now, so yeah, it is a little off with the timing. it's just started, so i wasnt expecting throngs of admirers, so thanks for the constructive crticism.

[wendy w]

The art has improved from the earlier strips. It still needs a bit of work, specifically the arms. In this strip it kind of looks like his right arm's broken. You also seem to have a continuity problem here. His sleeves look like they should be a different colour in panels two and three because of the lines seperating them from the rest of the top.

One thing that I think would help your art is colour I think. It seems a little too simplistic to be black and white.

As far as the writing goes, even though as GlenGoldentree said it's a topic that has been used a lot, there are still some pretty funny stuff there, although there are some jokes that seem a little over familiar too me. (Blame that on the fact I read far too many comics.)

I think if you try and expand the comic a bit, add more about stuff the characters do outside of college and spending time indoors, then it would help a lot.
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[eSJayBee]

the_comrade wrote:

my bad, i figured it was already on the site... http://ussrcomics.vaev.net/

Sorry if my own reply seemed sarcastic. I was just joking around with Fesworks' comment about the best suggestion. While your comic's profile is on the main site, it's easier for people plugging their comic if the link to the comic is in the post itself. People are more likely to take a look at the comic and maybe add a comment like that than go out of their way to hunt it down.

So anyway, I took a look at USSR and like it's already been said, the premise of the comic has been done over and over again on the net. Thankfully, I haven't actually bothered reading that many college comics anyway.

The art was, as Glen basically said, pretty stiff and empty. It doesn't really invite me to read your comic. You've gotten a little better from strip #1 but if you can find the time to improve yourself a bit (doesn't have to be pro-level at all) in some manner, it'd help you out a lot. Colour would be a good place to start. I noticed you bothered to put your characters in colour on your cast page and even did one of your own comics in colour which, in my opinion, looks a LOT better.

The writing is cliché more or less. I guess because I myself am taking a long break from college and miss the environment, I found some amusement in the stories (damn you, AutoCAD!) even though they were kind of done-to-death or boring. I did chuckle at one or two, though. Wendy's got the right idea: expand. It could be, as she said, adding more stuff they do outside of school. Or you could keep it all within school but learn what the most common and done things are and try to do the opposite.

One more thing. You should make sure your comic is easy to read. Don't use fonts that are overly decorative and, most importantly, don't make the text in the balloons so small. I know my resolution is pretty high but the default font size on websites are larger than your comic's speech text.

I've noticed your comic's been going on for several months and is up to #47. That's not a bad sign. People who plug their comic with ~10 strips in the archive seem, to me, more likely to drop the webcomic before hitting #50. If you've lasted this long, I'm sure you've the energy to work on slowly improving your comic (art and writing). Good luck and welcome to TWCL.
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Quarter Four

[toydivision]

This comic is sorely lacking some Stalin/Mao hi-jinks
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[Debt On]

toydivision wrote:

This comic is sorely lacking some Stalin/Mao hi-jinks

Yeah! I thought this was going to be a comic about Soviet Russia!
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[eSJayBee]

Debt On wrote:

toydivision wrote: This comic is sorely lacking some Stalin/Mao hi-jinks Yeah! I thought this was going to be a comic about Soviet Russia!

Ditto
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Quarter Four

[the_comrade]

well, we needed a snappy title. i'll get a strip or two in about the title, but i'm really not quite at the point of breaking the "fourth wall," so i need to think on how to explain it within my comfort level of the comic

thanks to everyone for the suggestions. i have been unhappy with my artwork, and as you can tell it has changed a bit since the first strip. i started using ms paint, but my tablet pc just isnt the paper and pencil that i want it to be. i'm now using inkscape, and i like it a lot more than paint, for many many reasons. i'm planning on getting some sketches scanned, then i'll use inkscape to trace them into vectors, and turn those vectors into a strip, but that will take some time that i usually dont have. as for the color, i did like the halloween strip, and yes it is kinda bland without color. i think i mentioned it somewhere, but after strip 50 it'll be all color. i still wanna work with the shading, but one thing at a time, you know. i also did notice the font was a little hard to read at times, and i think i'll see if i can get the comic enlarged on the site, as that seems to be the best solution to that problem.

thanks again to all your opinions and advice, i wanted to make a good webcomic, and reader input is a valuable tool in that process