P.O.W.! Challenge 19--Final Poll

[Ilaekae]

Final Poll: P.O.W.! 19: 50 Feet Down

A bit late posting AGAIN--DAMN ice brought my power lines down again--apologies for that. We do have four entries to post. Congratulations to everybody who fought their way through to the end.

The voting will be open for roughly two weeks. Vote for one artist, and just to remind you--the theme is "50 Feet Down," with any interpretation you felt appropriate to your story. The art could have been either black and white or color, so don't let that sway your vote.

Artists are posted in alphabetical order...

[Ilaekae]

Cookiedough...

[Ilaekae]

Grief...

[Ilaekae]

Oni Rem...

Had some trouble getting Oni's art to load at my end...let's see if this corrects it...

[Ilaekae]

shannanigan...

[vandalrat]

Voted Cookiedough. Because it was a nice read and felt complete. The art could use some work, but it's telling the story so it's doing it's job.

Grief: It may be a good intro to a 50 page comic, but as a standalone all I tougth when I finished reading was WTF was that about? Maybe it's too deep and I can't grasp its concept.

Oni Rem: Firts page seem to not contribute, also, I don't like having to figure out what the characters are saying, neither do I think most readers would, as it is rigth now it looks more like 1337 speech transcription rather than a accent. Also I'm not sure I understand what it going on, wasn't the kid intention to split the hobo in half in the first place? Then the panel showing him startled about drooping the coin it's only confusing me about what's going on.

Shannanigan: Nice art, but I think you are misleading me as to what I have to see, in the first page, when her jetpack whatever thing fails, I failed to notice it because I first read the texts and give a glance at the faces speaking, they are the focus of this panel, and they aren't even saying anything important, then I see the woman cursing, but you give me no indication the her thing failed, relying only on the previous panel, which I failed to notice the first time. Then the girl comes crashing into the bridge, yet again it's hard to make up, I think a setting profile view would have worked better to show her distance to the bridge. And the reason I dindn't vote for this is, basicaly, is because it's a girl crashing into a bridge, that's it.


Last I have a question, what should we, or at least I be looking for when voting, is it a simple "the one I like the most", or this site being directed at developing drawing technique should I vote for the most technically profficient? Should plot be considered? Should I take into consideration if the comic works as a whole in the pages I'm presented?

[Ilaekae]

vandalrat, the best thing is to take into account the comic as a whole (or some cases, pieces of a larger whole) and decide whether it communicates properly. Is the story line recognizable? Do I get lost because the art or captions are fighting my normal tendencies in reading? Does the art attract me enough to want to actually read it? The most successful will also convey an emotional message of some type that should engage you. This is the most difficult for most people to achieve who normally don't do comics on a regular basis.

Horror and humor are the hardest to write well, but the easiest to attempt as art. Subtle story lines that evoke a sympathetic reaction --love, loneliness, confusion, self-generated fear or being self-conscious, etc.-- are the hardest of all because they tend to fail with extreme exaggeration in either the art or writing. Punching the kid who stole your lunch money in the mouth is a lot easier than asking the cute girl at the corner desk out when you think you smell like chicken soup and don't like sports...

These Challenges are rough for most people, and I grant a lot of leeway for little problems in art and writing because usually, I know that most here may have never done anything like this in their life. Use your gut reaction instead of trying to critique the details. As we get everyone used to telling their stories, we'll work on polishing the details up.

[AUG]

Cookiedough, Grief, Oni Rem, shannanigan:

I tip my hat to all of you. Unfortunately, the amount of mental and physical labor involved in producing sequential art goes unappreciated by most folks. I have attempted to join in a few recent P.O.W.'s and never made it past inking a couple of panels. So, thanks for posting your art. I enjoyed viewing each entry.

[SalOnimaruRem]

Vandalrat i understand what you said. I knew that it would be tough reading words that you're trying to make it have a sense of an accent into it. but that was on my part to take that risk and try it out.

AUG thanx, yeah i know sequential art takes a lot of time but i manage it even when i had essay to write with a bunch of BS exercise to go with it, tons of math lesson test to take before the deadline before my first unit test, and tons of pages to read from thick psychology books, but that didn't stop me from drawing for an activity that took a lot of time also. And i didn't have great ideas also....sooooo you shouldn't get discourage because your idea didn't work out

As with idea I just go with the flow and make it go with the topic, even if it doesn't make sense most of the time.

Voted for Cookiedough i really like the story line
very cool, i wouldn't have thought of that

Grief i like your story line also. There is something mysterious about the girl she is like a person who has been train to not exist in terms of identity, but only for a purpose she was gave, very cool

Shannanigan I like the quality of yours. I had a problem with one of the panel that said "BANG" i thought she got shot by that kid and that guy because they said "that all of it" "yeah sure..." i thought they were hunting for flying steampunk girls

[Cookiedough]

I voted for Shannanigan.

Here are my thoughts regarding your entries.

Grief:
I like your use of tones and you have an interesting character with a cool design. As a reader, what bothered me is that to me there isn't enough connection between your drawing and your text. They are not complementing each other enough. The text seems to imply pressure, need, speed and that there is a big back story for the character. However, the illustrations are slow paced and calm. The girl also looks rather happy most of the time, while the text implies a more dark personality. The story has conflicting storytelling that way. You posed her from the front a lot, that makes it for the viewer hard to read how her progress is, she's running such a distance. I wonder about the need of the first silent pages. I get that it is to set the scene, but if you cut those pages out, the story still works. Those pages are stronger however than the ones with the text, as they show that she's traveling and almost there.

Oni Rem:
You know... this is so goofy this could work as a sort of webcomic. However, the text is rather incomprehensible. The only way i could understand a bit of this story, is cos of your artwork. If you work a bit more structured, you could make this concept of misbehaving friends work, but at this moment is a bit too messy. Some things are jumping too fast, for instance, we have no clue who our heroes are. We also don't know until much later that they're on a bridge/viaduct/something high and the pooping bum kinda comes as a surprise. That makes the viewer wonder about what these heroes are talking about in the first pages... is it relevant to the clue of the story? I like the style and attitude of the main characters, they're all hyper and remind me of hippie punk comics.

Shannanigan:
I have voted for your piece, cos it's very nicely done. Storywise, i can't really place the 2 guys. Is the girl a bee and supersmall, almost invisible? Sizewise, it's hard to judge. The art is well taken care of however and your panels are versatile.

These crits might seem a bit harsh, but i'm placing the bar kinda high here. I work with graphic novels, and part of the job is to judge the quality. It doesn't have to be pretty looking, but it has to tell the story effectively.

I do know my own work could've used more effort on some pages, but for now i'm done with it and not returning. Still getting used to the role of producer/writer rather than the part of reader. Thanks for checking my story, much appreciated.

[arttorney]

Cookiedough- a vote for an intriquing take on the story. I think I would be thinking of all my unfinished business etc. and I don't really have a mom right now so I doubt if I would be worried about what my corpse looked like, but I can understand it. The part about Tim was catchy. I am sure I would be concerned about any potential misinterpretations in your character's position. Though the art was simple, the lines of the figures had a beautiful flow to them except that first one on page 4, which seemed blocky and out of place by comparison.

Grief- I like this. Where I thought it went wrong was that I had gotten the impression that the tower was a good thing because it was the center of life. (and I started to wonder if something Freudian was going to happen as the female character sought out this tower). Then abruptly the tower was a bad thing that she was going to destroy. It kind of threw me a little bit. On the second read I started to wonder how she was going to destroy the tower with no visible implements of destruction.

Oni Rem- If you get a chance to read some old Cheech Wizard or Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers I'd say go for it. (I'd say google R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, or Vaughn Bode for starters) "A lot of cats wouldn't, but a lot of cats couldn't hand a lickin' to a chicken or a razzin to a rat when they were through messin' 'round with Fat Freddy's Cat." You could develop this style into something that would reach a niche of rabid followers but I agree that you need to make sure the words are easy enough to follow.

Shannanigan- I really like the style of this art and I wish there was more here. I can tell she has two more catastrophes to deal with but I didn't get to see them. The first time we see her flying the foreshortening of her legs seems a bit off or something. The figure just looks a little strange to me. Still, I think the retro look of the drawing and color scheme works really well with the fancy stuff like the break panel effects and the cool fonts.

[shannanigan]

Hey Guys... I'm glad people like the drawing style, and I'm first to admit I suck at story telling. I know, what the hell am I making POWs for then?? LOL!

The power of the Super Villain CHOW was too much for me so I got distracted and ended up short-changing my story by about 2 pages. Thats is why it doesn't flow well, I had planned to further the story with the guy. He was her "Third" problem... first being the malfunction, second the bridge closing (which I was going to have more of on the next page).

I also need to improve my malfunction sound effects.... the "Vzzzt" electrical short is getting missed in the 3rd panel (Pg 1) if it was more obvious that would help make the "Bang" backfire and her exclamation make more sense.

Not too bad for my first real go at Comic Panels, I wasn't expecting such nice comments. Thanks for all the feedback guys... I will take it all in and try to improve next time!


P.S. I voted for Cookiedough... I liked the story and the loose style of the line art with those little touches of red.

[SalOnimaruRem]

hey Ilaekae am i seeing things or is it my computer because am seeing like on mine it goes to page 1-4-5, what happen to page2 and 3???

i refresh the page so many times and i dont see it o.O

Arttorney i'll check those out

[Ilaekae]

You're right, Oni...I just noticed that. I assumed you left a couple of pages out because they weren't finished.

Apparently, not all the pages are loading for me in the original post, even after an hour of trying. It might have something to do with the size/resolution you're using. I apologize for that.

Can you send me the entire set of pages by email as attachments and I'll reload your entry.

[email protected]

[zimfin]

Great stuff folks. Sorry I don't have much time lately, so haven't joined in since my first bash at the "Not our Kind" P.O.W. but I will soon. (I hope)

Anyway, voted for Oni Rem. Whilst I liked something about all the entries, I enjoyed the humour of his the most.

[sony]

voted for Cookiedough! i liked your story line, I read a book by Christopher pike's 'wanderers' way back in my teens. its a nice book!