Monday, March 23, 2009

Ah the tough life

The Delicate Genius

I hope everyone likes my new style! :) I'll fill in the blanks after work today. Sorry everyone my pace is like that of a webcomic artist (more Ding! then PVP :) )

Art - This is technically the debut of the new character design for Scott Kurtz in cartoon form. He draws himself very well, take that for whatever Freudian thing that means :), and he looks good after losing weight in comic form

I liked the scene overall in panel one as the background is done well and the blank heads are good as I can understand the reason he doesn't want to draw 10-12 detailed heads. I don't like the hood but I understand that it's probably due to the real life person wearing it. The only thing "bad" is that she is not shaded like the rest of the strip with Scott.

Finally, I really liked Scott's shading of his own face as it does give the feeling of the computer's glow.

Story - I really liked that Scott did poke fun at himself especially after the scales being tipped towards the other side for the last year both with this site and some of the other shananagens at PVP itself and the whole "critics critiquing" thing that went down.

It was a funny punch-line with only one flaw I saw. I don't understand why the "yeah." was tacked on in the last panel. I understand that Scott gets pissed at the other line in that panel which is funny, but the "yeah." seems to not be needed. If it was either removed or put into a form of "YEAH!" to indicate the whole audience was getting rowdy the strip would have been perfect in my book.

On a side note (cue Stewie with "Oh heeere we go") As much as this joke does well to poke fun at himself this is why I don't have too much sympathy for cartoonists in there day to day drawing of their strips. If you check the day to day twitter usage of cartoonists it is pretty damn high and it's usually about seeing TV shows, movies, politics, and other things on the internet. Then that is sometimes followed about bitching about being late with a strip , which to me falls on deaf ears. Plus, how many trips around the country have these guys had this year alone? I know it's a "working vacation" but they have a pretty sweet job. It's not sour grapes but if you hear them bitch about the actual drawing I'm always reminded of the above.

Now on the other hand with people like Scott, Buckley, etc. I have a hell of a lot of respect because they are able to suport themselves with something they love with very little of a net. Also, I am sure that managing their merchandise and coming up with ways to support themselves and their family keep them up at night a lot more then it does me with my job. However, the ironic thing is you rarely hear (or read) complaints about that, I guess it's its the daily minutiae that we face everyday that we bitch about (especially on twitter).

Oh well it the end I guess it's a wash.

Prepare for me to delete this in the morning for the flame war it started :)

8 comments:

TheOriginalJes said...

A more appropriate critique, I couldn't imagine.

A Nonny Mouse said...

You know, you don't HAVE to write something about every single strip. None of your predecessors did.

Sko said...

True, but that tended to come just before the point they stopped writing anything at all. :)

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

Hehe
Well to be far they did do it better. I like doing every strip and like the little community we have, it's just I can't use the excuse to do a write up when going out with friends or the fiancee :)

I'll catch up and try to keep a good pace guys.

R.W.McGee said...

I'm thinking just hold out and comment on the ones you feel are significant. If you need somebody to pick up some slack I'm happy to write something up once or twice a week...if the strips merit it.

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

Its cool, Im still motivated to do it 5x a week, its just the time doesnt allow me to do it. Once I lose that motivation I'll recruit for it.

Plus, I dont want you to get better traffic since Scott lieks to start stuff when you comment :)

Jaap said...

See, it's funny because he's not updating today after having posted a comic about procrastination.

TheOriginalJes said...

Just to clarify, my other comment was added *before* the critique was filled in. (when it meant something)

As far as giving SK props for targeting himself, that's good and all...

But, it would have been more acceptable if SK hadn't had several days of no comic. (It's not even a new joke.) Even with the time constraint of travel, a napkin sketch of a new LOLBAT would have been far better.

Anything to show that he's put _some_ thought into ANYthing funny while, say, on a plane or during along car-ride, to show that it is, as you say, a *working* vacation.

Travel leaves one with a lot of time to brainstorm. Especially, when traveling with a fun group of friends.

I'd say that this is the perfect time for SK to take some travel picks of his Skull Plushie, and insert the pics into the comic. Maybe as some background filler for his time away from PVP. Or, Skull and Brent land a small field assignment in another city (I know, how about a convention of some sort...?)

Pics could be a real funny (and very, VERY easy) way to illustrate a few one-offs. It doesn't even cost anything.

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