Guys n Ghouls

Guys n Ghouls: ** and 1/4* (out of *****)

GnG is a quirky little comic that has an early Tim Burton feel and lots of charm. Amidst a plethora of manga, it manages to do a few things to make it unique, which is always a good thing. It also has some glaring weaknesses - some it seems to be addressing, and some that are only getting worse.

Story: *** and 1/2* Structure: 1/2* (out of *****)

GnG tells the story of several kids (late teens, really) at a summer camp where the 'bad kids' go missing every year. It also follows Hangman Sam, a 'Samhain' (kind of a ghost mixed with a vampire), who is responsible for said disappearances. The creator does a decent job of introducing things, even if the dialogue can be a bit exposition-heavy, and the creativity of the story is engaging, making it a fun read.

For some reason, the story starts with Volume 0 Issue 0 - rather gimmicky in my opinion, and the issues seem to end rather abruptly, with little sense of pacing or structure. The individual pages have a nice flow (for most of the run - more on that, in a minute), but the overall pace is hampered by these sudden, almost arbitrary endings. More than once I was caught off guard to click the next page and find it a cover marking the start of the next issue.

Later in the run, the page size and art style change drastically (I'll get to the art in a bit), and the bigger page size does the creator no favors, losing what rhythm had been clung to in sprawling, over-indulgent pages and layouts. The simple page size and reliable rhythm it built was all the structural cohesion the comic had going. The story also introduces a whole slew of new characters at this point and changes the look of old characters, making it a jumbled mess to sort through. Oh, and does every character really need their own font, now? And what happened to cocoon boy? Plots are dropped and new ones are thrown in. Very confusing.

Art: ** and 1/2* (out of *****)

Where to begin? The beginning, I guess.

The creator uses one style for much of what is currently posted - a somewhat scratchy manga style that is accented by red. It works, the characters are distinctive, expressions are readable, and so on. It is rough, and fairly messy at times, and characters drawn in profile are rather deformed, even for manga. The creator could really use work on profiles. Also, the backgrounds and foregrounds are done with the same line weight, making them hard to decipher at times.

The first change in style comes very abruptly - no warning or even comment from the creator before or after it happens. A more typical manga toning is introduced, the line art elongated, and suddenly certain characters are ethnic. It's all very disorienting trying to figure out who is who again. Right when I settled back in, another un-announced change in style comes with toning being swapped out for full (poorly rendered) color, the pages are bigger and more chaotic, a slew of new characters are thrown out with a new plot, and every character has their own font.

My eyes nearly bled.

Now, to be fair - the last few pages show a solid improvement in the coloring, and if it continues to improve it will be quite decent. There is a lot of potential in the art, but the creator can't seem to decide where they are going with it. It looks like they may have, now. We'll see.

Summary

I really wanted to like this comic - it was charming, amusing and fairly unique. Sudden and drastic changes in the art, and the jarring shift in the direction of the story with heaps of new characters and concepts tossed in over very few pages sucked a lot of the wind out of my sails. It feels like I'm reading a completely different comic, now, and I'm not sure the new comic is as good or interesting as the one I thought I was getting in the beginning.

As someone who has switched styles mid-stream, myself, I find it best to warn the readers when changes are coming - or at least acknowledge that I wasn't eaten by zombies and replaced by a new creative team. It's less jarring, that way.

In the end, a neat concept, interesting early execution and a sudden identity crisis that leaves me far less interested than I was, originally. There are a lot of good things going on, here, but I feel like they're being lost in the search for a new direction when one wasn't needed in the first place.

Red Right Hand: Wow, thanks for the review. I guess an explanation is at hand,

You see, what happened is that midway into then comic I went to *gasp* college and took actual art classes. So when I went back and looked at my old art, I kinda hated it a little and decided I owed myself better to improve, thus the sudden change in art style.

Another thing is that I was experimenting using Corel Painter instead of Photoshop for the first color page, which is why it looks different since I'm still working on it. Also, the original black and white comics are done were handrawn with lettering, sizing, and cleanup done in Photoshop while the later pages are done entirely in digital.

The main reason why the story is suddenly shifting is because I cut out all the filler that I had originally planned (I draw and write everything in advance), so it actually starts to speed up to a pace that I like since the early comics are so freakin slow.

In short: I do realize the early pages suck. Badly. I will eventually redo them when I am not lazy.

What time is it? IT'S REVIEW TIME.

ART:
The art is all over the place in my opinion. The beginning is too scratchy and difficult to tell what is going on. The overall layout of the comic is confusing and sporadic, making it hard to read in order. Not only that, but the images are just too small. The only way I could really tell the difference between the beginning art and the latter art is the colour. Thankfully, though, it is less scratchy. Having all of the text different for each character makes the comic too gaudy and unsavory to the eyes. Try to keep it to at least two, three at max, fonts, otherwise, it just looks messy. It also looks like you have a hard time doing proportions. You make the heads too large (and too wide). The profiles are also rather grotesque. The forehead doesn't merge right into the nose on every person. It's like all of the characters ran into walls face first. While your art does need quite a bit of improving, I do see potential.

STORY:
The story seems rather cliche at first and I'm having a hard time keeping track of it. It is all over the place with the Samhain and the campers and now Lucine having powers. I'm not sure which to pay attention to at the moment. Not only that, but it doesn't seem to have any specified main character(s). I see that you keep adding people as it goes on making it difficult to keep an eye on anyone, really. Although, I do like how it has veered away a little more from the typical summer camp arc and into the Samhain story.

OVERALL:
This comic is mildy entertaining at some points but really needs more meat to it. The art as its perks with its originality, but could use some improvement, especially on proportions and perspective. The characters look the same with the hair being the only thing that helps in telling them apart. Overall, it is okay, but really needs some TLC.

Well, I hope that helped, I'm not the greatest writer...sooo, hopefully, you understand what I'm trying to say. Keep on going, though! I see good things ahead for you.

Yay, these reviews have been really helpful. They've partially inspired me to redo the starting pages so they fit in better with the later ones. And adding more meat to the comic like Freegurt said. Yay, meat.

...typically, I don't like to comment on my own thing but nobody seems to really be reviewing...

Okay I just started reading this today so I have no idea what changed since the last review, so I'll just give my observations:

Storywise I found it a bit boring to boot, camp and teens, very repetitive, but as I continued reading I found out it gets quite original in its own right (though ghost/undead/haunted stories have been way overused), the "renovations" kind of draws you away from the story tbh, made me double check to see if I didn’t miss a page or so, but I'm pretty sure once finished revamping the old pages it will fall into a firm frame again. The heads up in page two helps clarify that.

Artswise I really see improvement in newer pages in comparison to older ones, it's like comparing a bright colored new T-Shirt to a white polo. Very good changes, not only to drawing & colorings but everything else as well: bubbles positioning, fonts and ambiance, colors and shading and outlines, very well done.

I give it a 6/10 and am anticipating the completion of renovations.

I am now reviewing!


STORY: So...a bit all over the place. As everybody else has said, just when you start to get comfortable with where the story is going a whole 'nother element is thrown in. As for characters, none of them seem to be given enough time to develop before either more are introduced, or some change occurs. I really want to -know- the main set of characters, mr. scarecrow and spiderman, and the main campers, but I just feel like they aren't given enough time. There's a reveal that goes on recently regarding one of the campers basically being a witch, and with things being thrown at you so quickly, it just didn't seem to faze me. There were too many 'events' happening at once, with both stories seeming to finally (but stll slowly) come together. I'd probably say just put off having all the new characters make any moves until you've fleshed out the established ones more. It'd be sad to have somebody important die and your audience not really care about it yah know?


ART: While some people are saying they like the new art better I was actually pretty attached to the early artwork on the site. The black and white was a lot easier for me to get into then the big flat bright colors currently being used on the site. The page formats need to be better structured I feel, as sometimes just looking at the pages confused me, since they always seemed so cluttered. I'd suggest looking over some random professional manga's (naruto or whatever) to see how they lay out pages so the artist can get a better feel for page lay outs. I do enjoy the art, even though I have a preference for older style, it's still dark and fun.

OVERALL: I enjoyed the general story. I enjoyed the art. I enjoyed the characters. I just want to -like- it all is the problem, and I don't feel enough time is taken to develop the right things. Not every page needs to be another story jump, you're allowed to take your time with things. Although the spider/scarecrow character are fleshed out so you get a good feel for who they are, the campers I don't feel. They seem to often show up in a group of three, so you don't seem to get as personal moments if you were to break them up or whatever.