Acting Out

Acting Out is a gag comic about several young students and the antics they get into on a daily basis in their school's drama club. Follow the after school lives of Clinton, Ollie, Tasha, and the rest of the gang as they put on a performance, both on and off the stage.

Only a short review I'm afraid and the review will tell you exactly why.

The Art,
very nice, clean line art vibrant colours and good use of expressions. It has a consistant style and does exactly what it needs to. That said I don't find it at all appealling despte the obvious qualities.
4/5


The writing.
There are some nice jokes here I think, to be honest nothing about the stories have any appeal to me, a few gave me a wry smile but it was obvious I am not the target audience. I did find it too word heavy for such a light hearted strip. That is the one criticism I feel happy to make, all others stem from, this is not my sort of thing. Oh and I found it quite irritating as well, something to do with the mad grins maybe.

Sometimes in these sort of situations I read things for the sake of doing a review and find I am pleasantly surprised like I was with harkovast. Sadly the more I read acting out the more it annoyed me that I felt I had to read on for the sake of reviewing it.
2/5

Overall
Very well drawn but for me about as appealling as the plague. Sorry that sounds harsh but I just don't like story or characters, BUT I can see it appealing to others, and for those there may well be a decent comic here.

If I felt in a good position to give advice I would say edit those scripts down and lessen the dialogue in a few places. I will go with a score of 3/5

overall 3/5

OK, here's my review to acting out.

Art 8/10
Fits the comic, kinda midget/furry cuteness you see in a lot of manga books(not that this is manga but it reminds me of it. The colors and inking are done pretty good and so far this has got to be one of the best drawn comedy comics I've seen.

Layout 5/10
Pretty standard 6 to 9 boxes a page. It doesn't retract from the comic or adds to it, but since this is a comic strip the layout doesn't matter as much as a action comic. Anyway the layout's pretty average.

Story 4/10
It's about a bunch of animals in a drama club, it's an good setup for a comic strip. The only problem is the jokes are hit and miss ranging for "is that a joke" to "oh, I got the joke" to "heh, funny". It usually was "oh, I got the joke" and that was the problem. The jokes are never the "hahahaha! good one!" that I'm looking for.

So after all of this review, I gotta give it a 6/10.

My review of ˇActing out"

The premise of "Acting out" revolves around of group of antropomorphic children who are in drama class,and most of them aspire to be famous actors some day.
I really wanted to like this comic because I was drawn to the appealing art and light-hearted tone the comic carries,but unfortunately,it felt like a chore to read.

The Art:
The art is the best thing about this comic.Even though I find the character design pretty generic looking (chibi/furry hybrid) they are appealing and adorable.
The poses are expressive and dynamic and overall characters are solid and organic.
This comic seems to be done by professional who understands the principles of cartoon style.And facial expressions are wonderfully drawn and always deliver the correct mood of the characters,even without dialoge.
Overall the art is nice and clean.I do prefer more subtle colors,but it looks fine as it is.I would only suggest that it would be better to give more facial variety to the characters,not just different colors and clothing.
Again,not really my thing but it delivers.

The Writing:
Yes,well,there is too much tude and arrogance going around here.I know it was suppose to be cute and funny,but it mostly comes off as irittating.
Everybody is always yelling and arguing,and not even one dialog can end without a cheesy insult.I really can´t feel any chemistry or friendship between the characters.Yes,friends argue,but not 100 % of the time.
I suspect by introducing characters who are all polar opposites of each other,thus creating conflict,was an attempt to create humor.
But what it really got was 16 characters with one dimensional personalities.
Well two dimensional if you include the bratty attitude everyone seems to suffer from.Clinton is a show-off,Ollie is goofy,Tasha is the straight man,Angelia is the prep,skunk kid always plays girl parts,a rabbit who calls everyone a nerd and the kid in a fedora is a salesman.
There is too much characters and too little traits to define them.
Regarding the humor,it is mostly predictable,but it is for the kids,so it has an exuse.But why are most of the jokes reused over and over again?
Like the salesman kid and the bra.I admit,I did chuckle the first time,but it dragged a couple of more pages,breaking the first and most important rule of funny.
But there is hope.I liked how it stopped being gag-a-day strip and started to become a storyline in the last pages.It really got a flow from there.And I liked how it started to use different panel perspective,rather than showing characters from the waist down.

Conclusion: it was annoying to read,then again,I am not the target audience,but I can see how this would appeal to kids and families.With diabeticly adorable characters and light hearted comic tone,there is potentional for publishing the comic and making some merchandise of it.

I give it 3/5

ACTING OUT: Review by Doodstormer


Art - 5/5

Oh lordy the art is fantastic. It has a very smooth, crisp look to it, and the awesome cartoony vibes it gives off are unmatched by anything I've ever seen. Definitely a fine point for this comic! Man, I can't possibly emphasize how much I like the art and style.


Writing - 4/5

Have you read the title? That's what it essentially is. The characters do various stereotypical high school things, while making fun of the fact that the things they do are stereotypical for high schoolers. All while being in a drama class.

It does improve later on, as the characters develop personalities and the comic starts to grow on you. Once the author gets away from the typical high school stereotype jokes, it's just as good as any other comic in that regard, with a few that made me chuckle and a couple flops. Really it all depends on your personal tastes, as with most humor, but I thought it was pretty good.


Characters - 5/5

While the characters were very generic at their roots, I found them very enjoyable in spite of their sometimes painfully unfunny situations. It was easy for me to remember which character was which, and they all had their own little catch-phrases and quirks. I really liked them, and that's something not enough comics pay attention to is enjoyable characters.


Conclusion - 10/10

I recommend it. There's really nothing I can add to that, it's a good, fun comic with a simple setting anybody can jump into.