Mmmmmyep.

http://www.drunkduck.com/Dofus_Stories

hmmm, not bad.

Story: it seems that this is basically an novel comic with different random stories and stuff. with different characters....
in the first chapter, you got some character who lost her memory and trying to figure out who she is... ends with an twist. The next story, an murder mystery of sorts.
It seems that there's plenty of themes and stories to intrest about everyone. if you didn't like one story, you could move on to the next one as seeing the next one may just catch your fancy.

Artwork: to me, there's two kinds of sketchiness-- the bad, messy rough kind and the smooth, good sketchy quality. Thankfully, this comic seems to be the latter... it's combined with smooth nice coloring and shading too, which adds to the artstic quality of this comic.
there seems to be no problem with Anomnity far as I can tell, and the artist draws animals and Humans beautifully.

Characters: although some characters only appears briefly, you still get a good idea of how they're like as people, as seeing thier personalities are evient.
it's also easy to tell them all apart, which is also another big plus in webcomics.
the only problem with this I have is that some characters that I really grow to like, only appears in one story but not the others.. so basically I never get to see my favortive characters again.

overrall: not bad... great for all those people who wants some variety in thier reading online. :)

I really enjoy the writing in this one. It's different and it's well done; two things that aren't always found together. The prose is excellent for the short story writing that is being used. The thing to take note of, though, is that, with a narrative like this, the focus is the narration more than anything else. It makes it difficult to focus on the characters or really develop them. The character of December was fleshed out a bit, but only to a minimum. Of course, narration over characterization is a personal choice. Changing storylines like this make it difficult to integrate the two and I'm not even sure how well it would work here, but I think it's something to be considered.

As for art, I also like the sketchy style. Everything looks fine in terms of actual art. With the pages themselves, the author took the advice of early comments and moved from a compact and systematic page layout to make more space for the art and more variation as a whole, which was really nice to see. There was a decent bit of trying out different things and listening to recommendations by readers, making for a quicker progression to a better comic. Any author who is mature and brave enough to take criticisms and try new things is sure to improve, and I really liked seeing that happen here...even though it hasn't updated in awhile.

My major problem with this is that it doesn't strike me as a comic. Sure, it has panels, but it's meant to be read more as an illustrated storybook instead of a comic.

I'm guessing the reason you do this is to save time, or because you value your writing skills more than your artistic ones. However it doesn't interest me nearly as much when it's laid out this way.

What you could try is take the text, put it in boxes and put them inside the panels, and therefore you could make them seem more integrated. However since the text is located out-of-panel, it's like the art and writing are seperate things, which I can't really get into. In comics, art is meant to carry the description in the story so that the writing doesn't have to. Text is supposed to be relegated to dialogue and little captions perhaps narrating a little bit or telling the reader the location. I wouldn't be against the method you're using if it worked, but I don't think it does. At least I don't have any desire to read it when it's laid out this way.

The art is fairly good, although sparse on backgrounds. Characters are easily recognizable, but I don't feel any interest towards them because it feels like the art and writing are contained in seperate worlds. The problem isn't the story or the writing, it's more the lack of meshing together than poses a problem for this creation.

This comic was diffinately a change in reading comics. It's combining art with story props and it's pulled through successfully.

Art: This style is pretty cool. :) The sketchiness is eye catching but it isn't horrible. It's easy to tell the difference between characters. Just be careful, too sketchy and it'll ruin the mood of some of the stories. Sometimes this kind of style can drag into a mess. As long as you keep your shading and smooth blends, I think you'll do fine. The art also fits in with the story. Kinda like a story book.

story: Considering it only has two short stories together, I can't say much of the overall deal, but hey, a collection of stories can be cool. The first story had me a little lost, but after reading it again I got to understanding it. Though, the writing style is something I'm not use to reading. Not too many grammical mistakes, but I do feel that some sentences and clauses could've been organized differently. Spelling is beautiful. :) I can't wait to read what other stories you have in mind!

Characters: Characters are well developed. :) I don't have much to say here.

Since you're justing starting (I know, you got one short story already done up and all) I feel that I can't really review much more. You seem to be developing your own feel to this sort of comic/story thing. I think as you create more stories for this collection you'll have gotten a great grasps on the feeling, the art style, and the writing style. I'll be watching you. ;) Keep drawing and writing this comic.

overall: Undecided. But keep up the good work!

All categories are rated on a positive number if I liked it. The more, the better. Negative points means I didn't like something. Some categories are made up on the spot. But ending up with a positive number is a good thing.

Art (+3): I will say I liked the art. The artist, only known as the title of the comic itself Dofusstories, so I will call her(?) Dofus I suppose; knows how to draw, shows consistancy, seems to know how to experiment without changing the style too much. Dofus seems to be capable enough, and has style. I liked the style, it is sketchy with soft watercolor like colors which do not hurt the eyes and no one panel dominates the scenes being shown. Dofus has the potential!

Story (-1): Not much to be found here. There is a story, well two stories so far mixed with some filler between. The stories are told through prose outside the illustration, rather than spoken 'bubble' dialog. Still works as a medium for telling an illustrated story. But the stories themself didn't seem meaty enough and didn't grip me. This is possiblely because the first was too brief and the second hasn't been updated since November.

Characters (+0): The characters are okay, but I didn't get hooked into them on either story. Again, because of the length. I feel that Dofus didn't give enough room to any of the characters. It seems more like an art/story experimentation rather than a story of characters. We never get to really know any of them...yet. Perhaps expanding on these stories would help. No points given either way.

Standoutishness (-2): Since the author has not been around since November, it's kinda hard to say this will stand out. The only thing that really stood out to me was the art, but I wouldn't mark it a favorite on art alone. It failed to grab me. I hope the author returns and does something though. I think Dofus has GREAT potential to make something that stands out more.

Floofalness (+1): I made up this word. Accept it. It tilts the points a little because I do want to like this artists work.

Overal +1 - The artist has a great talent for illustration. I hope Dofus comes back with a stronger project. I recommend this comic if people want to learn how to use nice rendering and soft colors, cause that is the strength of this work.

Art:
Character and background drawings are great. The background had distance. Multiple angles were incorporated. The character designs are beautiful and sexy. Expressions are good.

Layout: I really didn't like the layout. In the majority of the first story the panels were in square identical sized boxes. Panels need to be mixed up a little. Different sizes and shapes. Composition of the panels is the beauty of a comic page. Like a stain glass window...

Writing: I really didn't like the writing on side of every panel. The lacking dialogue bubbles didn't help either. This was truly more of a illustrated script than a comic. I personally have a distaste for long explaining paragraphs in a webcomic. In a print it wouldn't be so bad, but not for a webcomic.

Story: Okay. 1st one. Nothing that amazing. (December was a pretty cool character, yet I wonder why she wasn't very cold in that snow wearing so little...) 2nd one looks like it's going somewhere. A mystery and murder and that. It's more dark and interesting.

All in all. If one is ok with the reading 6/10 above average. If not 4/10. At least come for the pictures.

I have never seen such reviewery!

Great job all around, thanks everyone!

Oh wow. I didn't know anyone would actually review this comic!

I'm sorry I was away for so long, I moved and got involved with other things for a while.

To be quite honest, I didn't like this project after I came back to it and scrapped it entirely. The main reason for this was because of the limitations having a wacom set for me--sketchy art. I couldn't stand it.

Which is a shame, I planned on doing a lot with this story and everything would have actually tied together. For those who were wondering--yes, the characters from the first story would have come back for further development. But oh well. :(

I also messed up when I registered, and by mistake but the name of the series as my username. I reaaaally didn't like that.

To answer ccs's queries, this was done in Prince Valiant style because a lot of the "hardcore" fans of this series were older, or still read that series today. I did a lot of deliberation on how to actually tell this story, and so I took a census and found this style suited everyone a lot better than the other way I could have told it (with word bubbles). It also made it easier to provide a French translation (which we tried doing, briefly), cutting out the English at the bottom of each panel and putting the translated version of it for French readers instead.

But! I do agree with you that this series doesn't catch everyone's attention. What can I say, it was meant for the bookworms, really. ^^

I did get a new program, which smooths out my lines when drawing and helps me to actually create panels (Opencanvas, which is what this was originally created in, I could only make a black background and then put in white boxes for panels--which sucked!). If you do believe this story is salvageable, I'll continue it, but if not, I'm content to just leave it behind as an experiment.

All in all, thank you everyone for your comments and reviews! It was highly appreciated.

Art:

I'll do this first cause I really liked it. 5. I'm a big fan of this sratchy tablet style, but thats just me. Anatomy looks solid to my untrained eye. Expressions are wonderful 90% of the time. I'd say a bang up job for what you were trying to do in the this department.

Oh and I loved every panel with a dead or injured person. You have a nice grasp on pain.

Writing:

This is where a lot of online stories lose me. 2.5. You use a lot of original names for things and then kind of skate over what they are. The names of the races, the cat, the God in the later story (i'd link but I was having trouble loading some of your pages, my connections fault not yours). Overall I think the writing was a little annoying in volume and not generally up to the high quality of the art. The story was a little had to follow at times as well, especially in the later story.

Mood:

Enchanting at times eerie in others. The colors and atmosphere make this comic worth it for me. A very nice job indeed 4.

Layout:

I'm going to agree with a few of the reviewers so far and say that this was reasonably irritating. I'm okay with illustrated stories but when the text starts to get long without supporting pictures I start to get sleepy.

Overall:

I put this in another review I did but I think it holds true. The average writing should not detract from what is otherwise excellent art. 3.9