Reviewing comics huh? What's that all about?



Modern Day Witchdoctor

Okay, maybe everyone's scared that "witch" is in the name, so I'll start off?

Alright, er-hem. Modern Day Witchdoctor is a comic about, well.... a modern day witchdoctor. Let's start going toward the different aspects, hmm?

Art: 4/5

I must say, although it's not the most impressive art in the entire world, it has one of the most original styles I've ever seen. The characters give off a sort of simple, yet complex looking anatomy. (He even offers a simple drawing tutorial of the characters, and I wanted to draw mine in his style. :D) Some may say, "What the crap is wrong with you Kinuchio? I can draw better than that." But the point is, I've seen many anime/manga styles, and cartoon styles but this one is definately refreshing. I dunno, maybe it's just my tastes. I'll admit, it does take some getting used to, as there's little to no color besides black and white, but you will forget about it aroung page 10 or so...

Story: 3/5

Ahhh, modern day troubles. Mistreated wife, dirtbag-of-a-husband, and a baby possesed by an evil spririt. At first, it's kind of hard to tell what's going. The
characters keep it fast paced though. You keep reading and you find out there's a story in there, so it makes you want to go on. We've yet to get past any major plot points, although I think I know who the spirit is. (Not giving it away)

Humor: 3.5/5

This comic has alot of funnies. The only problem is that, well, here's an example.

You're reading this page and it's nothing but straight laugh-out-louds.
Click next to find out that the next page is not funny at all. :(

Maybe it wasn't his goal to make it dramatically funny, and I'll admit he had some funny ones in there. (Like Moonblossom's description of the ailment on page 7)
But eventually, you'll keep coming to pages that offer you slight chuckles. Seeing as the comic slightly keeps you going with jokes, it lowers your determination to finish if they are bad.

Characters: 5/5

Congrats! Perfect score, dude! I love your characters. I'm happy that they stay true to their personalities, and are not victims to no character at all. The Grim Reaper is, by far, the funniest character. The fact that he hangs out in a Witchdoctor's office makes me laugh. I won't go revealing everyone, but reading this comic for the characters is worth it.


Overall: 4/5 B+

I think it's worth checking out. As they say, don't judge a comic by it's cover.

...or was that book...?

(Big problem though, that doesn't count against the comic, but is a problem itself. He hasn't update since like, Januaury I believe. If reading comics and coming to a complete halt's not for you, well.... But, I reccommend you read it, fav it, bookmark the page, and hope he updates.)

Ok, here is my first review. Best of luck to me.

Overview: Modern Day Witch Doctor is a simple styled comic about one man's odd business as a witch doctor.

Art Style: The art style is a simple, yet effective. At the beginning of comic the art style as confusing, and lacked color. Luckily as the comic continued the art style improved. I still think more colors should be implemented, at least more colors than just the Grey scale. I know the author could use more colors in an effective way, since the biographical cards contain color. one thing I would I defiantly like about this art style and what makes it so unique is the fins. The fins make this style so original, and the author uses them in an effective way. One thing that I didn't really like about the style was when all 4 panels were just 1 scene. I don't really see why the panel outlines are necessary. Over all the simple style works and would seem to be an easy way to crank out comics.

7/10

Storyline: The storyline is set around main character's (Jason) Witch Doctor shop. The shop isn't doing so well. He works with a very comedic death. Jason is trying to rid a baby of a evil spirit. The general story isn't really essential to the comic I believe. While, I am slightly interested in it. In all 100 or so pages, the progression in the comic as only been about 1 day. So looking back at that, it does seem to drag. One part I thought was just unnecessary, was the visit with Cassie. While is was quite humorous, it really didn't do anything for the storyline. Over all the storyline could be greatly improved if it was just reinforced a bit more that their was a storyline. Maybe if you want a stronger storyline, take out the extra dialogue with the side characters.

6.75/10

Dialogue: The dialogue for this comic is probably its best area. Since it's suppose to be humorous comic, this is a good thing. All the characters are witty and the punchline comes out well. Death is a great dramatic foil. I also enjoy the goth kids, maybe because I relate. The dialogue seems very natural with all the characters. The goth kids acted like cynical kids that are bored with life. Humorous Death provided his constant sarcasm. Jason acted like a awkward guy around women. The of the characters made each one very unique. The only, minor glitch in this area, is in a few of the comics and the biographical cards, is that 1 letter in a word was mistyped. And I could figure these out, it's just a very minor flaw.

8.5/10

Other: One aspect of the page was a little odd was the biographical cards. While this is a good idea, it needs some fixing. One problem is that their are too many side characters up there. Does every goth kid need their own card? And I read every new one, and I sometimes got a bit confused with all the characters up their. Some I didn't meet until way later on. The font for the cards is sometimes a bit hard to read also.


Summary: Modern Day Witchdoctor was a pleasant read, and did provide a good amount of laughs. recommended read if you don't have a lot to do.

7.5/10

Thanks for the critiques guys! I appreciate the feedback, especially on the things you think I can do to improve.

RE: Kinuchio
Some of the strips aren't meant to be funny, you know... some of them have to be serious so the story has some gravitas behind it. Unless you mean sometimes I try to be funny and I fail miserably, in which case: 'my bad. From the beginning MDW was supposed to be like a serious comedy that was driven more by the story than a gag-a-day format. I hope thats ok?

FYI, I actually did two new pages over the weekend. The comic isn't dead in the water, I've just been crazy busy with other projects lately and MDW has suffered for it. I want to get it updating regularly in a week or so. Having helpful critiques is wicked motivating too.

RE: Copy and Paste

You're right the art is very easy to crank out comics, but the writing is a little more indepth. One of the problems is that when you really want to establish strong characters, then you gotta figure out how to still tell the story you want to tell without having the characters say or do something false...which is why there has been a lack of updates recently...

I've been approaching this story in chapters of a book, each chapter is likely to be like 300 pages. And some of the things that occur in chapter one aren't important to the chapter one story but pay off in chapter three or four. All that being said, I totally see where you're coming from, I kinda feel like the story is dragging myself. The scene with Cassie and the interaction with Frank and the goth kids aren't really important to the story of chapter one so they make that story drag. Its something I hope to improve on in Chapter two.


Thanks for the comments guys! I really appreciate it!

When I first read the title, I thought "They did a comic about my grandmother?" and then I was horribly wrong.

Overview: Modern Day Witchdoctor is the story of a...just read the title, stupid. ^_^;


Art Style: Now why do the words "underground comix" "60s" "Cheech Wizard" come to mind when I see this art? Its probably just because of the bellbottom style legs and arms and the smiley face heads but I do like it. As I've said before, I am not a fan of blankspace, but for something like this I do not mind since its meant to be simplisitc. Its easy going copy-paste cartoony style art. Some people have coniptions over that but it works here. Just think "Little Gamers" when you see this comic. Its simple but its got an interesting style. Though, sometimes its hard to tell where the eyes are.
7.5/10

Storyline: The comic subject matter reminds me of "Oh My Gods!", except FAR less Wicca bashing. Though, I have to say - as a neopagan - the humor makes me giggle on a personal level with the thought of "Oh yeah. I've done that." or "I KNOW people like that." As for non-happy heretics out there, the humor will still make you chuckle. This may just be me but I like most funny/quirky Grim Reaper comics. There are parts of the comic that are serious that throw me a little...ajar at times. Maybe its because I'm not expecting it from what appears to be a humor based comic at first. However, when I look at the author's above commentary about giving the comic some gravity, it does make sense but still, it does seem out of place. I wonder if there was a way to bring balance to the Force, er, comic.
8/10

Dialogue: With the earlier strips, the text can be a little hard to read when its bunched together but the later strips fix this so I'm pretty much talking in a loop then. The dialogue is average. Nothing too spectacular but then again it serves its purpose, so I'm not fussing.
7/10

Other: I have to say, the webpage design is a big help for newcomers to the comic. The character introduction helps with the jokes often. So if you're like "I don't get it" you can look up the character and that may help, which is a relief because with some comics you have to go to the character page or go to a certain page in the comic to figure out something about the character. Its especially helpful with this comic.
8/10

Summary: I like this comic. The art is different and the humor makes you chuckle a little but the serious bits are kind of like a bumpy part is a smooth road. It doesn't completely toss your car off but you feel it a bit.

8/10 in general

Alright, Modern Day WitchDoctor! Let's start with the story.

MDW is, on a surface level, a story about a young man trying to make it as a witchdoctor in a world where most just scoff at him. His first (?) client is a young lady with a punk of a boyfriend and a sick child. And off we go! There is a nice balance in this story of humor, drama, and thrills (a spirit that is nightmare-worthy - eep). The characters are well-thought-out with specific personalities that dictate their reactions to the situations presented throughout the story. As it was with "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey," Death is my biggest draw to the story. He has a lovely sense of humor and, in an odd way, demonstrates an almost childlike innocence about the world. Come to find out, though, after reading his bio card, that's affected. Alas. Now, due to a DrunkDuck image server glitch, for the first 80 or so pages, I was unable to see the bio cards above the comic. They offer much more information about the characters than is outlined in the actual storyline. As a general rule, I prefer all information about the character be divulged through dialogue or plot details, but for pacing purposes, I can understand why the author chose to include specific information in the bio cards. However, I would still like to see those character development tidbits work their ways into the story.

As for the art...
Nate has an original style I've not seen elsewhere. The designs are deceivingly simple in appearance (the tutorial made me think otherwise) but the amount of customization he puts into each character make them easy to tell apart and gives a bit of insight to their respective personalities. The black and white with very rare color splashes keeps the panels fresh and uncluttered. The only downside to a black and white color scheme: smudges on the paper! These could be purged with a white dumpbucket in PhotoShop or GIMP to keep the artwork extra clean and sparkly. Lettering-wise, I was a bit concerned for the first few pages as the shadow effect font made my eyes go all crossed, but fortunately, a new font style was chosen, and all is right with the world.

Overall, I'd give this comic a 7/10 - room for growth but already very solid both stylistically and storywise. I'm hooked, and I'll be following Modern Day WitchDoctor going forward!

Re: zero rose

I think as the story progresses the juxtaposition between humor and drama will begin to feel more natural. I almost wanted the comic to feel like real life, which is why there is both humor and drama (real life people are funny, but situatuions often arent), and why theres so many characters (think for a moment of how many people you know.) I don't think the humor is always especially strong, myself, but that is partly due to the medium the comic is in. Four panels is a pretty limited story telling device. But then I knew that when I started. So the story is, to me anyway, the main draw. There is some mockery of wiccans, but because the comic is supposed to be about world religion I try to make sure I'm not making fun of the beliefs, but the characters. I think from your comments, that I've been successful at that so far, so I'm pretty happy about that.

Thanks for reading!

Re: amanda

I totally agree that if something is important to a story it should be brought up in the actual comic, not in the supplemental material. But I knew the story would be slow, and there were alot of characters to introduce, so I thought the bio cards would be a good way to keep everyone striaght. I'm glad to see everyone so happy with them! Occasionally I spell out some of the information that I think the reader has probably infered from the story, like Frank's role as oracle, but I still plan to develop that in the comic, I'm not just going to assume people read the bio cards. Plus, if it becomes important to a story where Jay got his cat or something, I'll re-estabish it.

Everyone really seems to like the character of Death too! I was worried it'd be to cliche, I guess theres still water in that well!