Super Temps

Ok, this is my first review, so If i say something uncalled for just delete it.

With that being said, I think this comic is just another average comic. There is nothing that stands out to me, and I had to teak a break in reading it, because it just wouldn't hold my attention.

Art - This is one of the few comics that I have seen that the art has got worse over time, personally I like the original sketchy style a lot better than the flat style you have now.

There is also some inconsistency in the art from time to time, Example HERE . The heavy woman's neck shrinks about 4 to 5 inches in this particular strip.

It also seems to me you rely too heavily on the almost naked female characters in your strip. It seems much of the comic is based around trying to figure out how you can get these scantily clad women in borderline sexual poses as much as possible.

Presentation - You have stuck to the same page layout/style pretty good throughout, only changing to improve in the most part, so presentation wise, a fine comic.

Writing - At best I can say "meh", It's original, but lacks flair, the story has great potential, but doesn't ever seem to get anywhere. You reference a lot of old pop culture, which is good if used right, but most of the time it comes off as a blatant ripoff of former superhero comics/shows. It seems to me the main focus of this comic is gratuitous fanservice, sprinkled with hints of plot.

In Conclusion - This strip doesn't rate very high on my personal favorites, It seems to center around sexual innuendos. The art is nothing special, although slightly above average. The story, although original, leaves much to be desired, and I found myself getting bored of it rather quickly.

All in all I give it a 2 out of 5.

Gotta seriously disagree with the previous review.

The art has improved dramatically. Though, having said that, I still don't really care for it. It feels stiff. The characters come across too... I don't know, lifeless. The faces are expressive, but the bodies often look infected with rigamortis (sp?). I want to like the art, but it just turns me off. I also wish the shots were more interesting. Their tends to only be 2 POVs, the medium shot or the close-up.

On the other hand, I think the writing is very funny & creative. There is alot of skill and talent in the plotting and development of the book. I love the dialogue. Spot on, that.

I really wish the limitations (IMO) in the art didn't so seriously undermine the primo writing. I want to fave this, but I can't get past the action-figure, plastic-looking characters.

2.5/5

Later,
Chip

Whoops! I wasn't paying attention and nearly let this one get by. Every once in a while a strip surfaces that just grabs me for some reason that I can't just pin down. I find Super Temps to be this sort of strip and, yep, I don't know entirely why, but I'm more than happy to take another stab at trying to figure it out.

Chip nailed part of it. It's the writing people! The artist has a solid grasp of the fundamentals of humor and delivers the gag-payoff, the punchline, time after time. But it's a bit more than that. What we have here is a dedicated send up of the super hero genre and the job grubbing realities that most of us have to do at one point or another during our lifetime. Lord have I had bad jobs!

There you have it. Super Temps is about union membership and rules, about the job market for the newly graduated, about earnest behavior coming face-to-face with the realities of the workforce in general, from odd fellow employees to the occasional boss that really should have been institutionalized some time ago, and about getting along with really weird people.

The art work . . . hmmmm . . . the artwork. In the beginning, yes the work was a bit rough, but then that was because the early strips were indeed very early work and almost nobody was all that good in their early days. Today's strips are rendered with careful and accurate shading and the line work definitely gets the job done within the artist's chosen style. Everything looks just how it should look for the style that the artist has selected as his vehicle of expression.

Because the work is a send up of the super hero genre, yes, the females will frequently be rendered in skimpy costumes and risque poses - just like in super heroic comic books - and the guys will often come across as pompous know it alls just waiting for an ego deflating situation to slap them in the mug -- just like in super heroic comic books.

I dunno, I find the entire body of work to be entertaining and the artist routinely capable of delivering new situations fraught with surprising twists. So the art styling and rendering and humor is either your cup of tea or not.

I would recommend that you read it for the humor, though, and not because you are looking for something extraordinary in the art department. Fantastic visuals are not this strip's purpose for being. It's the humor people; and in that department I am quite satisfied by Super Temps.

After reading a few reviews, I'd just like to point out that Super Temps is done in a newspaper daily format -- panel, panel, panel, gag (well, ideally a gag -- everyone has) It should be compared to other dailies like Peanuts, For Better or for Worse, Beetle Baily, etc, and not to say.. a more traditional comic book like Spiderman or Batman.

Additionally, I'd like to request some suggestions for improvement along with criticisms, as I'm always looking to grow.

I wouldn't know about rip offs since I don't read a lot of comics, however this comic is very dear to me because of its self irony. To pick a more recent example there's this comic in which the skimpy outfits get mocked (the guy not taking the bank robbing seriously due to the outfit), and that's just one example out of many.

The writer knows when he's being cliché which makes it a more intellectual comic in my opinion - though it's of course all just for laughs ;)

The characters are some I find awesome as well, since they all seem to have a lot of background history which is different from a lot of other comics I've read (of the few I know anyway). I like that it has a bit of "lore" as well (you learn how Skull Girl gets her Villian Diploma for instance). At the same time you learn to appreciate certain quirks they have as the story continues, like Skiv and his coffee mug that seems glued to his hand and Iron Pants and his eternal cynicism.

About the art... It might have its roughness still, but the important things like facial expressions get through which is important for a joke to have a proper punch.

In conclusion I really like this comic. A few of the strips have too many insider jokes in my opinion, or at least I just don't get it, but apart from that it's definitely a favourite of mine.

:)

Art:

Well I sortof agree and disagree with previous statements. The smooth inking that you're implimenting now looks just great, and you've shown some serious improvement from your old strips when it comes to things like proportion. That being said you still have a long way to go. The neck thing pointed out by notlikelytocare is the most strikingly distracting thing. In fact I think if you could just fix your giraffe necks your art will have stabalized into something really solid. I tend to agree that the color is kinda flat in the new strips. Faces are another thing you've shown marked improvement. Molly's face used to look so crowded, and off kilter, like 40% of the time, 100% of the time in straight on shots. But it's much better now. Really most of the complaints I had with the art were fixed for your 2007 strips. All that remains is the necks.

The writing:

This is wherein I have the biggest problem. Not so much in the jokes, although I didn't find myself laughing, I certainly wasn't bored by them; it was entertaining. I also agree that the dialogue was pretty solid, natural sounding. What this comic suffers from, both now and then, is having a really solid premise, with very little planning. The title alone makes me think, entry level temp at super hero/villain base, doing data entry, reception, filing, telemarketing, you know, the kind of things for which temps are actually hired. Instead we get to see a character with superpowers doing real life retail jobs, which, I think, is far less interesting. Molly doesn't get hired as a temp for a hundred pages or so and then she only temps at like one place before she gets hired fulltime. And then theres only one other super temp and we only see her evey once in like 30 strips or so. The title is a bit of a misnomer.


On top of all that you're constantly introducing new characters and situations and then just dropping them, like the fat fast food resteraunt lady. It's like you think "I'll put molly in a coffee shop" and do that until you run out of jokes, and then you use some deus ex machina to get her out of there and shove her into a new shitty job.

Speaking of shit, why so much gratuitous T&A but then scribbled out curses? Not so sure I follow that logic. The butt shots make this less work safe than an F-bomb would.

I also have issue with how Molly acts. How to begin... she doesn't really ACT like a supervillan does she? I know she's new to it but still if someone graduates from nursing school I expect them to know how to take my pulse, you dig? She says "i want to be evil" alot, but she doesn't act evil. She doesn't even fegin acting evil. She some times acts like she's pretending to be evil, but thats as far as it goes. Shes also not very ambitions for a evil villan she is totally satisfied with her evil coffee shop job, she could've worked their forever. When she advances it's generally because things just, sort of, fall into her lap. Which in comicbook-land is kinda the opposite how things work out for the villan, usually the villan has the evil plan, and then the universe thwarts it, usually with the aid of a hero. Molly just sort of hap-hazardly finds everything working out for her, like she's Mary Tyler Moore or something. Theres no real conflict in the strip, which is why people feel that it's not going anywhere. I think the story and the comedy would both benefit from a little seriousness, and a little stress. Its hard to feel concern for a character with such a happy-go-lucky "world owes me a livin'" attitude unless they're a cartoon who's trying to unsucessfully put up a hammock.

I don't dislike the hero/villan union concept, where fueds are set up between the two like wrestlers. I think it is interesting and has some potetial. But who set this all up, and why? and why does the average person put up with the collateral damage? On one hand it's like behind the scenes on the WWE where hero's and villans get along in their off hours and they're guys just playing parts, half actors/half athletes. But on the other hand they really want to be heros and villans, which isn't really compatible. It's like, oh man how can i describe this... if an actor portraying a black civil rights leader also believed in all the things a civil rights leader would believe worked with an actor who portrayed a white supremicist but believed in white supremicism in real life, and they got along fine on a personal level. It's incompatible. If she was really evil, she'd say to hell with unions and the hero/villan factions and she'd go vigilate and be a real super villan, she wouldn't pull punches. She always says she want's t be evil, but she doesn't really want to be evil; she wants to pretend to be evil professionally. The difference is huge. Just because Heath Ledger wanted to be the Joker in the new batman movie doesn't mean he ACTUALLY wanted to be the Joker.

There are just so many plotholes with the way the premise is delivered that it pulls me out of the story. Why does molly get a job at a coffee shop instead of calling the dude who gave her his card after she demolished a building? How is it with the recommendation of the head of a super's union she couldn't get a job at a villany company? If I had a recommendation from Ted Turner, I can assure you, I could get at least an entry level job with the Weinsteins. And whats with heros being unable to fight with non union villains unless it's self defense? Don't they have people who are really evil in this universe. I don't give a damn about someone who claims to be a hero if they mosey on by someone gettin curb'd without lifting a finger.

Presentation:

Why is this a four panel strip and not a full comic book page strip? Superfogeys does it this way, and I think it works for that strip. This one however just seems like it would benefit more from a reglaur comic presentation, what with all the action sequences.

All and all this comic has shown some marked improvement, especially artistically, but I think it's hurt from it's lighthearted tone and the shortsightedness in it's execution. I think it would benefit strongly from a "franchies reboot" perspective, like James Bond did, with a slightly darker more serious tone you could better suck the reader into the character's world and really make the comedy pop.

after reading through your archives, i gotta agree the writting is good. the style has improved and to witt i only have one complaint. the habit of explaining jokes, not drawing them out. its a habit i try to break myself of too. http://www.drunkduck.com/Super_Temps/index.php?p=266112 is a good example. one good spit take would have resolved the ending with no need for an explanation. just somethin to work on- keep up the good work

OK, now that the huge torrent of reviews has calmed down some, I can take a moment to respond.

I think the first thing I really need to say is that "Super Temps" is done in a style of a newspaper daily -- it's published in my college's weekly paper. But some reviews were like an in-depth analysis of "Peanuts" or "Dilbert" by someone who wanted to review the latest incarnation of the "X-Men". I'm not whining about criticism here (for example, I'm going to try to make an effort to have the characters use better body language after reading how they were stiff) but some of the comments seem off-the-mark. Anyone feeling me here?

Oh... and just to get things out of the way? Yes. The necks got screwed up on the strips with Jackie. My girlfriend pointed it out to me the day it published, but that strip was completed in the nick of time and I didn't feel like going back to try to fix it. I pride myself on only having missed a deadline twice, and that was because my college workload heated up. So sometimes I'd rather put out a flawed strip than not publish anything at all.

WARNING:
I tend to over-analyze things and ramble in a very verbose way, which is why I'm putting my response to the reviews in a separate post. It's not what I would call "required reading", but it does explain why I did some of the things I did.

Title Explanation
"Super Temps" is named after the super-temporary employment agency. Most the story to this point has been origin story for Skull Girl. Just now have I assembled MOST of the main cast. The agency will play a greater part in the story later -- because like most super hero stories, while there's the main cast, there's usually a tonne of extras that only show in one or two stories. The extras gotta come from somewhere, and Super Temps is where they come from.

Skull Girl
One of the main jokes in the strip is that Skull Girl is NOT evil or a villainess. She is sweet, innocent, naive, optimistic and overall the kind of "good girl" your mom hoped you would marry (assuming you're a dude). She almost always tries to look on the bright side of things. The humour is that she's got the most grossly inappropriate personality for a super-villainess. She herself purposely designed her costume to be slutty-looking and uncomfortable so it would make her cranky and keep her evil -- which only shows that even she's aware on some level that she's not really evil. The thing that keeps her comically destructive is that she is very reactionary -- when she gets hurt or upset, she tends to either cry or blow things up. But if she were actually evil, it would defeat the whole point of her character.

Plot
The plot of the strip has been planned out for months. I tweak it as I actually do the strip, but many points in the story were set up as far back as the conception of the story. One series of jokes I wanted to do was "How many ways can Skull Girl lose a joe-job?". One job that got cut from the release was a really short part where she worked at a convenience store but had to quite 'cause she wound up stopping too much crime. That got cut 'cause I wanted to move things along, and because of a plot change in the LeFrenchies arc.

As to why she didn't get a job right after blowing up Big Evil Inc?
http://www.drunkduck.com/Super_Temps/index.php?p=265310
http://www.drunkduck.com/Super_Temps/index.php?p=265312
http://www.drunkduck.com/Super_Temps/index.php?p=265313

Characters
Hey, people do come and go out of your life on a regular basis. One of the things I love about Super Temps is the number of character designs I have to make just to forget about in a few weeks 'cause life moves on. I do plan for some background characters to return. Trivia time! Four of the main-cast characters were originally going to be one-shots: Jenny, Iron Pants, Kim and Armageddon. Some people also stay in your life longer than expected.

The World of Super Temps
One thing I didn't exactly spell-out in Super Temps is the way the world works... and mostly 'cause since they're living it it, so they're used to it. To explain it requires breaking the fourth wall, which Molly does at the start and it's something I try not to over-do.

Everyone in Super Temps has a special power. Everyone. Pearl from LeFrenchies, Paul from Flask's, even that kid who was lining up at the check-out counter. It's just that most people's powers suck or are flawed to the point of uselessness. For example, the power to cause small, lost objects to somehow show up in your washing machine after doing the laundry is hardly worth putting on a cape for.

Those who actually have powers that don't suck are the ones who become supers. Since I don't want to spoil some future gags, the short of it is that people love watching supers fight, they buy lots of supers merchandise and media, and that pays for the damages.

Style
I actually have considered to change the format from daily-strip to classic comic-book on more than one occasion. I don't 'cause it's published in the college paper (and there's only room for the 4-panel style), and because it'd be a huge undertaking to redo the previous strips and story to fit that format. I might consider it if I had experienced help. I don't; it's a one-man show and until that changes I don't see a style change in the future.

While I think it's legitimate to offer critiques, I agree with smkinoshita that another major purpose in critiquing is to offer suggestions for improvement.

Super Temps' appeal to me as an artist and as a reader is the quirkiness of the characters, the gags and it its unique 2D/cartoon-y art style. The fact that it's designed to be in daily/weekly newspaper strip format is fundamentally tied to the basis of ST's humor and writing style. It's not going to be as fluid as a comic book but it has a pretty good pace.

If I could offer any constructive criticism of my own, it would be that it might be nice to focus on a smaller group of characters for a while, so we could get to know them better (say 3 or 4). Sometimes I do feel a little disconnected from the secondary characters (except Molly, who we've gotten the most background on and seen her family, etc.) and that does sometimes affect the depth of the comic as a whole. But it is good to have so many characters to choose from.

I like that some of the characters are jerks and some are really sweet and some you just don't know where they are (until the author reveals it). And I love the continuous irony gag behind Molly/Skull Girl wanting so much to be evil but all she comes across as is cute (because she's not really evil).

Artistically, it's fun and colorful and a great deal of detail is put into each frame. Occasionally, there is a proportion issue, mainly the necks, as the author acknowledged, but he does communicate the main points and has some hysterical running gags (like anything concerning the supervillain Armageddon).

I don't quite understand people's difficulty with the comic. I've followed it for about 3 years now and I love pretty much every strip. But that's me... :)

I'll say this right at the beginning - I'm usually NOT a fan of superhero parody. It's either done by people who don't know enough about the genre, so it's off base, or by former superhero authors who have somehow gotten bitter about their past, which makes it more depressing than funny.

Thankfully, Super Temps is neither. It's more than just superhero parody, and when it does target superheroes, it's not bitter or ill-informed, it just pokes fun at the classic plot devices of the genre in a way that doesn't seem malicious and at the same time should work for people who don't care for superhero comics. But to me, it's really the combination of superhero/villainy elements and social commentary that makes Super Temps funny. The strip pokes fun at unions, Starbucks, the fast food industry and advertising - all businesses Skull Girl decides to work in because they're, well, evil, of course. The majority of the gags hit their mark, the dialogue flows well and the strip pulls off the balancing act between ongoing story and newspaper strip with a punchline everytime very well. Highlights include a pointy-haired Wolverine who looks like the boss in Dilbert, talking hamburgers a la old McDonald's ads screaming as they're eaten alive and everyone and their grandmother telling Skull Girl she's 'cute' - which she hates, of course. The strip isn't always funny - there are the moments when it seems forced, the 'prose sound effects' do nothing for me, frankly, and sometimes it slips into humor that's just supposed to be funny because it's stupid, which, well... it doesn't work. But there were a whole bunch of laugh out loud moments in there.

But yeah, the strip's weakness is the art. It has improved a lot, but it still doesn't quite live up to the writing. You're on the right track - the thick outlines and generally better line weight variation, the simple, but effective coloring and the overall more slick look are the right direction, I think, it's just not quite there yet. This kind of style needs to look bold and confident at all times, and there are still panels where the anatomy looks wonky or other weaknesses lead to a shaky feel that disrupts the overall look. My suggestion would be to simplify things a bit. You often seem to try to cram full page style panel designs into your newspaper format, panels with difficult angles and/or a lot going on in the background, and that's not your strength. Given the format you've chosen, you can get away with keeping things simple, which you seem to do better anyway.

Overall, this is a pretty decent strip. When the writing's funny, it's great - my advice would be to stick with what you do best, which is applying the bumbling super-villainess to real life situations, and steering clear of the 'haha look how dumb' humor. Super Temps is funny when it's smart. The art still leaves something to be desired, but if you keep working on improving it, it should be fine soon.

3/5

I'm quite pleased I was able to win someone over who doesn't like superhero parody. I'm a little disheartened that I'm getting nailed on the artwork again, because it's something I try very hard at... which might be the problem in itself. I will consider simplifying the artwork -- it's a good suggestion... but I'm not not really aware of how I'd do it.

I'm happy to hear how much everyone enjoys the writing. I'm actually quite happy to hear that I'm on the mark most of the time. Humour is SO volatile and personal, being "on" half the time is a feat. (My personal favourite is "Dr. McNinja" @ www.drmcninja.com, which has humour that's on about 90% of the time for me)

I really do understand what you're saying; it's stuff I've been vaguely aware of but unable to put my finger on. I get this a lot when I re-read my own work. Things take time, I guess...

smkinoshita
I'm a little disheartened that I'm getting nailed on the artwork again, because it's something I try very hard at... which might be the problem in itself.

Well, you'll have to figure that one out yourself... "trying too hard" can lead to problems, but only someone who's been inside your brain while you're drawing can tell you if that's the case with you.

You have a solid concept and good writing - the art will get better if you keep pushing. Art is 90% practice anyway.

I'm not into the whole superhero thing but I will give you credit. It's very difficult to fit a comic book style plot into a four-panel setting. One bit of constructive criticism: Watch your grammar and punctuation. Also, try and get your words across as efficiently as possible. If you can make a sentence shorter and still get the same idea across I would recommend it. Sometimes you need special words for oomph. But do your best to not get TOO wordy.

You're off to a good start. Just keep tweaking. I think your large cast might end up causing you some difficulty. Just break your characters down one at a time.

pinkertonpark
Watch your grammar and punctuation.

Just a quick check -- you know I'm Canadian and therefore I'm going to put a lot more 'u's in my words, right? My girlfriend's American and she thought I had a problem with spelling until she realized that.

As to the verbosity of the comic... yeah. I'm bad at that. There are some days when I wanna make an illustrated book over a comic book. Ideally I like to try to make the dialogue match the character... Skully runs on at the mouth, Mr. Evil tends to get verbose... characters like Jenny, Skiv and Iron should be shorter and to the point, which I need to watch since I tend not to be.

As to the cast... I think I've got a pretty good handle on them. Much of the cast has been fleshed out long in advance or are based on other characters I have created for other projects.

But yeah. I'll try to watch my verbosity.

Supertemps is a terrific parody and satire of the super hero genre.
In some ways like 'The Villain next door' but keeping the villainous wanna-be's at a level of incompetence unlike the ruthless efficiency of Dr. Argon.

Skull girl is more a misguided little fool than evil villainess.
She's a typical teenage girl who wants to make her mark in the world in a rebellious way and cannot get past the simple fact that she hasn't a truly malicious bone in her body.

The other villains are too likeable and inept to be evil either and there is a conspicuous lack of 'Superheroes' in this world to oppose them. As it is, with villains like these, who needs Heroes?

The difference between Parody and Satire is that Parody openly spoofs a genre but doesn't really cause its faults to render it questionable in its integrity, while satire attacks it in a manner that undermines its credibility.

Supertemps does both.
The parody is depicting the villains as buffoons rather than real threats and more or less defeating themselves in the end.
The satire lies in some of the fictional 'Product placement' seen in some strips that really appear in mainstream comics that cartoonists do to satisfy sponsors, indicating that the villains are only doing this to sell merchandise and making a quick buck.

This has been done before in other satires but usually at the expense of a 'HERO' doing this type of 'Selling out' rather than villains.
Furthermore, the way the characters frequently break the fourth wall to wink or smirk to the reader is an indication that they know they're in an absurd situation and milking it for all its worth.

As for the artwork, it has improved over the time from rough and sketchy to smoother sharper lining, but the artist has still some length to go improving facial anatomy as sometimes his characters look like their faces have been squashed at one time or another (eyes being a little lop-sided for example).

But he has improved body language and perspective has improved.

All-in-all I give SUPERTEMPS an 8 out of 10.

@meemjar:

While most of the time I'm aware when I've made a mistake but have to keep going anyway in order to get the comic out every Sunday, I'm going to need specific examples for the face thing. My style is incredibly inconsistent (just a quirk) so I'm going to need to see where I've gone wrong to double-check it.

Although I would like to clarify one key element of the comic which has been stated outright on occasion -- but mostly isn't talked about too much by the character because it's a given standard in the Super Temps world (much like people in any industry rarely chat too much about how it actually works to each other)

The villains aren't incompetent or buffoons; they're actually paid to throw the fight in the end. Making blatantly stupid moves is just part of the job since they follow a script.

To illustrate this, there's a key point in Skully's backstory where she's been hit in the shoulder by a 'mimed dagger' from Freddie LeFrenchie and is absolutely shocked that he's actually trying to hurt her. One of the core rules of working in the Super industry is that you do not draw blood. (It's also why Frenchie appears to take several blasts from a explosive -- Skully "pulls her punches" but when Kim hits him with a brick it takes him right out)

I'm aware that the length of the archives makes it a bit of a task to get grounded in the 'reality' that is Super Temps... and that I make it even more difficult because the characters all play on multiple levels and when they deceive each other they don't make it clear to the reader what their true intentions are. (Deception is a major theme in ST)

Just want to make things clear -- I'm not trying to criticize the review, but I wanted to spell out what's supposed to be happening in the comic and reading things like this makes me wonder if:
- I'm not being clear enough
- I'm being clear in the archives, but they're so long it's read quickly and missed
- I am being clear, but people are used to things being more straightforward and thus go with their own interpretation anyway (it's human nature)

Regardless, I think I need to do a Cole's Notes introduction to the comic.

Really glad that this was featured (granted that was a good bit ago), or else I would've missed it. That said, it's long overdue that I give it a review.

First off, I should probably preface this with a bit of a disclaimer. You see, this comic is almost like the flip side to my comic in that Super Temps follows the exploits of a young gal as she makes her way in the world of supervillains. There's also a bit of 4th-wall breakage at the bottom of most pages as one of the characters makes a generally humorous aside about the strip. Because of all this, I might be a bit biased toward liking Super Temps.

Since smkinoshita has asked for constructive criticism, I'll save my art critique for last and instead start with the writing. In short, the writing's very enjoyable. Dialogue is crisp and true to each of the characters' personalities. The exchanges and banter move at a good clip, and the gags are consistently funny. However, many of the gags (and just the general content of the comic) rely on the reader being familiar with many of the conventions of the superhero genre. That's not to say that this is a comic that only plays out to superhero fans--because many of the jokes would work for someone with no superhero knowledge--but it's certainly written with a nod to superhero fans, and the more familiar you are with the conventions, the funnier many of the jokes will be.

That said, being a superhero fan myself, it's not the genre jokes I enjoy so much as the characters. Each character has his/her own personality that carries the humor. Yes, there are gag-type jokes, but much of the silliness and humor that makes the comic fun stems from the characters and the way they handle situations (and each other).

Which takes us to the character designs.

The character designs are all well done. Most of the designs are fairly simple (and I'm a fan of simplicity), but each character is easily identifiable and has a look that suits his/her personality.

Which takes us to the art.

By smkinoshita's own admission, his art can vary from week to week (depending on the amount of time he can spend on a particular page, I would imagine). However, the look is generally consistent, even if one week does have oddly proportioned anatomy or a character's face seems to be a bit off (as some of the past reviews have pointed out). These are valid criticisms, and I would likewise encourage smkinoshita to pay close attention to character sizing from panel to panel, but I fully understand the difficulty in keeping up with a full-color comic from week to week when you have a full-time job and family, and it's often these sorts of drawing errors that crop up when one is rushing to get a page ready for an update. Still, if inking digitally, take a peak at the linework from panel to panel to see if there are any discrepancies that can easily be remedied. It might also help to ink heads and bodies on different layers--that way if you see something wrong or out of proportion it's easier to fix. (And if a head's too big or too small, if your art program has a Scale feature--like in Photoshop's Edit menu--you can do a quick scale change without really having to re-ink anything. A great time saver if you're in a rush--and changes to line widths should be very minimal unless you're doing a massive scale change.)

That said, the characters' expressions are consistently handled well (which adds both to their personalities and to drama or comedy of a particular situation).

Backgrounds are very minimal and very simple--sometimes nothing more than a flat color. I likewise don't like doing backgrounds and tend to be minimalistic with mine, but I think there are a few things you can do to make them pop a bit more. First thing you might want to consider is adding a Gradient Layer Fill to your backgrounds. The way I do this is by duplicating a layer, using the Magic Wand tool to select all areas of a background that I want to add a Gradient fill to and delete them from the top layer. Choose a much darker variation of the background (e.g., choose the current background color, then select a lower area on the color chart directly below the current color). Click on the bottom layer. Got to Layer--> New Fill Layer--> Gradient. Click OK on box that pops up, then tweak the settings in the Gradient Fill box (Scale will change the amount of space the gradient will change--larger the number, the more gradual the color change, smaller the number, the less gradual). At least that's how I do it in Photoshop. It's a simply way to add a sort of faux airbrush look to your backgrounds. Not sure if it'll work for your comic, but figured I'd toss the idea out there as a possibility.

Anyway, Super Temp is an enjoyable read, full of great characters, great writing, and amusing jokes and gags. Everything I like in a story!

@EssayBee:

Heh, I saw your comic mirrored mine as well; the key differences being that Skully's a lot more reactionary than Savunn and that for the most part, she's never in any real physical danger. Most of Skully's problems are social or professional.

I'm glad you enjoy the characters; it's really a character-driven strip and I have my wife help me make sure I don't stray too far off character nor do anything too cheesie. Mind you, I do enjoy (relish at times) cheesiness.

I have made corrections in a few comics... usually it's in the early inking phase where it's not too much trouble to resize a part.

I actually ink the work in Adobe Flash -- hence the flat colours. I actually prefer using flats over the airbrush. I find the airbrush is too easy and I like to make myself miserable (my wife and immediately family will attest to this) which is also why I do so much the hard way. (Even for scenes where I could have just copy and paste a character, I'll redraw them by hand)

I'm always trying to improve and repeated practice helps this happen. I'm aware that one of the reasons why I'm inconsistent is that some days I do the comic in a mad rush and others I'm very relaxed (that's when the artwork turns out better). It's also why a lot of the advice on backgrounds is lost on me. I think I understand some of what you're trying to say... and it might mean a little more experimentation in my layer use.

smkinoshita
I think the first thing I really need to say is that "Super Temps" is done in a style of a newspaper daily -- it's published in my college's weekly paper. But some reviews were like an in-depth analysis of "Peanuts" or "Dilbert" by someone who wanted to review the latest incarnation of the "X-Men".

Preach it, brother. Seriously.

It amazes me when some reviewers HAVE TO preface their review with "what their type of comic" is...You're just winding up to tear it down. No one who has started their review that way ever offered anything positive, or constructive for that matter. It always seems to come off as pretentious. As if to say, "You're not in my clique of faves or elitist artists". How does that HELP...ANYONE? We're all a community of artists...their webcomics. But behind the wall of mouse clicks and glossy monitor screens, where are the human beings? Seriously, where's the respect?

Really? Just review the comic. Be objective and not subjective.

Ahem. Speaking of which, I digress...

This is a likable comic because the storyline and and its writer add excellent layers of wit to the overall mosaic of the comic. That alone makes it great! There are not a world of story-driven villains that fuels the comic and the stand-out core characters really do drive the story. So you have the core group to follow without confusion.

As to the art, I see the improvements! Like any comic or animation piece, you start out with a template of visualization. Then you take off running with daring changes along the way, which eventually make the look and style of your comic finite and identifiable. Due to that fact, this comic has a style of it's own as should each comic that posts here at DD. It's art and thus has an interpretation communicated through the pen/inks/pencils/tablet/pixels of its artist.

Back to the layout - the layout is also part of the storytelling and personality of Super Temps, especially the fourth wall soliloquies. It's almost like you expect them at the end, much like your favorite movie franchise that you know will have post-credit extras.

When you look at the first page and then page 344, there are marked improvements in layout flow, colors which accentuate and add personality to the characters, and solid continuity in the story. If we put this in perspective of the newspaper format, I'd say after 344 strips, it's come pretty far in almost a year. Figuratively speaking...

Keep at it smkinoshita! The growth is there...your efforts are shown in the consistent posts and bold experimentations you're adding to the artwork and storytelling.