Pardon if this is in the wrong category, I get confused about these things a lot.


Anyway, I believe I mentioned it in my interview with Gunwallace, but since nobody has that kind of selective photographic memory, I'll just mention it again.

I'm interested in making a sprite comic. Yes, I know, sprites are frowned on by essentially any living creature that has ever in its lifetime touched a pencil, but allow me to continue.

I intend to create something nice. A good sprite comic. No recolours, no mixing of bits, and not a big gaming fancomic. It would be like any normal comic, only with sprites as the medium.

My question to you guys is, what aspects of sprite comics bother you? Like, specifically? I'm trying to get as many opinions as possible, to try and fix the problems the medium seems to be plagued with.

So, pull up a chair. I'll listen.

gamer stuff and poor writing aside...


poor visual story telling, repetitive panels and such like.

I thought about doing this once; but then I realised that this is an near-impossible task.

I disgree, Elements isn't far off a sprite comic and doodstormer does that well. I think it would need a good gimmick or story though.

I agree that Elements is a good comic; but sprites are different. It's more of a taint they have, not on the reading but on the writing. I don't really know how to explain it so I'm just gonna call it a curse.

Also, I only said NEAR-impossible. It can be done; it's just really hard, and I don't know how.

Doodstormer
Pardon if this is in the wrong category, I get confused about these things a lot.


Anyway, I believe I mentioned it in my interview with Gunwallace, but since nobody has that kind of selective photographic memory, I'll just mention it again.

I'm interested in making a sprite comic. Yes, I know, sprites are frowned on by essentially any living creature that has ever in its lifetime touched a pencil, but allow me to continue.

I intend to create something nice. A good sprite comic. No recolours, no mixing of bits, and not a big gaming fancomic. It would be like any normal comic, only with sprites as the medium.

My question to you guys is, what aspects of sprite comics bother you? Like, specifically? I'm trying to get as many opinions as possible, to try and fix the problems the medium seems to be plagued with.

So, pull up a chair. I'll listen.

you could do it like this:

http://www.squidi.net/comic/amd/view.php?series=amd&ep=1&id=1 [squidi.net]

http://www.drunkduck.com/Pokemon_Sprite_Comics_101

Make a sprite comic like this and then you'd be amazing.

Well Doodstormer, you already mentioned a few of the chronic problems with sprite comics. And I'd like to add a few more:

- They pretty much always have fixed camera angles from the same angle. Dead-on sideways. Some sprite comics think they escape that by doing isometric angles or zooming in. These tactics do nothing. Stale camera angles can hurt ALL types of comics, and if you can find a way to provide interesting angles, you could really be onto something. But it would require work.

- Sprite comics have a very cut-and-paste nature, and the visuals get stale quickly. Most characters in them have only a few facial expressions and therefore only express a few emotions. You would need a way to provide subtlety in expression. You would need a WIDE array of poses and facial expressions to really convey any emotion beyond, "Dude, we gotta retrieve the chaos emeralds!" The comic Diesel Sweeties was initially praised for its original use of pixel art, but I think it was a cheap excuse to cut-and-paste a whole comic... an excuse to never change the visuals or have to draw.

- No matter what, you must leave existing video game characters and plots out of it. Sprites with a recolored Sonic turn into a Sonic fancomic. "New" sprites made from Mega Man 8 sprites will remind readers of Mega Man continually... or one of the other 20,000 comics that ripped from the same game.

- Don't create an "author character". Don't break the fourth wall. And if you do, it has to be a very rare occurrence.

As you can probably tell, this would be a LOT of work. You'd practically have to make new sprites with the same frequency as drawing new artwork for a drawn comic. And you'd have to provide several different scales, even sometimes as large as the artwork in the old Ninja Gaiden cutscenes. You would have your work cut out for you.

And you know what? Even then, 80% of the people who stumbled onto your comic would leave, because it's a sprite comic, and it's being dragged down by all the other zillions of terrible sprite comics. But if your comic was TRULY good, word of mouth would eventually prevail.

Good luck, man. I'd love to see you succeed.

I'd love to see a sprite comic that's either animated, or something that's just not... y'know, repeats of Sonic, Pokemon, or Chrono Trigger.

I don't mind sprite comics if they're gonna be given something to do. I mean - if you look at the stuff for SNK's King of Fighters or Capcom's Street Fighter, a lot of people post their own custom palette editing for MUGEN all the time.

It'd be a great way to breath some fresh air. Voice-animated, maybe, y'know? Me and a pal did that. My Flash killed the whole thing, but we had animated panels, and it came out good. That'd be something really unique and a twist on the formula. I once saw an Invincible comic like that on their website...

*shrug*

Bring a good story to your sprites, or if not sprites - 'sprite-ish', I figure, and people might dig it. Kinda like Flash rips or something.

A Modest Destiny [squidi.net] by Squidi was one of the comics that made me want t get serious with posting mine online, it impressed me that much.
It was a 100% pixel-art comic- none of the art was taken from animated game sprites, he gave them the pixelated look of a classic anime RPG because that was the sort of world and theme he was going for.
And that's actually quite a similar theme to Doodstormer's OWN comic!

SO it worked very nicely ^_^

----------

Another great old webcomic using pixel art was Kid Rad. It involved fully animated episodes and was really quite a massive and very involved project...

Don't make generalisations and always base evaluations on the worst examples. The best examples are ideally what you want to use for for a thread like this . Doodstormer is an accomplished comic maker, I doubt he's the least bit interested in Sonic, Megaman, or mario stuff.

So I've basically boiled your inputs down to two main points:

1. Styles and recoloring of game sprites end up making the comic too similar to the sprite source, i.e. a comic that has Megaman styled sprites will make you think of Megaman, regardless of what it actually is.

I think it's safe to say I can avoid this. I've done a bit of sprite work myself, and I'm pretty sure my style isn't too similar to anything currently existing.

(Here's some examples in case you were wondering)







Part of what irritates me personally about sprite comics is that because of my own spriting experience, I know that this kind of thing can be an art form, and is not a hard thing to get started with.


2. Lack of dynamic angles, very static 'camera'.

I think the static angles are one of the things that come with the style, and must be worked around in a unique way. By making the actions of the characters "pop", it draws the attention away from the fact that you've been looking at them sideways the entire comic.

That's not to say I'm opposed to the idea of a few "cut-scene" styled shots, although if the whole comic was made up of those kind of things it would look more like MS Paint Adventures with the pixellated but detailed art and sort of draw away from the Sprite Comic thing.



Am I far off with this?

You know, those sprites look really cool, and I think you've got some great ideas. I look forward to seeing what you make.

I think well-done, 100% original pixel art can be pretty cool. A sprite comic with all original sprites is just as much art as a pencil or tablet drawing IMO, and I wouldn't pass such a comic over automatically.

I also think your example sprites look pretty awesome. I especially like the movement in the first one.

i also support yer original sprite idea. (eats a bowl of grapes while being fanned by virgins) i'd like to see it.

I think you're sprites look great. Very well done.

If you asked me, I'd say the problem with most Sprite comics is at least 75% writing. Most of the time they have no real plot, story pacing, and panel layout. Just a couple of poorly put together jokes and don't really tie into anything.

I'm a big fan of Elements. For you, I don't think the writing will be a problem. You're story format is very enjoyable.

So I'll defintiely keep an eye out if you decide to go ahead with this sprite idea.

Someone
You could do it like this:

http://www.squidi.net/comic/amd/view.php?series=amd&ep=1&id=1 [squidi.net]

Wow, what a Bad Comic.

lefarce
Wow, what a Bad Comic.

Wow, what a moronic post.