If you are one of the anti-spriters hanging around, I have some very simple advice for you. You know that little mushroom next to some comics? Don't click on those comics. It's really easy. By avoiding sprite comics, you can avoid attacking sprite comics, which in turn avoids fighting over sprite comics. Because that can get ugly.

So remember anti-spriters: avoid the mushroom like it's a poison mushroom. And spriters out there, sorry for wasting your time.

It's true that you can avoid sprite comics like that. But the funny thing is, there are some sprite authors who designate their comic as something besides a sprite comic... like a comedy or fantasy or something. Is that wrong? Or are they a little bit ashamed to called their comic a sprite comic? Who knows. But in those case you always have your "back" button for your browser.

Exactly. If you look at it and see sprites, hit the back button ASAP.

Personally, I make it my business to read every sprite comic I can find. Call it a fruitless effort to find one thats good, if you will. Sometimes, the effort is worth it.

I just don't really read any sprite comics at all besides 8-bit theater. Not because I hate them or anything, I just think that without the game around them, the sprites have little charm.

It's always been my opinion that including "Sprite" as an option in the genre category is a lexical fallacy. If I were to create a sprite comic, I would feel absolutely no obligation to select "Sprite" as a genre. If I were to make a humorous comic, I'd select humor, or if it were fantasy, I'd select fantasy. "Sprite" isn't a genre. It's a medium, and the fact that it is categorized as a genre is simply incorrect.

(I guess the argument could be made that "lol 1337" sprite comics should indeed be catagorized under "sprite" as a genre. They've kind of made a niche for themselves, and given a bad name to all non-"lol 1337" sprite comics.)

it bites some people go on name i think thats why herio tails is really comented

While I agree that "sprite" isn't really a genre, I still feel that there should be some sort of warning beforehand as to whether or not a given comic is made with sprites, for those of us who are tired of wading through so many subpar comics for the slim chance that we might find something of some quality.

I wish I knew the answer to Sprite comic threads. General mod, please move this to comics... so when it turns into the usual flame fest I can lock it.

i'll keep an eye on it..hopefully people have learned that flaming on dd is not tolerated

I never meant this to be that sort of thread. I just meant it as a kind of "If you don't like sprite comics, don't read them!" public service announcements. You should see some of the arguments that are going on over sprite tournaments.

Tournament comics in general are horrible. What do you think killed Shaman King? Why do you think DBZ became horribly redundant?

It's a plot device, and a cheap one at that. Much like a Dues Ex Machina, Tournaments fly out of nowhere as a cheap solution to a problem. In this case, the problem is lack of thought and plot. It's a way to exploit time for character development at that.

So to sum it up, why should Tournaments be acceptable as basic plot lines? There are too many, and they can be easily compared to Dues Ex Machinas, which is an often frowned apon tool to escape having to do real work. Plain and simple. Tournament comics = BAD, no matter what the genre may be.

Hell, I HATE fightsplosion. I don't venture into that sub forum cause I know I'll get banned.

As for "are sprites a genre or a type of art", I agree. It's a style, not a form of story telling. However, the style falls into story telling cliches. A sprite comic can become just as predictable as a comedy. If I saw a comedy on the list, I would think "Slapstick, witty, parody...". When I see a sprite comic on the list I think "Sonic, Mario, Mega Man".

It's also due to the fact that many people in the sprite category are limited in what they can do story wise. Most of the time they restrict themselves to stories about Sonic and the gang, or Megaman. This is due in part to the fact that spriters tend to "follow the leader", which can also be attributed to lack of sheets and animations. It's a very limited art style, and because of this, the story aspect is directly affected. Sprites can count as both an art style and a story genre.

http://www.drunkduck.com/sprite_comic/

A horrible sprite comic example.

http://www.drunkduck.com/Arararas/

An awesome sprite comic example.

Sprite comics are the best genre of webcomics, because anime's for f---s and drawing overly detailed shit with my 100% original story thats filled with things other people came up with and lots of action packed gore scenes is boring. Sprite on the other hand are the best thing to work with, as they are easily more original then anime or western comics put together in a crazy mis-match of epic proportions.

**edited***
(tone down that language -subcultured)

It's true that you can avoid sprite comics like that. But the funny thing is, there are some sprite authors who designate their comic as something besides a sprite comic... like a comedy or fantasy or something. Is that wrong?

It isn't wrong, but it does present a problem I've seen with the current category system on DD. While I can see why you wouldn't want to give people the ability to put themselves in multiple genre categories, I think combining genres with visual styles doesn't always represent comics correctly and can make choosing a category a real headache for the authors. My current comic is listed as Other simply because I didn't think it could reasonably be placed in the genre that defined its visual style or any of the genres which defined its content without misleading potential readers.

What I think could help more than anything in that area would be to separate the genres and styles into two categories. Not only would it make it easier for the authors to define what it is they've made, readers would have the ability to narrow their searches further to make it easier to find the sort of comics they are looking for. Heck, you may even see some of the less used genres get a few new entries since many are placing themselves in a genre which is more a style than a description of their content.

I would find this far more useful than the tone selections which I still think are far too vague as they are. Not everything fits easily into humorous, serious, and random.

What about comics like mine? Enter the Duck is part sprite, part drawn (Today's EtD2 drawn), but other comics (Eternal Life and Warriors of the night) have gone from sprite to drawn. Does just being associated with sprites make them bad?

Aussie_kid
What about comics like mine? Enter the Duck is part sprite, part drawn (Today's EtD2 drawn), but other comics (Eternal Life and Warriors of the night) have gone from sprite to drawn. Does just being associated with sprites make them bad?

Don't feel bad Aussie, I just got a low blow from this guy too, for being an anthro artist. - -

The problem is that 9/10 comics out there are sprite, only half of them claim to be sprite, and you can count the good ones on one hand (and the rest are just awful!). This also applies to stick figure and the like...
They aren't bad because they are sprite, they are sprite because they are bad. The author is too lazy to draw, and also too lazy to think up jokes, a plot, characters, etc... so it totally sucks. (with few exceptions)

People take offense when someone peddles something THAT awful onto them, especially when looking for good stuff, its frustrating to try 20 comics in a row on a list and find that only 2 of them are not sprite or stick figure.

To compliment your analogy of "just don't read them"... You might as well be telling people who are concerned about dog excrement on the sidewalk: "just don't step in them". It's the fact that they are all over the place and you have to sidestep them that bothers people. Worse, sprites are INTENTIONAL, while dog droppings are there due to negligence of the owner.

taltamir
To compliment your analogy of "just don't read them"... You might as well be telling people who are concerned about dog excrement on the sidewalk: "just don't step in them". It's the fact that they are all over the place and you have to sidestep them that bothers people. Worse, sprites are INTENTIONAL, while dog droppings are there due to negligence of the owner.

That is very mean, but amazingly hillarious. I genuinely laughed!

I'm going to move this to the comic section now.

Oh boy, the topic is in my domain now.

You cannot tell people what not to read and what not to comment on.

If a person wants to comment on your comic then they can. If their comment is abusive, report it. If it is just critical then suck it up, that's what this site was developed around. If it's critical but just the same comment on every page, report it to an admin... Or you know, consider taking their advice, there is the possibility that they are actually trying to help.


Next person to suggest people don't read a comic to find out if they like it or not gets this thread locked.

Chameloncholic
Next person to suggest people don't read a comic to find out if they like it or not gets this thread locked.

? is that fair?
-_-
I enjoy Dancing Chaos' Sprites No One Likes, but that's because it's entirely dialogue-reliant. Problematic sprites are generally the ones that are filled with action, because it's just the same image, maybe slightly altered, on different parts of the screen.
In general, I think the art aspect is too important for comic creators to just copy and paste, but to each his own. As to the question of avoiding sprites, it's pretty easy to identify them by their titles: generally, if it has the word "sprite" in it, and/or references Pokemon, Megaman, or assorted other vgs.

Kristen Gudsnuk
is that fair?

Are you suggesting that people should make an arbitrary judgement about wether or not they should read a comic based on what it is called?

And no, ofcourse it's not fair. But from 2001-2006, which is as long as I've been involved in webcomics, the same arguments have been repeated almost monthly. The only thing I've seen change in that time is Keenspace banning sprite comics.

...I'm not going to bother trying make any sort of argument toward either side... it'll all end up looking exactly like each and every sprite comic debate I've ever read... and in the end, everyone always end up abandoning the argument and continue to just grudgingly tolerate the damn things until the next debate thread opens up.

(Besides... I don't have an argument anyway... I just don't care... wouldn't care if I did a drawn comic either... well... technically I do... but I'm not sure how it counts toward anything... WOOIDON'TMAKESENSE!!! :D)

HI,
I have just gotten into webcomics and didn't realize there was this rift between sprite comics and hand drawn comics. I myself have started a sprite comic but by no means it it easy to create. I have 3 dedicated high end systems running Everquest2 with multiple "actors" on each computer. I would call them actors because that what they most closely identify as. Because of the constrains of the game, there are only so many animations for each person, so for "special effects" and image clean up, I use PhotoShop. For each comic I have made, I've taken over 1,000 screen shots to try and get the best ones. Furthermore if for some reason I have to go back and recreate the scene, because of the night and day effects in the game, not only do I have to have all the actors in the same locations but I also have to make sure the time of day is the same as the other shots (because of the sunlight and other environmental issues)or the whole thing is ruined.

I guess what I am trying to say is, . Just because I don't use a pen and paper doesn't mean that I haven't put countless hours of work into this project and to be judged before they even read it.... well I guess it's just their loss.

I don't think your comic qualifies as sprites...seeing as those are clearly fully rendered 3d models, not pixelated 2d sprites. Not everything made using video game graphics or about video games is a Sprite comic, I'd only count those made with actual sprites myself. Obviously, pixel characters which are custom made generally also count as sprites. I'd say the definition would be a 2d character rendered in pixel art, but there are holes in that definition. The Wikipedia page explains it better!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprite_%28computer_graphics%29 [en.wikipedia.org]

I would go as far as saying Jeriah is almost a photo comic.