Orin are those all comics on DD? Cause I don't like to have to search hard for my unoriginal crap!

then just read sprite comics like everyone else, geez.

Yes Sir!
*salutes*

BffSatan

isukun
Honestly, this is kid of a dumb topic, though.

It's dumb because it is a TOLL TOPIC! He is trying to piss people off. Why are people still taking this seriously?

isn't this your 3rd post here?

Maybe we've got the wrong end of the stick here?
I mean those brave, hard-working, spriters slave away, drawing those pages full of highly crafted sprites day after day...

And what to those mangaistas do? Why, all they do is copy and paste a manga sheet of their fave characters in a few poses, do a few recolours and some generic backgrounds and then copy and past their comics together!


Obviously those spriters work WAAAAY harder.

... No sorry, I'm drunk. I think I got that mixed around...?

Hehe, I stand corrected isukun! I was aware of this, but I should have been more specific that I meant webcomic "doujinshi," not the sort Japan has.

BffSatan
It's dumb because it is a TOLL TOPIC! He is trying to piss people off. Why are people still taking this seriously?

Hey, I musta got in here for free then, don't tell anyone 'cuz I'm broke :)

It's not a troll topic. Believe it or not, people that actually make sprite comics aren't as rabidly biased against them as some folks here. Rengishi makes sprite comics, probably notices a lot of people say the same thing about manga artists, and wanted to discuss. Give him a break, he's 12!

Orin J Master: Well I avoid generic manga anyway, I haven't seen one that interested me in a while. I think Peach Fuzz was pretty original. How many mangas are there about a ferret and its owner? It wasn't Japanese manga though so...
The last one I read was Basara which I got from the library, I'd hardly call it generic but it was made in the early 90's soooo...yeah.

But just because a lot of them are generic doesn't make all of them so, and it doesn't make the artists lazy! If they are cutting corners anywhere it's because they have a ridiculous deadline for manga, and even the most generic of manga that I've seen lately looked pretty detailed to me.



meh, i'm mostly bitter at all the good comics that never get picked up in favor of derivative garbage. that and i consider the writing to be where the most work is for a good comic.

I'm bitter too y'know, and being bitter is fine. There's a lot of good comics that don't get picked up but why blame the garbage? How is that holding them down and keeping them from getting into the industry? If they're really that good they'll get success eventually. But it is true that a lot of people latch onto stuff they already know. You show something original to them and they get antsy because it's new. Some folks just enjoy walking in the same rut every day, and being super-keen original isn't going to pull them out of their little trench. It's going to get people like you who are already out looking for something good. There is such a thing as being too original for your own good in this industry...when we pitched an idea once the publishers said they liked it but wanted it to be more like something that was already popular.
Were these people with great comics willing to give up their creative integrity just to get their foot in the door? If not, you can thank them for standing up for their creations, but you won't be seeing them published under any big names any time soon. Sometimes you just have to do it yourself. Say "Screw Tokyopop, Screw the Big 3, I'm publishing this myself, goodbye money!"

The last part of your statement about writing? I agree wholeheartedly!

Amelius- Drawing must surely take more effort then using sprites though?
At least in terms of putting the art together.
I always assumed that was the main appeal of sprite comics, they are so easy to make.

I'm interested that this debate is phrased as "sprite vs manga". Wouldn't "2D computer art vs sprite" be a better title? Or "hand drawn vs Sprite"?

Though at the end of the day, if you don't use pencils, you are slacking!

harkovast
Amelius- Drawing must surely take more effort then using sprites though?
At least in terms of putting the art together.
I always assumed that was the main appeal of sprite comics, they are so easy to make.

I'm interested that this debate is phrased as "sprite vs manga". Wouldn't "2D computer art vs sprite" be a better title? Or "hand drawn vs Sprite"?

Though at the end of the day, if you don't use pencils, you are slacking!

What about pens? Or paintbrushes? I'd say making an entire webcomic in watercolor would be pretty impressive...

Disgruntledrm
I'd say making an entire webcomic in watercolor would be pretty impressive...

http://www.drunkduck.com/The_Optimist/

Not that anyone makes their own sprites but if they did it would take a LOT longer to make the sprite comic.

I can tell you this be experience. Heck, my current avatar is a sprite I made.

Though I may not be a good judge after all. Not sure if my comic really qualifies as manga :P

Okay okay, pens, paint brushes and all other hand crafted mediums are equally acceptable!

Rengishi
All favoritisms put aside who do you think hasto work hardest the spriter or the manga artisan?

threads like this give me migraines

JustNoPoint
Not that anyone makes their own sprites but if they did it would take a LOT longer to make the sprite comic.

I can tell you this be experience. Heck, my current avatar is a sprite I made.

Though I may not be a good judge after all. Not sure if my comic really qualifies as manga :P

i've seen....five or six webcomics based around scratchbuilt sprites. of them maybe two didn't suffer from the fact that the comicker couldn't write their way out of a paper bag. they're both dead now, with one explicitly quitting because they were tired of an endless parade of people asking for the sprite sheets so they could make comics too.

that said, copy/paste comicking isn't exactly limited to sprite comics. you can find it anywhere some talantless jackwheel demands people shower them with attention for making creatively worthless garbage.

i'm talking about like 80% of gaming comics. mostly Ctrl-Alt-Del, but most of the others aren't any better.

EDIT: and just as a reminder that effort really doesn't equal quality here's a little sprite comic i stumbled on and will make the rest of you suffer through too.
The Misadventures of Everyone? coulda just called it an exercise in futility...

Orin J Master
i've seen....five or six webcomics based around scratchbuilt sprites

A Modest Destiny by Squidi.

That was awesome in its day.

Technically, if they don't come from a game, they're not sprites. They're just pixely looking artwork.
I remember that he used that style because he wanted the characters to look like they were from one of those old anime Japanese RPGs.
There weren't many real sprite comics around then.

There was that 8-Bit one of course... Ultra famous god of sprite comics.

Kid-Rad was fantastic- that was made up of animated gifs and things. Brilliantly clever and a LOT of work.

Harkovast
Amelius- Drawing must surely take more effort then using sprites though?
At least in terms of putting the art together.
I always assumed that was the main appeal of sprite comics, they are so easy to make.

I'm interested that this debate is phrased as "sprite vs manga". Wouldn't "2D computer art vs sprite" be a better title? Or "hand drawn vs Sprite"?

Most often that's a yes, it's certainly less work to select and drag a sprite off a sheet but if the sprite comic in question is any good there's been more work put into it than that. The sprite comic I helped out with had an author who was willing to change the expressions and poses of the characters, so I suppose my experience is a little different?
We don't seem to be willing to separate the good from the bad with sprite comics as we do with traditional art. We realize that stick figures are usually pretty lazy compared to drawing a full anatomically correct illustration, but we can at least see the effort put into a well-done stick figure comic. Nobody here wants to admit that despite being easy, there are some decent sprite comics out there, but they just aren't appealing to us as artists.

It's worded with manga because the two are often called "lazy" art: both are said to cut corners and do things the easy way, they're both the style of choice for "noobs", they both flood any free comic site you go to, and they're both despised based on the overwhelming majority of crap both put out. For example you don't hear people dissing Calvin & Hobbes style art as "lazy" and "tired" despite a good amount of artists trying to copy it stroke for stroke. Has anyone looked at a newspaper comic sheet and noticed how many The Far Side ripoffs there are? Ours has 3, and only 2 are ever funny.

The sad thing is, that most people that do sprite comics have little to no artistic ability and composition and pacing suffers for it. Even some hand drawn comics suffer this flaw! I've read comics that were little more than beautiful posters with dialogue tacked onto it. 3 pages into the comic with 2 covers and a page with 3 lines of dialogue, but 10 people praising it as the best comic on DD!

I'm not saying that sprite comics aren't easier to make, but people gotta realize that from the perspective of a non-artist it's a lot bigger chore figuring out what you're doing. Especially when the only advice "real artists" are willing to impart to the spriter is "just don't". They repeat their mistakes and only seek the support of fellow spriters who also don't get proper comic composition.

Harkovast
Though at the end of the day, if you don't use pencils, you are slacking!

Hey not everyone can be awesome :)

I'm going to generalise here, and I know this isn't universally true, but it does apply to a majority of sprite comics I have seen.

I think because sprite comics are easy to put together but are widely considered visually unappealing they tend to attract people who don't want to make much of an effort, so the story and writing tend to also get very little effort.

Now I know there are going to be a few sprite comics out there that slave away over characters, story and structure (and more power too them) but they are a small minority.

Unfortuantely, manga suffers the same way. it is an easy style to copy so people who dont want to make a lot of effort often opt for it.
There is not rule that manga comics have to be poor quality, but unfortunately a majority are because people who dont want to make effort on art usually dont want to make effort on anything else.

But I want to make clear, that while I do think the majority of comics in these styles are lazily put together, I dont think they all are. I learned my lesson with Shaman Quest, a 3D comic I dismissed initially when it came up for review but have come to like. So if one genre can win me over, I am sure others can too. It just has yet to happen for some of them!

As well as traditionally lazy art styles there are several lazy types of content. Orin pointed out gamer comics (they are classic example...saying the cake is a lie is not a punchline!) and I would include random humour comics too. Some random humour comics are absolute genius, but too many get into the genre on the assumption that it is easy and you can just throw any crap together...and proceed to throw crap together!

Amelius I think you raise a really good point about composition and pacing. It is a subtle problem but it sinks a huge number of webcomics. Bad dialogue and bad art are easily identified, but bad plotting is more insidious as you cant tell its happening until it is too late to correct without a major rewrite of earlier sections of the story. I think it is because a lot of webcomics are made up as they go along, and unfortunately, a lot of the time this becomes painfully obvious.
(And thanks for implying I am awesome! I appreciate that!)

Here's the thing about sprite comics: Creating a good, customized sprite (even if it is a derivative of an existing sprite) tends to take a bit longer than drawing a figure yourself. Not to mention that, generally, you need to make dozens of sprites for each character, and each one takes a while. That takes a lot of time, and creating an entire cast is hard.

That's a best (or worst, depending on your priorities) case scenario. The thing is, after that point, you don't need to create much more. Once you draw a background once you basically never have to draw it again. It will always be there for you to use. You might have to adjust your sprites from time to time for whatever purpose, but ultimately you've drawn them as much as they'll need to be drawn.

So, in a sense, getting started on a sprite comic (if you're doing it complex enough) will generally be harder than getting started on a manga. Sure, it's a good idea to go through a bunch of sketches and preparation before you start your manga, but it's still technically possible to start without it. You never really have that option with sprites.

Ultimately, though, I still say a manga would be harder to do (or any hand drawn comic, for that matter). The argument seems to be "A good sprite comic is harder to put together than a crappy manga". That's not really a fair comparison: you could say that about anything.

Do people make their own sprites a lot?
Mostly I've just seen recolouring sonic the hedgehog or megaman.
(Sorry to type cast all you spriters!)

http://www.justnopoint.com/Edits/Armydudes/ARMYDUDE.GIF

The rest are made from copyrighted sprites but some are made from 100% scratch
http://www.justnopoint.com/Edits/

But people that make games tend to make their own sprites. I've never seen a 100% traditionally made from scratch sprite comic. That would be an insane amount of work!

If I'm not stupidly mistaken, I believe A Path To Greater Good is completely custom. Someone verify that please.