OblomovIt will be webcomic day in a few weeks and I still haven't decided which ones I will talk about this time.
The frustrating ones
The lewd ones
Interesting stories, poorly drawn
Poll ended at .
(Maybe I should have added an all-of-the-above option)
(I should have probably have asked for boosts too, but then why would people who don't follow me contribute to the decision on which webcomics I'll talk about?)
Ah we're finally starting to see some differentiation between the less popular choices.
The fact that, unless something dramatic happens in the next couple of days, the majority of the voters are opting to hear about interesting stories, poorly drawn is a bit worrying, because it means I'll have to do something I hate: stating that someone else's art is “poorly drawn”. For starters, it's generally impolite, as there are lots of other ways to express the same concept. Secondly, it's often (ok, sometimes) subjective. Also, I'm incompetent both as an art critic and at visual arts.
(I have a better opinion of my writing, but as the wife says, writing well is the refuge of people who don't know how to draw —and I'm not even that good at writing, even though I have my moments)
I know I kind of put myself in this position by adding the poll option, but it was intended as a half joke, I didn't actually expect it to be so successful, especially when the sexy stuff is RIGHT THERE —and it only got second place. Maybe I'll talk about poorly drawn sexy stuff with interesting stories, hm? How about that?
I'm also kind of offended that nobody even bothered to ask what “frustrating” means (to me) in the context of webcomics. I actually wonder if that's because it's obvious, or you people really don't care about my feelings *sniff sniff*
(Ok, that was a joke, but I am curious if you can imagine what frustrating means, or not.)
I've also been thinking that I might consider resolving the poll with 6 reviews instead of 3, splitting them 3:2:1 between the winning, second and last poll option. And if some fall in multiple categories … better, no?
I guess we would need a couple votes more for the lewd stuff to have the 3:2:1 ratio match the poll results, though. Unless my math is off we would need something like 17% 33% 50%, although, as @mcc said, «percentages were a mistake»
One of the worst aspects of the “Interesting stories, poorly drawn” is that the artists of some of those I may be interested in talking about might be on Mastodon —and of course I'm going to ping them if I talk about their comics: they deserve to be mentioned. But it's also a horrible way to introduce them:
«Yeah, this guy sucks at drawing but you should absolutely follow him and read his comic»
OTOH, if this gains them some Patreon supporters and whatnot, maybe they won't dislike it too much.
Yes, adding that option to the poll was really a masterful “paint-yourself-in-the-corner” moment for me, although you people do have a little bit of responsibility for voting for it, wouldn't you say?
So now I have to find a way out of this that tries to be as close to the spirit of the poll as possible, without offending anyone.
So here's my current plan to cop out of the “list poorly drawn webcomics without insisting too much on the fact that they are poorly drawn in the first place” —and no, it's not to delete this poll and the whole thread and pretend the selection isn't about “interesting stories, poorly drawn” webcomics.
The idea is to talk about “interesting stories, poorly drawn” in … 3D.
By my recollection this is a trend that started getting some traction 15–20 years ago, thanks to more powerful machines getting more commonplace, and “free as n razor-and-blades” 3D posing software like Daz getting out to the masses.
Of course, just because the software s freely available and user-friendly, it doesn't automatically follow that anyone can effortlessly create visual masterpieces. But it does mean that with a bit of effort graphics become a … less challenging part of the story.
By less challenging I mean: even if you don't know how to draw, you can create visual scenes “in the way you intended”: you may not need to worry about the drawing style, or how bothersome backgrounds are, etc. You do need to choose the models, procure meshes, backgrounds and whatnot, but the amount and type of skill involved is different compared to drawing by hand.
Just to understand how low the bar is, *I* could create 3D scenes with this software, and I couldn't draw a human figure by hand if my life depended on it.
(Of course I also don't have the creativity to set up sophisticated storylines or the patience to actual bend these pieces of software to my will, which are some of the reasons why you won't be seeing a 3D webcomic from me —ever.)
(Of course I also don't have the creativity to set up sophisticated storylines or the patience to actual bend these pieces of software to my will, which are some of the reasons why you won't be seeing a 3D webcomic from me —ever.)
Of course, the comics I'm going to talk about will put the bar much higher. I mean, the whole point is that they have interesting stories, even if their use of the 3D software for is … visibly not professional and/or optimized for speed rather than quality.
I've had some more time to think about this, while flipping through some of my favorite webcomics, and realized that I could basically hit all three categories with the work of a single author that works with more traditional digital media (i.e. not 3D CGI stuff), although in this case what's really frustrating is that I can't find anymore the link to their “juvenile” work, and I don't remember what it was called. To make it harder, IIRC it was even under a different pen name …
OK I found it, but it was on #SmackJeeves, but apparently it's not among the ones archived in the corresponding archive.org collection
https://archive.org/details/smackjeeves-web-comics
even though, AFAICS, it _is_ available in the archive.
https://archive.org/details/smackjeeves-web-comics
even though, AFAICS, it _is_ available in the archive.
There's also at least another very prolific #webcomic artist whose production would fit the «interesting stories, poorly drawn» label with more traditional digital art (not 3D CGI). But maybe I'll keep these for the next years.
And I just remembered about a third artist that does interesting stories, poorly drawn. This one has lettering too that leaves much to be desired, which is doubly problematic given how important text is in his comics.
But all in all I think I will stick to my original idea of going with the 3D comics this year (one comic per artist), and leave the others for future years (assuming I'll remember).
Part of the reason to stick to my original idea is that the other artists have more than one (completed) comic in their portfolio, so I could actually dedicate one year to each of them while sticking to my original plan of doing three comics in the category (this should give you an idea of how much I appreciate their writing): so, three artists this year, and monographic takes in the next ones.