Webcomics became popular in the 90s and 2000s. People eventually realised that the Internet was simply a garden to explore and grow their ideas, and share them with people; stories, games, everything. Comics were no exception.
Sadly, the amount of people who actually make enough money to consider their webcomics a job is sadly low, and many are staying lower profile. And too many of these handful of people should never have been allowed to start them. There are good webcomics around, however.
Lackadaisy is gin running cats rendered in a gorgeous Don Bluth-esque art style, and since discovering it, my house has become plastered in posters, The Meek, another disney-ish webcomic focusing around a girl called Angora, Anything About Nothing, which is exactly what it sounds like, also with some pretty good art, Kiskaloo, by the director of Lilo and Stitch...
I read quite a few webcomics; some are good, a lot are bad. Like, 90% of them are bad. Bitter Sweet Candy Bowl literally broke me; is it in the 10%? Or the 90%? I don't know. It leans both ways.
BSCD (let's call it Jerry for short) is about Lucy, an anthromoporphic cat in a world full of the damn things. She's a Mary Sue. Kind of.
Like El Goonish Shive (another webcomic that rakes in the money) is focuses on the interpersonal relationships and arcs centering around their relationships. It's also decently done. Most of the time. Jerry is a little bit confused about this.
But first, let's get the not so important thing out of the way; the art. My God, is it... mediocre?
The art shows itself to be decent, though it improves greatly. However, many of those improvements have only been brought about very recently.
Originally, characters' joints, such as their elbows, knees and wrists, worked however the fuck they wanted. I may not be an artist, but I understand how to draw on some level. I get things like construction, composition, the very bare basics. I'm certainly not an artist, or anyone who could possibly be one. But at least I can tell when these basic skills are actualy being used.
The ways the characters' limbs move however they want, how the feet are just huge blocks of bone, and the general sings of laziness, and complete failure at anatomy, all just.. put me off.
There are a lot of problems, but those three are the biggest ones. Every artists has a style; personally, I prefer a softer, cartoonier style, which most comics don't really adhere to, so I just have to suck it up and listen to dialouge and all those other trivial things. So I guess I'm a bit biased, as that's exactly what Jerry's art style is.
Granted, it's improved greatly in many, many years she's (the author's name is Vera, by the way) has been doing this comic, and now it resembles something I'd pay for and enjoy. However, this is a pretty recent development, and these mistakes occasionally show up.
I also wouldn't mind too much if Vol. #1 didn't cost SIXTY DOLLARS. Sure, that's about 600+ pages, and tons of extra content, and a lot of the pages have been redone, but not all of them. Normally, if a webcomic I like has merchandise/prints available, I'll spend any cash I can scrape together to buy it; I have an enormous respect for artists.
I suppose what I'm trying to communicate rather sloppily is that nobody wants to pay $115 for +1,000 pages for stuff on this level:
[http://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/c1/p2.html]
Ok, it's not that bad a drawing; however, improvements could certainly be made.
..I suppose the one thing the art has always had going for it is that animu cats tend to be adorable; and here, they're very adorable. So whatever, it works for me, just as long as I don't look to closely at it (I tend to have an aversion to face-fucking aliens capable of camoflauge).
Oh, the story.
The story actually works quite well. One thing that also works especially well is Lucy; she's certainly a Mary Sue, but possibly an unintentional deconstruction of one. A desconstruction, in the most basic sense, is the use or playing with of a trope or achetype in a universe not of the origin's own. To sum it up...
[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Deconstruction]
In a way, Vera doesn't want Lucy to be a character. She doesn't want her to have any problems; she wants her to be absoloutely perfect in every way possible. Let's make a brief jump to Sonichu.
Let's also not talk too much about Sonichu because I don't want to stint any childrens' development. Sonichu is the wank fodder of an egotistical, real-life man; he, evidently, has several problems, mentally and physically. He's a compulsive liar, in very poor health, puts the Westboro Baptist freaks to shame, and obviously believes his shitty little Sonic recolour world is real.
He wants to surround himself with "sexy" women (read: his real life friends who would later break all contact with him off because he drew gross porn of them), Mary Sue Sonic recolours who have absoloutely no problem in their life, and despite being mayor of his little anti-gay anti-smoking anti-Alcohol anti-drugs anti-non Christian 1943 Germany, one svatstika away from revealing far too many mental issues that need to be resolved, he has no responsibility. For whatever reason, mental or physical, be believes his little world is real.
While Vera is certainly not quite on that level of evident insanity - shown by the steady improvement of both the art and the writing - in a way, I think she feels that way about Lucy. Granted, there's not much of that to look into, so hopefully, she isn't some insane weirdo who has multiple attempts of vehicular homicide on her record.
Granted, Jerry isn't something that's bad. It's improved a heck ton since it's inception, but it's not neccesarily good either. I'm not sure what kind of audience this is trying to appeal to, but I suppose it's working; Vera makes a living off of this comic, it's become relatively successful (at least, for something in a medium as infamous as webcomics) and it's got a lot of fans.
...So.. I guess this is a success in the end?
Sadly, the amount of people who actually make enough money to consider their webcomics a job is sadly low, and many are staying lower profile. And too many of these handful of people should never have been allowed to start them. There are good webcomics around, however.
Lackadaisy is gin running cats rendered in a gorgeous Don Bluth-esque art style, and since discovering it, my house has become plastered in posters, The Meek, another disney-ish webcomic focusing around a girl called Angora, Anything About Nothing, which is exactly what it sounds like, also with some pretty good art, Kiskaloo, by the director of Lilo and Stitch...
I read quite a few webcomics; some are good, a lot are bad. Like, 90% of them are bad. Bitter Sweet Candy Bowl literally broke me; is it in the 10%? Or the 90%? I don't know. It leans both ways.
BSCD (let's call it Jerry for short) is about Lucy, an anthromoporphic cat in a world full of the damn things. She's a Mary Sue. Kind of.
Like El Goonish Shive (another webcomic that rakes in the money) is focuses on the interpersonal relationships and arcs centering around their relationships. It's also decently done. Most of the time. Jerry is a little bit confused about this.
But first, let's get the not so important thing out of the way; the art. My God, is it... mediocre?
The art shows itself to be decent, though it improves greatly. However, many of those improvements have only been brought about very recently.
Originally, characters' joints, such as their elbows, knees and wrists, worked however the fuck they wanted. I may not be an artist, but I understand how to draw on some level. I get things like construction, composition, the very bare basics. I'm certainly not an artist, or anyone who could possibly be one. But at least I can tell when these basic skills are actualy being used.
The ways the characters' limbs move however they want, how the feet are just huge blocks of bone, and the general sings of laziness, and complete failure at anatomy, all just.. put me off.
There are a lot of problems, but those three are the biggest ones. Every artists has a style; personally, I prefer a softer, cartoonier style, which most comics don't really adhere to, so I just have to suck it up and listen to dialouge and all those other trivial things. So I guess I'm a bit biased, as that's exactly what Jerry's art style is.
Granted, it's improved greatly in many, many years she's (the author's name is Vera, by the way) has been doing this comic, and now it resembles something I'd pay for and enjoy. However, this is a pretty recent development, and these mistakes occasionally show up.
I also wouldn't mind too much if Vol. #1 didn't cost SIXTY DOLLARS. Sure, that's about 600+ pages, and tons of extra content, and a lot of the pages have been redone, but not all of them. Normally, if a webcomic I like has merchandise/prints available, I'll spend any cash I can scrape together to buy it; I have an enormous respect for artists.
I suppose what I'm trying to communicate rather sloppily is that nobody wants to pay $115 for +1,000 pages for stuff on this level:
Ok, it's not that bad a drawing; however, improvements could certainly be made.
..I suppose the one thing the art has always had going for it is that animu cats tend to be adorable; and here, they're very adorable. So whatever, it works for me, just as long as I don't look to closely at it (I tend to have an aversion to face-fucking aliens capable of camoflauge).
Oh, the story.
The story actually works quite well. One thing that also works especially well is Lucy; she's certainly a Mary Sue, but possibly an unintentional deconstruction of one. A desconstruction, in the most basic sense, is the use or playing with of a trope or achetype in a universe not of the origin's own. To sum it up...
In a way, Vera doesn't want Lucy to be a character. She doesn't want her to have any problems; she wants her to be absoloutely perfect in every way possible. Let's make a brief jump to Sonichu.
Let's also not talk too much about Sonichu because I don't want to stint any childrens' development. Sonichu is the wank fodder of an egotistical, real-life man; he, evidently, has several problems, mentally and physically. He's a compulsive liar, in very poor health, puts the Westboro Baptist freaks to shame, and obviously believes his shitty little Sonic recolour world is real.
He wants to surround himself with "sexy" women (read: his real life friends who would later break all contact with him off because he drew gross porn of them), Mary Sue Sonic recolours who have absoloutely no problem in their life, and despite being mayor of his little anti-gay anti-smoking anti-Alcohol anti-drugs anti-non Christian 1943 Germany, one svatstika away from revealing far too many mental issues that need to be resolved, he has no responsibility. For whatever reason, mental or physical, be believes his little world is real.
While Vera is certainly not quite on that level of evident insanity - shown by the steady improvement of both the art and the writing - in a way, I think she feels that way about Lucy. Granted, there's not much of that to look into, so hopefully, she isn't some insane weirdo who has multiple attempts of vehicular homicide on her record.
Granted, Jerry isn't something that's bad. It's improved a heck ton since it's inception, but it's not neccesarily good either. I'm not sure what kind of audience this is trying to appeal to, but I suppose it's working; Vera makes a living off of this comic, it's become relatively successful (at least, for something in a medium as infamous as webcomics) and it's got a lot of fans.
...So.. I guess this is a success in the end?