Untitled

[great-distractions-deactivated2]

joyce and marten met and it’s beautiful

joyce from http://www.dumbingofage.com/

marten from http://www.questionablecontent.net/

[drgonzorw]

Beautiful! Can we hope for "When Joyce met Shelly Winters" in the near future?

[thewebcomicsreview]

Comic Comparison Triple Threat!

Bad Machinery is pretty good. Nothing I’ve read about it makes it jump out as The Best Comic Of All Time, but it’s got good art and competent writing. I like it, and I recommend with my only reservation being that I haven’t read all that much.

Let’s compare this random, frankly unexceptional workhorse BM page to today’s QC, and the third page of FCA, which I consider a bit too slow (a better comparison would be page 5, which is a bit too cluttered, but I….haven’t lettered it yet because I’m procrastinating it). Also, hey look, a page of Falls Count Anywhere! It’s real! And….I suppose contains a spoiler but it’s literally page three and the comic won’t go live for like a month and a half :|

Anyway

The Bad Machinery page is 700 x 1063px

The QC page is 800 x 1160px.

And the  FCA page is 778 x 1185px (like 98% as big as QC)

So the QC page is about 25% bigger than the BM one. That’s 25% more space to tell a story! Space matters a lot! This FCA page is a little bit fucked-looking because I had too much stuff in my script and Cody had to stretch to fit it in. I got this mage and went “shit, I need to put less stuff on a page or it gets messy”.

But let’s think about what’s happening in these spaces.

BM (And let me just be clear that BM is the best of the three, I’m still learning page pacing a bit) has nine panels. One panel is a double-size establishing shot, and panel 4 doesn’t show any of the characters, which I think is at least partly to keep the comic from looking repetitive. Panels five and six are small, because there’s not a lot of text in them. In this comic, we establish Ryan’s relationship with his dad, get a sense of Shelley and Ryan’s relationship, have the two doing something more visually interesting, set up the next page (presumably) by having them catching a fish, and have a joke. Most of the space, besides all the text, is used to set up a bit of a melancholy mood, giving the conversation more context and more effect than if it were against a single-color wall with moth characters standing ramrod straight.

FCA is heavy on establishing when and where this the story is. The previous page with Nicola getting hit with a DDT so hard the comic went black and white, subtly setting up a recurring visual metaphor I came up with after the fact. This comic shows that she was injured pretty badly by it, and that her mom is worried about her, but pretty muted in her response. Plot-wise, there’s not that much going on here (not enough, maybe?), but I made an effort to include visual details. Nicola is playing with the roll-up thing for the windows next to a bag with the old McDonald’s logo on it, giving some indication that this comic takes place in the past, as does the car itself, which I think is a 1987 Ford Hatchback.

We also learn, a bit from panel 1 and a bit from the very well-done panel 8, that they’re not in the richest neighborhood. From this, we can get a sense of their class. I spent a lot of time writing this page going “Well, if they’re in a car, what can I put in the car to advance the story”. The cross hanging off the rearview mirror in panel 3, for instance, was something I put in the script specifically, as was the older McDonald’s logo. I looked up cheap cars from the mid to late 80s to determine what kind of car they were in. Is the fact that Nic’s mom is Christian going to be relevant to the story? Almost certainly not, but it cost no space that detail in there, so I did it.

I tried to fit as much information into that space as I could, because I’m paying per-page and want to get as much value for my dollar as possible (I later, sadly, go overboard on this a bit. Getting the pacing right has been a bit of a challenge, since I don’t want to waste pages, but need to give things room to breathe. Page 5 is a bit too cramped)

(Also, I think the text in the first panel should be a speech bubble coming out of the car, but then having a box in panel 2 looks really weird. If I put a word balloon in panel two, where does the tail go?).

I don’t know if I succeeded, or what I could’ve done better, but I tried to fit shit in. Bad Machinery, if you go back to its start, has a lot of visual details, too. This dude is upper-middle to upper class since he’s got a big room and a big computer monitor. He’s a nerd because of his posters. He goes to an upscale school because of his fancy uniform (or is British). We know a lot about this guy because of the visual details, even without reading any of the text.

Questionable Content is three beat panels and a line. A woman is eating cereal.

Having nothing in the background isn’t just lazy art. It’s lazy storytelling. We’ve spent several pages in Claire’s mom’s house, and we know nothing about her except what’s in the text. The only useful visual information is that she looks like Claire. Even if she’ll never show up again, that’s so wasteful.

Don’t think of art and writing as two separate ideas where never the two should meet. BM’s visuals give it’s conversation a lot more context and meaning, and it’s much stronger as a result. It’s not even that he drew well. It’s what he drew that gives the conversation its feel.

[scarygoround-deactivated2021111]

I feel funny about reblogging this but I see wannabe comics people knock Jeph Jacques’ artwork so often and it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes a comic work. I comment here purely because I am being used here to represent “right” and Jeph “wrong”. 

Artwork has very little to do with what makes a comic work for an audience. I think I’m close to the truth when I say that QC has ten readers for every one of mine. Jeph has succeeded in making people care about, not just one character, but dozens, in a narrative that progresses at a gentle speed that readers supposedly “can’t handle” on the post-Tumblr internet. For my money it’s almost the perfect fusion of manga pacing/accessibility and functional, comic strip art. Here’s one of - let’s not soft soap this - America’s most popular comic creators, a straight fellow who at least has the courage to write about queer people, trans people, actually takes time to step outside his comfort zone. Is the work perfect? No, because nothing is. But find another burro to hit the back end of with a banjo. There’s nothing wrong with criticism, but I think that saying QC is sometimes stiffly posed and simplistically paced misses the point. It’s not one strip, it’s thousands. Instead of looking at what doesn’t work here, look at what does, and maybe inform your work with that. II don’t think it matters how well you can draw a house or a car if no one cares what you’re saying.

[drgonzorw]

Again, a wonderful, yet respectful rebuttal from John Allison. As Scott McCloud said in "Making Comics" there is no such thing as a right style. Only the style that works for the artist.

[thewebcomicsreview]

Comic Comparison Triple Threat!

Bad Machinery is pretty good. Nothing I’ve read about it makes it jump out as The Best Comic Of All Time, but it’s got good art and competent writing. I like it, and I recommend with my only reservation being that I haven’t read all that much.

Let’s compare this random, frankly unexceptional workhorse BM page to today’s QC, and the third page of FCA, which I consider a bit too slow (a better comparison would be page 5, which is a bit too cluttered, but I….haven’t lettered it yet because I’m procrastinating it). Also, hey look, a page of Falls Count Anywhere! It’s real! And….I suppose contains a spoiler but it’s literally page three and the comic won’t go live for like a month and a half :|

Anyway

The Bad Machinery page is 700 x 1063px

The QC page is 800 x 1160px.

And the  FCA page is 778 x 1185px (like 98% as big as QC)

So the QC page is about 25% bigger than the BM one. That’s 25% more space to tell a story! Space matters a lot! This FCA page is a little bit fucked-looking because I had too much stuff in my script and Cody had to stretch to fit it in. I got this mage and went “shit, I need to put less stuff on a page or it gets messy”.

But let’s think about what’s happening in these spaces.

BM (And let me just be clear that BM is the best of the three, I’m still learning page pacing a bit) has nine panels. One panel is a double-size establishing shot, and panel 4 doesn’t show any of the characters, which I think is at least partly to keep the comic from looking repetitive. Panels five and six are small, because there’s not a lot of text in them. In this comic, we establish Ryan’s relationship with his dad, get a sense of Shelley and Ryan’s relationship, have the two doing something more visually interesting, set up the next page (presumably) by having them catching a fish, and have a joke. Most of the space, besides all the text, is used to set up a bit of a melancholy mood, giving the conversation more context and more effect than if it were against a single-color wall with moth characters standing ramrod straight.

FCA is heavy on establishing when and where this the story is. The previous page with Nicola getting hit with a DDT so hard the comic went black and white, subtly setting up a recurring visual metaphor I came up with after the fact. This comic shows that she was injured pretty badly by it, and that her mom is worried about her, but pretty muted in her response. Plot-wise, there’s not that much going on here (not enough, maybe?), but I made an effort to include visual details. Nicola is playing with the roll-up thing for the windows next to a bag with the old McDonald’s logo on it, giving some indication that this comic takes place in the past, as does the car itself, which I think is a 1987 Ford Hatchback.

We also learn, a bit from panel 1 and a bit from the very well-done panel 8, that they’re not in the richest neighborhood. From this, we can get a sense of their class. I spent a lot of time writing this page going “Well, if they’re in a car, what can I put in the car to advance the story”. The cross hanging off the rearview mirror in panel 3, for instance, was something I put in the script specifically, as was the older McDonald’s logo. I looked up cheap cars from the mid to late 80s to determine what kind of car they were in. Is the fact that Nic’s mom is Christian going to be relevant to the story? Almost certainly not, but it cost no space that detail in there, so I did it.

I tried to fit as much information into that space as I could, because I’m paying per-page and want to get as much value for my dollar as possible (I later, sadly, go overboard on this a bit. Getting the pacing right has been a bit of a challenge, since I don’t want to waste pages, but need to give things room to breathe. Page 5 is a bit too cramped)

(Also, I think the text in the first panel should be a speech bubble coming out of the car, but then having a box in panel 2 looks really weird. If I put a word balloon in panel two, where does the tail go?).

I don’t know if I succeeded, or what I could’ve done better, but I tried to fit shit in. Bad Machinery, if you go back to its start, has a lot of visual details, too. This dude is upper-middle to upper class since he’s got a big room and a big computer monitor. He’s a nerd because of his posters. He goes to an upscale school because of his fancy uniform (or is British). We know a lot about this guy because of the visual details, even without reading any of the text.

Questionable Content is three beat panels and a line. A woman is eating cereal.

Having nothing in the background isn’t just lazy art. It’s lazy storytelling. We’ve spent several pages in Claire’s mom’s house, and we know nothing about her except what’s in the text. The only useful visual information is that she looks like Claire. Even if she’ll never show up again, that’s so wasteful.

Don’t think of art and writing as two separate ideas where never the two should meet. BM’s visuals give it’s conversation a lot more context and meaning, and it’s much stronger as a result. It’s not even that he drew well. It’s what he drew that gives the conversation its feel.

[scarygoround-deactivated2021111]

I feel funny about reblogging this but I see wannabe comics people knock Jeph Jacques’ artwork so often and it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes a comic work. I comment here purely because I am being used here to represent “right” and Jeph “wrong”. 

Artwork has very little to do with what makes a comic work for an audience. I think I’m close to the truth when I say that QC has ten readers for every one of mine. Jeph has succeeded in making people care about, not just one character, but dozens, in a narrative that progresses at a gentle speed that readers supposedly “can’t handle” on the post-Tumblr internet. For my money it’s almost the perfect fusion of manga pacing/accessibility and functional, comic strip art. Here’s one of - let’s not soft soap this - America’s most popular comic creators, a straight fellow who at least has the courage to write about queer people, trans people, actually takes time to step outside his comfort zone. Is the work perfect? No, because nothing is. But find another burro to hit the back end of with a banjo. There’s nothing wrong with criticism, but I think that saying QC is sometimes stiffly posed and simplistically paced misses the point. It’s not one strip, it’s thousands. Instead of looking at what doesn’t work here, look at what does, and maybe inform your work with that. II don’t think it matters how well you can draw a house or a car if no one cares what you’re saying.

[drgonzorw]

Well said, John!

[s-c-i-guy]

Growing up the humor of Robin Williams was one of the very first I connected with. When it first came out Mrs. Doubtfire instantly became my favorite comedy and remains so to this day. Now that he’s gone I feel like a piece of my childhood has gone along with him. I’m thankful I still have those memories of rolling around on the living room rug in side-splitting laughter because of him.

Rest in peace, Captain 1951-2014

[drgonzorw]

RIP Robin Williams.

[theglobalelite]

[andybrwn-deactivated20160114]

this

[emperornorton47]

I have long said that both the Israelis and the Palestinians need new leaders.

[miketheboar]

[nabyss]

Lmfao. This is true. They can’t believe we were that intelligent (and still are.).

[burnedshoes]

25 YEARS AFTER TIANANMEN SQUARE

25 years have passed since the Communist hard-liners sent tanks to Tiananmen Square, filling the morgues with the broken bodies of young fighters for democracy and casting a repressive nightfall across the country. (read more)

IMAGE INFO: #1: © Kin Cheung, June 4, 2014, Tens of thousands of people attend a candlelight vigil at Victoria Park in Hong Kong to mark the 25th anniversary of the June 4th Chinese military crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square #2: © Catherine Henriette, June 2, 1989, The students don’t leave Tiananmen Square

» more war & conflict photography «

[emibot]

[warrenellis-deactivated20200730]

This is my five thousandth post on Tumblr.

I feel like it should be Important, should be of some moment and weight.  A milestone post.

…

…

EVERYONE TAKE OFF THEIR CLOTHES RIGHT NOW OR I’LL MURDER THIS KITTEN

[laughingsquid]

Fascinating Video Compares World War I Photos of Antwerp to the Present Day

[starline]

Missandei ACEO Card for sale

[starline]

Sansa & Arya Stark ACEO Card Set for sale on Etsy

[starline]

Game of Thrones might have inspired me last night… #art #aceo

[hawkmans]

[yourpeacefulshareoftime-deactiv]

North African soldiers in Oise, France, 1917

North African soldiers near the Western Front

Indo-Chinese Sergeant

Sikh and French soldiers in Pas-de-Calais, France, 1915

Algerian soldiers in Oise, France, 1917

Indian troops undergoing a gas mask drill

Sengealese and other French colony soldiers

Wounded Indian soldiers in France

Provenance unknown

Native American veterans of WWI

[yourpeacefulshareoftime-deactiv]

I’ve ranted about this before.  Popular books on WWI give one the impression that it was a war fought entirely (or at least predominantly) by white soldiers.  The reality is that more than a million colonial troops fought on all fronts of the war — and that’s not even counting the Native American and African American soldiers who came later, and the Turkish soldiers on the German side.

[sydneyflapper]

I’d include Maori and Indigenous Australians in this too…the latter had to face tremendous obstacles in order to sign up (restrictions were apparently relaxed somewhat towards the end)…indeed, although not even counted as Australian citizens at the time, some traveled great distances to recruiting stations in order to try and sign up, only to be rejected. Still, some managed to overcome this - in some instances by claiming to be Maori or Indian.

And here’s one of our WWI legends: Billy Sing, who had an astonishing record as a sniper at Gallipoli:

Sing’s father was ethnically Chinese (there has been recent controversy over an attempt to film a biopic that cast both Sing and his father as white Europeans - fortunately the uproar was such that the project was dropped, although I’d like to see an accurately cast version of the story).

WW1 was a war that, like most, should never have happened…but in remembering it, I do like to recall that the ANZAC that my grandfather belonged to, and fought in from Gallipoli to the end, was not entirely comprised of white Australians.

[chrishallbeck]

My great comics friend Dave Kellett and his buddy Fred Schroeder have released a documentary on comics called “Stripped”. It’s a big wonderful hug to newspaper comics past and present featuring interviews with old school creators such as Jim Davis (Garfield) and Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes) and the new generation of creators like Ryan North (Dinosaur Comics) and Zach Weinersmith (SMBC). It’s filled with amazing stories and I find new thing to love every time I watch it. Check out the trailer and then go to http://www.strippedfilm.com/ to get it on DVD or iTunes or your other favorite movie source! You’re gonna love it!

[nevver]

Most common language besides English and Spanish

[chd1ng-blog]

Why is Arabic so popular in Michigan?

[drgonzorw]

Wow! Surprised at the number of Tagalog speakers in CA and NV! But then again I shouldn't be. Interesting too, the dispersal between European and non-European languages. I imagine though that in Alaska there are more Native language speakers than Spanish speakers.