#formera

[fontseeker]

Formera (2011) is a digital font created from scans of a prototype version of Futura (1927). It includes some of the weird letter shapes that Paul Renner experimented with but which didn't make it into the final version of Futura.

Because it's derived from scans of actual ink printed on paper, the outlines are a little irregular, though it's only noticeable at large sizes.

Formera can be downloaded for free from NoirBlancRouge.

[hypocrisyofandrewdobson]

What is Andrew Dobson's full bibliography? As in, published works with ISBN numbers?

I don’t think I have the full list, but I can give you at least a few of them.

Formera Vol 1 - ISBN-10 0979787467/ISBN-13 978-0979787461

Formera Vol 2 - ISBN-10 1934985074/ISBN-13 978-1934985076

The Adventures of Alex ze Pirate - 9781442146457 (ISBN10: 1442146451)

The Adventures of Alex ze Pirate - Life At Sea - ISBN-10 1460995066/ISBN-13 978-1460995068

Pattty Vol 1 - (ISBN10: 1411639626)

Aside from those, there was an anthology he put out called “Andy’s Hat”, he was one of the stories featured in “Alterna Tales #4”, and “The Adventures of Percy Philips”. There’s also a few old short stories he reposted on Gumroad, but those were distal downloads only.

Out of all of them, I think you can find used copies of Formera floating around online easiest. And I’m pretty certain at least one of the Alex ze Pirate comics is fully archived online.

[soyouareandrewdobson]

“Good news” and throwing the bear a bone...

In order to find stuff by Dobson and give more or less an as “complete” overview of his work and attitude as possible, I managed to dig one of his oldest pages online up. His angelfire account that dates as far back as 2004. This is actually interesting, because the thing is still publicly available and there is quite some early stuff by him on. That includes sketches, old games he programmed (though I can not assure that they are safe to download), early artwork, his own resume and even reading samples for Legends (Alex ze Pirates first book), Patty and Percy Phillips.

 But the real surprise for me was, that I managed through this account to also find a bunch of old comics of Dobson I stumbled upon a long time ago but did not originally safe up. Comics that may surprise you guys for two reasons: a) They are actually short scary comic stories and b) they are actually pretty damn good.

 Why is that a surprise? For starters, Dobson has within the last decade or so made it obvious that he HATES scary stuff. As in horror movies and even the basic celebration of Halloween. So seeing him doing short horror stories is surprising to begin with. Next… well, it is Dobson. We all know his skills in storytelling are not that very good. So part of you expects it to be very goofy in a way. And then you read this stuff and realize that damn, Dobson from 12+ years ago actually had potential. Not necessary in a way that was immediately worth being published and sold professionally, but in so far as that I can hold it in higher regard than some of his professionally published books.

 And to show you that I am not entirely talking out of my ass here, let me just show you the stories, okay?

The first one is called Darkness

Now look, I will say that yes, the thing has still some issues to it. For starters, It is obvious that the art style is manga inspired, though I would argue it looks less inspired by Rumiko Takahashi or your average popular shonen manga design, which actually gives it more of an individual charm than other stuff by Dobson. Next, I don’t know how Dobson drew the black surfaces in the panel, but when you look closely you can see that the color at times crosses the panel lines. It is not very obvious on first glance though. Also, the panels outlines are at times not completely straight and the way shadows and light work here is basic. It is not like the light dimmers or there are areas of gray in the comic.

However, those are in my opinion kinda nitpicks. Cause honestly, I think Dobson works well enough with the “bland” contrast of black and white here and I like how very few white lines are used to give a basic impression of the sheets and other surfaces. We see just enough of the room to get a sense of atmosphere here. Next, I like the facial expressions on the characters and their design. Nothing too detailed and complex, but the simplistic expressions the siblings have on page 3 alone actually manage to convey the emotions decently. You get the sadness and worry in the face of the younger kid and the worry, surprise and “love” in the older sibling. Also, the last page is a decent “scare” to end on. No explanation what happened, just an empty bed and one person left, forever wondering where her sibling is. Heck, even the font for the words/the way they are written works well enough for that kind of story to tell. This is a decent short comic.

 Next story, Photo

 Here I have to admit I find more flaws than in the previous one, most of them connected to minor continuity errors. Like the punkgirl Gwen having prominently black polished nails in panel 3 of the first page, but in the last panel when the hands are still close enough at a certain ankle for the nails to be seen, not even black dots. Also the cigarette not realy being hold but slightly floating in the last panel. Page 2 is the most flawed one in my opinion. The perspective in the first panel just looks tilted as if it was a minor dutch ankle. Seriously, get a ruler. Also, the girl in the dress having wrist bands in the second panel, which were not there on the prior page, the follow up panel and still show up on the following pages. Also I am not sure, but did Gwen suddenly wear black jeans instead of a black skirt or is that a result of the curtain blending into her legs too much?

 In regard of the last three pages, there is not really much I can say. The “worst” for me is that the face of the girl becomes too basic especially in the second panel of the last page. The payoff however of the photo booth making them disappear is actually not all that bad. Don’t know if you ever heard of the superstition that a picture can steal someone’s soul, but I think that is more or less what happened here. I especially like the two last panels in that regard. The first one with the expression in a flashlight, which really seems to indicate something scary is happening, the last panel and the expressions in the pics indicating that the character is getting her soul sucked out and surrendering to her dark fate.

 And with that we get to the last story of the bunch, Teddy

 I really can not say much here aside of the fact that I am baffled that Dobson went in that direction with the story. Cause this feels legitimately dark. A little kid being dragged into an alley by a child molester, the train of thoughts of the kid, the aftermath of the kid standing in the gore of the victim? IPart of me is not surprised it ended the way it did, because that type of story has been done by others over the course of fiction too, but I need to give credit, that is a decent 4 page adaptation of the concept. I also like the fact that the linework gets subtly better/more detailed as we get closer to the end, with the last page in particular having nice blood splatters and use of basic speed lines to it. It also helps that enough effort is put into the design of the kid where you as a reader want to genuinely protect it from whoever is assaulting it.

 So yeah, three short comics by Dobson, likely done sometimes between Patty and the official publishing of Formera, which actually blow the artwork in both of the books slightly out of water by comparison. And I am not even kidding.

I mean, THIS is some of the artwork seen in Patty and Formera

 Those three stories somehow manage to be legitimately nice and plot coherent stuff to look at compared to comics he tried to sell as ongoing series for money. Sure, it is not Junji Ito level of scary or drawn and the character design is very manga-esque, but honestly, I take this Dobson over present day Dobson, whose Cabin’s Rest story had basic pacing issues, past Dobson did not seem to have in those stories.

Well, that is it then for today. And in case you are disappointed I did not rip him a new one entirely… look, I will give the guy once in a while credit where credit is due, okay? Also believe me, this is more of a situation where once in a while, on a whimp, when the wind is in the right direction, I happen to be kind. (shout out to anyone getting the reference)

And believe me, based on some stuff I also found via angelfire, other pages and an archive of his oldest deviantart posts, there will soon be quite a few things to properly criticize. Though less about his creations, and more in regard of his attitude.

[hypocrisyofandrewdobson]

What's Formera? There's very little I can find about this comic

Dobson’s first “official” comic and one of the few he had published through a company. Basic story is “young boy is suddenly in weird fantasy world with no idea how he got there.” It’s essentially a very bare bones isekai whose characters are very one note.

The Hypocrisy of Andrew Dobson

External link here What you are looking at are some of the first few pages of Formera, one of Dobson’s comics that he published through Alt

I actually own used copies of the only two volumes released and keep meaning to scan them online, but I’ve lacked the time and equipment to do so effectively.

[hypocrisyofandrewdobson]

Holy shit, one of his worst comics has to be the shit he tried to get sold in stores. Formera especially, that shit is visually offensive. No character is drawn consistently, the characters look like themselves but their hair and clothes will be drawn with more bangs to less bangs, going from collar to no collar on the shirt. How the hell can someone who went to school, for drawing of all things, draw something so ass?

The Hypocrisy of Andrew Dobson

External link here What you are looking at are some of the first few pages of Formera, one of Dobson’s comics that he played blushed throug

You know, I actually own both volumes of Formera. Found them online for cheap a few years back.

I keep meaning to scan and upload them online, but I lack a home scanner and the time to go somewhere and scan two books.

[hypocrisyofandrewdobson]

How come Dobson never made SYAC books? Was he seriously just too lazy?

I think he might have just given up on physical copies at this point. By this point, he’d released the book also of Formera and Alex ze Pirate to middling results, so I think he just have it up as a pointless endeavor.

[hypocrisyofandrewdobson]

hi there, im very new to "Dobson´s Story " so im curious, i was reading the time when he mention he was so successful and got a lot of jobs and publish books, you mention a lot of those books did not sell well, can i hear a bit more about this ?

I think the best example of him not being able to sell his comic, despite managing to find a publisher in Alterna Comics, is his experiences at the 2009 New York Comic Con, in which he sold so little merchandise that his mother and aunt literally bought the majority of it to make him feel better.

Yes, really.

The Hypocrisy of Andrew Dobson

I've heard a story long ago about Dobson that I'm not sure is true or even heard it on KF. Maybe you've heard of it. So, did Dobson have a b

And as a bonus, the comic he made about his experiences.

The Hypocrisy of Andrew Dobson

@socksual-innuendos I do, actually! Had to cut it into multiple bits, but here’s Dobson’s comic/pic gallery of when he went to NYCC.

[hypocrisyofandrewdobson]

Sorry about such a sudden submission after my first one, I just...really wanna talk about this. I’m also sorry about not shutting tf up about Formera, I just wanna try and give it a reboot, show it some love, actually put work in it-

Okay, so we have ALLLLLL seen Dobson’s horrendous Splatoon comic where he replaces all that business going on with the Splattershot with a solid ass black box, but I have no idea if we went over this sorry excuse for a spear he uses in one of his Formera comics:

Yep. THAT is supposed to be a spear. Now I’m not that much of a weapons expert, hell I suck at drawing them. But you know what I do when I suck at it? I doubt Dobson does it, but I actually contact someone I know, who actually does know his weapons, and get feedback and criticism. And that’s what I did for this, I showed my boyfriend the spear, and this is what he has to say about it,

“That’s a fucking club, not a spear. I’m serious, you’d be more effective using that as a maul. The spearhead is FAR too big, and the stick is too small. It looks more like a spear for ANTS.”

I feel if someone said that to Dobson, maybe just MAYBE he’d fix it. But, we all know he’d say “thanks for advice on an art piece I already finished, you stupid piece of Nazi shit!”

Everyone can unanimously agree this spear he made was FAR better than the one in the comic:

I am thankful I, unlike Dobson, can at least notice when something I don’t normally draw seems off and don’t have such a big ego that I won’t even bother getting criticism from people who have knowledge of this stuff better than me.

Let’s be realistic here, if he even tried making Keisha have a sharpened STICK for a spear, he’d fuck that up too, by making it inconsistent lengths.

What have we learned today, THOAD children? Maybe, just maybe, you should consider asking for feedback from someone who can properly tell you the inaccuracies of what you draw. Basically, don’t be a Dobson.

“Looking at older art vs newer art of Dobson’s is always interesting to me, because you can see the actual difference between him putting in effort and him just churning something out as fast as possible.” -THOAD