EvaUnit02 on 7/10/2010 at 08:08

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And? I understood them as well and also only have passing knowledge of both games (haven't played a Civ game since the DOS original). I've stated my point and stand by it.

Aside from the many shit, unfunny jokes of course, having to read Tycho's fucking blogs to get the gist of a lot of Penny Arcade's strips is a large reason why PA is so terrible.

Dresden on 7/10/2010 at 11:51

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Seems very average and that's a big problem among comics these days. Comics to me are becoming like magic tricks. The most they can ever elicit from me is a "Heh" followed by my walking away. I think you need a hook, like possibly using no dialog the way political cartoons do or PBF/Far Side style surrealism. It just needs to stand out from the pack.

Minion21g on 7/10/2010 at 12:47

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My dreams have been shattered, sweet bro and hella jeff is so much cooler than us.

But seriously, I appreciate the feedback folks. I wasn't expecting particularly .. positive feedback? It's not like these comics are pristine jewels of success. We have absolutely no clue what we're doing and I make an effort to point that out on our about page, which I don't expect anyone read through anyhow.

Some of the things I was hoping you guys would hit on was the website design itself, like the layout, the color choices, and maybe even the source code. The fact that we lack a copyright indicator too, this being something I only caught yesterday, please don't steal our stuff! :O

You've also done a good job of making it very clear that we need something other than the navigation arrows.. or at least something more prominent with labels in big bold letter saying "NEXT", because even though it seems obvious to me what our navigation arrows are for, we keep hearing more and more complaints about the lack of navigation around the website.

I invite everyone to check out tomorrow's comic too, again feedback is encouraged.

Scots Taffer on 7/10/2010 at 13:34

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Vernon fuck me that comic had me in near tears after about (http://www.mspaintadventures.com/sweetbroandhellajeff/?cid=005.jpg) five clicks

Stitch on 7/10/2010 at 21:51

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Basically what Addink said. Your comics lack any real sense of pacing or joke building. You guys have some decent ideas but they aren't really shaped into anything all that funny.

For example: okay, the idea that with all the natural disaster lately a zombie outbreak can be reasonably expected is funny, but what do you do with that? Make the guy wear a hazmat suit everywhere? Cute idea, but hazmat suits aren't explicitly connected to zombie outbreaks so the joke requires far too much explaining. This still might work if framed right--maybe boil it down to a single panel, as the comic as is is all setup and no payoff. Show people shrinking away (as Addink suggested) and have hazmat dude saying to his friend a far more concise version of the current punchline "Earthquakes, oil spills, volcanoes--zombies are only a matter of time." The plague angle only adds to the distance between set up and payoff, so ditch it. Remember, brevity is crucial in comedy.

Even better, though, would be to "fix" the joke by reworking it considerably. Identify the setup and payoff and reconstruct the comic accordingly. The punchline--"I figured a zombie outbreak is only a matter of time" is set up on two levels. First, the comic establishes the question of just what the fuck this guy is doing (making the reader want an answer), and secondly the comic establishes the contextual setup for the punchline (so that the readers have the connecting dots to enable "getting it").

Right now the latter setup is stored in the punchline, which just gets in the way. Move that up so the punchline can fly free of baggage. Unfortunately, the former setup that raises the question of what the fuck the guy is doing is built on a far shakier premise, and a dude wearing a hazmat suit everywhere isn't all that funny.

So what do you do with this information?

If you're willing to ditch the hazmat suit and get a little violent, you could keep the joke more or less as is but swap in something more extreme and shift the setup to the first panel.

PANEL ONE:

[INDENT]GUY ONE (reading newspaper): Man, shit is getting nuts: earthquakes, volcanoes, oil spills. What could possibly be next?

GUY TWO (watches)[/INDENT]

PANEL TWO:

[INDENT]GUY TWO suddenly violently beheads GUY ONE with an axe. The newspaper goes flying.
[/INDENT]
PANEL THREE:

[INDENT]GUY ONE's severed head watches GUY ONE, looking pissed. GUY TWO stands there, blank.[/INDENT]

PANEL FOUR:

[INDENT]GUY ONE'S HEAD: I'M NOT A FUCKING ZOMBIE!

GUY TWO: So you say.[/INDENT]

Comic done. Not the funniest thing in the world, but it reads like a comic and translates the gag well.

Hell, if you wanted to keep the whole hazmat suit angle you could, as long as you push it into adequately bizarre and awkward territory:

PANEL ONE:

[INDENT]DUDE IN HAZMAT SUIT sits alone at a table with a romantic candle in the middle of it. CUTE GIRL arrives, wearing a classy minidress.

CUTE GIRL: Sorry I'm late, but I--[/INDENT]

PANEL TWO:

[INDENT]CUTE GIRL stares at DUDE IN HAZMAT suit, giving him a weird "what the fuck" look. DUDE just sits in silence.[/INDENT]

PANEL THREE:

[INDENT]CUTE GIRL: You haven't been on a date in awhile, have you?

HAZMAT DUDE: match.com doesn't have a zombie yes/no field, just covering my bases.[/INDENT]

Again, not the funniest thing in the world, but remarkably better, and possibly a springboard into other situational jokes regarding, say, what entree hazmat dude might order for a perceived zombie girl.

This deconstruction undoubtedly goes overboard, but I wanted to give a bit of feedback on what doesn't really work in your current batch of comics and how you might fix it. Getting an idea for a comic is only the first step, the real work comes with pushing it into something funny.