Here’s something pointless to share: Hork’s Java Joint, my latest strip, is now online at http://www.geocities.com/arqueille2000/
Let me know what you think!
Krokodil not too bad. The one about decaf and the one about the kittens made me laugh out loud. Good job.
Nice stuff. Funny punchlines, and an edgy drawing style will always do it for me…
Pretty good so far. You need to have more Open Mike Night strips and make fun of the perfromers.
Well, “Sorry, this site is temporarily unavailable!” is funny, but not hilarious.
It’s back up, grumpy-butt.
Good! Just not my cup of tea— ( 8(1)
Keep up the good work.
The site must be back up and running as I got on with no problem.
Good stuff! I like the idea of a gruff ex-bartender now owning a coffee shop…opens lots of possibilities.
I sort of swore off comic strips a few years ago when I realized I was reading them and not even smiling, let along laughing.
But yours did make me smile - so if my opinion counts, yours are better than 99% of the stuff that is being published now!
I assume you have submitted to KingsWorld or whoever the big distributers are now? Keep up the good work and looking forward to seeing you in syndication soon!
(I liked the kitten one as well - but they were all pretty good, which I think is a very good indication of future success.)
I likes. 
Good art work!
How often do we get updates?
Nice work. Reminiscent of Dork Tower, but more universal. Keep it up. I was laughing and I don’t even like coffee.
I like the art, but the “hot coffee lawsuit” thing is old.
Overall, good.
I like the cast of characters you have created.
I like it a lot.
I think you should market the decaf strip on a coffee mug. Perfect venue for a joke like that.
Heh, I was just going to chime in that the lawsuit strip made me laugh out loud!
I agree that your dialogue work is at least as good as most in the papers today. Better than many. Papers generally seem to prefer a little “cleaner” style of drawing, but the basic art is great.
You’re trying, but the humor is sort of unfocused, and the punchlines don’t really come off most of the time, but just kind of sit there as kinda-sorta-trying-to-be- archly-humorous observations. I don’t kow how to tell you to funny or witty, but I know it when I see it in “Get Fuzzy” or “Arlo & Janis” (among others). You rely too much on verbal slaptick, and don’t let the art do the work where it should.
The coffee shop context is great and provides leads into all sorts of good comics fodder.
For example the monkey poo coffee is wonderful riff there’s lots you could do with that. Where does it come from? How does he get it? What the hell is going on with these monkees? Are there other animal poo coffees?
The paper that’s up in the bathroom. This cold be a great set piece for all sorts of social commentary on news of the day.
I think your art needs work. You have definite and interesting style, but it need to be crisper and cleaned up. It’s too sketch-like to IMO really be considered real comic strip quality except maybe in a college or alternative paper.
Perhaps a talking, flying monkey provides the poo?
And the only people who drink the “monkey poo coffee” are the local trendy/arrogant/yuppy types? A free rant with every cup…?
It’s not bad, but the jokes are pretty used up. If I would have been just a regular visitor, and not there to give you my opinion, I would have bailed after “coffee is expensive” joke in the second strip. It was bizarre that people would pay five bucks for a cup five years ago; it’s pretty normal now.
Looks promising though.
Eve, I didnt catch how your procedure turned out. Hows your health?, and is everything coming along alright?
Good to see you posting again…
ho-hum.
Boring drawings. You don’t NEED alternate perspectives to make panels interesting, but I think it helps, especially if the characters and backgrounds are just pretty simple and basic and the jokes are flat. They’re not cartoony (like a Foxtrot or Boondocks). They’re not “cute” (like a “Rose is rose”). They’re maybe as artistic as a Luann, say. And, they’re good. They’re better than I could do but they’re just a bit boring.
The jokes, I can only identify as such because they are the last thing said in the last panel.
“Wanna listen to some blank CDs while you’re at it?” Besides not being funny, it only marginally makes sense. No one thinks decaf is like a blank CD. It’s more like a Kenny G CD.
“We have our customers very well trained.” another joke about funny ordering in a coffee shop??? Besides, it starts out with him telling an employee “you need to learn the language” then has a customer order something complicated and then the last panel doesn’t follow from the first panel. It might have been funnier if the new employee said, “what did she just order?” and he goes, “medium black coffee,” something incongruous. What he said isn’t a joke.
or
“my neighbor asked me to watch her kittens while she was away. turns out she moved out of town.”
“I’ve heard of bank heists with less planning” What? You have? She asked her to watch the cats and then she moved out of town. That’s a lot of planning?
“She’s an evil genius, all right!” *Is the phrase “evil genius” supposed to stand on it’s own as humor. Does “evil genius” really follow from what was said before. It’s inconsistent.
I’m not saying you have to be ‘edgy’ or something, but I would have had a bigger laugh out of
“So what are you going to do with the kittens?”
“Oh, I already put them in a burlap sack and drowned 'em.” *
That would have turned it back around on the original perpetrator. And that might not be funny either, but I’m just saying it’s an attempt at a JOKE – its not just two statements that happen to be made in the last panel.
There are many comics in the paper that basically don’t have jokes but are supposed to (e.g. Marmaduke, “are you in my chair, AGAIN?”) but they’ve paid their dues. It’s not way to break into the scene.
The one with the guys peeing was a little funny but it seems as if I’ve heard it before. It got me thinking it might be funny to have a whole comic strip take place in rest rooms.
I found the pen and ink work to be fine, and there’s some potential shown here. The funniest line for me was, “You only WISH that was irony, Delk!” Shows a sharp ear for language.
Generally, though, the humor needs sharpening and polishing. Your work is about on par with many syndicated newspaper strips … and that is not a compliment. Frankly, most of the stuff I see published in the mainstream is so watered-down and weak that I can’t begin to think what to tell you … if you get really good, that may well be a formula for failure.