You do need to “let go”, & feel freer with your humor.
Perhaps adding a fantastic element or two would help.
Krokodil - hope your ego’s feeling strong today! I applaud you for asking, here, for critiques. You certainly got 'em!
Anyway, my 2 cents is your strips made me chuckle out loud, not a lot of stuff (as someone else mentioned) does that, so, good for you! Hope you continue working on it. And, BTW, I thought the “blank CD” think absolutely did make sense - but Kenny G works too 
(and no, I’m not sucking up - to either Krokodil OR to Trunk - just laughing.)
Cheers!
oops - thing, not think. Obviously.
Oh, I knew what I was in for by asking strangers to critique my stuff, both here and on other message boards. It’s all very helpful.
Let me ask a few technical questions:
–Are the hand-lettered strips more or less readable than the computer-lettered ones?
–Do the spot blacks make the panels easier or harder to follow?
–Is an actual joke preferable to putting two damaged personalties next to each other and watching the fireworks happen?
–Is it clear from looking at it who works there and who the customers are?
Thanks in advance!
Am I the only one who can’t read it? It’s way too small. At work I don’t have another browser (just IE) so I can’t just switch like I would at home.
Oh, I knew what I was in for by asking strangers to critique my stuff, both here and on other message boards. It’s all very helpful.
Let me ask a few technical questions:
–Are the hand-lettered strips more or less readable than the computer-lettered ones?
Only slightly less, but I liked the computer-lettered more.
–Do the spot blacks make the panels easier or harder to follow?
I don’t know what this means.
–Is an actual joke preferable to putting two damaged personalties next to each other and watching the fireworks happen?
To me, a joke is preferable. If Hork is going to be a curmedgeon, make him a damn curmudgeon, not a “decaf curmedgeon”. Now, as with a lot of good comic strips, if their personalities are established well enough, then you don’t need a joke, per se. Not even 'Boondocks" or “Bloom County” has a joke per day. But you need to have funnier personalities and more enjoyable drawings if you’re going to pull that off.
–Is it clear from looking at it who works there and who the customers are?
Not totally. Hork runs it and the brunette works there. But Chantal seemed like a regular in one, and somewhat of an employee in the “Open Mic” one.
Thanks in advance!
I have IE as well. Click on the art and a small icon with rainbow colors and little arrows coming out of it will appear. Click on the icon, and you can see the strip at full size.
I suck at HTML, and GeoCities (the site provider), for all its faults, is free.
“Spot black” is where a huge portion of the panel–like the entire background, or maybe the characters in silhouette–is solid black, for emphasis or as an element of design. It looks cool when it’s done properly; improperly, it looks like the artist putzed out of drawing an honest background.
Pretty good stuff. 
Humor is very subjective, so I won’t offer any critiques there. Let’s just say that I wish the Quizno’s mutant rats had their own TV sitcom…
I do pen 'n ink stuff myself, and some comics (never published though, just a hobby). I’d like to offer some well-intentioned technical critiques…
Computer lettering over hand lettering definitely. Most people can not letter consistently, and most hand-lettering out there appears cheap and rushed. Your lettering isn’t very consistent, and tends to blend with your other art instead of popping out, readability-speaking.
Most of your frames are full-face or otherwise tightly framed. Backgrounds, props, etc are very useful to adding interest and dimension to your world. The reader should know that they are in an edgy coffee house without your needing to explicitly state it.
Use some varied shots of the characters, more full-figure shots, to really add distinctiveness to your cast. Faces get boring fast. See old Bloom County or Calvin & Hobbes for good variances of framing characters.
Try using a variety of weights/stylus of your pens. Everything in your strip is mono-width and very heavy lines, tends to make the scenes bland and uniform. You’ll be able to develop wonderful flexibility and depth with some finer lines.
Oh, in that case, I vote No to the Spot Black. If you are doing a whole comic book in black and white about, say, an aardvark, then it can be used to show that it is nighttime out. But not in a daily strip.
Are the hand-lettered strips more or less readable than the computer-lettered ones?
The computer generated text is far more readable, but have you tried going with lowercase letters instead?
This would allow you to use all caps to stress key words, tone or volume.
**Do the spot blacks make the panels easier or harder to follow? **
It’s a bit distracting, but it’s a good transition panel, like the panel where you show the whole outdoor view of the coffeehouse with the character text balloons.
Is an actual joke preferable to putting two damaged personalities next to each other and watching the fireworks happen?
Funny situations often don’t need a “joke”. See Astro’s post above for a variety of humorous scenarios that you can run with. As he pointed out, one funny situation often leads into another.
Is it clear from looking at it who works there and who the customers are?
I think it’s clear - but maybe not 100% clear for a new reader. Cheesy staff uniforms could be a source of comedy and also help the new reader to identify the staff.
All in all - good stuff! I hope to see more of your work.
How about some more characters? Maybe some strange, regular customers or dumb delivery dudes. Have you got a coffeehouse critter? Perhaps caffeine addicted cat to annoy Hork, or an incredibly sarcastic parrot. Developing a variety of characters will allow you more options for dialogue and will help to best deliver the punch lines.
Be consistant. If Hork is cranky, keep him VERY cranky, but not without weaknesses. (He could hate everything - but turn to putty in private when with a kitten or puppy, for instance.)
I think you have a lot of talent. Keep with it. Remember us when you are syndicated.I’ve done cartoons just like this in the past. Published too, though never exactly got paid.
I think I’d prefer the hand-written, if your lettering was a bit more uniform. But then I don’t like the computer font. Try another font? Lettering is hard to get right, but vital.
Also take care over your bubbling positioning. I read the bubbles on last panel on the second strip of Hork1 in the wrong order because the bottom one appears in the line of sight when arriving from the previous panel . I wouldn’t have if it had been further down. (You should also start numbering your strips, or you’ll never keep track of anything!)
Your choice of putting them online in gif format wasn’t the best. Jpeg would have been better, allowing better aliasing and cleaner lettering.
Anything that makes things a little more varied makes it easier. Spot blacks are cool as long as it’s not messy and not over done.
Depends on the jokes, depends on the fireworks, depends on what you personally can make funny. Most good strips vary things about.
Not really. But you have to rely on people getting familiar and not having to explain everything every time. I didn’t like the introduction panels you have on the main page. It would be better if they just gave factual points about your characters, what you have currently kind of looks like ‘explaining the joke’ to me. If you have to be told that Hork is “Very canny and conservative.” then the cartoons aren’t doing their job.
Personally, I always believe that in cartoons less is more. So I find your style a bit over-fussy and ‘scratchy’. But that’s a matter of taste. If you look at many great cartoonist’s work you’ll see that their characters start out quite elaborate and become more and more spare until they’re perfected.
But what you have is not bad at all. Keep building on it until your characters have a life of their own, then all you need to do is throw the situation in at them and the strip practically writes itself. Course, it’s never as easy as it sounds.
Did anyone hear a whoosh around about here?
I read that as being sarcastic. Which made the follow up to it funny.
Keep up the good work, Krokodil. I don’t understand why some of yo would want him to focus on making well known characters at the moment than focus on the gags. I’m not saying that he should rely on gags forever but if to get people to relate to his characters and create some meaningful attachment to the comic I think he should bring them in first of all.
Also Krokodil I think you should play more of the toilet/newspaper scene and have the same two characters, a Lenny and Carl type get-up. What about have some traumatising, yet secret event in Hork’s past that can become an in-joke as the story progresses.