Please take a look at my webcomic

Cafe Society
21

Lots of webcomics do this, although I’m not a fan.

I guess it does help with marketing; it can build a rapport with readers and a community. On the other hand, it’s cheating. If you didn’t say it successfully in the comic, you should fix the comic, instead of explaining what it means. If it’s only redundant, it should be removed..

If the webcomic is going to continue with the text post under each comic, I’d suggest taking more the author’s voice. The text sort of *pretends *that what happens in each comic is a surprise to the author, and that the author doesn’t know what might shake out from this latest plot development. It felt a little patronizing to me, like spoon-feeding me what *my *reaction is supposed to be.

Or, ideally, the text under the comic could be reworked to be something *besides *so directly what the reader has just read. That could be valid. “This one was inspired by a jerky barrista I deal with about every third day,” for instance.

22

Sort of three month bump. It’s been interesting but we’re now past what Jeph Jacques has called ‘installment 30’. He’s written that one shouldn’t get involved ina webcomic until they get past 30 installments. That’s apparently his dividing line on those who are committed and those who aren’t. Since we’re now past that I thought the bump was worthy.

Basic impressions for me:

  1. It’s harder to worldbuild than I thought it would be. Especially in six panel installments.

  2. The characters speak pretty well but not perfectly. I certainly know people like most of them.

  3. This has already moved from lighthearted to a longer novel-form presentation. So I’m now writing with a longer story in mind.

  4. Having a headstrong artist can be a blessing and…less than a blessing. She’ll sometimes get a script and reply ‘That was too wordy. I broke it into two comics.’ Or she’ll rewrite dialog on the fly. That said when I protest she’s pretty good about making changes.

  5. We’ve got the application in to Project Wonderful for advertising purposes. Even a little revenue would be nice.

  6. SPAM! There are three times as many spam comments as actual ones. It’s a pain in the butt.

Anything else on the tongues of you folks? Balance, I appreciate your comments in the comments section.

23

There’s a technical issue. In Firefox, the text below the comic appears in a white field surrounded by the dark gray w/ black stripes background. In IE, there is no white field, just the background, against which the text is quite hard to make out. Same for the cast of characters.

It’s very slow to load. Going to the next (or previous) installment takes quite a bit longer than doing the same with Questionable Content, for example. Since the story line so far is, shall we say, less than compelling (sorry), I can see a lot of people giving up on it while trying to check it out, due to a combination of boredom and frustration.

24

I only got a few strips in, then hit an Internal Service Error. So, I’ll comment on those.

First of all, and this is a big mistake many web comics make: If you need to use the spat text to explain why a joke is funny, or why a character is acting a certain way, something is horribly wrong. Either the joke doesn’t work, or you didn’t do a good enough job storytelling. There’s the core of a good joke in strip three but it doesn’t show up in the comic itself. If you have to explain why a joke is funny, it’s not funny, at least in it’s current form.

Comedy is a harsh mistress.

My other bit of advice (and this is going to sound bad, but I AM trying to help) would be that each page needs to be interesting in and of itself. Think of it like a comic strip, not a comic book. Imagine I surfed in randomly, and the only connection I have to the strip is this page. Why am I looking at the archive? Why am I coming back? Answer, I’m not. Two people talking about nothing, and the payoff is some ‘creepy lighting’ that I might not have even noticed without the splat text pointing it out?

The end result is, I’m afraid, nothing’s grabbing me. A manga-style slow build won’t work for a webcomic. (Well, unless you’re an established creator with a built-in fanbase, or your art is amazing enough to draw people in on it’s own. Even then it’s risky) There’s nothing wrong with what you’ve started with, and it would probably work fine in a print format. I’m just not as invested from the start as a comic-book reader, who’s already paid up-front and wants to get my monies worth. I’ve paid nothing, so if I get bored in between pages 6 and 8, I won’t bother coming back for page 9.

I’m not trying to bash. I respect the work and effort you’ve put into this. The art is fine, the overall story might have promise, but I don’t think you’re going to get a chance to tell it without focusing more on what works for the medium. Character and plot may be what people remember, but they’re not what gets you reading webcomics. They’re what you notice after the gag-a-day stuff has kept you coming back for three weeks.

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Also, on a purely technical standpoint, those arn’t brownies, at least according to the final arbiter of all things mythological, the 1st edition Monster Manual. Brownies are little old guys with pointy hats. Lawful Good wizards can get as familiars, if they cheat on their die roll.

25

Clean and simple web design. Kinda slow loading. (Might want to tweak that)

I read through it. Nothing compels me to pursue as it is.

Seems as good as any other Web Comic I’ve read.

I only view XKCD. Mostly because it’s random and unscripted.

But, I guess anything with a Cat vs. Pixies has a potential for madness.

Good Luck. :wink: