Issue 222 Reviews

[ohmandoh]

It was such a lovely knife, by the way.

[Nut]

I am so late this week. Well, at any rate, here’s a few comic reviews before the new issue of the Times comes out. I hope they get read in time. ~_-;

[glow=blue,2,300]The Pet Patrol Revolution – Trends[/glow]
First off, I must say that you did the animation masterfully. It’s very smooth; the comic flows like a little video clip as opposed to simply flipping through scenes, and the sound effects match the characters’ actions perfectly. ^^ I really loved the roller coaster sequence; it was so much fun to watch that I played the comic over a few times just to see it. I appreciated the fact that you placed a “play” button in the first frame; I’ve begun reading many animated comics in the middle of the sequence due to a lack of that feature. The animation is very well-timed throughout. I love how you balance the fast-paced coaster scene by stopping abruptly on Yellow’s photo. ^^ I also like the way you transition from the coaster shot to the school locker room by zooming out on the photo. ^^
Now, as for the joke. I have to say that it took me a while to get it, though the roller coaster frames had me highly entertained anyway; I almost didn’t care if the punchline was funny as long as I could watch that car zipping over the tracks. Maybe the reason I didn’t get the joke is that I’m not that familiar with your characters; the newspaper’s headline “‘Yellow’ sets another trend” indicates that she’s had her actions copied in the past, but at first I didn’t get the fact that the pets at school were mimicking her expression on the coaster. You made the joke pretty clear, though; I was just slow that day. i_i; I’m not sure that the second photo flash was necessary to the comic; it probably would have worked if you just switched to the still picture of Yellow going by in the coaster, but that’s a very tiny detail and one that doesn’t matter much. I really like the way the pets shift the newspaper and blink at the end of the comic; it adds a sense of life to the final frame as well as giving the reader another laugh at the pets blinking their wide eyes.
Overall, this was a really fun comic to watch. ^^ The joke is almost secondary to humor value of the terrific animation. Great work!

[glow=blue,2,300]Triple Negative[/glow]
Oh my, this comic brings back memories of newbie days. I didn’t know what any of the paint brushes really cost, so I would bid amounts like 5,000 NP on them and think that I had a fair shot of getting the item. I really like this comic just because of the subject; nearly everyone goes through these irritating wishlists at the Trading Post that don’t give prices.
Panel One: I like how you kept the sellers in one long panel; it flows smoother than if you had broken it up into three sections. The green gradient accentuates this nicely; sometimes gradient backgrounds only look lazy, but you used it well here. The sketchy style has a nice charm to it. I like the fact that you gave each seller a unique appearance. The Kyrii looks almost elven, and the Kiko’s glasses are a nice touch. You get a sense of their character just by looking at them. The soft colors are nice, particularly the gray Skunk Kiko. I rather like the text box in the upper corner; it’s to-the-point and brings the reader into the comic quickly.
As for criticism, I think the fact that the Kyrii is looking hard at something out of the panel is a tad distracting. The other sellers are facing the reader, but the Kyrii’s eye is fixed on an unseen being. If you tilted him just a little so that he wasn’t focused so intently on the panel border, I don’t think I would have noticed so much. The word balloons and text were a little too large for my tastes, though the semi-transparency helps in that they don’t block the art too much. I think I would’ve preferred it if the word balloon wasn’t over the Quiggle’s eye, but that’s all right.
Panel Two: Though the punchline was expected, it was needed to seal the comic, and the reader takes a final laugh. I like the way you caricature the Pteri. I thought that the colors looked a bit washed-out here, with the pale green Pteri and the light brown ground and all, but this is coming from a person who adores eye-shockingly bright rainbow colors. I liked the way you drew the Strawberry Gelert here.
Overall: This comic is easy for nearly any Neopian to relate to, and brings to light the frustrations of many who visit the Trading Post. Great work!

[glow=blue,2,300]LePhante![/glow]
So many panels! I’m not going to go panel-by-panel here because it wouldn’t be that practical. This is a very cute comic; I liked it quite a bit. I admire your willingness to draw so many panels; even knowing that you copy and pasted several images, you clearly went to some effort to hide this fact. You did a good job of it. The repetitious format is rather nice, and helps to cover up the copy and pasting.
I like the cute Elephante character, and while I’ve seen the “cool dude” attitude before, the Kyrii was still funny to me. I like how you placed the Kyrii in front of the background of Sahkmet each time he appears. I thought it was a little distracting that the Kyrii was in a separate panel from the Sahkmet scene in two places, though; I think it would have looked better if you’d kept them in the same panel as you did the second time with the pink sky. That brings me to another point; the way you show different times of the day was very nice. The art is quite cute throughout the comic.
Now for criticism. The panels are packed close together, and are somewhat confusing to the eye. If you had separated them with a bit of white space, it might have looked less crowded. I managed to find my way through the panels in the right order, but it felt a little forced and I didn’t notice the tiny arrows until much later. I’m going to nitpick on the picture of the Neopian Times—the headlines and story are all in the frame, but the title along the top that says “The Neopian Times” is cut off by the panel border. I think this was caused because the pasted-in Neopian Times logo didn’t fit the space, so it looks as if the print is misaligned.
Allow me to nitpick on grammar—“Disappeared” is misspelled, and there is a typo in one panel where “fight” is spelled “figt”. Also, “Wars over dude!” should be punctuated to read “War’s over, dude!” As it is, it reads that multiple wars are above a dude; the reader knows what you meant, but it would be nice if you provided the correct information to begin with. On the same note, there should be commas in the dialogue of the Kyrii’s other word balloons: “Dunno Dude” should be “Dunno, dude” and “War Dude” should be “War, dude”. I realize that the Kyrii’s speech is supposed to be choppy, but the punctuation errors bothered me a little. Sorry to be so terribly nitpicky. <.<;
Overall, though, this was a very cute comic. It’s true that plots can zoom by very fast. For some reason I thought the Kyrii character was very funny, too. Good work!

[Star]

ohmandoh said:

Freedom

I really enjoyed this story. With the discussion about changing bodies, I thought they would. It was nice that it turned into something very different and unpredictable.

The first section could have been left italicized to help seperate it from the main story.

Since the story stars Daisy, I think it would have been better to have a longer introduction of her and the garden before showing the yellow wocky. Perhaps a close up (in words, hehe) of her searching around the beautiful garden for her friend, and when finally catching up, Shine could say it was enough and collapse down into that scene. As it was, I kept confusing the two throughout the story.

The rest of the story was nearly perfect, hehe. Perhaps more examples of what she expected to happen versus what was happening now to help contrast the situations. It was a really nice story. I hope you don't give up writing for the NT for good.

========================

Thanks for the review, Huntress!

LePhante!: ooh, Paint art ^^ I used to do that but I find it a lot harder than handdrawing. That comic obviously took a lot of hard work. The plotline is good too and the Kyrii dude's attitude is a nice touch. Good job ^^

I can sketch, but I can't do much more than that, hehe. Thanks!

Oooooh, thanks so much!!! I didn't realise that they were confusing! But I hope you didn't get TOO confused! Thanks for the brilliant review!

[ohmandoh]

Nut! Thanks so much for the thorough review!

I thought it was a little distracting that the Kyrii was in a separate panel from the Sahkmet scene in two places

That was supposed to look like he was in front of a hut... but I couldn't figure out how to make a window or a door where it wouldn't be distracting. I moved him and the scene around for each panel hoping it would help hide my copy and pasting.

but the title along the top that says “The Neopian Times” is cut off by the panel border

Hehe, the comic was a originally a lot wider than it is... and then I found out the width limit and had to cut the sides off. There used to be a sidebar like the times has.

“Disappeared” is misspelled, and there is a typo in one panel where “fight” is spelled “figt”.

OMG!!! I can't believe I did that. *hides in corner* I also misspelled cough originally, but when it got rejected the first time, a friend pointed it out. A very good thing that the comic I'm working on now is, uh, silent.

Thank you very much!