News and complaints

November 20, 2009 | Posted by Brigid

I took a look at a number of teen-friendly genre webcomics for the latest SLJ Teen newsletter.

Lucy Knisley sums up digital-vs-print angst in a neat little webcomic on her LJ. Go, read. (Via ComixTalk.)

Nice: The New York Times picks The Act-I-Vate Primer as one of the ten selections in their 2009 Graphic Novels Gift Guide.

The Webcomic Beacon interviews several Girl-a-Matic contributors in their latest podcast.

TGT Webcomics spotlights the Finnish comic Finn-strip.

Busy, busy website

Brad Guigar continues his web design clinic at Webcomics.com with makeovers of Galactic Divine, Bunny Pandemic, and MOF Comic. While I agree with most of his criticisms, I’m not so sure about his suggested solutions, especially when he takes away the header altogether—there’s something very claustrophobic about a comic that bumps up against the top of the screen. And sometimes he overcompensates for empty space by crowding too much into the page. But that’s just my opinion; go take a look, because the critiques provide plenty of food for thought.

Here’s a comic that could benefit from Brad’s attention: Finder, Incorporated, which looks kind of interesting and steampunk-y but commits the cardinal sin of burying the comic: Here’s the home page, where there is only a text link to lead you to the comic—no big button, no link from the artwork. OK, here’s the first page. It’s… tiny. You have to click and wait for the Flash (I assume) viewer to display the page at a readable size. Would you like to see page 2? Well, you can’t get to it from here—there’s no “next” button. There’s not even an x to close the Flash viewer—you have to click on the comic, which pops you back out to the website. And then you have to go back to the home page and find the link for page 2, because even the page 1 website lacks a “next” button. You know, the Flash thing works OK for Zuda because they have the entire comic embedded in a reader; doing it page by page like this, especially with no visible means of navigation, really gets in the reader’s way and puts the comic at a disadvantage from the start.

If you’re in the Portland, Oregon, area, head over to Meredith Gran’s place; the Octopus Pie creator is having an open house on December 5.

Reviews: My review of the day is El Santo’s look at The Prisoner, an online motion comic that’s really a tie-in to the TV show.

Matthew J. Brady on The Act-I-Vate Primer (Warren Peace Sings the Blues)
DKM Marlink on Girl Genius (Spwug)
Coyote Trax on One Swoop Fell (Coyote Trax’s Webcomics Critique)
Coyote Trax on Ted the Terrible Superhero (Coyote Trax’s Webcomics Critique)

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