Some time ago, I received this email from Bridget, the artist who does The Battle of Dovecote Crest
Hello Ping,
Just wanted to make a request for a critique, if you have the time. The Battle of Dovecote Crest is my second webcomic, this time as the artist half of an artist/writer team. We're pretty new, having only started updating in late September 2008, but we've got a bit of an archive going and are about halfway through our first story arc. If you have any advice, it would be greatly appreciated!
Here's the link if you decide to check it out: http://dovecotecrest.comicdish.com.
Thanks,
Bridget Underwood
If you compare this to the previous postcard, I'm sure you can see the difference in approach. There's no self-promotion, only statement of the facts. It's kinda like the difference between a good resume and a bad one really. A bad one has stuff like "I'm intelligent, self-reliant, able to multitask and am a team player." A good one says it like "I did project [X] with a team of 7 people where we coordinated to produce [Y]. My role was doing [A], [B], [C], where for [B] and [C] no prior documentation or precedence had been set yet.
In short, it lets the reader decide. And this does mean a lot.
Anyway, short prattle over, let's get to the comic itself.
I have to admit my initial expectation was apprehensive. It's a comic about history? (History was one of my most hated subjects back in school). However, the site design was just so charming (made to look like a civil ware recruitment poster) and in tune with the rest of the comic that it did allay any reservations I might have. The art and writing pretty much did the rest.
Anyway, Dovecote Crest is a joint project between writer Hailey and artist Bridget. Joint projects tend to be either amazing (think T Campbell and Gisele Lagace) or short-lived (I'd link some comic that this happened to, but I can't for the life of me remember the name) or both. The really bad ones... well they never really get started ;)
Back to the topic, this comic follows the life of "Charlie", a young graduate who majored in history but is finding life out of college with a history degree not quite up to expectations. Stuck working for a historical enactment museum in the diminutive town of Dovecote Crest while her fellow classmates somehow have found careers, her seed of discontentment is offset by the support of her friends: Her sweet but socially-inept boss Jeremy, nice but no-nonsense Tess, and the always cheery and comical Ben. (Well that was a lot of alliterative description).
I really like the art style... it strongly reminds me of Faith Erin Hicks' (of the Demonology 101 fame) early work. While it lacks a lot of flash and fancy special effects (which is not necessarily a bad thing, as it matches with the context very well) it is well done, and the strongest point of Bridget's work is her sublime facial expressions.
Of course all the best art in the world is nothing if the story is not compelling. But as it turns out there's no worries there, because the story crafted by Hailey transcends its setting. OK, so I'm a self-confessed history hater (though that might have been due to the inaccuracy of the history I was made to study suffer, but that's a whole different can of worms), but somehow the characters and writing made it come alive for me. I think even though the setting and subject matter may be unorthodox, there's a lot people who can identify with in the characters themselves. And by association they start to become interested in the setting and subject matter when they couldn't originally.
I think it's really obvious by now I really really like this comic. I guess it's because it surprised me by taking a subject that was anathema to me and transformed it into something interesting and compelling. It takes a lot of skill to be able to do that and when you do manage to do it, you're pretty much doing everything right. In fact I wrote this with the usual feedback and criticism thing in mind but I really can't find anything I would nitpick (well maybe other than don't put the news page posting in every page of the archives too).
So this comic is a rather special and unexpected Find. But when I read a comic like Dovecote Crest I thank the Web for webcomics. Dovecote Crest is a comic that would probably have never been accepted by a conventional publisher because of the unconventional and niche subject matter. It's a shame, but traditional publishers have budgets and costs and businesses to run, so their sense = cents (and dollars). It's business.
The webcomics don't have to be business. It can be about doing something for the heck of it.
And that's the beauty of it.
So this comic is a rather special and unexpected Find. But when I read a comic like Dovecote Crest I thank the Web for webcomics. Dovecote Crest is a comic that would probably have never been accepted by a conventional publisher because of the unconventional and niche subject matter. It's a shame, but traditional publishers have budgets and costs and businesses to run, so their sense = cents (and dollars). It's business.
The webcomics don't have to be business. It can be about doing something for the heck of it.
And that's the beauty of it.
