Breakfast in Bangkok, Comics in a Plane

"Sorry Ping, but you need to go to Thailand for 2 weeks." My supervisor looked really serious.

I tried to look nonchalant. "Ok when?"

"Tomorrow morning."

It was 3pm in the afternoon.

Man my life is interesting.

Comic Category Descriptions

I don't rank comics by star ratings, but I do sort them into categories based on how I perceive them.

But for your convenience when browsing reviews by category:

What a Find! - Comics with special and unique characteristics that enthralled me, and which I can whole-heartedly recommend to others.

Place of Interest - An enjoyable comic that while wasn't earth-shattering and might have some flaws, is a worthwhile read if you have some time to spend.

Lost in Transit - A comic that has both positive qualities that might endear it to readers, and negative qualities that might drive them away. It's like Marmite, either you like it or hate it, there is no in-between.

Weekend Day Trip - A comic that was not really bad, might have been quite enjoyable to read but was lacking on the "memorable" front. A read-through is an entertaining way to spend a few hours, but ask me about it after a long time and I might need a few minutes to remember I read it.

Under Development - A comic that is too new to be evaluated properly, so contents of review may be inaccurate later on.

Tourist Trap - Comics that I did not enjoy and cannot in good conscience recommend to anyone.

Postcards #5: Addanac City

Today we're looking at Addanac City, which has had a request correspondence worth reposting:

Hi there,
 
I was just letting you know about this webcomic that's been out for a minute that's pretty funny (at least, I think so. I'm the creator.). It's called ADDANAC CITY, and it's about a seven-year-old kid named Hank who always seems to get into hot water with his friends, family, and school officials to comedic effect. Check it out if you wanna. I update it 5 days a week, Monday thru Friday. Currently, I've also been updating the site with strips on the weekends during December.
 
The link is www.addanaccity.com  Hope you enjoy!
 
Thanks,
George Ford
creator of Addanac City

I always have a suspicion that when someone starts a mail with "Hi there" the mail's been mass mailed to other people as well. But oh well... benefit of the doubt and all that, so I reply:

Hello Hank,

Thanks for your interest, I will have a look and postcard it when I have the time. Of course due to my ruthlessly honest policy I can't exactly guarantee a positive review, but I'm sure you understand that it's all part and parcel of submitting your comic for review :)


Regards,
Ping Teo
http://webcomicfinds.blogspot.com

Incidentally, I should mention that when I do Postcard reviews, I tend to be more critical than in my normal "Journey Leg" reviews. This is because when I do those, the creator never asked me to review their comic in the first place, and those reviews are geared more for readers looking for new comics . Postcards are different however, and the assumption I make is that they are more for the webcomic creators themselves and the requester is after criticism and feedback.

Hello Ping Teo,

I understand you on that one. There are a whole lot of web-comics out there that I don't like either. However, there some I do. Maybe ADDANAC CITY will be one you will, at least, appreciate even if it's not your cup of tea. We'll see.

Thanks for your time,
George

Fair enough. So I add this comic to my postcard list, which takes time to work through. Imagine my surprise when I get another mail over a month later that gave me a feeling of deja vu:

Hi Ping,

I just wanted to let you know about a webcomic that I create called "Addanac City". The strip features seven-year-old Hank Addanac, a wild n' wacky 2nd-grader who constantly finds himself in hot water with his parents, friends, and school officials.

ADDANAC CITY is updated five days a week, Monday thru Friday, only at:

www.addanaccity.com

I would love to get some feedback and/or a review whenever you get the chance (positive or negative).

Thanks,
George Ford

My bemused reply:

Hi George,

Call this odd, but didn't I receive an almost identical email from you on the same subject about a month ago? In fact I think I replied it.

Can't really say anything different this round, except that the comic is indeed in my postcard waiting list. There's only a couple of comics in front of you I think.

Anyway, thanks for your email.

Happy comicking!

Regards,
Ping Teo
The Webcomics Travel-Blog
http://webcomicfinds.blogspot.com

I guess that was a subtle hint I need to speed up my postcards replying rate.

I should mention that even before I had a look at the comic I had a feeling I wasn't going to like it. It sounds like I'm prejudging, but let me explain. When someone describes their comic and tries to tell you "it's pretty funny", I start feeling suspicious. It's the same kind of feeling I get when an salesman approaches me saying "Good day, Miss! I have an offer here that I'm 100% certain you will love!"

Maybe it's the part of me that resents being told how to feel. I'm ok with people describing a comic as a "humour comic" or "I found this comic funny". But when you tell me a comic is a funny comic, I get skeptical.

It's not the same thing, you understand. one is an opinion. One is enforcing your opinion on someone. The difference between them is the difference between being recommended something and being told that you should like something. It's also the difference between being recommended and being offended. Basically, if I want to feel that X object is funny, good, or worthwhile, I will be the one that decides that, thank you very much.

(Incidentally that's why I write my reviews is without any star ranking or ratings systems. I don't believe in scoring comics, only describing them and giving you my opinion of them. If I really like something I'll say I recommend it, but that's about as far as I go.)

Anyway, little rant over. Let's go see what this comic is about.

...


...


...


Well, I don't know about the comic itself, but my first impression was: "Wow. This is a prime candidate for How Not to Present Your Comic."



I showed this page to a mate of mine who described it as "the most zen-disrupting page they had ever seen".

The site is very badly laid out.

Let me rephrase that with less understatement. This isn't a comic page. It's a badly compressed thumbnail of a comic hiding in an obnoxious online equivalent of a classified ads with and even more obnoxious self-adulating tagline: The Official Website of Frank Addanac: America's Funniest Comic-strip Character!

*deep breath*

Ho-kay. Let's start with the comic presentation. If you click on the comic, you get the full-sized thing, which is slightly better than the badly compressed image that most people won't realize is a thumbnail. They'll just think the creator doesn't know how to compress images.

The thing to remember is that your comic is the MOST important thing about your page. Give it prime space. Even if you do not want to put it on front page, make a nice cover page instead. But your comic is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING. NOT YOUR ADS.

Yes, everyone wants to make a little money off their comic, but the number of ads in this one is way over the top. Everyone needs to eat, but in the world of webcomics, this kind of over-excessiveness screams to your potential readers that the creator is in this for the fame and not for the love of the art. Whether it is true or not does not matter, because in a net full of other webcomics, first impressions count the most. And the first impression this comic page gives make me want to hit the "back" button and never want to come back.

Let's move on to the dubiousness of the claim on the tagline. How does one even qualify as "America's Funniest Comic-strip Character"?! Did the poster of that tagline do a survey out of all Americans? Was it just based off the comment of a handful of readers who found the comic amusing? Or is it there because someone thought it sounded professional and impressive?

I am being harsh? I don't think so.

Selling your comic is one thing. Pretentiousness is another. It's like the local kebab shop or chippy claiming it's a Michelin 3-star when anyone can see it's not. It puts people off. They may like kebab, but no one likes being told something is something else when they know it isn't. So you end up losing people who might have read your comic but got peeved because they felt misled.

Speaking of misled, for a comic that claims to be funny, I found the level of humour rather absent. There's a lot of old, rehashed attempts at jokes that reminds one of the Sunday funnies you read in the news papers. Except well those stopped being funny a long time ago. 

Well, I'm quite aware that humour is subjective, and my sense of humour may not be the same as other people's sense of humour... for example I find stuff like "Happy Tree Friends" crass instead of funny. Still, while my sense of humour might be slightly kooky I have learnt to recognize what makes other people laugh, even if I don't find it funny personally. And my gut feeling is a lot of people who read this blog won't find it very funny either. 

The navigation of the site is non-existent. It's just a bunch of links to the images, which are hosted on... Photobucket. 

Well, at least they don't have to worry about exceeding Photobucket bandwidth limit at this rate.

One thing that I do notice about Addanac City however, is that there has been a lot of effort (mayhap misguided) put into it and you can definitely feel the enthusiasm of the author in his work. I can commend the the zealousness of the creator at his task of updating the comic 5 days a week, which everyone who has ever done a comic will know, is not easy.

While the art style I personally dislike, (personal opinion only) the lines are cleanly drawn and the colouring and detailing isn't bad. Given time, and if he keeps on drawing, he will probably improve. That is, if he learns from his past work and critical feedback.

But first, he needs to get his head out of the clouds and stop giving himself congratulatory thumps on the back. He needs to learn to present his comic for what it really is. Not what he thinks it is.

Phew, and that was one of the tougher postcards I've ever had to write.

Postcards #4: Jovian Luck (Code Red Comics)

Anyone who knows me will know that I am a terrible correspondent. I tend to leave requests a bit long on reply, so here's one of my earlier comic review requests.

In fact, this was one of the ones that got me started on the whole Postcard thing.

I've left it a little bit later to give it a bit more time to build up more of an archive, but maybe four months was a little much...

Ping,

I'm Kyle Sanders, writer and penciller behind a new
webcomic miniseries I would like you to consider taking a look at.
The introductory 15 pages are finished which are hopefully
enough for you to get a sense of the characters and plot.
...
(Summary of comic)
...
I hope you enjoy it! It will be interesting to see how it
fares against an honest review. Thank you for your time and
consideration.

I'm looking forward to hearing what you think!

The comic is located at http://www.coderedcomics.com. This is a portal site of the many webcomic projects. At first glance it's momentarily confusing but after the initial "Umm... which one is it again?" I found my way from the hover option menu on the left. Thankfully there is a link there to start from the first page.

The cover page, the first page, is a very important page. That's the point where people either decide to go on, or hit the back button or surf out of the site. The art is definitely promising; clean lines, full colour, nice style.

Well I say the art style is nice. The composition however, is less impressive. It's nicely drawn, but a few characters standing around with bored expressions against a planetary background is kind of... well... boring. A cover is supposed to draw you in and make you want to read more, not act as a cast page.

Nevertheless, it passes the test. On we go.

The second page is a chapter page. I'm not a big fan of those, and when I do see them I like them short and sweet, or with something profound. Or both. I'm here to read a comic, having to read a bunch of text to start off doesn't necessarily put me in the right mood.

This seems to be a conversation here, but the all black page and white dialogue text is severely uninteresting and I really don't want to read through it. At the very least pop some still objects into it. I like the concept, but the execution of the chapter pages could improve.

Well as far as I can tell the story is sort of an Ocean's Eleven kind of thing, set in space. Unfortunately the introduction to the story IS rather choppy and confusing, so it took me a while to figure that out.

The character introduction is almost overwhelming, too many (especially unnecessary ones at this point) too fast. Most people I know are guilty of this, including yours truly. We tend to forget that because we know the characters too well before we start. All that said, now that I've learnt that fact, it shouldn't happen if we can help it. The characters seem borderline stereotype, but I am sure that's merely because it is new. After all, most characters do start off as stereotypes and develop into distinct individuals later on. Which brings me to the other thing.

Hm. I just figured out something that was bothering me about that character art. All the male characters have the exactly same facial expression (Mouth slightly agape, with a worried/confused look) 90% of the time. This can get really annoying. I am happy to report that the later pages definitely show improvement on this and the posturing though. Which is a good thing, else you might see me complaining more here ;)

Despite the four month lead I gave it it's not quite enough for me to be able to give an accurate appraisal of the data. Sample size matters. But overall, Jovian Luck has the potential to be an interesting comic. At the present it suffers from trying too hard to be an epic story that it forgets to tell the story coherently. A bit of a rough run to work out the kinks is natural, but since I've been asked for feedback and advice, I'd recommend the following:

1. Improve the posturing and composition. The art style is already good, and the inking and coloring is as well. The postures are improving, just more work needs to be done on the facial expressions.
2. Slow down. Jumping from scene to scene is the first chapter was confusing. A new reader needs time to get oriented, so give them a bit before you try to pull off too many scene-jumpingQuentin Taratino-que time mixups. At the present a second read through sorts of helps things fall in place, but a really good comic shouldn't have needed that 2nd read through.
3. The chapter pages need more work to make them 1) shorter and to the point  OR 2) Attractive enough to take the time to read though all the dialogue. Otherwise the tendency to skip them is a little high.
   
4. I like how only 3 main characters were introduced first, but in my opinion, there was still too much detail given to the characters that were unnecessary at the point they were introduced. Keep in mind when a reader is new they can't tell the difference between extras and main characters, so it helps to make it obvious which is which.
   

But it might be worth checking out sometime in the future. You can't really judge a comic by its first issue, the same applies to webcomics. I guess only time will tell.

38th Leg: Shi Long Pang

Comic: Shi Long Pang
By: Ben Costa

Setting and Elements: "17th Century China"
Content Type: Action/Adventure, Historical

Art Medium: Full-Colour, Heavy Inklines, Simplified
Art Style: Manhwa-Simplified Cartoon hybrid

Is About: The adventures of a shaolin monk who is forced to wander away from his monastery.

Website: http://www.shilongpang.com
Frequency: Weekly (about)
Availability: Free

First Impressions and Presentation:
I like the simplistic layout of the site, and how the title image blends with the background. The art is eye catching, if rather heavily styilized, and while I don't mind it for a humour comic it looks to me like this is an action-adventure one. I know some readers might get turned off by that. For some reason the mindset is that simplified = humour and action = realistic, but hey this is webcomics, the rules are made to be bent and broken.

It takes me a moment to realize the main site is no longer at Modern Tales and has moved to http://www.shilongpang.com/

The main site is even more elegantly simplistic. In fact I like the current site design even better. Whatever else you might say for the creator, he knows how to make a site look clean, interesting, and new-reader friendly.


The Concept:
Shi Long Pang is the tale of a wandering monk in ancient China. Yes I know that sounds ridiculously cliched, but this story is more than what it seems at first.

The titular character is a lost monk, wandering around looking for survivors of his monastery after it was razed by an army convinced the monks were harbouring rebels. Aptly described by a city guard as "like a little pork bun", he seems rather nondescript, but as more and more of the story unfolds, we get to see more and more of how he fits into the overall picture of war, intrigue and politics.

And wouldn't you know it, I go and pick a sample image that has the titular character cropped out. Uh... Oops. 

No that monk there is NOT Shi Long Pang.

The Art:

Like I mentioned before, the art at first glance seems over-simplified, but it is by no means simple. The colouring is beautiful, and although sometimes the facial expressions don't quite gel.

But overall the art is subtle and effective. And the detail in some of the pages truly is epic. The fight scenes, (and there are many of them), are intricately done. It's pretty amazing, as is sheer amount of energy and fluidity in them.

The more I read this the more amazed I am than the perspective and point of view the artist uses. It doesn't feel like a comic more, but a full blown movie and I'm in the middle of it. Quite an accomplishment.

And that simplified style really does grow on you.

I have to say though, I'm not a big fan of the use of screentones experimented with in the later pages though. They sort of go against the whole subtle nature of the artist's style. But it could be just teething problems.


The Writing:

One beef I often have with comics set in non-American contexts is pretty much well... the mannerisms and characters in the comics are often pretty much American, transplanted into ancient Japan or Rome or whatever exotic place they are supposed to be in.

There's usually very little research done on what those places WERE like, so it's refreshing for once to see a comic that goes into this with such painstaking detail.

I particularly like the use of authentic terminology, and the very reader-friendly footnotes that explain what they mean. Sometimes they are a little lengthy, but overall they give the comic a feel that I have very rarely encountered elsewhere. This, ladies and gentlemen, is writing with substance.

Although some scenes weave crazily from tragedy to humour the storytelling, pacing and introductions are superbly done. I never felt overwhelmed with characters (who were all humbly lovable), and I loved how the story gradually built up and deepened.
Politics and philosophy in particular, are very difficult subjects to tackle when it comes to comics, but the author carries it off very successfully here, and you can understand why things happen the way they do.

On a personal note, I love the bilingual jokes. Yes I know most people will miss them, which makes it funnier for those who DO get them, I suppose.


Problems:

The layout of the panels, while most of the time artistic, is sometimes confusing. Attempts have been made to improve the readability by adding arrows and such, but in my opinion they didn't work that well. The eye travels faster than the amount of time it takes the brain to register the pointy arrows, so having read a panel or two and then having my eye jerked back to the correct path can get somewhat tiresome.

Sometimes the walls of text in some pages are a little hard to read due to the hand-lettering (rest of the time, the hand-lettering's great though).

Like I mentioned before, the simplistic style of the art might turn new readers off, but I really wouldn't change it for the world. Sometimes you can't pander to the lowest common denominator, and if they miss out on this gem, it's their loss, really.

Overall:

I didn't really expect to like Shi Long Pang as much as I did. You know a comic is good when you continue thinking about it after you're away from your computer and doing something else and you're still pondering about the storyline and your favourite pages.

Yes, I didn't have great expectations of SLP, but the vaunted subtlety I keep talking about managed to get under my skin, and lo and behold, this one's going on my reading list.

The Next Leg:

I'm going to leave the choice of the next leg open for the time being and make my decision on which comic I'm going to pick from the Shi Long Pang links page later. Unless you want to recommend one from there, of course.

Stopover at Siam Reap: Angkor Wat!

Sorry for the lack of posts recently but naturally I'm spending my holidays with my family overdosing on turkey and doing all those family thingies that people do.

I also decided to take a break from exploring webcomics and switched to exploring a real life destination that was on the "list of things to do before I die". So I spent my Christmas and the few days thereafter in Siam Reap, Cambodia.

Just a fair warning, this post has almost next to nothing regarding webcomics.

Prior to my trip I really didn't know much about Cambodia except for the tragedies of the Khemer Rouge, landmines and Angkor Wat. So visiting Cambodia, albeit as a touristy tourist, is something new to me.

Siam Reap (meaning "The Siamese Defeated"), is called such after the Cambodians repelled the Siamese occupiers who had had hold over the land for a few hundred years. This is also why the tension between the Thai-Cambodian border is so tense at the moment, as the Cambodian fear a repeat of being under Siamese rule. Back to the topic, Siam Reap is not the capital of Cambodia (Phenom Penh is) but merits its own international airport due to its proximity to the much vaunted Angkor Wat. This is the place most tourists go when they come to see the famous temple.

The advantage of a notebook and a well-stocked pencil-case is I can continue comicking while waiting in between connecting flights. Mind you, you may be subject to curious onlookers. It's amazing how random people start coming up to you and strike up a conversation when they see you drawing. I recently discovered the existence of chinese calligraphy brushmarkers, which are beyond awesome for inking on the run and will probably be what that makes me give up traditional brushes if I ever do.

Have sketchpad? Never be bored! iPod is optional but recommended!

The thing I noticed quickly is many of the Cambodians are very fiercely patriotic. This is reflected almost every aspect of Cambodian life, from my fiesty tour guide who frankly admitted he thought the Siamese were very "not good" people, to the motto of the local beer. (The local brew, Angkor Beer is something rather like a Carlsberg with a heavier alcohol content. Insisting on Angkor Beer for dinner will get you respected smiles from the restaurant staff it seems. "My Country, My Beer" seems to be the prevalent attitude; God help you if you prefer Singha Beer instead.)

This man was selling palm wine. I was tempted to try some but the tour guide warned us our fragile foreigner stomachs would not be able to handle it. And he's not talking about the alcohol content.

The language, Khemer, is rather reminiscent of Thai. In fact it shares about 4000 words with the neighbouring language. Given that my command of Thai is about as good as my Spanish (that is, limited to a few common and basic day to day words) I stuck to English, that seemed to get me by well enough, although the occasional sign language helps.

Poverty is prevalent behind the veil of affluence put on for the sake of the tourists. Four star hotels and even an air-conditioned mall nestle next to a dirt road pitted with holes; every time a car goes by a cloud of red laterite dust gleefully swirls around. Apparently December is the dry season in Cambodia.

Siam Reap is very dependent on the tourism industry, so much so that the recent economic crisis has hit them very hard as the expected flood of peak tourist season has been nothing but a trickle so far. While that augurs well for me as a visitor since I hate crowds, there is a rather melancholy feeling when you're sitting in a half-filled restaurant that was obviously prepared to cater for more people than your humble self.

The christmas turkey is almost visible in this picture.

The dependence on tourism is so much so that the money used is transanctions in Siam Reap is a bizarre mix of US dollars and local Cambodian Riels. That is, anything above the value of 1 US dollar is traded for in US dollars, anything less than that is traded for in Riels. So Riels are something like the paper replacements for coins, which does not seem to exist here. It also involves some mental arithmetic since 1 US = 4200 Riels so if something costs $1.30 USD you end up paying 1 US dollar and 1200 Riels (I don't think I've even seen anything smaller than a 100 Riel note, so they write off the extra Riels). Odd, but interesting system.

The whole of Siam Reap however, is more or less centered around the Angkor Wat. With good reason, the place is bone-chillingly awe inspiring. I spent half of today walking around what I thought WAS Angkor Wat, only to find out it was not even a tenth of the entire Angkor Wat complex.

This picture was just postcard perfect.

Angkor Wat is really beyond words to describe, and even the hordes of (very) pushy hawkers trying to push souvenirs onto you can't quite take away the awe of the place. The main section of Angkor Wat reminds me of CS Lewis' decription of a "Narnia within Narnia" where what you think is the temple is actually a temple around a courtyard within which lies a smaller, more magnificent temple. And within that temple is YET another courtyard with an even smaller temple in the middle.

When in Angkor, do as the Khemers do?

Almost every inch of the walls and archways is filled with stone carvings depicting scenes from the Hindu epics of old. Each balustrade is a giant naga, a snake/dragon kind of creature which always has odd-numbered heads (with seven heads, one for each day of the week being the highest number).

In the shadow of the Naga. I'm going to so use this effect in my comics sometime.

The architecture is amazingly symmetrical and built to precision. It is so precise that if you stand at the doorway of the innermost temple, you'll see it lines up perfectly with the straight walkway to the door of the outer temple that surrounds it, and the walkway beyond that. Walking in this place is like a real life lesson in perspective.

"And the vanishing point is over there!"

Their stairs aren't particularly friendly to use though, the sharp 45-60 degree incline and piddly step width (about half the size of a normal step) will give anyone with vertigo a hard time. Once you get to the top the view is amazing though.

There is a monk up at the very top of the stairs, rather like the hermit on top of the mountain...

There is also a sense of sadness as you walk through this place as well. When you walk through the ruins of this place and realize some of the gaps in the walls are bullet-marks, and many of the statues that used to stand in the place have been plundered or damaged and left in pieces.

A stone lion standing guard.

Angkor Wat, like I said, is not the only temple in the Angkor complex. There are dozens more, and to get to them you need to hire a car or tuk-tuk (basically a cab drawn by a motorbike instead of a horse). Sometimes the trip is more interesting than the temple, especially when you pass small villages and farms on the way that can yield some interesting conversation if you press  your tour guide with the right questions. My favourite occured when we were passing an army camp on the way to Banteay Sirei.

Tour Guide: That is the Cambodian Army's shooting range. For 1 US dollar a bullet tourists can go in there to learn shoot gun. (Seeing the horrified look on my mom's face). Don't worry, Madam, only they let you use the small guns only.

Dad: (Curious) What kind of guns?

Tour Guide: (Completely straight face) AK-47s.

Of the many temples I visited, Ta Phrom stands out as the one of particular note. You may remember it from the Tomb Raider movie. Yeah, the one covered in trees.

And this is why Ta Phrom is awesome and majestic.

Well er... I like trees. And giant trees growing in ancient temples are very interesting. It just gives the who place an added facet. I really have to come up with some fictional places in one of my comics with an architecture/nature combination like this.

Angeline Jolie walked past these same roots!

On the way out I ran into a quintet who were busking with some traditional asian instruments (mostly erhus and what looked like a xylophone). They stood out from your normal buskers in one way: they were all landmine victims. Most of them were missing limbs, one of them was blind.

Me picking up a few pointers from the pros.

But their skill and cheerfulness was nothing short of inspiring, and I went home feeling a little awed and humbled that I still have two hands I can draw comics with.

So Cambodia was different. Another one of those places out of my comfort zone, but I'm glad I went.

All that said, I'm happy to be home, with all of a new year in front of me, a buffer of comics at hand and ideas for many more. The economy may suffer, and no one's immune from paycuts and layoffs, but hey... Life is still good.

Happy New Year 2009!

I just wanted to wish everyone a good New Year (I'll give you the full details later, maybe).

Here's to a new year of comics!