my webcomic

Ribald Youth. <---



http://www.ribaldyouth.com/comic/start.jpg

About a young chain smoking school girl and her friends and what have you. Am "launching" it publicly on monday, but, other than adding a few things to the links and extra sections, the site is pretty much done. I know absolutely nothign about html other than what I learned in two days to make the site, but a friend of mine is working on a design that I plan to switch to eventually, should he finish it.

Ah, anyways that is all. The comic reads from right to left =\, and will have a 4 page update every monday. I uploaded the first 12 pages for the first update, and have 60 more sitting on my HD so that I can at least keep a decent schedule for the next 3 months.

need opinions, criticism, etc's.


. . .

ok that's it!


also, if you do check it out, check out my buddy's ongoing story "god hates us" in the links section as well.

Chain-smoking schoolgirls is enough incentive for me. :)

First off, the pages are HUGE. I'm looking at it right now with a monitor set to high rez, but I can't even imagine what they'll look like on the 800x600 at work. Scale them down, mayabe about half the size.

Also, the text sticks out a lot, being solid black when the next darkest color is a sort of dark grey. Either lighten the text or darken the comic. Proably best to meet about half way with the text a little lighter and the comic a little darker.

The art and the story is great, especially the tale the one kid tells of the old lady eating lion. Also like how each little event flows together well. A fun read.

The html as is works fine. Only thing you might want to do is either thumbnail or organize the archive in some way so someone can easily tell where they left off last if they fall behind in reading or something.

First off, I'll mirror what Ammadeau said -- the pages are too big! Not only that, but the image files themselves change dimensions every page. Basically I think you should find a standard size crop, and the resize the images much smaller.

Currently they are all approx 900x1300... so half size would be fine... 450x650.

Other than that, you need to start adjusting the levels on your pages. I'm seeing a lot of blotches and compression artifacts... in the first page I even see underdrawings and the page behind bleeding through. Get a really good white for the backgrounds and the artifacts disappear and make the pages cleaner.

When the art work blacks get blacker (because of levels) then the text will fit into the artwork more effectively. As a side note, I think you should choose a different font. Something thinner perhaps ?

The levels are adjusted a bit on the later pages, so black=black and such,but I can only do that while scanning at school, since I only have MS paint for image editing at home(well, that and my 1993 DOS autodesk animator program I use for sprites =\ ) I tried shrinking the pages at one point, but had trouble fitting the text in.=\

about the archive: the story is broken into a series of 12 page sections, so I'm assuming that will be enough to guide anyone that will want to pick up where they left off.

ok! thanks for the responses~

Now posting from the crappy computer at work and the width of your pages is even too big for this screen, never mind the length. It makes them really hard to view this way.

You can get decent paint programs for either free or really cheap (I got the one I use for $6), even some that run on ancient computers if you look around for them. Changing the font and bolding it to make the letter thicker should help getting the words in the baloons and still making them visible at smaller size.

Is there going to be some way to distinguish between the 12 page groups? It's no a problem now obviously, but I'm no good with numbers and if I only have numbers to read the archive by I'll probably be poking around blindly until I find the right page.

Quote:

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Is there going to be some way to distinguish between the 12 page groups?

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each section will have a seperate title. So if you remember being in part 3(Take it you Last Shot), you'll only have 12 pages to pick from, which shouldn't be too hard. Since its a comic book style, I can't really give individual names to each page which seems like the easiest thing to remember =\

I'm going to attempt to rescan part 1 tomorrow to get it to come out darker. I'll see what I can do about the image size after that. . . or I'll just half-ass and put up a "best viewed at 1024 x 768" message and hope not too many people mind x_X

Titling each section would be plenty for me. I really think you should resize them though. Even on a 20 inch monitor they look massive. I don't know what sort of computer you're currently using, but I'm sure you could get a low grade pentium for dirt cheap along with photoshop 2 or something. All you need is something that can resize and do fonts fairly well. The comics themselves don't need any touching up, imo.

...I like the size, actually -- low-res users be damned. I think the drawings could stand to be cleaned up a little, though. Also, the font really clashes. Why not just use your own hand-writing?

Great drawings, though, and I especially enjoyed the "She is old but we still enjoy her somewhat!" line.

First - I looooooove the art! Some of the poses/cropping you have is really good. I think the size is alright, though I would maybe go a tiny bit smaller.

Second - The story seemed to kinda linger in places. This could just be a preference thing, but you might try to give a better "bang for the buck" on each update. Regardless still a good start.

Second err again - You need to invest/gain access to a better image manipulation program. The font, contrast/colors, and some other minor stuff could be remidied with some time spent in Photoshop/Paintshop.

- Here is a link to download the free trial paintshop pro 7. While not as full featured as Photoshop, this will be a step in the right direction.

http://www.jasc.com/download_4.asp?

Thirdly - A great strip is only half the battle. The first impressions are everything so a good liking site is paramount. Since you have your friend working on that, thats good.

Fourth - I LOVE the link page, you have great taste! But just "somewhat" unique?! :D

Let me know if you have any other questions or need anything else, my AIM name can be found in my profile.

Overall a great direction and I look foward to the new site, and how stuff progresses in the future.

I like it. Manga isn't my thing, but there's just something about it appeals to me. Overall they're just really charming drawings. Another vote for handwritten dialogue though.