My Entry for Rising Stars of Manga 4

[Fe 26]

I thought it was awesome. Sassy evil girls and evil Bunnys own all.

[FuryFox]

Oh, and... would you mind if I...?

Sure

'Specially that image of the main character in the middle of page six.

That's gets a lot of response. My g/f loves that panel...it was just a little doodle I did in my sketchbook (that face and position), and after seeing it, I knew I had to work it in somehow.

"now you've made me... ...HUGE FUCKING DEMON THING"

Now that I've gone through and reviewed my work like a million times since entering it, there's tons of little things I'd like to change, or that I now find cringe-worthy. However, I still love the timing on that page. And that pose of Vexen steaming and about to unleash fury is my fave in the whole story (the ogling pirate comes in second).

word bubbles sometimes gives us an idea of the tone of voice the character is speaking in (so does the font). Those boxy word bubbles made it seem like they would talk like robots or something.

That's a psuedo-established "convention" that I guess I don't believe in. I've seen various western comics that use box bubbles, and never read them that way. I can see box bubbles meaning robot when robot's are the only one using them in a group of living characters. Rectangular boxes also mesh better with the typically rectangular framing, and I tried placing bubbles in a way that accented the pacing and framing of shots (thus, bubble placement was thought-out before final pencils were started).

Still, since it seems to be bothering everyone, I guess that would be the first thing I'd revise if I tried again. That, and the licensed font that you can't just use however you want without owning or paying a license fee.

Also, I do agree about the facial expression and there's not enough variation of it

Wow, really? My characters tend to be very stoic in nature, so I really tried to mix it up and give them some life for this project. Since this is manga, I played with the "elasticity" of the characters' features and range of expressions. I really don't see how I could do it more without borrowing all the cliche manga expression (disappearing lower jaw, little "o's" for eyes, the cat face, the drip), which just doesn't fit with my work at all. I'm open to ideas though.

My comic is here: http://www.ribaldyouth.com/defeat. Didn't think it was worth making another topic for =|

I like yours, although it's not what I expected. We've known about your "street toughs" motif for a while now, and they were there in full force, but they didn't really behave the way I'd expect (not that I had real concrete expectations, mind you). It was sort-of a bizarro story...surreal in a way. Like Dolemite said, "meandering" describes it pretty well, and while I can discern a definite beginning, there doesn't seem to be any end.

Art style and coloring process are fit well together. Framing and character anatomy are pretty good; the only thing that stands out to me is the character faces/facial features, which seem to wander a bit.

But they main thing was the conclusion. -and the lack of any seeming protagonist. The long-haired 'voyeur' seems to fit that role, but it's hard to identify or even find anything to like about him.

[Mzo]

Sure

Sweet.

That sucks about paying for the font =/ MANGA FONT MONOPOLY!!

Hasn't somebody in the internet made a font that is at least similar in style and free?

[Jester]

This thread reminds me of when I was rejected by Marvel at Wizard World last year. The only cool part of what is a overall pretty humbling experience was that a I lucky and Mark Bagley came over and gave me (and only me) a critique while he was talking to the editor. He was pretty inspirational as the editor gave me the same canned response as the last 3 guys in front of me and Mr Bagley only said good things and gave a few pointers on what I should work on.
Tokyo Pop seems like your typical western publisher with there super high standards. FuryFox's stuff rocks the face off of most of the stuff I see over here (Japan). The crap they put on the shelves of borders is topnotch compared to what you can find in some of these weekly anthologies. If you want to get into manga you should come over here and I'm sure you could do it easy. I'd also recomend you check out the work of Osamu Tezuka, I've borrowed alot of his manga from my high school's library and I'm blown away. His style is simplistic but he takes it to a whole different level. He's like carl barks mixed with a drafting machine. The man's a genius and truly deserving of all the praise he recieves here.
However, if you want the lucrative position of comic book artist try showing you portfolio around at comic cons. I actually received offers from small press joints. You can always sign up with one of them until you get some experience. Experience and the ability to follow a script impresses editors more than just great art. Once you got that under your belt you can make the big bucks at one of the big publishers.
My point in all this rambling is that you're good, too good to let a "rejection" (more like not being excepted than being rejected I think) from some psudeo manga publisher get you down. You can definately do the comic thing and should give the public the chance to appreciate your work as much as us monkeys here on TNL. Keep the faith, man, a japanese proverb I learned the other day says: If you make it happen it will; if you don't make it happen, it won't.

[Drewbacca]

Rezo: I found your main character really annoying. It seems to me he was trying so hard to follow these two girls home, to the point of badgering. He also didn't make compelling conversation, and they just seemed to give into him for no reason (the viewer wasn't really given a reason, because the main character seemed like a big loser for the way he was introduced to the girls). I love both your comics, they're art styles are awesome.

I think FuryFox's may have been too ambitious. It does seem like there's more going on with demons and whatever that aren't explained to us, but everyone seems to know (demons, being expelled to Earth as a bunny, etc). Also, your pages are cramped. You should try using way more white space and empty space to visually guide the eye through your comic.

The only thing about your actual art style is that sometimes Vexen's nose seemed to change from sharp and pointy to cute and buttonesque, but I know manga does that too. I also think you should work on your dialogue. At the start you put very big demonic creatures in an ordinary situation and conversation, they seemed to be playfully spouting bravado at one another (which is an aweosme idea), but some of the dialogue didn't seem natural.

My attempt didn't get far. I got my storyline done and did the entire comic in my craptastic art style (so that my artist would have a basis to do his final art off of), but my artist wimped out on me. He just couldn't get the motivation to do it, so it went nowhere. So, I'm either going to have to get him to get motivated, or find a different artist.

Most artists are creative beings... and if you have no formal writing education then getting an artist to draw and do your work instead of them just writing a story themselves will be extremely hard, and I dare say near impossible. Doing something they really feel they can get into is key, especially when the project is pretty big.

Oh and that bunny is awesome. You should consider doing a comic around him completely. Just have the bunny try to do something a human would in his or her normal day like open a door.

But they main thing was the conclusion. -and the lack of any seeming protagonist. The long-haired 'voyeur' seems to fit that role, but it's hard to identify or even find anything to like about him.

That was my problem with his voyeur. He just seemed like one of the losers in high school that followed around girls making stupid jokes nobody laughed at.

Sweet.

That sucks about paying for the font =/ MANGA FONT MONOPOLY!!

Hasn't somebody in the internet made a font that is at least similar in style and free?

WWW.ACIDFONTS.COM

I have so many fonts, none of them from acid fonts, but I have connections. It's a necessity to have atleast 1000+ fonts if you're in graphic design. I could hook anybody up with one of they need it, but unless you know which one you want and I have it, I don't see how I could. Maybe I could mail the CD's to you, but they're all Macfonts anyway.

Acidfonts is pretty good if you filter some of the crap out.

[rezo]

But they main thing was the conclusion. -and the lack of any seeming protagonist. The long-haired 'voyeur' seems to fit that role, but it's hard to identify or even find anything to like about him.

Yeah, he was the main character, but he wasn't really designed to be likable or anything. Mostly it was about finding reasons for his actions without being given a direct bead on his intentions or motivations or anything. Because I was splitting time with my webcomic, I could only manage 15 pages(and that just barely) and I had to change a lot of the events midway through the story and speed things up, which is why I had problems with it when I finished.

...and it ended when he gave them the half eaten apple and left!

[Dolemite]

That's half the reason I liked FF's comic, actually. 'Specially that image of the main character in the middle of page six.

No, no, I don't think you get what I mean. I love the "silly" faces...there was just a few that just looked a tad "off". An example would be the one shot where the demon hunter is flying towards the viewer and is swinging his sword while saying "Demonic...". The face just looks weird.

However, I totally LOVE some of the expressions FuryFox came up with. The shot where Vixen is grinning and saying "I'm checking it out anyway. Do you have that dress ready?" is fucking brilliant.

I really think I was way too hard on FF's story at first...It's really grown on me. Other than the problems with it not being self-contained and the bad font and word bubbles, it's a fun tale with some sweet-ass art. It's a shame it lost, I've seen submissions not nearly as good win RSOM.

My attempt didn't get far. I got my storyline done and did the entire comic in my craptastic art style (so that my artist would have a basis to do his final art off of),

Oh, you thumbnailed it first? I do the same thing before I start drawing the main piece. It helps so much. Too bad your artist crapped out on you.

That's a psuedo-established "convention" that I guess I don't believe in.

The problem is that just about everyone else DOES believe in it. You get points for doing your own thing but there are certain conventions that can hurt you if you go against the grain, so to speak. Just about all cmoics, American and Japanese, use rounded word bubbles...I feel they're more expressive, more organic, and can be changed moreso than rectangular word boxes to reflect the mood of the speaker. Sorry, but rectangular word boxes remind me of robots as well.

That, and the licensed font that you can't just use however you want without owning or paying a license fee.

So license a font, slut.

Better yet, there's some really nice font creation programs out there for cheap. You can actually turn your own handwriting into a font. Look into it.

Like Dolemite said, "meandering" describes it pretty well, and while I can discern a definite beginning, there doesn't seem to be any end.

Exactly...it didn't end, it just "stopped".

Also, I do agree about the facial expression and there's not enough variation of it

Variation? I don't agree with that...there's plenty in FF's story. As I said above, I just felt the occasional face looked...I dunno...not quite right. But for the most part, I think the variety and quality of the facial expressions was really good.

[Despair]

Wow, That art work is awesome. Really quality stuff.

[Geen]

I really enjoyed your comic, Fury Fox. The art style was great, the story makes me sad that there are no more, and besides the demon hunter, I love the characters.

Hope you don't mind, but I need an avatar of the demon bunny. ^^

[FuryFox]

Sam says: