http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/hilaritynsuze

read my comics on account of it has the best title ever.

My only complaint is that you take too long to get to a punchline. You would have been served better by using the 'splitter' background and using the 'blue' character over and over in a monologue, getting it done in one comic instead of dragging out the Sad News into a series.

I think you have some promise, but work on the one punchline per comic ratio.

learn to post and i will read....

I don't generally go in much for the single strip format. I mean that's kind of like saying all poetry has to rhyme. My style is more conversational. Maybe that's cuz I can't seem to converse in real life, whatever. Um... but here's a single strip I just made.

/comics/hilaritynsuze/430947/

ur comics are funny, thanks.

I'm not saying you should abandon the conversational style, but I have to say that the punchline at the end just isn't worth trudging through the rest to me. If you have to do things in a lot of 3-panel installments, people are more likely to read through them if you put a punchline in each one, like a slow build to the final conclusion.   I was VERY disappointed when I got to the end of the Sad News arc only to find that if I had just skipped to the last comic after reading the first I would have still gotten the joke without all the exposition.

Well, it's not so much about telling jokes as it is about establishing characters. I hope that there may be some humor in my comics, but that's not my main objective. And even the humor that I want to be there, I'm more about subtle undercurrents within the conversation, than in any actual punchlines. Even if the conversation does lead to a punchline. Sometimes.

That's fine, if that's what you're going for. Just don't expect much more feedback than this unless you plan on posting more than just one comic. Most of us have short attention spans and can't be arsed to wade through comic upon comic just to find a nugget of comedy.

I'll offer my own comics as an Exhibit A-? of how you can do a series and still keep people's attention, mostly by creating one big joke and stretching it over several smaller jokes. I am by NO means saying I'm the best at it, but it's something I attempt to do and so I can see what you're attempting. Check out my "To Serve Robot-Kind" series as an example of how I've done this.

Again, I dig what you're trying to do, but I agree with Royall, there's certainly better ways of going about it.

Read some of those robot comics. Pretty good stuff, I should try to get through a bit more of it later.

 Meanwhile, I've just done a 7-part series called "Comic book weekend." This time I made a conscious effort to end each strip on at least a slightly punchlinish note, though my humor tends to be pretty dry (and frequently only works if one is familiar with the characters, or things they've said/done in the past). Anyway, I'll post the first strip in the series here, but I really don't like posting comics in forums, it tends to stretch out threads if you do it too much, I feel. I'm certainly not going to post an entire series in here...

/comics/hilaritynsuze/431068/

That comic is exactly what I was pointing you towards. Yes, it's a bit dry, but it's still humorous and makes me more willing to continue reading a series.

quote:

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hilaritynsuze wrote:

/comics/hilaritynsuze/431068/

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I like the two comics of yours I've read so far, but the one above has a very common problem:  too much information.  Is it necessary for the set up to mention Bat Man?  The "shyness" came out of nowhere, and so did "embarased by the thought of physical intimacy."  (Plus that's not really the definition of shyness, which is off-putting.)

I've pared it down a bit to illustrate my point.  I'm not saying it's a great comic, but it's what I could do with my time and budgetary constraints:

/comics/not_Scyess/431098/

Again, overall, I like your style.  And it's great to get some personality into your regular characters.  But you have tons of comics to do that... you don't need to sacrifice the funny for the character development.  Develop over several comics.

So that's my pedantic rant.  I'm looking forward to reading more from you.

I dig what not_Scyess is saying, however I'm also thinking that this particular comic is intended to be part of a series. The "modest improvement" that not_Scyess did is a great stand-alone version of this comic strip, but I can also appreciate that you're trying to do a series with a set premise, and for that I really do like this one better. Keep it up!

Oh, and I'm glad you enjoyed my comics! Thanks!

These are excellent. Consider using a background.

quote:

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ZMannZilla wrote:

I dig what not_Scyess is saying, however I'm also thinking that this particular comic is intended to be part of a series. The "modest improvement" that not_Scyess did is a great stand-alone version of this comic strip, but I can also appreciate that you're trying to do a series with a set premise, and for that I really do like this one better. Keep it up!

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As I mentioned, it's great to do series with character development and premises and whatnot, but it's best to build that up over lots of funny comics rather than cramming to much information into a few comics.  But to each his own, etc.  There are plenty of strips out there that do it the cramming way, too... and a lot are successful.

Also be careful not to build up your characters so much that all your jokes rely on inside information gleaned from reading all the previous comics.  It can make someone just browsing get kind of lost.

quote:

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not_Scyess wrote:
I like the two comics of yours I've read so far, but the one above has a very common problem:  too much information.  Is it necessary for the set up to mention Bat Man?  The "shyness" came out of nowhere, and so did "embarased by the thought of physical intimacy."  (Plus that's not really the definition of shyness, which is off-putting.)

I've pared it down a bit to illustrate my point.  I'm not saying it's a great comic, but it's what I could do with my time and budgetary constraints:

/comics/not_Scyess/431098/

Again, overall, I like your style.  And it's great to get some personality into your regular characters.  But you have tons of comics to do that... you don't need to sacrifice the funny for the character development.  Develop over several comics.

So that's my pedantic rant.  I'm looking forward to reading more from you.

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Mentioning Batman is a reference to a conversation the characters had in an earlier strip. I understand that it may not be the best idea to assume your readers have read your entire series in order, but personally I like to have some continuity. The characters don't start each strip tabula rasa, they remember their own past, and like real people, they are sometimes going to reference it. As for shyness, it didn't come out of nowhere, Suze was equating shyness with social anxiety, which Hilarity had just mentioned. But to be honest, his final response wasn't exactly the way I wanted it. Believe it or not, I ended up shortening it. I really wanted his response to include the fact that shyness and social anxiety are different, as well as that his definition of shyness was just that: his definition, his own belief about what it means to be shy. (I could do a whole series debating different perspectives on what different terms mean to different people.)

The thing that bothers me about your improvement is that Hilarity says "we're" never going to have sex. I really don't want it to seem like there's even any question of the two of them hooking up, he's not talking about Suze and himself, he's just talking about himself. Besides which, it would totally change the whole dynamic of the next strip in the series.

 Meanwhile! Here's my lastest strip, a one-shot:

/comics/hilaritynsuze/431142/

Well, the important thing really is that YOU like your comics.  And you seem to know exactly what you're doing, and like doing it, so keep it up.

Welcome to SC.

So check it out. Just did a new 10-part (yes, ten part) strip called "Confessions of a depressive mind." as usual, I shall post the first part here, but there's not much point commenting unless you read the whole thing.... though I'm not completely happy with the end, I feel like I may have forgotten exactly what I had in mind for the "watercooler" part. But I'm not sure...

 /comics/hilaritynsuze/431473/

I know you don't think there's much point in commenting on that one comic, but I thought it was pretty funny on its own.

Sorry.

Yeah, you oughta be sorry. How dare you compliment my work!?

 Um... seriously, though I think if a strip isn't good enough to make someone bother to read the next strip in the series, then... it's probably not good enough. Um, yeah...

Well, you've already mentioned that you'll be sacrificing the funny in most comics for story continuity... or building up one joke over several comics.  So I'm not interested in the rest.  But that one was good.

Hey, I really enjoyed reading your comics. Like not-scyess said though, it does take a while for a punchline to be hit, but I personally didn't mind it. You use both character development and humour in a unique way, can't wait for more.

/comics/hilaritynsuze/432084/

Imagine that comic without the narration bars.  It would be much better.  The narration doesn't explain anything you can't infer from the conversation; double information is distracting and drains the funny faster than, uh.... a big quickly draining thing.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Personally I happen to prefer it with the narration. *shrug*

Listen! With your eyes. I need you to listen... I just did 11 parts with different titles. And I'm drunk, so you know it's good stuff before you even look. But look at it anyway! all 11 parts! Here's the first one! But if you don't read all 11 you will go to hell and you will die!

/comics/hilaritynsuze/432486/

hey I posted my new comic in here earlier and now it's not here.

/comics/hilaritynsuze/432841/

/comics/hilaritynsuze/442196/

Welcome back!

/comics/hilaritynsuze/450826/

 I feel kind of bad about this. The other day I was thinking of making a comic about Suze coming in with bad news and Hilary thinking it was about Zuko's casting... but I didn't have any real bad news she could actually be talking about. Then I heard about Majel, and I thought I could use that. In spite of I'm really upset about it.

 I suck.

You don't suck because you're upset.  You suck because I've never heard of any of those people (including Zuko), and thus don't know how to rate your comic.

I suck because I used a death I'm upset about as fodder for a comic, just because it was convenient.

 Btw, http://aang-aint-white.livejournal.com/

If you don't know what  Avatar: The Last Airbender is -- which I don't -- that article seems pretty blatantly racist.

However, the article appears to be a some schmuck's tyrade about how upset he is about casting choies on some movie based on a TV show on Nickelodeon.  That makes it more of a self-relfection on pathos, so I'm okay with it.

Most fans of Avatar are upset to hear that the announced prospective cast of the live-action adaptation are white, whereas the characters from the animated series are supposed to be more Asian and Inuit. Which makes the people casting the movie seem racist, sort of. So the point is fans are protesting that, wanting the producers to cast actors of the appropriate races rather than a bunch of white people.

Once again, I pop in to post my latest comic, even though I don't read other people's threads because I can't find the time, so I feel guilty, but whatever:

 /comics/hilaritynsuze/451529/

hey guess what. i did a 4-part strip about Obama. Also I'm drunk. Good night!

/comics/hilaritynsuze/456425/

 I hate myself for many reasons. One of those is that I so rarely do stuff here and when i do I'm drunk as is mentioned in this strip, which has 8 parts and is supposed to be about Watchmen but ontly intermittently touches on it and I say nothing of value. Sorry. Even so I look forward to seeing the movie. And now is time for sleep.

/comics/hilaritynsuze/457479/

This is the third part of today's episode, obviously. The thing I mainly wanted to do. The second part sets it up, sort of, and the first part... Is pretty unimportant, just something I did for myself. (There are only two words, and both of them are "hey.")