My fellow Comic Fencer, Delos Woodruff, asked me if I could take a look at his comic and point out three things to improve upon. I was happy to oblige. Delos is very open to criticism; his blog at artpatient.com is dedicated to learning new techniques by reading other webcomics.

However, I’m not sure how much of my input will be useful to him. I review things from the perspective of a reader, some regular Joe surfing the web and reading webcomics to get his jollies. As an artist, I am average at best. So, if Delos is willing, I’m going to post my recommendations right here on my blog. You more professional types can go ahead and pick them apart of you reckon they reek too much of hooey or shenanigans or malarkey.

Delos’ comic is called The Frog Pond. It’s a tale of three boys as they go on fantastic journeys while voyaging the backwoods. I assume that their escapades are all products of an overactive imagination, not unlike the ones experienced by a urinary challenged boy in Calvin & Hobbes (which is referenced in one of the strips).

Be aware ahead of time that this post is going to sound rather nitpicky, so I ask for elegant forgiveness ahead of time.

Ready? Here we go!

MOST IMPORTANT/TOP THREE THINGS THAT NEEDED TO BE FIXICATED

Item #1.) The characters are too similar to each other.

Spike, Newt, and Gus have the same gumdrop-shaped head and same rail thin body style. The only distinguishing feature is the hair … and even that gets confusing when the comic isn’t rendered in color. Even their height looks about the same: they’re different heights in the picture above, but it’s not quite so apparent in other strips.

On a similar note, despite some attempts at trying to the three boys also aren’t very distinguishable personality-wise, either. For example, when Gus bullies around the aliens in one of your first story arcs, its felt forced and unnatural. I wondered to myself why this was so.

I played around with a whole list of suggestions: drastically redesigning the characters, giving them an actual wardrobe to accentuate their personalities, varying their body styles (like giving one kid broader shoulders), etc.

But then I thought that you might have your reasons for choosing the look that you did, and I decided that if you have good reason (such as maybe the characters are based on your real life boys or something), then you shouldn’t mess with that. (HOWEVER, if you’re going with the same style just because that’s how you started and you feel that you have to proceed in the same vein for the sake of continuity, then I say by all means take my above suggestions to heart. I point you to Scott DeWitt’s Fanboys, which started out with a style similar to yours but evolved to characters that were more expressive and distinct.)

So, I’m just going to leave you with four words: body language. Facial expressions.

Newt is the innocent, naive, and sweet one? How about sticking a more or less permanent goofy smile on his blank face? (If you’re already trying to do this, I suggest ramping up your efforts. Don’t be afraid to exaggerate!) One of the comics that does this rather well is Sluggy Freelance. Despite the comic’s simple style, you know that Torg is goofy and sorta brainless just by looking at his face. In Frog Pond, if you take away the hair and the freckles, Gus (the tough one) and Newt are nearly indistinguishable.

(While out at lunch, I started to think how the characters from Charles Shultz’s Peanuts are very similar in appearance. However, I claim that they are easily distinguishable from their expressions alone: a flustered, bewildered look almost always means Charlie Brown, while a crabby, angry look almost always means Lucy.)
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