The second wave of Zuda comics is up. We didn’t see any PR on this wave, so we cut and pasted to bring YOU the facts! Here’s the lineup:
Adventures of Maxy J. Millionaire by Paul Maybury
Araknid Kid by Josh Alves
Avaste Ye by Kevin Cygan & Daniel H. Irving
Development Hell by Carlos Ruiz
Frankie by Manny Trembley
Ponbiki Z by Alberto Rios aka Ponbiki
Pray For Death by Nicholas Doan
The Crooked Man by Gabriel Hardman & Corinna Sara Bechko
The Mundane Overrated Misadventures of Spudman by Rory McConville
Word of Power by Marc Sylvanus
All in all it’s quite a varied list of genres. Of these, we were immediately struck by Maxy J. Millionaire, a charming Sendakian riff by the very talented Maybury. The Crooked Man also made us take note — a lively, evocative historical yarn set during (we think) China’s Boxer Rebellion in the Chinatown of 1906 San Francisco. Think Terry and the Pirates!
However, we are very sad to report that this second wave has brought to the forefront true annoyance on our part.
Why was this whole line planned so that at the size the comics are normally posted, the type is so hard to read?
WHY?
WHY??
WHY?????
Is it just us? We just got new glasses, but we can see everything else fine. In an average day, we click on plenty of webcomics. Webcomics you can read without going into some fancy schmancy, slow loading Flash interface. Like this, this, this, and this? For example. Look, we can click on this truly awful defiantly amateurish quirky Zuda LOSER posted at LJ and read it easier than a Zuda comic!
It is annoying. It takes away the pleasure we have of reading these comics. And, contrary to the ideas of many many people put there…you CAN have pleasure reading comics online! Yet, the idea that we can’t just click on a logo and immediately read the comic that pops up on our 17″ wide Apple display, just seems WRONG.
OTOH, this fellow LOVES the interface. So…what do we know?
That said, there is already much commentary for the strips on line, so hopefully they are finding an audience. An audience that doesn’t mind clicking many times.
This batch of creators is almost all unknown — Maybury was part of Acti-i-vate for a while and Trembley drew SAM NOIR, but some of the others don’t have any Google results that are worth passing on. (We found the LJ of one of the contestant’s wife, but that hardly seems fair to link to.) However, if you want to know more, here you are:
Paul Maybury
Josh Alves
Manny Trembley
Carlos Ruiz
Ponbiki
Nicholas Doan (According to the ComicSpace page, Pray for Death is drawn by Daniele Serra.)
Gabriel Hardman & Corinna Sara Bechko
Yeah, the interface is a complete failure. Besides the lettering, the linework is also completely ruined. Hard to imagine a major comics company not being able to work a webcomics site when hundreds of middle schoolers successfully manage their own.
…Webcomics you can read without going into some fancy schmancy, slow loading Flash interface…
Flash has a hard time with jpgs, because it wants to resize them on the fly. You would think that now Adobe own Flash, that it would do that better, but there you go…
Seems to me that CrossGen had a solution to this with their online comics venture, but it took them awhile.
“Erstwhile Evans” is “truly awful?” That’s pretty harsh. I found it somewhat intriguing and easy to read through. (I’m referring to word balloon placement, not formatting.) I probably wouldn’t become a repeat viewer, but I wouldn’t consider it “truly awful” by any definition. The wanderer approaching the reincarnated catctus with the “water droplet” thought balloon was particularly clever.
AS for ZUDA, yes- the presentation *IS* truly awful. The text is too damn small to read, so enlarging the view necessary most of the time (and I’ve got 20/20). And then the constant need for moving the viewer around just kills any momentum the material might have. It diminishes my enjoyment considerably and in the process compromises the appeal of the comics themselves.
The average person, someone who might have a momentary curiosity about webcomics, is not going to put up with the work necessary to read these things.
Personally, I don’t like having to scroll downwards to read a comic, but that’s still preferable to what ZUDA is doing.
One to three panels should fill the screen.
Readable and eye-pleasing.
Then a simple click (or right arrow) at the far right of the “page” that instantly brings up the next few panels.
People want to read left-to-right, straight across the screen, without scrolling down. Simple as that.
Just my 2 cents.
I wish the creator of Erstwhile Evans had learned to spell check. Okay it is not without some visual charms!
I think those are made-up words…unless I missed something, which is possible. Mostly I just thought the guy has a decent ability to tell a story visually. I’m constantly amazed at how much of the material churned out by the “majors” (especially Marvel) are confusing to the eye, often with word balloons that read out of sequence.
You make a fair point re: the comics in the tiny box on each entry’s page.
However, I think the full-screen mode is just ideal. I guess it would come down to how the comics were intended to be read, in a sense–if they’re intended for consumption in that tiny box, then bad on them, but if it’s assumed that we should all go for full-screen, then maybe that should be clearer. Otherwise, it’s sorta like critiquing a trade paperback because you can’t see the TV through it, ya know?
I’m not really sure how the linework would be ruined…is the resolution just not detailed enough?
I dunno. I think of myself as relatively tech-savvy, and bitchy to boot. For whatever reason, it seemed so smooth to me, and like some kind of reasonable bridge between the amount of information available on a regular comics page and the presentation limitations of a computer screen.
I really dig ERSTWHILE EVANS. Thx for the heads up, Heidi. I’m thinking it might could make a swell ACT-I-VATE recruit. Meanwhile, vote for Maybury’s MAXY at Zuda.
I am glad to have made a star of ERSTWHILE EVANS!
ERSTWHILE EVANS… the comic THEY didn’t want you to see!!!
Matt sez:”However, I think the full-screen mode is just ideal. I guess it would come down to how the comics were intended to be read, in a sense–if they’re intended for consumption in that tiny box, then bad on them, but if it’s assumed that we should all go for full-screen, then maybe that should be clearer. Otherwise, it’s sorta like critiquing a trade paperback because you can’t see the TV through it, ya know?”
Oh, I think it’s a very legitimate criticism because, as far as DC is concerned, they probably want every single viewer to be looking at the advertisements. Advertisements which you cannot see in full screen mode. That seems a horrifically obvious thing for them to overlook, if you ask me.
A note on the creators: In addition to Sam Noir: Samurai Detective, Manny Trembley also drew PX! A Girl And Her Panda, both of which are available from the Shadowline branch of Image. And Carlos Ruiz’ “Development Hell” is amazing, but he’s a friend of mine and a fellow staff member at PLAYBACK:stl so I’m probably biased…heh.