Aarin’s Webcommax Crits celebrates 6 months of disdain and/or site pimping today!

It’s been a lot of fun. I’ve been exposed to a lot of good shit because of this project, and fuck all if I haven’t learned a thing or two about the variety of our medium and creativity of our intranets. So from me to the webcomic community: a heartfelt congratulations on your hard work and courage to put it out there, even when your shitty and trying to get better.

I’d also like to thank ma readers, including the few of you who don’t run comics yourselves. This has become a me-to-the-creators review project, so if I manage to hold the interest of people just looking for good stories and lulz, then that’s double fun. The response from people I’ve reviewed has been extremely positive by-and-large, even when I’m a douche, and I really appreciate the open-mindedness with which my opinions are received.

As I’ve always said, I give your readers a critical voice. I don’t claim to know the right way, but bet we can all see when ur doin it rong. And you should be acknowledged when ur doin it rite.

In honor of 6 months, I’m going to self-indulge from my personal list and review a genre I haven’t done yet: Photocomics.

For those of you who don’t know/care, photocomax is what I make. I don’t really consider it a conflict of interests to review my genre, so I haven’t been avoiding it for that reason. The problem is, while I’d love to champion my genre’s elite status in the SAC (Shitty Art Congolmerate), photography-based webcomics usually suck ass.

Hand-drawn artists despise them as lazy, the target-audience is often indifferent, and even the creators and hardcore fanbase can’t dispute the genre’s obvious flaws. Action is very hard to do in photocomix, so most end up looking like a series of stills, are captioned commentary, or are simple anthro-talking-heads comics (like the shit I do). 

Here we go: Dark Red

DR is a paranormal mystery comic, full-page style, that features a live-action cast. There are many of these about, and they are never done well. Usually, it’s some ugleh assholes that do fighting poses and add special effects and think it’s the next Mortal Combat. This is comparable to the oft-maligned action-figure subgenre in its absolute wretchedness.

Lynn, the photographer and creator, has stated this wasn’t written to be a comic, but I didn’t research the origins for the original intent. I did, however, read the full archives of the past 6 months (it’s as old as these reviews~!) which is only a weekly 29 pages in total. She actually suggested I wait to critique it, and I’ve come understand why. However, 30 strips is more than enough to gauge a project’s premise and value.

The photo art is fucking gorgeous. We can thank Lynn’s trained eye for composition, color, and above-par photoshop editing/filtering for Dark Red’s unique style. It’s soft and often dim, but never too subdued. The colors that should pop, pop, and the rest is faded, helping the reader with what would otherwise be a color-complexity-overflow (a common problem with photocomix). It’s very difficult to place emphasis on the subject of a photograph, but DR has no issue there from people to objects. The filters add motion to otherwise still-frames, thus eliminating one of the genre’s biggest handicaps. 

The actors were attractively cast, with the lead, Sarah (real-name: Bella), being a knockout-I-wanna-date cutie with great range of expression. ‘Bad acting’ sinks these projects as often as shitty dialogue, so props to the cast and director for taking as many shots as needed to show a scene’s story even without the dialogue. It is acting, and from both sides of the lens, the project makes itself look good. The male actors ‘look their part’ adding characterization by appearance alone. I can’t say enough about casting, even if it’s just Lynn’s RL buddies.

However, we come to the plot and pacing.

Fucking hell.

Ok, so it has a plot, we just actually never really get to experience much of it. The story: Sarah is 3-weeks blind from a disease that the comic acknowledges should have taken longer to develop. After being assisted home by her friendly doctor, her pride and frustration gets the better of her and she goes alone on a shopping run. Along the way, she ‘sees’ a trio of impish devils harassing a downed man. Bewildered, she aids Iain and interrogates him about her returning sight. As it turns out, the crazed hobo-type is a high-powered psychic entrenched in a new war with an ancient evil. He introduces her to his buddies who enlist her suparnatural vision in the cause. Six months for 24ish-hours. That’s all we got.

Issue Two is in-transit and should move it along, but at this point I’m doubtful.

When I called it a paranormal mystery, that was a guess. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be, but it’s not a romantic drama, and it doesn’t appear to be a demon-fighting monster comic. I blame the pacing. I blame an unconfident medium.

Dark Red is groundbreaking for it’s art, but if the plot moved any slower, and with any less payoff…Lynn, it lacks a hook. 29 pages and not much has happened. Sure, a lot was said and revealed, but I don’t care about explanations at this point, I care about activity. Do I want Sarah running the streets fighting evil on the first day she sees it? No. But I would like to see some manner of serious threat and not just the vague promise of evil to come. Because that’s all we got: a blind girl who ain’t totally blind, three little bastard imps, a crazy fucker, and his crazy fucking friends.

Fuck, if you shoehorned a one-page violent dream the first time she slept I’d feel more confident about portent. I really don’t understand why all the foundation setting so early on. The characters should be the foundation, not the back-story and theory.

Anyway, I’m worked up because I see potential, and I do enjoy the comic. You can write dialogue. You have comedy. You have a unique, compelling premise. I just don’t want to see you shooting yourself in the foot with Issue Two by dragging out a lack of confrontation or immediate threat. I’m already on the fence. Asking me to wait another six months for gratification (something exciting!) is asking a lot of your readers and your actors. You can test people’s patience, but you can never really exploit it, not on the internet. I understand these take a while to shoot, shop, letter, and present, so I’m not asking for faster updates, just an in-comic promise this is going somewhere in its lifetime. You could get bored with it by September for all I know. The plight of a high-end story-based photo comic.

Activity = Payoff. Payoff = Promise. Promise = Return Readers.

Would I pay to read it? It’s the new goddamn anchor-spot of photocomics and a major accomplishment in its medium. So, yes. But I’d be grumpy about it. I advise a poppin-tossed-in-the-action start to Issue Two. You can always backtrack later [earlier today…]