Should we do critiques again? I have forgotten the name of the reader that started us down this road, but he sounded like he might be a cartoonist in his own right.. possibly he’d like to chime in? Or, for that matter, Saturday and Sunday are still unfilled here at Hubris. Maybe he’d like to post some cartoons?
Anyhow, If you like critiques, read on.
If you don’t like critiques, feel free to quit squinting at this, and move on to something you’d prefer.
Pointless griping isn’t appreciated, but I’m not gonna stop you if you feel it best expresses who you are.
So…
Let’s see. I’m not huge on hyphenating words. I really dislike it when I do it, and I try to avoid it, but there’s two hyphenations here. I find it distracting. Also… Hazmat colors. I think of Hazmat suits being that weird bright yellow with a little green or orange tint depending on how I feel like coloring that day. White would work too. Red looks odd to me. It’s still very clearly a HazMat suit, though, so I’m just spouting opinion, there. Lastly, I think that the Old Man’s wicked grin could be better presented. The line of his smile is nice and long, which I heartily agree with, but it mimics the line of his chin and the line of the suit/hood. I think it got a little lost. It may be better with the figure turned at an angle. Or maybe just with teeth in the smile. Ooohhhh, I could fill a scratch sheet with wicked smiles pretty happily.
That’s what I got for the critique. Feel free to disagree with any and all points. I’ve been wrong before… often enough that I’m comfortable there.
Was that a grin? It looked like a grimace to me!
And I love hyphens! It helps withe expressing things with simple words juxtaposed alongside one another in place of more complicated constructs or words. Of course, here, sauerkraut could have been written about as one word..
1) If you’re going to hyphenate, do it after the “d” in incident, not before. 2) I see tbe point re hazmat suit color, but the mix of that, blue gloves & yellow card works nicely. 3) Yes, the grin tracks too much with the hood & the face. Echoing but not matching them seems a better concept, but I am no graphic artist.
I can’t always remember the rule about where a hyphen goes but I did put it after the ‘d’ in confident. 🙂
Aren’t hyphens supposed to go between syllables? So inci-dent?
Hyphens are fine unless it is for the Bob Dylan song Mr. Tambourine Man. Who wants to list to Mr. Tambo-urine Man?
There was a CD cover that did that a long time ago.
they will never stop! unless if you send them the leftovers of what the dog did. hehe
Hey folks.
Please send prayers to my cousin, once removed, Kia. Her father, my cousin-in-law (who was an AMAZING man) Christos Kapakos … went into hospital last night, and passed away this morning.
He was only around 55. He was a Greek man, who was overweight, but had fought hard to clean up his habits, and done well. However, I believe his heart was was gave out this morning.
Pray for his sister in London (ON), his ex-wife (my cousin) who was still great friends, my cousin Kia, and our extended families who loved this man dearly.
He’s left a HUGE hole in our hearts, and he’ll be sorely missed.
Thanks
I am very sorry for your loss, Allan. 55 is too young, way too young. I lost a cousin who was very near and dear to me and he was only 47. I will keep you and your family in my thoughts.
Thanks Troy.
Unless they are in their 80s or older, it’s always too young.
Thanks for the critique, Greg. Keep’em coming. I don’t like hyphens either but sometimes like in this case I can’t get the words to fit without it unless I reduce the font size. I really try to make the font size as large as I can get away with for readability. Do you think I should go with a slightly smaller font size than hyphenate? And as for the hazmat color my first thought was to go with a yellow but then I realized the card was yellow. I couldn’t change it as it was yellow in a previous strip…but I don’t know, maybe I could have changed it. But when I was sampling hazmat suits on Google Images I saw that sometimes they are red, I figured that would be nice and bright and contrast well with the card. I liked the contrast with the blue gloves too. You are right about the smile. It is lost between the mustache and chin and hood. I think maybe, like you said, a toothy grin might have helped. I don’t know about turning the subject. I like the idea of him facing the camera and grinning, kind of like Norman Fell from Three’s Company. Remember him, Mr. Roper? 🙂
“I like the idea of him facing the camera and grinning, kind of like Norman Fell from Three’s Company. Remember him, Mr. Roper? ?”
I do indeed, though I only recall one instance of Mr. Roper breaking the fourth wall. If there were other such moments, I’ve either forgotten or never saw them.
The one that has stuck with me was when Mrs. Roper was creating a floral arrangement and said, “I need something tall and green and prickly.” Whereupon Mr. Roper quips, “How about your mother?” — and yes, turns to the camera and grins.
I like the Red, it gives a sense of “WARNING WILL ROBINSON! DANGER DANGER!!” Funny sight gag that is actually subtle. I also like the color yellow for the card, because those things are ANNOYING!!
Only critique is the “Evil Grin”.. It gets a bit lost in the suit.
i don’t want to be one of those nit-pickers but uhm… the placement of the mail box kinda makes him look like a demented Teletubby to me. maybe move it over to the side a skosh? so it’s not quite so nicely centered on the hazmat’s pear shaped tummy…?
and, yes, i agree about the grin. i mean it was obvious what was being gone for but it still kind of got buried in the rest of the lines.
still really thought it was a cute strip and look forward to next Thursday’s!
That’s funny. He does look like a teletubby. I didn’t see these before.
“It’s your own fault” THAT the words didn’t line up well 🙂
It is harder to think of adding a word to make long ones fit better.