Sorry, didn't notice it was finished. A nice little story. I wonder whether the lack of dialogue is actually a good thing? Dodgy dealings can be implied possibly more effectively than having two characters explicitly say criminal stuff. Then again, I'm a big fan of show-don't-tell in visual media.

Well I can post each page as an image but I thought the pdf would be more "consumable" tbh. Hosting each page also takes a lot longer and I already posted the semi-finished version to show progression. I might get time later on.



Well there was not a lot I could do on the dialogue side, there isn't a huge amount of substance to the story. Mostly I want to know if the content of the panels was obvious(i.e did you know what was happening) and also if the sequencing of panels made sense and was it effective in conveying tension as the story progressed and built upon what had happened previous.

So far, from a couple of others I've shown it they said they could understand what was happening which is a huge relief because it's very hard for me to stand back from the work and know one way or the other whether it actually makes sense. I've started on my next project so I really really want to know that I've got the basics right, the next comic I do will be much larger and longer and will swallow up 9 or 10 months of my life, so if there are any serious issues with how I layed this out, or how I went about conveying the action I'd rather know now!

Just read it all- personally I really liked it. I put imaginary music to it, imagined the sounds, and it very much came together. Liked the rooftop leaping by batman and the camera angle (if you forgive my use of the term ¬_¬) of it, and how he leapt into Scarecrow's van. The end was awesome how he got away- could have been a closing monologue, or parting comment, but that's nitpicky- maybe its silent ending is in itself what you were going for, and I can see that. Just want more caped crusader dialogue

Liked the costume design too- based very much on the 90s Animated version I assume? I'm a philistine when it comes to the actual comics, but massive fan of the animated versions.

I'm glad you liked the ending, it was one of the few parts I had a very very succinct concept for. The second last page was in many ways the payoff, the big crash (sorry for not including sound effects btw, was pressed for time), the tumble and the 3 panel reveal of the result were came out pretty much exactly as intended. pages 1 and 8 were easily the best in my mind.

Personally I don't like batman having dialogue, like before it removes the spectre, it removes the mystery and so I would generally prefer that batman be quite a reserved character. Bruce wayne and everyone else can talk as much as they please.

The look of batman (and the comic in general) was mostly taken from Batman, Year One, my favourite Batman comic. It is quite similar to the animated series though.

Glad you enjoyed the rooftop segments, I was personally not happy with all those panels but I'm glad that as a whole they worked.

Looked at it again. There are some nice layout tricks there, like the tall panel with the gunmen, or Crane's arm hanging off the edge of the frame. I wonder whether the sudden change in amount of dialogue is a bit jarring? You could do something interesting with it, maybe, or add a single frame of text in the very last corner, just to bookend it? Another idea might be to look at the sounds happening in the other frames - it feels a bit silent as it is. Also, maybe work on the running poses - some of them look like he's striding instead.

It's a pretty awesome thing and it has been very good to watch you put it together in stages. Though personally I'd like less monologue >_>

I wonder whether doing the entire thing without text would work? So you'd replace the monologue with Batman looking disapprovingly at hookers in the street, drunks wandering past, rubbish, etc, instead of the monologue.

YAY, more critique! Okay yeah I'm pretty shit with human anatomy, so yeah there are a number of poses which are a bit cack but I am studying a book on that so that should hopefully be sorted for the next project. Hopefully. I concede your point on the dialogue, I think, more so than the lack of dialogue itself being a problem, I believe it could be the hugely uneven distribution of meaningful dialogue that causes a serious issue in the reading. I hadn't really thought of that, so yeah I'll watch for that again.

Sounds effects offered two problems, first I found it hard to verbalize sounds myself and the few I had planned were taken pretty much directly from comics I was reading as reference guides. Secondly I ran a day late on this and I really just wanted to get it done and finished so that I could put it to one side and start working on a new draft of my dreams/nightmares story. Sounds definitely are important and doubly so in my Dreams story, which means that they really have to be quite prevalent for that.

I am finished with this, so nothing more will be done, but I appreciate the feedback and what I learn will, to the best of abilities be put into the graphic novel I plan for next year.

The more critique the better. I'm not here to be told that it's great and all that. I want to know what you think went wrong (typos and junk aside) what bits stood out as working really well, and what bits just didn't work at all. What are the your thoughts on the solid colours panels? I generally thought they were good except for the second last panel on page 7.

Thought on the flow of the comic, did your eyes always immediately move to the next panel in sequence or was the layout confused? Page 4 I found to be a bit of a culprit for this, in that I found my eye moving down from the first panel, rather than across.

Yeah and any other places where you felt it wasn't up to scratch, i.e. it didn't look professional.

EDIT: Less monologue? That is interesting, because that was nearly all put in at the last minute because I didn't feel the action was speaking for itself, and with Dreams there definitely will be more monologue, as the dreams are narrated. Do you find you dislike monologues in comics and stories in general or was it just what I had written?

I'm glad you enjoyed watching the different stages, it was one of the main reasons I started this thread, and for the bit of support.

EDIT.EDIT:


Ah, I'm going to venture a no. A couple of things, Batman, isn't actually Roschach, so he can't just walk down the street and snear at people but I think more importantly than that, the opening page was four, fairly pleasant panels where the reading of the monologue gives quite a deal more background on "my" batman than I could otherwise produce in 2 to 3 pages worth of action shots. To put all that monologue information into some sort of coherent sequence of actions would be pretty difficult and would nearly require itself own comic (or flash backs as Trollslayer suggested). Comics are an efficient combination of words and pictures. Sometimes text can paint a far more vivid picture than paint itself and I think that is, to a great extent what comics are all about. Giving people the imagery of the room and the surroundings, the action and the characters, without having to give some fluffy superfluous crap descriptions that make up the modern novel. But to progress story and put across deep emotion, the comic still depends on text.

I'll attempt to give you some feedback by tonight. Main things are - pretty simplistic colouring by the end (but you explained that), the monologue was a bit overdone or perhaps a bit poorly done, and though the sense of Batman's movement and the way he looks are excellent sometimes (like a shadow or something not human), they're pretty cack at other times (the grappling hook scene with the blue background?)

Yeah that looked better in my head I didn't like the blue background there either but I was trying to find something other than the red.

Out of interest, discounting page 4, which took 6 or 7 hours to paint, would you think that generally the 4 to 5 hours spent painting each of the first 3 pages was worth it compared against the results of the last 3 pages, where I used a lot of washes of colour? The last 3 page took about 2 hours to paint, each. That's the difference in the scale of work.

I do have a bit of a problem with monologues in general, yes. Something to do with fragments of sentences that start and end with ... and never stop. Mostly I would advise a bit of editorial pruning and rewording to make those written bits as short as possible. For example, page 3 doesn't need any writing (if you emphasise the clonk onto the van, or show a grimace). I feel like I'd prefer it to bookend action sequences - you don't need a commentary to stuff that is taking place on the page. The last two pages could be boiled down to "One more broken bone, one more dead criminal. Fair trade" spread out however.

Yeah that sounds good actually. I'd probably agree, though monologue fragments in general wouldn't be as much of an issue for me, but describing pictures that in essence describe themselves is a little redundant. To some extent I just don't want the reader to pass over the page too quickly because I spent such and such an amount of time producing it But yeah that's probably good advice all round.

Yeah, the no-text suggestion was a random idea. I agree that doing it isn't necessary, but the discontinuity in text density is something that needs to be changed or answered stylistically. For example, you could emphasise in the graphics the change in tone from stalking on rooftops to stealthy fighting - for example, he's silent because he's striking from the shadows, scaring the goons because they see no more than a shadow against the walls. A tonal shift back to the brooding monologue in the last panel or two might help bookend the piece, too.

The art is mostly good. One comment (possibly a result of the scanning) is that it's a bit blurred - the edges aren't as crisp as other comics. The colours seem to work, though. On the poses front, maybe get one of those wooden poseable mannequins? (I typed in "figure study" at first as I couldn't remember what they're called, and it's a good way of finding nude images in Safe Search, at least)

Unfortunately I think you should stick with the first method, even if it does take longer. The last few pages resemble a watercolour I did in art class or something, especially for the big blocks of colour like the roads and backgrounds - I dunno, if it wasn't so rushed, and you filled in more detail and texture during the drawing/painting for the final pages, then maybe the 'washes of colour' technique wouldn't look much worse. But the 'first pages' method will definitely look better, much more dark and atmospheric with rich colours. I think the artwork is one of the main things going for your comic, might as well put all your effort into it - it'll be more rewarding in the end.

The monologue could do with less elipses and no exclamation marks - it doesn't really suit Batman when I read it. It needs to reflect the cynical, tired old man that he is. Some great stuff, especially at the start with the "I often wondered if it needed saving or destroying..." piece. That's the sort of thing you need to go for, not the cheesy "But it's the only tool I have!" stuff, if you ask me. Oh, and he seems a bit obsessed with his bones.

As for the sequencing of the panels - mostly fine, I didn't immediately understand the beginning of the police chase though. Could have some with a better angle or explanation. And for the panel where Batman smacks into the van, at first I thought he was shooting through the open door into the van A sound effect, some sign of impact, would have helped a lot. Maybe something to let the reader know what's going to happen before it does - plunging into a vehicle isn't really an orthodox thing to do after all, though I'm not criticising you for putting it in, I thought it was a good choice as it reflects his determination and self-disregard, even his slight patheticness at this stage in his life.

Hope that helps. Thought you did a great job overall.

Thanks all for the critiques, I really appreciate it.

@gap, Yeah I am studying human anatomy and I've considered getting one of those figure study things. The reason it may be a bit blurred is because it was painted at the same size as you see it. Most comics are done much larger than the final version, so that when it gets reduced minor errors and such are eliminated. This will be how my next graphic novel will be done. Also the line art is all done by brush which doesn't provide me with the definition of a dip pen. I will get one for next time, although there may not be a whole lot of inking to be done next time. It may have become blurred in the pdf making process because when I brought in the image to the document, they all had to be sized up, even though technically they were about A4 size. Anyways next time I'll be getting it professionally copied.

@Jaffa, Yeah I'd tend to agree on the painting stuff and I'll hopefully come up with ways of preserving the paint longer in the future so that the large area's of colour won't cause so much problems.

As for the sequences yeah the bit where the chase started was an area that caused me trouble and in the end I tried something and it just didn't work, but yeah I agree on that. And where he hits the van, I had drawn in a sound effect but it got the cut with all the rest because I was lazy