October Zuda Wrap Up

Last month, we thrilled and delighted you with our look at Zuda comics, highlighting the October entries, reviewing some of the past winners and theorizing on what makes a successful entry. So it's only fair that we follow up with some post-competition commentary to see what we were right about and what other people were wrong about now that the October competition is over. Because Zuda has announced the results for October, and the winner is...

Pluck!

Yes, Pluck, the somewhat sarcastic, slightly post-modern black-and-white fantasy epic by Gabe White and John Amor, ended up winning the competition and is therefore the recipient of a long-term deal to continue providing content for Zuda.

So, just what can we take away from this result? Well, the first thing that jumps out about this win is the number of hits each entry received. Over the first few days of the competition, Pluck received a little over four thousand hits. By comparison, Where Evils Dare received over 24 thousand views, while Doc Monster reeled in a whopping 27 thousand views. So the first and most obvious lesson to be learned here is that views do not equal votes. There are two reasons for this. The first and most obvious is that people might read the entry and not like it as much as another. However, since only a small fraction of the people who read Doc Monster also read Pluck, the second explanation is more likely: they just weren't motivated enough to vote at all. In order to vote in the competition, viewers have to register with Zuda and while Doc Monster was my personal favorite story of the month, was well structured, featured nice art and was a super-hero comic and therefore theoretically more attractive to the comics viewing populace at large, it didn't seem to grab the readers enough to make them want to spend the three minutes to register and cast a vote for it.

Pluck, on the other hand, was able to motivate a much higher percentage of a much smaller viewer base in order to grab the lead, which it held for the entire month. Which brings us to the second lesson from last month, which is that the early leader has the big advantage. This is partially because most of the regular readers, who are most likely to vote, read the entries during the first week, but it's also due to another factor: front-runner syndrome. There is a portion of the reading audience who only reads those entries that are winning. Whether this is because they don't have the time to read them all or because they want to vote for a contender, more than one commenter on the Zuda forums has said that they are influenced by the rankings. And the figures bear this out to a degree: after that first week, first place entry Pluck more than tripled its view count, from 4k after one week to 14k by the end of the month. Conversely, third place Doc Monster, which started strong at 27k, ended with just 31k after a full month.

Of course, this isn't a hard and fast rule; the second place entry, Where Evils Dare, started with 24k and continued strong throughout the month, finishing with an impressive 47k views. Part of this can be attributed to the fact that Where Evils Dare was done by a professional team who perhaps had access to more a more developed fan network in order to hype their entry. But overall, it seems that once Pluck took the lead in the first week, it snowballed, suggesting that grabbing the early lead perhaps foreshadows the final results.

Beyond the numbers, the other major lesson learned from the victory by Pluck is that black-and-white is not necessarily the major negative that it has been described as. If you read the forums or the comments on the site, there seems to be a consensus that black and white titles have an inherent weakness in the competition. This may be true, but in the case of Pluck, the fact it was in black-and-white did not seem to have a negative effect, as the title led the voting wire to wire, proving that color or lack of color, while perhaps important to some readers, is not the determining factor. I also have a totally unfounded idea that this may be in part because of the specific nature of Pluck's art, which featured fine linework as opposed to solids, meaning it was much more white than black and thus had a lighter feel to it which may have been more attractive to readers than many heavier black-and-white entries.

So, lessons aside, what do I think of the results? Well, I voted for Doc Monster, so I am a little disappointed that I won't be able to read more of that story. The win by Pluck doesn't bother me, though. I thought it was both well written and well drawn and the structure was okay as well, ending with a nice tease. The characters left me a bit cold, however, so I have to admit I probably won't be reading more of this story unless I have a lot of free time on my hands. Obviously a lot of people liked it, but it's just not to my taste. I originally gave it a B+, which is probably about right, but in my memory it's faded to more like a B- as far as my personal enjoyment.


One final thought now that the new entries are up. I touched on a lot of factors that go into crafting a successful Zuda entry, but one area I didn't discuss was presentation. When you go to the Zuda front page, it displays ten thumbnails such as the ones I used here, one for each of the current competitors. Below each is the name of the title. As we have seen, many people will only read one or two entries, which means that this brief intro often serves as the only chance you have to grab the attention of the reader and get them to check out your story. I talked earlier about how important it is to grab the reader on the first two pages of your entry, but in fact you have to try to get them first on this front page, using just one tiny thumbnail image and the title of your story. This seems like a nearly impossible task and probably random to boot, based entirely on the whims of the viewer, but I actually think there is a little bit of craft involved.

The title itself is important. When you only have the title and one picture to create an impression with, it's key that you have a title that is both memorable and representative of the story. Last month, some of the titles just didn't work for me, in many cases because of the length. Whether it's comics or television shows or movies, a shorter title such as Evil Ain't Easy or Impure Blood is going to be more effective than longer, convoluted titles like Fly Me From the Moon or Old Cthulhu's On the Rise. Even something like Where Evils Dare, while relatively short, isn't as precise as it could be; sure, it's a fairly nice pun on the classic war movie Where Eagles Dare, but that is probably lost on a lot of the audience. Creator Tony Lee referred to this property in some of the promotional stuff as being about Hitler's evil SS group Platoon 666, and I think Platoon 666 may have been a better title for the strip.

Pluck is an interesting example to look at because even though I personally don't like the word pluck -- it resonates too closely with "perky" for me, meaning I find someone with "pluck" to be annoying, plus it's an unattractive sounding word -- it fits perfectly with the image chosen to represent it. The face of the main character, looking slightly upward with an optimistic and somewhat surprised expression fairly screams "pluck". That's a plucky looking guy. You get a good sense right off what the character is going to be like and by extension what the feel of the comic is going to be, all from one word and one image. It sets in your mind a (perhaps minor, but nonetheless important and present) expectation of what you are about to read that must then carry over into the reading experience.

I really noticed that effect this week when I gave the titles a once over before beginning my reading. I planned all along to read all ten, so this was not going to be a determining factor in those terms, and I also already had in mind a reading order (good old boring left to right, top row first), but I found that just from glancing at the titles and thumbnails, I was looking forward to some of them more than others. Of course, some of the ones I was looking forward to ended up being a letdown, but the fact that I was looking forward to them at all from such a small sample indicates to me that there is importance to this presentation that may determine for many readers what they read at all, if not whether they end up liking it.


Tomorrow: People seemed to enjoy the Zuda reviews last time, so we'll be making it a regular feature. Not a whole week of Zuda stuff, mind you, but we'll take two days a month to review the new entries when they come out. Tomorrow, then, we'll be presenting our first batch of reviews: Big Ups: A Space Adventure, Brother of Bronze Hammer, Children of the Sewer, In Maps & Legends and Little Earth People. See you then.

Read More

Breaking the Fourth Wall: Episode 9

Last week we took a look at the webcomics engine Zuda Comics, where every month a new group of ten comics competes for a contract with DC. While some critics have issues with this sort of American Idol mentality in comics (either because of concern over creators rights being exploited or because of squeamishness over the idea of art being a competitive process), most creators rightly view Zuda as perhaps the single best means of breaking into the business today. Even if you don't win the competition, merely being accepted as a competitor guarantees widespread exposure within the comics community and tens of thousands of new eyes on your material.

In this episode of Breaking the Fourth Wall, then, we'll take a look at just what goes into crafting a successful Zuda submission. Of course, as I have yet to submit anything to Zuda, by definition this will be more theory than practice. However, some of my observations about the structure have been reinforced by my interview with pro writer and current Zuda competitor Tony Lee, so for another look at this topic you may want to check it out if you haven't already.

So what is the key to a successful Zuda entry? Well, in broad terms, it's the same thing that is key to crafting a successful story for any medium, which is this: write for the structure. Every format of story, whether it's the novel, epic poem or mainstream comics, has a specific and unique structure that determines how the story is told and, perhaps more importantly, how the story is read. We've already discussed in previous episodes some of the specifics of writing for comics, but even though Zuda may seem at first to be a straightforward comic medium, it actually has some specific quirks that can greatly affect the success of your submission. And the first of these is actually the structure of the competition itself.

Eight pages isn't a lot to work with, but because of the nature of the competition, you meed to fit a lot of specific information into those pages while also maintaining readability and pacing. Your goal here isn't just to create something compelling to read; it's to create something that will compel the reader to want to read more. In effect, you have to do everything a mainstream comics writer has to do, but with only one third of the space to do it in. Crafting a satisfying Zuda submission, then, requires focus on three things: the hook, the setup and the tease.


The Hook

Back in the Golden Age, comics used a symbolic splash page to draw readers in -- it acted almost as a second cover, teasing what was going to happen later in the story, which would then actually start on page two. During the Silver Age, Marvel perfected the technique of opening right in the middle of the action with an action-packed splash and then filling readers in on how they got there. Today, comics often start with a tease: the first page of pages will be a slow build, hinting at what is to come, and then the payoff will come with a big reveal a few pages in.

While I don't think the symbolic splash will work for Zuda, either the Silver Age or Modern Age hooks can be done effectively at Zuda. From this months entries, for instance, Impure Blood is a pretty good Silver Age style opening, with the reader jumping right into a massive gladiator battle right on the first page. Doc Monster uses the more Modern approach, with two slow build pages teasing the reader's curiosity and then the third page being a big blowout sequence, with a flying saucers erupting from the ground.

For my money, though, the most effective opening this month is Where Evils Dare, which is more in the Modern style as well. Page one shows some Nazis standing around talking, one of them is Dracula, it's kind of intriguing -- and then the second page is a full splash with hordes of Nazi zombie vampire dudes swarming forward. It's effective and visceral, but it also has another important quality: it's short. Just as the writer has fewer pages to work with, so too does the reader have fewer pages to get invested. A highly unscientific survey of comments on the Zuda boards indicates that a lot of readers just check out the first couple pages and if they don't like them they don't bother reading the rest of the entry. Even though eight pages doesn't seem like an overwhelming time commitment, it seems to me that on Zuda you probably only have two pages to hook your reader; as much as I enjoyed Doc Monster, I think it might have been better served by getting to the flying saucer a page earlier.

Whether you go with a Silver or Modern Age approach, though, the lesson here is the same: craft a good hook and get the readers involved right away, because even if you have the greatest page four in comics history, chances are if your page two isn't awesome, nobody will ever get that far. (For examples of this month's entries that I don't think had effective openings, I think Old Cthulhu's On the Rise took a little too long to get to the hook -- the fisherman guy didn't show up until page five).


The Setup

Even in a short, eight page tease like this, you should look at the submission in terms of classic story structure, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Usually, this can be roughly described as setting up the conflict, exploring the conflict and resovling the conflict. In the case of a Zuda entry, though, the whole eight pages is part of the beginning of a longer story, so the "middle" here is where you set up the conflict that you will explore if you happen to win.

That means a couple specific things. Firstly, you need to introduce your characters or, if they appeared during the hook, you need to show the reader why they are the main character and why the reader should care. And secondly, you need to present the premise of the series: what the story is about, who is in it and how you as a creator are going to tell it.

In terms of examples from this month, Doc Monster and Where Evils Dare take slightly different tacks with this. Where Evils Dare uses a fairly straightforward, classic style of comics storytelling; in the setting of a wartime mission briefing, we are introduced one by one to all of the characters and the premise of the series is literally spelled out by the officer giving the briefing. Doc Monster, on the other hand, presents the information through the use of narrative captions; while the characters are battling aliens in an action sequence, one of them gives an internal monologue commenting on the action and, more importantly, his co-star. The result is that the story doesn't bog down with exposition, as the reader is carried along by the action, but at the same time we still get an idea about what both characters are like and what the series is going to be about. While I think Where Evils Dare is a well crafted submission, in this case I think Doc Monster comes out slightly ahead and will be more readable for many modern readers.

(For an example of a current Zuda entry that did not have a proper Setup, A Polar Nightmare is probably the clearest example. After eight pages I'm still not really sure what the story is about other than there's an evil Santa involved somehow)


The Tease

And, of course, you have to go out with a bang in order to get your readers wondering what's going to happen on the next page. The cliffhanger is one of the oldest elements of serialized storytelling in literary tradition, so it's no wonder that most of the entries on Zuda do a pretty good job with it; even submissions that otherwise aren't particularly well crafted usually manage to end on a tease for future pages.

The main mistake Zuda creators seem to make is treating the entire eight pages eight pages as the tease. In a meta sense, as I've already discussed, this is true; but what ends up happening in many entries is that the first seven pages are slow buildup to the cliffhanger on page eight and, for reasons I've gone over, this doesn't work because most readers won't get to page eight if you do this. Impure Blood, Doc Monster, Where Evils Dare and Pluck all end on solid teases this month, while A Polar Nightmare is an example of an entry where the entire story seems to be a tease.

I also wanted to mention Blitz, which runs into a less common issue at Zuda, which is a story that doesn't seem to have been specifically crafted for the Zuda format. In this case, the tease at the end almost seems tacked on at the last minute, with one of the characters randomly finding a newspaper in the last panel that tells them some shocking information. This is part of why I think it's important to create a story specifically for Zuda, because if you don't take into consideration the specific structure requirements of the competition you may end up with a story that is well written and well drawn but that still fails because it was intended for a different format.


Page Structure

I know what you're thinking: you're not done yet? Well, I do have a couple more things to mention about the unique challenges presented by Zuda. But these are more nuts and bolts comments about the technical details of working with something that has befuddled and irritated thousands of people over the last two years: the Zuda page viewer.

Not that there's anything wrong with it; I happen to find it intuitive and perfectly functional. But it also has a couple minor details about it that might at first slip by without notice but which can be very important to writing a successful submission, the first and most important being the shape of the page.

When I asked Where Evils Dare writer Tony Lee about this, he deferred to his artist, Stefano Martino. And if you are a successful artist or are working with a someone experienced in layout, this will be less of an issue. Even so, as a writer, when you are planning sequences within your story you need to always be aware of just how this will be portrayed visually on the page. And that's a bit tricky on Zuda because of the horizontal page shape for two reasons. Firstly, as a comics reader, we've simply been trained over however many years to think of comic books in terms of a vertical page, so figuring out panel sequences in a horizontal setting can prove challenging. Secondly, though, and more subtly, the horizontal structure isn't necessarily as conducive to action simply because the human form is vertical in nature. If you have people running or jumping or fighting, being able to show them in a vertical panel is simply more natural than trying to fit a vertical shape into a horizontal panel, because their body will basically bisect the frame.

I won't get into it too much here, but I wanted to mention this difficulty because I think the creator needs to be thinking about this from the moment they begin crafting a Zuda submission. The structure has to come first and in this case you will want to work very closely with your artist in planning page layouts and choreographing action sequences; or if you are drawing it yourself, you'll need to be careful figuring out how to make the sory flow not just between panels, but in this case within panels as well.

Lastly, the Zuda viewer also presents a slightly different experience form a traditional comic book because it only shows one page at a time, whereas comics sometimes show two. Sure, you're only reading on at a time in a comic book, but for a writer this is important because of a technique I haven't had a chance to discuss much yet, which is the last panel tease. Basically, when you're writing a story and you get to a page break -- where the reader has to literally turn the page to get to the next part -- it's a good idea to put a small tease, such as a mini-cliffhanger or perhaps an interrupted dialgoe balloon (where the sentence is completed on the following page) in order to get the reader to turn the page instead of putting down the comic. Zuda, though, only shows one page at a time, meaning you need to always be aware of every page ending. With many readers only giving these submissions a brief test before even reading eight pages, it's especially important that every page end with a lead into the next page in order to convince them to hit the Next arrow and keep reading. It means being somewhat more careful with pacing, but if you want to ensure readers stay engaged, it could be vital.

Conclusion

To sum up, then, to craft a successful Zuda submission you need to draw the readers in quickly, introduce the plot and concept of the series, show them who the characters are and why they should care, and end with a cliffhanger tease to get them wanting more. This needs to be done in eight pages, using unfamiliar page shapes, panel layouts and page counts. Because of this, when you write a story for Zuda, you need to do that: write it for Zuda specifically with Zuda's unique challenges in mind. Otherwise you risk crafting a story that may be great, but might never be read.

Read More

Zuda Week Interview: Seven Questions with TONY LEE

All this week we've been looking at Zuda Comics and their smorgasbord of webcomic delights. To cap things off, then, we're happy to present an interview with pro comic writer and current Zuda contestant Tony Lee. Along with artist Stefano Martino, Tony is the power behind the supernatural war yarn Where Evils Dare, which has managed to rake in over 24,000 views in just the first four days of competition. As the writer of such comics as Doctor Who and Hope Falls, there's a ton we could have asked, but instead we decided to respect the theme and stick to our metaphorical Zuda guns.

Let's go the tape!


1. You currently have, along with artist Stefano Martino, a comic in competition at Zuda – Where Evils Dare. What can you tell us about this project and how did it come about?

Where Evils Dare is something I've had brewing about for a long time - to give you an idea how long, artist Sam Hart was looking to do a version of it back in 2005, before he took on the book that eventually became Outlaw: The Legend Of Robin Hood (out now, Candlewick Press). And after that an artist friend named Jim Boswell was going to do it, but took on a larger project as nothing seemed to be happening with this.

But then Stefano came along late last year - I'd been talking to Zuda at this point, David Gallaher had discussed the whole thing with me and suggested that Where Evils Dare might be a good fit - and I'd just done an issue of Doctor Who: The Forgotten with Stefano, thought he was a brilliant artist, and couldn't understand why he wasn't getting more work. So I spoke to him, explained what the situation was, that if we won we got the DC gig, but more importantly either way, he had a ton of exposure on his work. And so Stefano came on board. From there we just created the pages.


2. As a fan of war comics, particularly some of the more offbeat DC books from the 60’s and 70’s that often featured supernatural plot elements, this story was right in my wheelhouse. As the creator, what kind of influences prompted you to create this story and where are you hoping to take it in the future?

I've always had a fascination with Dracula - the fact that I have a book out in November that's an almost direct sequel to the book (From The Pages of Bram Stoker's 'Dracula': Harker, out November by AAM/Markosia) should show that - and War movies have always been a favourite, so putting the two together wasn't exactly an original idea, but I hope that establishing a solid link between this and Dracula is! Added to that we've added several more famous literary creations, like Frankenstein's Monster, shown in this as reanimated Nazi corpses... the list goes on. And if we won, we have a ton more along the same lines to bring in, including an Allied soldier named Jekyll...

But we've got a whole wealth of back matter to play with. We have Nosferatu, we have Golems, we have American Indian totems, we have demons, Werewolves that are dead that have been re-animated back to life, so yes - Zombie Werewolves, and a whole load of additional stuff we can tap. The thing with pulp genre is that it's there for everything you ever want. And we'll be using it all! Well, if we win...


3. One thing that stood out to me about Where Evils Dare was the pacing, which seemed to be specifically tailored to the eight page tease format that Zuda presents. How did you go about crafting your submission and how is it different from the longer form comics you’ve worked on in the past?

Most comics when they have an issue one start with the build up, explaining the characters - and I learned the hard way that this can be an issue - I wrote a series called Stalag 666 for 2000ad right before I started on this and it was a Great Escape style of story - and of course you have to guild up to the escape. I took a lot of criticisms for that, and I realised that I'd probably have done better starting with the escape and just leaping back, so when I started these eight pages, I knew I had to start with some action. But that said, I couldn't just go 'Boom! Here's a fight!' as that would just be confusing.

I knew I had to, in the first eight pages a) introduce the main baddies. (People like to see who the monsters are. And with Dracula and Von Frankenstein, we needed a page at least to introduce them. I also realised that a full page page 2 would steal space, but also give the reader a full view of the horrors the heroes faced) b) show the baddies at work - in this case a small pitched battle where we also introduce Helena, one of the three survivors - and the guide for the troop. She's bitter, injured - and a nice foil for the heroes. On that note c) we have to introduce the heroes in such a way that we know why they're here, what they're doing and how they're going to do it. Here we show the tidbits of the back story, that Captain Harker is of THAT family, etc etc, how he doesn't trust Renfield, etc etc - and then d) we need to end the story with a page that just screams 'read me! vote for me to read me more!'

I think it works, but the biggest difference between this and my usual comics is the end decider. In comics, it's an editor who decides, maybe even a publisher. But here it's thousands of readers. And each one needs to be excited enough by this to register an account and vote.


4. To follow up with another technical question, how important to you are the structure and format of the medium when crafting your stories? And how might this affect your story if you win the competition, where readers will be seeing new material in four page increments instead of traditional, longer forms?

I tried to keep the style to the same amount of beats, of panels that I would usually use. But yeah, the styling is different - having a half page wide screen isn't as 'square' as it is in a comic, it's wide yet short. This changes the angle you describe a scene. It's easier to have three panels along the top, it's not so easy to do a two by three grid. But I have to say, although I write it, Stefano takes the story and runs with it. Most of the layout design is all him. The guy's a genius.

As for how we'd continue? I'd have to check with Stefano. But I'd hate to be one of these 'page a week' comics. That would just kill me. I'd rather build a backlog and throw out four solid pages a week. But this is something I don't even have to think about until the end and, judging from my competition, maybe not even then!


5. One thing that I find is a challenge working with Zuda is trying to think in terms of a horizontal page layout instead of the vertical form comics have traditionally been printed in. Did this present you with any challenges, or was this something that your artist Stefano Martino dealt more with?

As I said above, I tried to keep my pages basic in design. allowing Stefano to 'do his thing'. He's an artist, I'm not. he knows the best way to lay out a page. If he didn't like the way something flowed, he'd look to make it better, and I'd just re-edit here and there when I did the lettering. Often it made a better comic.


6. Of course, beyond Zuda you’ve done quite a bit of work for various comics publishers like Marvel and IDW. What kind of feedback have you received regarding the idea of having established pros competing at Zuda, either from the fans or other pros?

People think I'm mad, and they don't understand why I did it. To most, Zuda is an almost ignored subject, they go 'sure, it's a DC Contract, but it's not a real DC contract' and I have to explain that no matter what they think, yes, it is. People think I'm in a lose / lose situation here. If I win, people go 'of course he did. he was a ringer'. If I lose, people go 'look at that guy. Lost to [insert name here] and he's supposed to be a name?' And yeah, they're right as I already get that a little.

I'm here because I was invited to have a play in the sandbox. I'm in the competition because I want to gain awareness for Stefano and for Zuda itself. We hit more views in three days than some previous winners did in the entire month. That's great news for Zuda, for DC and for Stefano, and more people see his work. Of course, it's great for me. And of course, I make a point of repeatedly pushing viewers to look at other strips and yes, I know I've lost votes because of that attitude - but I'm NOT going to be one of those douches who yells 'VOTE FOR ME' at everyone and badmouths my competition on public forums in an attempt to lose them votes, so it's great for the competition as they get more views and votes by default from the new people looking at their work.

If I win? Great. Because we always want to win. It's Human nature. But if I lose? Ah well. I did my best to build the brand and more people will visit Zuda every month, with luck.

But wait til the third week when I'm second and THAT close...


7. Finally, I like to close my interviews by asking every creator the following question: what’s one specific storytelling technique you use that you could share with new creators to help them hone their craft?

Letter your own comic. Even once. I know writers who put stupid amounts of words in a balloon and just expect the letterer to magically sort it. But when you letter your own page, you're that letterer. You gain a new respect to how words go on the page. You learn the flow of dialogue. And you'll learn the joys of brevity in a script!

Read More

Zuda Week: I Rule the Night

All this week we're taking a look at the webcomics phenomenon known as Zuda Comics. We started by reviewing all the new entire this month (exhibit A and exhibit B) and now we've moved on to checking out some of the actual winners of the competition. yesterday we looked at the delightful comedy-adventure Celadore, but today we're going to dramatically shift gears and instead look at something a little more, shall we say, downbeat: Kevin Colden's I Rule the Night.



I Rule the Night
by Kevin Colden

When you first pop open the Zuda viewer to check out page one of I Rule the Night, don't be surprised if either you or your computer has a heart attack, because what confronts you is a real rarity in modern comics: a page layout that consists of a whopping 13 panels. And somehow one of those panels manages to still be a half page spread. I mention this mostly as a public service announcement, because if you come to this after reading something like, say, New Avengers #16, which consists entirely of splash pages and huge, empty expanses of blank space, the sudden sight of actual comics storytelling might cause your system to shut down with overload.

This isn't to say, though, that creator Kevin Colden's style is retro, because even though (as we soon discover) I Rule the Night does deal in deconstructing old fashioned comic book tropes, the style of art and the sensibility behind it is nothing if not modern.

The story starts off with a silent and pretty creepy sequence where a very eerie looking kid stalks and brutally murders a random buy in an alley, and at first (thanks in part to the fact that the kid seems to be climbing the wall like a spider) it looks like this may be another vampire story. But then the kid drags the body to a waiting car, whisking kid and corpse to what appears to be the Batcave and suddenly you realize this is a whole different shade of messed up: the kid, we learn, is a girl by the name of Elaine, and once upon a time she was a superhero sidekick by the name of Shadowboy.

This begins a particularly brutal and incisive look at some of the bizarre psychological issues that underlie the world of superheroics. If that sounds a bit too Alan Moore, well, the comparison is apt, since I Rule the Night does return to what has become somewhat familiar grounds over the past couple decades. But it still manages to feel fresh, thanks to an uncompromising viewpoint that doesn't expend much effort trying to pretend these "heroes" were heroic at all, but rather just deeply disturbed people. I think it's no random choice to make the boy sidekick actually be a girl, and one that Night Devil actually performs surgery on to ensure she never matures past childhood; he needs her to be his permanent sidekick, and the sexual discomfort implied by this is reinforced in a brief sequence where the Night Devil kills a "villain" called "The Deviant" because "he was a sodomite, and sodomy is illegal."

This look at Golden Age and Silver Age heroic tropes is accented by some very cool play with the art; during these flashback sequences, the art takes on the appearance of a classic superhero comic, complete with zippo-tone dots and a four-color printing scheme that contrasts sharply with the washed out black and whites of the modern sections.

The biggest problem with I Rule the Night is the fact that it seems to have dropped off the planet. The series abruptly went on hiatus way back in May and nary a peep has been heard from it since. Just this week, Colden tweeted that while he is still working on the comic, the hiatus isn't actual over yet. Zuda itself also announced at one point that big things were in store for I Rule the Night, but nothing more has been said. In other words, nobody knows wtf is going on with this comic. Perhaps they decided the series would be of broader interest to comic readers and are preparing a print graphic novel with the complete story, so people will pay for it instead of getting it for free. This wouldn't surprise me, but if it's the case I think they should announce it, because much of the buzz that had been building over this comic has been lost due to the silence over the fate of the series. Extended silence will kill any project no matter how interesting, so here's hoping Zuda and Colden are able to spill some information soon before this promising comic gets lost in the shuffle.



My Grade: The action may be a little too graphic or, well, deviant for some readers, and it's true that the subject matter has been explored before. But this is still an interesting, modern take on classic superheroes, so if that's your thing, give it a try. A-.

Read More

Zuda Week: Celadore

All this week we're taking a look at the webcomics offered up through the competition at Zuda Comics. We've already reviewed the ten entries that are competing this month (part one is here, part two is here) but you're probably wondering what happens when one of these comics actually wins. Coming up with a compelling eight page intro is one thing (and a very important thing, which I will discuss at length later this week) but turning that into an ongoing series is something else. With that in mind, here's the first full length title we'll be reviewing this week: Celadore.



Celadore
by Caanan Grall


First off, let me offer my sincere hope that "Caanan Grall" is an actual name and not a pseudonym, because it is fantastic. I'm pretty sure Caanan Grall fought Kull the Conqueror in a Savage Sword of Conan backup at some point. Somewhere, Roy Thomas is rubbing his hands together at the thought.

Having said that, I started Celadore with just a bit of skepticism. The first three pages, while showing some signs of life, seemed a bit cliched: Celadore is a lady with a sword, she's hunting vampires with holy water... something about candles or daylight or something... eh. Whatevs.

Then I turned the cyber page and was in for a surprise. Celadore, it turns out, isn't the story of a lady vampire hunter; it's the story of a lady vampire hunter who's soul becomes trapped in an eleven-year-old girl's body. And that raises some questions, like: what happened to Evelyn, the girl who previously was using said body? And how do you go about hunting vampires when everyone treats you like a little kid?

The answers, as it turns out are a) she's now a ghost, haunting her own body and providing running commentary on Celadore's efforts and mishaps and b) you do it the old fashioned way -- with help from other kids, namely Evelyn's best friend Sam. Sam, for his part, is perfectly willing to believe in ghost, vampires and ninjas, because, as he says, "I am only eleven." He's also both the comedic and dramatic heart of the story, adding heartfelt if often ridiculous commentary and jumping into every possible adventure with unrestrained enthusiasm.

It's that enthusiasm which also captures the reader's imagination, exemplified expertly through Grall's art. While those first three pages are a bit choppy, when the kids come onto the scene the story and the art both spring to life. His style is cartoony without being overly simple or childish, allowing him to play action sequences as easily as comic sequences, which is important because in Celadore the two usually go hand in hand.

And the writing deftly keeps pace with the art. Despite a number of humorous sequences bordering on slapstick, Grall manages to maintain balance, anchoring the moments of humor in character. And while you may find yourself smiling at most individual scenes, somehow they have a way of adding up while you're not looking into an action epic that reveals and explores a unique mythology.

In sum: perhaps it's a good thing that Caanan Grall isn't a Conan villain. Because after reading this, I have a feeling that Conan would end up on the losing side.


My Grade: A+

Read More

Zuda Week: October Reviews part 2

Yesterday we brought you mini-reviews of the first five contestants in this week's batch of webcomics over at Zuda. Today: the other five. Proof that even writers can occasionally do math. Included in this batch: Impure Blood, Old Cthulhu's On the Rise, Pluck, ShockPopTerror! and Where Evils Dare.

On to the comics!



Impure Blood
story by Nadja Baer, art by Nathan Lueth

Impure Blood is an interesting entry in the fantasy/action genre. Baer and Lueth do a good job grabbing your attention right from the beginning, starting in the middle of a gladiator battle that also serves as an introduction to the main characters, who include the gladiator and several vaguely gothy looking aristocratic types. The plot swings into gear pretty quickly, giving us enough of a hint at the story to tease us with possibilities and ending on a decent hook. In other words, it's a well paced and crafted entry.

Having said that, it's not entirely to my personal taste. The character design was a little heavy on the sort of manga influenced vampire bourgeois stylings that for my money have become a little too commonplace these days to still be interesting. I'm sure some people still love this sort of look, but I'm pretty much over it; other than the gladiator, I felt a strong desire to pitch the rest of the characters into a volcano. But, again, that's more my taste than a deficiency in the comic, which was well drawn for the chosen style and aptly written and structured. In a month with a weaker field, this might have fared well, but I'm not sure there will be enough support to move it further in the competition.

My Grades: For personal enjoyment, this gets a C+ , but realistically it probably deserves a B instead.



Old Cthulhu's On the Rise
Daniel Thollin

Next up is Old Cthulhu's On the Rise, which I think is on page 455 in your hymnbook. This is a pretty simple tale, being basically just an introduction. A couple guys are wandering around the countryside in England when they get spooked by... something... and then run into a creepy fisherman type who leads them to town and who may or may not be either Cthulhu or Old Gregg from The Mighty Boosh. Though he's certainly one or the other.

This has some promise; old fashioned Lovecraftian horror actually seems kind of refreshing compared to some of the new stuff that is currently being overdone, and the final page is a pretty nice way to go out. But the rest of the comic doesn't quite live up to the promise. The art is not quite there yet, though I suspect the artist would be better once he got to the monsters instead of regular stuff like human faces and landscapes and such. And the writing, while not offensively bad, isn't quite focused either. I'd be interested in seeing what creator Daniel Thollin might come up with in a couple years after he's honed his craft more, but for now, this one falls a bit flat.

My Grade: C-



Pluck
writing by Gabe White, art by John Amor

Pluck is one of the stronger entries this month, in part thanks to its finely rendered black and white art. There has been some discussion about color versus black and white on the Zuda site, and the consensus seems to be that black and white comics have an inherent disadvantage with the voters. I don't know if that's true, but I hope not, because Pluck is an example of a comic that benefits from being uncolored. The linework in the art is deft but also very fine in the technical sense; there are a lot of thin, small lines that might very well be lost or obscured if the art were overlaid by a coloring job. A good colorist can add some to a comic, but a bad colorist (or just the wrong colorist) can completely wreck otherwise good art. This is a case where I suspect the story works better in black and white than it would if it were colored, so I hope it doesn't suffer in the voting as a result.

As for the story, it looks to be a modern take on old fashioned fantasy, with a average kid and his best gal pal appropriating a prophecy in order to make themselves into the chosen one and thus gain the monetary benefits. I wasn't totally enamored with this, mainly because there was just enough snark that I ended up not particularly liking either of the main characters. And if I'm going to read more than eight pages of a story, I'm going to need to care about someone or something. But this opening is interesting enough to at least give it the benefit of the doubt for now.

My Grade: B+



ShockPopTerror!
Jean-Michel Ringuet

To borrow a railroading term, this is probably one of the most narrow gauge stories you're going to find on Zuda. An ode to 70's style grindhouse films such as... Grindhouse... this is pretty much a vignette showing two Daisy Duke wannabes taking down monsters and bikers alike with everything from a tire iron to a chainsaw. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot in the way of plot -- something about some missing somebody or something -- but that's not really the point. Humming the theme to Convoy while checking out hot chicks in hot cars wielding hot lead is.

And on that level, this is fine. The style of the art is perfectly done, with everything overlaid by what seems like a layer of grime, making this look just like a 70's era cartoon print or old lunchbox, complete with era appropriate font. Indeed, the whole enterprise is pretty much an exercise in style over everything, so if you enjoy that sort of thing, go for it. To quote eminent literary critic and comics expert Bill Belichick, it is what it is. With ShockPopTerror!, there's not much point in saying anything else.

My Grade: This is a tough one. I'm sure for those people into Dukes of Hazzard and Coffy, this is great. For everyone else, it's probably a C+.



Where Evils Dare
writing by Tony Lee, art by Stefano Martino

And then there's Where Evils Dare. It's no exaggeration to say that this is on a different level than most of the competitors at Zuda, because it is literally true; while most submissions are from up and coming creators trying to catch a break, Tony Lee and Stefano Martino are established industry pros, having both produced work for IDW in the recent past.

It's no wonder then that this is one of the most professional entries Zuda has ever featured. I'll be speaking in more detail later this week about some of the structural elements that go into making a successful Zuda submission (that is, aesthetically successful; once that's done, it's up to the judges and voters) but suffice it to say that Lee and Martino pretty much nail the key elements. It starts with a bang, introduces the characters, concept and the storyline and then goes out on a bang as well. There are a couple pacing issues caused by trying to get this all done in eight pages -- perhaps some of the supporting characters could have been left unnamed, for instance, as the references to classic horror stories came a little to thick -- but it's pretty much just nitpicking. Overall, the story -- which revolves around the idea that literary mainstays like Dracula, Frankenstein and the werewolf were fighting for the Nazis during World War II -- is expertly drawn and adroitly plotted and scripted. This is a comic I would pay to read.

My Grade: I'm giving it an A-. I know, I know, you're thinking, why not an A or an A+? It's very close. A couple minor tweaks in the middle of the story might have pushed it to an A; but there's always some room for improvement.

Read More

Zuda Week: October Reviews part 1

Yesterday, Zuda Comics posted the newest batch of competitors on their website, which was awful nice of them considering this is Zuda Week here at The Vault. What a handy coincidence, right? So today and tomorrow we'll be offering mini-reviews of then new series currently being featured so that when you finally queue up to vote, you'll have all the information you need to make an informed decision. Today's offerings: A Polar Nightmare, Blitz, Doc Monster, Evil Ain't Easy and Fly Me From The Moon. Let's get to it!


A Polar Nightmare
Amancay Nicolas Nahuelpan Bustamante

First up is A Polar Nightmare, with art and writing from Amancay Nicolas Nahuelpan Bustamante, aka annb. Done in a fairly stark black and white style with just hints of color thrown in here and there for emphasis, A Polar Nightmare tells the story of two kids who journey to the North Pole to protest a lack of decent Christmas presents. When they find Santa, however, they discover he's some sort of flabby, demonic A-hole who passes judgment on kids through sinister doggerel.

The art is the best part -- it's strong, bold and oddly reminiscent of some of Todd McFarlane's early work on Spawn; the evil Santa could easily be Clown and the kids look like kinda like McFarlane kids as well. The writing, however, doesn't keep up with the art (another McFarlane hallmark!) and I have to say the basic premise doesn't do much for me either. Okay, so Santa is kind of evil instead of good. And? While the pages shown here set the tone pretty well, they don't really tell us what the story is about; as I've said before, a concept is not a story. Stronger writing, both in terms of plot and text, might make this viable, but I have the feeling this dark Santa thing has been done before and done better.

My Grade: Despite some nice art at the start, the best I can give this is a C-.



Blitz
Ted Dawson

Blitz is an interesting departure from the standard Zuda style, if such a thing could be said to exist, deviating from established fan-favorite genres like zombie horror into a more cartoony world where a semi-cuddly alien runs into a scruffy dish-washer while trying to find his missing mother. Readers will still find it somewhat familiar, though, as the writing and design of the strip both seem strongly influenced by Jeff Smith's groundbreaking epic Bone.

Of course, you could do a lot worse than emulating Bone, and Dawson does have some nice moments. I enjoyed the sequence where the unnamed Bone-like alien tricks the bad guy into releasing the title character Blitz by forcing him to count on the fingers of both hands. But in general, though the characters seemed to have some promise and the art was fluid and competent, this apple seemed to fall a little too close to the tree to really stand out. The danger in doing something like this is that people who recognize the influence will automatically compare it to the original. And by those standards, any series going up against Bone is likely to come out on the short end of things.

My Grade: The talent is there, but some more refinement might help differentiate this. I was also a little confused by the layout at one point, which is hard to do considering the whole thing is just two rows of square panels. B-.



Doc Monster
David Flora

Doc Monster brings us back to the world of the 1950's, where we meet a G-man named Clay who has been assigned to a strapping, pipe smoking scientist known by the code name Doc Monster. Just why he has been assigned to this otherwise benign looking fellow soon becomes clear: when a flying saucer filled with bug-like aliens suddenly erupts from the ground, Doc flies into the air to combat it. Looks like there's more going on here than meets the eye.

Creator David Flora renders the story in a pulpy style which, when overlaid by a subtle coloring job, almost appears to be painted. It perfectly suits the retro tone of the story, as does the dialogue and even the choice of fonts. There are a couple hiccups with placement of narrative captions, but other than that, Doc Monster provides a fun, fast paced glimpse at an old fashioned superhero adventure. If that's your kind of thing, then this is a strip for you.

My Grade: A highly enjoyable, professional effort. A-.



Evil Ain't Easy
Seth Wolfshorndl

Evil Ain't Easy is the work of cartoonist Seth Wolfshorndl and is essentially a comedic riff on supervillain tropes. Dr. Nimbus is a mad scientist who bears more than a passing resemblance to a talking thumb; armed with his Destructo Ray and the ability to create henchmen by animating the dead, he sets out to conquer the world. Or so he claims; in reality, he seems too caught up in every day evils like trying to pay the rent to get very far on his master plan.

Wolfshorndl also plays a bit with the format; the eight page sample is less of a story and more of a series of (sometimes) related gags, some of which take up only a single page. The horizontal layout of the Zuda viewer only emphasizes the feeling that you're reading a collection of Sunday comic strips rather than a unified piece. Unfortunately, some of the jokes, while mildly amusing, are just that: mild. This may be a function of the pacing, as the art serves the premise well; but trusting more in the art to build the gags rather than using occasionally stiff dialogue might lead to better punchlines. There's some promise here, but I'm not sure it will garner enough votes to see it fulfilled, which is too bad; this strip has some charm and I enjoyed it, just not as much as I wanted to.

My Grade: It's better than, say, Garfield. B-.



Fly Me From The Moon
Gabriel Bautista

No, this isn't a sci-fi Frank Sinatra bio, but you might be forgiven for thinking it was based on the name. Indeed, Fly Me From The Moon almost seems like the result of a bet or a college writing exercise; you know, everyone is given a weird, punny title and then you have to build a story around it.

Well, the finished product isn't quite that bad. In fact, it's pretty okay. The story, as far as I can make out, is about a guy who sells his business in order to escape a political coup and then takes a space ship to the moon to rescue his wife from the insurgents. I say "as far as I can make out" because just what is going on isn't entirely clear. Half of that is intentional, as the characters speak in mysterious terms about shadowy operations, and half of it is the result of just confusing writing and art. The art is actually pretty good, as far as linework is concerned, but the pulpy coloring job is so pulpy that at times it washes out the images, making them muddy and difficult to follow. The end result is a series that tries to jam so much style and so much substance into eight pages that it ends up overwhelming the story and the reader.

My Grade: I really wanted to like this, but... I kinda didn't. C+.

Read More

Zuda Week: Preview

For the last few years, webcomics have been slowly but steadily making inroads into the comic marketplace. By virtue of being both free and on demand, internet comics have begun attracting more and more readers, both from within and without the traditional comics fan base; and the more people that read webcomics, the greater the need for compelling, professional content.

That's where Zuda Comics comes in.

Owned by DC Comics and launched with much fanfare back in 2007, Zuda Comics has quickly become the hub of the webcomic community. While the company has gained its fair share of criticism over the always prickly issue of creators rights and work for hire projects, it's also provided an avenue for hundreds of new creators to both gain exposure and actual cash money for their efforts. But most of all, it gives readers looking for a comic fix their one stop shopping for a wealth of ongoing projects.

For those not familiar with Zuda, here's how it works: every month, Zuda debuts ten new features, each represented by an eight page tryout story (often comprising the first eight pages of a larger storyline, rather than a standalone tale). Over the course of the month, readers can vote for their favorite submission and at the end of the month, the winning strip is rewarded with a one year contract to provide ongoing content. At present, there are currently 30 winning series in production, meaning one title or another is updated with new content just about every day of the year. Plus, the losing projects are still archived, giving comics enthusiasts a wealth of new material to pore over (195 eight page intros to date) while giving those creators a permanent spot to gain exposure and new fans.

Over the course of the next week, then, we'll be taking a closer look at Zuda, beginning with reviews of the ten series currently vying for the October title and continuing with more in-depth looks at some of the flagship Zuda titles such as I Rule the Night and Celadore. I'll also be giving my thoughts on what you can learn about the submission process from the titles that are accepted and how this can help you hone your own Zuda pitch.

So check back tomorrow as I bring you round one of the competition. Because when you get down to it, there's just nothing better than sitting down with a pile of new comics and cracking them open to see what magic waits inside.

Even if they're on your computer.

Read More