3400 Another End Another Beginning
And so Eric I of Drostardy fulfills his destiny and is free to go and be with his family and friends again. I thought this a fitting way to celebrate strip # 3400!! That’s a LOT OF YAFGC!!!
-Rich “BK” Morris
EDIT
Hello YAFGC family!
So… I recently RE-stumbled upon a webcomic. A webcomic that had been one of a cluster of webcomics which were the inspiration to get me working on my own back in 2006. In fact, those are the comics referred to in the title of YAFGC. I started doing an archive binge on the old webcomic -delighted to see that it too was still going. But then I found a link to a review of it. It was a bad review. I didn’t entirely agree with the criticisms, but there were a few points it made that I couldn’t disagree with and which tainted my view of the comic… and by extension, the artist/writer from then on.
Primarily apart from accusations of being sexist and racist, they were also slammed for being sensitive to criticism and shutting down and blocking anyone who ever said anything critical about their webcomic.
It made me think of my own webcomic and my own online persona. Like…. YAFGC in all this time has never gotten high profile enough to make it to big webcomic review sites like that one. Oh there are a few online reviews, most dating back to 2011 or earlier. But it’s never been one of the top listed. My own fault, of course, I’m not attempting a career at it, I do it for my entertainment primarily, yours secondarily, and as a source of income only as inspired by you guys asking if would accept your gifts. So no, I never promoted it like a business. Nothing I can complain about there.
However…. my experience in public critiques of YAFGC have mostly been:
1) Glowing praise for my art (!?) and my storytelling ability (!!?). Two characteristics /not/ shared by any professional animation studio I’ve ever worked at since 1992.
2) Pointing out -quite rightly- that I’m a crappy editor and make a lot of spelling and grammatical mistakes. (Fun fact: I’ve had an editor ditch me for ‘reacting badly’ to correction. Something I was not aware I had done, or at least done in a way to be overly offensive. We have reconciled since, but they won’t edit my stuff again.)
I have had one or two comments about my artistic or storytelling choices from particularly forward readers who are also old friends and are comfortable telling me such things, and I’ve agreed with their comments and (I hope) will take such commentary forward with me to learn from it.
I have only ever banned two people from the comments section of YAFGC and both times it was because they were general asshats who loved stirring up trouble in the threads and reacted badly to being asked to stop.
So what I’m saying is…. are people just telling me the good stuff and are afraid to share the bad stuff? What can I do to make YAFGC a better experience?
Nice to know the universe still has some metaphysical justice!
Agreed. glad to see that there is still an afterlife. I wasn’t 100% sure.
It was already said there is SOME afterlife, but it’s nice to see it confirmed with afterlife THIS good.
I wonder if Eric was badly wounded or if he died because the magic which resurrected him run out.
First thing I did when I saw him on the ground was check for injuries. I was not surprised there didn’t seem to be any.
Runt is mistaken when he says Eric isn’t fine. Eric is… just right.
t!
My guess is that Erik I died of internal injuries sustained when he was crushed under Ranna’s hand in https://www.yafgc.net/comic/3349-double-pierced-palm/
The reason Runt knows the moment he wakes up in this strip that Erik is in bad shape, is that he was right on hand when the blow fell, to hear the unpleasant sounds of bones and viscera doing things they are not meant to do.
Erik’s prophecied return was the release of a still very much living king from stasis in an interdimensional prison, not a resurrection spell that might have a finite shelf life.
It’s true that in today’s strip Erik shows no sign of pain or distress…but I think that’s because we’re watching such a rare thing: the death of a man utterly at peace with himself, with no regrets at all. Normally we’re all at least partly reluctant to go; there are so many people and things in the world we still care about. And Erik I *does* care, because he’s a good man…but that’s a matter of duty to family and country, and (to his great credit) also of an understanding that everyone is worth protecting. The people he cares about *specifically and personally* all belong to times and places he can never revisit.
So now he has fulfilled duty and honor superbly, there is no one he needs to protect who cannot protect themselves and one another…and the one regret that matters, the fact that he’s not with his friends and loved ones, he is now on his way to fix. Compared to all that, what does a ruptured spleen or liver matter? That final smile gives the answer.
Th-this. Even I didn’t realize quite the depth of what I was drawing. But this lines up with the feels I had while I wrote it. Mucat wins again.
> …is that he was right on hand when…
And I swear to whatever gods yet remain, that I did not intend that pun!
🙂
Wait. You’re saying that, when you wrote "he was right on hand", you didn’t mean it literally?
Specially seeing how, I believe, it was Ranna’s *left* hand that fell upon him
Nope, that was the right hand alright.
Eric I looked just like David at the end of "The Lost Boys": so young 🙁
I’m not crying, Ayane is chopping onions
10/10, would read again. Like poetry.
Yay! Thanks!
Wonderful.
Phew. For a moment I was confused which Eric is dying.
Not gonna lie, he got me there too
🙂
Almost exactly a year since he came back (did a quick look-back to remind myself who Alanna was, and she was last seen Nov 8, 2019)
Oh neat. I didn’t realize that.
The first comic strip that watered my eyes. What a wonderful moment.
😀 Thank you!
So, if you allow me, i recomended that you read strip https://www.yafgc.net/comic/1112-an-ending/
Pd: @Rich Morris this captain Angus isn’t the same that the captain of this strip? I said because in this strip only references captain Angela
Captain Angela is Captain Angus’ …. daughter? I think. A descendant anyway. I seem to have forgotten to name-check Angus in the cast section of that strip.
In that earlier strip, Captain Angela was one of the guests at Pado’s birthday party before he died, while Angus was captaining the Celestial Raven in the afterlife. (I realize you might already have known that, and were just asking about a missing character tag that Rich has already fixed, but I figure that with so many captains running around a little extra clarification never hurts!)
Don’t be afraid.
That was my first seeing and i read the strip one more time and see that you said.
PD: Sorry, i said english isn’t my native language.
Glad your character Eric finally returned to his party, Rich!
Rich, I fear that there seems to be some problems with your artwork in this strip. I keep reading it but the last few frames go all blurry and misty, which then seems to affect the screen and also the world around for some time.
How curious! It’s funny ’cause I found those panels kept getting wet while I was drawing them. Might have something to do with that.
Excessive moisture can ruin both paper & electronic screens alike…
It feels like we’ve reached the end of this particular saga. I’m impatient to see the start of the next one.
Wait for a hundred years when the grandgrandsons make war each other…
Have you ever watched a TV episode called "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" ?
t!
YES!! Love Babylon 5! You get cookies for that reference. 😀
Sadly not, they stopped broadcasting Babylon 5 in Spain after season 2…and is one of my "someday I have to review it all" tv shows
At least you *got* two seasons, fairly sure we only got the first season, or, if they showed more, it was on a shitty Pay Per View channel at some disgusting time of the morning (like around 1am)
A hundred years of peace is no small achievement
Sorry, but I need to make a snarky comment to cover my feelings:
"Valour"? What’s wrong with its current name – "Britney"?
*sniffle*
Second star to the right, and straight on ’till morning.
And then Runt is going to want to have words with Turg.
If it’s only two words, ending in ‘you,’ then my vote for that one would be "Thank you."
t!
Was that first word ‘thank’? I guess it might have been. It definitely ended in a ‘k’, but Runt kind of mumbled the bit before that…
I’m kinda seeing it going like this.
Runt first punching Turg "That’s for leaving me!!"
Then hugging him "And that’s for for setting me straight."
This.
This is why I love your strip. You hit me with all the feels.
I’m going to bake you a cake.
Yes. There are only so many ways I can meaningfully add to the comments area with gasps and sniffles, but…gasps, and furthermore, sniffles.
This is beautiful. Thank you so much, Rich.
Rich, this was such a beautiful comic. You are an expert in touching all the right emotions with your artwork and the pacing.
This was a fitting end for Eric I’s time. Ranna has been defeated at last, and now Eric I can finally rest in peace with his adventuring companions.
A final testament to what a good person Eric I was, is in how he joined the kingdoms of Drostardy and Elegrost together, along with naming King Runtherd’s sword.
Again, well done, Rich. Once again you’ve shown you’re a master storyteller.
I don’t really have anything to add to this, but I’d like to add an emphatic "This." to this.
I’m going to add another THIS to this.
When Rancourt added a this to this, he made it a that. Fang Fangirl subsequently turned into an other thing.
I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing though because it’s obviously a good thing with the comic that progresses from a good thing into something better with the changes that occur.
Understood, and appreciated, MidnightDStroyer. More simply that sometimes, the guy who’s written two-thousand-word essays in this comments area feels that others have said it better, but still wishes to be counted for sharing the sentiment. 🙂
I’m sure I speak for a fair few people when I say “My heart is too full.”
Loving your work as always sir, I’d send you a piece of birthday cake but we already finished it
Where is it?
WHERE is IT?!?
….. grumble brumble groan…. there has GOT to be a "Thumbs-Up" button in this #$&%^@*+& thang somewhere!
Where is it?
(pardon me for slipping back into char, but a Keystone page like this needed something unusual)
I just notice this is strip #3400. What an amazing scene for a landmark number.
Awww, c’mon Mister Morris, why ya gotta make me have feelings?
Well done!
Well, you have earned the highest praise of any story master…
The praise of those who hear/read the story.
There is truly nothing more glorious.
bask in it.
You have earned it.
…and welcome to the current strip, Valkeiper[redacted]! It’s been fun reading your comments and perspective as you worked through the archive over the past few days, and I hope you’ll hang out and enjoy the further unfolding of Rich’s story along with the rest of us.
And yes, it truly is a glorious story!
Don’t often quote or reference TV Tropes, but you’d be hard put to find a better example of Earn Your Happy Ending than this.
The thread is thick with so many superlatives, I feel redundant here but–congratulations, Rich! Nailed it AGAIN. This is note perfect. (*bawls*)
Damned onion cutting ninjas.
Oh, Rich, I could kiss you so hard for spelling Valour correctly.
t!
Or *King Erik* spelled it correctly. (I know he was speaking aloud and not writing…but hey, it’s all in the diction. I bet Hank would pronounce the sword’s name "Valor", and Cap’n Fang would pronounce it "Pointy! My alpaca is denser than helium!")
Mucat: Yeah, I think Hank would pronounce it "Valluh" but you’re spot on with Fang.
Is there another way to spell it? Heheh
In 1112, Eric III tells Pado that his "Great Grandfather" would never forgive him if he missed Pado’s birthday. Did you mean to put Grandfather (Eric I) or was Pado friends with the Drostardy royal family even before the Eric’s?
Yeah. That’s a big whoops. I lost track of the generations of Erics of Drostardies over the years, not having used them much. I established early on that the King Eric who is a regular here (the one who was introduced in Arachne’s dungeon) is Eric III. The one who is memorialized in the Drostardy Manor graveyard is Eric I. Therefore: The one who was an adventurer with Pado and Captain Angus was Eric I. Father of Eric II (only seen as a portrait in YAFGC). The grandfather of Eric III (Our current blond hero married to Clover) and great grandfather of Eric "The Short" IV, who is currently still just a young prince.
In fact, if you look closely at panel 13 above, Eric III says "I swear it, Grandpa." There are a few ‘notches’ in the bubble which I made when I was erasing the original dialogue "I swear it, Great Grandpa" to replace it with this version. I still haven’t got it right.
Eh… nothing a little retcon paste can’t fix. Eric III never personally knew his grandfather (before this arc). Pado was turning 112. Eric was thinking to himself that he’s old enough to have been friends with my great grandfather, and he just had a slip of tongue.
Hahah, that’s sweet of you to say.
Eric I was the first king of Drostardy, and in fact when he was adventuring with Pado, he wasn’t even a King. He was a Duke. I don’t know the name of the Duke who preceded him in Drostardy…. yeah, like a lot of things in YAFGC, there’s a hell of a lot of backstory.
Don’t take things personally when people point out possible errors, sometimes the person pointing something out may have gotten it wrong, sometimes they have spotted something you missed
O.o Guesticus, aren’t you the guy who complained on other people’s webcomics that I banned you for being critical of YAFGC?
Have never criticized you or your comic
Indeed. And that’s not why I banned you. Unlike reports I’ve seen in other webcomics’ comments threads.
Hi Rich,
first time commenting, but since you specifically asked …
Here is my honest take on your comic.
I am reading your comic for years and I am enjoying it a lot. It’s one of a handful of comics that I stuck around to read each day. I enjoy your art and it’s one of the main reasons why I stuck around; not only because I like it but also because there are often panels which capture an expression or situation so perfectly that it just makes me smile; starting with the first couple of strips. I love the chimera _so_much_; I was tempted to print some of the panels with chimera if they were available in high res.
I have to admit I am not a big D&D fan; I am well aware that I often don’t get the finer jokes referring to other fantasy realms (the dungeon keeper one is awesome thought), but I am fine with that. There is a LOT of characters around and I keep forgetting about them; and I wish there was a easier way to read through all the strips regarding one character in the archive.
Some story archs felt a bit unfinished to me, or another one popped up out of nothing without tying it in.
None of this has ever stopped me from enjoying the comic though.
So here you have it. My honest opinion.
Cheers,
JJ
Thank you for that. That’s very helpful. I agree, there’s a /lot/ of characters and it’s hard to keep track even for me, and I’ve got a series of genealogies and timelines to refer to!
I’ll try to keep closer tabs on my story arcs and things. There were a few that started to overwhelm and/or bore me so I ended them quicker than I would have liked, so that’s probably part of the problem there.
There is a way to follow a character through, though it’s probably not very effective. By clicking on their name in the characters tab just under the title you’ll get a list of all the strips I tagged with that character in it. It’s not the best way of course, but it’s what the website came packaged with. 🙂
It’s great that you have the tags, because it makes it possible to read up on it and I have to do that often (especially when characters show up after a while). The way I do it though is to read one, jump back to the overview, read the next. I wish there would be a function to read through all strips with the same character, like a search result list or something.
Btw: One of my all time favorites is the chimera toy of young Eric (the 4th i think?). Just looked it up again and it just makes me smile 🙂
What I try in that situation, JJ, is to pull up the result screen from the character search (sometimes manually changing the number at the end of the url to find the approximate right era — look at the exact urls as you page through the character results, and you’ll see what I mean by that.)
And yes, Eric IV’s chimera toy is wonderful. I wonder what the real Chimera would think of it? 🙂
Then I just leave the result screen open, and right click the "Open page in a new window/tab" option (or the equivalent in your browser; there should be *some* similar option) on each strip I want to read.
(Oops. Somehow scrambled the order of paragraphs in that previous post while editing.)
…speaking of which, I would *love* an edit function in the comments, even if it only lasted for a short time after posting. No matter how carefully I edit, I nearly always miss some mistake!
Yeaah… that’s something I can’t help you with I’m afraid. Content related stuff, I’m all over that. But coding? Not my wheelhouse. I’m working with what WordPress gives me.
Thsi!
t!
Heheh
The saga of Clover Firelight makes you my favorite fantasy comic creator ever. As far as I’m concerned you can do no wrong.
I sometimes feel I’m the only Halfling fan out there!
PS: I’m also the person who requested the "all Halfling female party" and you drew the most amazing picture, which, incidentally I have posted in my cubicle. So there’s that, too!
I remember that! Glad you liked it. And I’m sure there are lots more of us pervy hobbit-fanciers around.
I thought I was a bit heavy-handed with Clover’s misfortunes before the whole queen-thing, but it all worked out well in the end.
The only halfling fan? With unforgettable characters like Naomi and the whole Firelight clan, complete with honorary halflings like Urzal and Gwendolyn in the next generation alongside the more traditionally-sized ones like Ryann, Helen, and Cypress?
"Hey! Who are you calling ‘honorary’? You think I’m barefoot on a battlefield full of OSHA hazards just for the fun of it?"
"Yeah, and I can brain an ogre at forty paces with a pebble. Oh, hey, look; a pebble. Just sayin’."
About you said above the stip about criticism and your art…
I like the story. Well if it is possible that your art won’t arrive at Picasso o Gugenheim but the most of the time i can recognice the characters only when seeing. Even when are from the same race or specie. Not many authors can say that and less amateur authors like you (i wan’t not make you miss but you don’t get paid for this work and i said this make you an amateur).
The story isn’t larger than life but it’s a good history about many people who lives their lifes and you can see all of them, without cuts and with cliffhangers that make you feel live and worried not only a excuse to gain some time. Fanhunter (from author Cels Piñols who went from being an amateur to work in Marvel) didn’t have any great story and better not talk about the art (the author self said many times)
I had one discussion about a comment i made. You felt insulted because i mention one scene of lord of the rings and you felt i said you were copying it. I don’t see where are the blocking by your side.
It’s also true that the major of the negative reviews i say we made were mades with humour and jokes but no more poblem.
With this i don’t see the problem and i like this history and i want to keep reading this comic.
For my side it’s i need to say about it. I hope answer some of your questions you made us.
PD: Sorry. I needed to use Bing’s translator. I said i don’t speak english well.
Thank you for putting the effort in to write this. I appreciate what you’re saying. I’m sorry about that whole thing with the Lord of the Rings reference you made. I misunderstood your intention at the time.
I get what you mean about me being an amateur. I’m an amateur webcomic artist, though I do art professionally for TV (when I can get a contract these days) but I see what you’re saying.
Thanks for being a reader and coming back faithfully as you do.
> PD: Sorry. I needed to use Bing’s translator. I said i don’t speak english well.
I think it’s admirable that you’re making the effort to answer his question as clearly as you are able.
t!
As for your question in the comment that came with this page… as a fairly new reader who blasted through a lot of the archives, I do think there sometimes is a bit of connective tissue missing at times. The example I’ll give is with Meegs (I don’t have a crush on her, YOU have a crush on her! Shut up!)- it was rather difficult on the first viewing to see where or when she got captured and was turned into a gorgon. She sort of later explained it in a flashback, but there just felt like one or two strips were missing to actually go between her failing to zap a goblin attacker and then showing up later as a secret baddie.
My only (very minor) critique as a new person is that at times it can be very difficult to follow what is happening unless you pay very close attention and infer some of what was going on behind the scenes between characters leaving and showing up again. But still, I have deeply enjoyed this!
Oh yeah. That’s a tough one. When dealing with so many stories and characters at once. But I’ll consider ways to make the threads clearer. Thank you.
Oh, uh, well, um… well, I mainly just read your comic to pass time, I guess, and it’s well suited already for that purpose, being a fairly easy read and all (can get a bit problematic when I go back to re-read one page and then just get carried away, though… x) )
I also don’t want to complain about anything ’cause I just have a tendency of making people angry at me without me actually understanding what did I say wrong, and that has gotten really tiring by now. Probably not relevant to this site (unless someone here’s actually angry at me? Please tell me, I can’t read moods!), just the reason I avoid commenting.
But if I were to wish for some improvement in your comic, that’d be… more distinct characters. I mean, many of your characters are very distinct, yeah! But then I just keep forgetting which is Sir Idries and which is Sir Catianus and I just realized I had forgotten Sir Aeden even existed, and it’d be nice to have an equivalent to a big neon sign pointing out which is which for dummies like me. Character tags only show which characters appear on page at all.
Also, me being dense as a brick, I have trouble reading the characters’ personalities or feeling for them. Probably why I can’t really name a real favourite character in this comic.
…but then again, it’s probably just me – my emotions are more dependent on hearing than sight, so it would take something exceptional to make me feel without sound.
…yeah, useless comment. Sorry.
Not angry with you, promise. I opened the floor for this deliberately.
Making the characters more distinct is something I’ve actually thought about before, thanks for bringing that up. Obviously I’m not going to give ’em nametags to wear or anything like that. But with the upcoming new era of YAFGC I’ll have a chance to do some fine tuning on the designs. I will consider this. I made a huge blunder early on with Lucas, Eric of Drostardy and Meegs’ slave boy all looking the same, and I did make a self-aware gag about it at some point. I think the problem with Idries, Catianus and Aeden is that while they’re rather different to look upon, Idries and Aeden have similar personalities, and they don’t get used often enough to be come much more than strangers, really. But in future I’ll definitely try to think about how I can make them stand out.
However, there will always be extras and tertiary characters who dont’ have time to develop like the mains.
I think of the Sirs as analogous to the characters in a war movie, who are all wearing the same outfit, all have young/smooth faces, all have short haircuts and are usually wearing helmets anyway – and in terms of dialogue are mostly focused on one common purpose. They tend to get lost in a crowd a lot. Sure, if they were back home in their civilian attire & surroundings, they’d be distinct, but usually it’s "Who is that one, again?" until somebody makes a comment and I go, "Right – he’s the one with the wife and two kids back home" or "Right – he’s the one whose father wanted him to go to med school" or "Right – he’s the one who was making eyes at Adwen."
t!
Hahahah, yes, that’s true. When I need an army, I draw ’em quick!
There’s nothing I’ve always hated more than a crowd scene. But sometimes I just gotta do one. This has nothing to do with the issue of Catianus, Idries and Aeden, (who were, for the record, two NPCs and a PC from an Arthur Pendragon game, respectively), I just wanted to make that point.
Phew… thank you.
The air’s dusty, that’s all. And it’s raining. And someone’s been cutting onions.
…it’s raining dusty onions.
That will be Ayane
we may not get along on a personal level, but in all honesty YAFGC is one of my favorite online comics. I don’t do a lot of reading, but I binge read this for months when I first found it. the spelling mistakes aren’t a big deal, you’re only human and they don’t happen often enough to cause any serious confusion. while I may not agree with all your decisions regarding the story I must commend you on keeping it interesting and engaging, I’m also amazed that you’ve been able to keep track of so many characters. the art of the series has always been on point, not only does it look good but it’s always consistent, no matter how goofy the characters may be they always seem to fit with the rest, that vampire for instance, the one who was just a head and lungs, that was obviously not a creature from the same monster catalogue as the others yet despite her unique and otherworldly appearance she did not look out of place amongst the other black mountain inhabitants. you also do a good job of keeping creature behavior fairly consistent amongst species whilst avoiding making the characters look like cardboard cutouts, they all feel like real people and do things someone in their position would actually do.
in all honesty though, you shouldn’t worry about being on some fancy comic review page. you’re enjoying the story, your fans are enjoying the story, you don’t need a numerical rating for it, having likes and dislikes are more stress than they’re worth. when I upload a Youtube video I don’t even bother looking at the number of likes or subs I have, I’m not trying to become famous, and if you’re happy just keeping this a hobby then it’s best not to stress yourself out over your image. that said… if you decided to try and monetise this series I’d totally be willing to pay $10 for a T-shirt of your characters, you should consider looking into sites like Shark Robot, some extra revenue during these dark times could go a long way if things don’t get better soon.
btw what is the comic you’re referring to? I’d like to check it out, if it inspired this then I’m sure it’ll be good.
"Wapsi Square" is the comic he is referring to, it’s all about supernatural (paranormal?) creatures living among ‘normal’ humans, started off with a small core cast and now it’s progress on to the next generation (without forgetting the previous)
Well I wasn’t going to name tag it. But there you go. *rolls eyes*
I won’t reply with the name of the comic specifically that I was referring to above. But the "Fantasy Gamer Comics" of which mine was "Yet Another" of were:
"Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan" by Reinder Dijkhuis
"Flaky Pastry" by Falingrad
"Order Of The Stick" by Rich Burlew
"Wapsi Square" by Paul Taylor
"Goblins" by Thunt
… and some others that I can’t think of off the top of my head. But these were the ones I found when I was looking around for inspiration.
Now… I knew Falingrad already because I’d worked with him at an illustration company in Montreal years ago. And Reinder was very quick to respond when I reached out and we got rather friendly (after I’d made an ass of myself at our early meetings, but he was very gracious.) I’ve had brief but friendly words with both Thunt (Daniella now I think?) and Paul Taylor. But I have never exchanged any kind of words with Rich Burlew, despite having reached out and said ‘hello’ to him. OoTS was HUGELY popular at the time and it was the one comic YAFGC was most often compared to in the beginning.
I had originally stated that I would have considered YAFGC a success when YAFGC appears in a discussion thread on the Giant in the Playground forums. Unfortunately the first time it did it was people badmouthing and trashing it as derisive garbage, which I eventually had to stop reading for heartbreak. Still. That was a long time ago now, and both YAFGC and I have developed a whole lot since then.
Thunt is now Ellipsis. If I recall correctly, Danielle is her wife.
Oh yes! Ellipsis! Thanks!
You’re welcome!
Thank you very much. I really appreciate you taking the time to write this. And I appreciate your kind words.
As for the numerical/public reaction concerns… on an artistic level I don’t really care about how many readers I have and how I stack up against the rest of the world. It’s my comic, my subcreation, my characters, my babies, my monkeys, my circus.
That being said: I look at comics that, in my opinion are boring, shoddy, screamingly unfunny or poorly executed and these people are getting voted 10th best webcomic on the internet! (Don’t look that up, I’m making up stats to make a point) and interviews on podcasts about the World’s Greatest Webcomics, and invited to be Guests of Honour at conventions around the world (to be fair, I was invited to be a Guest of Honour at Con-Fusion in Detroit once. Once.) And I wonder to myself…. what do they have that I don’t? Some of them have real asshole personas and they’re as funny as a papercut. I council my self that what they have is drive. They pound the pavement, they push their stuff, they make ads and pay for coverage, many of them are trying to force a career out of the shoddy work they produce, so they’ve got desperate motivations. I’m mainly doing this for kicks.
But part of me wants it known in the world that… hey! YAFGC’s being going [mainly] strong since 2006. I’ve got 3400 strips published. 5 volumes (I’d have more, but again, it’s not been my priority) in print. And I’m not a total jerk (right?) to talk to.
It’s not a huge worry, but it’s a niggle.
On the subject of T-shirts, we did set up a Cafe-Press shop in the beginning of YAFGC which did almost no business at all. We had notebooks and T-shirts and underwear and mugs, ahahaha… we were really optimistic back then. Of course, we barely had any readers, so naturally we weren’t going to sell anything. I might consider doing it now, though. We’ve got a few relics from those days in our collections, I’ve got a Lewie T-shirt (CURSES!) and a Chimera hoodie. I’ve got a Black Mountain Daycare mug and a Lewie notebook. I’ll look into that again. Thank you.
Notebooks would be a good seller, specially if the cover is embossed somehow (or, if too expensive, simply the name or one of the characters, do more than one character and people will buy them all :D)
Or notepads, those *definitely* will sell well (everyone likes, or needs, something to write on, right?), lined or unlined, logo across the top and maybe a character in a bottom corner?
Branded clothing tend to be more of miss than a hit, and how many mugs does a normal person actually need? Unless they like to *collect* mugs (and many people do)
So neither of those would be a bad option to look into, just not as big (or a recurring sale) as books or pads, or even posters, and you have had *many* single panels worthy of being posterized (with or without a catchy phrase added)
Just thought of an idea for a cool mug: a colour changer of Dewcups and Drowcups, starts off as one and changes into the other
Similarly a poster, with them together (far too many possible poses to list here)
you could have Dewcup and Slissy that turn into Drowcups and Slissybus and give it a corny one liner like "I’m not me until I’ve had my coffee" nerds love cheesy one liners.
of course people who don’t know what drow are might think it’s racist that a black girl turns white to be less evil.
personally I’d love a Tshirt or two of Gren and Bob, a vast majority of my Tshirts feature Imps (helluva boss) and I’d love to diversify my wardrobe with some goblins, unfortunately goblins aren’t as popular as they deserve to be in popculture. nobody ever wants to make a goblin shirt unless they’re really ugly or so simply designed they’re almost indistinguishable from actual goblins, like Jocat’s goblin plushie.
A chimera hoodie? Oh no, you should not have told me …
If you are really selling some, please do anything with the chimera doll on it; I bet it would not only make me extremely happy XD
That was a long time ago. But I still have the graphic. I could see about setting up a line somewhere again.
Well here I go. I am not a professional artist like you, neither I have done a long run webcomic, but I can give my opinions.
Long told short, the strong parts of this webcomic are the story and the characters. The good parts are the worldbuilding and art style. The things i think would benefit of improvement are some continuity of some minor story lines, the color in colored strips and the similarity of characterizacion in some characters.
The general story is nice. The daily life of a fantasy world may be a niche spot but it works smothly. The story makes good balance of drama, comedy and warm moments, this is much harder than one would think. I like how the comic merges the philosofical toughts with references and parodies of other works and tropes of fantasy and with modern life problems (translated to the context).
About the characters is much more than I would expect from most works. The structure of river novel (not a protagonist but a lot of diferent characters with diferent stories which interwine) is rarely used and less with so many good characters. Most important character has a personality and background according to his importance and evolves throught the story. Your characters feels alive.
The worldbuilding is great because we can see there is more, but you don’t throw all to us. You let the information to slip smothly as the story need it, keeping misteries but without being hermetic. You also let not-obvious hints for things we could have curiosity but will be revealed latter (like the identity of the fox) and speak of not plot-related stuff in the comments, like the story of the mountain some strips ago. Is hard to do this in an organic way.
The art style fits the thematic and is more than enought (not perfect, but a perfect style wouldn’t give much more). For what I have seen one of the first pitfalls for webcomics artist is to use an artstyle too elaborated and time consuming. Your style is nice enought to be apealing and simple enought so you can have a 3400 strips comic and mantain sane. The things I think you could improve of your art style are the charactetization of some monsters (most elves are too similar if not for their air style) and the color in the colored panels seems under the level of the drawing (colors are hard, I am not sure if is beacuse the colors are too pastel or if is for the color armony).
The continuity of some minor story-lines has been already stated in other comments (and this is getting too long), and for the spelling I can’t say anything beacuse I am not a native english speaker.
I have to mention that for a non-monetized job this is much more than I would expect. Some of your artistic decision may not be appealing for a more comercial-oriented stuff because is harder and more spensive to do. For example, is more rewarding to have one only protagoinst character to sell merchandising for, or to have one or two active story lines so the consistency revisions are shorter and easier.
And of course the length of this comic has to be praised, to mantain fresh over 3400 strips is a feat to recognice.
Thank you very very much! It’s often been said by friends and family that my inks and colours aren’t nearly as good as my pencils and sketches. It’s one of the reasons that I don’t do it very often. I think it might be getting better and I’ll give it another go sometime. But yes, I’ve always had trouble with colour palettes.
I wholeheartedly agree with your comment that my characters are too similar to eachother. That’s something I will definitely work on for the new era of YAFGC. I’ve been almost deliberately lazy with the faces mainly so that I could turn out as many as I had without driving myself nuts, but I think it’s time to step up and make more of an effort to give them …. more. I don’t know what, and it won’t be a hindrance to me. But I’ll try to do something.
Thank you for taking the time to write this all out for me. It’s hard enough to compose a critique like this, let alone in a foreign language. I really appreciate it.
Characters looking similar to others is not just a problem with you, *many* artists have the same ‘issue’*, normally with your characters they are wearing something distinct to tell them apart, it just doesn’t help when they are all wearing plate armour
*It’s not *really* an issue, and I personally put it down to there only being so many ways you can draw a representative of a particular race without exaggerating some feature (or even hairstyles)
A pleasure 😉 is nice to be of help.
The comic is good as it is, but is a good thing to seek improvement.
I’m very much a ‘if ain’t broke don’t fix it’ kinda person. And I see nothing broke about YAFGC
Thinking about your introspection. Hmmm — It seems fairly obvious that YAFGC is a hobby and a ‘labor of love’ for you. A hobby you share with the rest of us. For which, I and your fans, are very grateful. YAFGC is on my top ten list of reads.
I get the feeling that it started as a gag a day comic and grew as you expanded the characters. I’ve seen a great many web comics start and grow that way. It’s a natural progression. 2006? Has it really been that long?
I suggest you don’t worry to much about criticism. Nobody likes being criticized. Nobody likes having their dreams criticized. But it happens. If I could be allowed to paraphrase Lincoln: you can please some of the people all of the time and you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.
I also suggest that comparing this to your real life work is – um – unnecessary? uncalled for? There is no real comparison. There is an order of magnitude difference between your story in your style and their story in the corporate style. The management wonks have different priorities.
There are literally hundreds of web comics out there. But only a dozen or so are able to financially support their creators. You, and the rest, are in it for the sheer love of story telling. We, your readers, have no right to make demands on you. We might if we paid for this in any meaningful way. We don’t.
The only critic that matters is you. The only person you really must please is you. I appreciate that you want to share, and that you want to please. But, in the end, this is your dream. The rest of us are, willingly, just along for the ride.
Agreed, 100%. In all your points. However: My issue is not that I’m worried about criticisms.
I’m thinking that if I look out at the world of webcomics, I think it’s safe to say that I’ve got above average quality, but below average exposure. I confess that I’m a bit jealous of other comic creators, especially ones like ‘Cntl+Ald+Del’ or ‘PvP’, or ‘Wapsi Square’ where they’re considered giants in the field -even though they may have below-average quality and [some of] the creators are known assholes. And I know that I’m not listed in the top 100 webcomics not because I suck, but because I’ve never put in the energy to promote or advertise YAFGC to any great degree. And that’s mainly because I love doing it and I never wanted it to become a job.
I ask for critique because I see what others say about other webcomics. That creators have a tendancy to get angry at commentary about their work and shut down or ban people who have commentary on quality. I want it known that I don’t want to be that person (having been accused of such in the past) and if people have ideas for how I can improve YAFGC, please tell me so I can consider it. I say consider because as you say: this is my art, my work and I’ll implement changes if and only if I want to.
I know there are literally hundreds of webcomics out there. But YAFGC has 3400+ strips now. And I have a little idea in my head that it’d be nice to be recognized for that achievement. That’s probably vanity speaking. But at the same time, I have no immediate intention of ‘going pro’ with YAFGC at this time.
That being said: It’s something I should probably consider more seriously considering how things are going for me in the Animation world these days.
Anyway… Thanks for the comforting words, but I know all that. I’m looking for honest public opinion. Not fishing for compliments, but getting them nonetheless and I appreciate that.
Funny aside: While trying to find any evidence online that YAFGC has been noticed at all in the past few years, it’s “The 10 Doctors” that is still my #1 claim to fame in the webcomic world.
As for other famous webcomic creators: Not sure if their personality is a big factor here. I read a couple regularly but I almost never get involved with the community or the author themselves, but I frankly also don’t care. If I would come to know that an author is a racist or homophobe (let’s say aka JK Rowling) I would stop reading them, but other than that… And I bet it’s the same for a lot of readers.
What I would consider in your place if you seriously think to make this more your main job is to redesign the homepage. Just imagining myself stumbling randomly on this site I do not see it as that appealing. I could imagine that new readers are not as drawn in by it as it could be.
Plus from a technical site it is relatively slow (at least for me sitting in Europe).
Yes, the site is a problem. And one issue is that I’m mainly using an old ComicPress template and I’m absolutely no good with coding. Add to the fact that I’m not much of a graphic designer either and you’ve got what you see before you.
I’ve been struggling for a long time now with the Archives. I’d love to be able to streamline it somehow. Either make it so that the chapters are on a page and link to their individual strip menus or maybe just split it into multiple pages… but I’m unable to manage that kind of customization at this point. I can’t hire anyone to come and do my site management, so I’m just trying to pick it apart and modify it in bits as I go.
But you’re right. If at some point I need to make this more of a career thing, I’ll need someone who knows how to make it look good from the outside.
Just had a look at your Archives page, and… it’s better laid out than many others
Okay, you have to scroll a lot, but, each chapter is clearly laid out, even ones with just a few pages (or a single page) and plot synopsis
While there may be some things you could do to make it better (like you said, have each chapter on it’s own page), don’t cut yourself short, it’s already up there with some of the best
Okay.
Exposure. Link exchange. Contact other creators and offer to link their page if they’ll link yours. Organization. I know absolutely nothing about the web-circles out there but that they exist and link to each other; it would take some research. Advertise. Can cost money to put a link on other pages; can earn money to put other links on your page.
In the end, how mercenary are you willing to be? You are already doing the one greatest way of building a reliable fan base by allowing comments on the page ( or in an official linked forum ) and participating in the discussion. No better advertising than word of mouth.
Improvements. For any web page functionality is more important than appearance. Clear controls good, broken links bad. As for content – – – Look you already know that your weaknesses are inking and editing. You’ve said so. Well, then that is where you need to put some effort. Unfinished inks, extraneous pencil lines, mistaken or misspelled words, are fine in a friendly, for-the-fun-of-it comic, but they won’t fly in a please-pay-me comic. I know you’re not in it for the money. But you still need to ask yourself what kind of site you want to present: just-for-fun-of-it, or pride-in-professionalism?
Is that answering your question?
The ‘extraneous pencil lines’ has always been part of Rich’s style, and it is what makes it fairly unique
Not sure about the ‘unfinished links’, but *every* author makes mistakes with words, even the ‘professional’ sponsored comics
Sure. I have no problem with the content as is. If Rich continues as he has been, then I will continue to follow. I like his story and his art. But, he seems to be saying that he wants to increase his readership. I am simply suggesting that he may want to present a more polished final product as a way to do that. I’m not pushing for a change; I’m not even asking for it. If I’m reading his goals correctly, I’m suggesting paths he might explore to get there. If I’m wrong about his goals, he can round file most of what I’ve said without hurting my feelings.
The product is polished enough, he just needs to, as you said, ‘spread the word’
I am a litte late to the party, because I saw your text only now.
No, I don’t have any critics about YAFGC. I really don’t, especially it being free and all. I am already reading it for years, but the stories never seem to end.
Your work is so genuinly .. unoffensive .. which is really really pleasant given that most entertainment works are trying very hard to be provocative or just plain offensive in order to stand out.
But your work stands out exactly for the opposite. Your stories are interesting, instead of challenging, your characters are likeable, not cool.
YAFGC is simply one of the most pleasant experiences I’ve had in any webcomic and I have read a lot in the last 20 years.
Thank you so much!!
Bit late to the game here, but… the only problem I have is in the earlier strips, when you didn’t fix the contrast as much as you do now, which makes some of them hard to read–or the cases where you didn’t erase enough so there are "ghost words" in the speech balloons.
Looks like I’m also quite late for the party, but I assume you get notified about new comments, so might just write it anyway…
So, where to start? Perhaps with an agreement to Dave’s comment: ‘if ain’t broke don’t fix it’. YAFGC is good as it is. Could it be improved? Likely. But many people made the mistake to try to improve something, only to get it broken at the end.
As for critiques… Well, in my eyes only constructive critiques are worth anything, because they can help to improve things. They are meaningful, all the rest could be ignored – even if it is on the Giant in the Playground forums. It might sounds a bit ignorant, but usually those who care about you, are also giving a constructive critique, or tell you straight to stop whatever you were doing.
With these thoughts in mind, I would say, keep your style, both for drawing and for storytelling. Its your comic, first and foremost you should like it. We love them as they are (otherwise we would have left by now). The only points I could bring up there is only the colouring, I must agree to tohers mentioning it before, it could be improved. Perhaps you can try different methods for that (even colouring on paper and inking only after that)?
As for the website… Sure, its not as flashy as some others, but it fits quite well with the comic. Also, flashy is not equal nice or good. It functions, and has all the things one could wish for: comments, archives, cast page, etc. Again, if ain’t broken…
As for the comments… This is one of the friendliest comment section I have ever seen. People here are funny, polite, and can sort out disagreements with an intellectual manner. This, in my eyes, could be said just as well about you, as about my fellow readers.
All these together make YAFGC a very pleasent experience. 🙂
In case you want to make it more known, I would go with Joe’s suggestion: Link exchange. Perhaps you could agree with other autors to implement a small section on the website with links to each others comics? As such, thats more or less how I found my way here too:
http://flakypastry.runningwithpencils.com/comic.php?strip_id=456
Need more boobies and Official Captain Fang Spin-Off Comic!
Those are the two things that need more attention in this comic, otherwise it’s just great!