Well hey everybody, welcome to the late edition of the Lead Paint blog. This week, I have a favor to ask of our small-yet-mighty readership. It relates to a friend of mine who is going to be starting either a graphic-novel style webcomic or a huge collection of print comics (think like a thousand or so pages, at the minimum) sometime in the near future. He’s not super-familiar with webcomics, and wanted me to find a bunch of examples of novel-like webcomics for him to look at, in order to study their format, story structuring, paneling, etc. I have a few suggestions of my own, but I thought I would ask all of you for suggestions as well. If it helps, here are a few facts about his project:
- The project he’s working is fantasy-themed (as in goblins and knights, not in the general “head-in-the-clouds” sense), and also deals with multiple planes of reality
- While it’s going to have humor and action, I guess overall the best way to define the story would be “adventure epic”
- The paneling is going to be fairly cinematic and dynamic (as opposed to something like a standard nine-panel grid)
- The art is stylized, but pretty detailed. It is most likely going to be in black and white
- The story is is going to be structured in a continuous, novel-like way. As in “chapter 1, chapter 2,” etc.
Here are some of the suggestions I’m thinking of sending him:
I have a few others I’m thinking about, like Anders Loves Maria, but I need to read through them more first. So if you guys have any suggestions, even of print-only comics or regular, nongraphic fantasy novels, it would be much appreciated. Not only would you be helping out an artist-in-need, which should be reason enough, he’s also super-talented, so from a selfish perspective you’re making the smart move. The more you help my pal, the more you guarantee an awesome product coming your way in the future.
Thanks everybody, and see you on Sunday,
Mike!
Edit 3/4/10: Good lord dear readers, thank you so much for all the responses! See my full thank-you like 11 posts down.
Rice Boy (completed) and Order of Tales (ongoing) are must reads in the “adventure epic” category. Rice Boy is particularly valuable since it forms a complete novel, unlike the examples you list which have not yet ended. Anyone thinking of starting a long project I think could learn a lot about how to actually bring a webcomic from start to finish.
http://www.rice-boy.com/
Rice Boy/Order of Tales just hit 1000 pages not long ago.
http://www.rice-boy.com/
Also, Forming. Kicks so much ass.
http://jessemoynihan.com/?p=11
Oh! And Goats: http://www.goats.com/
It’s more mini episodes and feature-lets though.
I think my other comment didn’t go through… I named a bunch…
Snowflakes
Captain Excelsior (completed)
Kukuburi (this one sounds most like what your friend is going for: http://www.kukuburi.com/)
Daisy Owl to an extent, though it’s more like Octopus Pie in the sense that it has smaller story lines.
Most def send him Kukuburi, though.
Yeah that’s weird Ben, I didn’t see a double-post behind the comment wall. I’ve actually had a problem with my comments not showing up on other people’s sites as well, so there might be a weird glitch in Comicpress that I’m not aware of. I also could have some too-strict rules in our spam filters that are messing things up.
Regardless,sorry for the hassle and thanks for your persistance in posting (and for the suggestions as well). I’ve made a note of the possible error, and will look into it when I get a little free time.
Surely, always glad to help and the worst it means is I get another link in my RSS feed.
Goblins (http://goblins.keenspot.com) is a pretty bad-ass fantasy comic. It started out as pen&paper RPG jokes, and gradually developed characters and plot.
I think the Calvin & Hobbes Sunday strips may be the best examples of dynamic, creative frame layout. That’s just me though.
And Panorama (http://www.act-i-vate.com/28.comic) is one of the craziest black & white comics I’ve seen.
Might want to try Goblins as well: http://goblins.keenspot.com/
There’s also:
Eerie Cuties ( http://www.eeriecuties.com/ )
Least I Could Do ( http://leasticoulddo.com/ )
Multiplex ( http://multiplexcomic.com/ )
Questionable Content ( http://questionablecontent.net/ )
Nathan Sorry is a sort of thriller and written in chapters. It’s more character-based than perhaps what you’re looking for, but: http://www.richbarrett.com/nathansorry/
There is also What Birds Know which is a fantasy/weirdshit themed story also written very novel-like: http://fribergthorelli.com/wbk/
& Eros Inc. which has very little to do with fantasy but has excellent pacing and structure (aside from just being a great webcomic). http://www.commonnamefilms.com/erosinc
There is also FreakAngels, of course, although it follows more of a “issue” format with the full pages it may be good to look at for more dynamic panelling: http://www.freakangels.com/
(Hopefully all these links don’t get me spambotted…)
I’m not sure how good of an example it is, but Multiplex has been going for a bit. It’s not very big though, only about 450 pages right now.
http://www.multiplexcomic.com/
“How I Killed Your Master”
http://nuklearpower.com
Written by the 8-Bit Theatre (and Atomic Robo) guy, but drawn by someone who can draw.
I personally think the change to color made it worse; not sure if the color itself is to blame or just the associated shift in story direction. I haven’t given up on it yet, though.
Um, oh my god everyone, thank you so much for all the suggestions. This was way more than I expected. It will take Dana, my friend and myself weeks to sort through all these suggestions. Your help is enormously appreciated, and the you all should know that the size and scale of your response has made my day.
Yeah seriously, this is all extremely helpful. Thanks guys!!
Though there is no overarching story, in terms of cinematic framing (or really, sheer artistry), there’s nothing out there quite like A Lesson is Learned but the Damage is Irreversible.
http://www.alessonislearned.com/index.php?comic=1
It takes a few strips to fall into its groove, but you’ll know when you hit it.