I'm working on a kid's comic book/zine, and need a critique.

I’m a teacher and an artist and I had the idea to create some stories to illustrate some basic Buddhist philosophies in a “hip” format that would be attractive to the average kid and/or young teenager. I made a mock-up of one and thought you folks might make a good sounding board. I’d love it if you could give me a critique of the story. Let me know what you think works and what doesn’t. I’m thinking that these would be aimed at 5th graders, more or less. But my husband likes this one a lot, so it’s probably got a wide age range.

Note that the format right now is just a web slideshow. I mostly intend for the final format to be a printed book. Though a flash animation might be good too… (But I have no Flash software, nor the energy to learn how to use it.)

Fish and Gnome contemplate the usefullness of anger

Oh, and I’m still not sure about a title. That one is a bit long and dull.

Thanks!

Peace, Love, and Bicycles,
Turtle

Re: I'm working on a kid's comic book/zine, and need a critique.

Turtle,

I will show this to my 10 year old (finishing 4th grade) and my 13 year old (finishing 7th grade) separately and let you know what they say. I'm at work now, but will ask them tonight or in the morning (depending on homework load).

Diane 

Re: I'm working on a kid's comic book/zine, and need a critique.

My 10-year old viewed it but wouldn't give me any comments. I'll ask my 13 year old to have a look tonight.

 Sorry I couldn't be of more help (yet!). Maybe I'll get some better feedback later.

 Diane

Re: I'm working on a kid's comic book/zine, and need a critique.

Thanks Diane. I’m going to try it someday with with my Preschool class, too (they are an exceptionally bright bunch, if I may be so bold!).

Re: I'm working on a kid's comic book/zine, and need a critique.

My other son, Robin, just viewed this. He liked it more than Eben did. He was using goofy voices for the charactors. He said he liked the concepts, and could definitely relate to the situation in the story. Perhaps this is your age group? Young teen. Young teen with younger sibling who are mad at each other a lot? LOL.

He thinks this would be a good slide show to take to church for the older grades to show the younger grades (and do the goofy voices). A series with the same charactors would be good. He says humor is important. The slide he chuckled at the most was:

“I guess I got mad because I didn't know why Flamingo was mad.”

How did it go with the preschoolers? 

Re: I'm working on a kid's comic book/zine, and need a critique.

Now that you mention it, this might make a fun little play. Hmmmmm.

Thanks!

Re: I'm working on a kid's comic book/zine, and need a critique.

I think it’s a great ideia and I like the illustrations. I don’t know how old are 5th graders but I just showed it to my daughters, aged 6 and 8, and they liked it a lot.

Re: I'm working on a kid's comic book/zine, and need a critique.

Thanks a lot for getting feedback from your kids. I think with jsut a little tweaking, it might be really great. And I’m thinking of doing a series with these kinds of characters. (Though the thought of having to actually borrow or buy a wholoe bunch of weird lawn ornaments for props is a bit more than I want to imagine!)

Re: I'm working on a kid's comic book/zine, and need a critique.

Hi.  I'm a TV and film writer and SUPER critical - so don't read this unless you really want the criticism.  (And then remember that it's just my opinion and I could be completely wrong.)
I found the story to be repetitive.  I didn't find the frames to be different enough.  'I'm mad because she' s mad.'  'She's mad because I thought she thought I thought she was mad…  My impression was:  alright already!  i get the point.  I wanted to know what they were mad about in the first place!  I also think the piece lacks humor.  I love the line about growing up into a buddha statue, and when the fish turns upside down to get a new point of view.  But I think you need more lawn ornament humor.  Make references to the flashy flamingos always wanting attention, or putting a jacuzzi in the bird bath,  or whether the gnome is in the mood for his daily bath when the sprinkler goes off at 5pm…. whatever… I just think there's room for more humor.  It's a cute concept… I just think the execution needs work.
Hope this helps and I wasn't too rough!  (And remember, it's just one opinion.  What do I know about anything anyway?  I don't like 'Desperate Housewives' - which proves I know nothing!)
Best of luck.
Fifer

Re: I'm working on a kid's comic book/zine, and need a critique.

Thanks for the honest opinions. I most definitely do appreciate your perspective. (I went to art school, so I’m very comfortable with criticim, and in fact, need it to really be successful).

I agree that it’s missing something. And I think I really need to pin down my target audience a little more specifically. I always hope to appeal to a really broad range (like my own favorite works), but it’s probably a bit too much to ask with this odd little project.

One thing you may be able to help me with is how I could convey the idea that it’s not actually all that important why Flamingo was mad. I’ve had several people say that they really wanted to know, and I need to find a way to help people understand that the focus is on how Gnome is really in charge of his own emotions and reactions. The whole purpose of the story is to help people see how useful it is to stop obsessing with unproductive, overreactive, negative emotions. Any ideas?

Re: I'm working on a kid's comic book/zine, and need a critique.

Hello!

I showed your work to my 6 & 10 year-old girls.  My older daughter is a budding artist and writer.  I'll share their comments, because their honest eyes offer the best criticism to help you develop this (IMHO).

“I didn't get it,”  Zoe said (6).

When it got to the “teaching” part by fish, Katia (10) said, “This is a child's book?”
When I asked her for suggestions she said, “Maybe use some better relative characters - like stuff kids normally see.”

I hope this is helpful in developing your work.  Good luck!
Blessings,  Julia

Re: I'm working on a kid's comic book/zine, and need a critique.

Thanks! I can see that this is a little odd for many younger kids. My original character ideas were a cartoon turtle and a little human kid. But then I saw these characters whild randomly looking at photos and thought they would be fun to play around with. I’m considering making the final book version in a more traditional kids book style. and maybe I’ll finish this weird version off as a web-only animation.

Re: I'm working on a kid's comic book/zine, and need a critique.

Interesting cartoon. I really liked the concept behind the cartoon (I'm 18 and supposedly an “adult” and I still forget to allow people to feel their own emotions and not link them to mine). I'm not quite sure why you chose a fish and a gnome to be the main characters, but I'm sure you had your reasons.

 The only thing I didn't quite like was how fish seemed a little deprecating towards the gnome. Though, that might just be my shadow popping up, feeling offended by sagely advice that I know I should follow, but don't.

 I hope you have fun with this project. It seems to have a lot of potential.

Re: I'm working on a kid's comic book/zine, and need a critique.

Thanks for your thoughts! The fish and gnome were simply fun-looking characters to make a mock up with, and then I fell in love with them and decided that they might just be the right characters for the story after all. They are just so wonderfully weird!

And, yeah, Fish is a bit sagelike. But, you know, she’s old and big, and has a lot of time to just sit around observing life and thinking. If I make a series out of this, I could explain that, and maybe it would be less obnoxious sounding…

Re: I'm working on a kid's comic book/zine, and need a critique.

I like the way the fish is rotating all over the place during the conversation. It reminds me of talking to my brother who never seems rooted in a particular perspective (held lightly and adroitly selected) but always seems willing to offer wisdom and fix other people’s problems.

What motivates the fish, anyway, just out of curiosity? A general desire to see everyone around him happy and an understanding that the ability to utilize a situationally specific, comprehensive methodology for improving interpersonal atmospheres is at his fingertips? Maybe the fish needs to work on his role as a sagely friend because I myself might not stick around to receive his lovably minamilistically dilineated wisdoms. Then again I’m not as silly as that potential-buddha-gnome, whose level of cognition corresponds well with his style of communication and his seemingly unconscious mode of dialogical interchange and amorphous, deep-but-non-differentiated, socio-emotional scope. lol.

All that aside: my experience with your book was: fun, engaging, and lots it created of ROOM and space for fun discussion like this. It’s like… an interpretive miracle, is your story. We could go on for hours about what those characters are all about. Do they have jobs? Do they do their taxes? And that environment. What a crazy place to be. Parked out on a sign? No wonder the fish is smart about relationships, he can see right in through a lodge window and the propreitor of the quiet amusement park is a Dr. Phil fan (er, um… rather the propreitor is a Thich Naht Hahn fan and he leaves his books open). How do they move around? Hop? Slide? Roll? Get humans to carry them by dispersing subtle, cohesive trans-visible suggestive magnetic messages. “Take me to the laaaaawwwwn.” Fun stuff!

Re: I'm working on a kid's comic book/zine, and need a critique.

No wonder the fish is smart about relationships, he can see right in through a lodge window … 

ROFLMAO! What is he seeing through that living room window, and should this book be rated?? And is “he” really a he? Maybe a she! Perhaps that fish had had a bit too much sun, too. That's why the rotation. For perspective, yes, but also to brown on all sides!

Brondu you're nuts!  Look what you've done to this discussion. In fact, you've made a brilliant observation, that this sort of thing opens up discussion about all sorts of things. That's a worthy goal.

Re: I'm working on a kid's comic book/zine, and need a critique.

Yay! Thanks for all the wonderful thoughts here. I do think these guys have lots of potential. And I, too, would love to know where Fish gets her (I believe the fish is a female, just because…) wisdom and motivation. Her character was originally written with a turtle in mind. And everyone knows turtles are wise beyond belief. It was a surprise to me that the character showed up in my story as a fish. Gnome, too, was unplanned. He simply beat out all the other actors who showed up at the tryouts. Hopefully, both will be willing to work with me on further projects, so that we can explore their unique talents…

Re: I'm working on a kid's comic book/zine, and need a critique.

wow. no critical comments just a deep appreciation for the process and collaboration here.

deep bow.

-bri