Friday Archive Dive: Writing Numerals in Word Balloons

Against my better judgement, today's Archive Dive take us to September 2, 2009, when I made the following statement -- and immediately took a good, old-fashioned drubbing. Since I'm a glutton for punishment, here is it:

Whenever possible, avoid using numerals in your word balloons; write out the word instead.

Let the games begin. But before you write to tell me what a dope I am, do two things: Read those first two words again, and read the rest of the post.

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'What a waste of time' -- dealing with criticism

I was lucky enough to get a generous review on io9.com last weekend. And in the comments section under the review, the response was overwhelmingly positive. I was being tweeted, and e-mailed and Liked.

It was a really good weekend.

Until I read this.

I tried giving this comic a read, and it wasn't funny at all. 

What a waste of time. 

My pageviews were astronomical. People were clearly pouring through the archives. And the positive comments were kind to say the least. Obviously, I was doing something right.

But you know which comment stayed with me: "What a waste of time."

So, how do you process criticism?

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Boundaries: Build 'em or Break 'em?

It's one of the most liberating aspects of webcomics: The complete lack of boundaries.

Very few -- if any -- webcomics exist under a structure that imposes boundaries on the language or visuals used by the cartoonist. Most of us are completely independent, and therefore set our own boundaries.

Seriously. Penny Arcade veers into blue language, but the comic certainly doesn't hinge on it. PvP rarely, if ever, drops a curse word. In fact, many of the top comics on the Web follow much the same boundaries as network television (albeit late-night broadcast standards).

So, why aren't webcomics a wall-to-wall, full-frontal swearfest? Generally speaking, why aren't we using that freedom?

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NYCC Webcomics Bootcamp

Members of Webcomics.com only pay $30 for the special Webcomics Bootcamp at New York Comic Con, Sunday morning, Oct. 10. Here are the details...

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Line weight

Varying the thickness of your line can improve your art in several ways. It’s an incredibly powerful tool at your disposal. Using thicker and thinner lines can have three different effects.

Heavier lines indicate shading. Letting your lines get heavy in areas that are further from the light source in the illustration (and thinner are they’re closer to the light) can add instant three-dimensionality to your drawing.

Lighter lines fall into the background. You can push items into the back of the scene by drawing them with lighter lines. Drawing a heavy border around an item will bring it to the foreground.

Lines can be used as compositional tools. Lines of a heavier weight can organize the shapes into a unit. You can use similar heavier lines to tell your readers what items are important in a clutterered scene.

One popular visual method is to draw a heavy outline around all foreground characters. This look can be very striking, and the main result is that the foreground pops nicely off the background. But, like adding salt to a recipe, it’s something that needs to be applied judiciously.

Look at the lines that are used to create the images in your comic. If they're all the same weight, you might be missing an opportunity to compose your scenes more effectively.

Let's look at a few examples of you line weight can be used to improve a visual.

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