Spiffy Chaps - Webcomic
Hey guys.
I hope this isn't against forum rules or anything, but i just wanted to post a link to a site that 2 friends and I just got up yesterday.
www.spiffychaps.com
Its a little webcomic that we've wanted to do since 'forever' and we even have lots of old comics that will be transported here over the next week or so.
The site was designed entirely by one man, over the course of 4 weeks.
The comics, which will have daily updates, are done by all three of us, and as such, the style of humour varies etc.
The jokes are meant to by satirical, sarcastic, punny, vulgar.... anything that's possible. We have a few fans from our old blog-site, but then again, humour is all about taste.
Hope you guys like what we have so far, and keep checking out our comics as they come about.
Let us know what you think either through the 'contact us' window, or just drop a line here if you wish.
Cheers
I hope this isn't against forum rules or anything, but i just wanted to post a link to a site that 2 friends and I just got up yesterday.
www.spiffychaps.com
Its a little webcomic that we've wanted to do since 'forever' and we even have lots of old comics that will be transported here over the next week or so.
The site was designed entirely by one man, over the course of 4 weeks.
The comics, which will have daily updates, are done by all three of us, and as such, the style of humour varies etc.
The jokes are meant to by satirical, sarcastic, punny, vulgar.... anything that's possible. We have a few fans from our old blog-site, but then again, humour is all about taste.
Hope you guys like what we have so far, and keep checking out our comics as they come about.
Let us know what you think either through the 'contact us' window, or just drop a line here if you wish.
Cheers
Replies
While it's cool that you've got a webcomic going, and you've obviously put a fair amount of time and effort into it, most webcomics don't tend to work very well unless they're really original or unique somehow. There are tons of rip-offs of popular comics out there, and as far as I know none of them are as good as the originals.
Couldn't you at least try to find a character drawing style and method of humour that hasn't been in use in an existing webcomic for years?
Edit: Like Wondermark!
I think it looks cool. I think the second strip, SDH or whatever it was,
Oh, and navagation was lame, I guess there are only two entries so far, but a next and back, first and last links would be swell. Cheerro.
i don't get it, please explain the joke.
As for this strip I also don't get it, or I think I get it and its not exactly funny. Did their house explode, did the one guy light them both on fire? Is the whole argument rendered null by a nuke? Did they suddenly realize they moved to the sun and upon realizing it, they burst into flames? The mixing of styles and lack of color isn't helping the last panel.
I agree about the header - they're much more charming than the characters in the comic. Though, all three of them having a monocle kind of kills it. One should have a monocle, the others can have glasses, or a mustache. So many other ways to make them spiffy.
Good luck on your endeavor
[let me know what you guys think]
crits like u guys provide helps us - too many ppl just saying 'gj' cuz we're their friends.
@MoP: cyanide and happiness is usually considered the creator of that style, but i guess its just 'stick men' isnt it? we're still experimenting with styles, so expect a variety as the site matures. Our inspiration was the creator of the "Rejected" cartoons. The artist's name slips my mind. But yea, expect a variety of styles.
@KP: haha that's the plan. at the moment we're keeping it simple, and will upgrade as we move on - exam time has arrived, but we do want to keep this commitment going. the navigation will be fixed, probably after exams or something. thanks for the pointers about the comic btw. we've removed the old ones, and might upload a huge dump of oldies later, when we've been up for a while.
@SupRore: bascially, they jinxed themselves, went from 'nice house, and pretty colours' to 'shitty sketchy drawings set on fire'. KP hit it on the head, pretty much.
@Vig: the style is still under experimentation. Those 3 will definately be used, but rarely. As for the 'quality.' We do intend on upping it, but in all honesty, we're just 3 12th graders tryna get the world some more stuff to laugh about. We want to do daily updates, with maybe one off day, and maintain school and jobs at the same time. We'll do our best to get things boosted in quality for sure though.
@Sectaurs: thanks for the luck! and yea, the header shall be modified. passed the message on to our main designer, and it should change after exams - that'd be around the 1st of Feb.
@rooster: likewise, they will be changed around once exams end around feb 1st
thanks for the crits and all guys
it truly does help us out.
just as a note, we will be switchin the style around over the next few weeks, and the next comic will employ a new style we have in the works. its simple, yet different.
as of now:
Hope you guys like the new comic
cheers!
I'd personally suggest using Papagayo. It's a program that makes spacing out lip-syncing pretty quick and painless. It doesn't fully rip lip-syncing for you, but it lets you drag-and-drop the words out. It also supports exporting to various text formats that would be easy to parse in Flash.
I'm all for more humor, so I fully encourage you to continue on this project. But I do have to agree with my contemporaries that your current effort is lacking in style. The animated dudes at the top have that style, and could work really well.
I well know that one of the biggest obstacles for the aspiring web artist is time. It takes a lot of time to do that many illustrations, especially if you want them to look really polished and clean. Asset recycling is the webcomic's best friend. Check out Kris Straub's work at www.starslip.com. That guy has gotten asset recycling down to an art. He keeps his art style "compartmentalized" so that he can recycle and reuse as much of it as possible.
@ all: we currently are moving away from the old style, step by step. it is exam season here at the moment, but we're doing our best to slowly implement modular pieces for our characters to have them quick and easy, yet stylish in their own way. at the moment, we're trying some new head and body types, starting with this comic . Tonight's new comic will also implement these, and add new body types, and i believe the comic we have planned tomorrow, or possibly day after, will be more 'complete' in terms of the style we're aiming for.
each of the 3 of us are trying something a little different to keep it distinguishable.
the new comic is a one-panel one, just to see reactions to the style - of humour and art. so far, they seem okay -> good. the site got presented to the communications tech class today, and the teacher, as well as classmates, enjoyed it.
cheers guys. thanks for the support and critique etc
Spiffy Chaps - keepin' it spiffy
http://jeremylindstrom.com/hello-world/ <--games made me archive
ps: Im using firefox 3 with the latest upgrades, on windows XP
This kind of thing might go over really well now since everyone has lost their job? And goes with the whole spiffy chaps naming convention.
Right now I have no idea why you guys are so spiffy anyway.
thanks for the bug report there
i told our designer about it. we figured it was a plugin, and i guess sectaurs got it. we'll see what we can do to circumnavigate it
are u still able to see the comics / nav etc? is it just the banner missing? or the whole site?
@Microneezia : hehe those jokes are inbound. we have a few political / controversial style comics comming up, including wat youtube's doing atm and such. and now that we got a 'request' for it of sorts, we'll make it come sooner
as of now:
Spiffy Chaps' New Comic has adopted a _fully_ different style. hope u guys like the new one better!
lemme know what you guys think
and thanks a bunch for all the support
cheers!
We're still to see wat the next step in this evolutionary process is, but one things for sure:
we have a new update and also one from last night.
let us know what you think!
cheers
The art = terrible
The writing = terrible
The strip = terrible + terrible = terrible.
I enjoy comics that use a simplistic visual style, when the writing is exceptionally clever.
http://xkcd.com/
On the flip side, I enjoy well developed artistic style even if the strip must often be viewed within the context of popular events that appeal to a specific culture in order to be funny. Penny-Arcade, obviously.
And my favorite shows great artistic skill, mixed with clever writing, as a commentary on bigger issues in society such as sex, politics, drugs, religion, etc., and published on a daily basis.
http://www.sinfest.net/
With comics like Cyanide and Happiness, everyone wants to start a webcomic. I mean, I do. You really don't need any content. Just a few stick figures, and OMG I'M BLEEDING HARD!!!
So far, that's all you (three guys) have come up with. No timing, no punchlines, no commentary, no observational humor.
Spiffy Chaps is a good title for a comic. And when I saw the noble gentlemen on the title banner (who appear very similar to Little Gamers), I expected something good...and relevant. The strip entirely disappoints.
Since the title and banner image has had the most thought put into it. Use it, otherwise it's false advertisement. I expected to see a strip about privileged old-world noble gentlemen of the aristocracy discussing the matters of the modern technological world, with insightful yet comical writing "I say, old bean", and witty punchlines. But, I see another pointless web comic attempt, with as much tact as a school assignment.
Decide on your style, Research your conent and demographic. Then create the strip.
I also considered having him reveal his latest invention, the steam powered tea kettle.
as each post from you guys comes about, we get a better idea of what you guys are expecting.
currently, our comics are aimed - i suppose - at school goers. we hear the name 'spiffy chaps' get thrown about a lot in school, that too in a good light.
that market having been covered, we'll move on to a different one, and so on and so forth till we have a bit of 'everything.'
currently we're switching over to covering 'current' events and 'historical' events etc. and we'll soon move on to a further spiffi-ffication of the strips.
our 'subject matter' has taken a turn this week, starting with today's comic.
thanks, once again, for all the tips.
we're taking all ur comments seriously, and doing our best to get the changes to coincide with our own plans.
hopefully, over the next few weeks, Spiffy Chaps will appeal to more of you
cheers guys!
just postin another update here.
Spiffy Chaps has uploaded a new comic, as always, and along with that, we have uploaded _all_ our old comics from the wordpress beta site. You can check out the old ones through the archive, of course, all dated correctly etc.
The comedy is taking a different route for each strip this week, and once again, your feedback is truly appreciated.
cheers guys
and thanks for all the support so far!
-caseyjones
Keep at it mate. Everyone's gotta start somewhere
For what it's worth, I rather like the can-opener people.
[ame]
Getting back on track...
I like the new style a lot better then the bowling ball sitting on a peg. Now that the style is working you guys should work on the acting, with a few simple edits you can punch up the humor a bit. Their performances are very stiff and wooden, which robs some of the humor and life from the characters.
So instead of this you can do something like this... in just about the same amount of time.
You won't have thousands upon thousands of fans at the start, that takes time and patience and a good history of great back content. The market is so flooded with webcomics though, that you'll need to find something new and fresh to attract those visitors.
seriously, I wish you luck I really enjoyed doing mine as well, but we don't need a daily bump when you update too do we?
we're going to try and implement more of the things uve suggested, such as 'acting' etc.
@dekard: the 'daily bump' is over kill indeed. i was treating the site like a bit of a WiP, so i suppose i was looking for as many suggestions for the team as i could garner, and wanted to make sure that i knew what the boards felt about it.
the daily bump will stop
i guess its time to see what momentum we've garnered from the boards here, and i might do a weekly / bimonthly post just to get some more exposure, and some newer opinions etc
thank you all for the support.
before parting though, i'll just provide a link to the site to those who open page 2 before page 1
Spiffy Chaps
once again, thanks for the support guys.
been a while since i last posted here, and i decided id wait till a 'good' reason
and i think we - the site - finally hit a nice milestone that i'd like to share:
http://www.spiffychaps.com/2009/03/01/think-different/
starting from the above comic ^, there seems to have been a sudden spike in our hits.
we must be doing something right, cuz the first week of march had surpassed the entire month of february.
we also have one of our first, semi-animated comic there.
finally, Spiffy Chaps recently teamed up with Fmylife, and them and us are going to collaborate in the near future
just felt like sharing with polycount!
cheers guys
hope you like the comics.
PS: do check out the february archives, if you wish.
and, of course, the latest can be found at www.spiffychaps.com itself.