Shortpacked! by David Willis
Toys are serious business.
Convention appearances:
Calgary Expo Calgary, AB: April 26-28
Phoenix Comicon Phoenix, AZ: May 23-26, 2013
BotCon San Diego, CA: June 28-30
San Diego Comic-Con San Diego, CA: July 18-21
SPX Bethesda, MD: September 14-15
Phoenix Comicon Phoenix, AZ: May 23-26, 2013
BotCon San Diego, CA: June 28-30
San Diego Comic-Con San Diego, CA: July 18-21
SPX Bethesda, MD: September 14-15
Multiplex
Sorcery 101
Templar, AZ
The Transformers Wiki
Hail to the Slash
80 page GIANT
Axe Cop
The Book of Biff
Butt-Taco
Comics Curmudgeon
College Roomies from Hell!!!
Diesel Sweeties
Dinosaur Comics
Dr. McNinja
Dresden Codak
Fans!
Fleen
Gastrophobia
Girl Genius
Girls with Slingshots
Goats
Hark, a vagrant
Hijinks Ensue
Intrepid Girlbot
Legend of Bill
Medium Large
Not Invented Here
Octopus Pie
Overcompensating
Penny Arcade
PhDcomics
Power Nap
Questionable Content
Real Life
Rob and Elliot
Bad Machinery
Schlock Mercenary
Sheldon
So Far Apart
Something Positive
Two Lumps
Wapsi Square
Wonderella
Wondermark
Frumph.NET
Sorcery 101
Templar, AZ
The Transformers Wiki
Hail to the Slash
80 page GIANT
Axe Cop
The Book of Biff
Butt-Taco
Comics Curmudgeon
College Roomies from Hell!!!
Diesel Sweeties
Dinosaur Comics
Dr. McNinja
Dresden Codak
Fans!
Fleen
Gastrophobia
Girl Genius
Girls with Slingshots
Goats
Hark, a vagrant
Hijinks Ensue
Intrepid Girlbot
Legend of Bill
Medium Large
Not Invented Here
Octopus Pie
Overcompensating
Penny Arcade
PhDcomics
Power Nap
Questionable Content
Real Life
Rob and Elliot
Bad Machinery
Schlock Mercenary
Sheldon
So Far Apart
Something Positive
Two Lumps
Wapsi Square
Wonderella
Wondermark
Frumph.NET
Tags
amber
animated
batman
botcon
conquest
conventions
dark of the moon
david willis
dinobot
drew
duncan
ethan
faz
galasso
generations
gijoe
guest strip
hamsters
homosexuality
jacob
jesus
joe
justice league
ken
leslie
malaya
megatron
merch
mike
ninja rick
nipple
optimus prime
politics
religion
robin desanto
ronald reagan
roz
sdcc
sg ravage
shattered glass
star wars
tni strips
transformers
transformers prime
ultra car
©2005-2013 David Willis | Powered by WordPress with ComicPress | Subscribe: RSS | Back to Top ↑
Dem be some crazy eyes. And I do hate filler, so very much. I want to stab it in the face.
Filler: One of the MANY problems with the ongoing. The artwork didn’t bother me so much.
That last panel… my old english teacher used to say that to me every time I turned in a project. Man, this entire strip is reminding me of my past school-related failures…
did bendis co-writes this very special edition of shortpacked???
not enough cursing to be a Bendis comic…
Not enough dialogue for Bendis. He tends to use smaller panels for that sort of thing anyway. And now back to reading my lovely Ultimate Spider-Man HCs.
One step further: thirty pages of a manga that manage twenty-three panels, and six dialogue bubbles.
It’s possible to do a (mostly) silent comic well. The above example just isn’t it.
Sin City. Not only does it have very little dialogue, it’s also black and white. That takes skill.
Sin City was beautiful; but I think it’s better regarded as the exception rather than the rule.
Yeah, I can forgive lack of text if there’s beautiful visual storytelling to fill in the gaps. Sin City manages that. Some mangas manage this as well, with very vivid illustrations. Sometimes, though, it’s just some boring ol’ barely-talking heads not doing anything particularly compelling.
G.I. Joe #21!
Word.
No, NO words.
BLAME!! actually does this really well.
Remember when comics were too underfunded to even have blank space? I have some old Space Odyssey comics. I think there’s maybe tweny pages; half are filled to the brim with as much dialogue as will fit without obstructing the art, and the other half is ads. I think good budgets realy ruined comic books.
Clearly we should all open up Photoshop and FILL the empty spaces with something hilariously horrible and out of place. Or am I the only one that wants to do that when I see comics with no backgrounds?
I don’t know about empty space in comics, but when I come across blank pages at the end of a novel, I always have to fight back an urge to (badly) write an epilogue on them.
Sometimes a lot of dialogue adds to a movie, other times it isn’t quite necessary.
“The big brain am winning again! I am the greetest! Mwa-ha-ha-ha! Now I am leaving Earth for no raisin!”
Every comic needs a Ger sometimes.
That Optimus reminds me of a smiling Dr McNinja…
Hah, man. I wonder why IDW can’t get a writer for a main TF series who knows how to pace a comic properly…
Someone is unhappy with their comics.
Meta comic is meta?
Wow, you totally nailed this one. I dont think I’ve ever been compelled to post before, but I wish IDW could understand “pacing”…
To me, pacing means every comic book should be crammed with as much story/drama/action as possible.
To IDW, it seems like it means “pad that story out so we have enough pages for the trade…”
How does creating a decompressed Shortpacked comic help anyone? Couldn’t we just have had another episode of Batman punching someone? Everyone enjoys that.
Whereas everyone except you enjoys this. This comic was specifically made because you, alone, wouldn’t like it; it is specifically targeting you with the goal of making you personally miserable, because Willis hates you.
This is true. He also hates your household pets/plants and/or siblings. Not necessarily in that order.
Great, now tomorrow will be a 5-panel slow-motion of Batman punching someone.
Weeee!
It helped me because I’m deliberately avoiding reading the TF ongoing, whose launch neatly intersects my decision to take a hiatus from TF fandom. (Which I do every couple years anyway.)
It killed an enthusiasm already strained by RotF’s sloppy trainwreck of a… everything.
I don’t get it, is this supposed to be talking against some comic book I’ve never heard of? Please explain…
It’s the recent Transformers ongoing series (it doesn’t have a sub-title like all the other Transformers series), specifically issue 6.
Age Of Dinosaurs can do a GREAT story with NO words EVER !!!
Age of Reptiles, yeah. I have that one. It was an amazing mini-series, if only for the lack of dialogue. I couldn’t help but find it so compelling to watch the lives of these dinosaurs and think to myself how hard it must have been for the artist to convey absolutely EVERYTHING in the visual storytelling.
And particularly since the visual dictionary for depicting smells in sequential art is so anemic compared to the sheer amount of information that animals like theropods would’ve been getting from it.
I don’t know about theropod dinosaurs, but modern birds (waaay up the theropod tree) generally have a very poor sense of smell.
On a related note, this same situation really annoys me in movies. Talking heads with sometimes useless dialogue and generic backgrounds. Somebody just pull a gun and end the damn movie already!
Man, this comic reminds me why I stay far away from the ongoing.
Oh wait. The art did that without even having to hear about the horrors inside.
I hope in the future comic book artist learn how to do a decent comic layout and storytelling techniques
If you mean comic book artists in general, then they already do. It’s the true artists that can do it right; Frank Miller, Niel Gaiman, Alan Moore, they all know how to use the space on the page and they know how to tell a damn story.
don: great at doing robots but cant draw humans emote for shit.
A related gif.
http://bit.ly/bWTjbH
my teacher gets onto to me for waisting space too. T-T
Hm.. I haven’t thought about this before, but the Transformers’ faces are designed to look like ninjas. It looks like they’re just covering their mouths and being sneaky. Add to that those intense eyes and bam.
This reminds me of too many comic books I’m currently buying.