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
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The Book of Biff
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Comics Curmudgeon
College Roomies from Hell!!!
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Not Invented Here
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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
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I can’t say I know of a comic that does this, and if I do, I don’t pay attention to it.
Google Greg Land.
On second thought, maybe Greg Land isn’t the best example. He seems to trace everything.
A lot of superhero comics, mostly Marvel from what I’ve seen (Greg Land) but DC has some of it too.
I seem to remember an interview with Alan Davis where he talks about this. Trying to find a link to it now.
Apparently, in the 70′s photo realistic stuff became popular due to Neil Adams. Suddenly a lot of artists were expected to produce work like this, so a lot of them resorted to tracing to meet expectations.
Ted Nomura did it a lot over the years, going from photorealism to various flavors of manga-style to DC-style to even Charles Schulz “Peanuts” for comedic relief.
Well, Nomura tended to do it intentionally for effect. Although the vehicles and weapons stayed photorealistic.
It’s a common occurance. I actually do it sometimes, since I’m not really that good at drawing anything yet.
amber looks adorable in panel 3
It’s not really the uncanny valley. It’s more like inconsistency and ill-fitting poses.
No, I really think it is. It’s not the awkward posing that I’m railing against here. In fact, I’m not actually arguing against the (sometimes) tracing itself. I did that in a previous comic. It’s the more realistic proportions juxtaposed with the surrounding cartooniness, merged in such an unrealistic way that some of it just looks too darn real, but in an unsettling way. Which is definitely uncanny valley.
This makes me curious what you think of manga, with it’s penchant for placing cartoony characters on realistic (and often traced) backgrounds.
I was thinking of Tin-Tin myself, but manga is a good example too.
I believe it’s the whole “it’s easy to try and understand anything as a human” thing. You can assimilate a damn Smiley or as a human face without prior knowledge or see faces on the coffee stains, but more stylized backgrounds and other stuff usually became stuck to persistance and symbolism, not actual similarities.
Think of what a cartoon heart looks like and what a real heart looks like: it it wasn’t so common place, it wouldn’t make any sense whatsoever.
So sure, Nausicaa or Kaneda or Tim Tim can be all cartoony and still you’d recognize ‘em as human beings; not so much the futuristic weapons, building and airships – at least they look a little more believable (or, if not, mesmerizing).
I guess Scott McCloud goes in depth about it in one of his books, not sure tough.
Also, forgive me for all the typos, argh! “Tim Tim” blergh.
It’s probably tolerable if it’s consistent.
It’s why Tim Bradstreet is cool. He’ll trace EVERYTHING, going so far as to build physical props to put in his photos, and all the photos are his taken for the comic.
That’s a different sort of thing. Broadly, it’s good for characters to look different from backgrounds, and bad for characters to look different from themselves. Obviously there are exceptions, but…
Poor Ken. He just wants to fit in.
In all fairness, this is his first speaking line in a story comic.
http://www.shortpacked.com/2010/comic/book-12/03-minorities-report/ken/
There is a place for photorealism, and it isn’t necessarily here.
Ken who?
I hate when they do that. It confuses me.
And I’m Batman.
I guess we were supposed to think Ken was an off-model Faz or something at first. Nope, I recognized him right off the bat (though I couldn’t remember his name).
And yes, third panel Amber looks especially cute, particularly next to her tiny-headed 4th panel counterpart.
He’s very recognizable thanks to his big, kissable lips.
I tought off-model Ethan at first, but I guess it’s just because of all the jokes people made before.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArtEvolution
its not exactly about tracing but how the drawing styles change
the image at the top is a good example, and conveniently the walkyverse is the last webcomic example
Not exactly a proper link. The argument isn’t to an art style changing, but being inconsistent within the same page, to being photorealistic in one panel and cartoony in the next, or similar.
“…Faz? No, it can’t be Faz, because he’s contributing to the conversation.”
As Phil Kahn would say, “Gold star.”
(Wait, am I allowed to…?)
Is it just me, or does it look like Ethan is totally staring at Amber’s uncanny valley boobs in the fourth panel?
Well, she seemed to gain about 6 inches of height for that panel, so he’s staring at where her eyes used to be.
And you totally should have just said he was staring at her Uncanny Valley.
If I had stuck with that, “Uncanny Mountains” would have been more accurate.
It looks like the trace made her taller. I think he’d have been looking at her face if she was the same model of Amber as in panel one (this could be a subtle remark by Willis about sudden changes in art messing up glances and body language?)
Hrm, I recall a strip dealing with tracing magazines? Not that I’m complaining, just saying I do believe a similar issue has been brought up before.
Ah… poor Jacob. I wonder how long it’ll be before we hear from him again?
I’d reference Salvador Larroca’s Iron Man work over Greg Land. That stuff’s just ghastly.
and considering his work on X-treme x-men with CC, it even sadder
The Uncanny(valley) X-men?
Amber in panel 4 doesn’t actually look traced, she just looks like you drew with her a shrunken head. She still has the pointy chin, for example.
I think that’s supposed to represent how out of place the realistic proportions look relative to all the other art.
Is it sad that at first I thought Ken was Pat Lee?
I did too.
And Cho makes three!
I think that was the initial intention. If I didn’t read non linearly, I would have mistook it as well.
Isn’t that Pat Lee?? And also did you do just this in Panel 4? I think that was part of the joke though right? Ah hell..
If it was Pat Lee, they’d be talking about tracing from crumpled bits of tinfoil.
It’s not. But I thought the same for a split second until I remembered Galasso had hired the guy some time before.
Couldn’t remember his name until I read it in the last panel though.
I think my response would, instead of annoyance, be confusion as to why such a person is drawing comics already instead of practicing single pictures until they figure out their own style and the anatomy of it all.
They don’t have the determination to fully commit to improving their artistic abilities. After all, determination can close the gap with natural talent, applied in enough amounts.
(Read: They’re lazy.)
Oh god, Greg Land >.<
http://blog.nataliekirk.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/20060215gregland.png
In panel 4, Amber cut in line in front of a witch doctor, obviously.
I still consider myself a huge fan of PVP, but Scott’s artwork has been hitting this ‘uncanny valley’ lately.
I know he must have been unsatisfied with his old ‘copy-paste’ style of artwork, but at least it was consistent. His more recent forays into realistic proportions and hands with the same cartoony heads has been jarring, to say in the least.
I don’t want to accuse him of tracing, but it at least seems like he’s referencing pictures off of stock photo sites, without any regard to how the head will fit on the body.
Reading back on the old PVP archives, I feel like the simpler-yet-consistent style Scott had made the jokes a lot funnier, and the story lines more concise. As much as I am a fan of Kurtz and his work (ESPECIALLY the Blammimations) I have to admit that PVP as a comic is slipping.
I’m pretty sure Kurtz doesn’t trace. He’s just been developing his art style as his career continues, but made the choice to keep his main cast drawn in the more recognisable, simple fashion. I will grant you, however, that it does look weird when he introduces a new character and they’re drawn in a completely different fashion.
And his work still seems funny tome. Then again, I have an odd sense of humour, so your mileage may vary.
Oh I’m fairly certain he doesn’t trace, either. But I get the suspicion that he looks off of reference photos for his more realistic looking stuff.
I find it awkward how he combines more realistically proportioned bodies with cartoon heads complete with circle faces and square jaws. Take february 7th’s strip, for example. Jade is completely awkward in the first two panels, mainly because we have this cartoonish head on this lumpy body. It’s just really inconsistent, and it bothers me.
Of course, there are some characters in the strip Scott nails every time, so maybe he’s just trying something new with some of the other characters? I just find it so odd.
Kurtz’s art resembles his buddy Frank Cho more and more recently.
Example (warning, some art NSFW): http://www.libertymeadows.com/gallery/ART2/index.html
Sometimes I forget Frank Cho draws cartoon animals when he’s not drawing boobs and dinosaurs.
If it wasn’t for the lovingly crafted boobs, Liberty Meadows would just be another crappy knock-off of Bloom County.
As it is, it’s a crappy knock-off of Bloom County with lovingly crafted boobs.
Kurtz not only obviously traces, I’ve seen him trace google image search photos in ustreams before!
Link? That would be neat to see.
The one i always remember is DC Teen titans, post infinite crisis, when they’re looking for raven and there is a big pic of all the titans who joined during 52, one of which is Argent, traced straight from renee zellweger. Really weird looking.
See, when I do varying proportions and weird posture, at least it’s just because I’m a bad artist.
You know, I think the fact that the story line has been left for all these various other items (Batman, guest comics, whatever this one is) is a sign that even the Willis is not all that interested in it.
Let’s just say the drama tag is found and put back in the ****in slot. And go back to weird and wacky….
It isn’t a big deal to me, and even in my webcomic interest subset this isn’t that major, but of all the various “oh boy let’s see what’s happened today!” webcomics… This one has fallen the most, to the “let’s look at the last couple of weeks and see if anything good might have happened”
Maybe I should just start back at the beginning and hope my memory is weak enough that it will all be fun again. Or maybe start checking back on a semiannual basis.
Shortpacked breaks from story comics to gag-a-day all the time. This is not a sign of the comic going off the rails, it’s business as usual. If you’re looking for 24/7 soap opera, try Mary Worth.
This. Willis doesn’t stick to any one type of thing – it alternates.
The newspaper comic Non Sequitur has done the same thing ever since it established a recurring cast. He’ll do a few weeks of story and a few of random strips.
The Willis does what the Willis wants.
Yep, so I’ve noticed…
The way I’m entering these comments, this one should be after my Mary Worth comment.
I should just stop bitching, and either make my own (too lazy), or wander off to the more surreal comics ( http://www.wigucomics.com/ ) until a spot check shows Shortpacked either gets armed hamsters or tentacle porn. Or both
You missed my point entirely, good show! Keep up the internet traditions!
What I said was: Kill the whole soap opera thing… Go back to the weird Pythonesque humor.
I want weird hostage taking over toys, giant pastry monsters, cars in costume, zombie presidents as ongoing characters, toddler toy wielding costumed “heroes”, etc and so on. Explosions!
“My lesbian” was a cute one line joke, having a few riffs on the theme was ok, but Russian Novel length, deep back story? Gah ack bleeech
My point is: THIS IS MARY WORTH! Only with nerdy Batman jokes…
The high point (other than the comments) IS the nerdy Batman jokes… a pretty low high point, if you catch my drift.
Didn’t you do this joke already? I’m pretty sure I remember an early Shortpacked strip that was traced from real people commenting on how comics do this.
This is a subtly different point– how cartoon and photoreference are jarring when used side by side.
I look forward to 2013′s installment in this series, taking on figure-skating Cyclops.
Linked in my comment below.
LOL. Me make Greg Land joke about using obvious porn poses now!
Hey, people just call them as they see it. The guy has had plenty of time to improve his work (or just get it back to the way he had it at the beginning of his career), but ol’ Greg just can’t lay off that ctrl+c button.
I think you misunderstood my intent.
I’m not at all upset with people laughing at Greg land’s porn tracing. The one with the Ultimate Inhumans in Ultimate Fantastic Four was the worst I’ve yet seen. (But then I quit reading comics when the Teen Titans writers thought it would be funny to have Marvin and Wendy eaten by Wonder Dog in a sad n’ crappy Wonder Girl II plot. It was sort of a last straw moment for me.)
Here’s the panel I’m talking about.
http://romosome.pyoko.org/pic/scans/land/landshameless.jpg
I mean seriously…..just damn.
Between panels 3 and 4, an experimental transmogrifier attempted to turn Amber into QC’s Faye, only succeeding from the neck down.
lol.
I’ll admit I change proportions a lot from panel to panel, but I try to keep each panel internally consistent at least @_@ I can just never decide HOW chibi things out to be.. just whatever ‘looks right’ at the time.. then I look back at old comics and go ‘wtf why are the legs so short?’
frosgrok:
Today’s was a story comic. It was a partial resolution to a months-ago storyline.
“WHY WON’T MY HIPS UNSWAY?!”
(four years minus one day)
That’s a “real-people hand”?
There is an issue of Transformers that does this. Shockwave is sitting in front of a bank of televisions and there are real shows on there and all the characters are drawn completely real to life as opposed to the style of the comic. It confused me as a kid for some reason.
I really hate to be “that guy”, but I’ve been sitting here watching, waiting for the ‘OHNOESAMBER’SMOMHADTEHSEXWITHJACOB!” shoe to drop. So, I’m just going to go ahead and settle it now.
“Dear Amber, your mom slept with Jacob. Sorry you had to hear like this. Love, Me”
Please deliver this note. KTHXBAI
I actually thought Ken looked more like Ethan than Faz.
Rob Liefeld wut
Hmm, this doesn’t bother me anywhere near as much as drawn characters with actual photographs used for backgrounds or props. Actual photographs are way worse than traced photographs!
A couple that come to mind of recent comics I’ve read are this School Bites page and this Eerie Cuties page. (Hmm, I probably shouldn’t link nothing but teenage vampire girl webcomics, but I can’t think of any others I read that have done it lately.)
If you’d like to elaborate a bit more on mismatched proportions, I suggest to start with boobs…
GAH! The Asian dude shares my name! And I’m Asian! Did I randomly meet you guys and give you an idea that would soon spark an outrageous outcome?