I met Tripp at Heroes Con and we had a really good conversation about comics, music and all sorts of stuff. He picked up a page from Hectic Planet and told me that I had written him back after he sent me a comic he and a friend were working on some time back (2012). He had it printed out for me to see the response and I asked him if he's e-mail it to me because I thought it had a few ideas in it that some young comics creators might find interesting. It's a reponse to a specific text but some of the ideas are, I think, universal. Or at least something to consider.
I'll have to keep this brief because I really am super-overwhelmed atthe moment, but here's a few comments on the strips, two cents to dowith as you will, just opinions -- It's tricky to work the didactic end of things and keep thetext/dialogue from being too didactic. I'd try to couch some of thematerial in a less hit-the-reader-with-a-hammer approach. Or at leastvary the approach and nuance things a bit here and there, break thingsup and change the tone and pitch and give the reader a slight pausebefore launching into the next topic/spiel. A Milk and Cheese strip isnonsense and is meant to exhaust the reader, but if you're trying toput points across, pick your best shots and cut excess thoughts thatbog the narrative down. Make one strip two or five strips. Going aftermajor targets can result in scattershot attacks/approaches, pickingand choosing targets within a larger subject means you can pull thetarget apart more cleanly and clearly. The strips are clearly meant tobe thought/opinion/satirical pieces, but there are ways to weave inthe ideas and attacks without everyone speaking "on the nose", as theysay. Try to work more pointed, sharper, try to give the charactersmore varied speech patterns and verbal tics to set them farther apartas characters.Art-wise -- I'd spot more blacks in some panels, the big panel withall the dialogue and the speakers could use something to have them popfrom the blank background and give the page more visual punch. Theline weights are pretty consistent and could use some variation andflair.This is a personal opinion but one I really believe in -- try to getthe artist to learn to letter the work by hand or use a computer fontbased on hand-lettering. Or get a letterer. So many people use thesame computer fonts and programs on so much work these days that itlooks like all the pages went through the same hands. You don't wantto write like everyone else, you don't want to draw like everyoneelse, why have everyone else's lettering? At least find a better font.And lose the computer balloons, those static, synthetic round shapesand connecting tails scream low-rent. I've seen cartoonists use abasic font but spruce it up with hand-drawn balloons andtails/pointers. Look into that. Lettering is like soundtrack music ona film, if it's terrible it gets noticed and gets in the way. Allthose straight lines and ellipses create shapes on the page that areinorganic and clash with the art.The crow drawings are really well done. That texture and craft canbe applied to the human characters as well for better balanced panelsand pages. The crow pops and has real life to it, it looks like theartist spent more time on those images. That makes other drawings lookrushed or threadbare. Balance that out better and spread thatattention throughout. That doesn't mean texture-up and over-ink andspot blacks for the sake of having blacks on the page. It means planthe page out a bit more so the eye doesn't go immediately to the crowwhether or not the crow is the first thing we're supposed to payattention to. Or whatever the strongest element of the page is. Theeye is supposed to flow across the panels, balloons and images in anorganic manner as directed by the artist and the page layout. Keepthat in mind when composing a page, it isn't just sequences of "here'swhat goes next because the script says so". The storytelling and flowhas to be controlled for the most effective presentation of images andideas. Can't be perfect or even good all the time, but you have to getinto the habit of working these things out for optimum impact until itbecomes second nature. That includes balloon placement, how muchdialogue is in a panel -- too much ruins the effect of a panel whereyou want the text to be turned up to 11. Something it's taken me yearsto deal with because I write too much.I thought the large landscape shot of the metaphorical town workedreally well, could have used some thicker lines up front to help withspace and selling the perspective/distance, but it's a nice effectivepanel.Hope some of this helped or gave you something to think about or atleast made some sense as I'm writing this off the cuff. We all makecomics different ways and no way is necessarily best, you havesomething you want to say, you try to say it in the best way you can,the more work you do, the better you usually get at it if you thinkabout what you're doing and try to decide what best serves a jokepunchline, a set-up, a sad scene, a riot, a setting, a mood, a murder,a diatribe, etc. Just like going through different tools to see whatgets the effect you want as an artist, a writer/storytellers worksthrough approaches and techniques by trial and error to see what getsthem the results they wanted or were hoping for.Doing the work makes for better work. Observation, thought and studyhelps shape the work. Personality, honesty and energy makes a greatdeal of difference and is key to putting material across in a way thatseparates you from the crowd.
FYI: Tripp has a band named Come In Travis in case you are curious.