Monday, October 25, 2004

"No One Is Ever Gonna Change My Life For Me"

I've held forth many times on my opinions about sprite comics. I think that the great majority of them are simply rehashes of the same garbage over and over again, perpetrated by unoriginal, non-creative people totally lacking in any concept of humor, storytelling, or talent. I think most of the people who do sprite comics are complete hacks. There are a couple of exceptions--8 Bit Theatre makes up for its use of Final Fantasy sprites with its writing (which is generally excellent) and wonderful characterization, and Bob and George is forgiven simply for being the first to actually use the now-at-saturation-level Mega Man sprites. Both comics started a trend, one which unfortunately copies the form but not the heart or creativity of the originals.

But 90% of the sprite comics out there are pure garbage. There's no decent storytelling, no decent jokes, and a blatant overuse of the Photoshop lens flare tool. There are a couple of so-called sprite comics out there which I don't even consider sprite comics, such as the wonderful Diesel Sweeties. However, I'd say it's less a sprite comic and more a comic created with pixel art. There's a very important difference--the guy who created Diesel Sweeties did so by making all new characters, or "sprites," not simply recoloring Mega Man sprites (which is what most sprite comics pass off as their "art").

Admittedly, not everything in my comic is completely original, either. College roommates who're based on real-life people and who get into wacky adventures is not original to me by any stretch of the imagination. Archangel and devil characters who interact with humans isn't particularly new, either. It's true that there's really nothing new under the sun, but let's be honest--even if my comic suffers a bit from Unoriginal Premise Syndrome, I have a few advantages over sprite comics: (1) I'm not basing my stories on Mega Man games and (2) I drew the comics myself. Those facts alone put me in a completely different group than most of the sprite comics out there.

What annoys me most is how much some people seem to like these things. There are actually sprite comics on Keenspace that're more popular (or get more hits) than Dim Bulb. That's just wrong, if you ask me, especially since one of them is a blatant and obvious rip-off of Bob and George (and even says so in the title). Apparently even attempting originality is overrated anymore.

I don't even know what prompted this little rant, especially since it's one I've made before. I guess it just annoys me that there are so many good, worthwhile comics on Keenspace and various other places, and they're swamped with crap like sprite comics. There's something seriously wrong when a comic that focuses on the "hijinks" of two videogame villains--Dr. Wiley from Mega Man and Dr. Robotnic from Sonic the Hedgehog--has more readers than we do. Ugh.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Pearl Jam, "Daughter"

1 comment:

Noise Monkey said...

People like what is familiar. That's why we have to endure 15 thousand rehashes of the same "Who wants to marry..." "Reality Shows" every season since the first one. That's why people have been ripping off the "Honeymooners" and "Dick Van Dyke" and such. That's why we've got bands who so desperately want to be The Ramones. That's why the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section of the bookstore is littered with hack novels riffing on Tolkien mixed with D&D (and that's not even counting the D&D books).

You want popularity? Copy someone who's already popular. You wanna be a star? Good luck. You wanna keep your soul? Be original and leave the plagarism to the idiots who make M rated Pokemon sprite comics.