Keskustelujen arkisto

Hello there,

a quick break in to let us present to you a work by me and a friend of mine. On the website http://ducks.dk (and on the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/ducks.dk ) we are about to release a fan comic (or, as we hope, the first of a series) set in the universe made by Carl Barks and Don Rosa, intended to fill the gaps that still exist in the story of the ducks family.
If someone is interested, we are on http://ducks.dk and http://www.facebook.com/ducks.dk

Thank you!

I understand your concerning!
So for you and for everyone else... we are areal people and real duck fans! We are from Italy (and members of the Italian Disney comics forum "Papersera"), our real name can be seen on the digital comicbook (Anyway it's Francesco writing). The domain name it's .dk because we wanted to pay a tribute to Scandinavia, that is for sure the area in the world with more duck fan! And "dk" can also be seen sometimes as acronym for Duckburg, so it seemed to us the most appropriate first level domain.
And the comicbook file is a CBZ, just a renamed ZIP containing the pages as JPEG. No executable, no viruses (even because I'm a Mac user... so, no virus at all! :P )
That's it! I hope it can convince you! :)
And BTW, about the copyright issue, I really hope a fanfiction not to be a problem (because even if it's in comic book form, that's what it is)

I downloaded it. I read it. No virus issues. But I don't expect you to believe me because you don't know me personally.
Completing an issue of a comic is admirable work, no matter what the quality might be. With a better translation, I might be able to accurately give you feedback, but without it I have nothing else to say other than it is a good first try for someone in your position.

You have absolutely no need to apologize! Malware is an incredibly serious issue that should be treated as such, and your caution is 100% justified. I'm from a techie family. I wouldn't have taken one iota of offense if you waited for other confirmation. :)

I have downloaded it, and there have been no problems. I have only Macs, in any case, so am relatively safe from viruses. But, I don't believe Macs are safe from all malware. Nice to know that CBZ files can't hide an execution-driven programme.
The artwork is mostly static (a lot of figures standing and talking). No dynamism. I would have suggested that you get one of our aspiring artists to draw it. But, it seems that they are all busy with their own projects and/or university workloads. The story has many interesting ideas, but seems to include too many subplots, and too wide a scope. Still, it's the product of a lot of hard work, and a nice effort for a first attempt at completing a comic-book-style story.

It is VERY VERY difficult to read this story because of the translation. It feels very much like it was done by a translation program, because the text is just so confusing. Things that are probably not non-sequitors read as such, the sentence structure is a complete mess, and I can barely tell what's going on in the plot. If you want actual feedback on the way this is written, it should be posted in its original language, or translated by someone with a better knowledge of English. The comic does feel schizophrenic right now.
When it comes to the art, I can see a lot of potential in the way you're drawing the faces (incongruous with the way the rest of it is drawn, in fact), but the linework is just not there yet and the characters themselves are way out of whack from panel to panel. The backgrounds are generally flat and static, and there's a lot of space 'wasted' in the story. Panels without enough text, sections that go on too long, etc., so the pacing of the story and the timing of the jokes (like the very clever 'flatfooted' line) is broken.
Here's a suggestion for drafting the comic. Write our your script. Then take a notebook, or a program like MS Paint, and arrange the panel borders and text. You don't even need to draw the characters: You'll start 'seeing' stretches that aren't improving the story, or wondering why it seems to jump from one section to the next. Draft the comic that way until it's very, VERY tight, and don't be afraid to cut a section that doesn't fit, even if you really like it.
Then you can try sketching it out to figure out the placement of characters, etc., so you have an idea of what the comic will look like before it's ever drawn.
Don't give up on improving your drawing skills. If you want to draw like Don Rosa, unless you're born a genius the ONLY way to get better is to practice until your fingers bleed. If you really want to carry out the legacy of Barks and Rosa by crafting some of the best Duck stories ever, it's going to be a lot of tiresome work. Don't let it paralyze you. Just keep working, and working, and working, and working, harder than everyone else, and never be satisfied that you're "good enough". Just keep working that much harder.

Quote from user: GeoXI hope nobody will be offended if I say that my hopes for this were not sky-high, but then I ended up liking it more than not. It weaves together various aspects of Disney lore in rather clever ways. It's undoubtedly in a pretty rough state at this point: the art, as Review Or Die notes, is, at this point, very shaky, and the actual plotting strikes me as kind of jerky/disjointed, but damned if I don't see a lot of potential here.

And yeah, the language, as it stands, is also a problem. If there were any interest, I would be willing to volunteer my services to hammer out a more natural-sounding script.
I wrote a very long post, but I'm not sure if I expressed that particular point as clearly as is necessary. This has a LOT of potential. And if Geo translates, I'll give it a thorough constructive critique, because nothing would make me happier than seeing someone join the Disney ranks who can tell this kind of story. :)

Hey, it's what I want to do. I have my own Donald stories I'd like to tell sometimes, but someone who can draw's got a lot more of a shot than someone who just writes.