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PWP - Do's and Don't

Third installment of the Pixelated Window of the Past. Look up last's week episode.

In theory, making a Sprite Comic is very easy. Open up paint, copy & paste characters together, add text, and you got a comic. You can produce a strip in a matter of minutes only. No comparison with other comics that are hand drawn.

There are still some guidelines to follow, as there are many easy to make mistakes, which draws a rather thick line between good and bad webcomics. A long-standing sprite comic known as Bass & Crash made a handy list of Dos and Don’ts, also known as “Don’t make the same mistakes I did”. It’s often traps that budding Sprite Comic makers fall into at first, before they learn better, or stop making comics completely.

Today we’re going to review all points he made, and explain them (in my words at least). I’m going to be using these as a measuring stick in reviewing the various Sprite Comics, so I will refer to these rules by number often.

Pretty simple in theory. Some people start making a comic without any idea and just think that things will happen on their own, or that others will do the work for them. No, maybe you don't need talent to make a sprite comic, but at least do it yourself.

Here you are, thinking that since you're already using copyrighted characters, that you can also use the modified characters that other people made since they are based on copyrighted characters. Start by asking first. Although nowadays people probably don't care as much. Sprite Comics are a thing of the past, save for a few resilient ones.

Okay, sometimes you could use a joke that has been used before, but at least be creative about it. Otherwise why don't you just link to the original joke and call it a day? Because you pasted the pictures together? Whoop-freaking-do.

You'd THINK that this is a given, but some people just put their texts any random way and lets reader figure it out. Really, it's not that hard. Use readable font with a good size, text bubbles should have tails pointing at who's speaking. Making the character's mouth move is actually personal preference, as sometimes the facial expression is more important than the fact that you have your mouth open. Not to mention, even while you're talking, your mouth does close too, so the mouth open/close can be used as a subtle way to emphasize a certain syllable as well.

And for the love of god, SPELLCHECK. Some mistakes can happen, but sometimes it's just too much.

Self-pity only goes so far. Make fun of yourself, sure, but don't try to win pity points out of it. Not to mention it breaks the fourth wall without purpose. Make a joke out of it, or two, but don't make it a constant to say how much you suck, your readers will agree with you all too readily.

Even when using good editing programs, use full numbers (100%, 200%...). Normally, if you zoom in, most sprites should be 1 pixel per ‘square’. When you 2x (200%) the size, each square would become 2x2 pixels, triple (300%) to be 3x3… the squares should look like squares, not rectangles.

In Photoshop, use ‘Nearest Neighbor’ to avoid anti-aliasing (the blur and rounding effects) when resizing. But if you’re going to use weird sizes (like 75%, 150%) then you may want to try some of the other options to smooth it up a little bit. But avoid blurs as much as possible, it looks dirty. Sprite Comics are usually crisp in pixelization, that’s part of the charm.

When downsizing, it’s alright if you don’t see every detail, that’s kinda the point when trying to make a scale or perspective effects after all, especially when making them very small. If you need to see the details for some reason, try to think differently, like making the other objects larger instead, if you’re already at the “1 pixel per square” point, be creative with it.

If you're going to use backgrounds, make them subtle. If it's hard to see the text or even the characters, then it defeats the purpose. Bland backgrounds are often used for sprite comics for a reason, it allows to concentrate on what's important. But again being creative is part of making a comic.

Another often forgotten point here, if your title isn't interesting, what makes readers think the rest of your work will be? It doesn't have to be overly complex, but at least don't use something too obvious either.

Seriously, unless that’s what you’re TRYING to do for a strip or two because of comedy, don’t make this a recurring character and make readers want to stab their own eyeballs. It’s not ‘genius’ to recolor Megaman to neon pink and yellow and call it a day either. Try to dress up your characters so it's more than just a simple recolor.

This is debatable on the kind of story you’re running. If you’re making a Sonic story, then don’t place an author character that will control everything and become the star of the show. They are probably here to see Sonic, not you. On the other hand, authors can be used as characters in the same way if you’re not trying to adhere to something canon, like say an ‘Abridged’ comedic version of Metroid.

Let the other characters do their own thing, unless your strip is only about promoting yourself, which may become old pretty quickly too. In TUC though, we profusely use (and abuse) our authors as they are equally part of the humor.

Here are those Crash and Bass listed as important points, but not strong enough to make an entire rule about it. I shall call them Rule A to E.

	This also depends on what you’re attempting to do. Back in the days of B&G, many made their own as ‘fancomics’. So logically, authors will also use the same personalities, because it’s referring to it directly. But that doesn’t mean every Megaman Sprite Comic should follow it either. Depends on the intent again.
	Very important. JPG compression is by inserting imperfections that aren't overly obvious to the naked eye because it’s essentially ‘blue on top of slightly lighter blue’. GIF and PNG on the other hand use different compressions that ‘condense’ large areas of the same color into something smaller, like if your whole background is red, then it reduces it to ‘insert 4000 pixels of red here’. That’s why JPG don’t have a transparency setting, because the colors do change slightly, while GIF and PNG keep a clear palette of colors and one of them can be selected as transparent. GIF allows for animations as well, but are limited as a palette to 256 colors. PNG can be made with nearly no limit compared.
	Okay, we got it, you love Bob & George, but no need to refer to it ALL THE TIME. This is similar to previous points, make your own material, jokes, characters and personalities. Of course B&G ran for some 2000 comics, so there will be similar jokes here and there. But not every other strip. Basically, if we want to read B&G, we'll go read B&G, not read it through your retelling.
	By generic we mean things that have already been done before. B&G visited all 8-bit games, unless you have some NEW and AMAZING jokes to do about it, you should probably avoid it. Make your own story, it doesn't have to follow the standard 8 stage + boss either, or at least be creative about it and make your own Robot Masters.
	I'd call this consistency. If your characters are mainly in 16-bit, stay in 16-bit. This means in the same strip. It will undoubtedly look awful when the 32 bit characters mess with 8 bit characters. Also, like in the picture, avoid sprites + fan art. At least, not on a regular basis, it's not like we've never done something like that for comedy either.