Are sprite comics dead?

[krakko]

(don't know if this should be posted in creative but at any rate)

Are sprite comics dead?I mean, I haven't gave a shit about them in a LONG time myself, but I remember when they were a THING, like , there were a million sprite comics and everyone who read them wanted to make their own, nowadays.... Mystic Forest Zone gone .... Bob and George done.... basically every comic ever written just vanished , i don't know when.

it is  fate, that the sprite comic, and the art of the sprite comic will vanish into obscurity, as all the sites are shut down and erased and it will only exist in memory of the ones who were there ... the ones who lived it.

[Kriven]

I think the medium is pretty well dead at this point... maybe the recent SMBZ revival will change that, though? I know one the mediums are different, but Sprite Flash Animations and Sprite Comics were prolific at the same time period and I definitely think they influenced one another... so if SMBZ Revival can inspired a new era of Sprite Animation, maybe it'll inspired some new Sprite Comics as well.

I'm curious to know if anybody ever tried to actually do a wholly original Sprite Comic... Y'know, without using existing assets and just creating new poses for their characters as the scene demanded it. I can't think of any that actually did that... maybe it wouldn't be worth the trouble, with how niche the audience is.

[Garamonde]

http://www.neorice.com/hoh_1

Neorice has some currently-active original sprite comics going. Neo used to be a member here, too.

[Koopaul]

EDIT: Ninja'd by MJ.

Anyway, I rather see sprites being used for fan games or videos myself.

[Ark Kuvis]

YouTube basically killed the webcomic genre in general, and Sprite Comics were just the first to go. Not that webcomics aren't still plentyfull, but it's hard to compete with YouTube. Limitless content, animation, etc.

It's not like Sprite Comics are dead though, Akuma the Hedgehog started making comics back in 2001 and he's still pumping out stuff weekly. But sprite comics in general have lost the popularity they once had. I was a sprite comic creator for a while, but after getting some pretty harsh feedback it sort of stopped. I sometimes want to revisit that world, but who gives a shit about Sprite Comics in 2016? No one.

[DragonDePlatino]

Thankfully, yes. Sprite comics in their early form really only exist in the darkest corners of sites like SmackJeeves. They've been parodied so much at this point (e.g. SBEmail 181) that only small and self-contained communities really enjoy them.

That is, with the exception of Hero Oh Hero. It's a really well-done comic with original art. I've attempted making several sprite comics modelled after it at various points with none of them really taking off.

[Gors]

The main problem with comics and storytelling in general is that they require many contextual poses and specific animations/angles just for a single panel.

In other words, it's about using the panels to their max.

Sprites in other hand are made to fit into many contexts as possible - which causes them to be bland in places that are not their intended place/use.

In other words, it's about cutting excess work and streamlining production.

With two conflicting points of view, the sprite comic has endured just because of three main reasons:

1- It was the early internet era and we all loved NES games. Using sprites could give that "NES" or "SNES" authenticity because these were the in-game sprites;
2- Sprite sheets usually have many poses that can be easily pasted on the panels, like a sticker - which saves drawing time;
3- Almost no one had scanners and/or tablet to draw digitally, making the pixelart graphics the only "quick way" to render graphics on screen.

With the advent of technology though, drawing tablets and scanners became much more affordable and now many "potential sprite comic artists" are all making digital art (comics like Brawl in the Family could totally be a sprite comic, but it's not because of digital drawings being easier to manage).

So, sprite comics are like writing on stone tablets. The story written on those tablets can be good - but the media is obsoleted by easier and better means of art making.

[Jermungandr]

I'm curious to know if anybody ever tried to actually do a wholly original Sprite Comic... Y'know, without using existing assets and just creating new poses for their characters as the scene demanded it. I can't think of any that actually did that... maybe it wouldn't be worth the trouble, with how niche the audience is.

I would definitely recommend checking out Kid Radd at some point.

Don't let its simple visuals turn you off, it's actually quite brilliant when you get into it.

[krakko]

So, sprite comics are like writing on stone tablets. The story written on those tablets can be good - but the media is obsoleted by easier and better means of art making.

I agree they've become like stone tablets - but I think the story and the writing is all that really matters - if you can tell a good enough story and write good comedy n a sprite comic and the art doesnt matter -- The art doesnt matter ever, really, in my opinion, as long as you can tell who the characters are and who's talking. If the comedy and the story is good enough, people will like it - the problem is usually the Art plays backseat to the writing, or the writing is second-fiddle to the artwork.

So that's why you had so many sprite comics with GREAT art but just aren't that funny, and you had really FUNNY hilarious comics, but the art sucked. Usually there was no happy medium. But I only cared about the humor-- whether it was genuinely funny or not...

[~Axis~]

I would definitely recommend checking out Kid Radd at some point.

Don't let its simple visuals turn you off, it's actually quite brilliant when you get into it.

I would definately want sprite comics like these to appear. Just read it and I'm already hooked.

My opinion on the matter at hand is that sprite comics are dead because the majority of them lack good story and even if they do have a story, bad storytelling in general. Not to mention the copy/pasting of sprites and the minimal effort made to make the comic look appealing and make sense for whatever is happening (i.e: generic sprite with open mouth to make it look like talking even though the sprite completely clashes with the emotion trying to be shown, clashing sprite styles for convenience, sprites being too small, pathetic comic layouts etc...). Sprite comics resort to cheap jokes that are just painful to read sometimes. I used to read sprite comics regularly (sonic sprite comics from sonic stlye and MFZ before the sites were went down. They were genuinely funny most of the times.), and I still search for some of those good comics out there, but all the stuff i find are just not entertaining. Now custom comics is another thing for me. If i find one, I read it just so I can appreciate the sprite work, and usually when someone puts that much effort into their sprites, the storytelling/jokes is also going to be good.

[Kosheh]

YouTube basically killed the webcomic genre in general, and Sprite Comics were just the first to go. Not that webcomics aren't still plentyfull, but it's hard to compete with YouTube. Limitless content, animation, etc.

Thinking about it, Youtube and Steam also much pretty much killed off Newgrounds too, didn't it...? :/ I mean, to be fair though, I feel like a lot of people who made content on Newgrounds were able to really turn things around by using their prior Flash animation experience in perspective jobs and are now working as animators for most of the cartoons you see today on cable network channels.

I feel like sprite comics do have a place on Youtube today, but are mostly done for the sake of showing off the graphical work as opposed to the actual humor in them - but as Gors mentioned, with the abundance of pen-tablets a lot of prospective pixelartists just moved on and instead took up digital painting as a medium to communicate their ideas instead. Likewise, it's much easier for someone with a tablet to draw more expressive characters as opposed to spending hours getting limited pixelart assets to work in their favor due to how "cramped" the workspace can be (by that, I mean making characters expressions look decent in as small of frames as possible) while keeping things in style. As for original content (like Neorice's "Hero oh Hero") each individual sprite for some spriters can take hours each and requires more careful attention to detail than each frame of hand-drawn animation (which the source material can be drawn as large as desired - whereas sprite work is typically done as small as possible, and then resized anyway)

HOWEVER, we DO have machinima staying somewhat relevant, what with tools like Garry's Mod, Source Filmmaker and MikuMikuDance being easily accessible to content creators. You've all probably seen "Racing for Rupees" by now, and if you haven't, umm...well, here you go.



Now, this short could've been done using sprite animations - though it probably wouldn't have gained as much traction throughout social media - but it's much, much easier to animate these models using the aforementioned programs as opposed to doing all the effects in Sony Vegas alone. Tools like Source Filmmaker also provide other nice things, such as light sources and several neat angles to work from.  

Oh, yeah - where do you think these models are coming from? Other model-ripping communities?
lmao

Now not to drag this whole topic down with glum and humdrum and turn this into a soapbox, but bringing up the previous point it makes me kinda wonder what the relevancy of The Spriter's Resource is in 2016  :/ 
No one really uses them as much in current media except maybe as art references within games or something (for town flags in Animal Crossing, graffiti? in TF2, or a big structure in Minecraft) and all the really good pixelartists just hang out in communities like PixelJoint and tumblr.
However, there's a big push towards indie gaming where a lot of people are trying to emulate retro-styled pixelart - so it's not completely dead.
What's baffling, however is how we still have so many submissions on the "Spriter's" side despite this claim I just made. @___@

I feel like here on the Resource, could maybe 
1) reorganize the site and forum directory and have "Models" and as the main focus of the site and the frontrunning asset to the VG Network as opposed to "Sprites", and push for more model submissions. I feel like if we did this, we'd probably see a big turnaround and possibly even a resurgence of users. Our top-requested content is generally now models and our busiest forum is currently the Models Resource, I assume?
2) Once we actually do get an influx in model-experienced users, shuffle around the moderation team a little to make do for the lagging-behind Model submissions. I think we've got a lot of people to look over sprite submissions, but not many on our site are "qualified" to look over models besides like...Peardian and that's it iirc.
3) Provide users with the tools or guides they need to create original games, models and animations with original character content (maybe use the VG Resource Wiki for this?)

I mean, as an example: One of the big followings besides like Undertale and SU is also RWBY, an animated fight-centric series about four girls (Ruby Rose, Weiss, Blake and Yang) who uh...fight off an invasion of monsters known as the Grimm, with visuals that look like something out of a PS2 game's cutscenes. There's currently a Early Access game on the Steam marketplace called "RWBY Grimm Eclipse". Wouldn't it be neat if we could extract the models from that and have content-creators make their own RWBY fan animations or games, and give them a place where they can show them off front-and-center? We could do it now, sure, but I think the project would have a little more traction if we made "Models" our main focus as opposed to "Sprites".

Sorry I soapboxed (think I rambled a bit too at the beginning, lol), but when you mention "sprite comics" it kinda goes hand-in-hand with what TSR helped out with most.
And yes, shifting focus still makes TSR the site with the most submissions, but changing our focus to TMR would literally breathe new life into the site and make it relevant again.

EDIT: While writing this I realized we have "The Models Resource" and "The Textures Resource". I was going to suggest we focus on both, but then I realized...
Isn't TTR kinda redundant, being you have to bundle in the textures with your model submissions anyway? lmao

[Terminal Devastation]

YouTube basically killed the webcomic genre in general, and Sprite Comics were just the first to go. Not that webcomics aren't still plentyfull, but it's hard to compete with YouTube. Limitless content, animation, etc.

It's not like Sprite Comics are dead though, Akuma the Hedgehog started making comics back in 2001 and he's still pumping out stuff weekly. But sprite comics in general have lost the popularity they once had. I was a sprite comic creator for a while, but after getting some pretty harsh feedback it sort of stopped. I sometimes want to revisit that world, but who gives a shit about Sprite Comics in 2016? No one.

I guess I'm no one then. Anyways... Honestly, I think they're less dead and more... niche? At least on the comic maker side, I think the lasting attempts are more from those that enjoy the visual style rather than using the medium's easy C+P mass production entry skill level stuff like we saw in its early days. Parroting what quite a few said, with so many easier to use tools, the advantage sprite comics used to have is basically non-existent, which means new comicers are likely to flock to other mediums first.

I could even see them coming back in force... if we suddenly had about 50 Neorice level comics crop up or someone figures out how to make a decent "sprite art" filter for 3D models that isn't just a cheap pixelization effect, but a legit "COMPUTER PIXEL ART THIS THING FOR ME" like how some filters can make things look almost hand drawn. So... really, next to no chance.

[krakko]

YouTube basically killed the webcomic genre in general, and Sprite Comics were just the first to go. Not that webcomics aren't still plentyfull, but it's hard to compete with YouTube. Limitless content, animation, etc.

It's not like Sprite Comics are dead though, Akuma the Hedgehog started making comics back in 2001 and he's still pumping out stuff weekly. But sprite comics in general have lost the popularity they once had. I was a sprite comic creator for a while, but after getting some pretty harsh feedback it sort of stopped. I sometimes want to revisit that world, but who gives a shit about Sprite Comics in 2016? No one.

I guess I'm no one then. Anyways... Honestly, I think they're less dead and more... niche? At least on the comic maker side, I think the lasting attempts are more from those that enjoy the visual style rather than using the medium's easy C+P mass production entry skill level stuff like we saw in its early days. Parroting what quite a few said, with so many easier to use tools, the advantage sprite comics used to have is basically non-existent, which means new comicers are likely to flock to other mediums first.

I could even see them coming back in force... if we suddenly had about 50 Neorice level comics crop up or someone figures out how to make a decent "sprite art" filter for 3D models that isn't just a cheap pixelization effect, but a legit "COMPUTER PIXEL ART THIS THING FOR ME" like how some filters can make things look almost hand drawn. So... really, next to no chance.

I don't think Youtube killed the webcomic genre, at all. The webcomic genre was never that massive to begin with, and i dont think it's disappeared in anywhere near the same sense sprite comics did. Youtube ,facebook,  and alot of other things, have taken up the proprietorship of the internet , where people don't have a reason to read a 4 or 6 frame comic using game characters from the 90s.

[Gors]

Youtube did not and will not kill webcomics for three reasons:

1- open MS Paint and Sony Vegas, see which will load first;
2- MS Paint is pre-installed in 99% of the computers;
3- editing video takes more skill than drawing/finding assets for a webcomic. Like, have you gone through the internet to search sound effects and music for a movie??

let's not forget that meme images (such as those with a still image with a BOLD TEXT OVER IT) is also a type of comic (in this case, it's a charge). Images like those were made since forever, published in newspapers and stuff - Internet just let everyone be a charge artist.

Comics will never stop existing - it's as absurd as saying that all books will stop existing because there is a better medium, the television.

[Ton]

Yes, for all the reasons everyone said. But I still love Captain SNES. http://www.captainsnes.com/