Joe Comics
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Super-Hero, Comedy
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What are the odds of having a super power? Very, very slim. So where are the dorks with the lame powers dressed in stuff they found in the basement? The ‘heroes’ who haven’t hit the gym in a few years and scored a 650 on the SAT? Answer: HERE. Welcome to Joe Comics, a serialized satirical celebration of just how ridiculous super heroes and villains can be, especially when those heroes and villains are about as cool as the fans who dress up at comic book conventions. Joe, our hero, believes that being a hero has more to do with honor, integrity, and sacrifice than any super powers. Our adventures follow Joe and his friends as they battle evildoers and enjoy their own personal lives. Joe Comics is just like the classic serial adventure strips of yesteryear, if only they’d been written by a couple of nincompoops. So sit back, relax, and enjoy our world of super powers, heroes, villains, and of course, absolute idiocy.
Hey, all!
If you're attending the San Diego Comic Con, be sure to stop by Artist's Alley table BB-12 and visit with Chachi! As I have stayed home, he's all alone and needs friends...
--Gabe
Go Joe! Good luck guys, this second set of pages are hilarious.
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Love the Cyber Men homage.
Some highlights for me in this second go 'round:
Page 9: The inkslinging on this page is phenomenal. This channeling of your inner Franklin Booth, i hope, will become a regular feature, in the way that Calvin's Spaceman Spiff recurred...
P10: While the fanboy in me loves the bustier, it's the "we were supposed to be in costume?!" that does it for me on this page.
P11: Even his evil laugh is a palindrome.
p12: i love the combination of absurdity and highbrow shtick combined with Joe's level sarcasm.
p13: The two-panel beat before "...choose your destiny!" is why the comics medium is superior to print or film.
p14: i, for one, would've enjoyed more with Palindrome...
p15: bonus points for knocking him out with a palindrome
p16: Alas, not hearing the robot's cold, heartless voice saying, "djibouti" is one of the reasons that the comics medium is inferior to film.
very much looking forward to more.
funny
Since I watch Doctor Who, I thought page 16 was very funny and again I hope you win!
Dear Zuda Competitors/Creators,
I recently started a Zuda fan blog, and I would love to interview all of this month’s creators. If you would be willing to answer 5-10 questions, to be posted on the Zudafan blog, please contact me at: zudafan@gmail.com (if you haven’t already) .
Feel free to check out the blog: zudafan.blogspot.com
Thanks!
I read mpd57's review of Joe and I think he may have been right about the pacing of the Palindrome bit. It feels a tad long (although as someone else pointed it, it's nice to see Joe hit someone). However, upon third read, I got the caption at the bottom of page 10. "Evil alive." Funny lead-in. I was a big fan of Joe the first time out, and despite a couple missteps, I do favor your work. You have my vote.
After watching a tribute to the Who, I have discovered a hidden thread connecting the two of you. Most people may think this is insane, but give me a second to explain. You guys rock! The Who rock! And I love the creativity of both of you. Can you believe the jump up to 3rd? (If you can't, then you need more confidence in Joe Comics!)
Joe-ergized! Love it!
My GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think it is because I am all into that techie stuff, but you couldn't have ended this comic any better. A taste of Mr. Roboto, a jab at Incredibio and a great new character. I wow at your imagination and the amazing consistancy you show in your art and story. Zuda needs to see this weekly. Thanks guys!
haha... funny... and the facial expression on page 3 kills me.
Congratulations on the newfound momentum, guys. Voters seem to have gotten JOE-ergized!
-Rob
Mike,
I really appreciate your thoughful review. I do disagree with a few minor nitpicks you had (all your nitpicks seemed very minor, so thanks for saving us from a scathing review), but overall I think your assessment (both the pluses and minuses) was on target.
**********
What about the "Sexy Hernandez Brothers"?
**********
When I have a bit more time, I'd like to answer a few of your concerns, that is, unless Chachi chimes in...
Gabe
You might agree. You might not. There's only one way to find out and that's to get over to:
http://www.mpd57.blogspot.com
Thoughts aplenty, opinions opined, contradict me - you know you want to!
You did it again! Rockin' the world in every way possible... Way to go!
Thanks for reading Saturnyne!
Joe's page is definitely worth a look -- His blog (sorry, "Hero's Log") is a good read. This is the place to find out more about the man himself!
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www.myspace.com/joe_comics
I came over here from Joe's MySpace page (also very funny by the way). This is great stuff, good luck. I hope you win!=)
We have a story?
Thanks for the words Mavboy. I certainly hope we can continue to live up to your praise.
I certainly don't envy the voters. There's great material in this month's comp, and to decide what to vote for if several of your favorites made it into the Invitational would make things impossible.
--Gabe
This art and story outshines everything else I've seen on Zuda. If you haven't read it yet, do. If you have read it, vote for it. If you aren't convinced, re-read it. These guys are amazing. DC should just hire them on staff.
Much appreciated Sage! I hope all is well with you on your current projects.
--Chachi
Hey, I haven't been hanging around Zuda for a while. I just found out about the previous competitors having a second go. Just wanted to let you know I dropped in and voted for you. ;)
3) Marketing
In February, Chachi and I felt compelled to do a lot of one-on-one marketing as it were, essentially searching out friends and family that had been acquainted with Joe Comics in some form or another over the last 15 years. Add to that present contacts from many years of working loosely in the field.
I think Chachi felt strongly that the strength for us would be to find people that would not only be potential Joe Comics readers, but that they would be regular Zuda readers as well.
The reality is, that wasn't going to gain us nearly the votes we'd need to be competitive, despite our hopes that the product was strong enough to gain regular Zudites' votes. We opted to begin posting on many of the artist and comics related forums to lead them back to Joe and Zuda, but in the end, I can safely say that yielded little to no traction based on the lack of feedback we got in those arenas.
This first week has been spent letting everyone know that the contest has gone live and to get their votes in. We're looking to putting in a lot of face time with some of the local comics shops where they know us, to really drive both Joe and Zuda in the eyes of a readership that is generally unaware of Zuda or hasn't felt prompted to check it out or participate.
Week three may require some retooling once we see how the rankings shake out after several more updates. In a last ditch attempt we may just try to give away puppies. (That's a joke...)
--Gabe
Okay, now that we're past the first ranking, it's time for the next question.
3) Marketing;
There seems to be a general agreement here at Zuda of the importance of outside marketing to boost a comic's ranking. I've also spoken with a number of creators who, for different and equally valid reasons, don't really feel that's something they want to do themselves. I realize that successful marketing can be an edge in the competition and as such some creators don't want to say too much about they're own methods while the contest is running, but could you discuss your own approach to outside marketing? How much time have you devoted to it in this first week of the contest? Has your approach to it changed since your first time in a competition here at Zuda? Are you marketing the comic more, less or differently than you did the first time around?
-Rob
Great job, Gabe & Chachi.
I hope to see even more in the future!
More?? Fantastic! :D
Great to see more...I hope there will be more following!!
L
I loved Joe Comics the first time and you've won my vote again. Good luck and great stuff!
2) Format
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The Zuda format was a much bigger challenge for the first 8 pages, as I was taking the artwork from old 4-panel comic strips and trying to arrange them in a pleasing manner on the 4x3 page, and frankly, it shows -- there's some weird dead spaces around panels on some of our original submission. For the Invitational we literally went back to the drawing board and created new art in the 4x3 format. What you see this time around is some bigger panels, more dramatic layouts, and much better use of space. What we really like about the wide page (as it pertains to Joe Comics specifically) is that it preserves the rhythm for humor of comic strips, like a Sunday strip in the newspaper. With comedy, timing is everything, and a vertical page reads with a different beat than a horizontal one, so the Zuda format allows us to continue timing our humor in the way we're used to writing it, and in the way most people are accustomed to reading it.
Okay, next question;
2)Format
Zuda's "monitor-friendly" 4X3 format is something new to most of us since it premiered last year. It does create some unique differences in how the page is composed and i think artists and readers alike don't really fully appreciate that until they experiment with it a bit. Contestants this month have been working with that format for awhile longer and had some time to reconsider it since their first eight page submission. Can you talk about some of the challenges of the format?
-Rob
You seem to know what you are doing. Great job and good luck. I can't say that I'm hooked but I would love another eight pages.
Wow. I went into this month's competition knowing where my vote was going...until I read the next 8 pages of Joe Comics. You guys won my vote with this work. So funny and so well-produced. What an evolution of your original 8 screens. Looking forward to more!
Still good and still deserving of the 5 outta 5 stars!
I think Chachi nailed it. When we originally conceived Joe so many years ago, we really had hoped to make him into a comic book. As we began developing him as a syndication product we really worked to make him funny daily, but still maintain some cohesive overarching tale. Zuda has given us the opportunity to hybrid both ideas.
The first eight pages from the February competition was built using the art from the strip, and it worked well and proved popular enough, but the new competition demanded something more, so we drew from scratch formatted from the get-go for Zuda, using story we already had in place.
Should we win (against such amazing talent... no easy task), I think we will have to gauge as we proceed.
--Gabe
Thanks for the comments everybody! Spread the word-- a vote for Joe is a vote for Justice!
********
Rob,
Thanks for the questions again this month! Here goes:
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1) We originally planned on Joe being a once a week update -- and it certainly still works as that. Certain story points or gags (like pages 9 and 10, for example) work better with two pages at a time, though. So, we could keep it as one page a week, and when the jokes or story need it, once in a while we would slip in a special Super-Sized two page update to satisfy our ravenous fans. Production-wise, we're definitely capable of updating twice a week like The Night Owls, but then what happens in the instances when we need two pages that have to be released together? Would that then make for random three-page weeks? While still possible, completing 3 pages a week might be tight given other work we have to do (Zuda doesn't pay well enough for us to stop doing other work, after all).
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One positive thing from the Invitational -- we proved to ourselves that we can handle a seriously tight turnaround time without sacrificing quality. Our pencils hit paper on June 2nd, and eight days later, all 8 pages were penciled, inked, and scanned (with page 9 being "colored" and lettered as well). Lettering and coloring the remaining 7 pages required 8 more full days of work.
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So while we think Joe would still work very well with page-a-week updates, there's certainly room to push it up from that point if needed. Comics like The Night Owls and Joe lend themselves perfectly to that sort of update, whereas more narrative stories like Bayou or High Moon would be insufferable updated only one page at a time (as I feel Road has proved). For Zuda, there's definitely a benefit to having comics that work well that way, as they help fill in the schedule gaps created by the other stories that work best as 2-4 page updates every other week.
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Gabe (the Joe Comics Gabe, please), if you feel I've left out anything you want voiced, then please chime in!
.
-Chachi
So last month's general Q&A seemed to work pretty well for opening a dialogue about each creator's plans for their comics and I thought I'd try it again this month. I'm going to try to ask five general questions for each competitor first and see where those answers take us.
1)Update and production schedule;
I think this is another comic that's perfect for small but irregular page counts as you've used in most cases throughout, but I could also see it updating twice a week as NIGHT OWLS does. If you guys win a contract this month, what sort of an update schedule do you see JOE having? How many pages a month and at what intervals?
-Rob
I must say I was VERY suprised by the first new screen, but then it was back to the old Joe Comics that I liked so much the last time around. Palindrome is just as funny as the other villains you've created so far, and I'm really liking the pace of the strip. Keep up the good work!
Nice job guys! The art on the new pages is really top notch. Good luck!
Gabriel Hardman
HAHA... fantastic! Palindrome rocks. Great job guys!
sheesh... whatta competition....
Haw! Palindrome was hilarious! Got some smiles out of me with this one.
Dan Thompson! We meet again, at last!
I did nominate you for the Invitational, but had you not made it in, the poster behind the group on page 10 was slated to be a poster of 'RENO'! We though it fit perfectly as Joe's favorite show.
We dig your work Dan, best of luck!
--Gabe
Hilarious, Guys! I Laughed the entire 8 pages...Great work, again! Good luck this month!
Okay Gentlemen, you have done it again for me. With High Moon having their last post today, I am hoping that I get to read your comic every week after this competition is done. You have made me laugh again! Zuda, forget the competition, let's see these guys every week!
-Blondie
Wo-Pow! Dink. I love it! Beautiful art and funny stuff. And that first new page is particularly gorgeous. Good luck, fellas!
FUN,FUN,FUN!!! It's great to see Joe back!
now i'm not near done checking out all the new screens for everyone, but joe comics is lookin' like it might have my vote. thanks for keeping the fun goin'!
Nice. Glad to see Joe clock somebody this time!
Great additional content. Great seeing you back! Keep it going
Welcome back, guys! Love the new eight pages!
This one I like. Very nice work. Nice art and a good storyline.
Tonsured rumpots, heh heh.
Good stuff, guys. You know what you're going for and nail it every time. I have to say I think the humor in the new 8 feels a bit tighter and less forced than the first 8.