Laura's Bazaar
Login to Add a Favorite
This is a world just as ours. Except, magic works. Magical trinkets, power tatoos and supernatural pets are trendy. A boom’s coming, like the internet 15 years ago. Meet Laura D’Leon. Her grandfather, Ponce de Leon, found the Fountain of Youth. But she wouldn’t make grandpa proud, since she spends most of her time drunk and having one-night affairs. She goes by selling cheap relics and charms. Quite the underachiever. Her roommate Tuna is a 15-inch mermaid, charming and cute. She pays most of the bills with the royalties of her one-hit album. Mozart, a 5000 year old satyr, appears at Laura’s door. And he informs her that her father is missing. And she must take over his unique possessions. The Bazaar. The storing place for every magical object, mythical being, or imaginary stuff ever conceived by mankind. From Quetzalcoatl’s feathers to the Holy Grail. Laura’s father was keeper and protector to all of them. But Laura was never the responsible one. And now she owns the greatest business ever. Eternal life. Unicorns as virginity-test. Call cards for the afterlife. Reality TV following the journeys of Ulysses or Dante. Frankenstein kits to assemble. She’s wild with ideas. Tuna, Mozart and a golem try to keep Laura in check. Hard to do when she has the power to destroy the universe 1000 times, she’s seducing some young god, and still has a six-pack for breakfast. The world will never be the same. If it survives Laura’s Bazaar opening week.
Wow, I really love this. I want more!
Good job dude, Kinda reminds of the Dirty pair comics, plenty of semi-naked chicks with weird tentacle creatures, Awesome!!!!
Brilliant! must have more.
Great stuff!
Original, nice art and great story. And yes Rob I do agree. O the fact that shes that tight (hot) is a great way to pull'em in. <---JOKE.
Another one of my picks in a "reader's choice comic showdown" for July. I really like the sassy good-girl art approach to the humor here and think it would add quite a bit to the Zuda catalog
Anyone else agree?
-Rob
That was a great and entertaining read. I was quite surprised at how long you kept Laura's knickers in full view of the readers. Congratulations with your marriage.
i think u got robbed man, this was an interesting story with good art.
Hey, everybody... thanks so much for all the support and all the comments. I'm proud of the third place, congratulations to the winners. I learned a lot from reading all you had to say and I'll continue Laura with the corresponding improvements soon. I'm just back from a three week honeymoon in Europe, that kinda made the competition easier to wait out ;). Thanks again.
I'm so sorry it didn't win. Any chance of continuing it somehow somewhere else? If so, please let us know. I would love to be able to follow this great strip.
Fantastic artwork! Good concept. Although it's not my kind of story, it is still very well done. The best of the group. You got my vote.
Nice job. You got my vote this month. Love the detail to each panel, and the sweet coloring. Keep it up!
You've definitely got skill...I just wanted more substance and less schmaltz...you are going places...keep at it!
When are we getting more pages?
I just voted for you because of the art. I lie more action in stories. Also, your women are hot, but isn't it a rule babes have to wear heels in comics? Perhaps antique weapons? I like that she is a party girl with a morally casual attitude. I also like that you did it all yourself.
But again, best art, and isn't that what it is all about?
this comic is sexxy.
i like it.
Hermano, excelent in every way.... congrats, the twist between a sexy low-moral woman and supernatural creatures and artifacts is amazing... keep it up, I wanna see more of Laura.
Nice lay-out and planning. I like the flow of this and the consistenancy of color. I just wish it was a bit longer---10 pages would be nice. I like the use of the magical (majikal) theme. I can almost see this as an 'anime' series.
Keep up the good work.
I thought the art was very well done and consistent. Honestly, some of the best I've seen here at zuda. The writing however I thought was pretty bad. I couldn't find your core story in there. It just sounded like you were making it up as you went along. It didn't match the polished look of the art at all to me. I thought the dialogue was particularly bad and all the T&A shots in the world won't make up for it. Clarence is right, you either need to go all out with the raunchy one-liners and innuendos and go for a low brow audience or scale it back and insert a valid story. Really work on your writing. Have a friend act as an editor and really polish your final draft before you attach all that beautiful art to your mediocre story. The package as a whole gets a mere 7 out of 10. Good luck.
Me encanto!!!!
I love it, nice job. Great execution.
Nice art, cool story.
Aside from the slight errors in the language, this is an excellent comic! Imaginative, funny and well-drawn. I love the bawdy humor mixed with the otherworldy-made-daily. I sincerely hope this comic wins the competition, and if it doesn't, well Mr. Axel should definitely consider trying it on his own like Sluggy Freelance and the like. Best of luck to you Mr. Axel, and I can't wait to see the next page!
Fantastic. If this were a comic I would buy it.
dont give up hope there is still time for this comic,might not hurt to put an ad on myspace for the teen populas.
Ok yoou got my vote. The art and color is awesome, some of the best I've seen here and I like the fantasy stuff? Um, my critasism for this artist is I would like to see some originallity to your wrting which is kind of basic and a little lacking in some way, I can't place what it is though. Sounds like ypou like D & D but maybe you can get some of your versions to this fantasy type stuff a little more in detail here? Basic critique from me but it is great stuff? Are you doing all the art and script? What is your real name , if you can give it out? Have a great time and best of luck in your work ahead for you ok!!!!
good going kiddo, I love it!
Although it's not perfect by any means this has a clear ability to develop and grow into something that would sustain interest over a years worth of strips. Not many strips could do that and there's only about three in this comp. The T&A could become tiresome after a while, but I guess the editors could help shift the tone of that. We'd really need to get to the fantastical storyline promised pretty quickly. S'got my vote, til I change my mind.
tu trabajo es increible amigo..muy muy bueno!!!
very good opening page.
There's some pretty slick art in the early screens and the line about drinking a pint of laxative is classic, but I felt overall that the rest of the comedy was, at best, forced and at worst, juvenile. I would have enjoyed this a lot more if the sexual innuendo was either dialed way up on the raunch scale or scaled way back (ala the subtler and more obscure British double entendre). I couldn't help thinking this was more personal fantasy than a honed-in narrative.
love the art! laura is frickin' hot!! but, man. this thing is WORDY.
Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting...
As a sort of FAQ: it seems the rules don't forbid having multiple screens a week, so should we get to win, this would be a 4 weekly screen series, I hope...
(And the title box was there because I started this as a weekly one screen... yes, I should have removed it, maybe)
Later...
I wish this were #1 again even though I didn't vote for it. The cats and the bombs suck major donkey balls. I'm being facetious but this comic has some potential. Get some friends to proofread and throw jokes around a little less frequently and this would have been a slam dunk. The artwork is on point.
The title card on every screen makes it look like your trying to work it so you could do a 1 screen update or something? Even if this is the case toss the title card, and end up with a little more T&A space in the panels you know? The art work was fine, really nice job on the colors as well. I'm surprised you didn't bring in the centaur's wife for a foursome with laura and tuna. The mermaid girl with S$M dreams, about sharks and what have you was funny through out. I also liked laura's line to the octo-thing coming out of her john. The 8 screens didn't really match up to the synopsis to me. Where was Mozart at her door, the synopsis you have is a spoiler for the future, and I think it is better used to fill in the past. Not that spoilers are bad, but I think you had one two many sex jokes and not enough of moving the story along the way you laid it out in the synopsis. It was a fairly funny comic, a little heavy on the language but that's okay. Loved the horseshoe under my bed gag. A little too much sexual innuendo, a little too slow to match the story up to the synopsis, but a fairly good comic I would read it if it won.
Saludos Axel:
Aquí estoy y acabo de registrar mi voto por tí.
Tu esfuerzo hasta ahora ha sido más que encomiable, creo que todos los que te hemos seguido desde tu comienzo con la inolvidable Nancy estamos más que sorprendidos por todo el trecho que has logrado avanzar.
Tú no necesitas que te desee suerte, ya que nunca te ha hecho falta, sólo te invito a que le sigas echando ganas y nos sigas dejando a todos con la boca abierta.
Y mis mejores deseos en tu vida matrimonial.
Queda de tí como tu seguro lector:
Jesús Rodríguez Acosta.
The art is really good. A fraction as much effort put into the grammar would've prevented some annoying errors. "Teriyaky"->"Teriyaki". "And it better comes out quicker than your universes" should be "come" - dunno if you meant to pluralise "universe" or not. "You don't know what it's like being with a macho" sounds like a translation error, though it might be local slang I'm unfamiliar with.
In short: Good comic that multiple grammar gaffs distract from.
Axel, one of the defining moments in my life as an artist was when I was told by one of my closest friends, "Ben, I love you, but you have no idea how to write women." I tried to defend myself by saying how witty my female lead is and how cool she was, but my friend pointed out what my male lead was like, how his actions were directly dictated by his experience, and how my female lead, just did what moved the story along.
.
Maybe I'm just projecting here, but that seems to be the problem with this story. The characters seem like they've been misplaced from The Gilmore Girls. We've heard that they can be funny, but we haven't been exposed to why they feel the need to constantly crack one-liners.
.
I trust that you may get there, but as a male writing a female lead, you're going to have to try twice as hard.
Ya know after reading this again, it could have been much more in your face with the crotch shots. Look how many times she is sitting down with her legs open and her underwear cannot be seen. I wouldn't have been able to resist myself. I think this could have been far more raunchy. So to anyone offended by this close your eyes and turn away while the adults get some good laughs. I also read the synopsis, and now I want to see more. Now that Laura's started here day I want to see where it leads her. This has my vote at the moment. So the best of luck to you. And about the lips being to small, I like it the way it is. The art is like a perverted Japanesse dude drawing dirty Disney stuff. I love it.
[It always cracks me up to see that the comic that has the best art and story always gets the most criticism and the worst comics always get the most praise]
The more you give people, the more room there is to criticize. The premise is interesting and so are the side characters, but Laura is completely uninteresting to me as a leading role. She's a busty curvaceous bombshell with a snarky personality and nothing about that makes her stand out to me at all. She's the quintessential mainstream comics female lead which makes an otherwise cool character into a boring one. I have nothing against a little fan service but when half the pages contain ass shots and side-boob it gives the story a cheap feel. "Sexual innuendo" and other buzzwords aside, pandering to the horny sweaty fat guys that are stereotypically associated as "comic fans" is the quickest way to turn me off. Now, this is strictly my opinion. There's a lot of talent in here and the potential for an actual print or web series. You can't expect everyone to like your work and when you include raunchy material for the sake of having raunchy material you're just begging to be alienated.
Thanks for the compliment kingofpain.It seems I stirred up some emotion among my peers.That was not was intended by my comment{It always cracks me up to see that the comic that has the best art and story always gets the most criticism and the worst comics always get the most praise}I do feel that this competition is what it is.The creative process starts with a single thought and then blooms into a solid story.We all know what it means to pace a story,we all know that we have to hook the reader in a few pages without giving too much away and we know that visuals are as important as the writing (but) lets put this into perspective.First off,many of the contributors to the comments on this site are(A)either a artist\writer or (b) enjoy reading artist and writers.We all bring something to the table and our own creative pride and prejudice come into play based on what we know and what we perceive to be good work.That being said ,this is what it is,and it is a contest,so try to be stern in your comments without being rude,try to be helpful without being condescending and above all remember (ITS JUST A FREAKING CONTEST}think Ill go take a crap now.
Loved it. Beautiful and hilarious!
The writing is flat, the facial expressions over stylized and ungenuine, and the pantie prancing gratuitous, but the plotting and art give it potential.
Just not into this one at all. And I really don't think that "The best gets the most criticism" is true. In fact, it seems like a pretty cheap way to try to discount and invalidate other peoples opinions. It is, in fact, possible that there is not a lot of cross over appeal between "Sex and the City" and "Xena: Warrior Princess". Maybe folks aren't into the t&a because it's tacky and serves the lowest common denominator. Maybe folks don't like the innuendo because it's not very well done. It really requires a delicate balance to pull off and "Seeing your bra size..." just isn't it. The dialogue sounds about as sophisticated as a couple of 6th graders saying "Boner!" "That's what she said!".
Realizing that is a lot of criticism, the art is terrific and the story as written in the synopsis sounds really original and intriguing.
It took one person using the word "pandering" and suddenly everyone repeats the samen. OK maybe it's not the "cup of tea" for everyone (because the "sexual innuendo", another term repetead until eternity in this thread) but maybe you're judging this comic thinking about a rated "All audience" program, when it's more like a "PG-17" show.
Keep this in mind when voting.
In the other hand, I've seen many comic strips here in zuda, resolving the story in 8 pages o at least promising to solve it on 16... But this is potententially a 52 pages format! You can't get the full picture in 8 pages, it's just an apetizer! And as many of you, after this 8 pages I want to read the rest!
Let's Go Axel!
Kingofpain, with all due respect, it's one thing to namedrop, but it's something else entirely when you give the name of a useful book (and its author) which is about writing. If the author or anyone else on this page feel they know so much about the craft of writing that they can never learn anything else then they can ignore it, but there may be someone who can use the information and they should not be denied because of another's hubris. If any of you have bothered to visit the Zuda message boards (http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/web/category.jspa?categoryID=36) you'll see that we make recommendations to each other all the time.
.
As far as what we will be discussing next –– this is a public forum, which leads me to believe that freedom of speech is still a basic human right. Correct? As far as pointing out what's winning as a way of saying that people don't care about story ... well, that's like comparing apples to oranges. The leading comic is a more of a gag strip, which tend not to have narratives. However this comic's synopsis explicitly states there was going to be a story involving Laura taking over her father's business. Maybe this format is not to the creator's advantage, but I feel like this comic might have been better off starting closer to the action. Characterization could have been worked in as the comic progressed.
.
And to all of the others defending the art in this strip, I don't think that the actual art is under fire. Most of the comments have agreed that the creator is a talented artist, but the story takes too long to get to the point –– thus the reason I suggested a good book that deals with plot, but I digress ...
.
For whatever it's worth this is the comic I was rooting for based on the synopsis alone.
.
––Jernell
Hmmmm....
Conflict is the key that transforms a re-telling of events into a story. There has to be a compelling conflict in order for there to be a compelling story.
If someone doesn't mind, I'd like to be pointed toward wherever the compelling conflict is hiding.
Seven pages of character introduction and still not enough information given for me to have a clue as to why the tentacled thing on the eighth page is significant.
Unless that's not the conflict that you're building up to in which case I'd be REALLY confused. The framing of the action, particularly the scene change to outdoors after spending 7 pages indoors gives added weight to the events that occur right after the jump.
If there's nothing that can be cut so that the reader has at least SOME understanding of the significance of the tentacle beast then the idea is just too big for eight pages and shouldn't have been tried at all.
I have gotten in trouble before when I assume, but here I ASSUME that Axel made some faulty judgements on how much information his readers are able (or willing) to absorb from the introductory seven. I do NOT get anything out of this. It's a mess of verbal sniping and little more as far as I can tell.
I don't mean to imply that I'm the alpha and omega of comic readers but I don't think of myself as a dimwit either and in spite of that you lost me.
Just a few comments:
1)If Laura and the mermaid were sippin' martinins and buying designer's shoes in new york, and the centaur rode a BMW, nobody would complain about the innuendo, or ask "is that funny?" heck, they'd be making a movie about that...it just wouldn't be funny or original as this story is...
2) Nobody is trying to help nobody. No need for that, great art and stories know how to deffend themselves. I'ts just that some people like whay they see (they should vote and recommend it) and some don't (they should be on their way), and both have the right to write about it here.
3) Just one thing, cujr2002 or whatever, with all due respect, the name dropping, the "I have so many many books about this, I've read so much about writing and..." yeesshh, that is so... so... well, so "people into comics" like. Next thing will be discussing who has more comics, who has published more, who likes european comics or manga... and we might end up arguing who would win a battle between captain america and batman...God forbbid!!
And not to talk dirt about anyone, but, "great story developments and" "intriguing plots", just look who are ahead in the competition. For some people, less is more, I guess. It seems there is something for everyone's tastes. You're right, artman10000, the best always get the most criticism. And that is GREAT!! heh
This is amazing. Great art and not bad story.
I think the negative criticism is only based on two things:
1) The story has no direction and is confusing. What is not true. The story is yet in the character presentation stage and it's very straight, nothing to be confused about. Yeah, she slept with the centaur guy and yes, that's funny. What lead us to...
2) The story has a lot of sexual innuendo. This one is true and some say that's not funny, but it is. The main character seems to be a booze and sex loving girl, so her mindset is just well presented in her dialogues. Would she (or her mermaid friend) talk without innuendo, that would mean they have a different stance towards sex than they have. They're open to it, like it a lot and just enjoy themselves with the natural innuendo.
Maybe, however, the synopsis should include a little warning about the "sex loving characters" or the "spicy humor", so that readers would know what to expect instead of being taken by surprise.
But well, controversy is good. It means the work is moving something in the people. :)
Let me tell you something about Laura...
I just love Laura as I love all of my brainchildren... I've been meddling with her story for years, sketching ideas and scenes and a damn huge storyline... I plan on continuing her story for as long as I can. There's a big plan, there's a lot of twists and turns in the way. So, this is the beggining of a long way.
I had finished this first eight pages when I heard about Zuda... they set important character traits that pay off some chapters later. The thing is, I woke up one day and I thought: I have lots of work to do... I've been putting off all of my personal projects for the stuff that pay the bills. I have these eight pages that are barely the first five minutes of my tv pilot. I can submit them and see what happens, or I can wait till I have the time to do a new short story and submit that. But that could be forever with my schedule.
So I thought: well, let's take the chance, whatever. And, well, you know what came out of it...
This is not a justification in anyway... it's just for those who keep noticing the apparent "randomness" of the events. It will all come to a payoff some screens later. I just didn't have room in the eight page pitch. Don't sweat it.
Rest my case, folks... thanks for keeping those comments and votes coming.
Axel... tu sabes que te deseo lo mejor. Veo por aquí que el tal cujr112002 te tira muy pero muy mala vibra... no lo peles!!! Ya sabes que estamos aquí para apoyarte y para desearte lo mejor yo y todos los buenos amigos que han pasado por aqui!!! Mucha suerte!!!!