Work is Not in Progress
Genre:
Modern, Comedy
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It's a tough world, especially if you are a newcomer in the most crazy and unaccountable Mega-Company ever sued for being a "serious and tangible threat to mankind". Todd will have to fight against demonic and incapable (or unqualified) managers, headless budget administrators, skeletal lawyers and against all 17 management levels hanging upon his head. (Un)Luckily enough he can count on the help of his colleagues such as Buster, the unpaid "eternal intern", and his mentor, the lazy and aloof Vic. Open the doors and take a look at the tachycardic heart of the so called "production system". (Warning: If you leave the doors open Flying Monkeys may get in. Keep in mind that we cannot be held responsible for this). Bye.
Hi RKB,
I thank you for your message!
I understand that you are a fan of vic! Vic thanks you and sends you the bank account to transfer your money.
He is done so ...
"Newspaper editors always say readers don't accept change well so it's really hard to introduce new strips"
yes. It's sadly true...
Humor isn't really my go to genre, but I thought there were some funny moments here.
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SCREEN 1 Not much in the way of backgrounds (i didn't really expect backgrounds anyway), but where's the color at??? 2 comics on a page nice, and some good dialogue between the characters, but no laughs yet from me.
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SCREEN 2 I liked the synopsis, and I really like the vic character here, good character and some funny (i.e. dead man) lines but nothing really stood out to me in this strip so far except for vic.
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SCREEN 3 "you got a mine", hey i laughed, were getting in to the good stuff now. Funny e-bay line, but there's just too much white on the screen, i feel like I'm going snow blind here.
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SCREEN 4 More laughs from me, Vic is the star of this comic, I really liked this screen, but in the 1989 flashback vic didn't look different enough to me, compared to the -present day- set comics.
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SCREEN 5 Some funny lines here, and a good intro of a new character, you do a good job in not a lot of space of giving some character insight.
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SCREEN 6 More vic YES!!!, I really liked this screen, 2 very funny comics here.
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SCREEN 7 I like the phone gags office humor.
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SCREEN 8 It wouldn't be complete without a star wars joke. You saved some of your best stuff for the last screen, good idea. Vic's nose reminds me of richard nixon.
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Not really my genre, and most of the jokes just didn't hit me right, but some good moments, I hope you give Zuda another try, but maybe next time in color.
The problem is newspaper's are a even tougher gig than zuda. Newspaper editors always say readers don't accept change well so it's really hard to introduce new strips. Web humor comics can still do quite well, it's just that daily style comics don't fly all that well in the zuda weekly format. Zuda is more built for something serial.
@Romance, aethercracker and Streckfus Persons:
Thank you very much to all of you!
ps. There is a colored version to Work is Not in Progress, with hindsight I should send that.
Hi ART_IZAN, I also would like to know why isn't it into the newspaper comic!
No one here knows of any newspapers director or Syndacate manager? :-)
Italians do it better!!
Funny stuff
Black and white kills it but a great use of space. The weird lines weights are odd too.
Certainly tickled the funny bones and quite honestly why isn't it a newspaper comic? Since its certainly funnier than 3/4 of the stuff here in the UK (and my god do we have some awful stuff printed), although it does remind me of dilbert some what.
Tell me about it. I did the cubicle life for about 10 years. (Hence the inspiration for my own comic.) But even in the office people do get up, stretch and go for donuts and stuff like that.
You're right Johnzakour, these first strips are a little static, but are linked strictly with the life in the office, the more stranger strips (as buster ninja-killer for the company) are more lively.
Thanks you, Gnar!
Good Solid Ink Work, good characters.
Dear Zuda Competitors/Creators,
I’m the creator of the 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.
Feel free to check out the blog: zudafan.blogspot.com
Thanks!
~Liz
It makes perfect sense to have only 2-3 characters in the first series of strips. What I would have liked to see is a bit more action or movement from those characters. Right now they are pretty much talking heads which is fine but it's always nice to see more. It helps us to get to understand the characters better.
Hi Johnzakour, these are the firt strips and I focus on the two main protagonists, later other characters will appear and there will be more variety of situations and images. It would have been nice to give a taste of this but the strips have their own sequencing logic.Bye!
Hi Mursku,I don't use Flash, I use Corel Draw's vector graphics. I draw the strips on paper, and if I don't have the "poses" in my database I draw the scene with Indian ink and I scan it.
The scanned picture is used as base to trace with vector graphics the scene (I am especially attentive to the thickness of the lines).
Hi Bryy, thanks for your review, I am on the podium!
There was some fun dialogue in there, although the character interaction was getting a bit predictable by the end. I agree with everyone who commented that there's nothing at all in the art to draw anyone in. Comics like yours don't NEED art to do that as such, but it certainly wouldn't hurt. Best of luck.
Nice effort but like "Daily Comic" I just don't think gag a day strips work in the zuda format. Plus there are way too many "talking heads" for my tastes. You have multiple panels I would have liked to see some action/ change / progression in some of those panels.
sorry if this isn't the case, but the art looks like it consists of parts you made in Flash, and then you simply build the pages from those parts. And i think you're hurting yourself on the long run, by doing it that way. (your drawing skills wont improve)
Also the faces need way more movement than simply changing the mouth sprite and the place of the irises.
I've taken up the Webcomic Witchfinder mantle and mini-reviewed this month:
http://leftyfilmsblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/zuda-mini-reviews-november.html
Hi famished, actually i'm creating animated scenes with Flash using as script the first 50 strips.
Now I'm waiting only for sponsors and dubbers.
Anyone here?
No?
Sure?
ok...
I like the style on the art, but the typos get to me...more in this competition than any other. This may work well animated in shorts... or if you don't like wearing shorts than make it a short animation.
Thanks for your message, Bryy.
Originally the first tests had a different format, but then I realized that if I wanted to do a story with a classic final gag I have had to deal with "sacred cow" humor, and most of them use the strip format. Then I decided to play their game. Mozart was the biggest eighteenth century author, but used the canons of classic style, not overturn them. Obviously I am not the Mozard of the comics, not even remotely ... :-)
Would of liked more cohesion. I like the art and the characters. Format is done, though.
Thanks you Edward, I'm happy to have you made fun!
Great strip, laugh out loud funny at points.
I am embarrassed, BlueMaxx, it is almost sacrilegious to compare my modest work to that wonderful monument that is Doonesbury.
:-)
You are really too kind, thanks!
Hi Illinest, thanks for your praises, too kind!
I send the strips as you can see, so as to make the best use of space.
Thanks again for your support!
That was pretty funny. I could see this running awhile. It has Doonesbury-esque punchlines and flow. And, from a Doonesbury fan, that is a compliment. Nice job.
my favorite humor strip. i mildly loled after most of the strips.
But 16 strips in 8 pages.
Did two seperate competitors get ambitious at the same time or was this returned to you with an order for 8 more strips? Just curiousity really. I'd put you in my top 5. Maybe fourth.... Good strip. Consistent art, funny.
GO Matthew GO!
Hi Kingofsnake, thanks for the advice, I really will try to make good use.
Indeed you are right, WiNiP is based on traditional "syndicated newspaper comic".
I am Italian and in Italy we do not have "newspaper comic", with WiNiP I tried to combine my humor with the American tradition of the strips.
Currently the series came to two hundredth strip with 10 main characters, I hope you can give it a chance in order to discover the side more surreal and crazy of the comic.
(Flying Monkey, headless manager, etc...)
Hi Corey, thanks for your message, in the first tests there were different models for the characters, depending on the position, but this did not work, the models gave "vitality" in the strip reversing the sense of "dead end work/apathy" I was looking for.
Happy to have you made fun :-)
bye!
Oh yay, I'm the second favourite!
I like some of the design work here, but I think it's hurt by the inking employed. Some of the lines that are thin would look better thick and (more often) some of the lines that are thick would look better thin. I think the lack of toning here hurts it as well. You're clearly going for a "syndicated newspaper comic" feel, but you should at least have a dot matrix greyscale here and there to give it some depth. Also, this isn't a newspaper, its the internet, so why conform to an outdated medium? The cut-and-paste feel Corey mentioned is palpable. I think it would be much easier to accept if you had character models in other perspectives than 3/4s.
The writing unfortunately isn't strong enough to support the art. It reads like a newspaper comic, and I can't remember the last time I actually laughed at a newspaper strip. Maybe around the time Calvin and Hobbes ended. I heard someone say "Newspaper comics have to be broad enough that they appeal to everyone, and as a result the appeal to no one." I think thats a pretty accurate assesment. Its not that the writing is "bad" here, its that its unremarkable. The jokes work fine, it's just I've heard slight variations of them all before. I don't know how successful you can hope to be with a product this hackneyed.
I really like the style of this, but it looks like you just copy and pasted a limited number of actual drawings, and it makes it feel robotic. If you're that consistent, than bravo, but otherwise, it comes off as a little weak. The writing was crisp in some section, while confusing in others. It earned a number of laughs from me, and I'd probably read it again with a little more refinement. Nice entry.