Every Wensday we bring you the top five most read sprite comics from leading sprite hosting sites such as Drunk Duck and Smackjeeves. So here they are for this week.
DrunkDuck
- The Deletion
- Nintendo randomness
- Mercs
- Sprite Happy Comic
- Mixed Bag Comics
Smackjeeves
- They Have the Technology
- Plumber Switch a Rio
- Sonic XD
- Sonic Author Resort
- The Pub of Drunken Souls
Monday, July 30, 2007
Monday's Attack of the Sprites!
Every Monday we will have a spot we call Monday's Attack of the Sprites. Which will feature the weeks newest sprites from the top sprite resource sites. So of course this is not an announcement only, its a post! So here are this weeks newest sprites.
- Metal Slug
- Castlevania 3
- Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
- Ghosts and Goblins
- Sonic
- Mario & Luigi: Super Star Saga
- Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time
- Popeye: Rush for Spinach
- Naruto: Ninja Council 3
- Ranma 1/2: Hard Battle
- Boo's Mansion
- Castlevaina Circle of the Moon
- Paper Mario
- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon
- Shining Force
- Metal Slug
- Castlevania 3
- Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
- Ghosts and Goblins
- Sonic
- Mario & Luigi: Super Star Saga
- Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time
- Popeye: Rush for Spinach
- Naruto: Ninja Council 3
- Ranma 1/2: Hard Battle
- Boo's Mansion
- Castlevaina Circle of the Moon
- Paper Mario
- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon
- Shining Force
Sunday, July 29, 2007
You, Too, Can Be a Comics Whiz
When David Anez decided to create a Web comic in early 2000, he had an idea, a domain name and a self-imposed deadline. What he didn't have was a scanner. With no way to put his drawings online, he turned to a source of pre-made art: a collection of pictures taken from Capcom's popular Mega Man series of video games.
The first episode of Anez's Bob and George featured -- rather than anyone named Bob or George -- a little pixilated Mega Man explaining that he was going to entertain the audience while the author got the real strip ready.
For the next two months, Mega Man and other characters from Capcom's games traded quips and gunfire, and in the process helped to launch a Web comics phenomenon.
Video-game characters in a comic strip were not unheard of, but the remarkable thing about Anez's comic was that rather than using drawings of the characters, he used the actual video-game character art -- "sprites" in programming jargon -- along with some simple backgrounds and word balloons. The effect re-created the feel of the game with a minimum of artistic effort.
Anez eventually got his scanner and twice attempted to launch the "real" Bob and George -- a hand-drawn comic about superheroes in college -- but both times he abandoned the strip and went back to the Mega Man characters.
"Eventually I realized that I can't draw and that the hand-drawn comic idea was dead in the water," said Anez. "So I stuck with the sprites."
While Anez wasn't the first person to create a comic strip from video-game sprites, his strip was the first to gain widespread popularity, and it inspired others to create their own sprite comics. One such person was Brian Clevinger.
"I thought of doing a sprite comic before Bob and George," said Clevinger. "And I thought it was a really dumb idea. Then someone sent me a link to Bob and George and I read it all in one night and I thought, 'Hey, I'll give it a shot.'"
Clevinger's comic, 8-bit Theater, uses sprites from the first Final Fantasy game for the Nintendo Entertainment System. In the more than three years since its debut, 8-bit Theater has grown to be the most popular sprite comic on the Web, and, according to Comixpedia, it's the third most popular Web comic in existence.
Encouraged by the success of these two strips, and the relative ease of cutting and pasting sprites, hundreds of others have launched their own sprite comics. The self-described Very F*cking Big List of Sprite Comics has more than 1,200 entries with names like The Pointless But Hilarious Quest and Megaman Da Man. A few of these strips feature original graphics designed to resemble old-school computer art, but most reuse video-game graphics. Mega Man and Final Fantasy are common sprite sets, but Mario, Link and other game characters make appearances as well.
As with any unauthorized use of copyright material, the potential for legal action hangs over the sprite comics community. Sprite-comic Web pages typically have a disclaimer acknowledging the copyright of the original owners, but neither Clevinger nor Anez have heard directly from the corporate owners of the images.
Anez has made some attempt to resolve the copyright question. "A friend of mine asked them (Capcom) anonymously on my behalf and they replied with something along the lines of, 'Sprite comics are illegal and Capcom will never officially endorse them.' They're almost certainly aware that sprite comics exist, but they've never contacted me to take them down, so I'm not sure what their unofficial stance is."
For this reason, Anez avoids selling merchandise featuring the Mega Man characters. "It's one thing to use the characters in a free online comic to entertain people, but to stick them on a T-shirt and sell them for $20? I felt that if Capcom was going to get upset over something, it would be better if I wasn't trying to make a profit off of their characters."
Despite their numbers on the Web -- and maybe because of them -- Sprite comics are often seen as substandard by comics fans.
"Sprite comics have a bad reputation," said Fred "Piro" Gallagher, whose Web comic MegaTokyo features intricate scanned-in pencil drawings. "I think the reason is that with sprite comics, there's easy entry."
Gallagher doesn't hold this against sprite comics, however. "Good sprite comics rely heavily on writing and placement of the sprites," he said. "There are many examples of that. Sometimes people are very successful and come up with great ideas. Sometimes they don't."
Mike Krahulik creates, under the pen name "Gabe," the art for the popular Web comic Penny Arcade using a combination of hand drawing and Photoshop effects. He and Gallagher view sprite comics in a similar light.
"I don't know that I'm enough of an asshole to say that they're on a lower level than other comics," he said. "There are people who can't draw who want to make comics, and that's a good way to do it."
Like many sprite comics creators, Clevinger points to his lack of drawing ability when discussing his decision to create 8-bit Theater. Despite this drawback, and in spite of the popularity and financial success of his comic, he said he wouldn't do a sprite comic if he had to do it over again.
"I would have gone out of my way, found an artist and done it that way," he said. "Primarily because sprites are so limiting. On one hand, I love the way they look, but there are the copyright issues, and there's so much more I could do as an artist if I could pick the angles. I feel that as a storyteller it wouldn't be as limiting."
Why continue the comic, then? "It's paying the bills, for one thing," he said. "And also, as much as I complain about the limiting factors, it's a lot of fun and I enjoy finding new ways to approach the material."
For his part, Anez continues to support new sprite comics, publishing a guide called How to Make a Sprite Comic and even hosting some on his site.
"It's nice to see that people lacking the ability to draw are still able to tell their stories and their jokes by using sprites," said Anez. "I would say that there is plenty of room for new sprite comics."
(Taken From Wired News)
The first episode of Anez's Bob and George featured -- rather than anyone named Bob or George -- a little pixilated Mega Man explaining that he was going to entertain the audience while the author got the real strip ready.
For the next two months, Mega Man and other characters from Capcom's games traded quips and gunfire, and in the process helped to launch a Web comics phenomenon.
Video-game characters in a comic strip were not unheard of, but the remarkable thing about Anez's comic was that rather than using drawings of the characters, he used the actual video-game character art -- "sprites" in programming jargon -- along with some simple backgrounds and word balloons. The effect re-created the feel of the game with a minimum of artistic effort.
Anez eventually got his scanner and twice attempted to launch the "real" Bob and George -- a hand-drawn comic about superheroes in college -- but both times he abandoned the strip and went back to the Mega Man characters.
"Eventually I realized that I can't draw and that the hand-drawn comic idea was dead in the water," said Anez. "So I stuck with the sprites."
While Anez wasn't the first person to create a comic strip from video-game sprites, his strip was the first to gain widespread popularity, and it inspired others to create their own sprite comics. One such person was Brian Clevinger.
"I thought of doing a sprite comic before Bob and George," said Clevinger. "And I thought it was a really dumb idea. Then someone sent me a link to Bob and George and I read it all in one night and I thought, 'Hey, I'll give it a shot.'"
Clevinger's comic, 8-bit Theater, uses sprites from the first Final Fantasy game for the Nintendo Entertainment System. In the more than three years since its debut, 8-bit Theater has grown to be the most popular sprite comic on the Web, and, according to Comixpedia, it's the third most popular Web comic in existence.
Encouraged by the success of these two strips, and the relative ease of cutting and pasting sprites, hundreds of others have launched their own sprite comics. The self-described Very F*cking Big List of Sprite Comics has more than 1,200 entries with names like The Pointless But Hilarious Quest and Megaman Da Man. A few of these strips feature original graphics designed to resemble old-school computer art, but most reuse video-game graphics. Mega Man and Final Fantasy are common sprite sets, but Mario, Link and other game characters make appearances as well.
As with any unauthorized use of copyright material, the potential for legal action hangs over the sprite comics community. Sprite-comic Web pages typically have a disclaimer acknowledging the copyright of the original owners, but neither Clevinger nor Anez have heard directly from the corporate owners of the images.
Anez has made some attempt to resolve the copyright question. "A friend of mine asked them (Capcom) anonymously on my behalf and they replied with something along the lines of, 'Sprite comics are illegal and Capcom will never officially endorse them.' They're almost certainly aware that sprite comics exist, but they've never contacted me to take them down, so I'm not sure what their unofficial stance is."
For this reason, Anez avoids selling merchandise featuring the Mega Man characters. "It's one thing to use the characters in a free online comic to entertain people, but to stick them on a T-shirt and sell them for $20? I felt that if Capcom was going to get upset over something, it would be better if I wasn't trying to make a profit off of their characters."
Despite their numbers on the Web -- and maybe because of them -- Sprite comics are often seen as substandard by comics fans.
"Sprite comics have a bad reputation," said Fred "Piro" Gallagher, whose Web comic MegaTokyo features intricate scanned-in pencil drawings. "I think the reason is that with sprite comics, there's easy entry."
Gallagher doesn't hold this against sprite comics, however. "Good sprite comics rely heavily on writing and placement of the sprites," he said. "There are many examples of that. Sometimes people are very successful and come up with great ideas. Sometimes they don't."
Mike Krahulik creates, under the pen name "Gabe," the art for the popular Web comic Penny Arcade using a combination of hand drawing and Photoshop effects. He and Gallagher view sprite comics in a similar light.
"I don't know that I'm enough of an asshole to say that they're on a lower level than other comics," he said. "There are people who can't draw who want to make comics, and that's a good way to do it."
Like many sprite comics creators, Clevinger points to his lack of drawing ability when discussing his decision to create 8-bit Theater. Despite this drawback, and in spite of the popularity and financial success of his comic, he said he wouldn't do a sprite comic if he had to do it over again.
"I would have gone out of my way, found an artist and done it that way," he said. "Primarily because sprites are so limiting. On one hand, I love the way they look, but there are the copyright issues, and there's so much more I could do as an artist if I could pick the angles. I feel that as a storyteller it wouldn't be as limiting."
Why continue the comic, then? "It's paying the bills, for one thing," he said. "And also, as much as I complain about the limiting factors, it's a lot of fun and I enjoy finding new ways to approach the material."
For his part, Anez continues to support new sprite comics, publishing a guide called How to Make a Sprite Comic and even hosting some on his site.
"It's nice to see that people lacking the ability to draw are still able to tell their stories and their jokes by using sprites," said Anez. "I would say that there is plenty of room for new sprite comics."
(Taken From Wired News)
Bob and George Call it Quits
After seven years and basically starting the whole sprite comic genre, the fathers of sprite comics call it quits.
Form Their Latest News Post:
We wish them the best on further projects. We thank them for the memory's and starting what is a huge form of art in web comics today, the Sprite Comic.
Form Their Latest News Post:
And that is how the comic ends. Bob and George return home with their Mom, who was apparently behind the comic the whole time, in an attempt to toughen George up to do what might be necessary, and to hopefully convince Bob that he needs to knock all that evil shit off before George kicks his ass.
I hope everyone likes it. I've had this ending planned out for years. To put it in perspective, when I first thought of it, I asked Megami to draw it for me, since I was originally thinking of doing it all in a hand-drawn style, since that was the original intent of the comic. But things changed, Megami left, and before I could find another artist to help me with the ending, Liss suggested I stick with the sprites, since it might be a bit of a betrayal to the sprites if the comic ended hand-drawn. I decided she was right.
If some of the dialogue in the Flash animation seems a bit stilted, much of that has to do with the fact that when I first wrote everything down, I intended for it to be 10 regular comics. Writing individual comics with their punchlines and unknown amount of time between them results in a different flow than that of an single animation. Unfortunately, I didn't think it mattered that much until I was able to see it altogether and realized that I really should've added an extra line or two to make it flow better. And by then, my voice actress had gone to bed. Nevertheless, I may add an extra line or two at a later date.
We wish them the best on further projects. We thank them for the memory's and starting what is a huge form of art in web comics today, the Sprite Comic.
Prelude to AOTSC
Welcome to Attack of the Sprite Comics or AOTSC for short. This site is here to help promote review and give you the 411 on the best sprite comics, and steer you clear from the bad ones. Cause we all know sprite comics are fun, but since they so easy to make, the fun is taken right out of them. SO bookmark us and check back daily for updates on the Sprite Comics Community.
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