8 Commandments of Spritecomics

THE 8 COMMANDMENTS OF SPRITE COMICS:

1: Have a good base.

I’ve seen it so much… The words: Got a comic, need a plot, characters etc. etc.
First you must develop a good story, add characters with it and that’s what you need. See? Not that hard. What? Need help? Okay, let’s see…

Characters: Link, Gannon and Zelda.
Side Characters: Kooper, MegaMan Zero, Navi.
Plot: Zelda captured, link needs to rescue with help of Navi and Zero.
Name: Link’s Quest.

I don’t say you must use this, but it’s a tip.

2: Good sprite usage

= bad.
= better.
= good.

Now you’re wondering, why the bottom is good and the top bad. You’ll see.

Bad things about nr.1:
1: It’s a MegaMan recolor. Not even a good one.
2: It’s manually resized, making it look like it’s been raped by a rabbit.
3: The author doesn’t open his mouth.
4: You can’t see who’s saying it. It might be a voice from behind the set! But we’ll go with it that the author said it.
5: Spelling. It’s poorly spelled, it contains l33t.
6: Clichéd. This has been done over and over and over and over and over.

Good things about nr. 1:
1: ... It’s not on the internet?

Good things about nr. 3:
1: Good resizing.
2: Spelling. Grammar is good. Textboxes look nice as well.
3: Expression. He’s mad, perhaps even evil.
4: He opens his mouth correct.
5: He likes nacho’s now instead of ice cream. And ice cream = cliché.
6: You can see that MegaMan is saying it.

Bad things about nr. 3:
1: … It’s not on the internet?

Do you see the difference? Not bad, eh? I’ll now teach you to do the good things. Okay here we go.

First off, Recolors. Recolors are out-of-date, and bad. Why not do minor edits. For an example: Give MegaMan Protoman’s shield. Give Bass Auto’s head. Make little horns for X. Go even further! There is no limit in spriting.

Second, resizing. Don’t manual resize. Instead, select the sprite you want to enlarge, right-click on it, and choose: Stretch and Skew. Of course, you shouldn’t touch the skew function.



Just change the 100% in 200%. And, here you are. A good resized sprite.

Third, opening mouths. Just paste a head with an open mouth over your ‘normal’ head.

Then comes spelling. Oh, come on! Can’t you guys even spell? At least try! Jebus…

Fifth, text boxes. You can use many different tools for this one. You can use ovals, boxes, whatever.

And last but not least, clichés. Just make something up. Example: let one of your characters be addicted to something unexpected. And the other one is a smarty-pants, who can’t shut up. The third tries to let the second shut up, and also tries to un-addict the first character. You can also add a side character, like a bird or something. Trying is the best practice.

3: Don’t use .jpg’s or .bmp’s.

Instead, use .png. Jpg’s dither and .bmp’s are HUGE. One comic could be more then a megabyte in .bmp, but in .png only 3 kb. And, don’t use .gif when you only use Paint. That’ll mess up your colors.

4: Use correct spelling.

You already heard this from me. But under spelling goes:
1. textboxes
2. grammar
3. fonts
4. mouth opening
5. balloon tails

Here are some tips.

1. Use a spellchecker. Anything works. Microsoft Word, Notepad, WordPad, anything.
2. Use a good readable font, not to big, not to small.
3. Use balloon tails to see who’s saying what.
4. Set the text that should be read first at the top, the second beneath that. Most people read from left to right. Don’t let them figure it out themselves.
5. Open mouths.

5: Don’t use eye-stinging colors.

Don’t use bright colors. They hurt the eye tremendously. No, really. I’m serious. DON’T USE BRIGHT COLORS. IN BACKGROUNDS, SPRITES, WHATEVER. DON’T USE THEM!

6: Don’t say your comic sucks.

If you say your comic sucks, stop making it, train get better, make a new comic. Why? Because it’s annoying letting your characters trash the comic for praise. Just think: “I rock. I’m not the best, but I’m still good.”

7: Never use sprites from someone else without permission.

Read the sprite webpage carefully. If here Public Domain, you can use them freely. As long you don’t claim they’re yours. This is named piracy. It can be a crime. You could get caught because of it. Watch out with sprites.

8: Get your own humor. Avoid clichés.

Go write your own running gags. Maybe, just maybe, later on, thousands of people might use it! Think of that.


Those are the major things. These are almost rules in the Sprite World. Here are some tips, that aren’t as important as the commandments, but revisable.

Avoid mixing bittages

Most people use one sort of bittages in their comic. But you might go crazy and run into different characters you want to use. 16-bit sprites are what most spriters use. A comic looks better when it’s all the same.

Don’t use a standard plot

A standard plot is mostly something old from Bob and George, 8-Bit Theatre and other great sprite comics. Write your own material.

Use game backgrounds

Use backgrounds which are ripped from a game. It makes your comic look more professional.

That’s it. More tips to come, folks.

These commandments are inspired by all the bad sprite comic makers, and Crash & Bass.

Looks very nice, but in the wrong place.

*Brings out humongous monster of thread-moving*
*moves to art&writing*

I'll just add som links with great pointers..

http://stc.aftervision.com/ -Screw these comics. Nice example of what is crap and what is slightly less-crap.


http://www.squidi.net/index.php -Calling this a spritecomic would be an insult. Its above that title. Read it or die.

Okay, for my Sprite comics, i found out that the reason that they are so small was because they were .bmp and not .png. How do i change that so that the sprite comics ARE .png? (Do i change them on Photobucket? If so, how?)
Or is there something else i have to do?

You already found out. Just click "Save as..." And select .PNG (Portable Network Graphics). Really easy.