I feel like it's asking a bit much to have to supply the characters and action on top of the dialogue. Sure, maybe if we were at a CON and had years of cartooning skills under our belts, we might scribble some characters & ideas, here. Assuming that's still the concept with these?

That said, sometimes dedicated projects have style sheets, character templates and that sort of thing that make stuff like this a lot simpler. Head on over to the Evil Empire and check out the "Donald and Hobbes" community, for example.

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

on top of the dialogue

Ah, Heathcliff is famously mute, so the dialogue seen is original and unedited

It's just Heathcliff is shit, at best it's like a fever dream, occasionally it's a "heh". And the fascinating thing about it is that despite that it still gets 3 comics a week in a print newspaper.

[–] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 2 points 3 weeks ago

It's actually daily, isn't it?

Over at @fauxpseudo@lemmy.world's HC project, I feel like we've debated this a lot through the months and/or years. Par exemple, I have a lot of admiration for how Gallagher completely blew up his uncle's traditional comic and remade it in to such a meta-comics-commentary, but I'm also someone who fusses over little details needlessly, sometimes.

I guess you could say that Nancy does something similar with its last two creators, but I reckon that was more of an incidental based on their native styles more than a 'willful steerage,' so to speak. Because the fact is that "G" pretty much completely mastered the original strip, running it that way for 10+yrs before re-creating it as what it's been the past... I dunno, decade+?

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I think honestly the intent is just to be Garfield Minus Garfield, but Heathcliff

Absurdist Meta-humour driven from some of the punchline being removed

[–] FauxPseudo@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

Garfield minus Garfield creates existential content and sometimes psychosis.

Heathcliff without Heathcliff just amps up the existing absurdism or changes nothing at all as the titular character is usually irrelevant to the actual dadaist anti joke.

[–] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Well, I'd say that works perfectly fine for single-panel strips.

Comics readers rely on loads of visual signals to catch the sense of the action, the mood, the intangibles, and so much of that's been erased in this one.

Still, the upvotes / downvotes tend to have the final say IME...

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah makes sense

I think it's novel, but not like, enjoyable as a comic.

A "huh, neat" then forget about it after taking a cursory glance kinda thing.

[–] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I think it’s novel, but not like, enjoyable as a comic.

I think that's fair. As someone reading through one of Scott McCloud's commentary on comics right now, your edits are actually pretty interesting to me, and there's loads to unpack about the framing, the structure, the known details, etc.

Just that I don't represent the common reader, lol.

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 weeks ago

Oh this isn't my edit, the source edit is linked however... In fact I'll edit the title to make that clear