So I've been following Welcome to Pixelton for awhile now and this sarcastic medium has extravagantly changed over the past few months. Josh Farkas, the creator and artist of WP has been a little occupied. Let's take a critical look at what batty innovations he's been putting this webcomic through and why.
The first and most noticeable change WP has transitioned through is quantifying the art. Mr. Farkas has joined the ranks of the numerous comic owners and started giving pieces to fans 4 times per month as opposed to his normal once a month. As a reader I appreciate the added sarcasm in my personality diet, but has this weakened the strength of the comic? In my opinion it has. My explanation for this logic follows.
The second change Josh has put WP through is changing the once ultra-colorfied artwork into simple black and white strips for the sake of posting his art 1-week. This style works for many comics. On the other hand, I felt like the biggest strength WP had was its artwork. Josh worked very hard on his strips and it showed. I would enjoy just looking at his art almost as much as the story he was sharing which leads me to my next point. My opinion has always been that the art is half the story in the webcomic world so by taking away the vitality of his artwork Josh has sliced the life of his story in half!
Now, if you have been a fan of Josh's work with Welcome to Pixelton as long as I have you can almost excuse this drastic transtition because he has been busy working on something far more important! His Welcome to Pixelton Graphic Novel has been his baby for a year now. He has been working diligently to bring his fans something we can hold and enjoy, but he needs to be careful because many of his fans, including myself, are expecting the same style of artwork he was displaying during his first year of posting on Welcome to Pixelton. If he fails to deliver I predict he'll lose a large portion of his fan base because fans don't like to be disappointed.
With all that said I do wish Josh the best of luck and hope he continues making this comic because it really is one of the best out there. I'll be hoping for more than luck however, because I do keep wanting him to return to his original style of colorful pages and complicated storyline.
My overall Appraisal of Welcome to Pixelton: 85
(Score from 0-100)
Thanks again,
Josh Engle
Posts
Hey Josh - sincere thanks for your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI'll be very honest when I say that I agree with everything you mentioned (except for the all too kind words). My hope with the dailies would be that I'd have time for the book...but that didn't happen as heavy as I hoped. I need to do both at the same time.
This article pushed me over the edge and I think I'll go back to big beautiful color strips. Thanks for taking the time to write up your thoughts. :)