BACK FROM THE DEAD (AKA Pollywogs #4)

[Artistunknown]

Okay, so I haven't had internet for about 2 weeks, so I wasn't able to upload the last few Pollywogs pages on time. I do have #4 and #5 done though, with #6 partially done.

Page 4 is here: https://machentertainment.com/comics/?comic=pollywogs-4-moving-in
And with that, chapter 1 is done, though maybe it makes more sense for this to be the beginning of chapter 2, but who cares.

I'm not sure when #5 will be up, maybe Monday, since if I DO continue to upload these, #6 is scheduled to go up next Saturday, and I kinda have to stick to this schedule 'cause certain pages have to go up at certain times for it to make sense, so if I do manage to miss a day again, double update a week it is!

I DON'T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO SAY.

 

[Dunsparce]

Boy, I didn't think you could do it, but you really turned this webcomic around! I have now made myself a proper fan of Pollywogs, and I have familiarized myself with the Polywogs lore. There is absolutely no fault to be found with this Gatsby masterpiece!

 

[Artistunknown]

Boy, I didn't think you could do it, but you really turned this webcomic around! I have now made myself a proper fan of Pollywogs, and I have familiarized myself with the Polywogs lore. There is absolutely no fault to be found with this Gatsby masterpiece!

Nice avatar ya got there.

 

[Walrus]

I chuckled a bit at this one. Based on the art style and my limited info on frogman (looked at a few earlier things), I saw that this comic was going to start getting absurd and stupid, and I'm glad to see it happening.

Question: Is that kind of absurd humor more of a crazy Wise Frog thing, or does it apply to a lot of characters / the entire universe?

 

[Artistunknown]

I chuckled a bit at this one. Based on the art style and my limited info on frogman (looked at a few earlier things), I saw that this comic was going to start getting absurd and stupid, and I'm glad to see it happening.

Question: Is that kind of absurd humor more of a crazy Wise Frog thing, or does it apply to a lot of characters / the entire universe?

I like absurd humor. A lot of the stuff I write tends to have a lot of absurd stuff in it, so yeah, it's more so the entire universe, though a lot of the characters can be grounded in reality... mostly.

Also, for the record, it was planned this way from the beginning. I wrote the entire first thingy (28 pages) a few months before I started the actual art parts of the comic. Sure, things like dialog weren't really written, everything has been plotted out and a lot of the dialog (including for this one) has been written, so this isn't a "new direction". I guess it was kinda bad decision to start the comic out how I did, I don't know what I was thinking, but the beginning did serve the purpose that I wanted it to, it seemed like a nice bridge between FMTS and Pollywogs, and for those who know a bit about FMTS and some of my other stuff, they could understand what was happening, but I ended up kinda alienating people who haven't kept up with my stuff, and I kinda didn't account for that.

And yeah, I did kinda forget how comedic a lot of these pages get. It's not all comedy though, it's slice of life, though there definitely is comedy, just not "joke" comedy. I prefer humor that comes from visual gags and character interactions.

I was really considering not continuing this comic past the pages I already have done, because I recently got back into working on ep 6 of FMTS and I didn't want to have the comic taking time away from that, buuut I think I can dedicate at least a day a week to making the comic. It's not like I have to stick to one page a week, every Saturday. Some pages do need to go up on a specific date though so... idk. Stuff. ;3

 

[Walrus]

To clarify: Yeah, I did not mean to imply that this was a "new direction." Back when I read comic 1 and 2 I saw "Ok. These characters are going to be silly and bring out a lot of absurd hero, but right now they are having a more sentimental moment." The art style itself was a big hint into that.

As for the beginning: I wasn't too bothered by it. Like you said, I read and interpreted the first three chapters as a short intermediate piece separating the original series from this new one. It was kind of like a prelude to this new series, and I'm sure that the information it covered was important for understanding this comic and some events to come. With that prelude now done, I consider this comic #4 to be beginning of the new series' Chapter 1.

 

[Artistunknown]

To clarify: Yeah, I did not mean to imply that this was a "new direction." Back when I read comic 1 and 2 I saw "Ok. These characters are going to be silly and bring out a lot of absurd hero, but right now they are having a more sentimental moment." The art style itself was a big hint into that.

I know, I just said that as a general statement 'cause it felt like dunsparce saying I "turned this comic around" was meaning I was taking it in a new direction.
But yeah, these characters can definitely be silly, in fact that's Wise Frog most of the time, though he won't be as raunchy as he normally is as I'm trying to keep this comic mostly family friendly. The thing about Wise Frog and Toady's character dynamic is that Wise Frog is usually the over-the-top and absurd one and Toady is the more, grounded in reality one. I probably haven't done a good job at showing this in the past, though it's definitely there in some episodes I've written that haven't unfortunately been made yet, but a few of the FMTS shorts probably show it. I know End of Summer; End of All shows that dynamic for a little bit, and I'll try to make these character dynamics clear in the comic. I like doing character driven stuff, so if the characters personalities and stuff isn't showing properly, somethings wrong, so it's something I'm constantly thinking about.

As for the beginning: I wasn't too bothered by it. Like you said, I read and interpreted the first three chapters as a short intermediate piece separating the original series from this new one. It was kind of like a prelude to this new series, and I'm sure that the information it covered was important for understanding this comic and some events to come. With that prelude now done, I consider this comic #4 to be beginning of the new series' Chapter 1.

And yeah, that's essentially it. Everything that happened in the first 3 pages is important to the story and to understand the characters, but I could've incorporated it better as it was a bit confusing, and didn't work as intended for some people. Looking back now, it would've been a lot better if I just started the comic here and then later incorporated the prologue as a flashback. Ah well, no going back now, but it's a lesson learned for future comics if I do any, which I don't plan on, but who knows, maybe I'll have a story that I just want to get out there quickly that would suit the comic format.

 

[Null Hypothesis]

As Walrus said I also got a chuckle out of this page. Glad the comic didn't die only three pages in. I know how life can get in the way of things like this. there's nothing wrong with your art style, but I thing some of the backgrounds in your panels could spare to be less detailed without hurting the comic. They're already simple, but you've already established that they were in front of the house so several of the panels would have still worked with a background of just a solid color. Nothing wrong with what you're doing now just might speed up the production process a little.

 

[Artistunknown]

As Walrus said I also got a chuckle out of this page. Glad the comic didn't die only three pages in. I know how life can get in the way of things like this. there's nothing wrong with your art style, but I thing some of the backgrounds in your panels could spare to be less detailed without hurting the comic. They're already simple, but you've already established that they were in front of the house so several of the panels would have still worked with a background of just a solid color. Nothing wrong with what you're doing now just might speed up the production process a little.

Yeah, I'm not sure what to do with the backgrounds. Started out with just simple colors to represent shapes of objects, and that worked fine for interiors, but then for the first time I went to an exterior setting I thought I should make fully detailed backgrounds, and clearly that added WAY too much time to it, and then now this page and the next page have a mix of kinda detailed and simple, and they each took about a day to make. So yeah, I can definitely go more simple, especially since the focus should really be on the characters.