Thoughts on pixel art in comics?

LunarScyphozoa 2022-04-28 23:22:21 UTC #1

So, pixel art in comics is something I haven’t seen much (or, really, at all) and I was wondering about y’all’s thoughts on it.

NickRowler 2022-04-28 23:34:57 UTC #2

Wow, this statement aged me 20 years...

So back when I was in high school and early college, a very popular genre of webcomics were Sprite Comics. They usually consisted of sprites from popular video games like Sonic, Mario, Megaman, and Final Fantasy. It seems the genre has been sort of fazed out in the 2010s, maybe part to copyright. I sort of wonder if the "Gaming" genre on Tapas was created for these type of comics as well as gag-a-day strips about gaming which was also far more common in my teen years.

Kittyfox 2022-04-29 01:28:44 UTC #3

Honestly pixel art comics are cool and definitely underrated nowadays, and if you know of any please send them to me lol

There's actually a really cool comic called Witchurch that's entirely in pixel art! Also, Dragon Sparking's first few chapters are in pixel art, if you want to check that out too!

darthmongoose 2022-04-29 09:18:06 UTC #4

Oh god, yeah...
I'm so old I actually remember back in the day on Drunk Duck (before it was The Duck even) people complaining on the forums there about the dominance of sprite comics and how it's unfair how easy it was to build an audience with them (yeah, you know, exactly like people do with Manwha style BL comics now....).

I think people just got fatigued with them due to just how many there were, and also like... when I was twenty, pixel games like SNES and Megadrive/Genesis games were things from my childhood, but for a modern twenty year old, they're literally things from before they were born that don't have that nostalgic attachment. Most of the sprite comics were pretty derivative of popular ones like 8-Bit Theater, and a lot of them were just... really bad because of the low bar for entry to make one.

Modern pixel art comics tend to be more like the ones @Kittyfox referenced above; comics drawn with an aliased art style rather than videogame sprites. Obviously there are some popular comics like that, the big one being Homestuck (which does of course mix in other stuff) and other similar suggestion comics, like Problem Sleuth (precursor to Homestuck) or Ruby Quest.

Quinvert 2022-04-29 10:12:09 UTC #5

My time to shine? I'm the creator of Witchurch, thank for the shoutout @kittyfox
I only read comics at webtoon so I will only add links from over there, but there are quite a few pixel art comics around! Some have been going on for many years as well. These are far from the only ones(there are more than you think!), but a few I think you should check out, if you are interested in adding pixel art to your comic, or making one purely pixel art!

These 2 are made more in the sprite style, as mentioned above, but their art is completly selfmade(no game ripped sprites) and are fun to read!

Is more realistic looking style, and is looking good so far!

This one has been going on since 2018! It's anime style, and the author has many more pixel comics(check out their creator profile for more)

Found this one recently, very cute and fun pixel isekai!

These 2 are still not quite yet started, but looks promising

This comic is not a pure pixel art one, but incoporates it very nicely in an arc, it's very cool

Sorry for the long post, I'm just excited haha, feel free to ask any questions.

VibrantFox 2022-04-29 11:59:14 UTC #6

a big fan tho i guess the reason they can be hard to come by now is they way they've become a bit more niche...idk?

i havent kept up with too much new stuff (and lean more towards like youtube content in the style like joel g's ENA) but a couple i remember reading here on tapas were these two

sushy00 2022-04-29 14:16:25 UTC #7

seems like they make pixel art in a bigger size then.
I am also in from the era where sprite comics were a thing. And those sprites and panels are way smaller than the comics that are listed here. I do find it very interesting to see.

system 2022-05-29 14:16:27 UTC #8

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