Hari's Corner

With this entry, this blog has churned out all of 500 posts.

I realize it's not a big number compared to a host of other blogs out there, considering that this blog has existed for ages (since May 2005 to be precise). But I take pride in the fact that I've not missed a single month till date. I came close to missing this target a few times, but always managed to get in at least a single entry in a month.

A brief history

This blog has undergone some major changes over the years. A list of some of the important ones:

• Initially started off using WordPress (the obvious blogging solution at that time) in the URL hari.literaryforums.org.
• Converted to b2evolution as I became increasingly annoyed with WordPress and its growing bloat version after version.
• Coded my own solution which I continue using till date.
• Thoroughly re-organized harishankar.org (which was earlier used as my reviews site) some time ago so that the blog became visually and contextually integrated with my personal website and no longer an appendage to literaryforums.org.
• Most recently, the comics have been given more prominence with a separate navigation system.

Monday's comic comes a little early. Enjoy!

Update: now lettered with my own font...

In a moment of extreme boredom, I have created a Twitter account.

Have I become a twit?

I figured that like every other webcomic, I need a schedule to adhere to. I'll try to update this comic every Monday.

For that reason I'm creating a buffer of at least 3 episodes in advance. Enjoy.

I just finished coding a new feature on this blog: navigable "sticky" entries on the front page, just like announcements in an online forum.

What does that mean? In layman terms, I wanted a way to display my comics with prev/next links like so many other web comics do, so that the latest comic is always displayed at the top of the blog home page regardless of other updates to the blog. I also made it possible to disable this feature through a single option in the admin panel.

If you would like me to enable comics navigation on the home page, let me know and I'll go about "stickying" all the comics.

Just goes to show the benefits of having a custom-made solution.

Edit: Now enabled with full navigation.

I read quite a lot of webcomics these days; not least because I create comics regularly myself and I like to study others' creations: artistic techniques, characterization and storytelling. The webcomics I read vary a lot in theme, content as well as skill level of the artist - but most of them have one thing in common: humour.

I get bored quickly of story-based webcomics because the long story comic format is not ideally suited for the online medium. A 60-page comic book can be read in about an hour (or less if you're a quick reader). The same 60-page comic posted in a website can be tough to navigate (and incredibly tedious to follow if it is not updated frequently enough.)

With that in mind, I wanted to collect a list of my personal likes and dislikes on the topic of webcomics. I am well aware that I myself cannot achieve these ideals so easily in my own creations, but I set tough parameters for others, so sue me.

First, the likes:

Like

• Wacky but lovable and easily identifiable characters (think characters like Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam of Warner Bros' fame).
• Strong but not excessive use of bright primary colours and tones.
• Visual as well as verbal humour. Reliance on character expressions and actions in building the humour.
• Less reliance on punch lines or finish dialogs and more emphasis on humour distributed throughout all the panels.
• Consistent, but not excessively predictable situations.

Dislike

• Flat characters or characters that are too perfect or ordinary.
• Lengthy inordinate dialogues between characters.
• Arbitrary characterization: for instance where two characters can easily swap positions and the situation still makes sense.
• Excessive reliance on breaking the fourth wall or using cliched punch lines or endings.
• Complex scene composition: heavy use of background artwork which confuses the reader and creates a lot of "noise".

I feel that webcomics are the perfect medium for creative expression. There are so many types and varieties of them around; it never ceases to amaze me what ideas people come up with for writing a comic. Great artistic ability is almost never necessary or sufficient to create a good comic. When drawing a comic, what matters is the unique and distinctive touch of the creator.

This is why I am not much interested in anime/manga style illustrations: they all end up looking like they came out of a factory assembly line. Unfortunately a lot of artists pay too much attention to these technicalities and forget about the creativity bit. End result is that their work looks more or less similar to a hundred others. Ugly or beautiful, what makes a webcomic special is the author's unique style and storytelling ability.