Introduction
Bucket o' Demons started up the first of March, 2006. The storyline revolves around two demons, Dom and Chris, each with their own unique traits. Chris is a very odd fellow. He starts out as a childish character, betting Dom he can throw a rock through a window. He later ends up stealing a purple man's cloak for no apparent reason. This is fortunate, as it lets the reader tell the two apart. Over the course of the comic, Chris entirely fails to mature, something that adds to the likeability the character. Dom, meanwhile, is the sensible one who, after losing a bet, gets stuck as a slave to a family. His sensibility doesn't always help him out in the story because (in the world of Bucket o' Demons), Dom's type of character is frowned upon.
The Positive Aspects
The strongest point of this comic has to be the art. It's a very nice style that reminds me of some excellent 90's era cartoons. When the writing is done correctly, this comic is definitely buckets o' fun. "The Turner Dance" (page 21) shows off all the potential that OllieFreak brings to this comic. It made me squirm with laughter and it didn't even have the main characters in it. In fact, due to some very nicely scripted secondary characters, Bucket o' Demons has the ability to not always focus on the two main characters, but have successful comics about any of the other characters involved in the story. It also has a very neat custom template. Whenever you switch from page to page the background picture, which is otherwise covered by the comic itself, is displayed in full. This picture is the one on the BoD banner portraying the two demons over top of a gradient. The colors in this gradient are very representative of the Dom and Chris's home: Heck. It's much more visually appealing these days.
The Criticisms
The comic itself is cluttered with extraneous guest comics which interfere with the plot-momentum. In fact, most of them end up being more of a hindrance than anything. In the future, having fewer guest comics, or more appropriately placed ones (at the ends of chapters, for example) would help a good deal. The speech bubbles are also out of place sometimes, with flow of the text sometimes following a jagged path, or reading from the left to right. Better focus on readability (especially making sure that the bubbles read naturally down the page) would completely remove this problem. The final complaints for this comic come from an era of experimentation that Ollie did, which I've outlined in the "Timeline of Improvement" section below. The best advice for this (and this goes for almost every artist with a running series) is that experimentation is great in moderation, and also outside the story-arc. The more experiments you try, the greater the chance you will alienate your fans.
Timeline of Improvement
As I have stated previously, the earlier days of Bucket o' Demons saw a lot of experimentation. While page nine features the comic in very appealing form, page ten seems to find the comic losing its sheen just a bit. As page twelve rolls along, the visual appeal has completely died away. This continues until page 17, after which there is a definite upward swing. From there, the comic regains it's lost appeal, and adds to it. The story also reasserts itself, and everything seems to click. The artwork has improved, the storytelling has improved, and even the very understandability of the comic has improved. While chapter one comes off as rather disjointed, chapter two illustrates exactly what Ollie can do.
The Conclusion
Although I wasn't particularly attracted to this comic back when it was young, once chapter two began I've found myself giddy as a schoolgirl and anxiously awaiting the next comic to come out. The storyline is pretty easy to jump into so I'd recommend starting at chapter two for those who want a comic that's pretty darn good from the start. Don't get me wrong, the first chapter's got some really good stuff in it, but the second chapter is when this comic ascends.
(You can read Bucket o' Demons at
http://bucketofdemon.smackjeeves.com/
)
- Vito
