» Review - Drum Beat

Introduction
Drum Beat, created by Tolneir and Blue_Star, is a light-hearted comic about a boy suckered into a school race. He goes along with it, even if some weird things start happening. For starters, two strangers show up who claim to be different aspects of himself. Second, classmates start plotting against him, and he's threatened with blackmail if he tries to win the race. On top of everything else, he has a somewhat eccentric friend named White, who experiments on him throughout the comic. As the story progresses, the boy understandably becomes more and more irritable with his circumstances.

The Positive Aspects
What it may lack in detail, Drum Beat makes up for in its simplistic charm. Its refreshing, light hearted story helps us take a break from the epics, or the three panel gag comics that we love to read so often. With amusing scenes and dialogue, Drum Beat proves entertaining even if it's still just beginning. The backgrounds, when added, are drawn well and add presence to the pages, rather than draw attention away from the characters. The cutesy facial expressions keep the mood fun and light, and the anime-influenced gag-style comedy keep the comic consistent with its humor and style.

Despite smaller text, the dialogue is smooth and punchy. It doesn't use harsh language or adult themes to get the point across, which adds to its overall endearing feel and charm.

The Criticisms
Regardless of its charm, Drum Beat still needs some work. The artist's skill is still developing, so anatomical, proportional, and even panel layout issues present themselves. It would probably be a good idea if Tolneir went and looked at reference books to touch up on his anatomy; the library is full of resources on how the human body is drawn and put together. Also, he should try and work on shrinking his character's heads a little to make them more proportional to their bodies. Panel layout takes time and experience to master; he'll do much better if he starts thumbnailing his comic pages, to make sure his ideas make sense. Also, the choices of small, thin texts can make it difficult for readers to see what the characters are saying or thinking. If the artist used more noticeable fonts, such as Comic Sans in caps lock, or the comic-related fonts found on Blambot, he would fix that problem altogether.

His backgrounds could use more depth, shadow, and highlights, and he could definitely use more of them. Better, richer backgrounds would help focus the reader's attention where it should be: on the foreground and speech bubbles.

The Conclusion
Although I found this comic harder to read because of the text, it was still fun to look over and review. It will be interesting to see how this artist progresses. As he's only 12, he has a long way to go, and drawing comics is only going to help him get there.

- Minaa