Spaceboy Nigeria

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1. 
   Amida Azeez

   August 20, 2010 at 10:32 am | #

   Great art. I think though that the creator/writer is overly too naive and expressive. He doesn’t know what his character wants and obviously he doesn’t think he has the authority to speak to everyone reading this strip. If this was a leisure thing, NO WAHALA, but if not, I think it needs to be taken back to the drawing board and reworked. It isn’t just about a noce idea but all I see here are just thoughts not well channelled into a single line of engagement.

   Art: I think the artist spent most of his time practicing without really educating himself. His anatomy is sloppy and his expressions are varying every now and then. Body language, maybe good enough but knowledge of the environ isn’t well established. His background drawing is quite low and not engaging…

   Much more, I am not sure if this is a good place to paste this but I’d appreciate it if the admin place it where everyone can see it.

   I like the fact that Nigerians are coming out to do what I have always hoped someone would stand up and do for real. I enjoy seeing Nigerians do the same things Stan Lee and Jack Kirby did a long time ago. But my fear is simply we still lack the most pressing things Comics need. Comics to me is more than pencils on a plane sheet of paper, meshed with inks and a few ‘wannabe’ colouring. I think we still have a long way to go and the way we artists and writers in Nigeria treat ourselves simply just isnt it.

   Forgive me but I am usually of the mindset that when something is worth doing do it well and I know you will probably say it took those guys in Marvel and DC a while before they got to wherever they are right now but my take is simple, where they are right now is where we should be starting from because that is the standard. Comics in Nigeria will not grow because we never gave Nigerians a reason not to buy the comics out there…we never gave them the good stories.

   It started with DARK EDGE:

   Bad story, bad characterization, poorly edited, and sloppy art and YET we praise ourselves and say we tried. They probably sold a thousand copies and claimed to be sold out but they were too consumed by the hunger of some Nigerians who just wanted to see a comic printed that they forget the quest of people who want to see something new. I bout every edition of that comic hoping the next one would be better but to me AYO ELEGBA never got better through the whole process of DARK EDGE. He never wanted to make a difference. His dialogue lines are always coming from one movie or cartoon or music…sort of a cliché thing.

   What I see so far are a group of artists and writers without direction; so what do they do…they simply just do what they feel like. They ride the wave of what they believe was a beautiful idea in their heads since primary two and hope to have some hungry boy, who probably will stop reading comics somewhere after his fifteenth birthday, give them an applause for a job badly done. Bottom line, Comics in Nigeria needs direction and the way I see it, it probably will never get one unless people start taking themselves seriously.

   Amida
   Professional Comic editor and critic for 5 years.
2. 
   Anonymous

   August 20, 2010 at 11:14 am | #

   Hi,

   Thanks for your comment on the strip. However, I am not sure that I understand some of the criticisms that you have raised regarding the strip -

   “I think though that the creator/writer is overly too naive and expressive. He doesn’t know what his character wants and obviously he doesn’t think he has the authority to speak to everyone reading this strip. If this was a leisure thing, NO WAHALA, but if not, I think it needs to be taken back to the drawing board and reworked. It isn’t just about a noce idea but all I see here are just thoughts not well channelled into a single line of engagement.”

   As the creator and writer I want to understand what you mean by me being “overly too naive and expressive”. Is it the dialogue? The pacing? You feel Africa and the babalawo are too expository or unrealistic? And when you say that I “don’t know what my character wants” or that I don’t feel that I have “the authority to speak to everyone reading this strip.”. These statements are a bit vague to me as I am not sure that I understand them with some of them seeming like your own personal opinion.

   Do bear in mind that Africa Benson is a webcomic written with the aim to compress as much information/narrative progression into a single page and the story and characters will become more and more fleshed out as more time goes on.

   I am of course hopefully still learning on the job and will be able to get better at capturing the nuances of writing dialogue and pushing the story as far as I want it to go.

   As for the comments on the artwork I see that you start your comment with “Great art.” Later on you go into specifics regarding some perceived deficencies with the artwork in the webcomic so far. I do feel that no artist is perfect, but as long as they can deliver on a style that engages the reader and express aesthetic beauty, then it is good to go. I will say though that I feel that Shobo is a really great artist and as he gets more comfortable drawing Africa and her world, things will be getting even better on the strip.

   Again, thanks for your comments.
3. 
   Anonymous

   August 20, 2010 at 11:26 am | #

   “I like the fact that Nigerians are coming out to do what I have always hoped someone would stand up and do for real. I enjoy seeing Nigerians do the same things Stan Lee and Jack Kirby did a long time ago. But my fear is simply we still lack the most pressing things Comics need. Comics to me is more than pencils on a plane sheet of paper, meshed with inks and a few ‘wannabe’ colouring. I think we still have a long way to go and the way we artists and writers in Nigeria treat ourselves simply just isnt it.

   Forgive me but I am usually of the mindset that when something is worth doing do it well and I know you will probably say it took those guys in Marvel and DC a while before they got to wherever they are right now but my take is simple, where they are right now is where we should be starting from because that is the standard. Comics in Nigeria will not grow because we never gave Nigerians a reason not to buy the comics out there…we never gave them the good stories.”

   I am not sure whether you were speaking to us at Spaceboy, but I do agree with your sentiments on this matter completely. In fact I think we should be better than what’s out there right now. Our standards are definitely international and I also agree that we should not rest on the easy excuse of “we have tried” and instead try to aspire to a lot more.
4. 
   Futuristochike

   August 20, 2010 at 5:32 pm | #

   Yes!Firstly,I’ve made some little observation on your web(even though some may not)and I have discovered It got some very good set-up but still missing the comic effect.I mean one will have to look very carefully to know if it’s a comic-web but if can of your web as a world-a Universe of it’s own,with some unique and BEAUTIFUL graphic detail.Then I believe you will know how to recreate the beauty of this world.Nevertheless it has been very progressive with information on the Nigerian comics(not just Spaceboy comics)and damn! this cite has got EVERYTHING.I mean this Cite is like the Embassador of the Nigerian Comics,wold-wide.Or lets say THE NIGERIAN COMIC PORTAL.
   Anyway,As for the comics it’s good work.Great use of the black and white color only that I think you should add some little color.Let’s Brown & gold-for the Africanism in the concept OR Purple and pink-for the ultra-sci-fi effects.But all the same it’s beyond being good.It is ACTUALLY the best thing that has ever HAPPENED in the Nigerian Comic scene-so far.I mean this is actually THE NIGERIAN COMIC BOOK SHOWCASE.There is no need for a group to do this..it’s is just someone with the WILLPOWER.
   Well,I charge you to just keep it up.
5. 
   John

   August 28, 2010 at 10:04 pm | #

   If I might chime in…

   As a disclaimer, I’m an American with no connection to Nigeria or Africa that I’m aware of. I grew up reading ’70s and ’80s DC and Marvel, and now mostly read older comics because the new…isn’t particularly good. Too much “people standing around” or “people making each other bleed” and not enough adventure.

   Reading Africa Benson, I’m actually impressed. What Mr. Areez identifies, I think, as deficiencies in art, I see as a sleek style that (thankfully) isn’t Manga-inspired. It’s wonderfully exaggerated to show motion, something most modern artists simply can’t do.

   Example from this installment: Look closely at the seventh panel. Even though Africa is airborne, her body “hangs” there realistically. That’s very refreshing, and I’m impressed that it’s possiible in such a tiny space.

   Story-wise, I’m less sure. I am definitely enjoying it, but there’s something “off,” like I’m supposed to understand how we got here but don’t.

   If I missed something (three preview strips and four installments in this story, right?) or if the context is coming, then that’s fine. But if not, I’d want to see just a tiny bit more background on why Africa landed at the cave entrance in the first place. Without it, it feels like we (as readers) don’t have a direction to follow. Perhaps that’s what Mr. Azeez saw as lacking motivation?

   Most importantly to me, this is fast-moving fun with big ideas. That’s been missing from comic books for a long time. So thank you, and I’ll be reading regularly and hopefully pushing people your way.
6. 
   Anonymous

   August 29, 2010 at 11:13 am | #

   Thanks for the comments and compliments John.

   With regards to the story, I deliberately started the tale a little after the ‘real’ beginning to get people a little bit disoriented and into the action. After this particular part of the story, some context will be brought in to make things make a lot more sense…I hope!

   One thing about the whole universe of Africa Benson that I am hoping to achieve is to leave some things pretty ambiguous and subject to interpretation. That will be coming much, much later in the strip though, but do watch out for that. I promise to try to make sure the overall plot makes complete sense and is internally consistent though.

   Glad you like the artwork as well!

   If you don’t mind my asking, how did you hear/find out about the strip?
7. 
   John

   August 29, 2010 at 12:21 pm | #

   I…you know? I don’t remember. It feels like I just ended up here.

   Oh! No, that’s it. I sometimes look around for Open Source concepts–I don’t have plans to create, but I do like to see what’s out there. After digging through boring search results, I found your Crowns post, and kept reading your other posts from there.

   And yes, I assumed we were “in media res,” and I’m more curious than frustrated, which is good.
8. 
   Anonymous

   August 29, 2010 at 1:07 pm | #

   Ah ok! That’s pretty cool. Glad you ended up finding stuff to keep you interested in the website itself! Hopefully, we can keep your interest .

   Hopefully, we can satisfy your curiosity soon as well.