Francisco's blog

9 Awesome Web Comic Series

Francisco — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 21:02:27 +0000

The internet is a wonderful and beautiful thing. It used to be that if you had the talent to draw your own comics you were still limited by the avenues of distribution like newspapers and magazines. Now all you need is a computer and a small chunk of change (some web design skills wouldn't hurt.). Here are 9 of my favorite web comics that I think you will also like.

Diesel Sweeties

You 8-bit graphic lovers out there will like this one because it's illustrated in an 8-bit style, but the videogame nostalgia ends there. It takes place in a world were robots exist and even have relationships with humans. It's very witty and fun to read.

Cyanide & Happiness

This is one of my favorite web comic series. It's very simply drawn and so dark in its humor. They also produce animated versions of their comics which are incredible as well

Freak Angels

A very popular web comic written by Warren Ellis, an experienced writer who has worked with Marvel, DC, Image, and others, and an amazing illustrator named Paul Duffield. It's a more classic comic-book style.

The Brads

Brad Colbow is web designer and illustrator. He also releases a web comic series titled "The Brads" which is about two web designers making fun of the issues that some designers face with their clients and technology. If you're a designer you will certainly enjoy this comic. You might have seen his work in Smashing Magazine or Vector Tuts.

Octopus Pie

Octopus Pie is an ongoing comic series about two women living in Brooklyn, NY - their jobs, social circles, and some problems.

Ctrl+Alt+Del

A sci-fi/geek/videogame culture comic in the same vein as Penny Arcade. One awesome thing that they do is a choose-your-own-adventure style mini-series where they ask readers to email which decision should the character make.

Antics Comics

This one is similar to Cyanide & Happiness. Dark humor and simple drawing style.

Creased Comics

It's really a bunch of comics and video-comics in one. They are weird, dark, and funny.

Penny Arcade

And last but not least, Penny Arcade, the godfathers of web comics. A geek-culture comic strip about videos games, role playing games, movies, and even fatherhood. They've expanded into a little geek empire with an online TV series, an animation series, and 3-day gaming festivals held on both coasts of the U.S. WIRED magazine even did a nice profile on them in 2009, read it here.

About the author

Hi readers!
I'm a Graphic Designer in New York City (Brooklyn!). NY is a hub for design and my posts will try to focus on, but will not be limited to, design related things happening in NY, such as museum exhibits, architecture, events, local artist interviews, galleries, etc. I'm very much into technology and art and how they intersect to make multimedia art installations. Hope you enjoy my posts!
Check out my blog Distracticon.com
My site: www.franciscog.com
Follow me on Twitter

Really cool 80's 8-bit inspired Flash games

Francisco — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 04:49:41 +0000

As you may already know, we here at Abduzeedo are big fans of everything 80's. Of course one big part of that are video games. Those old 8-bit games might not have the amazing graphics modern games have but our nostalgia for them keeps them alive in many ways. Pixel Art has become a growing phenomena on the net and Flash has allowed people to continue making new games in that 8-bit Nintendo/Sega style. Here are some examples of some amazing Flash-based 8-bit style video games.

The following 2 games are by designer/illustrator Manning Krull, check out his tutorial on how to do a simple 8-bit pixel art character walking animation.

Toxic Sonic Zombie Massacre (click on link to play, for some reason it doesn't load when embedded)

Curses! (only a 1 level demo but still fun to play)

The following game was made to promote the movie The Watchmen. It's based on the Minutemen group of characters from the comic. It was a really clever promotional tool since the movie takes place in the 80's.

You can play the game here: www.minutemenarcade.com

This game is super fast but a lot of fun. You run around as Jesus performing as many miracles as you can in 10 seconds.

Run Jesus Run!

Finally, we can't forget one aspect that makes these video games great, their music. 8-bit music, or Chiptunes, have also become a huge phenomenon on the internet. For you game developer & pixel artists, Boing Boing is hosting a contest where you can develop a simple game utilizing some free chiptune songs they made available. Just thought I'd quickly mention it just in case anyone was interested: link

UPDATE::
Thanks to "Tze" in the comments for informing me about 2 other 8-bit games that definitely need to be included in this post. One-Button-Bob is my favorite so far. You just click the mouse button to make the character do a different activity in each section.
Small Worlds
One Button Bob

And also here's a great Chiptunes song by Tettix that I just can't stop listening to:

About the author

Watch Flash content on your mobile device...without Flash!

Francisco — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:49:02 +0000

This could be a game changer, a way around that pesky nuisance of not being able to view Flash on your mobile device, and a big middle finger to the squabble between Apple & Adobe. Smokescreen is a new app (javascript code? or whatever) that will allow you to convert your Flash file into HTML5/Javascript content. That's right, no more Flash plugin needed and viewable on any device that supports HTML5 & Javascript (hello iPhones & iPads). Even better yet, Smokescreen will be open source and free! I can't wait to start using it.

Check out this demo on the iPad:

Smokescreen - iPad demo #1 from Chris @ RevShockAds on Vimeo.

See more demos on their website

smokescreen.us

Francisco's blog

9 Awesome Web Comic Series

Diesel Sweeties

Cyanide & Happiness

Freak Angels

The Brads

Octopus Pie

Ctrl+Alt+Del

Antics Comics

Creased Comics

Penny Arcade

About the author

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Really cool 80's 8-bit inspired Flash games

About the author

Sponsored Links:

Watch Flash content on your mobile device...without Flash!

About the author

Sponsored Links: