A review of Snails Don't Have Freinds |
| First Published: 2005 |
| Format: A5, Staple bound. |
| Number of pages: 28 |
| Age Rating: U |
| Price: £2 |
| Availability: Purchase at the Sweatdrop Studios website. |
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Introduction Welcome to Snails Don't Have Friends, the comic by Selina Dean that was completed in 8 days from start to end. Unlike most comics this one has no dialogue whatsoever the entire story is told with pictures alone. So as you can imagine every frame tells the story in a way that can explained without words. Our protagonist, called such because he doesn't have a name as such, is wondering through the streets when he encounters a busker, who with a bit of monetary persuasion becomes two beautiful women. Our protagonist falls in love with these two immediately, but the two girls fall in love with each other! Our protagonist is heartbroken, literally and goes to the repair shop to have it fixed, however the shopkeeper decides to fix him permanently instead.Art & Design Because of the nature of this comic, and despite its short creation period, this comic tells the story very well indeed. Believe me its very easy to follow despite the lack of any dialogue, its very easy to get the gist of events. Lending to the speed of creation is the simplicity of Selina's artwork. In general most of Selina's comics are drawn in a fairly minimalist chibi style, but it is very well executed and looks very good on these pyschedelic multicoloured pages. For those of you who don't know of Selina Dean, most of her comics are produced in this style. But as an artist she is capable of many styles of art, and also art with great detail, one need only look at her art site nodding cat to see this. Certainly to produce any comic in such a short length of time is a great feat. Despite the timeframe very little looks to have been skipped or rushed, there is tone where there needs to be, and the layout of the frames has been thought about, and not just thrown anywhere. There are also handy little signs and thought bubbles to help the story along too. The only noticeable problems are the details in backgrounds, a few more hours might have made a perfect comic. There are scenes which require no backgrounds as such, but some of the scenes with backgrounds could have been more detailed, maybe just a few more clocks, a few more windows on buildings ect, but nothing to distract from the minimalist art of the comic. Overall though things are looking good, and the quality of the finished product is pretty good also, with its full colour cover and multicoloured pages. Its fun not to have to look too hard at a comic to understand it. |
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF SWEATDROP STUDIOS, & SELINA DEAN. Review by Wayne Hallows |
