Need to make a webcomic, but have trouble transforming your scribbles into recognizable figures? No problem!
Stick figures are easy, simple, and will get your point across without the pressures of drawing "real" art to a deadline. Used as a stopgap in some
webcomics whenever the artist doesn't have the time/energy to draw his or her normal characters.
Doing this as an "off-art" day in a normal comic is acceptable, though do it too much and you may annoy your fanbase, who came expecting better of you.
Choosing to do this full-time means that the plot, characterization, and/or jokes have to stand up on their own two line-drawn feet. If your writing is not up to scratch, you'll sink into the murky, stagnant waters of the Internet to join the rest of the ignored. Of course, if it
is, you'll reach Geek Nirvana.
Examples: (alphabetical order, please)
Full-Time Comics
- Anti-Heros
: Heavily inspired by The Order of the Stick.
- Cyanide and Happiness is a Dead Baby Comedy drawn by four different guys.
- Done in printed comics by Matt Feazel (a quite skilled artist) in Cynicalman, to demonstrate that anyone who can write can do a comic.
- Similarly, Keychain Of Creation. The author freely admits that his webcomic is like Order of the Stick, but with Exalted instead of Dungeons and Dragons. This editor, who has read both, feels that all they have in common (apart from being Stick Figure Comics inspired by tabletop RP Gs) is that they are both consistently excellent.
- Legendary, a webcomic about console RPGs, whose art is directly influenced by Order of the Stick. When it still updated, that is.
- Pictures for Sad Children
- The Order Of The Stick. Given the level of pure detail (check out, for example, the first panel of this comic or this one), the stick figures have become more of an art gimmick than a time-saving measure.
- Stickman And Cube. The title pretty much sums it up.
- StickManStickMan is an early example.
- (tsuduku...) has a random stick figure guy named "Guy," a circle named "Circle," and so on. Some characters, like Evil Thing, were scribbled out once long ago and have become copy/pasted like self-made clip art ever since.
- The supremely geeky xkcd is both an exemplar and a subversion, since the author actually draws more complicated scenes.
Off-art Comics
Other Media
