Capes & Babes, a webcomic by Chris Flick

***A little edit here: Just wanted to mention that I got a nice little plug from Tommie over at Road Crew Comic. Go check it out (and Tommie’s comic too) by clicking the link.***

Some more fun at “Randy Lugar’s” expense. I mean, seriously, what’s up with that guy and portfolio critiques at conventions?

If you are a fan of Web Comics Weekly, you’ll know that Brad, Kris, Dave and Scott have been discussing this subject in-depth. Me? I’m just having a little bit of fun with the subject as I really do see a lot of different sides to convention critiques.

The thing is, if you’re going to ask a “pro” to look at your stuff, you should be prepared for something you don’t want to hear. The absolute worst you can do is to try and defend your work – I think that’s really want puts pros off at looking at people’s portfolios during a convention. If you’re defending your work, then you really weren’t looking for a critique. You were looking for validation and praise.

The best way to deal with a critique is to be completely open to anything and everything a pro is telling you. You can certainly tell or try to explain to them what you were trying to do in a certain panel or page – that’s a lot different then “defending” your work. So, for example, I believe it’s perfectly okay to say “I was attempting to do X-Y-and-Z. What would have been a better way to do this panel, strip or page?”. That’s completely different then saying “I was following one of Wood’s ‘21 panel that always work’ so it’s gotta be right”. That’s defending your work and not be open to getting a critique.

Know what you want (in terms of advice) before you approach a pro at a convention. I think you’ll get much better results.

Unless they have a huge sign behind them that say “I don’t do portfolio critiques”.

Then you’re pretty much screwed.

Listening to “You can call me Al”…

-Chris