Your kid’s hallucinatory episodes are normal. Wanna participate in a crime?
Today is the 14th anniversary of the comic. 14 years of Selkie. It doesn’t feel real, but here we are. Thank you for reading folks, and here’s to many more!
Today's edition of the Secret Commentary is empty, because Dave failed to come up with something for it.
I just realized that yesterday (24 May 2024) makes it 14 years that Selkie’s story has been told.
Thank you so much for this, Dave! <3
Oh heck I meant to mention that in the chat post, thanks for saying something. :O
Ah Pohl, welcome to a common human moral dilemma!
Congratulations on 14 years! I hope many more are to come.
Hot diggity! 14 years!
(Hallucinatory green rainbows are normal? Good to know. Now to find out what song it plays…)
“Hey Todd … Wanna come see the Frenzy with me? I have such wonderful sights for you to see….”
Here is the thing. I’m pretty sure the reason Then had them make the vow is so it doesn’t get back to Avery because Avery would shut it down immediately for obvious reasons.
In b4 Then gets his.
What would you expect Avery to do about this?
Then was clear about his project being something he’s arranged with the United States government. Avery works for the United States government. Even if Avery personally disapproves of what Then is doing (not something we can guarantee), his ability to go against his superiors is limited. The people trying to gain military secrets almost certainly are higher up the command chain and have a higher security clearance than the guy overseeing the peaceful integration of civilian refugees.
Congratulations and Happy Anniversary!
Happy Anniversary! I enjoy reading this comic <3
Congrats!!!
Strictly speaking, merely saying that you’re thinking about a confidentiality agreement is hinting at people that there’s something afoot that they should get curious about, without actually saying anything specific enough that it would be breaking the terms of the confidentiality agreement 🙂
Congrats on 14 years! Feels like yesterday we were getting pissed off at the teeny tiny principal!
I don’t remember when I first started reading Selkie but it has been for many years now. Thank you for the 10 years of entertainment, and here is hopefully to many more!
Your art has really improved.
I was just thinking the opposite. Like…the art still looks like someone who has never bothered to improve their knowledge of especially faces and facial anatomy. I expected much more change to the style of the comic.
I kind of reached a ‘settling point’ with the art that admittedly I haven’t pushed past. Micro-improvements but no significant or drastic ones. I’m not sure where to go with it; I’m kind-of of a mind, honestly, to just accept I’m a C-tier artist. As long as it isn’t preventing people from enjoying the posts.
I’m enjoying ’em!
I’m seeing those micro improvements! They’re starting to add up!
Some of the “flaws” are starting to morph into stylizations as lines are becoming cleaner and more “deliberate.” Now this may mean that on a technical aspect certain proportions or anatomy will always be flawed and need improvement, but at that point it’s part of a style, and there’s plenty of A and S-tier artists that have that exact same problem, but the rest of the art they make is so refined that the flaws are part of what makes those artist’s art those artist’s art.
If your art is “C-tier” but people keep coming back, it’s the mark of an amazingly solid story.
Nobody needs to aim for any specific level of art. If it’s good enough to get the story across — and yours certainly is — then you do as much or as little as you prefer. You’ve got a life outside the comic, after all.
(People said a similar thing about the guy who makes Dominic Deegan, and honestly I don’t see a problem with his art. Apparently there’s a whole hatedom. Imagine how much a person has to have accomplished to actually get a fandom focused on hating his work for not being cooler than it is.)
…I’d still like to see you study Accidental Tangents to avoid randomly giving me an eye-twitch XD
Does he really need to, though? I mean, for this comic? I’d say Dave’s style gives it a unique look that is part of the comic’s identity. Improvement is all well and good, but I feel like the comic would lose something in the pursuit of perfection.
I can’t find another way of explaining it, but honestly? Something about the art style feels very appropriate for it being a comic about a 9-year-old. I realize that might sound really condescending — not my intention at all! Just… even in the middle of the darkest moments (Plo Quar blasting a man’s arm and half his face off, say), I’m not forgetting that. For that matter, it’s probably what keeps this child-friendly. (See, again, Plo Quar blasting Scar. Imagine what that might look like with greatly “improved” art. OK, actually it would probably look really cool. But not necessarily child-friendly.)
If I were to give advice, I would say that the way to go forward from here is to actively study anatomy and come up with a simplified style that suits what you want for the comic. Basically, go back to the drawing board and redesign all the characters in a very deliberate style that accounts for the proper shape of bodies. You don’t have to go for realism. There are plenty of resources out there that teach people how to draw a multitude of cartoon styles. Also, you don’t have to convert the comic immediately. Practicing in the background to figure out what feels right to you is absolutely valid and probably the way to go.
The only way to not get better at art is to decide you’re never going to get better at art. And yes, there have been changes to the comic, but I didn’t realize that it’s been 14 years and their faces are still way too long and their mouth is not particularly shaped like mouths. Like that is a very long time of impressively consistent updates, and usually art styles tend to drift toward the better and more personally unique over time. I’m very surprised that it sort of stalled out.
To be completely clear, there are many good things about this comic, or I would never spend my time on it. The story is excellent. The world building is great. I am here for all of that, and honestly if you ever decide to write a novel, I will be the first to buy that. Like hook me up if you ever get published in the literary world. Additionally, you clearly have a good idea of what you want the action seems to look like and what people’s expressions and gestures should be, it just seems like the style hasn’t caught up in terms of physical anatomy, smoothness of the lines, and especially any kind of shading. But I can tell it’s there, the ideas are very much there, and the dynamic nature of what’s going on on scene is always both clear and interesting.
It’s like you’ve got this really cool jigsaw puzzle, you put almost all the pieces into place, and there’s just a few left such that it really does stand out that they’re not there. If the whole thing was trash, I feel like no one here would be giving it the time of day. And if the art stays like this forever, I’m still here until the end of the story.
Wow, that’s a pretty crappy thing to say Alcor. I’ve been reading this comic since it looked like it was done in MS Paint with a mouse, the art and writing has improved. Regardless what you have to say about it.
You know, someone who dabbles with art would know there are specific things about the human form that often poses a challenge for many folks, like hands.
I’d say “I’d like to see which comics you have done” but that would mean acknowledging your accomplishments and I don’t want to.
Well that’s rude. I didn’t say, the comic is horrible and you should feel bad and you should stop drawing it. I said I was surprised that in 14 years, it seems like the art has barely improved. And yes, I stand by that. Yes, it has improved, but 14 years is a very long time and if you look at the arc of most webcomics, the change is usually much more drastic.
That said, the story is excellent, the world building is great, and if the art bothered me that much, I wouldn’t be here. Like I really think Dave should write a novel someday, because I want to read that stuff. And there are a lot of trappings of really cool art here that I feel like could be unlocked if the art got a bit of an overhaul. Like the action is there, the dynamic appearance is there, the facial expressions are there.
I’m an artist too, actually. I don’t do comics, but I do lots of character design. I’m more of a single pictures kind of person. I believe that yeah, I draw bodies better than Dave, but Dave kicks my butt in terms of dynamic action from scene to scene, which is really the essence of making a comic instead of single images. Like I said, the reason it stands out to me quite so much is because the rest of the comic is so darn amazing.
But go off about how somebody who said a slightly negative thing about a comic clearly has no accomplishments in life and you don’t want to acknowledge that they’re a human being, sure
Thank you. Appreciate it. I tend to lean towards the self critical. XD
The story you’re telling is impressively good. The characters are well developed. Readers have strong feelings about most of them, one way or another.
Remember that one of the most successful webcomics out there is a guy who draws stick figures (XKCD). Art is nice when it happens but it’s not the most important thing.
There are some things that you watch or look at just for the pretty and not for the storyline or plot (screensavers, etc). There are also things you read for the plot and character development no matter what the art is, or even if there is art. Even if you switched to fully written form or mostly written with some pictures, I would still read this story because of how well you have written it. The art is just a tasty side dish to the plot and characters for me.
14 years, llongyfarchiadau!
I started reading Selkie in 2011, a little under a year in. Gadzikowski’s “Arthur” was on hiatus (I think), and I was poking aroung Google using mythological references to locate a comic with similar roots. I happened on Selkie, loved the naive art style, and skipped back to the beginning to read. Dave has shown patience with my pop-culture ignorance and inattentive posting ever since.
I think I started reading when Todd was looking at his child self, looking at the fish vomit drawing. Man that was so long ago. I kept checking every few days and was “Wow this is actually good” and I’m glad I stayed. The slice of life, the character development, and having a different race among us.
I saw Selkie being recommended on another webcomic I currently read (I don’t remember which one), and I’ve been here since… well, really early. I can’t remember that, either! lol. I think it was when they went shoe shopping is when I arrived, and I’ve been opening this page every single day since, reading the archives and new updates.
Same with me. I saw the ad, and my thoughts were something like “Looks like a humor comic about a guy who adopts a vampire girl and is too clueless to realize it — well, let’s check it out; I can always drop it again after a few days.” And look, I’m still here.
If Pohl is about to do what I think he’s about to do, then he’s skating on very thin and dangerous ice.
I like your work. Thank you for sharing your story and art.
Well, let me add my belated congratulations on a job well done.
Wow… I know my kids were little when I started reading it but I forgot just how little. My youngest is less than a year older than the comic.
Thank you for not giving up on this comic.
I’m still reading and enjoying it after all this time.