That's just an example off the top of my head. I'll be doing more craft videos soon--and if you or anyone else has any certain topics they want me to talk about, let me know.
I definitely like this direction, at some point the Liam and Donal milk will run dry and you'll need something to fall back on.
However I need to call you out on a few things:
Slapfighting - this debate is a good subject, but maybe avoid getting into autistic slapfights. Comics are dorky enough without more layers of dorky debates going round in circles.
I get what you're saying about establishing shots for sure, but I think it gets a little confusing when you conflate it with the pullback/reveal. Going by something you said in a previous video, the reader is a detective - so every shot is really an establishing shot, by definition the first shot is an establishing shot even if it's just a black screen with some text.
Looking at Hitchcock in practice, movies like Psycho and Rear Window open with a very active, roving camera that not only establishes, but also brings to life the world in which the story is about to take place. Rear Window in particular dumps a huge amount of information in its opening shots, building the entire world in which the film then happens.
Sergio Leone is another good one, I think this scene is a good example of the point you're making about a delayed pullback shot being better than an opening wide shot:
It being cinema, Leone uses musical refrains where a comic book author would use text to deliver the emotions, but the basic idea is the same. It's potentially much more impactful to save those rich wide shots for where it suits the story, rather than obey a rule about opening establishing shots being wide shots.
However moving on from that, you did two presentational things I don't like:
1. The presentation of the comic using Dropbox in your browser is just awful. The comic is too small to see properly. It feels like being in a gallery and somebody has set the guard rail back ridiculously far. I can see there's a comic there, with stuff on it, that's about it. You're using less than half the screen, and the rest is colored like a bathroom.
I wish CGers would make more of an effort to present their own work with more theatrical grandiosity. This is a show for your work, a showcase. Chop the comic up or zoom into it and showcase it panel by panel if you need to, that's how documentaries do it. You shouldn't be presenting your product the same way you would a garbage-tier website article that you wanted to roast.
2. You yadda yadda'd your own story, which is a CG pet hate of mine. You know: "Then they get captured by the
Jawas, then they get sold to
Luke, yadda yadda
yadda..." If you're getting bored going through your own story, how am I supposed to get excited about it?
This is me being a little harsh on you, but please understand the bigger point I'm trying to make. Guys like
@FROG and Dillard are able to sell me on their comic very quickly, for several reasons. One, they care about their stories, and I can sense that they care about them when they talk about them. They're like custom cars that they love to tinker on, you can sense their enthusiasm, you can sense there's going to be a personal touch and depth to the story. The product is going to have a 'soul'. While I like your ASYL project, I feel like it has a different feel - not a labor of love, but almost more like a school assignment. Know what I mean? It's like something you're into, and excited about, but it's different. It's a cool project, but it's not like Cyberfrog and The Buckler, where it feels more like their whole heart and soul is in the product.
The other reason Frog and Dillard sell me on their product more quickly is because they're natural raconteurs - they're able to get away with doing lazy streams that are still entertaining through their natural storytelling ability.
I want to see you work on your raw natural storytelling ability, because right now I would say that Big Daddy, who you clowned and roasted, is a better horror storyteller than you. He has actually scared me just from talking on his streams, whereas you have never scared me even a tiny bit. And you're the one selling a horror comic!
That's why Nasserpiece Theater was good training and marketing for you. You were being clowned and roasted the same way as Big Daddy, but at the same time people got a sense of your style of storytelling, which may or may not be their cup of tea. And that's what matters for sales in the end.
So what I'm saying in a nutshell is, sell me on your horror storytelling abilities, and don't worry about getting into 'No actually I think you'll find I
am right' type arguments that don't really matter. What matters is that you need to find and sell to your audience, which is horror fans presumably. And the way to do that is by showing us what you can do.
Hitchcock famously used to spontaneously recount hideous made-up murder incidents whenever he was in an elevator, just to shit up the other people in the elevator. Almost like horror farts, he was farting horror into their minds while they were trapped in the elevator with him. Just for shits and giggles.
Where is that mischievous spirit from you? On Sunday, Testefy was Bugs Bunny to your Elmer Fudd. Even Smiller, Square Smiller, is more mischievous than you. He was like the R2-D2 to your C3PO that same day.
So prove yourself here on these proving grounds of the internet. Can you spin a yarn? Can you tell an improv story like this guy, the self-proclaimed 'greatest storyteller on Twitch'? (Don't feel bad if not, you have some way to go before you're on this guy's level.)
That's all you need to be able to do. Can you make me shit my pants, either through laughter or fear? That's the main thing we all want deep down.