Sprite Comic - Quality Problems & Criticisms

Quality Problems & Criticisms

Sprite comics enjoy popularity as an alternative comic style, because of the relative ease of creating a simple sprite comic. However this coupled with the low bar for aesthetics set by early and successful comics, many fans of this medium created their own spin offs. While some evolved beyond the framework that had been set by their predecessors (Example: MSPaint Masterpieces) a lot of comics were unsuccessful due to the stagnation of the gimmick.

A lot of the problems sprite comics have are shared with other amateur webcomics, but are exacerbated by the added problem of sprites requiring extra care to look good, due to their precise nature. Such problems, such as JPG artifacts, speech bubble placement and a lack of palette forethought can ruin a sprite comic far easier than a hand drawn webcomic. However, it is also true that there are a lot of source images dumped from video games that people use without editing which can also be grating due to the audience already being familiar with the sprites in question. It also damages suspension of belief when all the characters look the same bar a recolour.

There are also potential legal issues involved in using graphics from games which would be protected under copyright. However, the proprietary companies rarely, if ever, pursue legal actions against amateur cartoonists that use sprites taken from their games. Webcomic hosting services may have varying policies concerning sprite comics taken from existing games.

However some original sprite comics exist and make little if any use of copyrighted material.