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Sprite comics are webcomics that use computer sprites, often taken from video games, for significant portions of their artwork. There are also animated sprite comics, (called Sprite cartoons) where each "strip" is a separate mini-movie, animated using technologies such as Flash. The comic Neglected Mario Characters is generally considered the first sprite comic to appear on the web. It began as a spin-off feature from the Super Mario fansite Super Mario Headquarters. The first sprite comic to gain wide-spread popularity was Bob and George, which played a substantial role in the sudden popularity of sprite comics. It is often mistakenly identified as the first sprite comic. The strip utilizes sprites from the Mega Man series of games, with most of the characters being taken directly from the games. Due to the popularity of the comic, many of its features have been frequently emulated by other sprite comics, and thus are often seen as cliché. Such features include having extremely stupid characters, a character representing the author, self-referential humor, breaking of the fourth wall, and making fun of the strip itself. Sprite comics frequently use characters from well-known games such as Super Mario Bros., Final Fantasy, ''Sonic'', ''Metroid'' and ''Mega Man''. Some sprite comics use sprites from several different games. In addition to or instead of video game sprites, some comics use original sprites created specifically for the comic. Sprite comics have become very popular in large part due to the ease of creating a sprite comic, since minimal artistic skill is required. Sprites can easily be ripped from game ROMs using an emulator, or by using sprites from websites that collect sprites for public use. Comics can then be created using a simple image editor. Video game sprites are often designed to be animated, and thus often provide a wide variety of character poses. In addition, sprites are easily edited, allowing them to be easily modified. Because of the ease of creating the art, the author is free to focus on the writing aspect of the comic strip.
Quality problems and criticisms Because sprite comics can be so easily created, they quickly became very common. Many fans created their own comics, not deterred for lack of artistic skills, image editing skills, or writing skills. Thus many sprite comics were created which were widely considered to be poorly made and poorly written. Many of these comics had some or all of these characteristics: Due to the large quantity of poor-quality sprite comics, many people stereotype sprite comics in general as being poorly written, humorless, or ugly. Anti-sprite comics Over time, there have been some attacks made at sprite comics in the form of sprite comics themselves. They are known as "Anti-sprite comics", and are fairly uncommon. Most comics of this nature focus on over exaggeration of certain sprite comic clichés in an effort to show how others outside of the spriting community feel about this art form. While often bordering on Internet flaming, these comics usually have the unintended side effect of decreasing the number of comics found with these so-called "fundamental flaws." There are many different types of "anti sprite comics". Some fall into the clichés on purpose but never admit that it is a pun against sprite comics. Others tend to openly mock sprite comics by stating the flaws seen in most beginner's comics. Lastly, there are comics that don't so much mock sprite comics, but try to out do them in their own genre. The author sometimes tries to pass himself off like a bad spriter, but then tricks the reader by presenting a comic that outdoes most beginner and intermediate's work. This kind of one upmanship is used to encourage spriters to do better, whereas the other two types try to shame the spriter to try harder or to quit all together. Examples of popular existing sprite comics | ||||||||
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