Website review
To comply with my brief I have decided to review web comic websites. These sites consist of various genres of comic, with both the form and content differing between the websites.
I have chosen to critique the websites on the following areas
- Design
- Ease of Navigation
- Range and Quality of Content
I believe that these criteria will give the best analysis of the sites by reviewing the areas that are most important to visitors to the site.
Penny Arcade is a gaming web comic that was created in 1999 by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik and is primarily aimed at those interested in both the video game industry and gaming culture in general. It is one of the biggest web comics on the internet with over 2 million daily page views
Design: 4
The site consists of a simple front page where the blog post is submitted. These posts will stay on the front page until a new post and comic are submitted.
The site uses an attractive and easy to read format that allows an unobstructed view of the posts without the clutter of banner ads.
Ease of Navigation: 4
The website has a simple navigation bar at the top that links to all the different pages on the site including the forums, the online store, the daily comic and the blog post archives.
There is a banner at the bottom of the page that link to the latest posts, videos and shop merchandise. This makes the site easy to navigate and means that the latest content readily available.
Content: 5
Penny arcade contains a wide range of content with most of it being of interest to those with a passion for gaming. The site updates 3 times a week with a news post about various games and comments on the latest gaming news. The site also hosts a series of Flash animations and an online reality TV show based on the Penny Arcade offices.
Overall: 4.5
Pvponline is a web comic aimed at fans of most aspects of gaming, from video games to pen and paper RPG’s. It was created in 1998 by Scott Kurtz and is regarded as one of the first web comics. The comic follows the adventures of the staff of the fictional PvP magazine and combines comments on gaming industry news and original story arcs.Design: 3
The PvP website has undergone many recent redesigns with its latest iteration designed to incorporate the demand for RSS and Twitter feeds as well as the blog and comic strip into one single page.
The comic is the primary focus on the site with the blog posts found underneath and links to various sites and shops connected to the site on a simple navigation bar on the left of the page. The blog format is fairly standard and easy to use.
Ease of Navigation: 4
PvP uses a single page layout with the comic been displayed at the top of the site and blog posts underneath. The site is relatively simple in its layout and due to a lack of other pages makes navigation easy. Access to archived comics is available through a calendar and there are link to the author’s personnel blog and online shop beneath that.
Content: 3
As a web comic it is hard to fault PvP as it is updated 6 days a week with full colour strips that are always well drawn and amusing. However the rest of the site is somewhat lacking with the blog only been updated occasionally. There are links to a RSS and Twitter feed but apart from the comic there is very little to keep visitors to the site there for long.
Overall Rating: 3.5
Cyanide and Happiness is a web comic hosted on Explosm.net and unlike the other web comics I have reviewed it is created by multiple authors. The site is very popular with over a million daily page views. The comic’s style is often very controversial with the overall tone of the comics featuring a very close to the knuckle sense of humor often pushing the bounds of acceptability.Design: 3
Cyanide and Happiness’s page on Explosm.net is pretty poorly set out with such of the sites screen real estate devoted to banner ads and links to other websites.
There is no news post area on the comic’s page with any news post on the sites front page.
Ease of Navigation: 2.5
The content of the Cyanide and Happiness is easily navigable with the different comics been accessed through simple “next” and “previous” buttons. However the rest of the sites content is hard to locate due to the jumble of advertisements and a generally confusing layout.
Content: 4
Once located the site has a good range of content with editorials, comics and flash animations that are all regularly updated. The site also contains links to sites such as Twitter, Digg and Facebook so that readers can share content with their friends.
Overall Rating: 3
FreakAngels is a free weekly comic created by award winning writer Warren Ellis and artist Paul Duffield. It was launched in 2008 and features 6 full color pages updated every Friday.
Design: 4
The design for the FreakAngels website follows a very simple layout and colour scheme. The layout of the site allows for all the information to be found on one single page with the comic strip dominating the entire center of the page.
The colour layout uses a stripped down pallet with only 3 colours; black, white and purple.
Ease of Navigation: 4
The FreakAngels site is easily navigated as links to all the sites content is found in one place on the right hand side of the site. The comic itself can simply be navigated using “previous” and “next” buttons found at the bottom of each strip as well as an archive search button.
Content: 4
The quality of content is very high for this website with 6 full colour pages posted every Friday. The overall depth of content however is rather slim as the site only hosts the comic and an online shop. However considering that the site is free and is regularly updated these failings are easily overlooked.
Overall Rating: 4.5
Cad-comic.com hosts the webcomic CTRL+ALT+DEL and was launched in 2002 by its creator Tim Buckley. Since its creation the site has evolved from a simple webcomic to a site that hosts blog posts, twitter feeds, comics and an animated series. The comic is themed around video gaming news and culture.
Design: 4
The website has a very distinct style using a simple green and white colour combination. The sites main page contains links to all the sites content and is easily located due to the layout been very ergonomic. The links to the sites comics and cartoons are found at the top of the page with the corresponding blog posts located underneath. The site also as a live Twitter feed located to the right of the blog post.
Ease of Navigation: 3.5
The sites content can be found relatively easily due to the abundance of menus and links on the page. Whilst these are not obtrusive or unattractive, it does seem to make the site look slightly crowded. Once found, the webcomic can be navigated as easily as other sites by using “first”, “last”, “back” and “next” buttons. There is also access to an archive of all the previous comics.
Content: 4
The site has a large amount of content with the webcomic been the main attraction. Due to the popularity of the site it led to a spin off animated series that is also hosted on the site as well as daily shorts called CAD Sillies.
The content is further enhanced with regular blog posts and a live list of the authors latest Twitter posts.
Overall Rating: 4
