Dragon Does Reviews -- Springiette

[Dragon Powered]

Cuteness Warning!! Beep! Beep! Cuteness Alert! It's too late, you've been taken over by the cuteness! Enter the wonderfully ticklish world of best friends Chop Chop Ninja Doom and Chocobanana Sofuto. They, along with their pet kitty Boo and a piece of sushi() will keep you entertained with their silly little adventures.

Review Site: Springiette

FIRST IMPRESSION:
OMG! It's like, sooooo cute!

Yeah, actually it's not just the characters that are cute, it's everything about Springiette. The imagery, the story, even the design and layout.  It's a box full of simple and cute fun.

*Load Speed: 7
On the first visit the site loaded a bit slow, and I noticed a little lag now and then when clicking around, but overall the site performs fairly well.

*Color Mix: 10
The grayscale comic and the soft earthy colors of the layout seem to make it like a sepia tone photo, which only adds to the cute factor. All the colors work well together and compliment each other, even when the characters appear somewhere in color.

LAYOUT:

*Content vs Layout: 9
The layout is nice, very nice. The comic is displayed in a verticle four-panel format, and the artist's comments are displayed in a somewhat smaller window to the right. The design flows downward as you read the comic, displaying tidbits under the comment and then ad-space, all easily viewable without leaving the comic itself. At the top you find a cute and colorful banner and a nice set of menu buttons. The only drawback is the banner might be a tad too colorful... maybe just a tad.

*Ease of use / Navigation: 9
The comic has navigation buttons both above and below, which is handy for a tall comic, and they are easily recognized. The menu buttons are clear and even, along with the social links next to them. Below the comic is another set of handy buttons for printing, emailing and social tools. Very handy, but the name and title of each seem to be running into each other, ie: when mousing over the print button I get a label of "PrintPrint".  The reader comments for the comic are linked below, with a "Leave A Comment!" button, and they remain hidden until the button is clicked.  I would suggest renaming the button to just "Comments!" or making the comments normally visible since there is no counter or other indication comments have been left by readers.

*Clutter: 10
Everything is very neatly organized and clean. Buttons and ads line up nicely, and everything fits where placed. I can imagine Choco happily bouncing about the site, cleaning until it sparkles.

*Ads & Placement: 9
Ads appear both in the lower right column and in a bar placed at the bottom of the page. Although none of the ads are visible on the initial visit, all of them are easily seen when reading the comic or other content. Above-the-fold in this case really doesn't apply.  I can't think of any better way to display the ads.

TOP-DOWN IMPRESSION: 9
Everything works well together, and the design continues smoothly all the way to the bottom of the page. The only thing I can really suggest is what I've already mentioned about the comment button.

*Secondary Content: 10
From information about the comic and the author (with links to additional content), to a cute Cast page and a gallery of images from both the artist and fans, along with wallpapers and downloadable items, there is plenty to make a reader feel welcome here.  All the extra content is MC'd by one of the characters, and is set in the same layout.

*Social Content: 9
Facebook, Twitter, reader comments, artist comments, DeviantArt... just about everything is available to encourage readers except for forums. I imagine a forum set up with cute icons of the characters would probably do well. The RSS feed contains full-size renderings of the comics, which I advise against because there is so much more enjoyment to be had by visiting the site... Links to the archived comic would be better and would do more to keep readers coming back.

OVERALL IMPRESSION:
Springiette is a cute and stylized comic depicting the random adventures of two best friends. Drawn in a chibi style, it is good fun for everyone aged two to two-hundred.

*Overall Rating: 9.5
Springiette... Real men won't admit they read it, but they do.

[Rob]

I think that might be your highest rating yet... Congrats.

Also congrats on your Sister Claire guest strip. It's very cute.

http://www.sisterclaire.com/
 

[Dragon Powered]

Yeah, it's not that I'm in love with the comic so much ( cutesy chibi comics aren't really my thing ), but Springiette is what I believe a webcomic should be, a web destination.  The entire site entertains.

Ran also received a high score for the way she presents her comic, so she and Shouri are tied up score wise.  I don't know, we might have to hold some kind of deathmatch extreme mud wrestling competition to see who comes out on top.

[Shouri]

Thanks a lot for the review! What you pointed out are exactly my pet peeves that I'm trying to fix, I'll revise them in the next update.   Just so I know, you were using Chrome, right? Cause the AddThis code isn't Chrome-friendly and it gave me issues in the past... Oh! and "Links to the archived comic would be better and would do more to keep readers coming back.". You suggest having a link or the thumbnail instead of the whole comic? I need to sit and use Google reader to see how others see the comic, my RSS M.O. is live bookmarks so I always visit their site...

@Rob: Thanks! I loved drawing that strip, specially the last frame. I thought Yamino would appreciate that, lol.

@Dragon Powered: I do go to a very specific audience with a chibi/cute comic, and while I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I hope visitors can at least enjoy the visit

*thinks of Celebrity Deathmatch*

[Richard]

First review of yours that I have read and I am quite impressed at the different categories that you go into. I don't believe I've seen any other webcomic review that goes into the actual site itself as well as the comic. It's quite in depth and a good read.

It definitely got me to check this comic out. 

[Dragon Powered]

Richard - Thanks, glad you enjoyed the review.  Check out some of the other reviews too, all found here in this forum, our members have some really interesting comics.

Shouri -  Actually I was using Firefox when visiting.  I tend to visit a site for review with both Firefox and IE, not Chrome.  While Chrome is undoubtedly a good browser and is open source and built to standards, way too many sites appear wonky with it.

What I mentioned about the RSS feed is a peeve of mine.  Providing the most desirable bulk of your content in full form via RSS is essentially giving the reader a reason not to bother returning to your website.  Why should they click through to your site when everything they want is right there on whatever RSS device they use?  You know, I really do need to put together an article on RSS feeds, pros and cons.  I'll write myself a note and staple it to my forehead so I don't forget.

[Alectric]

Before that, I hope you finish that meta tags article I'm still waiting for.

[Shouri]

Shouri -  Actually I was using Firefox when visiting.  I tend to visit a site for review with both Firefox and IE, not Chrome.  While Chrome is undoubtedly a good browser and is open source and built to standards, way too many sites appear wonky with it.

I was just asking cause to me the only one that displays that issue is Chrome... but I'll look into it anyway! Thanks for the suggestions about RSS, they make sense and I'll change it when I have time