An Attractive Comic

[liaroger]

Hmm, there are several things that attract me to a comic ...
An interesting, cool art style will make me click on a thumbnail. I've found many great stories because I liked the art style. That is, of course, entirely subjective. Quality, which is somewhat objective, does matter to a degree, but the art definitely doesn't have to be perfect. As an artist, I really enjoy watching other artists grow and learn (and tbh my own comic chronicles my own growth and learning process even though the story isn't about that at all XD). For the most part it's about whether I like the style, which is a matter of taste. Personally, I prefer either realistic (not too prettified) or just unusual styles that stand out, but that's not a hard rule. There are always exceptions. Sometimes my brain just goes "I wanna read that!".
It's similar for the content, I enjoy a wide variety of genres. There are some things that will definitely keep me interested (positive polyamorous, aspec and arospec representation, unique/unusual relationship structures, subversion and deconstruction of certain tropes, but also angels and demons - at least if the demons are people and not soulless monsters -, mythology, historical settings and, yes, gay witches. Sorry not sorry, I love me some good old wlw witches) and some things that make me click away (pretty much every toxic romance trope, sexualisation of childlike characters, uncomfortable age and power imbalances, stories that are literally just about characters being toxic and 99% bitching and gossiping and deceit and everyone being shitty to each other because no thanks, I've been out of school for a while and I still don't miss that shit) and things that make me care about a story less (mononormativity, demonisation of all non-monogamy because no thanks, society already does that and I don't need my identity demonised in what I read in my free time), but besides that, pretty much any story can get me interested if I'm in the right mood for it.
Lastly, and I know that might seem unfair or controversial but I'm just being honest, yeah, if I had a nice interaction with a creator or we're even internet acquaintances or friends I'm more likely to give their comic a chance and read and enjoy it. Positive associations and all. I won't force myself to read something that's not for me, but I can't deny that there's a bit of a halo effect going on and I enjoy the stories of people I like more. That doesn't mean I only read my friends' comics though, I've never spoken to the vast majority of creators whose comics I'm subscribed to.

[vvodbow]

Wow, thanks for the detailed reply!

Yes, I've never dropped a comic when the contents are intriguing (to me) and other things done well but the font looks too standard, but will likely do so when it doesn't fit the comic's world or is illegible.

Comics are a really unique medium because the letters live in the world with the illustrations inside these round bubbles which we've universally decided symbolise words coming from a person's mouth. There are therefore two main concerns for a comic font:
1. Does it fit nicely in a round space? [...]
2. Does it look nice nestled amongst the specific art of this comic? [...]

Really good point, especially on the X-height. Fonts like Times New Roman do look too spikey and inefficient for round/oval speech bubbles, and therefore would look off in most cases.
But maybe it's still a useful choice if in rare cases, one's comic doesn't use bubbles much. A few years ago, I've come across a sci-fi one that barely had any dialogue; any thoughts & narration was in rectangles or have no border. "Conversations" were quotes with no border and split across panels. Almost no SFX either, cuz it's about "floating" alone through space. They used Times New Roman (I think) for all text (except engravings on weapons & equipment), which seemed strangely fitting for the MC's machine-like nature and post-apocalyptic landscapes. Not sure if they used it cuz they didn't look for more fonts or it was a stylistic choice, but as a reader, I felt the font's rigidity worked for your point #2. Too bad I can't scan it give as an example now, so hopefully my vague description didn't diminish it, lettering-wise.

But yes, in most cases, default text document fonts do seem like red flags and make the series unattractive, especially if other elements are not well done.

Which means I'd better study my butts off on how to do lettering decently, cuz after testing 200-ish Microsoft fonts & downloading other comic fonts, my partner and I decided to stick with good ol' Comic Sans for dialogue and other default (but more handwritten-like) fonts for SFX. Nothing else felt right for our story and workflow, considering having to hop through multiple (public) PCs at times and potential licensing issues if we either make it or part ways

[Lady_T_Musings]

Nahhh those are my origins, but I do like more variety these days for sure.

[Insanebaker92]

Art and characters plays an important role to make it attractive.

[YS_og]

80/20.

80% title and description (and subsequently the content),
20% art

Man I'd rather read a kinda bleh design with superior plot, dialogue, and flow than a pretty, beautifully drawn mess of a hallmark cookie cutter. Pick a genre I see too many of these.

[TheLemmaLlama]

For me, basically, my one criteria is "Is it trying to do something I find interesting?" This could be its writing or its art. For instance:

1. does it explore a theme I'm interested in? (For instance, I got into Splitting Image because it has atonement (and neat fantasy worldbuilding, but that part only stuck out to me once I read further into the comic so it's helping to keeping me around but it was the theme of atonement that got me into it))
2. is it a good example of a particular genre I'm researching that embodies why I find that genre appealing? (For instance, I got into After School Dice Club because it's a 'cute girls doing cute things' slice-of-life kind of thing, which I was also looking into at the time (and also because it's about board games, so it's also an example of #1))
3. does it regularly emphasize a certain visual element I'm interested in? (For instance, I got into The Highest World because of its backgrounds and naturalistic lighting)
4. does it use a non-standard format I'm interested in? (Again, The Highest World is an example here because the other reason I got into it was because it was styled like a series of screencaps from a cartoon or anime, with subtitles instead of speech bubbles)

Meeting one of these criteria is enough to get me reading. Doing it well (and/or discovering a different thing I'm interested on as I read further) gets me to stay :] (Then again, I'm mostly a writer who reads for research and inspiration these days rather than a someone who actively looks for things to read for its own sake/to kill time)

Does it look polished? This to me means clean line art where if it's scribbly it at least looks confident and intentional rather than wobbly and scruffy, colours that don't have amateur mistakes like a white halo next to lines caused by poor use of the fill bucket tool, confident shading that isn't blobby or haphazard.

RIP me

[Lensing]

Artstyle first + way of storytelling.
All kind of stories can work for me but it´s important how it´s presented
and how it´s told. I don´t like introductions, I need a slap in the face
at the beginning of the story