Anything your tired of seeing in comics?

I'm tired of seeing the "I'm reicarnated" beginning. A lot of story among the WUF I read started this way and I left them after few chapters. The story becames a costant "in the past life this happened, so I will act that way to outsmart everybody and get my revenge/get my happy ending". The protagonist never act on instinct, they are always calculating everything.

Another things I don't like (especially in WUF webtoons) is the cliffhanger at the end of the episodes that resolves in nothing the next chapter. Let me explain: you spent 3/4 of the chapter reading people chatting about nothing, the plot is stuck there for decades. Then a glingy girl appears next to the beloved one of the protagonist. She starts chickening, that girl can be a rival to get his heart. Episode ends. In the next one we discover in the firsts panels the clingy girl is just his cousin waaay too attached to him. My frustration is that "finally, a plot twist, something is happening" and then dissapointment.

I used to plan my so-called sci-fi graphic novel back in 2019, when I really wanted my prestigious little scientist character to blast down alien forces and a scene where she mows down to the battlefield with her own-made gigantic walker, while giving other prestigious scientifically skilled characters, so I can get the a feeling that I wished to achieve became stronger and more prominent.

But not anymore, as I realized that one turned out to be a horrible way to tell a great story.
This year, I understood the importance of a compelling character and I shifted my little scientist character into a story with her true fatal flaw, so she will have her own challenge in on itself and experience character development.

Still, there would be writers out there who still think perfect character (especially prodigy girls) and/or solely exciting and dangerous external adventure scenes will make a great story. The story they make is adrenaline-kicking but hard to emotionally relate to them, and sometimes gets someone's nerve because they think they cannot ever have an exciting dangerous experience unless they are as skilled (or as lucky) as such character.

Which leads to an example of a webcomic I read. Forget the core protagonist as he doesn't have a prominent motive to save the day. I focus on the side protagonist, the little genius one whom chosen by two detectives for a suicide mission, boasting over her scientific knowledge over all three other protagonists (including the core one) until she defused the nuclear bomb by her own and closed with a sentence, "With science, I can save people without sacrifice." before the long hiatus of this comic.

I felt like being spat on my face by her, as if I suck at science, which is the subject I also wish to master at. Even though I have a later decision to learn science again, I still think if it's worth it to write an insult fic for her or just directly talk to the author in a civil manner.

Hm, it doesn't fall into the pitfalls in my comment, at least :] It also seems short enough that even if it doesn't grip me, I can read past it without already feeling drained like many of the longer fantasy intro schpiels can leave you

As for whether it does grip me, I think that'll depend a lot on the execution. If you have amazing art and the rune stuff looks really cool and evokes a sense of awe, my interest is piqued.

If it's more about Markus' journey from a kindly boy to a big bad guy, I'd probably make the intro more character focused and ditch the ruins explanation, since it doesn't make Markus look like a bad guy so much as just some important/powerful guy who's in charge of a technology the world relies on.

An ominous shot of Markus standing amid a huge rune factory or something without explanation would probably scream 'big bad guy' a bit more (because you get that 'oh shit wtf is he doing' angle which kind of gets killed by explanations :P)

When the villain’s only motive for doing bad things is “I was bored.” I guess that could be a believable motive, and it’s a bit scary if the villain is evil for the sake of being evil and can’t be reasoned with, but I’ve seen it too many times.

Since you asked. Here are the sins I see in the professional stuff;

• Big anime tiddies. I don't how you did it, but congrats on making boobs boring.

• Ultraviolence with no wider world consequences.

• Sexual assault with no consequences beyond a pratfall and a "baka!"

• Either the artists are sex pests with a taste for kids or they're cynically selling their stuff to sex pests with a taste for kids. With that in mind...

• Teenage protagonists

• Copaganda

• Comics that exist as proof of concept for scripts they're trying to sell to Hollywood.

• Webtoons that exist as proof of concept for scripts they're trying to sell to Korean Netflix

• Resetting to the fights-n-tights status quo no matter how many decades the X-Men have been the next step in human evolution.

• Watchmen spin-offs

• Evil Superman and Evil Superman expys. Though this one seems to be dying out thankfully.

• Fucking Venom and Carnage or anything from the 90s creators keep dragging back into the light

• Re-fried Simpsons/ Family Guy pop culture humor.

There's a tonne more but I'm already mentally exhausted from diving into the comic sewers.

As for the amateurs and indy artists on Tapas and Webtoon. Ehn. It's obvious most are in the learning stage and their comics will either improve or die out.

The main flaws I see in comics are mostly on the shoulders of the audience who keeps throwing money at the list above. But pick any medium and Strugeon's Law holds true.

Edgy stuff. Like random horrible violence where the author clearly does not have the emotional maturity to understand, on both an intellectual AND emotional level, what exactly they're depicting. They're just doing it because that's what other people do and they want to do it even more gooder. People often mistakenly assume that I don't like violence in stories at all, but that is not true. I enjoy violent stories IF the creator approaches is from an empathetic and intelligent perspective.

In action-driven stories, when solutions to ALL problems is violence (superhero stories are the worst for this). Yeah it's not funny or intelligent. Challenge yourself to build smarter narratives. Do better.

In character-driven stories, when conflicts arise only because of character's stupidity and inability to use their words to say very simple things. Like if you carefully set up a central conflict where a character has suffered a trauma and doesn't trust people, and therefore there is a communication breakdown, and the character must wrestle with their mental health to resolve the conflict - that's cool. I'm down for that. But so often it's just dumb DUMB characters who have no good reasons for not using their words like a human people, and we're somehow supposed to find that relatable and engaging. Uh, no. If your story is about adult characters, I will close the comic and never return to it the moment I encounter something like this.

For visuals - the thing where women are sexy, and men are gross and look like those women's dads/grandpas. Look, I like sexy women, but I expect the men to be equally as young and hot as the women. Scraggly men need not apply unless the women are permitted a similar amount of facial wrinkles.

found family tropes. I just think they're dumb and unrealistic.

Isn't a found family just a tight-knit friend group? Maybe with one or two mentor characters. It's not that uncommon, although some stories don't sell the bonding process that well.

Ah right, that reminds me of something I saw in a previous topic:

This! This is another thing I'm kinda tired of seeing. I feel like this is related to the 'unrealistic found family' thing: everyone overcames their flaws and get along with each other and live happily ever after. And if they are still flawed, they conveniently happen to be flawed in a way that makes them mutually compatible as their own 'messed up little family'.

I want to see a found family that, through the process of bonding, maybe some characters find themselves incompatible with each other, and it's not really portrayed as a 'flaw', they just have mutually incompatible needs and that's just kind of how things are and not everyone can get along.

I want to see characters agree to disagree on actually contentious topics.

I want to see other character struggle with how to deal with the conflict between two incompatible parties in their midst, which is not as simple as talking things through or 'fixing' either of them or kicking one of them out because the narrative isn't painting either of them as 'flawed' or 'evil'. I want the characters to feel like taking sides; to have opinions on who's right or who's wrong, but nevertheless can't completely denounce the party they think is 'wrong', because they're 'family', and they don't want to give up on them.

I want to see times where the differences really are just too great and it's not healthy for everyone to stick together. If 5 characters are introduced as the main cast, it feels unrealistic for all 5 of them to still be sticking together harmoniously by the end because it's a hell of a coincidence for all 5 of those people to be mutually compatible. Give me a 2+3 or a 4+1 or something; let the splintered groups go out and find new people they're actually compatible with. Human compatibility is messy and chaotic; show that!

I want to see the bonds being actually tested; not by outside forces or temporary flaws the characters can overcome but by the inevitable conflicts that arise from who they are fundamentally as people. Conflicts that can't be eliminated without the characters ceasing to be themselves. That's the kind of stuff that sells me on a found family dynamic ^_^

that feel when the historical lore prologue plays a huge part in your story but people will drop off because its historical lore prologue <_<

Tragic backstory characters. Where entire plot points revolve around their backstory but we never actually get to see it depicted aside from a minor flashback. It's like telling your friends about a totally awesome thing that happened but they weren't there so the best they can do is nod and awkwardly smile as they listen.

I'd much rather like to actually see the events taking place in comics become part of the backstory of said characters. If we as the audience are there when said events happen it has much more impact, we were there with the characters we follow and feel for them, as opposed to just being told something happened.

Tl,dr: show backstories, don't tell (if possible)