Art or Writing?

[Evan]

Which do you think is more important? Art or writing (No "they're both important" please, I'm looking for discussion).
Now what do you think becomes more successful? A doodle dump of the most stunning and impressive artwork or a well written story in black and white coloring with stick figures.

Back up your claims with evidence.

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

I have to be on the side of art over writing. Though writing is very important, art is the attractor. It's what draws a person to the webcomic.

As for evidence, look at how many BL comics are front and center around here. They got some rather nice art, but the writing is pretty much guaranteed fluff as far as the eye can see.

[keii4ii]

(No "they're both important" please, I'm looking for discussion)

I think there's plenty of room for "they're both important" in such a discussion, as long as the person explains their position well.

[infectedbloodcomics]

If you want plenty of readers, just draw pretty. That's the open secret of 95% successful comics. The vast majority of readers are young and like pretty and repetitive art and stories, rather than good, compelling writing.

[Evan]

While I do agree with you, I feel like most people think that art and writing have about the same importance, but I'm looking for discussion about what they think is more important.

[heterodont]

Even if it's limited to only art or writing, the discussion is going to be mainly dominated by people who think art is more important than writing. Comics are a visual medium, so often times art > writing. It's the first thing you see and takes less to process compared to writing/speech (if the art is legible, of course).

There are comics that have become incredibly successful, despite their art (or lack there-of) but they are few and far in-between.

[demthorshie]

As much as I'd like to say that writing is the most important tool in a comic, (you need a mix of both good art and writing I think) realistically, that's just not it. All of the pretty eye candy comics out there are the ones that will get the most views and recognition because face it, comics are a primarily visual medium. There are exceptions where the writing was the primary driving point for the comic's popularity, but that usually isn't the norm.

[Reit]

I have to say art, simply because if you don't have good art, I'm not clicking in the first place. After I've clicked, if the art is superb and the writing subpar, I will stick around just to skim updates. But if the art is passable and the writing is impressive, I will likely become invested and devoted to the story. But before all this happens, the art has to be good in the first place, according my standards.

[hushicho]

I'm going to dissent here and say that while I think they're both very important for most audiences, writing is the thing that keeps people coming back and invests them in the story. Pretty visuals only go so far, and distinctive styles are worth getting used to in order to enjoy a solid story.

For example, I couldn't stand Jack Kirby's art when I was first exposed to it, but I stuck around for the strange, wondrous stories. In time, I grew to absolutely love both art and story, and the compelling scripts motivated me to do so. It's the same for a number of stories I've grown to enjoy. And as a converse, there are artists that were initially gripping to me, but after seeing their work again and again, I came to like it much less.

Art can draw an interested eye, but writing can help keep it. Even if homogeny and flashy visuals might grab the attention, especially of an easily-amused audience, that same audience tends to the shorter attention span and won't be there for the long haul. At least, in my experience.

[Ambat]

I mean like let's be completely honest here, from purely anecdotal evidence--how many successful/popular comics with good stories but bad art can you name as opposed to comics with great art but mediocre stories?

Of course you can find examples of the former, but it's definitely not the standard or the norm for the media.

The thing that you have to understand about comics is that it is a visual storytelling medium. Meaning, successful/well designed visuals are pretty crucial to the success of the comic.

Now the thing where things get muddy is that "good design" is a very vague term, seeing as there is no one universally "good" art style. Compare "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac" to "Watchmen" to "Naruto"--all WILDLY different senses in design from everything to character, color and composition. Even take a look at some of Tapastic's more popular comics and you'll see a pretty good variety of very different design concepts.

The one thing that can make an overall design for a comic successful is an understanding of foundations as well as intention. Regardless of whether you draw in an anime-influenced style, a very cartoony Warner Bros. style, or something more realistic, any person seriously wanting to draw human figures should have a pretty decently firm grasp on the fundamentals of human anatomy and structure. The same goes for visual storytelling--it is important that you understand the fundamentals of things like lighting, appealing compositions, cinematography (more important in comics than you realize!)--the more understanding of the fundamentals that you have, the more informed, intentional decisions you can make--as well as intentional breaking of the fundamentals to suit the story that you're trying to tell.

Having a good visual/good art combo is basically a way to have a surefire fantastic product, but as we all know, sometimes stories with massive plotholes or fundamental flaws become wildly popular either due to art and aesthetic or due to some other sort of appeal, visual or otherwise. Humans are visual creatures and it's silly to suggest anything but, again, especially in a storytelling medium.

This doesn't mean that we should all just give up and focus on art only and not telling good stories--a SUCCESSFUL comic may come more likely from good visual design, but a GOOD comic is going to have both great visual design and great physical storytelling.

[that1person]

Well, in the example that you gave:

A doodle dump of the most stunning and impressive artwork or a well written story in black and white coloring with stick figures.

It would be the latter because people like more simplicity than super detailed drawings.
Here's one example:

In total, I think the story/ideas are much more important than a super realistic drawing for the public. Surely, there are some that enjoy super critical drawings and I'm not saying that they will never be popular or is inferior, but what really draws the more attention, in my opinion, is simplistic (maybe even cute) creations. And if has a rich story and/or has really great ideas, even better!

[trebordjackson]

the writting is most importiant to quote Bill Watterson the creator of Calvin and Hobbes good writting can save bad art better than good art can save bad writting. For example The Simpsons is a very ugly cartoon but its hilarious and the writting is awesome.

[shazzbaa]

I think you have to define "important" or "successful" to answer this meaningfully.

I know that seems kinda semantic, but like, seriously, what do you consider successful? 20k subscribers? Making a living through patreon? Resonating with a group of people and having them tell others that your comic is their absolute favourite? Being well-known and famous?

And do you, personally, want to be successful? Because if you draw beautiful art with a smut patreon on the side, or kickstart an art book, then you might make bank on visuals alone. But if you want your comic to be the thing that's successful.... most of the really successful comics I see on Patreon and Kickstarter are the ones with writing that's either fantastic or cleverly experimental. Check Please, Cucumber Quest, Squirrel Girl, Paranatural, The Meek, Homestuck -- the art is great in many of those comics, but there are a million comics out there with nice art. The ones people put their money on are the ones where they invested and connected with something. So again.... what kind of success are you looking for?

Also keep in mind that genre matters --- if you're writing gag-a-day, the writing is infinitely more crucial to your immediate success than the art. If you're creating a fantasy epic in a surreal world, the art will be more of an immediate draw than the writing will.

There's also kinda a false dichotomy here.... like, if you have BEAUTIFUL ART and THE WORST WRITING then obviously you're gonna be substanceless pretty fluff and you can get a lot of people looking at you, but not as many truly invested. If you have TERRIBLE ART but THE BEST WRITING then you're not gonna get much of an audience..... but the few people who do stick around long enough to like your work will be Super Invested.
But more likely you'd have Passible Art With Really Good Writing, or Decent Enough But Flawed Writing With Really Nice Art, and that's where it gets harder to judge. Because there's actually a huge difference between distractingly terrible writing and writing that is just okay. So it is extremely important to not have distractingly terrible writing, but it's probably way less important to have Great writing.

There's a similar jump between "passable art" and "distractingly terrible and unclear art." There are only so many XKCDs and One Punch Mans in the world, sure. But there are so many other cases of passable visuals -- Ryan North is writing Squirrel Girl, a comic with nice art......... but he got that gig after he got famous for writing Dinosaur Comics, a comic that's literally always the same art with the words changed around. Brian Clevinger is doing Atomic Robo, which is, again, visually great... and he got his start as a writer on 8-Bit Theater, a sprite comic. A lack of Bad art is way more important than Great Art, and that makes the question tough to answer.

[Shanny8]

BOTH.

You cant just have really good pictures in a book with a crappy story, and you cant have a good story represented by crap art. I'm pretty much at the point where I'm sick & tired of the "writer vs artist" debate. I've passed over a lot of books for the reasons I stared above; I dont care how much of an acclaimed writer so-n-so is- if the art is not my tastes, I wont read it...just the same as I will pass on a book if the art is nice but the writing is hack ass.

[MST3KFan]

I look at comics much like video games and movies. You can have amazing visuals, but if your story is crap, that's all you got.

Once the amazement of the graphics/art/scenery wears off, then people lose interest unless your writing is equally up to snuff.

It's nailing that perfect combination of both that causes something to succeed.

[AnnaLandin]

No "they're both important" please, I'm looking for discussion

Sorry, but that is the real answer to what makes a good comic. You can have the prettiest artwork in the world - if your writing is shit, it's a bad comic. You can have the best writing in the world - if your artwork doesn't communicate it properly, it's a bad comic.

(and before someone yells "XKCD!" at me, I think XKCD's artwork communicates perfectly well and Randall Munroe has found a way to be expressive through stick-figures in a way that works really, really well for him).

... also, is the question here "what makes a good comic?", or "what's important to make people click on the link to my comic?" - because those are two very different questions.

If the query is "what gets the most immediate attention?", then the answer is obviously artwork. Humans are very visual creatures (thank you, evolution), so good, fancy, probably colourful artwork is obviously going to get the most immediate response, and readers who click that link might be more likely to stick around for a bit even if the writing is terrible.

However, if your writing is sub-par, you are very likely to eventually lose those readers. You can hook a reader on cool artwork, but if your writing falters, they will lose interest. We read comics because we like stories, right? And if you aren't telling a good story, it kind of falls apart.

And btw, the heavy lifting of storytelling isn't entirely on the written word, here; comics tell stories through visuals; facial expressions, panel layouts, colour coding, etc.

It doesn't really even need to be a case of beautiful art+terrible artwork either - I read a comic yesterday that had beautiful art and perfectly passable writing - but it was a story that entirely failed to hook me. It was just okay, with nothing in particular that made me want to pick up the next volume; I wasn't concerned about what happened next for all the characters. It's a comic that might work for others, but did absolutely nothing for me.

Hooking someone into reading your comic is, at best, half the battle; the other half is engaging them in the story well enough to keep them coming back.

[punkarsenic]

Good art gets you subscribers faster, and there seem to be a lot of successful 'doodle dumps' these days - however, there are always successful webcomics with below average art, and apparently they have really good storytelling. their success could just be down to perseverance, i dont actually know. but i do follow some comics where im not a fan of their art, but the story's really hooked me.

print comics often have absolutely shit art, but do well - i think this is largely because people already know the characters, and have brand loyalty. still kinda counts as a win for story. the fact that the artists keep getting hired, however, makes it more of a hostage situation, were stuck with the fuckers.

ideally, the story should be most important. what youre doing is telling a story, so thats the point. from the perspective of what gets you the most success, though, art is more important.

[dotsandswirls]

Of course both are important. But if I had to choose, I'd choose writing. Good artwork helps to draw readers in and make them look at your comic, but a good story is what makes them stay. I've read plenty of comics that where absolutely beautifully drawn, but the story didn't communicate well and didn't leave an impression. It got boring so I stopped reading. Then there are some comics where the artwork is so-so but the story is incredible! I keep reading those.
But I do feel that both the art and the writing are important, they have to work together to create a whole. Artwork that suits the writing and writing that suits the artwork.

[edmourabarbosa]

I think most artists hate to consider the idea that their trade is not as important as writing. I've seen a lot of famous artist complain that readers are more inclined to buy a comic due to the writer's name on the cover, instead of the artist. There are pools proving that readers care more about the writing than the art. That's a fact.
Writing is the most important. Sure, art is very import, but it just isn't the MOST important. Art works as a marketing tool. It draws the eye and justifies the attention. Done right, it shows professionalism. A comic with great art makes the reader think it's probably worth their time and attention.
Let's be fair: a comic is nothing more than a story. A story told through static scenes. story (or characters) is the most important. The old argument that "comic is a visual media, therefore visual are the same importance or more important than the writing" is wrong. Do you watch movies only for the special effects? the action scenes and perfect CGI? Do you play video games only because their graphics are the best around? Of course not! no one does! There are many classics and masterpieces with very dated visuals that people still watch to this day. Sure, visuals do improve and help the story. The art does not only needs to be good, but match the style and mood of the story. But ultimately, what really makes the reader come back is the writing.
In my opinion, the problem lies in the sense that art is way harder than writing. That creates a sense of importance on it. It's harder to get a good artist, so it's rare to have a good comic with amazing writing and art.

[Rueleer]

It depends. For me, its kind of like this; your writing is the message you want to send, but your art is the language you are communicating in.

So let me ask you the same question rephrased; which do you believe is more important? The content of your message, or your ability to accurately express it?