Consenus on Dialogue and Caption Heavy Comics?

[BlueWorldComics]

• Too much dialogue is a turn off
• Depends on the dialogue
• I prefer having a lot to read

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Comics are a visual medium, as we all know. And showing, not telling is great writing advice (even for non-visual mediums).

However, I grew up reading back issues and reprints of gold, silver, and bronze age comics, not to mention all the newspaper adventure comic strips I remember reading as a kid... Also, Stan Lee is one of my biggest comic influences.

In the Golden Age of comics, comic book art was usually rushed and messy, so the dialogue and captions were done to fill in the blanks and make sure the reader knew what was going on. In newspaper comic strips (the more prestigious medium at the time), they were used to pad out the 4 panel daily strips (noticeably used less often in the larger weekly strips).

This was carried over in the Silver and Bronze ages, but these eras were mostly influenced by Stan Lee and Marvel comics, where bombastic dialogue and captions were done to add literary legitimacy to the medium by including big words and poetic speaking styles.

My main series, The Skyman (available on Tapas, Webtoon, and for free on Patreon. Season One currently available on Instagram) is made in this style.

Done in a newspaper comic strip style, at one page a week, with 6 to 7 panels per page, I don't have much room to waste on very many purely visual sequences, which usually take up multiple pages in a traditional book. I also want to make sure each page stands on its own and is worth waiting 7 days for. I wouldn't call my dialogue padding, but I definitely want to give my readers more bang for their buck, so I give the characters a lot to talk about.

Thus, this topic was born... Am I making a mistake? Lol

[ar-ninetysix]

At a certain point you gotta wonder if making a novel would just be easier. Much as I love Hunter x Hunter, I hear the manga's pretty bad about this.. like come on lol

[Rhonder]

... Wait, that's really a real page of HunterxHunter? omg LOL Can only imagine what the sit down with the editor was like for this page/chapter.

[colinmooredraws]

I wouldn't go so far as to use phrases like "literary legitimacy" for golden age comics. The stories themselves were notoriously over the top, ridiculous, and absurd. They are the foundation of what we're doing now, but those comics are completely different from webcomics in every possible way apart from being a way to tell stories with pictures and words in boxes.

If you're going for the "every page should stand alone" method, you may want to reconsider either the methods you're using or the way you want to tell your story. Because even those golden age comics weren't built that way. I don't personal subscribe to it, but what some webcomicers will do is try to hit a "beat" with each page. The page itself may not stand alone, but it's a logical point to pause. Whether it's a reveal or a cliffhanger or something. Even if it's just the visual equivalent of ending a paragraph. My personal method is set up more for binging than one page at a time, but that's a matter of personal preference.

On the actual survey question: Less is more. Too much dialogue/captions detracts from the art. In comics, you can still tell a complete story without a single word on the page. Like Ar-ninetysix just said, there's a certain point where you may as well be writing a novel.

[Iris-Grimoire]

As a rule of thumb, less is more, but you CAN make dialogue heavy comics work. But then, it becomes a matter of spacing out the words, proper framing, and not being physically painful to read being white on black - which, unfortunately, a lot of comics get wrong and I can't find the will to keep reading. So it's less about being comics where characters talk a lot, and more about a boring wall of text vs. a monologue where the camera-man is really excited about everything in the scene and you're also having fun. As Colin said, if you're just writing and writing, might as well make a novel with illustrations - use the medium that you're given, and put those words in a world instead(even if uh you turn 10 lines into 12 pages which is a real time concern).

[Kura]

The actual translation of this page is not near as bad as the word vomit fan scan translation.

It's till pretty bad though cause even though it's about half as many words it's still 7 panels of text.

[BlueWorldComics]

Too much dialogue/captions detracts from the art.

Key point here being "too much". Of course "too much" leans negative.

The question is more what is too much? Or is "a lot" inherently too much? Is less more with single page, 6 to 7 panel installments? lol

[DokiDokiTsuna]

I like reading; I don't mind if you put even mini-essays in your comic, as long as they're interesting.

The key there, though, is 'as long as they're interesting': no matter how well you space it out and pad it with pretty character and scenic panels, I don't want to read 5 pages where the group leader blandly explains the itinerary for the characters' big adventure. =/

Not only are those kinds of setup monologues ridiculously boring, they're also the sign of an amateur writer, in my experience (I used to do the same thing when I was a kid). Eventually you learn that it's better to take the reader through the experience with interactions and conversational dialogue, rather than having one character stand in one place and spell it all out.

[colinmooredraws]

or is "a lot" inherently too much?

You've got it. There are actual rules and guidelines on how much text to have on a page, but I can't find them at the moment (I'm at work). But it comes down to purpose and content.

Such as: are you saying something that could be done in the art? Rather than having a caption that just says "there was an explosion" just show the explosion, for example. Does it happen every single page? If so, a large number of readers will end up walking away.

Not every detail needs to be spelled out. One example that I once saw in a Lavendertowne video sums it up nicely: you could give a huge block of text describing how a young girl in a fantasy world needed to escape the violence of her town by herself despite being too young. OR you could show a young girl on horseback with few belongings, looking back at her ruined down with fire and smoke in the distance.

You keep listing the panel count, but that doesn't say much. It comes down to what's shown in the panels. Is it 6-7 panels of just talking heads? Is there action? Establishing shots? 6-7 panels could span 5 minutes or 5 seconds of in-story time depending on what's happening.

[Shanny8]

I grew up reading a LOT of Claremont Uncanny X-Men, so a lot of dialogue wasnt an issue to me.

Now for the example above- that is horrendous. That shouldnt even qualify as a comic page...

I've had pages where I've dumped a ton of dialogue on the page but I've also tried to shorten & cut stuff down so that I could have a nice balance of art and dialogue.

[Rhonder]

On topic- I fall in the "depends" category. I think generally speaking I lean towards/prefer the "less is more" approach for the majority of comics. I don't mind a lot of dialogue but if things start to get too wordy or eat up too much page/panel real estate it's not ideal.

But there are definitely scenes where a lot of dialogue makes sense and also certain styles that accommodate it well too. Soooo it depends.

[colinmooredraws]

but if things start to get too wordy or eat up too much page/panel real estate it's not ideal.

That's an extremely important point. The more text there is, the less room there is for art.

[joannekwan]

If there's gonna be a lot of dialogue, it better be spaced out over multiple pages than trying to squeeze it all in one.
I've always preferred lighter dialogue, or having speeches chopped up, or even wordless comics. As a kid I've even skipped over a lot Calvin and Hobbes strips because of its frequent verbosity.

[silacinnamon]

I personally find that comics with long speech bubbles are kinda hard to read, especially with the classic Marvel/DC style fonts. Fonts with all uppercase letters aren't very comfortable to read in long paragraphs, you can "get lost" easier since all the letters have the same height.

But if the story is good enough I can still really enjoy a comic with long dialogues and all uppercase fonts!

[colinmooredraws]

or even wordless comics

Wordless comics have a special place in my heart.

[Maps]

I’ve noticed comics that are more dialogue heavy tend to hit me more. Not as in that HunterxHunter example, that’s too much. But sort of digressing into panels with box dialogue can hit in good ways if done right. It helps to have little boxes of images to sort of keep the setting and the feeling as the dialogue spreads. And like @joannekwan said, it makes a difference when it’s spread out on not all crammed into a panel.
I do appreciate it more when it is an inner monologue. If I see dialogue boxes of actual character speech that go over-the-top I get terrified that it will follow through the whole comic that way.

[aqua03]

Funnily enough, I actually wrote a comic last year in which I intentionally leaned into that bombastic and wordy writing style specifically to parody old comics like what you talked about.

The Amazing Adventures of Alpha Alpaca! | Tapas

Though that aside, I have gotten the comments on my more comedy based comic and the scripts for my more serious fantasy comic I'm working on now is that I often times rely on too much dialogue and wordiness for my scripts. It's something I've been working on, but yeah. It depends on the dialogue, but there are a lot (and I mean a lot) of infamously bad webcomics who rely wait too much on the infamous "Wall of text" type of writing. Eyes Ctrl+Alt+Del and Sonichu....

Honestly, it depends. If your writing is good or you're having a more character/dialogue driven story or you're doing it for a stylistic homage like what you mentioned, then by all means go for it if you think it's right for you and you aren't just using it as a crutch like some of the webcomics I just mentioned do.

[vfinnigan]

No. I like what you're doing. In my opinion, unless you're specifically doing a wordless comic (a bear to script unless you're also drawing it), I prefer having something to read. I don't like spending nearly four dollars on a book I could finish reading in five minutes if I didn't want to spend another ten minutes looking at the art and admiring the inker's line or the use of effects in the lettering. Stuff like that.

But whole walls of text are another thing. I only include those in my work as kind of "bonus" material, like character biographies, aircraft specifications, author's notes, stuff that isn't part of the main comic. I think it's important in most comics to find the right balance.

[BlueWorldComics]

I mention the panel count because I use 1 of the same 2 layouts for all my pages. Each page stands on its own with the idea that each installment will be someone's first.

You should check out a few pages from my comic to see what I mean. Let me know what you think about the amount of dialogue and such.

[BlueWorldComics]

As my first ever subscriber, what do you think in relation to my comic?