Consenus on Dialogue and Caption Heavy Comics?

[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?

[BlueWorldComics]

I agree. I don't spend that much time looking at the pictures. I get the information I need and move on.

[claiborneart]

Okay, so this might be weird coming from a guy who used to read Prince Valiant in the newspaper, but if I hit a wall of text in a comic, I'll get taken out of the story by having to sit and read this random prose inserted into the comic. If a comic has too many random wordy balloons, I'll either start skipping them over, or even drop the entire comic.

Golden Age comics are an interesting example; because while they do have word balloons on pretty much every panel, the amount of text itself is still reasonable sometimes. Take Action Comics #1, for example:

^this is a well-paced scene, even if some modern creators might drop some of this dialogue as unnecessary. Compare with another Action Comics page:

^this page is an infodump page. It gets a lot of details of the story to the reader in a single page, but at the cost of pacing, focus, and emotional impact. A modern creator would probably cut some of this text for rehashing existing plot points, try to tell some of this info through art, and probably break this into multiple pages.

I heard once that each panel should be thought of as a single streamlined thought, and if the dialogue is more than a single concept, it needs to be split into separate panels.

[liann]

I probably spent half of my life reading manga so I'm used to expositions and fight commentaries that do not matter and the protag thinking to himself every goddamn moment. But I'm only forgiving towards shounen and shoujo. If it doesn't fit the tone of the comics from the start, I'd probably drop it if becomes unbearble or awkward. Unless the dialogue is important or hilarious. Like a talkative character.

[aqua03]

I think that you do it pretty well in regards to begin a "throwback." I've notched that the info boxes are sully just used as book-ends it seems to fill the reader in on where our characters are at and where they are going next. It works out pretty well, all things considered.

[colinmooredraws]

I don't spend that much time looking at the pictures. I get the information I need and move on.

Then I have an extremely vital question to ask you: why comics?

You have every creator-owned format open to you in order to tell your story. In comics, the art is the primary vehicle for the story. If when reading other's comics you don't spend much time looking at the art, why would you use that for your story? You can do novels right here on Tapas, after all. So why this path?

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.

That absolutely ignores what I said. The number of panels alone means nothing. It's what IN those panels.

[erudenedure]

I took a screenwriting class back in college; a lot of lessons roll over into my storytelling and, subsequently, my comic.

One thing I remember from the class is keeping dialogue to 3 lines. When holding a conversation, people usually have about 1 to 3 short to medium sentences. Find the most succinct way to get whatever the dialogue's intention is across to the reader.

For comics, this usually translates to 2 short/medium sentences to 3 short sentences per bubble. There's reasons to break this rule, but I'm just saying on average this seems to be the case.

Flipping through My Hero Academia and The Walking Dead, it really does seem like 3 sentences is the max count for one speech bubble. (This means if there's two conjoined word bubbles, you can have 5-6 sentences and so on.) Even thoughts tend to be grouped in 1 to 3 sentences.

[IdiotWithPencil]

my god and I though death note had it bad D-8

[BlueWorldComics]

Then I have an extremely vital question to ask you: why comics?

According to all the forum topics I've seen, including one I recently made with a poll, the story is more important to most people than the visuals. I agree with the consensus.

I don't have to stare at the intricate line detail in order to enjoy a comic. I should be able to get all of the information I need from a quick scan of the panel.

Think Peanuts, Garfield, Sarah Scribbles, Cyanide and Happiness. These comics don't exactly leave you with a whole lot to look at. And yes, these are all comedies... Not the point lol (I would consider my comic a bridge between comedy strips and action/adventure strips like Prince Valiant or the Superman and Spider-Man weeklies)

That absolutely ignores what I said. The number of panels alone means nothing. It's what IN those panels.

Feels like you're trying to debate me on this. Not my intention.

I'll come clean, this topic is about MY COMIC. Shocking I know lol
I didn't want everyone to come in here and feel like they have to review my comic so I made a more general topic to discuss the subject.

I honestly feel like when you are thinking of text heavy comics, you can't get @ar-ninetysix 's example out of your head. You're thinking walls of text and big dialogue balloons covering up the art. With the dialogue and captions being pure exposition and padding.

I'm thinking more Tarantino or Kevin Smith movies.

[Mari]

I loooove dialogue heavy comics. Absolutely my jam.

Though, it needs to be natural sounding. So if there's a ton of pauses and filler words, I'm here for it.

I know I'm like the smallest of minorities in this but whatever.

That's what I like and that's that. I feel like it's a little dumb to debate over something that is so clearly down to tastes.

[colinmooredraws]

I'll come clean, this topic is about MY COMIC. Shocking I know lolI didn't want everyone to come in here and feel like they have to review my comic so I made a more general topic to discuss the subject.

That's rather dishonest. I've been trying to have a conversation about the merits and guidelines of how much text should be in comics in general. You can't post a poll that's asking for opinions, then get mad when someone doesn't share your view and addresses the topic you posted not your thinly veiled attempt to promo your comic.

[BlueWorldComics]

Lol, really, dude? None of that happened. I corrected your use of the loaded phrase "too much", which you graciously adjusted your response to. I then explained why I brought up the panel count because you didn't seem to understand it. Then I answered your question. Where did you get the impression I'm mad?

And what exactly about this topic (including the very blatantly plugging of my comic) wasn't clearly an attempt to get consensus information related to my comic?

You are really making this conversation unnecessarily hostile, so let's just call it, eh? No hard feelings.