Content warning vs. spoilers?

[Maps]

One of my favorite online novel warnings was basically a front page like “This work is 18+. It contains themes of, this, this, and that. You have been warned. I am not your mother and you are responsible for what you read.”

I was like, damn, fair enough

[KRWright]

really? I'm not sure if I had read WARLOCK by Wilbur Smith when I was 16 if it had "caution. creepy shit happens in here including creepy rape slash murder but that's Egypt so lolz" on the cover or somewhere. It's back sounded interesting, it's cover looked interesting, and the first five pages caught my interest.

That isn't what these content warnings would say. It would say "Contains graphic violence and rape". And whether you'd have picked it up or not would have been your decision. There are plenty of books I DNF'd once I realised that they contained things I didn't like, that I wish I could have saved money on. Similarly, there are books where I'd have still be interested to have seen where the story went even with those scenes. That's where book reviews are important too.

[Iris-Grimoire]

I'm going with both a general warning and, should I actually approach some subjects with less subtlety in the future, a page warning. Honestly when I see page warnings on comics nowadays, it's a way bigger sensation of 'oh god oh fuck what's going to happen to these characters I like' than feeling like I'm being spoiled. It can work! But of course don't have a whole description of what's going to happen, just mentioning that it might have mentions of X or graphical depictions of Y. What's normal to me might not be very comfortable to someone else and it's better safe than sorry, especially when it comes to things like trypophobia or body horror.

[nostalgicroxas]

Savage. But true.

I do agree that some works need warnings, but I also feel like we can fall into the situation where we warn for everything. But that's because I'm a personal fan of the vague warnings as I mentioned before "this contains content that is not suitable for people under ## age".

[HGohwell]

I warn people about content without spoiling things all the time. I don't think the two totally are really them unless you're going out of your way to make them the same. If you know it's going to happen, have it at the start of the chapter or at the start of your series. Whenever I recommend a show, there are certain things I have to warn people about. Because even if it's a dark creepy show, some things still get to people. There's a certain show I have to warn people about a rape scene in because despite it being a show full of war crimes, the foreshadowing is the subtle kind that only makes sense afterwards and it's not a sex filled show. Where are some shows you know its a sleezy fanservicey "gritty" "realisticly dark" kinda show from that start and know they're going to throw everything at you. It's just in the tone of the show. Things like GOT. Tone can go a long way to preparing you for something because generally if you're aware of the tone, you're gong to expect some of the tropes that go with it. No one sees a Saw movie needed a warning about torture, right? Not unless you've been existing in a bubble for however long. Most people can pick up some warnings just from a synopsis. And when that doesn't work, films have ratings and books are in certain sections.

What's bad is when the marketing is done totally wrong, to put it mildly. I once picked up a show that marketed as a fluffy romcom and instead got rape in the first scene. Needless to say I dropped it then and there and if the marketing implying they fall in love is accurate, I'm even more weirded out by it.

But there is of course a huge difference between going "by the way this contains rape/gore/whatever warning" and going "by the way [character] is going to [describe specific nasty content here]". Ones a warning, the other's a spoiler.

[Kiweevil]

This is a tough one that I've been pondering, too. I think given the graphic content of my comic, the kind thing to do would be to put trigger warnings at the beginning. However I'm thinking they should be vague. Instead of saying explicitly, for example, that a character has his arm ripped of mercilessly, I'll just put in a general "Graphic violence" or a blood warning. Instead of saying one character uses such and such bad word, I'll but a "Language" warning. I think this is something you would probably be able to do without giving out spoilers. Just be vague. Some other general warning labels artist could use might be, "Drug Reference", "Strong Sexual Content", or an extra general "Mature Themes". More specific examples but still not quite spoilers labels could include, "Instances of Domestic Abuse", or "Graphic Nudity".

You could also categorize your comic in the same fashion as established film or comic age guidelines to give the readers a clue about what to expect. For example, my comic would fall under an "OT" rating as established for published manga. "OT" is classified as manga that "may contain more explicit sexual situations and some violent scenes, including blood and gore." Or, use movie guidelines such as "PG-13", "R", etc.

I think using generalized terms or rating system will help readers evaluate whether the content is safe for them to read, without potentially spoiling major plot points for themselves.

[indagold]

I just write that my comic is for mature audiences and mark a page as mature. Why the flipping hell does it need a content warning as well? It's so stupid. Don't watch/read media for mature audiences if you're gonna complain about it upset you, you had full warning going in lol

As for spoilers I have no idea why you would list that as people read stories at different paces and your story updates at different times. Every new page is a new spoiler technically.

[jackjonesnga]

Maybe generalizing the warning might help? Like saying the following has themes of_ that some may find disturbing. Honestly, I think more people are bothered by graphic and triggering things that they weren't warned about than being spoiled.

[AbelDraws]

It was really helpful reading everyone's take on the topic, since I had my doubts as well about how to handle the warnings in the close future.

I'd go for a disclaimer at the end of the prior chapter about things going down from there and a general warning for the disturbing things that are about to happen. The last thing as a creator I want to do is to leave someone with a bad feeling after reading my comic because I didn't bother to warn beforehand.

[rajillustration]

I mean I got tagged for gore once because I drew Sans as a literal skeleton once so kids are like...reallllllly sensitive about gore. Which, actually is a problem if you want to do a story that starts cute but turns into horror. Like I have a side project like that and there's some younger ones I think watching it and it's like "oohhhh kiddos this might not be your scene actually ahhhhh" so I've been considering just changing the genre of that particular comic to horror so that way the genre itself acts as a disclaimer? It's not a super gorey story and like I'll have to disclaim gore when it happens on the page, but I don't want to betray my little audience that is there for cute cats.