Continuity Errors in Comics

[woah-man]

I'm primarily talking about artistic continuity errors, both big and small, not necessarily errors in the story... Although if you want to share your opinion on those too, go right ahead! I personally don't really notice them unless they're super obvious when I'm reading a comic, but as a creator it doesn't really bug me when I'm reading. Small things are easy to miss when you're working hard on a comic, and as someone who used to be super paranoid about snuffing out every little error I could find in my own work, I can vouch that trying to be 100% accurate with no mistakes is ultra time consuming and exhausting!

I've since learned to not stress out about them too much, but what's your opinion on them? Do they impact your feelings on the art quality? Or do you even notice them? Are you one of those people who have fun trying to find them?

If you're an artist, do you worry about them very much? Let me know! I'm very interested in hearing everyone's thoughts!

[beta1042]

I have pretty low standards on art quality cause I'm more one of those "done is better than perfect" types of people. I'm also still relatively new with all this comic making stuff.

I'm still really bad at consistently drawing my characters and it's something I work on all the time.

But some things bug me a lot, like there is this one chapter where a pillow in the background changes colors, I should just go and fix it, but no one has mentioned anything so... XD

[daeofthepast]

As the artist/author, it really bugs me when I forget some little detail like my character's glasses or something like that X3

I usually don't notice continuity errors in other people's works tho! If I do notice them, it's usually my third or fourth read of the material and even then it's usually a moment of "something feels off..." before I actually figure out what's different/wrong. So if I notice something, I would say it's more of a compliment since I don't notice continuity errors right off the bat? Means I like the story enough to read it more than once :3

[feardeer]

I don't notice them often when reading other comics, and if I do, I generally shrug it off. That, or I just feel relieved that it happens to other people, because by golly does it happen to me. I usually don't notice it until weeks later, and then I panic about it for a lil bit. But so far I haven't gone back to fix any of these errors, because I try to convince myself it's not a big deal and would be a waste of time, and I just need to be more vigilant in the future. So far, no one has pointed anything out, so I guess I'm in the clear.

[scythe]

I consistently forget to draw a ring on my character, and I've made other not so glaring mistakes pretty much on every page. Once I drew something that was supposed to be mirror image, but I forgot to flip it. And then when I flipped the image, I didn't like the flow of the layout, so I just left it, but put on some backwards text. No one's said anything.

[dawgofdawgness]

I don't really care all that much. People aren't really going to be scouting through your comic looking for tiny errors - if you didn't catch your mistake, it's likely that nobody else will. The worst case scenario is someone calling you out like "oh you forgot the character's right arm there" but it's something you can just shake off since overall it won't affect your comic (unless it's a really important detail).

[woah-man]

I'm glad to see most people don't mind them haha. I'm constantly forgetting things like jewelry, beauty marks and tattoos and things like that. Especially one of our characters, he's always wearing a necklace that is fairly important for his story, and I feel like I'm always going back and adding it in. Fortunately it's a pretty simple design!

When my co-author and I were working on the first incarnation of our comic, we both had huge anxiety attacks and freaked out because we noticed, like 3 pages from completing the 30 page comic, that we had been drawing the ears in two completely different styles. We went back and edited everything because we were so worried about people noticing. Nowadays I don't think we'd bother with it. As long as everyone is looking like themselves and not missing any important traits, I'm fine with any small errors. Another pretty common one for me is constantly forgetting what kind of collar a shirt has or what side someone's buttons are on, whoops.

[jurinova]

As a reader I usually don't notice little continuity errors, especially in looks. Even if I do notice I know how hard it is to keep track of everything, so I honestly don't mind.

As a creator... Oh boy, I am the worst. Tiny errors would be okay, but I managed to accidentally flip the floor plans on a ship when I first drew it, which resulted in the fact that the ship now makes absolutely no sense in the comic. There are stairs that now somehow lead to a completely different place than where they started. I don't think my readers have noticed but I have and since it took me several chapters to notice this error I don't feel like going back to fix it. I'm just trying to pretend everything is good and hope no one pays close attention to the floor plan.

[feuersichel]

Thats the nice thing with traditional stuff. You can have the pages next to each other and quickly go to older pages to check for details. Still, some smal errors get throuh and I've spent an awefull lot of time to corect them in the past. Now, i rather invest that time in making more pages.

When I read a comic I mostlikely wont notice ay errors. If I do I'm like "hah, found a mistake!" But still enjoy reading it. I rather have some mistakes in a comic than just copy pasted stuff (like when its getting waaay to much.)

[UrMom]

As a reader I don't care much about them, or even take notice, unless the error is really blatant, or was a major part of the character/story/environmental design. While I'm stingy on stylistic quality I don't see continuity errors as a deterrent, we all make mistakes.

As a creator, not really? I make continuity errors all the time in my comic, usually because I forget the little details, sometimes remember things incorrectly. My reaction is basically "oh, whoops! I've messed that up. Lol." Of course none if the mistakes I make affect the story or characters, so it's not a problem for me. If it were to have an impact on those things I'd redraw the page, or fix it to the best of my abilities.

Funny story. The worst error I've made so far was when I decided to draw a page while having a major sinus infection. Being extremely out of it I got confused on the layout of the setting, and totally drew the wrong background for one of the panels. After recovering I realized the error, being completely amazed with my lack of comprehension at the time.
I finished and posted the page anyway.

[woah-man]

Ooof, I feel ya on that one. Back when we were doing full backgrounds for every single panel (yes, even in close-ups, ugh) I was constantly forgetting details. Not just minor ones either, but stuff like big, super noticeable colorful stuff that took up the entire background. Luckily the underground base that our characters live in has a fairly simple layout, but I think if it was anymore complex then I'd totally screw it up by now. Luckily I think most people don't notice these things unless they've had a hand in drawing it.

[N1ghtm4r3]

the struggle is real,the more detailed you go the harder it gets

[TheRabbit]

As a creator, I try my hardest to not have any continuity errors in my drawings. I do let some details slip if it's not a big or important thing to keep redawing.