Link here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Cf3oFt5QcV1G-fIfwu4_QfW9ahAk7h_ykt1bMFhFHpk/edit?usp=sharing15
So Super World of Fighters is a fighting game comic and I just finished my first chapter. I wonder if it's too confusing, especially if you're not into fighting games. I'd like to do better.
Please have a read and tell me what you think! (I'd rather have comments on the story rather than the art itself)
Feb '21Feb '21
ah man, that's embarrasing.
Try again now https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Cf3oFt5QcV1G-fIfwu4_QfW9ahAk7h_ykt1bMFhFHpk/edit?usp=sharing10
Okay, so! A few thoughts...
Overall, this is pretty solid for a manga fight comic. Your actions are pretty clear, your dialogue is legible, and your pages read in an easy way, and those are the biggest first hurdles to overcome.
I think, if you're going to continue this comic, there are a few things to keep in mind.
1 - Establishing shots. You have... none? I have no idea where any of these characters are in space. The gamers just seem to be faces and hands in a black void. Are they playing on a computer? An arcade cabinet? A giant high-tech gaming rig? Where are they playing? In an arena? A garage? Their mom's basement? Are they even in the same room, or are they playing in different locations on opposite sides of the planet? There is literally no way for the reader to know where these characters are in space, and that's an important thing to know.
A similar thing applies to your virtual battle scenes. Your action shots are usually pretty good, but you need to take a few panels every once in a while to pull out and show the entire arena, and re-establish where the characters are in relation to each other in the arena.
2 - Watch your black-spotting. There are a few instances with your ice skater avatar where you fill in the entire body with solid black, and it muddles the silhouette so much that it's hard to tell what is actually happening and what the character is doing. This panel in particular stood out...
You need to use your grey tones or some white separation lines to indicate what her body is doing, because it is not very clear which parts are butt and which parts are shoulder. So just keep an eye on that kind of thing going forward.
3 - Speech bubbles. Yes you're doing a manga-style comic, so I know that you want to have manga-style vertical speech bubbles. Buuuutttt.... You're writing the story in English. So your speech bubbles should be horizontally-oriented so a horizontally-reading alphabet fits inside them. You wind up having to crop some of your dialogue in weird places to get it to fit inside your vertical speech bubbles, which makes it a little bit awkward to read.
Also, if you're using a comic lettering font, watch your use of the "I" with the crossbars. Typically in standard comic lettering, you only want to use the crossbar I for the actual pronoun I, as in, "I am the best fighter around," and not as an actual capital letter I at the beginning of a sentence. It's a little thing, but it makes a lot of difference when it comes to being able to fit words in your speech bubbles and making it easier to read.
4 - Little thing, but it looks like on page 28 or so, you still have blue guidelines on your page. Easy fix.
5 - Slow down a second. Take your time. The entire 40+ episode is non-stop action, and that gets tiring to read. If you take a look at action manga like Naruto or Rurouni Kenshin, the combat scenes usually only last three or four pages at a time. Then the action stops, there's a moment of calm where we have some big panels without any dialogue, without any action, without any narration... Just a moment of silence. Then maybe some cheesy dialogue, some inner monologue, characters commenting on what's happening, then back into the action again for another three or four pages. Rinse, repeat.
And probably the biggest thing...
6 - I'm not sure who I'm supposed to be rooting for. Who is the good guy? Who is the bad guy? Who am I supposed to want to win? Why do I care who wins? I don't know any of the players involved in this, so I don't know who I'm supposed to be rooting for. Without some kind of emotional connection to the characters in the game, I really don't care who wins or who loses, which means the stakes of this entire battle are meaningless to me. Neither character really has any relatable personality traits, they both have the "stoic cool guy" thing going on, so there's no personality to hook me and make me like one of them over the other. And not even giving them names really doesn't help the reader connect with them, because it makes them feel like throwaway NPCs.
If you really want to push this story forward, you need to start with something that will give your protagonist a personality, and give the character some emotional reason to want that person to succeed.
I'd say you're definitely off to a good start for sure! But watch out for those things, and really focus on giving your characters character and an emotional connection to the reader, so the audience has a reason to care about what is happening.
Thank you so much for your review! I'll take all of your points to heart
With #6, I've definitely had that before... when I was writing it I really wanted to get into the action, but you're right I need to slow down and help the reader connect with the characters. I find it hard to introduce my main character.
I'll echo ninjashira's thoughts especially on establishing shots. I think my main critique is that I don't really get a sense of the characters and their motivations until the VERY end. I get the impression that Crazy Hair Man is the type of guy who plays mind games with his foes, and that Hidden Boss pretends to be cocky, but loses confidence in how he plays. But I could be stretching, there. Stakes are important here too. What does Hidden Boss gain by winning/lose with a loss? Same with Crazy Hair Man. How big is the tournament? Are the players in general big fish in a small pond or are these well-known stars?
It isn't exactly real-life accurate, but pacing wise, it might be a good idea to have a "break" between rounds so that the characters can interact with each other or internally monologue about their strategy. Think something similar to Dragon Ball Z/GT/Super, where they have breaks (even if they're small) between matches where characters interact and/or advance the plot. Trash talking is a great way to do exposition if you can pull it off.
BIG PLUS on having an ice skating fighting game character. That's pretty great.
First off, super impressed with your comic! Some of the pages are a little text-heavy and have a lot of narration, but I do tend to like very few words per page, so maybe that's just me. The page layouts are very professional looking, overall great job.
@alcchron thank you! In my mind I was like 'get to the action, then deepen the characters' but I may have had it the wrong way round. Having a break between rounds is a great idea
Also thanks for noticing my ice-skating character, I worked hard on their movesets!
@gabriellabalagna Thanks for reviewing! Yeah the text-heavy thing, I think so too, they way I have it set up is hard because you have 2 commentators + 2 characters all talking/monologuing.
@jamontoast98 I just remembered that I wanted to give you a reading suggestion. If you haven't read Angelic Layer by CLAMP, I think you should. It does a similar thing with players controlling combat avatars in a virtual arena, and it has really strong characters and a lot of heart.
I highly suggest you read it and analyze the pages. Do a proper analysis where you break down how many pages are combat, how many are dialogue, how often they zoom out to give the reader an establishing shot of where everyone is in space, and how much dialogue and how many panels are on each page. Then compare that to the same stats in your own chapter. I think once you see those numbers, it might help influence your pages for the better.
