Jan 2021
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Jan 2021
Jan 2021
yoboketto
Jan '21

Hello, I'm a Yoboketto! I'm an art student and soon to be a comic creator. My plan for this year is to finally start my comic after planning for a while. I would love to hear from artists, comic creators, and readers: "What are the things that you love to see in a webcomic/ story, and what are the things that you hate to see in a webcomic/ story?"

Please let me know your thoughts, I want this to be a successful debut into the comic creating world!

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    Jan '21

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    Jan '21
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GloamingCat
Jan '21

Dude, this is... very subjective. For every single possible narrative trope, there will be someone who hates it and another one who loves it. It's really hard to come to a conclusion.

There are some "rules" for writing in general that people recommend, to get more viewers and stuff. But even those aren't a guarantee that your story will succeed and they're not the only way to succeed so... Honestly? Trust your guts and do whatever you think you'd like if you were a reader.

nathanKmcwilliamsIn the making of Bunneh The Rabbit
Jan '21

Do:
Create whatever you personally think is a good story.

Don't:
Let others taste in story scare you off from making what you want.

darthmongoose
Jan '21

Yeah @GloamingCat hit the nail on the head.
There's a difference between "things I don't like" and "things that will make a comic unsuccessful". For example, I hate seme-uke dynamic BL and I'm not hugely into isekai stories about some boring straight guy with no hobbies getting hit by a truck and ending up in a world that's like an MMO where he's effortlessly overpowered... but I wouldn't tell somebody "don't make these if you want to be popular" because they're both massively popular.

General do's that have nothing to do with my preferences:
- Update regularly with a consistent schedule,
- Put effort into your drawing to make your world feel real, but don't be afraid to take some short cuts for time, aim for a polished overall finish.
- Plan your pages and panels with thumbnails before you draw.
- Use a proper comics font for dialogue (if you don't know where to start, get one of the free ones from Blambot).
- Make sure there's space in your dialogue balloons between the text and the edge equal to at least the width of one letter.
- Read Making Comics by Scott McCloud, just do it.

claiborneart
Jan '21

I don't have much to say on general genre/tropes here, for a lot of reasons, so I'll just chime in with some more general production advice.

Do:

  • start off with at least a couple weeks of buffer
  • make sure your comic is readable on both desktop and mobile
  • make each episode update feel satisfying - ie. if it's a comedy, make sure each episode/page ends on a punchline, if it's a longform story make sure each update either asks or answers a question about the world, characters, story, etc., even if the questions is as simple as "what are they looking at off-panel?"

Don't:

  • skimp effort on the thumbnail and description (this is first thing people will see of your comic, make sure you're selling yourself properly!)
  • (for vertical format) use excessive white space between panels (think of your poor desktop readers!)
Rhonder
Jan '21

I don't have a whole lot to add, but in addition to the above "Create buffer before posting" (in case you're not aware, "buffer" is basically content that you have ready ahead of the scheduled upload date. I.e. say you do 1 episode a week, have like 4 or 5 at least done before posting. You can never have too much though):

When planning your first episode(s) try to gauge how far into your story a reader would need to get "hooked" and try to reach that point in as few updates as possible. If you're planning relatively long episodes then this may just happen within 1 or 2 episodes anyways, and that's great! But if you're planning to do shorter updates (say, 1 page per week, so around 5-8 panels) then you may wish to include a longer-than-normal episode at the start to accelerate the reader to the plot hook. I hate when I see a new series with an interesting synopsis but the comic drip feeds content so slowly that it might take a month or more of updates to reach the hook. Personally, if I'm not intrigued within a few updates, usually I won't commit to the rest of the series. You want to try and hook new readers as soon as possible so you should try and reach that point within the first 1-3 episodes (max) even if those ones have to be longer than the norm, imo.

As a personal anecdote, my first Tapas series featured a page-a-week upload schedule, but my first episode was 7 pages long. I picked that length because it got people all the way through the first scene which I thought was a good point for people to get a taste for the series overall. If you like what you see there, you'll likely enjoy the rest of the series. And if you don't, at least there's enough content right away to make that decision.