Give Feedback to the Novel/Comic Above You

Greetings, I, the great and powerful Ghost of Toast shall provide you will ever-helpful feedback for your novel. Pfft, no, I'm very sorry, I'm weird. It was pretty interesting- I've got two things to say though. You don' have to add a new paragraph whenever the speaker changes.
"Hello, John!"

"Well, Hello, Mark!"

This might have just been me, but I zoned out a few times while reading. It's not boring in the slightest, but try describing things less?- I definitely don't describe things enough (my readers don't even know when the main character looks like-) but when you go on about the beautiful, glistening sun- That's the kinda stuff that makes me lose interest. It's definitely interesting though! Good luck!

I know you said you wanted feedback on the newest pages, but really like your lineless art! It’s very graphic and appealing, the shapes are all really nice and clean.

Some of your dialogue is kind of stiff. I’m not sure if this is intentional to make characters sound snooty? A good trick is to say all of your dialogue out loud and see how it feels/sounds. A lot of things can sound good in your head when you’re writing, but come off differently to the reader.

The expressions are all nice and the characters look consistent from panel to panel. The frustrated faces you draw are especially good.

Because of how most of the text is spaced out, the parts where there are paragraphs of text make me think the person is talking very quickly and it adds to the drama.

@Strawberry
You prologue is looks very cute! I like your use of the vertical scroll format :>
I think maybe you could work a bit on the lettering, some of the speech bubbles kind of had the text disappear out of the frames, which made it a bit hard to piece together. Maybe use a nice free font for the text, I'm sure there's one that fits

But your drawings are cute and I liked the visuals! Keep going! :>

Here's mine if anyone wants to have a look, no pressure:

It just wasn't what I was taught in school- I don't have anything on it.

Thanks! I will work on the lettering and speech bubbles!

To borrow your phrase, “cryptic, yet whimsical-” this is a sentiment that really sums up the first ten episodes of the“The Alchemist’s Chronicle.” That’s not to say there aren’t some really nice ideas here. The powerless goddess who calls herself “pitiful.” Her doomed relationship with a mortal. A protagonist outsider who has to watch his every word or action in order to avoid disaster (not to mention it’s nice to see his bravado as well as his vulnerabilities spaced just panels apart).

The warmth from the visuals add nicely to the whimsey (especially once we get to the South Bend Bookstore (panels 2-5 were stellar. The art style shines along with the color choice)). There are moments of great storytelling in the panel layouts but there are also moments that are stagnant. Sadly the first couple pages had a lot of emotion and tension in the dialogue, but visually it was just a lot of stationary talking heads. If there had been some cuts to the impending doom, or something else to let the audience know what our protagonists were dealing with, it would have been more engaging. Even the same actions with a few more dramatic angles in the house (or some additional movement) would have been nice in so critical a scene. So there feels like there’s been some missed opportunities with driving up the tension in the desired areas.

Also, I could have used a bit more of an explanation as to what was going on in the beginning. It’s not to say that the character’s weren’t engaging (and since it was their last moments together, it really should be about them), but just a hint of what the big bad was, of who the protagonists were (a few more details from their history would be nice), and how it all fit together would have been been helpful for the audience to understand the stakes.

But overall, there’s a lot of potential for a good epic here. The art style is inviting. The story is simple but makes room for genuine emotion. I’m interested to see where it goes. Solid work.

I started to read your comic and all I can say is I absolutely ADORE everything about the style and the colors!! I'm so intrigued about the story so I'm gonna read more ^^!!! Your character designs are absolutely lovely too btw! You gained a new sub!!

Here's my webcomic, it;s my very first too^^!!! It takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where demons took over and a Demon Slayer among them lurks and has a thirst for revenge. ( This is the very first webcomic I publish!! I have 12 episodes so far ^^ )

Genre's are Action, LGBTQ+, HORROR!!

https://tapas.io/series/HellWay1

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That's weird. Your teacher wasn't technically wrong, there's no hard rule against it, but it doesn't sound like they explained the pros/cons of it.

It brings attention to the lack of punctuation (the punctuation being making a new paragraph). It goes against the standard format for novels, which you should only do if there's a reason for it. An example would be if you were writing something avant-garde (after looking at your novel it doesn't look like that's the case). Otherwise, you should follow what is considered typical dialogue punctuation rules to make the punctuation invisible to the reader. It makes it clear who is talking and when that changes.

While this is a style choice, you should consider who your audience is and whether or not it makes sense from the reader's perspective. Literary styles that go against standard format are usually considered "experimental fiction", which might be a genre for you to look into!

@ghostboy9708 Hey I really like your style! It's really cool and I love your use of color and line and shape--there's a lot of juicy movement going on. Your episodes are crazy long, which --congrats on actually getting that to fit in the MB upload limit-- I think you can split them up into 3 or 4 parts for tapas and be just fine. Like those are very long episodes, and if I were a reader clicking through from trending or elsewhere, the length would have turned me off, but other people like long episodes, so do whatever you think is best. (I personally have not figured out the riddle of the sphinx on what episode length should be)

Sometimes it's so much exciting details that I get lost, so maybe taking advantage of empty space would help me focus my attention back on action--especially since there really isn't much gutter space between panels (I would really like to see more gutter space. It helps me know what order to read things, which is important since you have a pretty abstract style)

My only other criticism is the font. Your handwriting parts are cool and I enjoyed seeing that contrast between the computer font and the handwritten font. Yet the standard font looks kinda like an emotion-less Arial-type font and you spent so long on the art, that I wish the font was a more comic-style font to match it. It also changes sizes, sometimes the bubble tails are hard to see because you do a similar line detail in the hair. Most readers on Tapas and Webtoons are reading on their phones (I'm on a monitor, so I cheated) and on a phone that font would be too small and so would those bubble tails.

But honestly, those are small things to be picky about, Your comic is a really solid sell, and a lot of work, and pretty impressive.

and for the next person in line, this is a novel--I 'finished' the comic version so the comic really doesn't need feedback, it's just I'm hella new to the world of online novels, I usually only do art, so feedback would be nice.

Graphics: I liked the manga style! B&w fits story just right, and helps to focus on what' happening. I also like your action pages, they're really dynamic.
Story: I was touched by first chapter! Poor Penny, she didn't deserved it all, but life is life and she seems brave enough to recover and continue her own adventure with the help of loving family
Lore: The idea of both humans and sentient primates living together is something new for me, I can't remember I saw it earlier in any story, so your lore made me really curious.

Wow thanks for the very kind feedback!!

I also checked out your comic and I really like it!! The stylization is super cool, I also followed it

Since the latest reply didn't have a novel or comic, I proceeded with your "Alchemist Burn Out":
Not quite my genre, but I do love the writing, it is easy to follow for me, and the story has potential, I also loved the inclusion of images and music to make the reading more rich and pleasant .

For the next in line, here is my Debut Comic series:

Enjoy your stay, Have a nice day!

@An_Alias :
Hey thanks! Yeah, guilty as charged with the line weight. This was my first experience with doing line work (so I'm glad you feel it's improving as I go along. I'll keep at it (I feel like I'm slowly learning the dance). I do use ASL, but I'm not a native speaker. Penny was inspired by some people in my community and I wanted a deaf positive message to be central to the story. If you have any additional resources (or additional readers) that spring to mind who could help with the authenticity of the story/characters, let me know. I'd love more feedback.

@alextsarace :
Thanks for giving it a look! I'm glad some of the elements are jelling together for you. I'll keep at it (and feel free to throw some crap in that sandwich! I'm always looking to improve.