5 / 26
May 2019

I don't know why it is that I can read so much dialogue when it comes to manga but when it comes to webcomics I just give up, I mean when it comes to manga I can read through large amounts of dialogue effortlessly (I even retain about 90% of the information that I have read) but with webcomics on the other hand, if the first 3 - 5 panels of a webcomic have paragraphs of text / large text-filled speech bubbles, I just give up reading and the saddest part is even if the story is interesting I still won't want to read it if there is too much text. I just have little to no patience when it comes to dialogue / text in webcomics but on the other hand I really love reading manga with a lot of text (and honestly speaking most manga is like 90% text anyway) :laughing:

And here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Air Gear is one of my favorite manga of all time and like most manga it's almost all dialogue, but I have read every single chapter and none of it was tedious for me (Tho some arcs were boring but the text was never a problem for me), but on the other hand if a webcomic were to have the same amount of text as this one page I'm not sure if I would be able to read that webcomic

Side note: whenever the text is too much for me in a webcomic I just skip past the panels until I see something interesting happening and try to piece together what happened from there and unless it's something really interesting I'll probably drop the series after that chapter.

And something strange I've noticed about myself is that I can barely remember any info given to me in webcomics unless it's simple things like character "A" hates character "B" or that character "C" likes character "D" , It's actually been really worrying to me that I have a hard time remembering even the smallest of things in webcomics :sweat_smile: :worried: ........

So that's how I feel about heavy amounts of text / dialogue in webcomics, but what about you?, Do you like your webcomics like that? Can you follow along and remember info?, or are you like me and for some reason can't stand to read webcomics with too many words and can't remember any details of the webcomic after reading it?

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    Apr '19
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    May '19
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I have tired sight I find it VERY hard to keep up with comics that have a lot of text and novels. :cry:

And you are right, I noticed that webcomics have completely different pacing than printed publications/TV and movies. Pages and dialogues have to be more "digestible" because we are likely to publish once a week or even every month, readers need a way to keep up and remember things.

I barely use dialogue and avoid making filler panels, I know readers are going to scroll down most of it.

Yeah, I can't handle multiple large blocks of text in comics, especially if the font is made smaller just to fit the word bubbles. Heck, I never got into Calvin and Hobbes because of this. xD
My eyes kind of get strained having to shift so much with line breaks.
I'd much rather they parse out the long blocks of text into multiple smaller bubbles and just extend the scene.

Funnily enough, I'm fine with novels. My brain just switches to a different mode.

I'm guilty of it- I just dont do it for tons of pages at a time. It doesnt bother me if it's stuff important to the story...

It could be worse; you could read pages where there's a ton of blank space, and the character says like five words- especially with vertical scroll style webcomics where there there is a gutter between panels as large as the panels themselves.

I like to include as much dialogue as needed, personally. I used to do it a little bit, but my writing tutor was VERY big on being concise so once I started publishing I was already cutting my dialogue down and knew not to do this.

It's not that it's tedious, it's that it defeats the purpose of having sequential art. There are always less words that can be used, so that the art can be easily seen.

The reason manga can be wordy is because they're initially written in japanese, which has smaller more compact letters and which is written one letter per syllable. Translating results in more letters. I excuse that because it can't be avoided. Western artists shouldn't be creating their stuff to look like foreign works that have been translated, because foreign works aren't made for english speakers.

Personally I hate large text dumps in comics. Which is odd because I can literally read a book start to finish in one sitting no problem at all, but 2 or 3 panels of too much text and I'm out of there...

I don't mind a lot of dialogue so long as it's given over several panels. Some webcomics go for Death Note level text dumps.

I'm concerned now that the last few episodes of my comic are like this. I tried to break it up but there's a lot of information to get through and I'm not sure how else to present it.

If the artist usually doesn't do dialogue then I would read through it because they must've had something to offer.

No problem! I feel that it was well laid as well and very easy read!

I think a few of us here won't want to hear it, but in my opinion the simple reason you like webcomic dialogue less is because it's worse.

Most webcomics we find are made by amateurs writing for the first time, whereas most manga have proven themselves by first being published, and then by being popular enough to be translated into English. I absolutely feel the same way as you, where I can easily sit down and read a novel or wordy manga, but when a webcomic writer drones on and on I think, "get to the point already!"

There are a few gems out there in the webcomic world, though, where the authors write paragraphs and paragraphs and yet manage to keep the audience engaged. You just have to look a little bit harder for them.

Here are my favorite wordy webcomics, if anyone wants reccomendations:

The Property of Hate16
The dialogue helps to convey the whimsy and mystery of the world. There's a ton of subtext and subtle little references and puns that really show how much effort the author puts in. Also has some of the most incredible art I've ever seen in webcomics.

El Goonish Shive7
Starts off very rough, but slowly evolves into a character-driven drama with well thought out characters who's inner lives are often conveyed through paragraphs of text. But I read every word because the author makes me care about these characters.

Doe of Deadwood13
The dialogue is what kept me actually reading this one, as the quality of the art belies the quality of the writing. The characters' personalities come out through their voices, and that keeps the writing from feeling like lifeless exposition.

OMG this is what's always bothered me! I've never known why I tend to judge web comics for their dialogue until now. To me, writing is as important as the art and (I don't want to sound rude but) there are a lot of beautiful webcomics on tapas and webtoon with very little substance in the writing department. I feel like my standards for webcomics and printed comics is really different because of this

I don't mind it as long as the words don't feel like they they're fighting the art for space. (not really sure how else to put that)

There also has to be variety in the layouts, I don't want every page to be a text dump.

It also depends on context of the text, I can't really explain this one but some heavy text will feel appropriate depending on the situation or dialog, while in other places it will feel, clunky, awkward, rushed or lazy.

It's really a balancing act that can work out if you utilize it right.

Edit: I also do better when the text is on a page format layout. For whatever reason it's really fking overwhelming when it's longform ><

I don't mind comics with a lot of dialogue. (It would be pretty hypocritical of me if I didn't, given that my own comics can get pretty wordy, lol.) I'm usually more bothered with how the text is spaced out—if there's a giant wall of text with no paragraph breaks, I'll probably gloss over it. I also agree with @Shanny8 in that huge panels with very few words are incredibly hard for me to read. :stuck_out_tongue:

And yeah, the general quality of the dialogue matters, too.

Yeah! It's really rare to find someone who's good at both. I feel like many of the most well written comics I've found just don't have art that's that great (two of the recommendations in my last comic, for example) too. I kind of wish it was more popular for two people to work together on a comic, like most published American comics or what eventually happened with One Punch Man, but it's probably really hard to find two people who share the same passion for one story, especially with something like webcomics where the vast majority of people are doing it for free.

I agree! I feel like it's difficult, especially with webcomics, because artists can't afford writers and writers can't afford artists. No one is overpricing themselves. It's just that a large demographic of these comics are made by teens who have school and don't work or work but not enough to pay someone.

Maybe it's just me, but when I want to read a comic, I want to read it. I like the dialogue and captions kept to a minimum on big action scenes with big, splashy, or highly detailed art. However, when characters are having an indepth conversation or a character's thoughts or exact words are extremely important, I like a little more wordiness.

And it really shouldn't take five pages for a character to say one sentence.