19 / 26
May 2019

I think the bigger question might be, how many people actually READ the comics, and how many just look at the pictures or skim?

I was thinking about the same while going through this thread. It is true that when you're inexperienced you can write excessive words or repeat ideas (I've made that mistake too), but I've also noticed that many webcomic readers are not looking for something deep to read. It might be a side effect of the medium (aka. the cell phone) and the fact that many people read on the go, turning reading webcomics into something where you only partially put your attention, unlike what happens when you have a paper book or comic, which is also something you probably paid money for, or had to go through the trouble of getting it from a library. My theory.

About the initial question, I don't mind long texts if it has a reason. I'm not only looking for pretty pictures in a comic.

Nah, I cannot relate, @CallMeMattheww. I think that large or small quantities of dialog is a stylistic choice. It just fits some stories better than others. For one example, in Tapas Fight Club, it would be infeasible and ill-fitting for combatants to be having long discussions while punching each other. That same plethera of dialog works well in Tiger on the Storm, a biographical comic on Tapas about a war.

An example of a webcomic which suffered terribly from excessive walls of text which did NOT fit and always displayed a lack of editorial discipline is Home Stuck.

if the writing is good/engaging? i like it. if its just a lot of fluff/padding im not a fan. i try not to completely fill up my page with speech bubbles (if its a whole conversational scene i try to restrict myself to a maximum of 2 bubbles per panel so it doesnt cover up the art), and i like to include camera shifts or pauses to help space it out.

If there are just walls of text for pages on end with no break in between, I, personally, will skim or skip those pages entirely. Unless I'm really invested in the story and think what's being said is important, I wouldn't give it the time of day. I especially hate it if the story starts with walls of text. It tires me out and makes me not want to continue.

It keeps reminding me of Robert Crumb's brother when he finally got completely insane and replaced all his drawings in panels with text, and then just series of horizontal lines... Come to think of...I think I know why I don't use any text in my comics anymore - maybe just trying to buy some time :slight_smile: