How important is the art

[masi]

How much do you pay attention to the art in webcomics? I for one, will look for nice cover and nice art style, though I’ve become less nitpicky as I become older. I prefer more dynamic art in comics where the facial expression—-cheek, jaw shape will change depending on the situation. Not one with constant pretty face but doesn’t look like it has changed much panel to panel or in variety. But I do need a certain quality of art to be able to go check first chapters, after that it doesn’t matter that much if the story is so good. But I do notice flaws here and there and wonder if others will take issue with that. I don’t. How about you? What do you prefer? What do you think the readers prefer? Thank you.

[DualDragons]

I would say it depends on the genre, but since I'm biased to action I like to see artists experiment with dynamic poses and angles, so not someone who only draws the standard 3/4 angle, side and front profile and nothing else. I want to see their characters express emotion, even if it is overexaggerated. That makes it even better sometimes.

Choreography and cool magic effects are a plus but if they aren't as good I can live with that as long as the points made above are executed well.

[masi]

I agree, especially in action it doesn’t matter the detail in the face as long as the expression, action and the movement is expressed well I’m in. Yeah maybe the genre dictates the art style as well.

[Kelheor]

I am incredibly picky I think the art must be good (which of course is a very subjective feeling). It shouldn't be necessary "pretty", but it should be of good quality and/or have something else to pique my interest and making me sit still and appreciate it, so it can be character's emotional range, action scenes, etc. The more panels make me feel stuff/save them to look at them later, the better When it comes to my favourite comic artists, I always get this feeling of being unable to pull my eyes away from their pages and that feeling is what I always seek when I start something new.

One strange thing, I also kinda dislike incredibly fully rendered 3D comics that have the quality of standard MTG cards (aka holy shit I want to draw like that), I have problems immersing in them... but that's my personal oddity

[masi]

I seconded the fully rendered comic part I kinda hate them for some unknown reason. If i have to guess it’s because it doesn’t feel like comic anymore—-especially when they start to look like cg. Even i stay away from comic with too much “lights” or shiny lmao. I kinda want to curse being involved in art because I can’t just appreciate the comic without some level of unconscious ability to scrutiny the art

[IndigoShirtProd]

I'd say fairly important. I'm pretty picky as well when it comes to the art work of a comic. Personally, I prefer art that has a charm to it, more than anatomical accuracy and detail. But more than looking good, the technical side of the art, like panel layout, speech bubble placement and appearance, and font choice, are far more important to me. You can get away with a lot with a specific genre, like comedy, where detail isn't entirely the focus, though.

[rumpenstiltzkin]

To me the art is what draws me into wanting to check out a comic, if the cover draws enough attention and stufff like that.

But if the story/dialogue/paneling is bad I will stop reading no matter how good the art is so its really a mix of having a good balance of it all.

Ive stopped reading comics with beautiful art because the story was just not interesting or they have wall of texts, my brain just dont have the patience to read to much text.

I continued reading comics with "bad" art because the story was interesting enough and they have done the dialgoeu and paneling good enough and easy to follow.

[wispysing]

I think art is fairly important since a comic is a visual medium, and art can improve readability, which overall makes reading a more enjoyable experience. I'd click on a comic because of the art, but ultimately the story is what will make me stay or leave.

[darthmongoose]

For me, the art is what makes a comic a comic and not just scattered words with some pictures. Good comic art doesn't necessarily need to be beautiful like a standalone illustration or something I'd put on my wall or use as a phone lockscreen, but it has to do the heavy lifting on establishing tone and atmosphere, creating a sense of place, illustrating physical events as well as the emotional state of the characters.

I can usually tell when I'm reading a comic where the creator was way more passionate about the writing and thinks of the art as a purely supplementary thing added for popularity. It bleeds through into the comic when the art isn't telling the story, just decorating it. I don't want to read pages and pages of panels packed with speech bubbles with bland mid-distance shots of characters saying them all and no panels where there's little to no speech or narration, just a character doing something or a shot of a room that says as much as a whole page or paragraph.

A good cover will catch my eye, but I have to like the interior art to get into a comic.I have broad taste in style, and I've never got people who will literally only read stuff with a manga aesthetic, or only read stuff with an American comics aesthetic etc. I've read fantastic comics with wonderfully expressive art in all sorts of styles! The only style I really can't get into is stuff that's really grotesque, not because I think it's bad, just because it's a little too good at unsettling me, which is an entirely personal preference. Generally I'm just after clarity, expression and consistency.

[UrMom]

I don't care so much about good art as much as readable art. Comics are a visual storytelling medium, so being able to tell what's going on, while also expressing the proper tone for the scene is the most important. You can have the prettiest comic in the world, but if the panel and speech bubble flow are all over the place, the characters are lifeless and the cinematography is lack luster, then it's hard to get immersed. I read a comic once that was gorgeous, the author clearly put a ton of work into visually fleshing out their world and characters, but I dropped it because the paneling was super confusing and it was an overall really boring read due to the lack of mood. The facial expressions looked constipated, fight scenes were also really stiff and confusing to read because the author prioritized making everything/everyone pretty.

Skilled art is nice, but I'd rather have skilled comic art.

[godfrey_narcisso]

One of the most commonly thrown argument when it comes to comic art is the One Punch Man's success story. I, for one, personally don't subscribe to it. I feel like ONE is one of the few exceptions to the rule and trying to recreate his success would only lead to disappointment. Two out of three times, bad art would get an aspiring artist nowhere, regardless of the story's quality. It's just how this extremely competitive field work.

IMO, art at least needs to be of passable quality, especially if one strives to succeed in this field. It doesn't need to be solo leveling nor omniscient reader tier. It's also not required to have perfect anatomy nor on point shading as well. The art just needs to serve its purpose in a certain level of quality to express all it needs to express that most casual fans would recognize. e.g. character that is supposed to be good looking/troublemaker/gloomy/batman should be easy to tell.

TLDR: Bad art = no good. Passable art = perfectly fine, as long as it manages to serve its purpose.

[Lensing]

The art / art style is very important for me.
When I don´t like the presantion I will not read the comic,
doesn´t matter how good the story is.
I decide that looking at the cover, when it looks too polished and generic
I will not read it

"Good" art / quality is subjective.

I like simple art, not too much details, dynamic figures / expressions
, readable text, not too dark colors (many webcomics are too dark)

[river121693]

For me, it really depends on how the art works for the story.

I've seen "bad" art (lacking in anatomical knowledge, color theories etc) in comedy series that're really charming, and make me more immersed in it. For action series I need good, or at least more animated art. Good sequential storytelling is always important though.

I also much prefer some unique art style, even if it's "bad," over the more generic art style that I see a lot on tapas features or webtoon originals. These unique art style does better to create an immersive mood through their experimentation. The generic style lacks a sense of wonderment for me. But that might just be a personal thing.

[TedGravesArt]

Good art is just as necessary as a good story. Novels are just story. Illustrations are just art. Comics are both, and require both to be quality. The art needs to tell the story just as much as the writing does. A good artist can fill in entire sections of a story with an expression, or can give lengthy character descriptions with an environment shot, or build an entire world and mood with an establishing shot. Sure, you can be immersed in a comic without good art, but how much of that story is missing when you're not seeing it? How much better would the writing be if they didn't have to explain everything through text and could just show you? Good art gives a story to every inch of a panel, every background character has hopes and dreams, every scrape and dent has a history. Good comic art is what makes that world rich in ways that only dialog or narration could never do.

[Chocolate]

Okay so for me art is 30% and story is 70%. Of course I want to look at something pleasing; but if a comic fail to tell a story, I’ll simply move on to the next one and forget about it. If you look at One Piece, Demon Slayer, and Attack on Titan; what do they all have in common? A strong foundation plus great storytelling. Fans of those series talked about the story, certain scenes that made them laugh, and just the plain ridiculousness of the world building. Now applied those characteristics to your story. OwO

[rajillustration]

I would say it's pretty vital to the success of the comic to have good art. It tells the audience right away the type of genre they're walking into, it tells you if you're too young/old to be there reading it, and there's a lot of visual language we use in comic making to get abstract ideas across. What I'm looking for in a comic isn't the same as what I look for in standalone illustration either. Mostly because the time scale is just different, webcomics need to be made so fast, while an illustration I can spend several hours on no problem.

And like it depends on the comic, but as a reader, I don't expect for a webcomic author to be spending 2+ hours a panel, and I would hope that they don't. Go ahead and take the short cuts, it's a web comic. I'll admit that occasionally you'll have a humdinger panel that takes about that long, but most should just average less. So when there are issues with perspective or issues with anatomy that are fairly minor, I don't really care, and honestly I read so quickly why would I notice those things unless they were very large?

When drawing errors get in the way of legibility, and aren't editorialized to be appealing to look at, it can be distracting enough to hurt the reader experience. I would change those things, but only when you have the time to do it, and if it's worth doing (like redoing old episodes can be a real sisyphean dilemma.) But honestly every comic you do, you will be better at art than the last one, so if you aren't like at the teir of a top level comic it's fine, we're all learning. You have to keep creating in order to learn how to do it better anyway, so releasing less than perfect work is fine.

[amilcardraws]

To me, lettering is more important than art.

And many webcomic authors neglect lettering, with words touching the globes, cut words, illegible fonts (sometimes even handmade).

There are many examples of comics with bad art being successful, but with bad lettering? I can't think about one.

[TedGravesArt]

Dude yeah. Lettering. Way harder and more complicated than it looks, and way more neglected as a skillset than it should be.

[Mallory]

Ohoho man yeah, the first few comics I ever made were wordless so when I launched into a comic with dialogue, I was like, shrug, it's just text in circles, how hard can it be?

The answer is, very, very hard.

As far as the art is concerned though, I think what's important is that it reads well. Like, it doesn't have to the be most bedazzling, but you have to be able to look at it and in that one second be able to grasp everything important that's going on. So that's composition, choice of color and contrast, character movement and expression, fundamentals of anatomy and perspective, etc. In that way having simpler/faster to draw art might actually be a boon, because if it's too detailed/rendered, it takes longer to take in all the details, which slows the reading experience down and may break the immersion.

[migxmeg]

If art doesn't matter then I'm wasting a lot of time trying to learn it .

For my personal taste, I don't look necessarily for polished art but there needs to be something I like about it for me to pick up a comic in the first place. It kind of depends on why I'm reading something too - there's comics I've read where I don't really care if the art is unique or good as long as it's clear and fits the story. Then there's other comics where the story isn't usually my thing but the art has something so special I got really sucked in. Other comics that I'm reading because I want to learn how the creator achieved certain effects - that's definitely something where I'd be disappointed if they lost their touch on that aspect. I absolutely notice things that look incorrect, weird or out of place more now that I'm drawing for a comic myself but it doesn't really put me off as long as the story remains engaging and whatever I liked about the art in the first place is still present.

What do you prefer? What do you think the readers prefer?

I try (it's hard) to remain very aware that the average reader's preferences are not like mine or the average creator's. My sense is that style that fits their taste/lighting/coloring/texture/effects/character design/clarity are far more important to readers than unique art style, line art, sound anatomy (past a certain point) or rich backgrounds. And I think the majority of readers would prefer more content over more time spent on art so long as the art meets a sort of minimum standard of quality.