How much dialogue is too much for you?

[Darth_Biomech]

There are edge cases where there are whole chapters without a single word uttered, and cases when pages barely fit in all the walls of text. I noticed that while reading some comics when there's too much of talking (either by the sheer volume of the text or just the amount of bubbles), I start to kinda lose attention and my gaze end up just sliding across the words not really paying attention to what is being said there. From my guess that starts happening roughly when the text (or bubbles) take up at least 50% of the page surface. Does that happen with anybody else? What's your saturation point?

[Ola]

I think that it really depends on the situation and how it's spaced out.
It's so troublesome to read through blocks of text in one bubble or area that doesn't really add anything to the story, I think if that was spaced out appropriately then it would at least be a quick read. Unless the conversation is vital to the plot and story, I think maybe that they could separate a bit of it, but if its important enough i'll take my time to read through it (but i would have to read it a couple times if it's all concentrated in one area) I feel like if its all in one area my eyes hurt and then I space out.
That could just be me though haha

[nathanKmcwilliams]

I actually don't mind dialogue heavy comics. I came from the era of 80s and 90s western comics with lots of narrated parts.
As long as the dialogue flows, I don't care how much there is.

[theBoskov]

It depends, it depends. On what it depends? well, depends of the type of comic and the audicence, some comics must have some heavy wording for the nature of its plot and its writing (Watch Oyasumi Punpun) some others just neeed actions to be done because there is no much to understand (Watch Dragon Ball) and those two have differente audiences too, some ppl just hate to read that much and others likes to read to the death,

Atleast, that's my point of view lol, My comic is a sinner on the "Heavy word comic" thing because of it being action focused and having a lot of bubble text on some pages, one of the chapters has 6 text bubbles on one single page

[Freemints30]

As said before it depends.Drama and mystery thrive on heavy amounts of dialogue the the audience expects it while action tends to hampered by it and the audience tends to have little patience for it. Really I think rule of thumb that should be applied is; if you can show it through the art there's not need to explain it in words.
EG
instead of writing some one saying
"whoa this place is a mess, dirty socks, dirty dishes and worst of there mold in the corner
Just show the the characters faces reacting in disgust to all the things in the back ground show casing all this stuff.(unless its in-character for someone to actually explain all of this)

[CarltonIsaac]

John Byrne 'gems' like these are kind of overkill, in my humble opinion.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

I think my saturation point for speech bubbles is maybe 70%? It depends on how they're spaced...in any case, when the comic starts to look like a bunch of bubbles with a little art in between instead of the other way around, I think there's a problem...

At that point, you either need to rethink your panel organization (add more panels so you can space out the dialogue), design your speech bubbles differently (a lot of manga simply blend them into the background; that helps with visual clutter) or just go full-on 'illustrated essay' and give the words center stage.

[DualDragons]

Where is that page from hunterxhunter?

Edit: i think i found it.

[Lummy]

When it feels like the comic is a novel with pictures.
For example, I like reincarnation comics and etc, but when I have paragraphs of words with explanation about the world, I just don't read them
Or when I read a comic, and then in one page (scroll format -> so about one/two panels) and there are 5 huge speech bubbles with text and it is the same with all the chapter, yup not reading especially when those dialogues have nothing to do with the plot.

[yansusu]

I don't notice as much if it's something I've been reading for a long time since I'm already invested in the story but it makes a difference in considering whether I want to pick something up for reading or not. Like, if I see a comic in the Comics feed on the app and there's mostly just dialogue going on, then I'm unlikely to check it out and just click away. I'd also say 50% would be my mark but it depends a bit on the accompanying art. If there's almost no background and just characters, for example, then I'm less inclined to check it out as if there was a detailed background going along with the characters even if the latter had a bit more text.

[darthmongoose]

I use the limited space of the comic format to force myself to use fewer words. My prose is insufferably verbose.

[mariusthered]

i stick to the basic rule of not going over 20 words per bubble.
as for loosing my attention when reading i don't like the new layout comics where you endlessly scroll and dont feel like you will ever get to the end of the page! these are the comics i unsub very quickly

[dsubufi2]

I don't really like when authors cover almost all of the page in text. But sometimes you must do it to explain something important that takes more words. So you have to give the reader a rest with some, fun scenes, or nonsense or anything that doesn't involve text or little text.

[33rdCenturyCaveman]

General rule me picked up is that more than 3 lines and it am monologue.

[Kiweevil]

Well, when it is unnatural to be speaking so much while holding a single pose and action, that is offputting to me. A character wouldn't be spouting out a wall of text mid-air while karate kicking a villain, there just isn't enough time (or breath) allotted.

I think that is something newer comic artists struggle a lot with. They use the text as the primary story-teller, and the images just kinda get slapped in as a support. So in order to get their points across, they rely heavily on boatloads of text in each panel. At that point, the best thing I think you can do us step back and think about how people interact naturally. How much they talk and how much they move with each sentence.

I for one am the kind of person who will start a sentence turning up the music on the T.V. in the living room, and by the end of the same sentence, I'm booty dancin' in the kitchen while I load the toaster with a bagel.

[allenT]

As long as the story is engaging, I don't mind if they put a lot of text expositions into few pages for once in a while. I don't have to read all the smaller texts you know.(provided if they put trivia lines in smaller texts and the key lines larger)

But one thing, regardless of the length of dialogue: I feel tired reading characters' conversations or arguments that can span 5 pages or more (or in vertical comics more than 10 panels), with no story progression. I don't want to read non-important chats and babblings on and on, i'll lose interest.

[darthmongoose]

The amount of dialogue I can bear really varies a lot.
For example, I'm not shy about going on and on about my love of Homestuck, which is famous for having a higher word count than War and Peace, and features incredibly long, rambly conversations between characters, sometimes written with weird grammatical quirks like a character who T4LKS L1K3 TH1S 4LL TH3 T1M3 but I'll also frequently come across a Tapas comic, see all the text and go "...nah", even though there's far less than Homestuck would have, so I think I probably have a set of criteria more than a specific amount:

• Is the font and text size/formatting appropriate to make it comfortable to read that amount of text? Like does it feel like the amount of text on a page balances nicely with the number of pictures?
• Is what they're saying a compelling part of the narrative and action, or is it like video game filler dialogue I could skip through or skim read and still follow the plot?
• Even if it's not vital to understanding the plot, is what they're saying still so interesting and well-written and gives me such an enjoyable insight into the characters and their relationships that I'd read it anyway because it's just so fun, funny, smart or well-realised?

The thing that makes the dialogue in Homestuck so unskippable is that it really IS the comic. It's where you get all the meat (or candy?) of the characterisation and storytelling, plus a lot of the funniest jokes. The characters have really distinct voices, not just in terms of speech quirks, but their personalities come across very strongly, so you end up hooked on just seeing how different pairs or groups interact in different scenarios and seeing what the different dynamics bring out in them.
I always feel the same way about say, John Allison's comics (like Scary-go-Round, Bad Machinery etc.) he writes strong character voices and the characters say these interesting and funny things to the point he can write a scene of two women going to the estate agents to rent a house and make it a really funny, compelling comic where I'd never skip or skim a single bubble of dialogue.