How much Text is too much?

[CallMeMattheww]

So I've been working on my webcomic over on webtoon and I've come to notice that the amount of text on my comic seems to be on the heavier side of things (well from my perspective anyway) but at the same time it seems like a lot of Western creators tend to have a smaller amount of words / text per upload whereas a lot of series from Asian (or I guess i should say Korean) webcomic creators tend to have a lot of text in comparison why do you think that is and also how much text do you consider too much for a webcomic?

[jpnakashima]

Well, I'm also on the text heavier side of things (a weak spot I have to improve upon), so take what I say with a grain of salt.

I think it depends on the text, first of all. Is the text telling us something we're already seeing? Is it redundant? Is the panel better without that text?
Without context is hard to say. One thing about webcomics is that their layouts and the space you have is highly flexible, so there's always possibility to spread your text over a ''wider canvas''.

But as a rule of thumb, most of times I like to follow something I read about a Kelly Sue Deconnick workshop:
Max of 210 words per page (Moore)
Max of 3 lines per balloon (Brubaker)
Max of 3 balloons per panel (Ellis)

This is about printed comics, though, with a fixed page size. That said, I think it's a great rule fo thumb for ''western comics'' (manga tends to have a more relaxed and decompressed pacing, so if you're not One Piece or Death Note, chances are there's a lot less text in a page).
As with everything, it's a general guideline that can and must be broken, should necessity arise. I myself don't quite agree with the 3 lines one, so I tend to ignore it.

[CallMeMattheww]

I think I'd also find 3 lines per balloon too restraining, because when you think about it there's not much you can say with a 3 line limitation, but at the same time i do find myself writing short novels in my speech balloons so maybe it might be worth trying out

[fleohr]

If I feel the text is too much, which could be more than 15 words, I cut it and add it to the next panel

[punkarsenic]

a rule ive seen passed around is no more than 20 bubbles on a page, and no more than 20 words in each bubble. more than that and people start to glaze over, and youre not making good use of the visual medium

that said, yknow, it depends on what youre going for and that

[CallMeMattheww]

I would like to know what you do about portions of your comic where you are explaining some deep part of your story do you still keep the 15 word "rule" or would those be exceptions to that rule because i just counted and I have a few balloon that are way beyond 15 words

[CallMeMattheww]

That does at least seem reasonable but it seems this mainly covers standard format comics, what about comics that are scroll based, I guess those would fall under the 20 words per bubble idea

[grimnir]

The best worldbuilding I've seen works it into the story. If you try to just tell everything in one infodump (and especially one speech bubble), it's going to be too much. I've been at the receiving end of that as a reader, and it's not much fun to learn about it that way.

[mariusthered]

yes i too was told no more than 20 words per bubble and like ghost busters never cross the streams! (bubble tails)

[CallMeMattheww]

LOL hearing this makes me feel bad for my readers

[fleohr]

Could you post a link to your comic?

[punkarsenic]

hmm... in that case, no more than 20 bubbles per 6 panels? bc thats on average the no of panels in a page

[beta1042]

I think it's a proportion thing. You can have a lot of words but you need to break it up with the appropriate number of picture panels. This is why when people have info dumps they tend to have panels of inanimate objects or hands/feet to add variety to the scene.

Two people have a really long conversation about something but they're not exactly moving or anything (just sitting down at a table or something) , it gets boring seeing a bunch of panels of two people sitting(unless you're super amazing at providing alternate perspectives, or two peoples faces reacting. So you break it up with some close up of the glass of water they're drinking, the window outside, the clock on the wall, a close up of their hand tapping the table, or whatever. Just little tidbits of the surroundings and some often unnoticed body language.

[zoonland]

When the text covers the art, or covers more space than the art in the panel, it's too much. I don't think comic books should have a large amount of text (that's why I quit reading Watchmen ).
If you have a lot of things to say, better add some panels than compress a book in a baloon. It helps the readability of the comic

[CallMeMattheww]

Exile

Feel free to post a link to your comic as well

[CallMeMattheww]

It's actually kinda funny cuz i try to do this but I kinda fail at it, I'm think its because i need to add a lot more miscellaneous frames in order to space out my dialogue better

[CallMeMattheww]

I guess a viable solution would be to place text heavy balloons in panels that have unimportant art in them and then panels with more important art such as faces, settings etc... one can try to limit the amount of text but the thing i find hardest about doing that is panels that have important art are much more dramatic so you kinda want to place a heavy amount of text on them because those panels carry the most weight and impact for your readers

[beta1042]

So I read the first episode, and I think your have an ok proportion of pictures to words. There is a heavy amount of info, but it is the first episode and you're trying to setup the situation so I think in this case it's fine.

[Pandastrophic]

The way Korean webcomics are formated (vertical format with a lot of space between the panels) allows for more text bubbles to be added without the clutter, western comics are not in vertical format so I wouldn't really compare the two since the page sizes are different.
My comic is very dialogue heavy and the vertical format helped me a lot because I could space out the conversation without making the text seem like a lot.

Visually I try to make sure it's no more than 4 lines in a bubble, just looking at 5+ lines in a speech bubble makes me not what to read it because it looks like a mini paragraph. I think @punkarsenic's way of calculating it is much better though, maximum 20 words per bubble is a good and having a max word limit per bubble will force you to find ways to summarize and maybe write the text/dialogue even better.

[zoonland]

Yes, of course that is a good solution.
I think that if there are panels with important and more dramatic art often speak for themselves,and you should let the images speak instead of adding too much text. If you add text weight to a panel that has a lot of art weight, you probably will have too much weight.