Post any comic/novel here and I will give it a shot for ~5 pages (REACT EDITION)

AnimeKitty 2021-01-11 22:52:22 UTC #69

Thanks for the review! You honestly pointed out a lot of great things here. If you thought the cringeworthy poetic writing was bad here, thank your lucky stars you didn't read the first draft. xD I see I've got a lot of rewriting in the future, especially with the narrator's voice and how I want to present Kaz as a realistic character and not a corny unrealistic one. The problem with my worldbuilding is how it comes across as more fantasy instead of modern. I think it has a lot to do with making up the town and gang names. It would probably be more accurate to confine myself to a real place, and situations based upon real things that have happened among gangs. Overall, I agree with ya a hundred percent. Will definitely take note of this in my editing. Thanks again!

milejdyvan 2021-01-11 23:53:20 UTC #70

Lol! But I agree it's luck on my part that I actually have hired an editor recently. And it's hilarious to me that one of your rephrase is exactly what my editor changed it too! So great review! Can't wait to show the fixes!

DokiDokiTsuna 2021-01-14 08:06:57 UTC #71

FIFTH UPDATE! (Replies 29-35)

The End of All Things @BlunderingAlbatross
=Overall, it’s good. I think this is the first ‘normal’ novel I’ve gotten from this thread: it’s not blindingly amazing, yet it doesn’t have any glaring flaws; it’s just…solid writing.
I found it kind of difficult to get invested until the end of Prologue Part 2 where [spoiler] dies (which was really well done, btw), but I don’t think that’s your fault…I dunno. Maybe it’s the MC. As “purehearted, innocent mother” characters go, I think she’s alright, but unfortunately that’s just not the kind of character I’m at all interested in.

Life in a fearsome world @AmandaJ-art
-Wut
=It’s a cute-looking comic, but it feels very…pointless. Like, the first episode made me think “oh, this is gonna be one of those super-wholesome comic strips where the characters just demonstrate healthy attitudes towards negative thoughts”.
But then Ep 2 came along, ending with a very weak joke (?)…and then came Ep 3, where the negative thought was presented and the character was just…left with it. Eps 4 and 5 confirmed that the endings were just going to be random.
It felt like watching a stand-up comedian try to do stream-of-consciousness jokes and just bomb…like, there’s nothing wrong with finding your own experiences/reactions interesting and trying to share that with others. But entertainment isn’t the same as real life…it’s supposed to have a point. You have to make an attempt to reach your audience; give them something they can react to despite not being you or having your mental context.
…All ^that is assuming that you are indeed just writing about thoughts you had based on situations you were in IRL. If that’s not the case, and you’re making up each episode out of thin air, then…oh boy. You really need to study…something…
If nothing else, I hope the later episodes improve in this respect.

Essence of Life @julipow
-That banner art is scary. Like not good-scary, but ‘two steps before the uncanny valley’ scary. O_O
-Well…these descriptions certainly are…energetic…
-What is a flock?? I tried looking it up, ‘cause it sounds like one of those words that has a bunch of secret, archaic meanings, but I didn’t find anything that sounds like it belongs in the phrase “the wooden flock piercing his chest”.
Unless his chest is full of wood shavings?? That sounds awful…bizarre, and awful…
-Pro Tip: don’t call people “females” (or “males”) if they’re already-identified, acting characters. It’s a no-no…
-What is that ‘ne ne’ about? Are you mixing Japanese in this dialogue?? NONONONONO STOP DO NOT DO THAT
=Oookay…well, that was a trip. 6_6; Um, so, my biggest criticism would be that this has an overall extremely amateurish vibe. Like, this doesn’t feel like a novel, it doesn’t even feel like a novel adaptation of another medium, it feels someone’s misguided attempt at turning an anime into prose, despite not having read many books in their life.
I'll explain one notable thing: the constant usage of the word “female” was really immersion breaking, and tbh it made me uncomfortable…if you’re not a native English speaker (it feels like you are, though) you should know that it is usually used as an adjective (as in the phrase “female character”), not as a noun. When it IS used as a noun, it’s usually for animals (“I have four puppies; three females and one male”).
Thus, when you use it for people it sounds dehumanizing…and just in general, I don’t think you should be in a position where you keep referring to your main character as ‘the [adj] female’…like, even if you changed every instance of ‘female’ to ‘girl’ you would still have a problem.
Why can’t she just be ‘she’, or ‘her’? When you keep titling her like that instead of just using a more subtle pronoun, you create distance between the reader and the character: again, breaking immersion.
Rant over, I gotta stop…but before I do, on a more positive note: that trailer episode DOES indeed feel like a trailer. I’ve never seen anyone do that before…

Age I- Age of Darkness @TheDoublekey
-Woah, the backgrounds are actually kinda nice…
-WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ART BETWEEN EPS 1 AND 2?? D8
-The story seems kind of interesting; if the art were better I might be into this
=So, I feel like you have good composition, but the drawings themselves need a lotta work. The sketchy outlines on everything make the comic feel fuzzy and uncertain…and of course the perspective and anatomy are kind of a train wreck throughout, if I’m being honest.
I realize now that nothing really “happened” to the art after the prologue, it’s just that the prologue kinda played to your strengths: mostly background, extreme closeups, and effects; all things you do best— and I applaud you for making an excellent first impression that way; very smart~.
P.S. It looks like you’re using assets for some of the background elements? I hope you’ll be careful with sourcing and crediting and whatnot…the lines and dots will probably go unnoticed, but if you ‘acquired’ that Prologue background, rather than creating it as I originally thought, you should definitely give credit where it’s due, at the very least.

***How are you all getting so many comments and views?? I feel like such a hack ragging on all these stories and yet being a relative unknown compared to most of you…not that I don’t believe in the validity of my criticisms; I do. But they FEEL invalid when faced with the statistics… TT_TT

julipow 2021-01-14 11:01:36 UTC #72

Thank you for your criticism, I appreciate the feedback. Now, to a few things you said (just to clear up some things) I can agree with some of the flaws you mentioned but also feel like you might had a more "opinion-biased" sight to things, which is fine, we all don't need to have the same taste.
To the banner art, my art style is semi realistic, so I apologies if it creeped you out? I think you might be used to more anime/comic like art so I get it. (Even though I am going to take it as a compliment that it's "two steps before the uncanny valley" because that means I am getting a bit better at semi realism).
A flock, is what my mind mixed together from English + my native language. I apologize for this and will fix this mistake as soon as possible. I meant a "stake", I have no idea how I ended up with flock and didn't notice this mistake.
To the whole "female" point, I didn't know it was that much of an issue to be honest. I have been writing on and off for two years now (in English) and while I never published anything here, it never seemed to bother english speakers if I referred to my main character as "female" from time to time to mix up things and give the writing a more neutral tone. I have read a few books using female as nouns, but that might be my mistake to assume it's the right noun to use. Though, I honestly don't think it's as dehumanizing as you think it is because the biological correct term for our gender will always be "male" or "female" (or nonbinary if that's what someone indentifies as.). Nevertheless, I will change it up and not use it as much to avoid too much distancing from the reader.
To the "ne ne" part you seemed to have freaked out about. It doesn't come from Japanese. It's a (not grammatically correct and type of slang) saying in german (my mother tongue) and is like a catch phrase of the character. He uses it to express his distaste about things sometimes. I might change it a bit more to make it not resemble Japanese though.

Either way, I appreciate your criticism and will change and rewrite a few things, but I have to say you should try to word some things in a not so "insulting" way without knowing the person's background you are giving criticism to. Harsh criticism is one thing, being rude or straight up offensive is another, especially when you assume things. Personally, I am not offended, just giving you a little tip because some people might not see it as a critical thing anymore and it would be sad if you gain "enemies" rather than friends because of a "rude" way of wording things. Nevertheless, thank you for taking your time to give me feedback. I appreciate it.

TheDoublekey 2021-01-14 13:14:17 UTC #73

Thanks for taking your time and reviewing my work! I'm really glad you liked it and I also appreciate your criticism. The illustrations in the first episodes were made by me exactly a year ago (01/15/2020, can't believe it's been a whole year.) and I was still a beginner, however, in the latest chapters I've improved on them. The sketchy outline is no more and I focused on anatomy and perspective a little bit more.

For the trees you see in the Prologue's background I actually used assets from Photoshop itself, which gives you the opportunity to render trees and other stuff, so no outsourcing. The dots were done through Photoshop as well, with the pattern effect,
Hope you'll give it a shot again in the future, once the story reaches its turning point (it's actually very close)!

BlunderingAlbatross 2021-01-14 14:27:15 UTC #74

Hey, thanks for the feedback I'll happily take a "solid writing"!

The prologue character is fleshed out a bit more later in the book but that doesn't really solve the issue you mentioned. Any thoughts for how I could make her more interesting from a reader's perspective?

AmandaJ-art 2021-01-14 14:29:34 UTC #75

The comic is mostly about fear. Thoughts that I struggle with. I can see how that might have been a little confusing.

I'm a little confused about the joke part. None of those episodes have jokes.

Absol 2021-01-14 16:51:17 UTC #76

Hello, I'd really appreciate it if you could have quick gander at my novel please? It's just something that I do in my spare time, and is still a work in progress but would love to know your thoughts etc (so + react pretty please). It's called Finding An Angel's Peace and is a fantasy/romance novel with an angel female lead and shifter male lead. I'll post the link in case you do fancy a look Thank you in advance if you do have a read!

https://tapas.io/series/Finding-An-Angels-Peace

feuersichel 2021-01-14 18:47:02 UTC #78

Awesome, thanks alot for your react Gives me even another reason for redoing the start ^^

dannygorny 2021-01-14 18:52:30 UTC #79

I'm definitely looking for a +react for mine. HMU if you have a recommendation I should check out in exchange

DokiDokiTsuna 2021-01-14 19:12:24 UTC #80

This thread is specifically for me giving my opinion. This is why I explicitly use language like "reaction" and "first impression" to describe what I'm doing.
Any reviewer, even a thorough, proper reviewer, will be giving their opinion on your work. Only a proofreader can rely solely on facts. Just FYI.

That's quite an assumption. T_T I've seen semi-realistic art before, you know, and when it's done right it can look better than what you did (as in, not creepy). If you like, I can give you examples of semi-realistic artists I know who you might try to learn from.

I warned at the start of this topic to ask for my opinion 'at your own risk'. I feel like that should work well enough as a catch-all disclaimer; if anyone wants to become my enemy over what I told them I would do, we'd probably become enemies some other way eventually, so =/
Usually (as in, in other topics) I do try a little harder not to be this harsh, but an honest reaction is the point here, and if something in a story honestly makes me feel like something went horribly, horribly wrong with the the author's thought process, I think I'm doing them a disservice by dialing it down and pretending it's just something "I thought they could work on".
If I react subtly, I'll write something subtle; but if I react acutely, my words will reflect that.

So she does come back! I had a feeling~
Anyway, I really don't think you should change her, especially not on my account. If you're worried about it, maybe you could gather some more first impressions from other people, and see what they think...but I think she's fine the way she is. Not every character will appeal to everyone right away, and your work is definitely good enough to keep people reading if they're truly interested in your story.

That was Ep 2, I think, where MC said the fact that they were walking their dog was an excuse for them to be out.
I guess it doesn't look like a joke on its own, but I've seen a lot of internet jokes in the same vein as what you're doing, and that was very close to the reasoning used in them.

In any case, if your comic isn't supposed to be funny, I'd really recommend you write the eps in a more purposeful way. Your art is some of the best I've seen so far in this thread, and I think you could find more success with a comic that wasn't just...'things'.

BlunderingAlbatross 2021-01-14 21:30:19 UTC #81

So she does come back! I had a feeling~

Unfortunately this is flashbacks from another character's perspective, so no coming back for this one sorry

Anyway, I really don't think you should change her, especially not on my account. If you're worried about it, maybe you could gather some more first impressions from other people, and see what they think...but I think she's fine the way she is.

Ok cool, I'll see what other people think of her before I make any changes

Omra_comics 2021-01-14 22:58:42 UTC #82

Jun-junlikesyou 2021-01-14 23:06:12 UTC #83

Stargazer31 2021-01-18 12:39:40 UTC #84

https://tapas.io/series/Realmwalker-Saga-of-Frost

RiyeRose 2021-01-19 06:30:25 UTC #85

I hope this tickles your fancy~ Here's my novel!

dsptss78 2021-01-19 07:58:16 UTC #86

I'm down for an honest review.

feuersichel 2021-01-19 08:34:11 UTC #87

Just a small feedback to the male/female thing.
As OP said, I'd lose those terms unless you are writing a documentary. In english it pretty much sounds like: " Das Weibchen ging einkaufen / xyz sagte das Männchen", which hase a preeety strange tone to it ^^'

Use "she, her" instead or "the girl in red" etc. Then you are on the safe side

GayAllAlong_sorry 2021-01-19 10:34:33 UTC #88

Hmm. Why not, nothing to lose I guess.

I publish more often over on webtoon, so I'm gonna drop a link to that^^

Its an extensively meta comic about a world in wich fictional characters reside before and after their publications, with it's society centered around an academy that teaches characters how to behave according to their future archetypes. Upon graduation they get awarded an amount of plot armor based on their grades.

Check it out and tell me what you think ^^ The more brutally honest you are with your critique, the more likely it will be that I turn your comments into plot points xD
Plot Armor Academy

DokiDokiTsuna 2021-01-21 00:09:31 UTC #89

SIXTH UPDATE! (Replies 36-45)

Menmar @Iridium
-Wish that aurora blended into the color of the sky a little…some photo reference might help there
-Nice fire~
-reing->’reign’
=Overall, it’s tolerable. The writing is okay…the images don’t carry it very well, though. Lots of muddy coloring and shading despite all the mentions of light imagery. Effects could use a lot of work; the fire on page 2 was the only impressive thing in there, unfortunately.

Nowhere, South Dakota @skippyjoeskilling
=The art style is really interesting…I liked those sudden color panels~. I don’t really understand what happened there, but you can really feel the emotion behind them.
The phone scene was also interesting, layout-wise…all in all, it’s not something I’d like to read, but it feels like a comic with a lot of thought put into it, and the dialogue is intriguing so far. I think it’s a little rough, but good~

Between Love & War @Eloisa_go
-“Have you seen the water droplets sliding on the window when it rains? Then you choose two of them, and you imagine they're in a race, fighting each other to see which one gets to the bottom first.”
…I…actually used to do ^this. So much, when I was a kid. XD
-Why is the 4th line written in 2nd person…? “Pinching your skin”? Is that on purpose…?
-The wording is very strange in some areas…’nice shaking on the ground’? ‘Wet slab floor’?? ‘Lavish all over himself’???
Like, if you’re having trouble coming up with descriptive words to use, maybe consult a thesaurus occasionally? ‘Cause it sounds like you’re kinda just giving up and throwing in whatever you can come up with off the top of your head…
=Overall, I feel like this writing is trying very hard to be one of those novels that’s very close to the protagonists’ thought processes, with their emotions creeping into the narration and all that.
But there’s a lot holding it back, from the immersion-breaking weird descriptions, to the really unnatural dialogue…for instance, that ‘who the fuck smiles in the middle of a storm??’ line.
I’ve seen people do that a lot, often because of similarly worded lines in anime, but as always, context is king: ‘Who does x’ just comes off as unnecessarily intrusive and contrived when x is just…mundane. Okay, so some guy is smiling in the rain, so what? Rain isn’t horrifying; the idea that someone might be having a good day despite the fact that there’s a storm outside isn’t unusual enough to judge in that way. And that’s just one example…

Jade Kingdoms @surenlicious
-I gotta say, I really like the color style of the cover/banner art. If it could be a little more defined and cohesive, it would be amazing~.
-‘Even with their bloodline and sealing ring in tow, neither of them could express word or tongue that may successfully set this field of time back.’
^So it was at that point that I became lost. I’m not even sure I understand what the sentence is trying to say (there seems to be a mid-phrase tense switch in there?) and the next few sentences after that did not help…
=Overall, maybe I’m not paying close enough attention, but I don’t really have a clear picture of what’s going on…and also I’m kinda bored. =/ I don’t think that second part is your fault; ‘innocent female MC and gruff, strong male MC face off against unknown threat’ seems to be a common beginning to fantasy novels, and one I am simply not interested in at all.
I would recommend you work on that tense-switching though…either write in present tense or write in past tense, or do very CLEAN switches with contextual cues (for example, use past tense for the action, and present tense for those grand character descriptions). Mixing them together within sentences is just awkward.

The Great White Wolf’s Daughter @wocalichofficial
-Is ‘fire(fyr)’ supposed to be for pronunciation? Because I think it’d be best left in the asterisks with the other info
-How does Fyr “still” know how to speak the ‘common tongue’? And for that matter, who taught her to use a bow and arrow?? I thought she was left to the wulfas as a baby…
=Overall, an excellent first chapter, very well written and intriguing; one of the best I’ve seen so far. If you’re going to end up using a lot of asterisks in the future, maybe consider doing superscript numbers instead? Y’know, just so you don’t end up with lots of distracting lines of ***** in the text.

Star Seeders @sevenstarsofeightIam
-Pun included-> Pun intended (also, the pun is barely noticeable…maybe take that out entirely?)
-I don’t understand ‘atomic’; I hope that’s going to be further explained later on…? All I can gather is that there’s a distinction between ‘atomic’ and ‘molecular’, but I struggle to understand how a person can be atomic without being molecular, or vice versa…
-The sudden inksgiving plug was pretty jarring…at least throw some dividing characters in between those lines (like +++ or something) O_O
=So the writing is really strong, just needs some proofreading and light editing. I’m not entirely sure what to expect from this story, but it does have a professional feel, which is a point in your favor.

Arbiter’s Wake @arbiterswake
-Very strong title~
-Concern is a bit much, isn’t it…? Shouldn’t you be able to see concern on the character’s face? I don’t see why you’d have to caption emotions if they’re drawn correctly…
=Overall, I think the dialogue and composition is really good. I’m not a huge fan of the art, but I think it shows some skill; this looks like a comic that could become really good in the future.

A Thought A Day Cat @arbiterswake
=Meh…I found it pretty random and uninteresting. =/