Pros & Cons of Comics + Comic Discussions

[IndigoShirtProd]

I guess one pro is being able to see the product of your work faster than another medium that takes as long like animation. Working on a ten minute, hand drawn animation is going to take a lot longer to get to a final product when compared to ten, even twenty pages of a comic.
Though a personal con for me is that is can get pretty mind numbing to work on my comic especially with my work flow.

[DiegoPalacios]

Those are the pros and cons of comics in general that i`ve noticed:

Pros:
-Cheaper to make and less time consuming than animation.
-Works on digital and printed media.
-Solid ground to test ideas with a lower risk.

Cons:
-Exclusively visual medium.
-It`s harder to convey motion
-Has a lower mainstream appeal than audiovisual media.

[DualDragons]

Oh no, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to come off as someone who was offended.

It's just that I'm afraid that this topic would turn into one of those topics where everyone hates on tropes and things in specific comics and it just gets uncomfortable to read because all the things are present in other's comics.

Which feels like passive-aggressive stuff, but that is my perspective. Again, I'm sorry for the rude initial sentence.

[IndigoShirtProd]

Yes to all of these. As much as I love comics, I personally would rather watch something than read something.

[M.ComicFan]

It's OK, I understand. I just want you to know that wasn't my intention.

[yondoloki]

Pro:
- It's faster than Animation
- It's easier for me than writing a novel

Cons:
- I like reading novels better, and they are faster to write
- The story time vs actual time to make a page is killer.
- Certain mainstream stigmas that comics are "low-brough" storytelling.

[DiegoPalacios]

That is one of the reasons why at first, i wanted to make my project into a youtube animated series, but i quickly realized it was not viable to do it by myself without taking an eternity.

Nowadays, i use comics as a training/ testing/growing grounds, and when i get enough resources/experience, i can adapt my story to other media.

[M.ComicFan]

Cons:

-Has a lower mainstream appeal than audiovisual media.

I sadly agree with this statement. Comics aren't as appreciated now as they were originally. I'd say that it's not entirely true because I know people who read manga, but I'm pretty sure they only read because of the anime they watch.

[IndigoShirtProd]

That's a great goal to work towards. I would also like to see my IPs animated in the future, though I don't have the patience for animation. I'm pretty content with comic making as of now.

[Shanny8]

I'm pretty sure they only read because of the anime they watch.

I used to read manga of stuff that didnt come from anime- and often once the anime was created, it deviated from the manga in a way that I didnt like.

[DiegoPalacios]

Also, some people read the manga because it comes earlier than the anime.

[M.ComicFan]

often once the anime was created, it deviated from the manga in a way that I didnt like.

Really, what exactly do you mean by that?

[DiegoPalacios]

It`s like what they did with the final season of games of thrones

[M.ComicFan]

I've never watched Game of Thrones.

[DiegoPalacios]

well, the point is that sometimes in animes they take the story to a different direction than the manga, and those deviations can ruin the anime.

[M.ComicFan]

Can you name some animes that do this?

[DiegoPalacios]

Sadly i almost never read mangas, so i can`t give a proper example. Just heard stories of those situations

Maybe @Shanny8 can list some examples.

[Rhonder]

I don't know a ton that do (but I also don't read a ton of the manga for anime that I've watched so I probably wouldn't know) but one example that comes to mind is Soul Eater.

I can't remember the reasoning but the anime wasn't going to get renewed or continued after the 2nd season so they ended up having to pick a point somewhere within the second season and started deviating away to create an anime-original ending that ties everything up after that arc, because the manga continues for quite some time after said arc.

[M.ComicFan]

Thanks for the info, but since your here. Do you mind if we discuss your pros and cons about comics as well?

[Rhonder]

Would love to,but I'll have to return on a work break

Edit:

I'm back!

I think my favorite Pros of comics are:

• That they're easy to make! I think it's cool that comics are something that basically anyone can make and use as a story telling device. You don't even have to have good art, necessarily. Stickmen comics are somewhat popular (and especially back in like middle school I remember a lot of people drawing those!) and like even in Elementary school I drew a comic strip about a rabbit character that my mom taught me to draw from simple shapes. Literally just gotta grab a pencil and go at it~

• The huge variety of content. Granted this is true of most entertainment mediums, but it's no less so here. When I was little I remember not really reading that many comics tbh. I would read the newspaper strips and the occasional Sonic the Hedgehog comic (those were my favorite! still really love them haha) but like DC & Marvel superheroes never did it for me and I thought that was just what comics were mostly, so I kinda avoided them. Discovering Manga in middle school busted open the concept of what comics could be though- there are so many different types, not just super heroes and newspaper strips! Now that I've discovered webcomics in the last several years the possibilities just keep expanding.

• It could definitely be a con for some people, but I kinda like that they're fast to consume. Granted a whole series can get to be very long, but you can sit down a bust through a comic issue in like 20 minutes. Or a Webtoons episode in like 5 minutes. Or a manga volume in like an hour. But like if it's paced well and hit a good stopping point you get a complete chunk of story in that time and it's pretty cool, especially when you don't have a lot of free time. For example I watch a fair amount of anime and you're pretty much committed to the 20-30 mins when you sit down to watch an episode as stopping partway through is awkwards, and I also like videogames and RPGs but a chapter of those can take hours and hours to reach (even though that's usually not in a single session... but they take me forever to get through anymore because I don't like sitting down to play those genres unless I can do at least like an hour playtime lol. If I have less time I'll just play something less time-intensive and arcade-y).

and then Cons:

• They're fun to make and an accessible story telling medium as mentioned above, but they take so SO long to make relative to how long they take to consume ;u; it appeals to "reader" me, but makes "creator" me groan a little bit lol. Drawing a page takes hours to do and yet it gets consumed in like 30 seconds.

• Related to the above, it makes following ongoing comics a drag. My Pro point about being able to consume a complete chunk of story quickly only rings true if there's a whole chunk to consume... I relate because I was one of those authors as well, but it makes "page a week" style webcomics take forever to get anywhere, which makes it difficult to hold interest. There are alternative publishing styles that can get around this but then those have other issues like taking longer between episodes & etc.

• It's a hard medium to get random people invested in, especially for story-driven comics. Strip-style comics at least have the advantage of being shareable easily since they don't require context to enjoy. Appealing to the social media masses and trying to get people to care about "page 36 of my 70 page short story" is a massive feat haha. They have an advantage over purely written media in at least having a visual element to draw people in, but these days videos (& images that don't require context to understand/be funny, i.e. memes) are super dominant.