Ah, thank you, @UbePie! Sorry for the text wall!
Seeing how other people interpret my characters, and story is always interesting! Your reaction to my two main characters is funny (not in a bad way) since feelings have been mixed, some being the exact opposite; rooting for Apollo while not liking Julian all that much. I’m partially surprised you’re invested in Julian already, I was just expecting readers to think they look pretty-ish at this point, given that’s the usual first response I get. But I should realize some people can empathize with a character sporting a bad childhood, and a history of being suicidal.
For a character that can be super cliche, but it's not like that doesn't happen irl.
With Apollo, I intended for him to appear like an innocent cinnamon roll type, and I do want him to have an extent of a child-like ignorant innocence. But personality wise Apollo is totally bratty, ablest, bigoted, and moronic. So yeah, how you feel about him is totally valid! Although I do want to leave some things neutral, like whatever readers feel about characters and their actions. As long as the important stuff is seen in a mostly universal way I'm pretty chill… if that makes sense.
But that is super nice! Julian does need people to be protective of them.
Lol nooo, it’s not you! While there are some characters that have little purpose in the story as a whole, like Don the beefy black dude, I do have a habit of neglecting my more important side characters a bit. Some of them have hardly even gotten a name drop, which I might fix when I back to fix the speech bubbles for the older pages someday. I definitely want to add names more in the future.
Oh no, someone said it! I was suspicious about this, and prepared for my comic to possibly not be mobile-friendly given my choice to make a story more reliant on small visual details. Also my affinity for visual detail, and stuff like that.
To be honest I’m 95% a desktop reader, only using a phone when I really want to read a comic and my work computer has a site blocked. When looking on my phone, I’m legit blind to what is and isn’t mobile-friendly unless the term is plastered on the comic somewhere. Even then I still can't tell the difference that much. That being said, I know absolutely nothing about mobile-friendly-ness outside of a couple things I’ve read:
1. Mobile peeps like vertical scrolling, vertical comics, with all the pages being smooshed into one episode.
2. From what I can gather large panels that are more spaced out, simplistic, with large speech bubbles are preferred.
I gave up on the latter the moment I heard about it given I felt it would have some negative affects on the comic and update schedule. Vertical scrolling is something I’m just being a stubborn ass about. I didn’t like it the moment it came out, it made pages really slow to load, so its existence was kinda dead on arrival for me.
While I may not be able to make too many changes (I do intend to keep my comic mostly print friendly for if I ever self-publish), I’d really like to know what you feel makes a mobile-friendly comic to help me have a better understanding of it… if you wouldn’t mind.
It might be a little of both? Sometimes I unintentionally make my handwriting a little too large or the bubble to narrow, having to resize things photoshop, and making it all look sloppy. I have been trying to mind the sizing and clarity of my letters, but there has been a little trial and error.
I have gotten suggestions to use digital font, but for me the experience is about as mind-blowingly awful as driving… I hate driving, it’s just the worse thing. I wish I could be a hermit in the mountains, living off the grid, running everywhere like a maniac.
ANYWAYS, I will work harder to make my handwriting better, and be more cautious about my sizing.
Lastly, oh my god, you read books on your phone?? Jesus, how do you not get a migraine?
Thank you again for your feedback! I really appreciate it!