Should we always critique art in comics?

Speaking as someone who reads comics but doesn't draw them, I really don't think it's my place to critique art in comics. I'm on sites like Tapas to read interesting stories and look at different and interesting art styles. It's not my place to tell someone what to change when they're putting their work out for me to consume for free. If a creator wants someone to critique their art, then I'm sure they can ask someone they think can give them valuable advice.

As far as the good art or story question goes, it depends and it's up to the reader. Look at One Punch Man. The art of the original wasn't good, and that's something the creator admitted, but the story was really good. Either way, what someone considers "good" isn't going to be the same across the board. I'd much rather read from people who just enjoy what they're doing.

Personally, I much prefer unique styles. There are a lot of comics that, while they may have "good" art, all look identical in style and could have been created by the same person/studio. I find that incredibly boring and my brain just sort of checks out and I will lose interest very quickly... unless the story is good.

I will always pick a good story with bad art over a bad story with good art. I've tried to read some translated comics, but if the dialogue is really disjointed because of a poor translation, I find that I really have trouble following and understanding what's happening. That's an immediate reason for me to stop.

I've subscribed to some comics where I adored the style, but the story was really empty or seemed to have no direction and made no sense. No matter how much I want to like the author and their work, I eventually move on, because it's just painful to read. I've seen several that were super popular and I can't understand how they are successful when there's little to no story, or it takes months to years of updates for even a glimmer of outline for a plot point. Perhaps I am in the minority because these are often the ones that get picked up as exclusive and featured content.

That all being said, there is definitely a point where "bad" art--be it inconsistent drawings, or typography and layout choices that distract from the work--can ruin a good story. Growing and improving your skill is always a good thing--unless you are just content to hide under a rock and make all your work without any outside comments. But you definitely should seek out constructive critiques that will help you grow and tell your story better, which is not at all the same as some requirement that everyone should be criticizing art in comics.

General critiques are probably better than specific ones. You don't need to know on this one page that your proportions were really off, maybe you were trying something challenging that didn't work out. But something like: your font is difficult to read, your backgrounds distracting from your characters, or some other quality that is persistent throughout your work that may be distracting from the message you want to get across, are probably the things that will help you grow as a storyteller.

I think basically, similar to what others said, this is not illustration, this is visual storytelling. Critiquing elements that help you be a better storyteller is what's important, commenting on the art is not always beneficial.

I think:

• We should always be allowed to say critical things about other people's work (e.g. in a review)

• We should never expect the creator we're criticising to listen or care; they have no obligation to do anything about our criticisms

• It's annoying when people assume you must continuously want to improve; not everyone has the 'never rest on your laurels, stagnation is the worst thing that can happen to you, pursure constant neverending improvement' grindset, and that's okay.

• Obvious technical errors (e.g. in anatomy) tends to take me out of the story personally, so if the point of the art is to portray the mood of the story, technically competent art is unfortunately sometimes part of that. Imagine being in the middle of a tragic death scene and all you could think about is 'lol his hand looks like an octupus' :'D

• However, 'comics is a visual medium' doesn't mean that for me, if the art isn't perfect then I'd rather read a novel. If the artistic flaws are consistent (e.g. the artist has always drawn hands a bit wonky), I'll probably get used to it such that it no longer takes me out of the story. Even a poorly drawn comic still makes use of shot compositions etc that tell the story in a way only a visual medium could.

This post kinda makes me feel called out, haha. But I'll just assume it's coincidence. Anyway, I think it's common sense (not that everyone has that) to not give unsolicited critique. However, I do think critique is important for art quality progression. Chances are, if you've been blessed to go to art school of any sort, you've had the privilege of professional critique from your teacher. Not all of us have had that option, though, and have sought community critique (and some have done both).

Critique is wonderful for getting better and I am personally always welcome to it, so long as it's appropriate. Dropping critique in my comic comment section isn't appropriate. Giving me critique in the Sketch A Day Thread, where I've welcomed it, is totally appropriate.

There's no objective way to say how important art quality is. That's a personal thing, but on average, better art gets more subs. That's just a fact. I personally won't stick to a story if the art is bad, or if the story is bad. I expect both to be good enough to keep me interested. I think the average reader is probably of that mindset. Also, everything @Kelheor said pretty much sums up my feelings and, probably, that of most readers.

I´m consequently against giving unsolicited critique and I don´t know why
people even think that giving unwanted critique is a good idea.

When someone doesn´t ask for critique and I decide to say something
then I will point out something positive and never that I think needs to
be improved.

Nothing is ever perfect, there is always someone who might find something
which bothers them and I think imperfectionism is an important part of human
creation and the creator decides how it turns out and what to put the focus
on. This doesn´t mean that I´m against people improving their skills.
This is just 4% of what I think about this topic, I could write 3 books about
it, so don´t be too harsh to me. I also just woke up

Whether or not you as a creator should ask for a critique depends on your goals. Maybe you create to express yourself or as a hobby, and you really don't care about developing a large audience. If you want to market your comic, getting an outside opinion from "the readers" can help you decide what to work on. However, sometimes you do need to create in a space without criticism (from yourself and others), so you aren't blocked by too many thoughts; create first, then edit.

Generally, it's best to stay away from making unsolicited critiques because you don't know what the creator's goals are, although I think it's okay to bring up major issues (for instance if readability is affected).

I try to only correct/complain about grammar in premium comics because Tapas as a company is responsible for translating and editing. Creators and even editors are human; errors will happen. However, if a premium comic has a lot of grammatical errors, I assume that Tapas either didn't hire enough editors or didn't pay them well enough that they could take sufficient time to correct each mistake.

My background is literature, so I tend to be more sensitive to bad writing than bad art. I've dropped many comics that had beautiful art but mediocre plot and/or characters. If we compare novels to comics, writing style is the parallel to art style. I have a difficult time reading novels on Tapas because I just can't cope with the writing style of many of them. I may enjoy the comics based on those novels, but my brain won't overlook awkward or lackluster writing as easily as an art blip.

First off, it's important to remember that there are two kinds of reviews: Reviews readers write for other readers, which as a creator, it may not be wise for creators to read, and especially not to engage with, and reviews by other creators to give advice for improvement, which the audience doesn't need to see.

If readers, in conversation with each other, say things like "Yeah, it was okay, the art was a bit janky, but it was fun" then they're allowed to have that opinion. If they're on Goodreads and they make a review like "it's a decent enough debut graphic novel that should entertain you for an hour. The art is distractingly rough at times, but makes up for it in charm", you should ALSO not jump in to comment on it, any more than a chef should jump on a bad review on google maps or whatever. You made a product, you published it; consumers are allowed to have opinions, and it may be better not to read them and to instead consult experts for advice to improve. It's also on the readers end, bad ettiquette to tag the creator in their critical reviews, or to put their reader-facing reviews in the comments on Tapas or Webtoon where the creator will see them.

That said, to reiterate, consumers are allowed to have opinions about your product, and if you don't want people to view your work as a product don't put it on a platform where it's widely available to consumers. Honestly, if people treat your work like it's a product, and leave comments as though they don't think the creator will read them, in some ways it should be a compliment; it means they don't see you as an amateur participating in a community; they're viewing you like a professional whose work has been published and are talking about you like they would about a published author.

In the other scenario, well, I'm somebody who likes to give people feedback when they request it. It's a favourite hobby of mine! And from my perspective, nothing ticks me off quite like when somebody asks for feedback on their work, but they don't really want feedback, they just want validation, so they play this infuriating game where the critic is not allowed to criticise certain things. "Hi there, I'd like your feedback on my comic, but you're not allowed to criticise my art, because I'm just a beginner, and you're not allowed to criticise my story because I really like it and I don't want to change anything about it, so please just criticise my dialogue font, but understand I don't want to install any new fonts so..." All I can say is "Er... It's....fine, I guess?"
...But inside, I am on fire, because oh my god, why has this person not looked up how to do colour fills without a halo around them? Why are they using bright red as a line colour on all the skin, even skintones darker than that line colour? Why is every panel a close-up!? These are such easy things to fix to make this comic look better and I'm not allowed to say anything! Aaaaaagh! It's a waste of my time. I want to help people to achieve their goal of making clear, effective comics that an audience will enjoy, and that could maybe get published, and sometimes I have to suggest people change things. None of us are the special exception who just gets to make whatever their whims and instincts dictate, and put in only as much effort as feels convenient outside of playing videogames and whatever and then garner universal praise for an amazing comic. To make a comic that people love is a monumental effort.

Comics are a beautiful blend of art and writing, and they're a storytelling medium designed to entertain people. The art doesn't have to be as perfectly polished as a standalone illustration, because each panel is designed to be consumed in a matter of seconds, but it needs to do the heavy lifting telling the story. If the art is confusing, or even just unpleasant to look at, then it has a negative impact on reader enjoyment, and readers are allowed to not like it. Most of them just won't bother to read and will silently wander off to read something else, but some might express it in comments and say "ugh, this art is unpleasant to look at" or "I can't tell what's meant to be happening". If they do this, it means they wanted to enjoy your comic, the premise interested them, or the cover grabbed them, and they're frustrated because they're not having a good time. You put up a table in the middle of the city, and a sign that says "delicious cakes here!" and somebody tried one and said "it's a bit dry..." and you're trying to be like "WELL, I'm just an amateur baker, so you're not allowed to criticise the taste of my cakes!" ...WHY ON EARTH did you set up your table in the middle of the city and put up a sign that says "delicious cakes there!" then!? Just serve them at home if you don't want the public to have opinions!

Nobody is forcing you to put any comic you make on Tapas, a platform with over 3 million readers, where your work will be in the same category as incredible, hard-working people at the top of their field, like Paul Duffield, Alice Osman, Emma Vieceli, Sarah Anderson and the like. If you're scared of the idea of readers having opinions about your work, because you just make comics for yourself and a select group of friends you trust to know you're just doing it for fun, then just make it available to friends. There's nothing wrong with that. You simply don't get to put your work on Tapas, promote it, try to get readers, and then respond to criticism by saying "But I'm not trying to entertain people! I'm just trying to have fun!" or "You're not allowed to not enjoy my comic because of the art, you have to only perceive the story!" You can't instruct readers on how they're allowed to engage with your work; the way you control how readers experience your work is in how you write, present and draw it. If they're not coming away with the right impression, and that's upsetting you, either don't show your work to the general public if entertaining a wide audience isn't what you're interested in, or make changes to the art, writing and presentation until people consistently seem to get what you're going for.

@darthmongoose FYI you and everyone else are 100% welcome to critique my work any time. For me it's an absolute honor.

We can always improve but it is also true that we sometimes get to a point in our art (be it writing or drawing) that we aren't looking for criticism.
Not because we don't want to improve but instead we are doing our art the way we like it, for ourselves.

If you do something on purpose because that's how you like it I see no reason to look for criticism. On the other hand, if you feel like your art/story is not up to your standard you can always ask for criticism.

I think what your perspective is missing is that good art will multiply what is good in your story, this isn't an either or situation, it's just what makes art good in a comic is not the same as what makes art good in an illustration.

You can be a really really good illustrator but not be the best comic artist and vice versa. The art in a comic doesn't have to be beautiful, but it does have to be impactful, otherwise the story beats and emotional moments will fall flat no matter how good your story is, and a lot of that comes down to the same stuff you have to think about for films: camera angles, colour palettes, length and format of scenes and shots (in comic books being how many vignettes per page, size, number of speech bubbles, etc...), when you put your wide shot vs when you put your hyper close up. Like if you look at Attack on Titan for example, the drawing is bad, like laughably bad, anatomy is all over the place, characters are unrecognisable between scenes, the author decided to put them in uniforms which makes working out who is who worse, perspective only gets good when the assistants start doing it, it's a mess... But he's really really good at creating strong moments, not being scared to do the difficult angle because narratively it's needed, getting the money shot on the page turn, creating suspenseful rythm in the page, and that's what gets you hooked on the story in the beginning, the art serves the story and what needs to be good is good.

You're also allowed to not want to be critiqued, if you're doing this for fun, you don't really care about improving your art, this is just a hobby that you don't want to think about too much, that's also totally fine and a lot of people in the art world tend to forget that not everyone wants to be an artist, they just want to have fun with scribbles so a lot of people critique like the base goal is to improve. Like, I like sculpting as a hobby, I'm not good at it, but I like doing it and I don't need critique on it because i'm not trying to make something good I'm trying to have fun making my misshapen cat.

However if you do want to improve, and you do want to make good art, being critiqued and also getting used to taking critique and incorporating it into your work is kind of a must, because there will always be people who know more than you about what you want to get good at. Shutting yourself off from that because you think you know everything anyone could say to you about your art is kind of assuming you have no blind spots, which is always dangerous.

TL;DR: if you just want to make comics to have something to do that you like doing, critique is not necessary, if you want to improve and/or learn about the art of comic book making and/or make a good comic book, critique is vital. Really depends on your goal here.