What is something that either makes or breaks a comic for you?

[SWestComics]

For me personally, I love a really interesting plot that leaves you wanting more like when it slowly answers a question while also leaving you with new questions that keep you coming back for me. However, this can be instantly broken when a story jumps ahead towards its plot but leaves behind plot holes in doing so.

[Puck]

For me it is the art style. I´m a very visual person, I want it to look a certain way.
I´m also one of the few people who can live with a not so good story when the art
style leaves room for my own imagination and works for me

[surin]

Cliches
A well written and executed cliche will make me remember the piece for a long time, but most of the time those cliches are not well executed and are annoying.
(For example “oh no! The villain that we thought we got rid off 20 chapters before is now back stronger, more evil, and more annoying than ever before!”)

Also misunderstandings that go way out of proportions for the sake of drama (I am not talking about misunderstandings that are there for the sake of comedy because those will never get old for me), the misunderstandings becomes unbearable when misunderstanding happened because of the stupidest reason

[DasIstWunderblyat]

It must be either so bad it is good, actually good, or intriguing to entice me. "Intriguing" can be many factors: appealing design or art style, the story in the summary, or the overall vibe I get from seeing it.

The fact that I keep reading a comic does not equal it is "good" on technical levels. Many are simply piqued me, or I am just on a ride to see how entertainingly bad it could be.

[darthmongoose]

So for me with modern webcomics particularly, it's "does it follow through on the premise, or does it just set up a cool hook then meander?"
There are a lot of comics on Tapas, ranging from amateur ones to the most shiny and pro comics on the site that have a really strong "high concept" or "elevator pitch" premise. Sometimes it's even in the title, so for example a common one might be "I was reborn in the world of a Fantasy novel, but as the villain, not the hero!". But I've found with a lot of them, they establish the premise very strongly and quickly and then... don't seem to know what to do after that. There's no strong story or jokes, the characters are just kinda there. That's the problem when the entire comic is based on an idea, not a story; it's like walking up to a beautiful house, but then it turns out to be a beautifully painted cardboard cut out of the front of the house with nothing behind it that you could live in.

[CarltonIsaac]

Poor grammar and story-telling.
The Art may be 'Out of this Universe' great, but I prefer a well written, well structured story to keep me invested.

And if the Art is not quite there, yet the story and writing class is top notch, I'm all in.

[snackbagstudios]

Too much text per page. I just can't I stop reading the text and then what does it matter

[pilot-obvious]

Grammar and spelling errors really take me out of the moment when reading. I know it's such a minor thing but it can be bothersome if it's a consistent issue in the comic.

I'm also a sucker for cliff hangers at the end of an episode. To me, that means the author really thought about how to tell their story in a way that makes readers come back. I've read some webcomics where they could've had a huge impact ending on a cliff hanger but everything gets resolved before the end of the episode and it's just... anti-climactic and boring! On the flip side, I've read comics that end of cliff hangers and I ended up binging those series!

[vothnthorvaldson]

Off putting: things that I already saw many times. Works for comics or anything else. I don't get trends at all. In the best case, I'm interested by one story at the beginning, when it is still new, and one or two very well executed ones later on. But reading variations of the same thing again and again, no thanks.

Inversely, a story off the beaten path may captivate me even if the themes are not very attractive to me, or the storytelling and drawings are not super good.

Also, I have no interest in reading a story if it's so simple and straightforward that the pitch already tells everything except the resolution (even worse if the title is doing that job already). So I tend to try stories with vague pitches, even if I'm aware it may mean that the person just don't know how to write one (I'm one of those ), but there are also the stories I'm looking for: the ones that you can't imprison in a clear, short pitch because they are not simple and straightforward. Now I know great stories have sometimes a simplistic pitch because of marketing, but if I can't differentiate them from simplistic stories I won't read becsuse I have limited time to screen for stories.

[arxianfall]

As a desktop user everything is already borderline unreadable to me. Thanks shitty format that doesn't allow me to resize pages on a desktop really love being forced to use the browser resize every time!

Which brings me to my instant series drop!

• Long ass spreads of white gradient between single panels!
  Literally harder on my fingers than competitive shooters! You're not establishing any mood you're just damaging my scroll wheel.

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Second is "manga logic"
What I mean by that is when the whole story is based on "will they, won't they" when it comes to romance. Literally wasted my time to get the shadow of a kiss at the end. Like that's soo romantic.

Or the: "does he/she like me?" where you end up with a series that runs in circles and delivers only frustration instead of any resolution. In these stories, friends never snitch. "hey my friend likes you so stop acting like a dumbass!"

I have a lot more under "manga logic." Like having an unlikeable Mary Sue MC.

---

Wasting too much effort on sidequests and filler chapters in the name of "character development." Stop it. I know what you're doing.

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What makes it:

• Good synopsis. Don't be afraid to reveal things people! I want to know more than: "This is X. X is zany and some weeird thing is gonna happen to them!"
• Clever pacing and or planning
• Good execution on the story part if you're doing a generic theme.
• Maturity. It's something you kind of notice. When the author isn't trying to reach to lowest common denominator. It's not the same as making your story accessible, it's treating your readers like they have brain. To all authors like that, thank you!

[cookieroach]

Besides basic readabilty and decent art, the characters are the most important part for me. My biggest turn off are passive or boring main characters that are pandered to, like every person or thing in the story revolves around them. And on the contrary, I love reading about interesting or flawed people. The plot can be generic if the characters are good enough.

My second biggest annoyance is when the author tries to push their own morals too much (even if it's for a "good" cause). Instead, I love morally grey stories where you're left with conflicted feelings.

[skyfarron]

Bad typesetting and Anime Ace font will usually turn me off a story. I've used it in the past, and I can say with certainty that it's much better looking in print. Digital stories need something a little more compact.

[domisotto]

I read stories that are easy to follow and have interesting artwork. I get easily overwhelmed by the bombardment of many complex images as beautiful as they are, and lose the storyline. In terms of artwork, I prefer a style that is more like art than the chibi or kindda generalized anime with everyone looking the same.

Anything dark, horror, rape or abuse is not my cup of tea

[Rhonder]

Pacing is a big make-or-break for me. I need to be hooked or at least intrigued by the premise of a comic within the first chapter or two, max, otherwise I likely won't continue. I don't need for a story to move along at a breakneck pace, certainly, but if it takes forever for anything to happen or the ball to start rolling, and then things also stall out frequently along the way... nope.

Non-professional webcomics face an extra level of challenge in this regard due to the amount of real-life time it takes to reach those plot hooks. I think it's pretty common practice to try and deliver the main plot hook for a longer story within the first 1-2 chapters. But if you release pages at a pace of 1 page/week then it can sometimes take months for these stories to reach the first interesting plot point that would make me want to continue reading. Sometimes even if I subscribe to a series due to an interesting premise, if the ball takes too long to get rolling I just... forget about the comic and kinda stop reading.

In that regard, I prefer when comics take one of the following approaches:

• Have a longer-than-usual opening episode or two that can fast track readers to the "hook". It's okay if you slow down to the usual pace afterwards because at least then your comic can have a stronger launch window.

• Adjust the way each episode is written/composed to feature smaller mini-hooks along the way. Again each of these doesn't have to be as explosive and exciting as a main large story beat, but as others have said it's preferable if something is happening each episode.

• An alternative which isn't great for visibility on these hosting sites is to slow down updates to make them longer overall and thus each one will be more substantial. The real life pacing doesn't benefit from this (say uploading once a month with 4 pages rather than once a week with 1 page) but I do think as a reader it feels a little better to have 1 more substantial episode every so often rather than have a bunch of so-so ones that either feel underwhelming in the moment, or you hold off on to binge later.

Of course this is just my personal preference tho

[arxianfall]

This is something I'm struggling with right now. Really want to get to the bigger hooks and plot reveals but the main plot requires so much planning!

[BitterBadger]

I'm a patient reader when it comes to another artist's story. I try not to think that if they did X, Y, or Z in a set amount of pages that would dramatically improve the pacing or plot. Everyone has their methods of storytelling.

Having said that, the only thing that would hinder my enjoyment of a comic would be the more technical aspects, like composition of paneling and clarity of a scene. If I couldn't tell what characters are doing and where they are in relation to one another due to too many close ups.

[RosesnWater]

Honestly yah? I feel this more when it comes to the professional stuff we see on Tapas like the stories you just mentioned with the rebirth and potential areas of conflict. I haven’t seen too many of the more amateur comic creators fall into this because they either have a story they’ve been working on for awhile and therefor have worked out all the places it could potentially lag or they haven’t gotten as far into the story yet for it to lose momentum. Speaking as someone who makes their own comic but also reads a fair bit, the reason I don’t put in filler episodes that don’t advance the plot is because it takes so much darn effort to already do the art and staging and shading and background, I couldn’t possibly input all that effort and yet not have the plot advance in some way.

[Mallory]

For "makes or breaks" it HAS to be dialogue.

Like, decent dialogue that does the story justice and moves plot along I will probably not notice, but because it's doing it's job, I will enjoy the comic. Really freaking WELL done dialogue, esp if it uses the graphics of the comics medium to its advantage? Oh hell yeah, I'm there 100%. On the flip side, if the dialogue is stilted or awkward I will probably not be able to continue the comic, no matter how intrigued I was by the premise and how good the art is.

[crowstories]

Yeah, the vast expanses of white or gradient between panels is not what we mean when we say we want longer updates. Something that took me a little too long to figure out is that you can use the down key to scroll through it and save your hand/scroll wheel, but the story has to be worth it.

[crowstories]

break
* unless you're some sort of lettering prodigy, hand lettering your comic will likely just make it illegible
* page layouts where the order of frames is unclear takes the reader out of the story while they try to figure out the order of events
* slow-burn romance that is literally the entire plot -- they can never get together because then the story will be over
* a series of short updates that all end on a "cliffhanger" which is essentially the same cliffhanger (again, it's as if the artist has run out of plot and is just stalling for time)

make
* drama that isn't bogged down by angst (one of my favorite series gives most characters a somewhat tragic backstory, but they set the tone with the main character turning into a chicken every time he sneezes, which keeps the mood whimsical)
* mystery with eventual payoff -- you can't just ask the question, as a writer you have to know the answer
* cliffhangers that make you want more instead of making you feel cheated
* multidimensional characters
* well developed relationships between characters
* I'm a big sucker for masterful use of color
* unique humor, especially visual humor