What makes you stop reading a webcomic?

[azzy-m]

Actually, it's mostly because I'm busy drawing comics all the time now that there aren't many comics I can keep up with, but I assume this is about the quality of the comics itself - when the comic in question has seriously detracted from the reason why I started reading it in the first place, AKA when the second half of a story isn't as good as the first.

The only webcomic I've legitimately dropped because of this specific reason is Refund High School on Webtoon. The main four characters were really interesting and all had equal screentime... and then later on in the story it all the characters became sidelined in favor of Aru and Mook's romance which I never really cared about much in the first place

Dropped it when I realize that I couldn't give a shit about the villain running around doing shenanigans, I can't even remember the guy's name

[silverraven0]

Not really, it could be three at once but if all of the stuff I listed up there is in one webcomic, I'll be shunning it till the hell broke loose.

Only in my mind tho.

[kimketli]

bad cliffhangers.
I don't have problem with cliffhangers. I have problem when the creator puts cliffhanger at the end of the episode just because he/she needed one... Then in the next episode it turns out it wasn't really that much of an important thing. So, all in one I hate empty promises

[DokiDokiTsuna]

-When it feels like all the setup isn't going to pay off

-When I realize the comic is less of an actual story and more of a slideshow for fanservice

-When I stop liking the art

^That last one is a big one; I've dropped many comics over that.
It's not that I'm shallow; it's just that my expectations for writing in comics are already fairly low. I'm used to following along with a story that appears stupid/boring as long as the art holds up. Comics need time to get rolling, after all; it's possible that I just have to wait to get to the "good parts".

But when the art doesn't do it for me anymore...what's the point in sticking around at all? I'm not going to fully enjoy a story I don't even want to look at, so I might as well just leave.

[Rhonder]

I'm one of those who has a hard time keeping up with comics even that I am still trying to follow, but to the topic some that come to mind:

• Poor pacing. Usually this comes in the form of too slow but I've also seen a few examples of too fast too. On the too slow side, it varies. Some of them are genuinely good stories but written in a style that mimics like weekly manga chapters or monthly comic issues... but then drip feeds pages out one at a time. So you wind up with months of build up to the chapter's climax usually, which works really great in series that update faster, or in larger chunks, but isn't so great for the typical web comic style upload schedule. I've also just seen those that are paced way too slow in general, there was one comic that I read where the characters meandered around and had a conversation mid-action scene for like... 6 months, without ever resolving the action scene. It was pretty silly LOL. Those that move too fast typically just lack proper build up at the beginning and lose my interest when I don't understand what's going on even like 10 pages in lol.

• Author rebooting series and stopping new content while doing so. Nothing drops my attention faster as an active reader than the author deciding to do a series reboot (bonus points if it's in the middle of a scene or arc) and then like... not also continuing to advance the story on the back end. There was one comic on Tapas I was following that did this and took so long to catch back up to the present (and ended up changing a number of things that I had liked from the original version along the way...) that I stopped reading after a few months of the reboot. I was invested in the original version, couldn't be bothered to reinvest in the new one, sadly.

---

Those are actually all that come to mind, usually the other times I'm either still reading, but just at such a slow pace that I might as well not be, or didn't get hooked at the beginning anyways and so stopped before I even got started.

[Mari]

if it's mine coz I suck also because cringe.

But it usually needs to be completely outrageous for me to stop reading, I can't sleep at night if I don't know how something ended, I NEED TO KNOW YO.

So I hate-read a lot. But to completely stop reading would probably be glorification of rape, racism just because racism (I mean not used for the plot in any way) or kiddie diddling.

[33rdCenturyCaveman]

Me not understand.

[Kiweevil]

Updates that are absolutely obviously just filler because the writer of the comic didn't think it through. I usually give them the benefit of the doubt and read on a little farther to see what future developments hold, but I'll drop a story if it gets unbearably plotless and full of filler. At that point it feels like the writer lost the care and drive they once had for the project. And I'll do the same thing goes for animation....especially certain anime and adult cartoons cough cough

[Kaylim]

Repetitiveness of story-line.

I like slice of life and monster of the week comics just fine. But sometimes those comics get stuck in a routine, where every episode or update follows the same pattern, where the same things happen to the same characters over and over. If it's not a groundhog day comic, then count me out haha.

There was a monster-of-the-week comic I followed pretty religiously where the main characters would always get rescued at the end by the same powerful character. But after years of updates I was like why don't the MC's call in that character at the beginning of the monster fight?! Why always wait till the end?! The rescue had become predictable and lost its shine, especially since I was supposed to take these character seriously.

[CresentFox]

For me:
1. Pacing. If it's too fast (frustrated), if it's too slow (bored). However, there are a few series that starts out really slow and then builds up quick. I don't mind those.
2. Filler/Flashback/Backstory. If these are within a reasonable frame then I don't have a problem. What I mean is don't spend '10 years' explaining a backstory that can be sum up in 1,2 episodes.
3. When I lose interest in the comic.

[Azifri]

I rarely drop a comic on purposes. If I lose interest, I usually just forget about it, it just happens like that I probably still go back to the comic later, when/if I remember about it, because I like to know what happened.

There are very few comics that I actively unsubscribed, and as far as I can remember it was because of:
- poor readability, or couldn't figure out the art.
- couldn't follow the writing (too many grammar issues, etc).
- story makes no progress or has way too many fillers and this goes on for chapters and chapters.
- when it feels like the author is giving a moral discourse through the characters (if it's in character and makes sense in the story context it's fine).

[darkone4587]

Honestly life in general.
Most of the time if I'm reading anything actively I'll try to finish the story, but sometimes I'll stop for a while and then come back to it later, unless I just forget to.

[Im_moron]

ROLLS IN

a lot of things.

most of this is going to be my taste, so if I don't sound like your kind of audience, it's cool.

so to sort of start off, I'll be explaining how I kinda look for comics, because that's important.
I look through the fantasy or action sections, fresh first then popular.

once I find a pretty looking cover (yes, people DO judge books by their covers), I sort of take a moment to read say about 10-25 pages? those are the pages where I decide to drop or subscribe to a comic, I go through fresh in specific because I don't like binge-reading comics that are 500 or so pages :u

---

[utter complete confusion]

The things that make me drop comics are lots of grammar OR an annoying reading experience.
if I don't know what the hell is going on by the first 10 pages, I'm probably gonna drop it even after the 25 pages mark. I DO NOT like stories that keep me in the dark for 25 pages on what the hell is going on because what usually happens is;

1) I have to figure out the story myself
which I can sorta do, but it's annoying if I am not blatantly told what's going on. like maybe an establishing shot, or maybe what the protagonist wants or is looking for ya know? or just immediately drop a conflict smack dab there, even if it's small as like "I'm too lazy to get up" or somethin.
I also consume mystery stories, and I like it when information is breadcrumbed to me, bit by bit.
you don't wander into the forest for 8 hours and then OH LOOK IT'S HANSEL AND GRETTLE.
speaking of which.

2) sometimes they just drop a block of info
like after being left in the dark for 25 pages, they info dump too much, or they give too little anyways. in which after I have made my conclusion that this is how I'm going to be treated as a reader, I just drop the comic. I don't care if the plot twist is cool or maybe it leads with an interesting idea. it doesn't patch up the burn that was wasting my time.

if your hook of a story is that cool, maybe consider having it revealed early? maybe in the first chapter at the end, that's 100% fine, you will get the same punch anyways.
I just would like some basic idea of "what does the good guy want? and what is going to make that hard?"

this is why I only read the first 10-25 pages now, I used to genuinely stick around for months on certain comics, and I just get frustrated from reading them if anything.

---

I got burned out

that's it really, I think the best example of it is like Erma, and The Dummy's Dummy, a little more so on Erma.
sometimes I get burned out from reading so much and then I take a break from those comics, and going back to them kinda makes me overwhelmed because of the amount I have to keep up with.

A LOT of comics in my library are actually like that.

it's also why I check the fresh tab more often because that's where you find the new comics, I feel like I'll get burned out if I binge read comics.

of course, eventually, I'll hop back from my break and binge read comics anyways.

but yeah, check out The Dummy's Dummy and Erma.

---

Tastes just change.

I dropped basically ALL of the slice of life comics I read when I joined tapas. I started off with lots of slice of life comics, I started to crave stories with more ongoing plots.

that's it really. :U

---

Last one, I just lost interest?

I don't know how to put it into words since it's a case by case basis, I follow certain comics for a bit and I simply am not interested in it anymore. that's it really? I don't hate the writer, rarely I do (unless you just string the hopes of plot to start for too long and I get frustrated, lots of filler and padding out panels. only use necessary amounts of panels people, if a guy is sitting up, draw him sitting, then standing up with some motion lines. REEEE).

that could be like the art isn't as good as I initially liked anymore, the plot goes HAYWIRE and moves away from the main appeals that drew me in on those first few chapters, or maybe it just gets too slow, something like that.

---

so yeah... yeet

[rajillustration]

-If it's a humor comic but it just isn't funny anymore. Especially if it just starts dropping memes.

-The author is hella gross online.

-When triggering stuff isn't handled well.

-I literally can't understand it anymore because it's so poorly written. Usually this is because of a language barrier, but also it can just be straight up the legibility issues that just aren't getting resolved.

-There are too many FREAKIN characters and for some reason we have to make sure all of them are happily married by the end of your series. Just let your side characters go! Snap that infinity glove and make half of them disappear, for the love.

-The series clearly ended like...years ago...we all went to Mordor and back. The comic is over. But it's just still going for some reason.

[Freemints30]

1) when the author stops having fun and just turns his comic from a non-serious comic into pretty much a platform and mouth piece for his opinions and bash any one who complains.
2)When the main relationship turns into a love dodecahedran to increase run time and to add pointless drama
3)Too many character being added to the point where I stop caring for everyone except the main cast which brings me to
4)When the interesting main characters I came for are being sidelined by new side characters that take up the focus.
5)Updates that for the past 6 months have been nothing but filler.

[joannekwan]

Particularly for romance plots/subplots

when the characters/author keep fucking beating around the bush even after the point when both characters are emotionally ready to take the next step

[Iris-Grimoire]

Here's one I haven't seen yet. Pages that feel completely independent from one another.

I don't want to give away any names, but there were at least two medium-sized comics I dropped because it feels like the author is allergic to scripts or even frame to frame progression. One page sets up the scene, the other skips 30 minutes with no apparent reason, another page cuts to a character showing up as if everyone's already seen them in the scene, another drops that whole plot line and puts the main character back into another location. I... what? The story is still there, but the individual actions were so disjointed that the great art became pointless.

[Bree_Mana]

Oooh Ok this is interesting:

Things that turn me away story wise:

• sexualizing/fetishizing mental illness or LGBT people (Like yes I get people engage in romantic activities but thats Not ALL they do. It feels awkward as an LGBT person myself). This is the reason I don't read 99% of the BL comics on Tapas

• Episodes that are too long. I'd rather read 5 smaller episodes than shoving all the pages into one, that way I don't loose my progress if I have to stop for whatever reason and allows for mental breaks

• substance use that is glorified or isn't serving a story purpose (at least give a character a reason for using drugs other than 'just for fun')

• Characters fighting when there's no prior build up or tension (Why are you in a full shouting match when you were in agreement in the previous panel?)

• Hate speech coming from the protagonists (It makes sense to see derogatory terms from somebody against the protagonist but even then I can only handle so much and can become quickly overused)

Art issues

• Just not a big fan of anime styles (Another reason I don't read most BL)
• The cover is 'character A staring at character B' overused trope and often means there will be very cliche story beats
• Anatomy issues, especially when theres side-view noses of faces that are facing forwards. or unnecessarily shiny because the person isn't sure how to blend shading and highlights
• The artist keeps redrawing pages instead of continuing the story (Oppositely one of my favorite things is seeing art progression as the comic continues)

Other

• The artist is constantly accusing their viewers of not being faithful / being against them when offering constructive criticism
• artist brings in drama with other creators
• The comic just isn't what I went into it for anymore

[Inspector_Spinda]

quickly reads all the posts from those who follow me, sweating profusely

[CloudyMagpie]

Haha! yes.
Quickly reads all the posts and wonders if I've done the bad comic stuff