Re: sex in comics discussion, I feel like it's difficult to have a story that features explicit sex scenes without it directly being a pornographically-centric comic. I'm sure there's examples that go against this, but generally speaking I feel like the reason that explicit sex isn't shown in a standard narrative is because it's a complete tone-changer and could be extremely offputting in most narratives. For example, imagine you're reading a fantasy comic which has had the core focus on exploring the world and defeating the enemy, and finally your characters have sex and it goes full porno? That would likely be very offputting and shocking for the readers, as the tone of the comic leading up to that point didn't support the scene.
The level at which sex can be demonstrated in a story, again, I think is connected to the overall tone you've set for your story thusfar. Readers who have read 5 chapters of a predominantly fantasy adventure story might be shocked when you start getting explicit, but a romance comic with a lot of sexual tension might not have any issue with it whatsoever. You can get pretty involved with a sex scene without being immediately explicit--many films and TV shows do this very effectively. At the end of the day though, I think that if your comic is going to have explicit sex scenes, the story will likely have to have a generally sexually-charged tone for the readers to feel comfortable with it's place in the story.
Also re: displaying "problematic" behaviors or topics in comics, it IS very interesting that people are avoidant of writing characters or situations that they personally are morally against, but I think to some degree understandable, especially if the writer is extremely uncomfortable with those topics. For me on a personal level, I've always found it much more interesting to really ramp up the flaws in characters and their interpersonal drama, which can often lead to representations of behaviors that might not be ideal in reality, such as unhealthy relationships/friendships, unhealthy habits, etc. It's important that we don't glorify this behavior as like, an ideal or something we should strive for, but ultimately I feel that people are drawn to tragedy and drama in fiction, so creating situations and characters that might be problematic in the real world is just a way to feed that beast without causing any harm haha. We have to remember to separate fiction from reality!
Anyway, sorry for the wall, I noticed those conversations and they were very interesting to me! Here's a more general list of what I wouldn't do in my comic:
- Probably will avoid explicit nudity and sex for the same reasons stated above: it's a tone breaker. Sex is absolutely something that's happening in my story, but will be handled in a tonally appropriate way.
- Get too politically motivated with my comic. I'm passionate about many political issues that are currently relevant in the world, but I don't feel like every story needs to be an embodiment of those issues. The story I'm currently working on certainly isn't.
- Be stubborn about things that aren't working. I saw a few people in the thread mention they wouldn't redesign or update the way their characters look in the middle of the comic, I'm actually the opposite of that: if I can improve the way my art and my characters look and it will better the story, you bet your butt I'm gonna do it. Of course I would be reasonable about it and wouldn't like DRASTICALLY change everything about them, but my concern is more on improvement and telling the very best story that I can visually, not clinging onto the base idea that I originally came up with.
