What's your Top Three Comic "Must Haves" for you to Keep Reading?

[JessJackdaw]

A similar topic was made on this recently, but it didn't quite address the question, so here we are.

So it might make a fun teaching tool for new comic artists to see. What keeps you reading?

To make things harder, only list your top three that really get you interested in reading further.

1 - A unique art style with some personality and polish. If I can't make out a character's emotion, then it really gets hard for me to keep reading.

2 - Monsters, creatures, robots, animals (not necessarily furries, but I'll give anything a fair read). If it's got a good dose of unique creatures I'll definitely take a good read.

3 - Good conveyence of action. This seems weirdly obvious, but I see a lot of comics that simply don't communicate movement well. Either it's from poor pose choices, bad page layouts, or unrefined artistic skill, but regardless, the result confuses the me and I feel unsure of what's happening on the page.

[azureXtwilight]

1. Likeable characters. There's nothing more important than that.
2. Preferably colored, this is my personal bias. If it's not colored, the character should look distinct enough not to fall into same face syndrome, and no empty white backgrounds.
3. Readable dialogue. Meaning the text is not handwritten/small/full of typos/misspellings. A plus if they got quips and some humor in it, no matter the genre.

[mariusthered]

1. if drama it must be gripping on the edge stuff / if comedy it must be silly
2. Color over grey scale every time in my book.
3. a plot that makes sense, no it was a dream endings or people coming back in the shower (Dallas 80's tv)
   (4) no lots of gore (i might be enjoying a cookie)

[Michelle]

1. An engaging first 5-10 pages! If I'm not interested by then, I'll probably stop reading.

2. Engaging writing that doesn't fall into cliches or purely tropes. I want the character's dialogue to read like how people actually talk. Nothing over-acted, no characters spitting out a bunch of witty one-liners. Also pacing is really important in the writing, things shouldn't drag on forever or rush to hit each plot point.

3. Good artwork, preferably something with a unique flair. I like art that feels like the artist's genuine personal style, and not a replica of an existing style. Comics with environments/backgrounds are vastly preferable (when it comes to long-form at least).

[GesuGesu]

1. attractive art. I won't read something that hurts my eyes
2. humor. I'll find it boring otherwise. I want something funny even in fight scenes or dramatic moments
3. flow/readability. I will give up trying to read blocks of text, too much text, and a confusing flow of panels. I have horrible attention span and won't have the patience to read more than ten words per speech bubble or caption.

[VermillionWorks]

For your average, story-based comic...

1: Good expressions. Dead-faced characters can ruin even the most well written of stories.
2: Interesting characters. (I don't care if they're horrible so long as they're intriguing. XD)
3: A story that gets to the point. Oh, a series can go on for a long time and all, but I don't like feeling like I'm not sure where things are going even after 30 pages. Unnecessary bulk gets on my nerves; it should feel like a story, not a back and forth rp interaction.

[Kura]

1. Easy to read text is the top thing for me. Handwritten, badly spaced, bad formatting, or use the bold and italics formatting wrong are really difficult to read. If I can't read the damn comic, I can't read it. I don't understand why having legible text on comics is not such a friggen priority.

2. Good characters and story, in both writing and design. I'd fit good expressions in here too as well as page layouts. As that's all part of the storytelling and character process.

3. Improvement. Seriously, a series that start out pretty low quality in art but improves over time is thousands upon thousands of times better and less frustrating than a comic that starts out nice and decreases in quality over time or do not change or improve at all.

[joannekwan]

1. Characters that appeal to me. Won't continue reading if I don't care about the characters.
2. Decent writing, this also includes how the text is presented. It's gotta be easy on the eyes, digestible (no huge chunks of text), and not sound like it's ripped straight out of a manga fan translation. I also hate bubble-less dialogue. You know the kind, where the letters got a stroke around them. It's fine for small quips or sound effects, but don't have every feckin' thing written like that.
3. A nice look overall? Like I have to tolerate looking at the page all around. And definitely have at least some establishing shots for backgrounds occasionally. I hate plot-driven series with characters that just float in space or in a colored background without a any furniture or objects to interact with to give hints as to where they are. Or worse, if they're just floating in a panel-less abyss and aren't grounded by anything. Like it's fine for gag-a-days, but not much else.

[heraclus]

1. have fun reading it
2. enjoy it
3. makes you forget the real world

[J.Lovelace]

1. Characters that instantly pick my interest, and make me wanna know more about them. The first impression is mostly based on drawing style, but the skill can vary. It doesn't have to be an anatomically perfect pretty boy, it can be a generic character with a mask, I'll be interested as long as the design is a critical direct hit in my salty heart.

2. If it's story/plot based - I prefer it to make sense and be easy to understand. I lose interest quickly if the plot is all over the place or/and confusing. I like the goals and objectives to be clear.
   If random one page comedy strips - smart jokes, witty adult jokes and a dose of dark humour.

3. Clean, easy to follow art style, and by that I mean that I don't want to spend 5 minutes trying to figure out what's going on in a single panel - just because there's not only detailed characters, detailed background, but also a lot of dynamic lines. Huge headache ensues. Preferably subtle screentones, but grayscale is much better. Screentones can ruin a page if done wrong.

[SpavVy]

Engaging story to start with and a very appealing or unique art style.

[Mharz]

1. Girls
2. Girls
3. 0% BL.

Just kidding...

Here's the real thing. First things first, If a character is so beautiful that it caught my attention I'd click 100%

If I didn't find any pretty characters, I base my decision with these three factors.

1. The art style. There's a high tendency that I won't click if the drawing style is Marvel/DC, Disney or if the style is too "moe." I'm that biased. I also won't click if the drawing style is still not fleshed out or there's too much technical mistakes because I'll just cringe while reading and will be highly tempted to tell the creator to fix it and I know most creators don't like their art to get called out.

2. The text. I dropped a very well known comic here on Tapastic because there's too many text bubbles, I didn't understand what's going on and my head just started spinning reading the page.

3. The story. Even if the art is not technically sound, I can still click it if I liked the concept. If the story is too confusing and I'm like wtf is going on here, I'll still probably will press on if I like the drawing style but aside from that, nope. I'd give it around chapter 1 before I give a verdict. Also BL is NO. I'm fine with GL.

TL;DR - I'm very picky.

[indagold]

1- art is good but not unoriginal. I avoid most anime/manga comics or that cal arts style comics because they all look exactly the same and it's bland and boring. Art also means readable and has a good layout.

2- story goes somewhere, seems interesting, well written or has promise.

3- sticks out as something different from most webcomics because honestly it's a massive sea of mediocre comics and few really manage to go above and beyond.

[MissMagicGirl]

1. Intresting characters. They don't have to be likable as long as they are interesting.
2. some humor once in a while at least ^_^
3. expressive characters. The art does not need to be super complicated as long as it is expressive

[artsy_oleander]

My top number one:
1) A good plot. If the story is good, then the art work doesn't really matter to me.
My top number two:
2)Good action-to-dialogue ratio. I hate walls of text (like I'm sure everyone else hates) and it makes it hard for me to want to continue because some people put importance in the dialogue. When that happens, I might miss something.

3)I love new worlds and seeing what else lives in the environment. I love it when artists/writers explore the world they created.

Sometimes, I follow something because of the artwork, but in the end, I usually stop subscribing if they don't met the stuff I mentioned above :/

[Shanny8]

1) A good solid story & interesting plots. Those will pull me in anytime.

2) Like someone else mentioned- good action to dialogue ratio. It's gotta be pretty well balanced; a story with too much, or entirely all quiet scenes is going to bore me- but a story with a buttload of action scenes & no coherent story will turn me off as well. With the quiet scenes I'm drawn towards those who can do stuff like change angles/shots and keep the reader interested.

3) I'm open to various art styles, so I wont say "no this, no that"...BUT, I'm picky with what I like. It's gotta be something with the art style that really resonates with me. There are comics that art is not the best(at ALL) by my standards, but the writing is good/quirky enough to interest me. I cant say I'm a color guru(definitely cant) but I also tend to gravitate towards really nice coloring. I will echo @kurapikasuki- I cringe at bad lettering. Too many times I see creators do a comic, and when it comes to the lettering, they're like, "whatever". I can understand if you dont have money to buy fonts- that's why I will tell creators on other posts about free fonts at Blambot; I just want creators to realize that lettering is as much a part of the art as the art itself. When you do treat lettering like "ho-hum" and dont take it seriously, you're doing a disservice to your comic.

[DMBrigman]

1. Legibility in the text and art. If I have a hard time reading the bubbles or figuring out what is going on in the art then I will stop reading.

2. Interesting characters. As a lot of others have pointed out, great characters keep me coming back even if the story isn't very groundbreaking.

3. Coherent plot. Pretty art may get me to check something out but if the story is too mysterious, convoluted, or full of plot holes I will stop reading.

[rainbowolfe]

1. Cute characters! They don't even have to be good or friendly characters -3- if they're cute, I'll keep reading if only to enjoy their aesthetic

2. Nice art/pretty colors. Most of the comics I consistently read have really nice coloring. especially the backgrounds!

3. Funny moments or bits. If it can make me laugh (or do the infamous nose breath), I'll most likely stick around.

[KoreanTacos]

I have a different opinion when it comes to comedy, but this is my general thoughts on a story driven series:

1. It has to have some kind of point. Does the creator want to give me a story, educate me, or show me a different perspective.

2. Is there an actual plan that the writer has. I don't want filler to mask the fact that the writer doesn't have a clue where their story is going.

3. Do the characters feel real in the context of their given narrative. Is there a reason why I should hate said character or why I should like said character outside of "author wants me to feel this way."