When does a panel become "Too much text"?

[TroyVSTheWorld]

Last night I had a dream I uploaded a comic and a troll complained that the comic was mostly text. What an amazing dream I had.

Anyway it got me thinking: At what point does a comic feel like its "too much text"? Do you guys have any systems to help gauge your text-to-drawing ratio? My theory is that the text shouldn't go over 50% of the panel, but even then 40% of a panel being dialogue might turn people away.

[darthmongoose]

That's the most webcomic creator dream ever, oh my god

Honestly it's a good question though. A common bit of wisdom I hear thrown about is "One sentence per bubble" and usually people advise no more than 2-3 bubbles in any given panel.

Personally I'm limited by the text size in my comic. My partner, a designer who works in apps and web stuff a lot, gave me a lot of feedback when I was coming up with the lettering choice for my comic, and kept being like "no, bigger... more line spacing." and so almost every single time I go from the script to the comic, I have to severely cut down the amount of dialogue to just the most necessary parts, because the text always takes up so much space! I usually end up unable to fit more than a couple of sentences in a panel if I also want the faces or objects to be big enough to read ...I think it's for the best though... left to my own devices I'm insufferably verbose.

I think yeah, about 40% of the panel being taken by a bubble should be the maximum, and that the text inside it should be large enough to comfortably read on a phone, so probably no more than a couple of sentences worth of text. Obviously there may be a higher count if it's a really big panel, but a big panel that's just one long rambling explanation or conversation should be a big exceptional thing, a bit like a full page action splash panel, they should only happen once in a while.

[Lensing]

The maximum speech bubbles in one panel is 3 in my comics.
I place them in the top third to quarter in the panel.
I sometimes split comic bubbles, so it´s easier to read.
Big, readable font and that limits the words I can use. 1-12
words. The average is 5-6, I try to keep it short.

[thepenmonster]

Well... times do change...

And I don't recommend a Stan Lee approach.

My view is that the dialog is part of the art. So it needs to match the tone you're aiming for. An explainer like a Scott McCloud book would be kind of useless without a heap of words.

But if you're making a deeply introspective piece like Pluto then small word counts and letting the emotions of someone struggling to explain themselves carry the scene is a must.

By the way, if anyone reading this post hasn't read Pluto yet, do it. It's fucking amazing.

[BoomerZ]

Too much text and not enough art can turn your comic into a slide show. I believe the key is having the person talking do something. Break up the dialogue into breaths and have those breaths no more than 2-3 sentences. Most people do not talk in monologues. I personally hate dialogue boxes explaining stuff, I somehow work it into conversations. If you break up lots of dialogue between multiple panels of the person doing something, the reader will read it easier. Example, the person is getting dressed so the dialogue happens over him putting some pants on, then a shirt, then socks and some shoes. This is way is better than one panel of him buttoning his shirt and having a massive block of text. It's more art, but it's more entertaining and that is what a comic should be.

[theyrebothakilogram]

I don't know hunter x hunter is globally known and renowned and their pages look like this, so you can probably get away with quite a bit

[MaxFF]

Reading most of this made me think my comic was too wordy, except that last post made me feel better.

[Katzalcoatl]

There was a discussion of this on reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/manga/comments/qo4xbn/how_much_text_do_you_want_in_your_manga/ you might want to check it out.

P.S. From what I can tell most people said a tier 1.5 but leaning towards tier 1.

[BoomerZ]

That's word vomit. Zero chance I would read that.

[candiedcotton]

Agreed.

Also, I know people have posted shots from old comics as examples, but I actually disagree with most of them. Old comic formats are just not what your average reader wants or expects. I'd personally drop a comic in a heartbeat if it had that much text. It feels muddy.

It should feel like a single moment, not a whole ass conversation. A breath, as BoomerZ has said.

[VibrantFox]

This is an old thread (back from 2017) and like 30+ replies long BUT it's got some strong tips about speech bubbles

Hey so there are a lot of things about comics that are really specific tiny pieces of advice that don't get shared a lot and most people just have to figure out on their own, so I wanna start doing threads where we share that type of advice! This time lets share tips about speech bubbles! My nitty-gritty-tip is to make sure that the earlier a bubble is supposed to be read, the higher it needs to be on the page. Heres a quick example: [image] I'm excited to see the tips that everyone el…

I think with regards to balancing text, art and especially creating good spacing for all of it is to count for text from the moment you thumbnail. Finding ways to cut the fluff for lines that feel too wordy or seeing what can become an action performed by a character or just a general show not tell will help build much stronger balance between things

I know I'm constantly bringing up Sonic but the IDW comics I feel have done a really good job with the way they handle text on a page and even part with a lot of talking or lots of characters talking are well balanced

for example an interrupted monologue from issue seven

or a sort of team huddle from issue 25

course it helps to have some variation in bubble shapes to aid with tone and impact of something a character is saying and how they're saying it

also managed to find this thread on twitter with some quick digging for speech bubble tips as well (among what looks like a handful of other things that go with it but all relevant nonetheless)

https://twitter.com/h0lysarthole/status/1117494276135489536

but i feel like planning for character dialogue or other things from the earliest drawing stages possible is the best way to go and then double checking flow and readability coz if things feel crammed on the page or its looking more book than comic then it's probably gonna need some trimming down or rearranging

[NickRowler]

What kind of comic are you trying to make? I think that will determine what is too much or not.

Comics like Pyongyang, Persepolis, Maus, Fun Home, Epileptic are very dialog heavy. They are also biographical and talk about serious topics.

I think the reason why some webcomics have minimal text is because some people just want popcorn lit. Some people just want something simple and easy to read. This isn't a bad thing, if it fits with your genre than that's fine.

I am mostly annoyed by too much text when it seems unnecessary and there is no art to go along with it. I think text should take up about 1/3 of the panel, 1/2 at max (used sparingly). And putting a drawing of anything is better then just leaving the panel empty. Empty panels can be useful for scene transitions, but it can be annoying if you only use them for exposition dumping.

[XiuLyn_12]

I'm not sure how much speech bubble is too much in one panel. But I tend to write less than 3 sentences in one speech bubble (mostly 2 at max even).
People are most likely to read a bunch of bubbles rather than one long butt bubble!

[JaveCraze]

I think more than 3 sentences in one speech bubble is too much text. Unless you're trying to do a jokey "character talks too much" thing, or you find a unique way to make the art so insane that the reader somehow simultaneously reads a whole paragraph long speech bubble while staying focused.

Good example of that is Watchmen by Alan Moore. Lots of text in bubbles, but the writing's engaging and it still takes up so little of the panel that it remains enjoyable. The content within the text can make long length feel more palpable .. I hate reading characters narrate over exciting action that's happening right in front of me like I don't have eyes, but I like reading neat monologues. My main advice is to think back to or find examples that you personally would find a slog to read through or look at, no matter how good the actual story is, and ask yourself "why does this feel like too much?" Usually the answer is that the author isn't breaking the dialogue into neat little chunks, which can make it much easier to read over.

[Lensing]

That´s not the average hunter x hunter page though, people wouldn´t read hunter x hunter when every
page would look like this (imo).

[TroyVSTheWorld]

Does sound like a good time to reread Watchmen since I have a physical copy of that. I always really liked this comic because it was so dialogue heavy, but the dialogue was always very engaging and dynamic. That's always been a strong illustrated theme in my comics.

[Lensing]

I love this example and Watchmen has a lot of elements sequential artists can learn from

[Nugtown]

He can probably get away with it, once in a while. But I would never ever do this, no

[theyrebothakilogram]

Me neither lol, I'm just saying there's no hard rules in text limit

[TroyVSTheWorld]

I think that Hunter X Hunter is a good example of a poorly done page and I know why:
There is rare circumstance a full panel should be used as text. There ARE times when it works for the impact, but this page has SEVEN PANELS. And TWO of these panels have ANY semblance of illustration in them. This is a page with 5 panels of nothing but text.

Even IF the text takes up too much of the screen, I think the readers appreciate just ANY amount of illustrative work that goes into a panel to direct what's happening in the story.