Why you wouldn't read my comic?

kimketli 2020-04-27 18:33:22 UTC #6

I have 100 problems with my comic and 99 of them is the first episode and its dialogue (Okay, the ratio is not really like this but close :D) So I can relate to this point.
About the grammar I can't tell anything, I'm not a native English speaker, I lend the text to English speakers to supervise and correct it.
Anyway, I plan to rewrite the first episode because I think on this point that's the weakest all the episodes. And for a beginning of a story it's pretty bad
It also has some thoughts of the main character I probably will delete because they're just complicate the reader's thinking about who the hell is actually speaking...? I mean at the beginning he's remembering for another person's words...

darthmongoose 2020-04-27 19:05:51 UTC #7

Immediate things that'd stop me from even looking at pages of this comic:

Gloomy, low-contrast mostly brown cover looks muddy and doesn't stand out. Character on the cover looks bored. Cover has three different fancy fonts, which immediately looks amateurish. A cover with punchier contrast and a more exciting or evocative cover that relied more on good drawing and less on lots of textures and effects would definitely help draw my attention, and picking one or two fonts, only one of which is fancy, would look more professional.

The description:
"Killing people for his government is like a bad drug for Eric. It's slowly killing him, but it also makes him feel alive. Though what will happen when he has to find and train a rebellious brat who was once just like he was?"

....Wait, so... is the rebellious brat also no longer like Eric used to be? Why is that interesting? I'm assuming maybe you got turned around somewhere in this overly complicated sentence and it meant to say: "a rebellious brat who is just like he once was?" It's a really vague description that's confusingly worded just to say "a jaded government assassin has to train a newbie who is just as rebellious as he used to be", which is a bit of a spare sounding plot, maybe needs an extra twist or bit of spice in there to sound less generic. Like "And they only have 72 hours to stop a nuclear war!" or "But with the whole city out for their blood, things just got more complicated", or "When his latest target is the President, the stakes have never been higher!" You know... something more than just "this dude has to train this other dude".

kimketli 2020-04-27 19:18:41 UTC #8

Actually, what you assumed was my original translation and I had almost the same conversation with the person who corrected my sentences and she said "yeah, in English we say this like that, I know it sounds weird but it means what you meant." So I trusted her because she was a native and I'm not XD

darthmongoose 2020-04-27 19:21:28 UTC #9

Even we native speakers mess up sometimes, especially when the sentence is complicated. English has weird grammar!

kimketli 2020-04-27 19:29:10 UTC #10

If you say it's certainly a bad translation, I correct it.
I definitely meant the young kid is just like he was once.

SharpKatsudon 2020-04-27 19:33:18 UTC #11

As people said in previous replies the art is breathtaking! I love the cold atmosphere your colors are giving!

I think where it’d be turning me down would be the action? Because nothing really concrete for the reader to understand the story happens within the first three episodes?

kimketli 2020-04-27 19:39:02 UTC #12

I'm not sure I understand the last sentence. Are you asking me nothing really happens what would help you understand the story or is it your statement? Sorry, this is not my first language

SharpKatsudon 2020-04-27 19:41:53 UTC #13

No worries English isn’t my native language either!

What I mean I that, when you take webtoon originals for example, the main characters and plot is revealed within the 3 first episodes of the story which got the readers hooked.

In your story, it feels like you use 3 episodes to focus on one scene which might discourage readers because they won’t get the main plot after 3 chapters

kimketli 2020-04-27 19:49:55 UTC #14

ah, now I understand. Hm, you might have the point.
BUT I think a webtoon originals has access to more panel number/episode. They're usually over 80 panels, mainly in the first episodes and over 50 in the others(that's a minimum for sure). So we probably compare very different lengths of stories now. What is 3 episodes for them that's probably 6 episodes of my story. But let me count

SharpKatsudon 2020-04-27 19:56:49 UTC #15

The allowed amount of panels isn’t the same indeed, the 100 panels limit on canvas is a curse!

When I first posted my comic, I had the same issue, the pacing was really slow and took about 10 episodes before some concrete stuff happened. So I took a break from posting to edit these chapters and have the main plot points, characters and action scenes happen within the 3/4 first episodes and ever since I did that I saw my readership increase a lot faster !

kimketli 2020-04-27 20:21:16 UTC #16

I counted them. the first three episodes are 113 panels, so it almost can be one episode (at least on webtoons. Unfortunately on Tapas the limit is 45 files/episode)
Probably it would be a good idea to merge at least the first two together so the readers will have less chance to click away.
It's a very good tip, thank you! >___<

kimketli 2020-04-27 21:58:55 UTC #17

It ended up more useful than I thought.
I thought people will mostly talk about their taste in characters/story and I'll have to search for the helpful ones but at the end I only got good advices XD

So, I'll definitely change the cover, it's surely muddy and not good for that size. I'll probably change the thumbnail as well for something more eyecatching.
-I'll add at least one more line to the description about the story. I still don't know what detail would be great. Only thing what came into my mind was: "And they're also mages and will have a death bird" what's pretty ridiculous like this. XD HALP
-I'll try to combine the first two episodes into one on webtoons
-but first I'll do surgery on the first episode's dialogues (maybe I'll rewrite and rearrange it as well because it's pretty crucial)

Thank you guys for your time!

CresentFox 2020-04-27 22:37:50 UTC #18

In my opinion, the art is very detailed. Yes, the dialog need to be change. If you are going for a dark/fantasy type of story then I can understand your choice of colors. However, the way you use it feels a little bit weird for me. You switched back and forth to much in some episodes. For a dark/fantasy comic, it's best to pick a handful of colors and only use those colors consistent through out the entire comic. Or, pick one color and only use that color.

kimketli 2020-04-28 00:03:08 UTC #19

Naaah, don't take my colors! XD I love them. I love to change color palettes from time to time They help separate the scenes/time/sometimes background from eachother. But I understand it if their usage seems too unusual.
I'm also not entirely satisfied with my color palettes everywhere. For example this one really messes with my rules. I used two main colors for the background instead of one in this episode. I want to recolor it because everytime I see it I don't like it I just couldn't come up better back then. Lame.

Cavechan 2020-04-28 00:53:22 UTC #20

Tapas allows for longer file images though. WT allows up to 1280 height and Tapas is 4000 height. So you could combine panels into one image to allow less images to upload.

I agree with a lot of what people are saying here. I did notice the dialogue is a bit unnatural. It switches inner dialogue between the two characters which I personally think is strange, especially this early in the comic. May be better to focus just on one character's thoughts.

The "I'm freezing" line sounds awkward. I think if someone is suddenly being frozen, they wouldn't think "I'm freezing!" but maybe more "WTH?! It's ice cold!" or something like that. Fun fact about temperature when you touch something... cold and heat are registered in the same way, so if you touch something that is one or the other, you might mistake it for the other until your mind registers the actual temperature. I'm not sure if that applies here, but something to keep in mind maybe.

Art-wise, it looks amazing. I did notice in the first episode, the panel with the "An apprentice has been assigned to you", the perspective of the characters does look off, especially the guy on the right. You might want to reference some models for this because the angles are so unusual and you also need to take into account that the ground is at different levels for them, but their feet look about the same size.

It looks like it's a solid comic. I ended up not subbing to it though, not at all because it's bad but because it doesn't really interest me personally. I'm sorry.

GesuGesu 2020-04-28 04:31:35 UTC #21

Not sure if this would hurt, but I actually was not interested because the series summary doesn't attract me.

The art looks great honestly. I would read it based on the art, but since the concept itself isn't to my interest, I couldn't even bring myself to give the first episode a good read. I just read the summary, and then skimmed a few panels of the first episode.

kimketli 2020-04-28 14:01:46 UTC #22

One person personal taste can't be hurtful to another. I'm also not interested in many other comics. I'm very picky. I see many professional works and I drop them easily or not even check them because I'm not interested in their description or their design or characters/actions annoy me somehow. It doesn't mean they're not good for someone else. Many of them are very popular and have many fans. For example I can read two originals from webtoons, I tried many others but they all failed me.

kimketli 2020-04-28 14:13:18 UTC #23

Yeah, good point. I think I'll do that :>

Unfortunately I'm not a native English speaker, so I have to leave these decisions for those who correct my dialogues for making them more natural to other natives. Probably more proofreaders would solve this problem but I don't like to ask favors from people without giving them money and atm I don't have too much money to give

Oh, I'm pretty sure there are more errors too I'm downloading the first two episode to my ipad to work on them because they're more than a year old and that's enough to finally see many of mistakes with my fresh eye.

snailienz 2020-04-28 14:35:19 UTC #24

This comic looks good, but a few things that would turn me off intially are:

The first episode uses blank space a LOT so it's kinda hard for my mind to stay connected to the action.

The promo banner art is nowhere near as pretty as the art in the actual comic, so if i judged by than alone, I wouldnt have looked at it.

The name of the comic doesn't tell me anything about what kind of story I'm reading, but it also isn't short and catchy. Renaming might not be an option right now, but something to think about.

Overall I think what might be shaking people off is the promo images not really showcasing the art. the one for webtoons is the only one where I can see your skill level IN the image.

It looks good though, I might read this later if I have the time. (most of the time this is why i dont get to read anything....so busy;

kimketli 2020-04-28 14:55:27 UTC #25

you mean black spaces between panels or panels where we see lot of background like this?

or this?

Probably I'll fix this problem with a more telling thumbnail.
This was the original. Maybe I'll change back for it if I fix it a little bit...
I just miss Eric from it because this story is not about one main character.

The original description was about what's the wispfinch but I've missed the desciption about the characters because it's mostly a characterbased story.