Webcomic Pet Peeves

[TRI]

Here's a peeve not related to update schedules in any way:

When someone starts a comic and it obviously shows a lot of attention to detail in the art, the dialog and premise seem to have thought put into them, the characters seem like they've been fleshed out, and there's foreshadowing to suggest that the plot is actually going somewhere--then six months or a year later the author puts up a notice to the effect of "Woah. It turns out making comics is hard. Who knew? Oh well. That's it, I'm going to go do something else now. Bye."

First of all: considering the top complaints so far seem to be complaining, missed updates and filler, I can't believe your average internet-cartoonist is making it look easy.
Secondly: if you put that much effort into it didn't you realize it was going to be be hard to keep up?
For that matter you couldn't try drawing a while without putting it on the web to see how it went? Or at least without advertising it?

[Cuendolin]

I really dislike redraws. Specially when it involves putting the story on hold and starting again.

[Bustertheclown]

I'd rather have a page at a time than wait a month for a handful of pages...

...It is perhaps unfair that comics that update chapter by chapter didn't have much chance of success so far, because that kind of model should exist too, I guess. But page by page model has it's benefits too, and should exist.

McDuff pretty much covers it.

I'm willing to try this sort of thing, but I think you're confusing which is the failed model. The monthly comic books are declining in popularity, and in other media, like music, the "publish as you go" model is beginning to take hold. Nine Inch Nails have released two records this year already, still warm from being mixed. That's the chief draw of the internet. You get it fast, you get easy, you get it cheap. Monthly updates just bring us back to the old way of doing things, and people might not even wanna spend a half hour a month all at once to read the new update. You can complain that you shouldn't let the audience dictate your actions, but delivery system isn't a huge compromise. I'd rather people read mine in larger portions, but if they're more likely to read it a page at a time, I'm going to let them do so.

It's nice to hear explanations on the page-at-a-time side that gives better reasons for liking and using the system than the usual line, "but readers will forget you!" I have a very hard time believing that, because it's a very weak explanation. If you're making something worth remembering, then your audience will stick with you. I still look at comics that stopped updating years ago. The way you all state it, though, the current system at least makes a little bit more sense. If creators want to publish as they go, and let the reader do the compiling, then that's logical enough. Of course, it's only logical if a person continues to follow through until reaching a good place to stop. One's failure resolve looks a lot less silly if the failure takes place behind closed doors. Harsh realities aside, however, I'll admit that the current system seems to work for plenty of people, and I seem to be in a pretty exclusive minority in my feelings, and I recognize that.

Still, I hate it. I really do hate it. It gets in the way of my enjoyment of webcomics.

McDuffies, you mention webcomics as being akin to daily serial-style comic strips. I doubt I'd have as much of a problem with the existing publishing system if people actually treated their work in the manner of Dick Tracy. However, we all know that's not the case. Most webcartoonists who aren't going exclusively for gags are writing their work as a long-form comic, like a comic book or a graphic novel. They are writing and drawing pages in ways that are obviously meant to be read in multiples, and not stand-alone. So, in that way, posting their work one page at a time is not creating little cliffhangers. It's just leaving the reader with unfinished business. The difference between the two is intent. A cliffhanger is intentional, meant to bring the reader back, unfinished business is just sloppy storytelling.

That kinda leads me to a major sub-peeve with webcomics. It doesn't help me reconcile my hatred for a one-page update system, when the comics that need to be updating absolutely the most quickly in order to build thick archives of the immersive and epic tale that the cartoonist wishes to relate, also happens to tend to be the very kind of comic that updates so excrutiatingly slowly. If it's going to take the characters five pages to conduct a crucial conversation, and one is only updating a page a week, that means I'm expected to spend over a month getting through something that would naturally read in five minutes. My fists are literally clenched from the lack of logic involved with this all-too-common practice! Do people really expect me to spend ten years on three hundred pages of content?! If your story is ambitious, then for the love of Bob, you be ambitious too, and GO FASTER!

Also, I'm going to take issue with your analogy, yeahduff. First of all, I don't believe that the older system is failing, as you would submit. Sure, the "monthly serial" model may be declining in print, but I doubt very much that such a decline has much to do with the update habits of webcomics. There are larger market factors at work which dictate that decline. Besides, while monthly issue sales are declining, TPBs, graphic novels, and even digital archives, all of which give you access to hundreds or even thousands of pages of content all at once, are gaining in popularity. If piecemeal is the wave of the present, that wouldn't be the case.

Also, perhaps I'm dumb for asking this, but did NIN release two albums this year, still warm from being mixed, one song at a time? Or, were the albums released as full albums? I mean, Reznor didn't finish a song, and post it that night, did he? I ask because, while you're right that the draw of the internet is this old but somehow newly novel idea of instant gratification and taking only what you want, there is still a big difference between giving people small parts of a whole with the promise of more to come, and setting a complete work down and saying, "have at it." In my mind, things like NIN cutting out the Middle Man is not the same thing as webcartoonists making people wait for another page.

Alright, I'm spent. Sorry for the text wall. I guess when it really all comes down to it, what really gets to me is that there is most definitely not a generally "right" or "wrong" way to get this stuff done; rather, it's very much dependent on what kind of work you're doing. I find it harmful that people would rather spend time and energy rationalizing dogmas, and doing things in ways that don't maximize the power of their storytelling than they do finding ways to make their work come across the best it can.

[Rhys]

Yeah...I think the biggest strength of the web is that it can provide options. I understand your frustration, Buster, but at least if you want to read one in chunks, you can...providing you have the willpower and patience to wait when you know you could go look at a new page now...(I so often don't! Okay, turn "often" to "never"... ) And of course, yes, the people that suddenly stop are absolutely the worst, yes indeed. I hate stumbling onto a comic I've never seen before, reading the archives, bookmarking it...and then noticing that the last update was three months ago. Ugh. Stupid me, stupid them.

And I will very much second that one, Cuendolin. If they feel their early art needs redone, fine...most people who read webcomics will look at your recent posts to judge your artwork and then slog through crappy archives to get back to the good stuff because they know you improve as you go, more in webcomics than any other artistic medium, really...but if it makes them feel better to redraw, fine, more power to them...providing they do it without sacrificing the new stuff! No one wants to see you polishing up stuff we've already seen when you could be posting pretty things we haven't. That's just sloppy. The only excuse is, maybe if you've gotten a deal to print your stuff and you need to fix the beginning before that can happen, then maybe it's almost acceptable...but really, the way to do it is, like my friend who does Sorcery 101 is doing, you keep updating like normal and slowly redo the starting pages when you've got the time. As in, the extra, doesn't come out of regular working-on-the-webcomic time...ugh.

[Wendybird]

My least favorite webcomics are ones that are offensive, but hey, no one's making me read them.

I also don't like when nothing happens on a page and the art isn't particularly engaging. Ditto on that account.

Prob'ly my worst peeve is how much people complain about the mistakes that webcomickers make. But then no one made me read this forum either. It's still quite interesting, and most of the opinions are valid, it just sometimes strikes me as excessive how much people complain about the poor quality of their free content.

The internet is a place begging for people to make their mark, experiment, see what they're capable of. So some people aren't so capable. At least they tried something new. And it's just the nature of the internet that the remaining flotsam sticks around. I agree, that's annoying.

Re update schedules: I think of what I put up in the beginning as a first glance, in the hope that someone will be entertained by what I have, and maybe make a note to check back later. But I do try to make each page interesting in its own right. If a comic I like doesn't do this, I bookmark it for later.

In a more somber comic I started, I realized I didn't have something worth checking back for on every page. So I tried updating in chunks. But I realized this didn't give me the constant motivation to keep drawing provided by the thought, "Hey, maybe someone new read and enjoyed my comic today!"

I think it's this, combined with the idea that at any given time the longer the archives are the better, that leads comic artists to choose a regular schedule over a chunky one.

[Bustertheclown]

Prob'ly my worst peeve is how much people complain about the mistakes that webcomickers make. But then no one made me read this forum either. It's still quite interesting, and most of the opinions are valid, it just sometimes strikes me as excessive how much people complain about the poor quality of their free content.

Yeah, but this is a forum filled people who actually make comics, and discussions like this aren't actually complaining, but providing information for people who want to make their work better. Hell, even it if is just about complaining, who else but other webcomickers have a pass to make those complaints? It's our artform. We get to discuss it until it bores us silly, and that's our right!

[McDuffies]

I actually like seeing a progression in quality of a comic through it's archives, providing that starting comics are at least readable, of course. When someone redraws his comics from the beginning, eventually there'll be a certain drop in quality where he decided to stop with the drawing.

Someone mentioned Jesus in comics... man that can really annoy me. I always remember of comments about making of Life of Brian: Pythons wanted to make a film about Jesus, but then realised that there's nothing really prone to mocking about him and his teachings, so they made a film about fictive Brian instead. That's why all these comics with 'Jesus' character are so forced, because when they're trying to make fun, they don't really have anything to grab on. Hell if Pythons themselves couldn't, how could an amateur webcartoonist?

I don't like very much when I visit a comic after two months, and realise it hasn't moved an inch. Some artists have very poor pacing and planing, virtually no editing, and just haven't learned efficient storytelling. But that's something I always complain about. There's nothing in a six-page dialogue scene that you couldn't put in a three-page dialogue scene.

[Moder]

This topic is about what pisses you off in webcomics. It can be your own comic if you want, but I'm talking about when you're just surfing around, checking out new comics to read and you come across one that just makes you want to punch the creator.

I wouldnt go as far as punch someone for this, but some comics are too damn small to the point that the text Isnt readable and the drawings get all messed up.
And usually I see this happen In comics that came from print to web (famous ones too, like Doonesbury, Maakies and Bloom County).

[Yeahduff]

Trent Reznor is forward thinking, but he's also a purist. He likes records. The one he put out last week was a short ten-song affair. The one from winter was a four-disc set. Along with the digital downloads he's selling vinyl. So anything he creates he's going to make in a unit that fits on a disc. He creates the unit he wants to make and he puts it out. He doesn't use an update schedule, because people will definitely come looking when they hear a new record is out.

But plenty of artists do piece by piece. Myspace allows artists put up new singles as soon as they're done. Few use an update schedule, but Nick Tremulus spent 2006 putting up one new song a week on his website. This IS the kind of thing people are interested in. The iPod and the internet have made the single the biggest thing in music. The record companies' failure to acknowledge this is one of the reasons they're failing (unwillingness to adapt to the internet would be the biggest reason).

People want the small piece of something, so they can enjoy it quickly and move one to something else they enjoy or have to do. If the reader is confronted with all these comics dumping their archives around the same time, the reader is forced to choose what to read and what to discard. At a page at a time choices still have to be made but more different comics can be seen by the reader because there's less commitment.

We're hobbyists, and our system isn't perfect. We do what we can within our limitations. Doesn't always make for the smoothest reading, but we're lucky it's getting out at all.

But hey, if you wanna give me 80 bucks a day, I'll draw you two pages a day, or ten a week if you prefer.

[Garasade]

I agree Bustertheclown's criticism is very much spot on in terms of how I go about drawing comics. It struck a chord with my concerns how lack of careful planning or editing can sink a comic like mine right from the start. To make what little readers interested in what happens next, I tend to create artificial peaks and cliffhangers in order to draw attention, reserving the biggest space of the strip near the bottom. Nevertheless the practice limits the amount of running dialog or theme, disrupting any kind of constructive narrative. I really wish I could whip up 30 page installments and release them every month on a regular update schedule. It would be ideal, notwithstanding the kind of commitment and confidence required raising questions whether it'd be worth the effort to regard this anything other than a hobby. What I've resorted to is try to reward readers despite for all my shortcomings by trying to put in some effort on each page, to somehow compensate.

As for my pet peeve on webcomics, surprisingly it is not about update schedule or how they are published; I am more or less content with what is available for viewing pleasure. I just wish some comics do try harder when it clearly can and not ripping off others and coast upon established recognition.

[PatrickOfUnlifeStudios]

EDIT: Also, comics that have really, really good art for their ads, but sucky art for their comic. Not just sucky art in the beginning, that's fine, I understand that you've gotten better since you started the comic; but sucky art for their current stuff. That disappoints me and I end up not reading; your ad ought to represent what a reader will find when they click it. (That said, my banners are always in color and my updates rarely are, but the art itself is the same; having a shiny colored banner when you have B&W art doesn't annoy me, just art that looks great but leads me to art that sucks. You want to be eye-catching, but you still want it to represent what we'll find when we click!)

Hah! I've encountered this plenty when just browsing webcomics from ad to ad. It does annoy me, but it's actually funny sometimes. I'll start to think they got their friend or paid someone to draw an ad for them to lure in readers.

[Rhys]

Hah! I've encountered this plenty when just browsing webcomics from ad to ad. It does annoy me, but it's actually funny sometimes. I'll start to think they got their friend or paid someone to draw an ad for them to lure in readers.

Yeah, gotta say many of my pet peeves amuse me as much as if not more than they aggravate me...but then, I'm a terribly sardonic person.

McDuffies: I dunno, I've only seen Jesus used in two webcomics that I've read so far, and I found them hilarious and awesome. The Devil's Panties and Noses Optional (which, just to warn you, has ground ignominiously to a halt).

[TRI]

When a comic's ads are in English and the comic itself isn't....

Why do people even do that?

I mean, I wouldn't advertise my comic in Swedish. That'd just piss-off non-English-speaking Swedes (and I'm not going to make that mistake again).

[KWill]

When a comic's ads are in English and the comic itself isn't....

Why do people even do that?

I mean, I wouldn't advertise my comic in Swedish. That'd just piss-off non-English-speaking Swedes (and I'm not going to make that mistake again).

The ads are targetted at whomever is reading not whomever is hosting. I get German ads on the Forums and CG-hosted comics, for instance.

[McDuffies]

McDuffies: I dunno, I've only seen Jesus used in two webcomics that I've read so far, and I found them hilarious and awesome. The Devil's Panties and Noses Optional (which, just to warn you, has ground ignominiously to a halt).

Those are two examples I haven't heard of. I know a plenty of others, if I can't remember most of them it's because they were too insignificant to remember.

[TRI]

When a comic's ads are in English and the comic itself isn't....

Why do people even do that?

I mean, I wouldn't advertise my comic in Swedish. That'd just piss-off non-English-speaking Swedes (and I'm not going to make that mistake again).

The ads are targetted at whomever is reading not whomever is hosting. I get German ads on the Forums and CG-hosted comics, for instance.

I don't really see how that explains it. I'm not complaining that the language of the comic doesn't match the language of the website on which I saw the ad, but that the language of the comic doesn't match the language of the ad itself. I mean, shouldn't the language you need to speak to understand the comic be something you want to convey in the ad? So as to attract people who speak that language in larger numbers than people who don't? Since people who don't speak the language your comic is in obviously aren't going to come back, why would you bother attracting them at all?

Also, the place I've seen this happen most is the newsbox, which isn't targeted at all.

[KWill]

I don't really see how that explains it. I'm not complaining that the language of the comic doesn't match the language of the website on which I saw the ad, but that the language of the comic doesn't match the language of the ad itself. I mean, shouldn't the language you need to speak to understand the comic be something you want to convey in the ad? So as to attract people who speak that language in larger numbers than people who don't? Since people who don't speak the language your comic is in obviously aren't going to come back, why would you bother attracting them at all?

Also, the place I've seen this happen most is the newsbox, which isn't targeted at all.

Ah, now I get it. Yeah, that is stupid. Though some of those have alternate English versions, which might be why.

[Bustertheclown]

Trent Reznor is forward thinking, but he's also a purist. He likes records.

Maybe that's my problem. Maybe I'm just the Tent Reznor of webcomics. That would also help explain why I haven't published anything online for spans of years.

I don't really see how that explains it. I'm not complaining that the language of the comic doesn't match the language of the website on which I saw the ad, but that the language of the comic doesn't match the language of the ad itself. I mean, shouldn't the language you need to speak to understand the comic be something you want to convey in the ad? So as to attract people who speak that language in larger numbers than people who don't? Since people who don't speak the language your comic is in obviously aren't going to come back, why would you bother attracting them at all?

Also, the place I've seen this happen most is the newsbox, which isn't targeted at all.

Ah, now I get it. Yeah, that is stupid. Though some of those have alternate English versions, which might be why.

Holy shit, I just saw a perfect example of that very thing in the newsbox right now! Yeah, it's kinda annoying to follow an English ad, only to be faced with a Polish website.

[McDuffies]

Maybe I'm Paul McCartney of webcomics, I just haven't met John Lennon of webcomics yet.

[Bustertheclown]

Maybe I'm Paul McCartney of webcomics, I just haven't met John Lennon of webcomics yet.

You just skipped straight to the webcomic version of McCartney's band Wings.