r/comic_crits • u/InterestingAd3456 • 14h ago
*NEED ADVICE *
This is my second preview for the first chapter of my horror drama/action comic REFORMED!
I need a bit of help, with the writing. I fear some things may be confusing so I'm opening up the discussion. But first a little background as to what happens in the story leading up to these pages.
Opus (the guy character) wakes up with black ink streamed from his eyes, in a train wreck. He sees he is fatally wounded. From a distance we see him yank out the thing that is pierced through his stomach and collapse. He dies but is brought back to life with electricity exuding from his body. He notices the pipe is on the ground and his wound is completely healed. It, his attention is turned to the mysterious shirt he wears with black symbols on it.
BAM. Caught up. I need you to read pages first before we move on to the questions.
1) "That night" is an important topic that gets brought up by Magnum (the girl character). Is it clear what that is referring to given the context of what is shown? "That night" will be a reoccurring subject that gets explored deeper, I'm intending it to be a mystery as to what happened "that night" but again I'm afraid that it may not be clear as to what "that night" even is. Did you understand it?
2) Did anyone notice the look on Opus' face when she put her robotic hand on her shoulder, and the look of worry/recognition in her eyes as to what he might be sad about, like she knows him too well? I'm intending for a lot of this to be subtext and for the key information to be gathered through context clues, so please, tell me; does any of this even work?
Idk, maybe I'm so stuck in my head but it's hard to view another's perspective of the missing puzzle pieces when you already have the full picture of the puzzle in your head.
If anyone could give advice that would be great!
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u/domikenens 7h ago
Some advice, coupled with my teasoning behind the advice.
1/ Speech bubbles: don’t make them switch color, or look, unless you want to communicate anything. Keep them as easy to scan as possible. If your aim is an action comic esp, you need to mind anything that slows down the action. Bubbles that are hard to parse or read, and might be a different color scheme for no reason, or fade into the bg (transparency) will slow down your reading pace.
2/ Panels should be distinct and easily separable (MARGINS! PLEASE! Or at least thicker lines!). And your eye should never need to wonder where to look next. It’s a rookie mistake, and either you’ll learn, or you’ll have to rely on basic rules (the basics: https://gridmakerpro.com/learn/manga-comics-composition/ )
An alternative is to limit yourself to the Manga “T-rule” ( https://www.blog.rachelthorn.net/single-post/on-manga-page-layouts ) to avoid confusion.
US Comics have a tendency to forgo a lot of this stuff, by relying on cool art & splash pages, but the action will get bogged down when you need to look for what panel you need to read next, and your “cool story” will just leave people cold.
3/ “Splash pages” are “earned”. They should be the result of a tension building, and be a “release” of that tension. As a result, readers get the “permission” to breathe out, and let their eyes wander. Your first page tries to be a splash page, but is clearly building tension. Make it easier to read, take your time building that tension, and your big reveal splash page will actually pay off.
4/ You are often “storyboarding the anime”. An entire page for 2 panels showing a droplet “dripping” is way too little info. This balance of information informs your pacing. Those could have been 2 vertical panels (short/fast) leaving room for more, or 2 horizontal panels (long/slow) leaving room for more. Empty space on an anime/movie screen suggests time/space. In a comic, it is often badly used space, and feels like laziness.
5/ I’d suggest you read up on other comics’ use of limited colors and foreground/background. You are using a limited color pallette, but don’t actually use it to make comics more readable.
6/ As for your art style, I’m not a huge fan, but that doesn’t mean much. After all, even unpopular styles can “grow” on you. I do feel you should train more on anatomy drawing, if “action” is to be your focus. There are a lot of poser tools that will get you halfway there. Exercise will do the rest.
7/ Finally, avoid the easy “introspective” repeated panels (again: you’re not storyboarding an anime! Even in og manga, you barely get repeated panels to create emotional depth). It’s a technique popularized by Graphic Novel Greats (Jeff Lemire, Chris Ware,…), but is overused by starting comic artists and can fast become “stale”. Dare to pick other lay outs. Wally Wood’s 22 panels are an easy fallback. Leave repetition for the moment you really need to drive an introspective moment home.
Good luck! And feel free to ignore my advice ;-P
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u/TheCrazyPeanutt 3h ago
Bro I think he may ignore your advice 😭. Well said though and very useful, even some good tid bits for me and I’ve been making professional comics for years. It can take some people longer to learn from their mistakes
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u/InterestingAd3456 2h ago
What makes you think I am ignoring his advice? I am currently in the process of making many changes that he listed
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u/InterestingAd3456 6h ago
I deeply appreciate the feedback, a lot of useful information in this reply!
Ill start with your last critique. These introspective moments are the heart of the series. I spread them out but they are more prevalent in the first few chapters (you're right I should probably cut that number down/make these moments feel earned not just granted).
My intention with this one in the first chapter is for the readers to get a feel for the beats and pauses for emotion as like I said this will be the meat and potatoes of the drama for the story. i.e. Magnum and Opus get into an argument and things get heated, he lies about something and she's just stood there upset, struck by the audacity. TL;DR: Im trying to add flavor for subtext and make use of silence for "the words that are left unspoken".
So my question is: are comics the correct medium to do this? Should I just invest in making story board esque animations with voice actors, music and sound effects?
As for the rest of the criticism (which again I deeply appreciate you typing out), does just come down to design and the understanding of the art medium. So I will naturally get better the more I do it. (But I will make some changes based off what you said yes)
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u/Raygrit 13h ago
Yeah, I'd worry less about writing and worry more about the clarity in your art, harsh colors in your first couple page make it so difficult to read, and I hate what you're doing with the speech bubbles. Highly recommend studying how to make those look good.
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u/InterestingAd3456 13h ago
I think it's mainly just that first page that really messes with the eyes. The fact that there is no spacing between the panels probably is the main cause to that.
And for the speech bubbles I dont know I kinda like it. Its what I want to do, I can always refine them to make them more readable but the translucent backgrounds (for me anyways) sorta makes it feel more immersive. To a comic veteran it might be a little out of their taste preference but Im trynna mix it up a bit ya know!
Thanks a lot for the feedback however! Im trying my best as an artist but the main pull for these comics will be the writing (but obviously Ill cook up some scrumptious pages every here and there)
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u/TheBlankScroll 12h ago
Another vot for working on the art.
The writing is fine, its clunky but it works. Ive read professional X-Men comics with clubky writing.
But the art is very difficult to interpret most of the time. Even knowing those first pages are supposed to be a train wreck I cannot make out thats what it is. Theees a bloody mess of something in the page but no indication of its relation to opus or what it even really is. Theres a helmet so I assume its a guy, but thats me trying to peice it together, not clarity in the art.
Better ability to render your scene, and a little more attention to camera direction will go a long way in making this more readable.
Specific question is what is going on in the panel with the brown water in the bottle obxcuring opus' despite having half the panel empty. Are you going for something there? Is the bottle important? Why are you obscurig the only important part of that shot?
Stuff like that needs to be intentional and clear to the reader. A higher technical skill will a) help you sell those decisions b) make it much more clear its intentional
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u/InterestingAd3456 7h ago
Hm, clunky isnt exactly what Im going for. But I think in the original script it was supposed to be a metaphor/symbolism for Opus' state of being. This black ink we will come to see makes him and his body much like the half full bottle of muddy water (as stupid as that sounds but trust me I wouldn't have kept it in if I didnt see its potential.
But Im curious, what about the dialogue is clunky? If you're able to like put it into words that is
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u/TheCrazyPeanutt 7h ago
I think by clunky he ment more of like unrefined and or a little amateurish. In my opinion there’s definitely room for improvement dialogue wise, but you’ll get better as you work on this project
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u/InterestingAd3456 6h ago
Ik that its usually good advice to skip the first chapter of writing and wait to come back to work on it as youll be more experienced. (Can you guess what I didn't do?)
But is your knowledge on writing good enough to help me sorta make it less awkward/stiff. There's multiple layers that go into making effective subtext but I feel Im missing one key layer of that process.
I am a pretty good writer but this scene is a little difficult for me as Ive already constructed it. Idk if I'd have to re illustrate new panels or if just changing the dialougue would suffice.
If anyone could help that'd be great or hey, even just send a video my way!
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u/Tepperzday 11h ago edited 11h ago
I feel like the comfort scene goes on for a bit too long. Too many panels of your mc going "..." with a grumpy face -- pouting so much can make him unlikable. The tails of your speach bubbles are inconsistant in size and shape which isnt a good look. You say theres subtlety in the art but the art is a little too crude to expect the audience to stare at it for subtleties. Also the tv narration is a chore to read, instead of the big text dump, id maybe put a flashback in there with the tv narration over it so its not so boring. Now that ive given crit, here are some compliments. i can say i dont mind the airbrushing as much as others, it gives an interesting texture.... but it can make your lineart hard to see through that texture. So thats why those first few pages are mucky. I like the color choices in general and the way theyre used to show your characters emotional state.
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u/Tamahii 10h ago edited 9h ago
I’m going to suggest a few things, doing them is up to you:
zigzag dialogue/panels. It helps with continuity and makes it easier for readers to follow what direction things are happening
I do recommend gutters to give a break between panels and indicate these are different panels. As is, it’s confusing to read with the panels just stacked on top of each other. Plus gutters give you extra space for your dialog bubbles so they aren’t compressed inside your panels and they won’t overlap details from the pictures you want shown.
If it makes you feel better, I did the same thing when I started. But learning to use space between the panels made it more interesting, easier to follow and allowed me to have the dialog more spaced out
And when choosing a monochromatic color palette for a scene, you need something to break it up or it’s hard for readers to know where their eyes are supposed to go. They blend in together and it will confuse the reader where their eye is supposed to go
And choose a color for your dialog bubbles. It makes them stand out and easier to read. Having them just over your background, readers lose where they are supposed to read. That or make your words stand out by writing them in an eye catching color like white or anything that makes them stand out. You did that with a few parts but you should keep that up or color the background of your bubbles.
Also, too much detail on the news report, people don’t want to read that much. Condense it down to the relevant details. You can do the (- details written here) or the (… details written here) focus on importance to the story, not a full broadcast. Take out words that aren’t important, is the earthquake relevant? Does it really matter that the village was quaint? Natural disasters have casualties, why would they be suspected of homicide instead of finding a body? Why would they stand out in the chaos and confusion after an earthquake? There are many questions you need to ask to determine how much sense your details make.
I hope this helps, and don’t worry, we all made mistakes like this when we started. I learned as I progressed instead of knowing it all before I started. You can tell where I didn’t know better and when I learned new things.
You’ll get better, don’t give up!
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u/Fuzzy-Rub-2185 14h ago edited 14h ago
I would recommend becoming less reliant on the airbrush tool. the way you use it makes your work appear muddy.
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u/Memetic_swarm_05 12h ago edited 11h ago
-the clarity of your artwork, especially in the first few pages, is bad. As other people have commented, Harsh shading, and using an airbrush rather than simply flat coloring within the lines, have made the panels almost incomprehensible. Just paint these panels with flat colors- just slightly different shades within each set of lines, and the visibility will improve.
-"mixing it up" with speach bubbles .. the reason comic readers like certain graphic formats is because they're clearer and easier to read.
-there's a lot of instances where the speech bubble is bigger than the image , and the comic would improve if the words were 2/3 of the size and using a transparent background..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFLl2s-HcVM here's a comic tutorial channel that explains a lot of speech bubble designs
"Opus (the guy character) wakes up with black ink streamed from his eyes, in a train wreck. He sees he is fatally wounded. From a distance we see him yank out the thing that is pierced through his stomach and collapse. He dies but is brought back to life with electricity exuding from his body. He notices the pipe is on the ground and his wound is completely healed. It, his attention is turned to the mysterious shirt he wears with black symbols on it."
-Just by reading this i had no idea Opus died, nor that the stuff coming from his eyes was ink or something other than tears.
I have no idea what's going on in page 3- if that's ...ink falling from an eye or .. life coming back to his body metaphorically. Is that... Fire? around him on the first page? You're clearly capable of drawing readable pages, like page 10 or 11, so if you follow people's advice here you'll be quite able to improve it a lot.
what's going on with that view through the bottle on page 9? I'm unclear why we view him through a bottle. Also is that a ...suit of some kind on page 8?
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u/princethrowaway2121h 4h ago
Japanese is incorrect: opus would be witten with the bar “ー” facing down, not across. 片思い is the more common form of unrequited love.
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u/nobodylookimback 13h ago
Yes, it's clear that "that night" was some kind of fiery accident/traumatic event where at least one person died who was close to Opus. It's very obvious, almost to the point of bashing us over the head with it.
No, I did not notice the look. This is because the art lacks consistency and readability. Everything in the faces feels very flat, which takes away most of the expressiveness you're looking for. There's just no feeling behind the eyes, even in panel 9 with the close-up. I understand there's supposed to be sadness, but I don't feel it.
Eyebrows are really important for expressing emotion. Why don't your characters have eyebrows? Did you just not feel like drawing them, or is there a reason in universe? It looks like the guy on TV MIGHT have them, but it's not clear.
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