Panels & pacing. Too much creativity or not enough?

[Ripnormality]

current storyline

I worry that I know nothing about pacing...is it too slow and boring? Of course, there might just not be enough yet...but if you really, really are turned off because nothing is happening.... Also yes I have a terrible update schedule. :/

In general, how off-putting/interesting is the format? I've been experimenting with panels. It makes sense to me, of course, but I wonder if finding a few general layouts and sticking to them is better.

As for art criticism: since this is first draft material, I'd prefer general problems rather than specifics.


If you would like me to critique your stuff, I can do that as well--just let me know and be patient.

[Metruis]

Let's see.

If you make a comic, DO NOT MAKE IT 1200 PIXELS WIDE. Most people have 1024x768 monitors. Resize your original comics, pleaaaaase.

Anyway, I don't think there's enough to go by. I couldn't tell what was going on and I didn't know your characters. Not our faults, there's just not enough up yet. I have 34 pages. I expect people to know my main character's names if they followed from the beginning but they won't know what's going on yet. My readers haven't gotten to know them that well yet, and I can't throw them into peril and expect my readers to care. Not yet. And the same goes for you. You don't have much up yet. Your pages are sketchy and hard to understand and it's paced just fine... we just don't understand what's going on yet.

I have nothing personal against sketchy, except when sketchy makes it hard to tell what's going on. Don't try make it sleek if sketchy's your style--it's my style too--but do try to make it evident what happened. I had trouble making sense of it and telling characters apart and all. Not enough there to judge the story... she got kidnapped? Woke up in an alternate reality? Or something? I think? It was a bit WHAT'S GOING ON?

But it's a first draft. It looks like it could be good.

[Ripnormality]

Ah--I think I messed up the resizing on at least one of the pages; they're normally 1000px wide. Which is still a bit wide...but it seems like a lot of people are starting to trade up to either 17" or widescreen; I'll still push it down to 800px. Thanks for noticing that (I'm on 1440x900.)

Okay--I was sort of hoping that excess slowness would be obvious; like, does this completely turn you off from wanting to see what did happen to her (yes, it's still ambiguous). Sorry about the drawing; my style tends to be fluid. I want to keep experimenting until I've found something that works, in which case I would go back and redraw the beginning.

Thanks!

[Metruis]

I'm on a 1440x900 too, but... I never maximize my windows, this is something you should also keep in mind. Not everyone browses with a maximized browser, and so, since my browser window is usually around 900 pixels wide, I notice big things and it inconvinences me to have to go and make it bigger. Not that it's a huge inconvienience or anything, but I'm sure I wasn't the only one with a 1024 monitor that thought 'just because it's optimized for that size doesn't mean it's fitting in my window! I don't browse with a maximized window!'

1000 is okay... but again, as I said.

Though you have 'wide' comics where I have 'tall' comics, I keep mine at 600 pixels wide. My webpage is around 900 pixels across, I think. I think people tend to keep in mind their own preferences. But I always figure, even if most people have larger monitors now, not everyone does. There's still people (like me!) on IE6 who snarl at the webpages that BLOCK US FROM VIEWING THEM without having Firefox on and hate IE7 and the lag from Firefox. Ohthelagthepainfullag. Let me have my browser, it doesn't matter if your webpage is noncompatable, just stop throwing half the screen YOUR BROWSER SUCKS AND YOU CAN'T VIEW THIS PAGE RIGHT WITH IT messages in my face. My choice, I know that not all sites look that way. And in the same light, someone's going to still be browsing on 800x600, just because their eyesight is bad and sulking that all webpages, alas, including mine, are too big for them. (I just couldn't quite get mine down to 800 pixels wide. But the comic will fit) And someone's going to be on Windows 98 and all the lovely flash sites lagging for them. I was there too. So even with my lovely big monitor, I keep in mind that maybe, just maybe, someone without a large screen wants to read my story. Maybe someone with a slow computer wants to visit my webpage. And I keep the bells and whistles down.

Not that you have to. But I remember going "screw you" and leaving sites on my 98, 1024 monitor, with my ancient browser and inability to even load Firefox. Why? Because someone decided "everyone's getting bigger monitors, so I'm going to post my webcomic at 1200 pixels wide". Because someone decided "it'll look horrible in IE so I'll just make a flag to recognize the browser and block them from even seeing the site without Firefox". Yep. Not that this is going to be a lot of your readers, you know, but are you really alienating those of us with widescreen monitors to keep it at 800 pixels wide? Or even 1000? But you are alienating the people trapped behind the times with no money.

Okay, done ranting. It's a finicky point for me because there were a few things I've wanted to check out on the internet. Comics, games, movies, movie sites--that wouldn't let me view them. Star Wars' movie site with their all flash layout back in the RotS craze days... I couldn't even load it. A few certain webcomics with their freaking huge pages. Didn't feel like holding down the middle button to pan through. A few certain webpages with their HUGE GET FIREFOX OR YOU SUCK logos... argh. And I tend to read through whole archives, too, and then bookmark. Their loss. Moving back on to your comic... if it was a resizing issue, no big deal, fix it and poof, everyone is happy and it's fast. None of this rant was directed at you, just in general the internet. Sorry for hijacking. ^^

As for wanting to see what happens to her, I'm more turned off by the fact that I couldn't tell WHAT WAS HAPPENING than the slowness. Keep in mind: I am not your average reader. I don't just click, first page was ugly, click, click, click. I read through tons of obscure comics and give them more than their first few pages to make my judgement. Would this turn me off if I found it in the state it is now? Quite possibly. When I can't tell what happened at all, I'm less interested in keeping at it. If I found it a few months later with more pages, I'd read through the archive and it'd depend on what happened. I'm finicky, but I prefer judging on a good chunk of the comic. If it was steadily improving, it'd probably get a bookmark just so I could return in a few more months and see what's been going on.

It's simple: I don't think it's moving too slow, I just don't think you're making it clear enough. The pacing is fine, but I'm having trouble telling apart your characters, especially with the style. I LOVE sketchy, but you have to go to a point of setting aside people with notable traits. (I have a friend who thought two of my female characters were the same person... crap. Working on that one. They both had light brown hair. Though one was short, I see where she made the mistake based on my storyline) But since I do sketchy too, I've had to set apart my characters with DRAMATIC phyiscal differences. Blue hair, bright red hair, very distinct clothing and features. Etc. I can't have two similar looking people because of the rougher art. And I'm coloring. (Readers are stupid, keep this in mind. ^_^) You're just doing black and white right now. Your characters need to be more than a scribble of a person... too bad... because I'm looking at it and thinking... I've seen a ton of people who look kind of like this and I have no traits to define main character in my mind by. I don't remember who was who in the last few pages. The most memorable thing from your comic right now was the pages where you had the eye opening bit. I remember that. And "you know far too much about kidnapping for your own good". What you need to do is push something onto the readers to make them REMEMBER it, regardless of your style. You need them to remember 'oh, that was the girl with the flowery shirt who did this...' Comics are all about making people remember the visuals. Darken, for example. I haven't even read all of Darken but I can see any of her characters ANYWHERE on the internet and go HEY I RECOGNIZE THAT. Her ADVERTISMENTS, before I'd even read the comic, had pushed a visual for her main characters onto my mind, with the facial tattoo, the sunglasses dark elf, and the scales on the one girl's face.

So, to answer your question--sure, I still want to know what happens to her. I tend to be that way. I want to know what happens. Will your other readers? Maybe not. Will I remember to come back and see what happens? Maaaybe not. I still like the black and white and sketchy, I really do, but that's all I'm grasping at to remember to check back next week and see what happened. Maybe if it was more detailed sketchy, that'd plant it in my mind. I follow some other black and white and sketchy comics. (Nossus, for example, verrry sketchy, but I still remember it. The characters are very visually distinct.)

Experimenting is good and I give you credit for that. Do keep at it! And if you're willing to redo the old pages... hey, that's more than I'd do. ^_^ Have fun with it. (And don't go sleek and shiny because everyone else does. I do enjoy the sketchy art. It has a rough feel to it that does add to some storylines)

[Ripnormality]

Yeah--I've been there, so I understand your pain. (I upgraded from a 15" in March, it's been very very exciting.) I did worry about legibility (and decided that scrolling was the better option), but it seems like it shouldn't be a problem since people will be using lower resolutions if they need to.

I see; this beginning sequence is kind of ambiguous, although I am finally hitting the explanation part of things. As for characters: she'll be less ambiguous once she gets clothes on, I think (but I do so hate fancy clothing...I'm so bad at designing it...) and once the other main character shows up, he's going to be reasonably distinctive. I'm definitely going to take this into account, though, so thanks again

[Metruis]

Yeahhh... clothes do help.

(Though I've observed my readers are idiots. I'm going to have to break the storyline to make one page and drew my three female characters and bold letters: THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. THIS ONE HAS PURPLE HAIR. THIS ONE HAS SHORT HAIR AND NO CLOTHES. THIS ONE HAS LONG HAIR AND CLOTHES. I'VE NAMED ALL THREE OF THEM DIFFERENT THINGS.)

Ahem. Idiots. And this is my mother and best friend talking, I'm not sure about the ones I _haven't_ met here.

Anyway, I'll probably check back later and see how things went. I like seeing how stories progress and alter based on criticism.

[ShineDog]

regarding image size, I wish it wasnt the case but I think this it is important that people start to push page sizes as high as they possibly can.

People are trading up and monitor sizes are increasing. thats good.

Unfortunatley, even a really high res display is not at the DPI of print comics. Depending on the art style there can be a real loss of clarity as you reduce the page size, and personally, I find that the increased quality is well worth the minor inconvenience of having to click that little maximise button in the corner.

[Ripnormality]

regarding image size, I wish it wasnt the case but I think this it is important that people start to push page sizes as high as they possibly can.

People are trading up and monitor sizes are increasing. thats good.

Unfortunatley, even a really high res display is not at the DPI of print comics. Depending on the art style there can be a real loss of clarity as you reduce the page size, and personally, I find that the increased quality is well worth the minor inconvenience of having to click that little maximise button in the corner.

Unfortunately, most people who can afford giant monitors are also probably into the more expensive print comics.

Hmm, I could simply tell the browser to resize page and then allow a download...the other problem with the internet, though, is art theft. I mean, I'm not that good, but there are still plenty of other people who are either lazy, unscrupulous or some unsavory combination of the two.

Definitely looks tiny on my screen...but the original width of these comics is 2000 px and it's displayed at 800 px width.

[VinnieD]

On width. I started out doing my comic at 800px and had lots of complaints on panels being too small, text being hard to read or taking up too much space and cramming out the art. I actually got a good response when I experimented with 1000px but a few complaints of it being too wide. Ultimately I've settled on 900px. you get most of the functionality of a 1000px comic and more visibility than an 800px comic. You can downsize your text a little bit without losing readability, so try that width.

As for panels. Too many planes leaves you too little room to work, too few and you hurt the pacing. I find it's better to have larger panels than smaller ones and slow down your storytelling than to cram too much into one comic. People won't remember waiting for a comic, they will remember a bad comic.

[Ripnormality]

On width. I started out doing my comic at 800px and had lots of complaints on panels being too small, text being hard to read or taking up too much space and cramming out the art. I actually got a good response when I experimented with 1000px but a few complaints of it being too wide. Ultimately I've settled on 900px. you get most of the functionality of a 1000px comic and more visibility than an 800px comic. You can downsize your text a little bit without losing readability, so try that width.

As for panels. Too many planes leaves you too little room to work, too few and you hurt the pacing. I find it's better to have larger panels than smaller ones and slow down your storytelling than to cram too much into one comic. People won't remember waiting for a comic, they will remember a bad comic.

900 sounds like a good idea, thanks for the suggestion!
I think in cases of dialogue (which is pretty much what I have a few pages of going on right now), it's better to have a few more panels to show gestures.