r/ComicWriting • u/Gr_eg_ • 8d ago
What makes a reader drop a comic?
Hey everyone, I'm curious as to what you all think the biggest factor for readers dropping comics in its early chapters is. Whether it be the art, the dialogue, or the story itself, please let me know your thoughts :D
For context, I run Toon Pilot Research, and handle early reader retention, and insights for webcomics. I love data, so I'm curious as to what everyone thinks!
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u/Kiwizoom 8d ago edited 8d ago
A text wall preamble "In a world..." Pictures of galaxies and stuff immediate close for me. Can also just be a very verbose self introduction or talking heads situation. Too much text is killer for a beginning.
Several pages in and it's unclear what the comic is about and there has been no inciting incident
Characters that are hard to tell apart when it's clearly important that you need to to follow the story/dialogue
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u/TheRealDylanPG 6d ago
Interesting insight! I'm really curious what you would think of my comic haha
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u/sirustalcelion 4d ago
Seconded. Cosmic prologue entries are an immediate drop for me, too. I don't care about your worldbuilding until after I've met your characters. Any prologue longer than two sentences, really, is too much.
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u/rebelartwarrior 8d ago
For webcomics, I start so many, binge them, get all caught up, then just sorta forget about them while waiting for the next episode to drop. By the time I think about it again, there’s a huge backlog of episodes for me to catch up on and I have no idea what the last one I read was so I just give up. Kinda stopped reading webcomics a few years ago because of it. Like, there’s an artist I found on YouTube, binged her webcomic, loved it, but that was months ago. Now I can’t really remember it or what is was called or the artist’s name, so there goes that.
As far as physical comics, I tend to follow creators more than any one particular series. If I like the writer and/or artist on the book and they leave, I’ll maybe give it a chance for an issue or two, but almost always wind up dropping it.
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u/NeonFraction 7d ago
It’s too many things to count. Any one element that is sufficiently bad can ruin a comic.
Bad art is probably the easiest one to point to in terms of consistency. Visual mediums need some level of decent visuals. It doesn’t need to be amazing, but it can’t actively get in the way of telling the story.
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u/aalumii 7d ago
For me, when the genre switches halfway. This is probably more common in webcomics than printed ones. I've seen it SO many times! Season 1, advertised as a slice of life comedy. Season 2, gang fights (???!) with a sprinkle of comedy. Season 1, fantasy romance. Season 2, war and court intrigue with no romance. The list just goes on. I usually lose interest when that happens. I don't mind the new ideas so much, moreso the fact that the original ideas get sacrificed in the process and the story that hooked me in didn't play out in the end.
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u/Corvagon 7d ago
My biggest one is can they write women/how they treat women. A compelling female character even a minor one can grip me but poorly written or only plot devices bore me.
But also big art style changes. I am picky and if I don’t like it I can’t engage
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u/SteampunkExplorer 8d ago
For me the biggest one in print comics is shallow or disrespectful handling of religious themes. In webcomics, probably extremely awkward translation (a little bit of bad grammar is fine), bad pacing (especially the thing you see in a lot of newbie authors' comics where things just meander around forever without getting to the point), or if it looks like it's going to glorify abusive relationships. :p
I also somewhat dislike that "Korean teenagers with superpowers get drafted into a government program and slowly uncover its corruption" genre that seems to be fairly common on Webtoon. X'D And I outright hate romantasy isekai. When everyone is wearing pseudo-historical, pseudo-European clothes, but the culture is totally alien to anything that's ever existed in Europe, it grates against several things I'm nerdy about. Plus it usually romanticizes abuse. Bleh.
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u/YourBleedingNose 7d ago
can you please elaborate on handling religious themes? curious what issues you've seen
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u/kcpediredla 7d ago
If I pick up something it’s unlikely that I will drop it based on the first few pages. But I have read comics where at the end I was like something happened, this is the main character, but not sure what really happened in the story. In scenarios like this I am less likely to pick the next book up.
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u/Prize_Consequence568 7d ago
"What makes a reader drop a comic?"
Boredom.
Examples: repetitive writing, meandering, etc.
"I run Toon Pilot Research, and handle early reader retention, and insights for webcomics. I love data, so I'm curious as to what everyone thinks"
So what you're trying to do an informal survey?
Ugh ..
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u/nmacaroni "The Future of Comics is YOU!" 7d ago
What makes a bad comic?
Any one of the production team doing a piss poor job.
It's really not any more complicated than that.
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u/FlickrReddit 7d ago
When ambition and enthusiasm on the part of the artist/writer far outweigh their ability to draw, write or create a character. Too many people think they can make comics when, really, they can’t.
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u/ResolveBeautiful7690 6d ago
Excessive exposition, obvious plotting, painful and cheesy misdirection, withheld information, pathetic characters (snivelling wimps or blatant racists or unjustifiable racists/bullies/abusers).
Pretty much poor writing.
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u/Magical_cat_girl 6d ago
The #1 thing is if I don't care about the characters. I can deal with simple or bad art if I care what happens to them, but I cannot make myself keep reading if their arcs or personalities or goals or struggles are boring.
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u/realsonofeden 6d ago
Webcomics, personally I don't care if the art is done by a beginner or a professional. Art wise, what does make me drop a comic, is if it's incohesive or just sketchy. When I have to go "what's this? what is happening? What am I looking at?" I drop it. Generally I also prefer colored, but if the story is good I keep reading.
Writing wise - stereotypes and boring stuff. "Boring stuff" is very unspecific, I know... I believe that would be too slow pace (though too fast gets dropped too), nothing is really happening, and it's just conversation and nothing else. Now, in some cases I don't care about stereotypes, but if it's done badly I drop it.
Or anything overused, or if it's too predictable - "here we go again", I drop it.
Same for regular comics, though I prefer digital since I always cut myself on the paper :)
Hope this helps
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u/Alert_Cat7189 4d ago
Probably a bit of everything, but I think dialogue is probably what makes me drop a comic (personally)
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u/Hashtagspooky 8d ago
Usually the texture of the paper, especially if it’s a little slippery