tadpole007 » 8 Oct 2012 » Reply

One of the thing is a lack of attention to the story progression and to character growth and/or interactions. At least for story based ones but my experience with web based comics is relatively new (2-3yrs) so some of that opinion could be carryover from paper based comics.

I’ll say that several times in beginning web comics the author sabotages themselves by trying to revise or reinvent their comic every time they hit a perceived/actual bump in skill level. Completing the story does more for me than having it stop just as it is beginning to hit it’s stride.

Pablo » 5 Apr 2012 » Reply

I don't read a lot of webcomics but I do most of my comics reading in print form. That being said, what kills reading a comic book, comic strip, and/or webcomic for me is bad writing, bad art, too much dialog (too wordy), too boring a story, too many political statements/points/topics in a story (this is a comic; the writer, artist, or publisher is not running for president), the writer's or artist's lack of interest in story and/or characters, bad plot, bad story, bad characters, the high prices for purchasing comics, a lack of anything interesting and new to say, late shipping on comics, bad ending for a story, the story is too slow, too many artists drawing the in same issue/story, and there other things that I can't think of at the moment that can make any comic bad.

parahacker » 10 Sep 2011 » Reply

The #1 thing IMHO that kills a comic is breaking the update schedule (or the ‘rhythm’ of it, if you don’t have a schedule). The worse of a break, the bigger a death.

I honestly don’t know how Dresden Codak manages. It doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe because it takes a few months to figure out a comic he posts, which is just in time for a new one.

The thing that *makes* a webcomic is… well, everything that MSPaintAdventures does. (except for breaking the update rhythm.)

MSPA is intensifibrillo, for lack of a better word. He updates sometimes 7 or 8 times in a single day… the characterization is clear-cut and unique, the plot always threatens to become clear but then another factor is added in that raises questions again… and the dude makes up his own language as he goes along. I’m not suggesting you do that, but I think it’d be a really super good idea to see how that dude does his thing. For one thing, I calculated he makes an average of ~$65/day on his front page advertising alone. I don’t know of ANY other comic author that pulls in that much from banner ads on a single page. He has a store and merchandise and other revenue streams, of course – I speak not of his overall income, but of an unusual statistic I have noticed within it that speaks volumes of his method. Unlike a site like Penny Arcade, MSPaint is not an ancient artifact of the Web 1.0 Revolution; he managed to do this with a relatively new site.

Then there’s his ridiculous ability to pull in talent from other planes of existence… musicians who make tracks for him, Flash animators, other artists who do fills or fanart, and a forum full of incomprehensible creatures that say indecipherable things. Full being the operative word, as there are a great many of these beasts, despite MSPaint having been deployed after Facebook’s ascendency and the death of many forum owner’s ability to find inhabitants.

I say these things not to induce fear or envy of the mutant horror known as Andrew Hussie, author of MSPA. I say this because these tactics can be learned… yes, and used, even, by normal netizens such as yourself.

Cheers, mate. Love your comic and I wish much success for you. – Don

Mercy » 28 Apr 2011 » Reply

The characters have to be engaging, the art has to be beautiful, and the story has to be complex and interesting (and clean). Gag-a-day strips don't do it for me. I will put up with rambles, rabbit trails, and the occasional hiatus if the characters interest me sufficiently; but the story has to be a good one. (I stopped reading Spiky-Haired Dragon:Worthless Knight because, although the art was good, the story was going nowhere and I got sick of seeing the protagonist kicked around mercilessly by fate. And Emergency Exit: the story was neat, but the art was never good, and lately it's been horrid.) Also, it helps to find a comic creator who is friendly and upbeat in the blogs. It's hard to find a really good webcomic…or maybe I'm just a really picky reader. I like BeanLeaf Press for all the reasons I mentioned — art, story, characters, and creator all make me want to keep coming back.

ChrisJ » 27 Apr 2011 » Reply

I don’t do RSS so I can’t say whether it is truly important, but here are the top webcomic killers for me, starting with the worst.
1. Inconsistent updates- I don’t care if it only updates once a week, just get a schedule and keep it so I know when to check. If you’re not going to keep a schedule, don’t put it up to begin with.
2. Cliche story and/or dialogue- If I know where it’s going, why bother taking the time to read?
3. Unclear/Incomprehensible storyline or artwork- Don’t be the Michael Bay of the webcomic world.
4. Ignoring story to make a point- If your characters are constantly going on long, pointless monologues about social or political views, forget it. Put your personal thoughts in a blog post below.
5. Failing to engage the audience- The most successful webcomic artists I’ve seen engage their audience, respond to posts (no, not all of them), and let the audience get to know them. Followers will almost always forgive a week off if they feel like they know the artist a little.

Darrell » 27 Apr 2011 » Reply

Bad art, bad writing and gag strips are the three killers for me. Inconsistent updates don't bother me all that much if the strip is worth it like "Spider and Scorpion". I don't like gag strips as a rule because they all kind of remind me of sitcoms, which I just don't find funny. If these strips could some how add a laugh track? I lean toward long form that insert add humor as part of the package…like Stix and Bones. 😉

billydaking » 27 Apr 2011 » Reply

The RSS feeds aren't important to me. If I find and like a webcomic, I bookmark it and check it on its schedule (or every once in a while when real life intervenes for the artist). If I like it enough to read, I don't need reminders about it.

I've been reading webcomics for about 10 years now, and the biggest problem I see that hurts readership is a regular schedule. While it's easy to say every artist should build up a buffer, I always try to remind myself that the comic usually is the artist's hobby, and hobbies don't allow him or her to eat. Still, it's hard for a reader to keep up with a comic–especially a story-based comic–when the comic updates for a few weeks then goes silent for months. When that happens frequently, readers will tend to float away rather than become attached to the storyline that may not finish, because an erratic schedule tends to be the first sign of a dying comic.

A word about story pace for readers–always keep in mind the comic's update schedule and how the page-at-a-time posting can affect your perception of the pace. Recently, Girl Genius was getting some criticism from its readership for its castle/disease storyline–they felt that the Foglios were spinning their wheels. But when I went back and reread the castle story from the beginning, everything flowed and moved like it should. Because Girl Genius only gives readers three pages a week, the story felt like wheelspinning because unlike previous story, it centered on a single group of characters rather than bouncing around a bit. That's why Red's Planet gave up on weekly updates, because the artist felt that handing out a page once a week was hurting the comic's storytelling–he was feeling compelled to do *something* in each page to keep readers interested rather than serving the overall story pace.

Finally, the writing is more important to me than the art. Heck, watching an artist grow (like Jeph Jacques, who's early strips of Questionable Content were really rough) is one of the things I love about webcomics. If the art's great in the comic (like Bean), it's a major bonus. But the writing has to be there to attract me in the first place and hold me. When you've got great art but weak words, all you've got are pretty pictures. So when the writing drops off, I tend to drop off. Which is probably why I'm a reader rather than a patron.

SolSara » 26 Apr 2011 » Reply

Good artwork, interesting story, RSS Feed and regular updates, but if the artist says s/he needs a hiatus I keep waiting for updates until I get one, otherwise I often start wondering if the artist is dead. I have a couple of webcomics that just stopped updating and no sign of the artist being alive. That's scary.

I don't like it when a comic switches from one storyline to another if I haven't "met" the character before. If the story is starting to slow down (The Phoenix Requiem for example) I usually keep reading until I stop caring about the story. I read over 150 different webcomics so I can afford to be patient, but if it takes too long to update I delete the comic and find something more interesting to read. Sometimes I return to the deleted comic after a year or so and continue to read it, but then it have to have a couple of new, interesting pages.

I like your comic, I really like your style but sometimes it feels it takes too long to update the comic or that the story is taking too long to unfold. Although I might be a bit impatient and want the whole story at once 🙂 Perhaps I will buy the book and enjoy it without having to wait for weekly updates. Anyways, I will keep reading it, I really want to find out what's going to happen to all the characters.

Drezz_Rodriguez » 26 Apr 2011 » Reply

There's a few things that will kill a webcomic for me, but it takes a lot of these poor actions to make me give up on the artist.

– Inconsistent updating (but consistent missed updates and excuses!)
– Unprofessional behaviour
– Preachy content
– Mary Sue / Gary Stu characterization
– Poor navigation on website
– Spamming on Twitter / Facebook / Reddit
– Poor story/dialogue pacing
– Poor writing
– Illegible text
– Too much text
– Poor page composition vs. dialogue placement
– No engagement with readers

That's all I can think of, off the top of my head.