What makes a good webcomic?

[ThatNickGuy]

I've been thinking about the endless discussions Scott Kurtz has in his "war" against the newspaper strips. There's so many webcomics out there, pretty much one for everyone (except pro-wrestling, so far as I know; if I could draw, I'd do it). But I'm wondering what exactly makes a good webcomic?

Here's a few things that, for me, makes it great:

1) Consistency - Five of my favourite webcomics update on such a regular basis that you can almost set your watch two it. This includes Menage a 3, Multiplex, Shortpacked, Cyanide & Happiness, and Gutters. I can wake up on the day they update, knowing there will be a new strip to read. Then again, one of my other favourites, Order of the Stick, is almost infamous for its inconsistency. Still, I think it's one of those defining things. Kinda like that Least I Could Do strip, with the challenge to the webcomic creator to update every day consistently for five years. I'd have to put PVP and Ctrl-Al-Del on here as well, since - while Kurtz doesn't always update exactly on the hour - it's always the same day. Then again, one comic I enjoy is horrible with their updates - Comic Critics. It's more often I'll check and be expected not to see an update than see an update.

2) Art - This is debatable. Kurtz has certainly improved on his art ten-fold throughout his cartooning career. Hell, you can even debate that Tim Buckley has improved since early CAD times. But if there's one thing I've learned about comics through my study of them, just because the art isn't detailed, it doesn't mean it's bad. You can evoke great emotions from basic art because the less detailed it becomes, the more iconic it becomes, represent something rather than something specific (the specific term for this is "iconography") Order of the Stick is my absolute best example of this. It's very basic, stick-figure art, yet has had some of the best character arcs and undeniably emotional moments. Heck, another of my favourites, Darths & Droids, uses screen-captures from the Star Wars movies and it's great! They clearly put a lot of time and effort to get the right captures for facial expressions and such, but it's technically not "art" in the classic sense.

3) Writing - Some comics - like XKCD, Gutters, or Cyanide & Happiness - don't have story or character arcs, yet they're some of the best and funniest comics. PVP has had a lot of great character development and storyarcs (and CAD, debatably). So it's not just one type of writing. Heck, it doesn't even have to be funny to be great. Order of the Stick, one of the funniest comics, has had some heart-wrenching moments. Ditto for Shortpacked. I started reading Multiplex for its quirky jokes about current movies, but wound up getting wound up in its great character development and storyarcs.

That's a few things for me. I think I wound up asking myself more questions rather than coming to any conclusion. Webcomics are sort of like a 3-ring circus: there's something for everyone. If you don't like the high-wire act, you might like the clowns piling out of a pinto or the lion tamer. I'm not a big fan of XKCD because a lot of the math/science equation humour sails right over my head. But I likely appreciate Gutters more than the average person because I have a great appreciation for comic books.

What do you guys think? What makes a good webcomic for you?

 

[Allen who is Quiet]

A good webcomic is just a good comic that is put on the web. Which is concise enough to sound condescending, so I'll try talking about some other things that can help but aren't imperative.

Consistency isn't too important, since RSS feeds and social networking can let readers know when you've updated. The more important thing is to update often. At the very least, it should be once a week. If that cannot be managed, then the important thing for the creator is to maintain an image that they are not spending time sitting on their ass doing nothing. If the artist has pages that clearly took a long time to do, is constantly posting illustrations and supplemental materials to fan-accessible spaces, or is honest about why they cannot maintain a schedule like that, then people can be very forgiving about updating slowly.

Being good at art, writing, and story structure will make for good webcomics, but they are not essential at first. Given that they can be put up by anyone, even complete amateurs, there is quite a bit of learning on the job to be expected. As long as the creator puts in the work, they will get better.

While maintaining a social connection with fans isn't required, if it is done, the creator shouldn't act like a piece of shit. It's very easy for your personality to be part of your image in webcomics so it should be as pleasant as possible. People can and will judge a webcomic artist based on how they act. Like every job, you aren't allowed to have a bad day and let it get in the way of work, and for some, being social is part of the job. Losing readers because you threw a public tantrum is stupid, but it can and will happen. If you doubt your ability to be nice to people on the internet for the entire scheduled run of your comic, then maintain as little online presence as possible.

As a corollary to the social thing, webcomic artists do not owe their readers anything, but they shouldn't act like it. Even if I'm probably not, I do like to feel appreciated for taking the small amount of time to read the person's work. If an artist needs to badmouth a fan or two, which... eh, but if they really have to, it should be clear that it's only a very small amount of people being referred to. Qualifying language is necessary. "You guys" sounds like everybody is the problem. "People at a convention who [X]" is very clear who is being referred to, and odds are, most readers don't fall into that category, so it doesn't sound like the entire readership is being insulted.

tl;dr Do a lot of work. Don't be a dick.

 

[Hailey Knight]

There used to be a wrestling webcomic called Awesomeness and a Slice of Cheese that ran for three or four years and wasn't bad. I knew the guy over ComicGenesis for a while. All the images are gone from the site though and it hasn't updated in five years.

As for comics, the most seem to not be based around stories and characters, but around humorous one-shots. Penny Arcade, XKCD, SMBC.

That said, my favorite webcomics are story-driven. Gunnerkrigg Court, Shortpacked, Derelict. I don't need laughs all the time, and sometimes a good story is hard to come by.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

Heh, do a lot of work, Kurtz has done. Not being a dick? Not so much. Though as I said over onthe PVP thread, I think he's tamed a bit in the last few years. I agree, though, that it takes a lot of hard work to keep a consistent comic going. Comic Critics doesn't update weekly. Hell, sometimes an entire month goes by without an update or any notification as to why.

I'd say the most successful ones have been one-shots, I agree. Even Penny Arcade has the occassional mini-storyarc. Nothing long-term like PVP or anything. Gabe and Tycho are essentially the same characters as they were so many years ago. To be honest, I don't really read Penny Arcade all too often. I'm just not a big fan. I respect all they've accomplished for being "just a webcomic" but I've never really been a big fan of the comic itself.

One thing I've wondered about a webcomic would be a serious one. I don't know of any that aren't entirely straight-up serious. I wonder if a webcomic could be similar to, say, the old Superman newspaper strips: a week-long storyarc, culminating in a bigger, coloured Sunday strip.

 

[Hailey Knight]

One thing I've wondered about a webcomic would be a serious one. I don't know of any that aren't entirely straight-up serious. I wonder if a webcomic could be similar to, say, the old Superman newspaper strips: a week-long storyarc, culminating in a bigger, coloured Sunday strip.

I take it you mean "are" since you listed several that aren't straight-up serious. I think you don't know of any because you haven't browsed that side of the lesser-known. You really have to dig through the works on ComicGenesis to find serious ones, and harder to find good ones. I used to know a few, but they've died in the past few years. And even if the comic is serious, because of the nature of webcomics, it still needs each page to end with a "punchline", even if it's not actually a joke. You can't storyboard it like a comic book because that doesn't lead to much day-to-day fulfillment, and that's essential to a webcomic's getting readers.

I'm just gonna link Derelict here. It deserves the attention. If you're looking for a good, serious webcomic, that's the one I'm reading each week.

 

[Allen who is Quiet]

The problem with purely serious ones is just that they're a lot more difficult to pull off in the format that most webcomics follow. Good drama requires good pacing, but since number of pages directly correlates to amount of time the story gets released, what might be a well-paced story in a book where every page is released at once could be a much slower, potentially frustrating, experience on the web. This is why comics that focus on episodic content tend to do better than story-based comics.

Also, every individual entry in a webcomic could be somebody's first impression, so if somebody's first impression happens at the wrong time in a well-made story, they could be turned off. Imagine if the first Sherlock Holmes story you read, you started at Holmes putting his plan to catch the crook into action.

Side note: MS Paint Adventures gets around the first impression problem by having http://mspaintadventures.com lead straight to the first page of the current arc, Homestuck.

I'd imagine the Superman serials were able to partially work around the problem of a day-to-day narrative by being able to say "It's about Superman", but most webcomics can't do that.

Story comics can and do work, it's just not as easy as doing a humor-based strip.

 

[MindDetective]

The problem with purely serious ones is just that they're a lot more difficult to pull off in the format that most webcomics follow. Good drama requires good pacing, but since number of pages directly correlates to amount of time the story gets released, what might be a well-paced story in a book where every page is released at once could be a much slower, potentially frustrating, experience on the web. This is why comics that focus on episodic content tend to do better than story-based comics.

Also, every individual entry in a webcomic could be somebody's first impression, so if somebody's first impression happens at the wrong time in a well-made story, they could be turned off. Imagine if the first Sherlock Holmes story you read, you started at Holmes putting his plan to catch the crook into action.

Side note: MS Paint Adventures gets around the first impression problem by having http://mspaintadventures.com lead straight to the first page of the current arc, Homestuck.

I'd imagine the Superman serials were able to partially work around the problem of a day-to-day narrative by being able to say "It's about Superman", but most webcomics can't do that.

Story comics can and do work, it's just not as easy as doing a humor-based strip.

I have noticed this problem with Girl Genius. When I read the the archives after first getting into it, it had great pacing. Now I find it much less enjoyable because I read a page every few days. A worse example is Lackadaisy. Both are great, but suffer via the format.

 

[phil]

Likeable characters.

I can forgive a lot from late updates to not being particularly funny and even subpar art if I actually give a damn about the characters.

This is largely why I'm done with comics like CTL-ALT-DEL and LICD. Their haracters have not evolved in any real way since their inception and it's just boring and predictible.

On the other hand you have comics like shortpacked where the characters do undergo a level of change that sticks with them.

 

[Zappit]

Look up Dean Hapsiel. He does creative, serious webcomics, putting up issues at a time.

 

[PatrThom]

I so want to comment in this thread when I can sit down for an hour or so and painstakingly craft a post.
But that will not be today.

--Patrick

 

[phil]

Tease.

 

[Piotyr]

Here's what makes a good webcomic for me:
- Consistent art style - It can take a while to develop a style, but the artist eventually needs to find a style and go with it.
- Actual effort in art - Copy-paste gets boring after a while.
- Smart writing - Dumb throwaway jokes can work on occasion, but if the entire comic starts to resemble a series of throwaway jokes (*cough* LFG *cough*) it just stops being fun to read.
- Well-defined characters - The comic needs to have characters that can be related to in some way.
- An ability to not take itself too seriously - It's a webcomic, and it can be too easy to write yourself into a corner with continuity if you start trying to throw every possible subplot into the comic.