CTID: TEXT WALLS

”The thing I’m going to talk about in this part of my series of Comic Things I Dislike often appears with the ’talking heads’ phenomenon mentioned earlier, though of course not always. What I’m referring to here is text walls which means that the panels are filled with way too much text.” //
”As I said, ’talking heads’ and text walls quite often appear together, and there is one very good reason for this. They come from the same place and same kind of need. Often, not every time.” //
”What I mean here is the comic maker’s need to talk about something, tell their opinion or explain some abstract concept, not so much the want or need to tell about something that has happened.” //
”One easily falls victim to a text wall if one has important things to say about something that is difficult to draw about. However, most comic creators try to avoid making text wall comics. And for a good reason, too. Text walls are mostly considered pretty boring as they make reading the comic painstaking and slow.” //
”Sometimes it is a good idea for a comic maker to ask themselves if it is necessary to make a comic about some topic just because they’re used to do so. Maybe it is better to just write about certain things if they don’t make good comics.” //
”Because text wall comics often aren’t visually that interesting…” //
”…as the text by definition fills most of the panel. If you still want to make that comic, think first about which things are the most important ones to say.” //
”If your character has plenty to say… you can divide their lines into more than one speech bubble. Then the text wall doesn’t look that bad.” //
”Or you can bring in another character with whom to discuss the topic. A dialogue is often much more interesting in comics than a monologue, and like in real life conversation, in a dialogue the lines naturally stay shorter.” ”Could you please let me talk here, too?”

CTID: TALKING HEADS

”One thing that many comic readers don’t like and most comic artists try to avoid is so-called ’talking heads’ comic.” //
”It means a comic in which in almost every panel there is a ’talking head’ explaining something.” //
”Mostly you end up with this when the comic maker has something important they want to say, not so much if they have a story to tell.”
”The problem with the ’talking head’ is that it get quickly boring as nothing happens and mostly the backgrounds aren’t that interesting, either. In shorter form, such as in Fok_it, the ’talking head may work.” //
”The ’talking head’ phenomenon easily happens also if you have two people discussing something.” ”Indeed. Conversations work without problems in books but not so easily in comics or movies.” //
In Tex Willer the characters mostly discuss by campfires where making coffee brings something visually interesting the the panels! //
”Comic artists easily fall for ’talking heads’ because they’re so easy to draw.” //
”So it’s a good idea to draw the character doing something while they’re explaining stuff. It’s more work when drawing but the end result is usually much better!”

CTID: UNREADABLE HANDWRITING

(Illegible handwriting)
”So if your handwriting is messy or unreadable, ask someone else to letter your comics… or do it by computer.”

Jos et jaksanut lukea sotkujani, niin näin siinä lukee:
”Yksi asia, mikä häiritsee ihan tosi paljon.” //
”Käsiala. Ja siis varsinkin tosi huono käsiala.” //
”Käsiala on tietysti kaikilla ihan omanlainen.” //
”Ja se on ihan hyvä asia, ei sen tarvitsekaan olla kaikilla sama.” //
”Erilaisia kirjoitustyylejä ja käsialoja käyttäen voi myös tuoda esimerkiksi persoonallisuutta eri hahmojen puhekupliin. Ehkä joku huutaa tai joku toinen puhuu kaunopuheisemmin.” //
”Mutta käsialan pitää AINA olla luettavissa ilman että se on vaikeaa tai vaatii vaivaa.” //
”Koska vaikka olisi kuinka hyvä tarina ja kuvitus, niin jos on vaikea lukea, mitä hahmot sanovat, niin kyllä se sarjis jää lukematta. Ainakin minulta.”

Here’s what’s written in that terrible handwriting:
”One thing that really annoys me.” //
”Handwriting. And I mean bad handwriting.” //
”Everyone of course has their own style of writing by hand.” //
”And that’s a good thing, not everyone’s handwriting has to be the same.” //
”By using different types of writing and lettering you can, for example, also bring personality to different characters’ speech bubbles. Maybe someone is shouting and someone else is more eloquent.” //
”But handwriting must ALWAYS be legible without it being hard or taking too much effort.” //
”Because even if the story and the drawings are really good, if the text is difficult to read, then the reader is not going to read it. At least I won’t.”

PS. Kiitos äidilleni viimeisen ruudun puhekuplan tekstaamisesta.
PS. Thanks to my mom for lettering the speech bubble in the last panel.

PPS. Tottakai se on Comic Sans, mitä muutakaan odotitte?
PPS. Of course it’s Comic Sans, what were you expecting?

CTID: INTRO

”Hello everyone!” //
”This post is the first in a little longer series of comics. Its name is ’Comic things I dislike’.” //
”Its original name was ’Comic things I hate” but ’hate’ is too strong a word for these comics, and too absolute.” //
”I’m planning to tell about thing in comics, mostly in the comic style, that I dislike or find irritating.” //
”I also want to say that I am not a professional in comics but these are the opinions of an amateur. Also, all comic makers have their own style, and some use the things that I normally dislike really well!” //
”And indeed, these are my OPINIONS. Everyone can like exactly the comics they like – or not like!” //
”And yes, over the years I have fallen ’guilty’ of probably all the things I’m going to talk about.” //
”So I hope you don’t take this too seriously. I don’t want to insult anyone, I just want to talk about comics! We’ll start in the next post!”