I'm back from vacation, have recovered a bit and now as promised the beginning of Critique-A-Week! A feature where I give comic tips, but up a piece of my own for critique, and others can post their own drawings in the comments for myself and others to critique!

Let's begin!



Avoid Narration

Comics are a visual medium, like film. How much does it annoy you when a film opens with a big wall of text? Have you ever even read the Star Wars text crawls (and if you have you're a nerd)?

Reams of narration on the first page or even worse the first several pages will generally scare off readers. Now that's not to say narration can never be used effectively in a comic, especially if there is a thematic reason: like a character telling a story from the past and the narration opens every chapter, a character transitioning into a flashback etc. But I'd say avoid it in most cases, especially at the beginning of the first comic. There's nothing you can't portray through dialog and actions, and opening narration is too tempting for first time comic writers to just info dump all their world building and backstory on the readers all at once.  

Although a comedy review this video is basically everything you need to know about what not to do with narration in a comic. Or really, what not to do with a comic period.

Next week will be a related topic: Exposition. I'll be using examples from one of my favorite exposition abusers Kaori Yuki.





A pretty weak page in my mind and at least one person has said they thought the panel layout in the bottom right looks silly. Critique away!

And now, add your own drawings to the comments! Let's make this a thing!