Worst COMIC BOOK mistakes (art, dialog, narration, overall plot ect)


CreativelyCreative's avatar
What just... gets you when you are reading a comic, what problems do you immediately notice and what are they? This can be ranging from art to the writing itself to the overall storyline / arc. Most of all, why does it bother you and how frequently do comicbooks make this (or these) mistakes.
Comments108
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
anghorkheng's avatar
Hi, guys...I can see so many different opinions regarding comic and its storytelling styles/ influences...hope you guys can also let me know what you think about my short comic here:
Lytrigian's avatar
You have a panel showing some fast action. Perhaps it's Spiderman throwing a punch. And it's PACKED with dialogue, when for the action shown there can't possibly be time to say all that.

And who talks that much when they're fighting, other than brief trash talk? It's the wrong time for a stream of clever witticisms.
CreativelyCreative's avatar
only spiderman :) you didn't know? spiders have amazing trashtalk ability too.
Mikethemerciless's avatar
Continually killing characters off only to bring them back to life later on.
MyImmortal-Manga's avatar
The plotlines don't bother me per-say its the names that start with the same letter as the Last Name etc Peter Parker but some of the comics books are ok but it does ask questions such as why could superman not fly and stuff in the very beginning of the first chapter rather than later on?
bennihana's avatar
Every time Marvel hires John Romita Jr. for something. Ive skipped issues due to my distaste in his style over the past twenty years. Just not a fan.
cajunattack's avatar
Artwork where you can't distinguish between characters other than their clothes
Script/dialog that you can't distinguish between characters and they all seem to talk in the same 'voice'.
Pop trivia references thrown in at every available opportunity
Arbitrary swearing/sexual references/violence when it's unnecessary to the storyline
'Adult' comics that try desperately hard to be 'Adult' comics yet descend into the same tawdry juvenile subject matter they originally wanted to distance themselves from.

See: Y the Last Man.
rainbowkitty777's avatar
> When the comic book is one long scene. Bonus points if it carries over to the next comics.
> Over-emphasis on text. It removes the impact of the text, and looks bad. A simple 'Go!' or 'Go!!!' is fine. I don't want 'Go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'.
> Panels that run into each other with no border separating them. It's fine for beginnners, but when it's published like so, that's where things take a nose dive.
> Comics that are too lighthearted that are meant to be not. If it's meant to be dark, MAKE IT DARK. GEEZ.
> Stereotyping. 'Nuff said.
> Panels not being used effectively for emphasis It just seems so... bland that way.
CreativelyCreative's avatar
thank you. added alot to my list.
Takatake's avatar
i think that first page of manga-comics has to be one of the most epic things uve ever seen. dialog doesnt matter to me as much as art, thou hook up sentence might also take attention. but cover and first page have to be epic- some mangas start of very lamely with bunch of dialog and it gets annoying.
TronmanZ's avatar
TojiX's avatar
whats wrong with JQ?
Rocktzar's avatar
He canceled X-Men The Hidden Years.
TojiX's avatar
maybe sales are low, from a business point of view that's practical.
TronmanZ's avatar
TojiX's avatar
Whats wrong about it?
TronmanZ's avatar
Amazing Spider-Man #700. As if Secret Invasion, Ultimatum and One More Day weren't bad enough, they bring out this slap to the face of a comic. This is why I gave up on Marvel Comics and became an IDW fan instead.
Rocktzar's avatar
Yeah but all the X-men events were great.
ADHDnoJutsu's avatar
I don't get sound effects in comics that do not clearly describe a certain sound, like Crash or Boing, those are clear. In Japanese manga, you get Gogogogogogogogogogogogogogogogo across the whole page, ugly, and what do I have to read 20x "go" for? Apparantly it represents tension or suspense, but does one actually ever HEAR tension? And does it go "gogogogogogogo"? Pissed me off, especially in French or other non-Japanese adaptation when it made even less sense. Distracting, ugly, and just makes no sense.
SpaceTurtleStudios's avatar
Sound effects are different across language. In Japanese, dogs don't bark or say 'woof,' they say 'wan wan'. Cats say 'nyaa' instead of 'meow.' Naturally the sound effects for other things will be different. It's just a different style of writing.
ADHDnoJutsu's avatar
Nya and wan are things you can hear those animals say. I mean, if it's spelled Meow or Nya, kinda sounds the same in the end. But the air, or tension, simply don't go Gogogogogogogo. Ever.
SpaceTurtleStudios's avatar
The air doesn't ever go "dun dun duuuuuuun!" either, but we recognize it as a cue that something dramatic is happening. The point I'm making is that it's just a stylistic abstraction. It makes sense to the Japanese.
ADHDnoJutsu's avatar
If the dun dun duuuun would be in print media, it would bother me too. Audiovisual works are enhanced by sound effects even if unnatural, but telling people in print that they need to feel a certain way about the mood, to me, is an indication that the comic artist just doesn't know how to otherwise show suspense, tension, etc. without clumsily applying audiovisual elements to print media. If you can't draw a feeling/mood, you can't draw stories. Or at least you act like you can't. For example, Nobuhiro Watsuki would have done just as great a job without resorting to that bullshit. Just that there wouldn't have been a huge string of letters printed across the image, bigger than the image itself.