whats your opinion on comics artists succeding despite their lack of writing skills? what are some other examples of this? Can other qualities make a work stand out when the narrative is shit or is appealing to your target audience more important that properly producing good storytelling?
I see people stressing the "storytelling > art" thing often in /mmg/ but I don't see anything wrong with having your fist short works being purely art focused if you're a beginner and want to improve your drawing skills first.
>whats your opinion on comics artists succeding despite their lack of writing skills?
Good for them, but maybe bad for literary development of humankind, I guess? Only maybe, because sometimes a mediocre work can inspire a genius.
>I see people stressing the "storytelling > art" thing often in /mmg/ but I don't see anything wrong with having your fist short works being purely art focused if you're a beginner and want to improve your drawing skills first.
One thing to keep in mind: there is a fine line in everything, if the art is gorgeous, but the story is absolute drivel, you won't have many readers sitting till the end of it, if the story is brilliant, but the art is a total slop of stick men, not many will be willing to notice it in the first place and sit long enough to realize that it's brilliant.
Why are you using these as examples of lacking writing skills? All of them achieve what they set out to do and communicate what they aimed to communicate. You've never actually encountered bad writing if these are your examples. These are, at worst, mediocre.
Anyway what determines a comic's success is absolutely nothing more than whether or not it sells. There's many reasons a work might sell, but it all boils down to "did it connect with an audience". Many series that, on paper, should have connected with an audience failed to do so and so were cancelled due to poor sales. Plenty of series were surprise hits, indicating a market demand that was previously unrealized. If anybody could predict what will succeed and and what will fail it would be editors of manga specifically, and even they seem to admit it's mostly a crapshoot.
>Why are you using these as examples of lacking writing skills?
Spawn still constantly get mocked by lots of people for McFarlane's subpar storytelling while Fairy Tail is universally recognised as being extremely bland and repetitive.
And? If you go by "consensus" anything that has a review aggregate less than 7.5 is worthless garbage. Going purely by consensus is a bad idea. These are not poorly written, they're just mediocre. Not the same thing, and seeing truly bad writing makes this clear. Besides, you say "universally recognized", but would the fans of these series agree? They're all wildly successful works, it's clearly not a universal consensus.
And to clarify, I don't mean to defend them. I don't enjoy the writing in these series, but in a discussion about how writing skills or a lack thereof approaching it with some perspective is crucial. If we're not even doing that then this discussion is a complete waste of time for everybody involved.
spawn writing is fine/ occasionally good, and todd is gods gift to mankind
>spawn also doesnt really sell that much
>Can other qualities make a work stand out when the narrative is shit
There's more to writing than just the obvious storyline. Let's say the story is about 2 dudes going to the shops to get some groceries:
-The two dudes can be really lovable characters who bounce off each other fantastically, so in this case we're interested because of the characters and how charming they are, and not the plot,
-Similarly to the above, the two bounce off each other well, but they're also hilarious. Everything they say and do is gut busting; in this case, it's the comedy and jokes that keep people interested, not the grocery plot,
-Opposite to the above, what if the grocery story is just a framing device for the character and world building? The two dudes may be so broke they are worried about the amount of petrol for their car, they count the change in their pockets and hope they can afford some instant noodles to eat. Outside the store could be swaths of homeless and prostitutes. In this case, we're not interested in the fact they're grocery shopping, we're interested in all the details we're being fed about the world of the narrative that come about because of their grocery shop,
-Or maybe the two dudes are really fucking cool and suave, they wear the most fashionable fits, say the most charming things, and are driving a ferarrie to the high end grocers; in this case it's the 'feeling' that we're getting from the media, rather than the plot (this applies to cozy things such as slice of life as well),
-Let's say the dudes are really handsome, and while they're doing their shopping, they chat up some really hot chicks; they then fuck the chicks back at their place. In this case, again, it's not the plot that's selling the work, but the sex.
So there are things outside of the obvious story that people can appreciate.
I haven't read anything in your picrel besides some Spawn and Solo-Leveling, but both could mostly go into the 'feeling' category, to make you feel badass.
>comics artists succeding despite their lack of writing skills?
They just prove that Todd McFarlane is absolutely right.
It's all about the art, action, romance and sex appeal.
>It's all about the art, action, romance and sex appeal.
I think for short term sales, great art will definitely grab people's attention, but it's not going to keep it.
So I'd still say Story>Art overall.
yeah totally all these 1# manga and comics have really deep story bringing people back invincible is the iliad of our generation
>invincible is the iliad of our generation
KEK
>slopvincible is the iliad of our generation
>great art will definitely grab people's attention, but it's not going to keep it
Bleach had 698 chapters, its story is a repetitive joke and it lasted 15 years.
Fairy tail is utter garbage and it lasted over a decade.
>its story is a repetitive joke
So it had a great initial hook? It sounds like the writing was initially great but nose dived, rather than being shit from the beginning.
>So it had a great initial hook?
Bleach was never good but it got worse over time.
Its story is basically:
>Main character fight le strong(er) bad guy 100x
Comicsgate BTFO
Wouldn't it be the opposite? I think the comicsgate dudes are the ones who would want sexy women and good art above all else.
Not that I'm particularly knowledgeable about this shit.
Why tho?
They want sexy ladies and they hate Tumblr tier Marvel "art" so they would agree with Todd.
>You'll never get popular with bad art and a good sto-ACK
The art is actually good, you just got filtered, bitch ass
I love TGT.
But I'm not gonna pretend that the early chapters don't look like absolute Hell.
That's why I like it.
It's not about "never" but "harder" otherwise OPM webcomic & Mob 100 wouldn't be popular.
Todd is basically saying that art matters more than story in most comics but not always.
It's pretty clear that most pop media is shit-infused on a certain level. Look at the success of Naruto and its spinoff and you can't really take the "muh story" crowd too literally. This is a show I enjoyed as a teen until it just kept getting shittier for the sake of profit.
The actual translation of "story is king" is "pander to me." The masses want melodrama, scandal, spectacle, shipping, not literary works that stand the test of time. Moby-Dick is just that book you read in high school.
Now to be clear, something can be well written without being high art. But you have to read the meaning behind the meaning. A lot of people, most people are not asking for ACTUALLY good writing that rejuvenates the soul. They want dumb fights, fucking, and relationships.
>most people are not asking for ACTUALLY good writing that rejuvenates the soul. They want dumb fights, fucking, and relationships.
This
If you interact with any fandom you'll notice a pattern where men only care about dumb shit like "Who's stronger? Goku or Superman?" and women only care about "Will X-chan end up with Y-kun or Z-senpai?" X-chan is her self-insert.
This shit is what sell, add sexy bitches or guys with 6 packs, blue eyes and white hair and you're gonna sell your comic even if the story is dogshit.
you're not as good of a writer as a mediocre mangaka
A comic can be more focused on the artwork, or more on the story. Or it can be a balance of both. There's a lot of flexibility there
People love slop, what more can be said? Wording it like that sounds elitist but I love slop too.
>I see people stressing the "storytelling > art" thing often in /mmg/
when was the last time you seen anything well written, hell I will even extent it to /webtoon/ /hyw/ as well, when have you ever seen any that was well written there? dont take advice from ameture comicfags.
I don't think OP was asking for advice, he was explicitly asking for opinions.
>when was the last time you seen anything well written, hell I will even extent it to /webtoon/ /hyw/ as well
I suppose it depends on what you consider to be "well written". I'm
and I'm pretty sure that my view on "good writing" is different from a lot of poster's views of "good writing".
Anyway, here's something to think about: how would you even know if any of these comics are well written (well other than whether or not they hook you) when almost none of these projects are ever finished and wrapped up? When a work is being made you're basically watching somebody stack blocks. You don't really know whether this stack of blocks is going to fall over, or even what the intended structure IS until the person stacking them says "alright, it's complete". All you can say before it's complete is whether you do or do not like the direction it's heading in and whether or not you're interested in continuing to follow along. Although of course a basic level of coherence is typically obvious early on.
>dont take advice from ameture comicfags
Not to say that you should just take every piece of advice you see in these places but there is at the very least one professional currently posting in /mmg/ (full disclosure: myself), a now-professional who definitely used to post in /mmg/ (monotone_ink) and somebody who was actively courting a magazine to make their pro debut in, though I think thus far unsuccessfully (alice anon). This is just the people who identified themselves. There are beginners, there are people with a bit of experience, there are people who are getting close to going pro/pro-am and there are people who are actually at the point where publishers are willing to publish their work. Remains to be seen if anyone will actually find lasting success of course, but my point is there there are people who have at least some idea of what they're talking about around.