Do you guys ever have people mix up the genre of your comic because they assumed too much?

I'm the artist/writer of Paranormal Activity. Yes, the main character is a crossdresser. No, he IS NOT gay. No, the story is not a shounen-ai. No gay sex for j00.

Do some of you feel your comics or someone else's is often misjudged or unappreciated because of assumptions like these?

Not really, but that's just because my comic is so unfocused. I'm not funny enough to make the series always a comedy, and I'm not deep enough to make it always a drama. Mostly people don't seem to bother trying to say, "Oh, this is a romantic comedy" or "oh, this is an action series!". I guess the uniqueness of that character quirk is what gets people thinking; I certainly don't have anything that out of the ordinary for any of my characters.

luckeeeee.

it's mostly the shounen-ai thing I get. I LIKE shounen-ai, but but... DX

I really don't know what genre to call Vampire Phantasm...as it has a lot of horror, drama, action, and sci-fi combined.

I put it under horror at DD because it's a vampire story...and the bat icon looks appropriate. Though for some reason right now, it has a different icon even though it's selected as horror...what the heck??

I haven't exactly had genre confusion...but yes, people have assumed something would be in my comic. Like shounen-ai, or Hellsing-esk stuff...

Not really that I'm aware of. I know it gets tagged as "furry" a lot, which I don't really like, but can't argue with since the characters all have animal traits. I sincerely hope that nobody is reading it in the hopes of finding "yiffing" or whatever, because that would just be disturbing.

I've never gotten penis's genre confused ever. Its always been a serious drama that focuses on hard hitting topics (such as cutting, abortions, and gender identies) in the most serious and tasteful way possible.

Also it contains subliminal messages about the devil.

No, I think HtbR is pretty straightforward. There are robots. There are aliens. There are pirates. Wackiness ensues.

Brymstone is pretty strait forward (well, to a degree.) in being a fantasy enviroment, although there is a bit of a twist on that in the story later... wayyyy later.

Shifters however, well thats another kettle of fishes. Its a futuristic/cyberpunk/horror/drama/action manga with situational comedy and romance in there... thing. Most people never got the futuristic aspect of it in the original run and mistook the enviroment for modern day, which made some elements confusing. I've been working on that for the Redux version. Its a serious story, with vampires, werewolves and other things, but its still got humor mixed in there, as well as the relationships which includes several love triangles. The comic is character focused, but there is lots of action/fights/explosions.

So its kind of a mixed bag and REALLY hard to define with a single label. I tend to just class it under horror/sci-fi for the sake of simplicity.

HVH is an MS Paint Comic. So I immagine people are reluctant to read it. (Though I have been told that the writing makes up for the art, but I'm an untrusting person anmyway)

Deus is pretty much Fantasy all the way. Although the beginning is kind of cliche. But I couldn't think of another way to start it, honest!

People always think my comics more "beatle ballie" style military humor. And its not.....

I don't think people get the genre of RC mixed up because for all intents and purposes it should be classified as "boys love" because the main romance is between two guys. XD But to me it's a drama first and foremost and I really hope people don't just come to read it in the hope of seeing guys fawking on each page... ^^; Well, I think secretly I hope it'll change their misconceptions about BL being a one-trick-pony and that the stories can have non gay male characters (gasp!) and a plot that doesn't just end up with sex (gaspgasp!).

I don't know what genre my comic is. Sort of lighter atmosphere realish/drama/crime story I guess. (It isn't technically comedy nor is it dead serious.) Threw it under manga, but I don't even know what that means... (The manga I read are Detective Conan and Lupin III. Seems to me that there are all genres of "manga." Most of the ones I'm into aren't the same genre as the ones most of my manga-phile friends are into.) I only really know what it isn't, and I don't think I run the risk of having it mistaken for anything. (No vampires, robots, cowboys, or anything.)

Phantom Penguin
People always think my comics more "beatle ballie" style military humor. And its not.....

Clearly, those people haven't actually read your comic.

The Planet Closest to Heaven is suppose to be a sci-fi ,but there's not many machines, robots or space travel.
There's aliens but they all look human pretty much. :S

Demon Eater easy: horror
or dramatic autobiography of a lesser demon haha

I stuck Frank Baron, NSO under Other because it didn't really fit all that well in any of the other categories. It's a strange hybrid of political/action/sci-fi/comedy. I tend to ignore the genre tags anyway, though, and just check out comics based on what the art looks like or if somebody recommends it.

I have a nice collection of "to read" comics on my faved list. :3

Mrrr, I guess I have a pretty unique problem then. I don't know that I actually did anything to make the story seem like a shounen-ai other than make the two boys main characters and make one of them fruity as hell. XD;; But he isn't gay. He's not straight either, though. He's... nothing, as in not interested either way.

I get nervous that some of my readers are just waiting around for the smex and it ain't gonna happen. :/

I wrote a huge bitchy rant a long time ago on my mainsite because constantly... I am constantly get my main character called "goth" and she's really not. Apparently if you wear a trench coat you're automatically put into that stereotype. Which is sad. She's in the mafia, yes, but the real mafia. And thus, a lot of people won't read the comic because they think she's emo and the like and yeah, she has her issues but they're solid issues in my opinion, not to mention juicy, interesting, dramatic issues. So that always breaks my heart.

I'm just generally not a fan of unfounded opinions. You need to a read any story all the way through its first volume to get a good idea of what the author has planned. If you can't commit to reading 150 pages of a book then you shouldn't commit an opinion about it. If only responsibility was heavier for the critics out there. But that's just non-criticizing me. XD

I get a lot of misunderstandings just drawing something which involves some comedy drawn in a manga style. People expect sweatdrops and chibis and guys walking in on girls changing and slapstick, but my comic style is really very dialogue based and far more influenced by British comedy than Japanese.
Another annoying thing is because it's drawn in a manga style, people think manga body contact and personal space rules apply, and any two girls seen hugging MUST be gay. What the crap!? Girls hug all the time without it being gay at all in real life. It's only in Japan, and so in Japanese manga convention that any body contact denotes romantic involvement.

Mostly though, my comic doesn't sit well in a single genre, so people don't even try to catagorise it. The most irritating catagory I've been shoved into was 'Sword and Sorcery." I know my comic has swords...and yeah, it's got magic...but 'Sword and Sorcery' makes me think of bad Tolkein ripoffs with non-evil dragons, girls in chainmail bikinis and magical ancient talismans....ughhhh.
The most annoying and over-asked question isn't a genre one though, it's "how do you colour/tone this?" Seriously, if you read though all the page comments and take a shot for every time this question is asked...you may die of alcohol poisoning. I've stated at least twice in page notes it's copic markers...and they STILL ASK!

junoblairb
I wrote a huge bitchy rant a long time ago on my mainsite because constantly... I am constantly get my main character called "goth" and she's really not.

Of course, my characters, especially Jack, are called goths...but since the characters are in a dark setting and are vampires that wear a lot of black, I don't really bother fighting them on that whenever it's brought up.

Though one weird comment I heard was when I said something about goths at one point...I forget what exactly...Then someone said something basically along the lines of "Well, goths are your audiance. That's what VP is aimed mainly torwards."

I didn't bother arguing with this person, but I thought..."now wait a minute...what the hell does that mean?" Nevermind how people dress, are they saying my comic is for all the emos? Whaat??

Well, there wasn't really much of an argument when creating Victory Theme- it's straight up comedy. I considered 'Real Life', since the characters technically live in today's society, but after introducing Reynell, I figured that was out the window. Besides, the second strip has a boy getting shot in the head over gelatin.

SarahN
I didn't bother arguing with this person, but I thought..."now wait a minute...what the hell does that mean?" Nevermind how people dress, are they saying my comic is for all the emos? Whaat??

See I still try to see a difference between goths and the new 'emo' trend. It's the day someone calls Juno emo that I just... well... cry.

Emo is a bad cheap imitation of goth.

Stop my breathing and slit my throat,
I must be emo.
I don't jump around when I go to shows,
I must be emo.

Sorry, couldn't resist!

reidavidson
Do you guys ever have people mix up the genre of your comic because they assumed too much?

I'm the artist/writer of Paranormal Activity. Yes, the main character is a crossdresser. No, he IS NOT gay. No, the story is not a shounen-ai. No gay sex for j00.

Do some of you feel your comics or someone else's is often misjudged or unappreciated because of assumptions like these?

I totally get what you mean...We are always lumped with furries and we have gotten several messages from people that want to "hook" up with Husband and I 'cause of this. The characters in our comic are a cat and a dog, but that's just 'cause we thought it'd be cute and differentiate from the "married humor" that's out there. We don't dress up as animals and boink. I feel your pain.

Most furry fans, I'm like "hey sup! Like furries? They're kinda cute. I like a cat boy myself every now and then."

And then there's the others who I'm like "HOMG what's wrong with you?! DX"

I've had people refer to Dasien as a manga before, and I suppose that's understandable to some degree. That's really not what it's supposed to be. That's really the only genre confusion that I've seen. Otherwise, most people get it right: superhero/drama/humor.