I was reading a webcomic a few days ago, and I really loved the protagonist's design, and his past seemed frightfully intriguing. the artwork for the comic was spot-on, and there were very, very few spelling/grammar errors.
But it was just boring!! And hard to follow!! there were huge chunks of dialogue, characters would be thrown in without an introduction, and there weren't any jokes at all. And the main character wasn't even all that prominent.
I read about half of the comic before realizing I had no idea who the characters on the page I was reading were, nor whom they were talking about.
I guess this is a long-winded segue into a discussion of:
what makes you turn away from an otherwise promising comic?

so for me, it's when a story fails to develop the main character satisfyingly, and takes off in too many directions.
also, I mean, sometimes big chunks of dialogue can work, like on these two pages of Lola (which is one of my favorite webcomics ever...)
http://www.drunkduck.com/Lola/index.php?p=23938
http://www.drunkduck.com/Lola/index.php?p=23939
but the reason it works there is because the monologue-thing is interesting, evokes the pathos of the reader, and develops the character. which the other comic didn't, really.
yeah.

long needless conversations that lasts for a long time with nothing happening.
uninteresting dialogue, basic dialogue.

Fatal errors of webcomics?

Not having the Internet.

oh ho-ho-ho...
but hey, I don't have the internet-- (I haven't since January!) so I go to the library! ... I'm there right now, even though it's 5 am. ~_~ paper writing!!!

Fatal errors? Hmmmm...

The comic artist being too full of themself. Nothing turns off the readers like a plug or an opening page or first comment that reads like:
"Hi, I'm Radicalawesome56, I draw ths comic for you guys! I hope you're ready for another of my kickass comics, 'cause this one, 'Kickass Ninja Robo X' is going to be even cooler than 'Apocalypse Killer Freaks'! Believe it! KNRX is the awesome story of a robot ninja in a dark city, fighting incredible badguys you won't believe! The art is by ME, Radicalawesome56! Read it or die!"
That was one I made up, but I'm sure it'll strike a few of you as familiar. I see it a lot...strangely it's very common among sprite comic artists...

Obviously, as I've said in the webcomic cliches thread before, the comic opening with three pages of longwinded history of some fantasy world and nothing to get you into things annoys me. There's gotta be something within the first two or three pages to grab and intregue me.

Threatening to kill off characters or discontinue the comic unless you get enough comments....that's LAME.

Posting more fillers than pages is an obvious one. The negative effects can be seen even in popular comics like Megatokyo. People underestimate how much a filler disrupts the flow of the comic.

The biggest one though...Drawing a webcomic with the expectation of becoming rich and famous. Comics drawn with this goal in mind....well, they're pretty doomed. All the popular comics you see online were drawn originally for fun.

Absolutely, having a beginning that's so wordy and boring that most people won't bother reading past the first five pages. As with any book or movie, you need to catch and hold your reader's attention, or they'll just leave and not come back.

I'd say another fatal error is simply failing to update at a reasonable pace ( and by "update" I do not mean posting a sketch of a character saying "Sorry I promise I'll post a real update next week!" ). If a comic doesn't update for weeks and weeks on end, again, people will just lose interest and stop checking back. Once you've lost a reader, it's difficult to get them back.

I agree with almost everything said.
I also hate pages with too much text, it just makes you not want to read it.

Another fatal error I see is inconsistency in the art.
For me it doesn't matter if the art is ugly as long as it stays consistent throughout the pages. Some times when I go to the next page of a comic it seems like it's drawn by another person and this really turns me off.

errors...uhmmm

feeling like you've worked on something so long.. that now its boring and old... so you quit. You gotta know that even if its old for you... its new to people who have never seen it.

and uhm... sudden hiatus I guess.

and mentioned already but- wrong motive for doing webcomics.

so to sum it up- have fun and/but dont give up

Comics written by people who think that sex, violence, and use of the words "fuck" and "shit" in every sentence are the funniest things on earth will generally make me stop reading after the first panel.

I don't read a gazillion webcomics, but the ones I used to read and have since stopped were all for the same reason. Long hiatus. Many hiatuses (looked up the plural; I'm a dork). Hiatus, filler, filler, hiatus, filler...

Art inconsistency is common as an author starts on a new project and gradually warms up to his new style, new cast of characters, and new settings.

You can see it even in professional comics. The 1st volume often a lot stiffer than the later volumes.

Being new to web comics I'm finding this extremely helpful...How long will a comic stay up even if the creator or author no longer post? As far as the art inconsistency..thats a tough one and for the most part can be avoided if you warm up befor eputting ink to board and in my case I have a dummy copy of my book that I keep next to me to check for inconsistant clothing, objects, etc.

Let's see what killed The Real Fantasy ... Lack of material mostly, dryness in the material I had, conflict of interest since I had like just started on the sprites for Anything Goes, and also, I kinda wrote myself into a corner. A very small corner.

Here's an interesting one that's basically exclusive to the web...

Even in story comics, it's generally better (for readership numbers, anyway) to make sure that each page can "stand on its own", more or less. A lot of people do this subconsciously. print comics have the advantage of being "right there"; once you finish a page, you immediately turn to the next one. With a webcomic, though, if you have a page that "hangs" at the end, and doesn't satisfactorilly complete a narrative within a single update, then you're going to have trouble. Basically you're going to get out one page a day at the absolute best; you have to write the comic so people are content with what they get in an update, but still want to move on to see the next one. It's probably best not to think about it too much, though. Focusing on any one aspect too much tends to let the rest of the work suffer...

Inkmonkey
make sure that each page can "stand on its own"

Actually I feel that making each page a stand-alone is one of the biggest mistakes anyone can make. While it is more satisfying in the here and now, it is better to give only enough to pull out JUST as the reader is getting into the page. Leave them wanting more instead of fully satisfying them on every page.

Ah, I guess I wasn't very clear. What I should have said was that each page should be satisfying, in its own right. Basically the idea is to not cut off a page in mid-thought. Not to say to avoid cliff-hangers and the like, but let's say for a humor comic, it's a bad idea to have the set up on one page, and the punchline on the next (especially if the two are going to be released several days apart).

I've always been under the impression to give the reader a reason to go to the next page. And always begin the next page with a pay off while similtaneously setting up for the page turner ending leading to the next page....and so on and so on.

I think it's fatal when the art is bad and stays bad. I know a lot of web authors who've been around for a long time, but they never seem to get better. How the hell do they do that?! I mean, even if they aren't practicing, you'd think that the exercise of doing a regular comic would result in improved skills.

Hmm... most of the people have mentioned what I want to say. Hiatus after hiatus, fillers, and the like.

Another would be handing your webcomic to someone else when you get tired of it and it never got updated. A good example of that was a fancomic I read called Other-M, an AU Sonic the Hedgehog comic. When its creator, writer Ian "Ian the Potto" Flynn, was hired by Archie to take over writing duites for the Sonic the Hedgehog comic, he handed over his comic (which was SUPPOSED to have ended way earlier than he had) to another. After one last issue, it ends on a cliffhanger and, to this day, has not been updated since.

I just thought of an interesting one that's kind of hard to explain, but it's to do with humour comics and getting serious or sentimental after reaching a certain level of popularity or number of strips.

How it basically goes down is:
The artist would like to make serious comics and stories, but for whatever reason ends up doing a silly gag comic because they're shorter, easier to draw, more accessible etc. After getting a lot of readers and a number of pages under their belt however, they must begin to think 'hey, these people really like my comedy and my characters! I bet they'll like my serious stuff too! I'll put serious storylines into my comic!'. It's generally a mistake. A comic you read just for a quick laugh isn't the place you want to see a serious relationship story, or a melodramatic fight in which a character suffers a tragic death. Also, gag strip characters often don't lend themselves to serious dialogue well, especially the common stereotype main character, the useless idiot.

If you've got to the point where you want to do a serious comic having drawn gag strips...do us a favour and put them in a new, different, consistantly serious comic. Or at least try to tell the serious story in a funny way so it fits in.
Obviously, this kind of thing is problematic for a number of people. Megatokyo went serious after Largo left as a writer because he was the one who used to write the gags, and I had been a reader for a while when that happened, and felt kind of betrayed, because I had always read it to have a good laugh. RPGworld stopped being nearly as spoofy and then killed off a major character in a really serious way, then never resolved it, Ctrl+Alt+Del nearly lost my readership by spending waaay too long dwelling on serious relationship stuff...So it's not just amateur comics.

...I hope I'm not the only one who thinks that.

I think the number 1 fatal mistake is drawing your comic on an explosive device. Seriously that never ends well.

The first page thats just black with white text and the text is either unnessecarily complex backstory or some poetic jibberish that say "hey look at all of my angst"

Like hey 200 years ago the gorlaks and the soft fluffy marmothoms got in a huge war that was only resolved by the hero arithomeratus who slew the gorlak warlord jean pierrewith his mighty florat of Velmort. Since then the gorlaks and the soft fluffy marmothoms held an uneasy truce, where while they didn't like each other very much they lived together in towns. In that hattery of galamazoo our hero the flogermatop (a race who remained neutral during the wars) adopted by the marmothom and after 20 years of toil as a low-level hatter certain events began to conspire that would push him on an epic quest to happenstancelopolis where he would change the world.




And it's always either too much exposition or too little, like, oh I forgot to tell you, he was riding a blue horse.

The biggest fatal mistake I encountered....I feel really bad about saying this but it's true: Starting your comic over again. And then... starting your comic over again.

Pretty much that kinda cuts it there for me. I love the comic ,but really I don't want to have it start all over again no matter how much it may be improved.

Sounds familiar.

But really, it's far less dramatic than that. In comics, there are no fatal errors. If something fails or succeeds, it all depends on the person reading.

For me, a comic fails when the creator of a serious story throws in a gag just for the sake of a gag. If it doesn't serve the plot or the world, it's fluff. If it's a darker story and the creator throws in a gag, within the track of the story itself (not as say, a standalone), to lighten the mood, and it serves no other purpose than to lighten the mood, it's fluff. It's disrespectful to the readership to assume that they cannot handle a story with weight. It's like spelling a vulgarity like so: "sh*t". If you're going to say it, say it, otherwise don't bother. It could also be that they're not quite sure who their readership is, or that they're trying to suck in as many readers as they can, so they water it down. But whatever the reason, garbage like that kills my taste for a comic immediately.

Stories that rely on text intro pages. In the case of something where you're filling in backstory, such as "previously on...", that's one thing, but if your world is so far removed from the here and now that you need to set it up somehow, it should be done in-story, even if it takes a while. Not everything has to be crammed into the first couple of pages. Not world-building, not character establishment. The other way is a cheat. A shortcut for avoiding doing pages to establish all of that, either because the creator doesn't want to do it or they can't think of a viable way to do it, and if they can't be bothered to invest the time to build their world, why should I invest the time to read it?

Over-the-top character behavior is another. By that I mean nearly slapstick actions, like...the dad in Bleach. It's in almost every anime and most manga. That type of bug-eyed flailing and jumping about for "comedic" effect. Or overreacting to something. I can tolerate it in small doses, but when it's on every page I'm done. It's not funny to begin with.

Wannabe "manga" artists throwing in cutesy crap like "waiii", random Japanese words, to try and be more Japanese.

Actually, the most fatal error that webcomic could make is to accept only positive feedback and ignore the negative. If you ignore your critics, you are doomed. Sure, you can start your sprite comic or whatever and let all the enablers rub you on the butt and tell you that it's your right to express yourself however you want. Or maybe you have one of those dime-a-dozen manga vampire drama comics or another "Hi, I'm a pretty girl with wacky adventures" comic. There are lots of fellow artists who are going to hand you a cookie, pat you on the head, and tell you that you're doing a good job. But you know what? Those people aren't helping you. They are letting you suck. By listening to them, you are cutting your own throat.

Enablers are deadly.

rainingbells
For me, a comic fails when the creator of a serious story throws in a gag just for the sake of a gag. If it doesn't serve the plot or the world, it's fluff. If it's a darker story and the creator throws in a gag, within the track of the story itself (not as say, a standalone), to lighten the mood, and it serves no other purpose than to lighten the mood, it's fluff. It's disrespectful to the readership to assume that they cannot handle a story with weight. It's like spelling a vulgarity like so: "sh*t". If you're going to say it, say it, otherwise don't bother. It could also be that they're not quite sure who their readership is, or that they're trying to suck in as many readers as they can, so they water it down. But whatever the reason, garbage like that kills my taste for a comic immediately.

Personally, I can't stand a comic that takes itself seriously all the time. If nothing else, it doesn't feel real to me. Real life has a mixture of humor and drama, and even the most horrible events can have a hint of humor to them, or at the very least I can understand the surviving characters trying to relax after a traumatic experience with something humorous. There's a way to blend the two, and when it's done sloppily it's a real problem.

But maybe I'm just reading what you meant wrong. Do you have an example of what you're talking about?

rainingbells
For me, a comic fails when the creator of a serious story throws in a gag just for the sake of a gag. If it doesn't serve the plot or the world, it's fluff. If it's a darker story and the creator throws in a gag, within the track of the story itself (not as say, a standalone), to lighten the mood, and it serves no other purpose than to lighten the mood, it's fluff. It's disrespectful to the readership to assume that they cannot handle a story with weight. It's like spelling a vulgarity like so: "sh*t". If you're going to say it, say it, otherwise don't bother. It could also be that they're not quite sure who their readership is, or that they're trying to suck in as many readers as they can, so they water it down. But whatever the reason, garbage like that kills my taste for a comic immediately.

Over-the-top character behavior is another. By that I mean nearly slapstick actions, like...the dad in Bleach. It's in almost every anime and most manga. That type of bug-eyed flailing and jumping about for "comedic" effect. Or overreacting to something. I can tolerate it in small doses, but when it's on every page I'm done. It's not funny to begin with.

I think I disagree with your point about humor-for-humor's-sake. you say that humor is there to satisfy the id, sort of, while the serious parts of the comic are the truly enriching part... but I don't think that there's any shame in using humor. I also feel like it's a good way to help characters develop. it's like, "yes yes, we all know that so-and-so has a tragic past, is an orphan and has a magical eye that wreaks destruction..." but it's fun to see serious characters in comedic situations, and it gives them another dimension. One of my characters, for example: I had originally created him as this silent, psychotic guy who just loooves to kill people. But then as I was drawing him into the comic, he got really silly, and I liked him more that way. It made him seem even crazier, that he was laughing as he tried to kill people, and when a giant snake ate his arm, he was like, "aw shucks!" my readers really liked that character... even though he only in my comic for 17 pages (out of 167!) he's the third most popular of my characters according to a poll I have!!
I'm often caught between making a useless-but-mildly-amusing joke or not, and usually I throw them in... because they make me happier... also, I'm a bit of a comic ho, I'll do just about anything to get readers. (heheh... that makes me sound like a loose woman.)

And as far as over-the-top humor... I'm not a big fan of the whole "hit someone with a mallet and it's comedy" sort of stuff, but... I actually quite like chibis and buggy eyes and giant puddles of crocodile tears. I feel like they really spice things up!

hahaha
i inject humor when my story gets too serious

Shakespeare injects what may seem like innapropriately timed humour ALL THE TIME. Hamlet, which people seem to be under the misguided impression of being a very serious play is absolutely full of puns, innuendo and gags!

...And if Shakespeare does it, I don't give a crap what anybody else says. I'm gonna do it. I don't see it as disrespectful to the readers. I expect my readers to understand how incredibly closely linked comedy and tragedy are. They came from the same dramatic roots in Ancient Greek theatre. I lurch the tone around all the time, and I assume my readers are intelligent and have the mental dexterity to keep up the pace. Obviously it's not so surprising coming from me, since it's a staple of British comedy to derive humour from dark situations. 'Shaun of the Dead' making a good example of intertwining the comic and the tragic to bittersweet effect. Whether the technique works or fails is almost entirely to do with timing and how you do it.

what kills web comics is the same thing that killed print comics for me back in the 90s. the wrong balance between story and art. when i started reading comics in the early 80s it was for the stories and the characters. once some of the artists got to be popular they started to overdo the art. they started packing as much detail into every panel that they could. this became distracting and the story was lost to me. this is why my comic is drawn so simple. it's about the story and the art is used to help illustrate the story. i relate this to movies. a big special effects movie will do well for the first week and then fall out of sight. a movie with a good story that uses good special effects to illustrate the story will do well for more than 1 week.