That white-haired dark-skinned thief girl who was possessed by Bulgrim was 50x hotter than Red Monika, because her body looked more human.

Incidentally, I only have the 1st TPB of Battlechasers. Did Joe Mad ever continue that title beyond that?

Sprite or Manga: One character goes totally insane for an unknown reason and begins to kill everyone/thing in sight and someone who's omnipotent besides the author.
Sprite: Badass character who wears black, Moron who is either red or blue, a total know-it-all who everyone hates, and some airheaded girl obsessed over one of the other characters.
Any: The hero/girl is NEVER harmed except for possibly a nosebleed or a cut and the villan is either horribly disfigured or incredibly maniacal.

Scorchgofer
Sprite or Manga: One character goes totally insane for an unknown reason and begins to kill everyone/thing in sight and someone who's omnipotent besides the author.
Sprite: Badass character who wears black, Moron who is either red or blue, a total know-it-all who everyone hates, and some airheaded girl obsessed over one of the other characters.
Any: The hero/girl is NEVER harmed except for possibly a nosebleed or a cut and the villan is either horribly disfigured or incredibly maniacal.

why hero/girl, WHAT T3H FEMALES CAN'T BE HEROES!? CAN'T USE HEROINE!?!?!?!?


for me, things I feel overused is comics based about nerds living their everyday lives with that o' so funny brand of comedy that they have, nothing wrong with it just I've seen it to many times that and comics that are based with a video game setting, if this has been said then AW GEEZ, I read like half of this whole thing.

ozoneocean

Darth Mongoose
'attractive busty heroine' archetypes.

I love reading those sorts of webcomics! ...As long as they're not done in the style of printed superhero comics, those are lame, the art sux... I don't like seeing what basically amount to barbiedolls on paper.

Bring on the busty heroine archetypes I say!

Agreed. Busty heroines fight are hot.

Of course, so are the plenty of other hot heroines.

mlai
Incidentally, I only have the 1st TPB of Battlechasers. Did Joe Mad ever continue that title beyond that?

nope he stopped but the last few issues after the tpb are the most well rendered art i've ever seen him do

*Points at King of Fighters*

KOF franchise has lost all cred with me. It used to be tres cool with characters which looked both fashionable and semi-realistic, with MA loosely based on a variety of real-life disciplines. In terms of character design it was on par with SF if a bit more anime-hip. In terms of story it blew SF out of the water.

Nowadays, the story goes nowhere - everyone is stuck in age 18-20 limbo. And the character design just gets more and more outlandish until it's like a mishmosh of bad Japanese fashion designer victims prancing around fighting in "styles" which makes absolutely no sense. K' was pretty much the last KOF character with a good design.

Dead Or Alive and Virtua Fighter are the franchises I pay attention to nowadays. Soul Calibur has lost me as well - DoA does outrageous fighting better and VF does serious fighting better, and the weapons don't feel like weapons anyways.

z3ph
why hero/girl, WHAT T3H FEMALES CAN'T BE HEROES!? CAN'T USE HEROINE!?!?!?!?

for me, things I feel overused is comics based about nerds living their everyday lives with that o' so funny brand of comedy that they have, nothing wrong with it just I've seen it to many times that and comics that are based with a video game setting, if this has been said then AW GEEZ, I read like half of this whole thing.

I kind of assumed that *Heroine* was implied when I said *Hero*.

Here's one I'm guilty of: Dropping story arcs right in the middle of 'em then resolving them with some sort of lazy, anticlimactic ending.

Allow me to introduce my favorite fantasy cliche: No matter how superior other races are to humans, no matter how fantasic their physical abilities or how magic they are, they always share the world with humans. Honestly, you'd think these races would have enslaved humanity or something. There's no way super magical ultra strong lightning fast elves would live in harmony with pathetic powerless humans. It just doesn't make sense!

Moreso than that,I find it interesting that vastly superior races like your sterotypical elves tend to be the minority in any given fantasy world. I guess Natural Selection doesn't really apply to fantasy.

Two words. PLOT. HOLE. THE most common cliche in ANY comic.

One of the sprite cliches that that tends to annoy me the most me is poor use of backgrounds, whether the background be two-toned or from the game. If the background is two-toned, it's eye-rapingly bright (much like MBC's opening pages which I still need to redo), and if it's a game background, some people will either use backgrounds that clash horribly with the sprites being used, or are a completely different bittage for some reason.

Inkmonkey
Moreso than that,I find it interesting that vastly superior races like your sterotypical elves tend to be the minority in any given fantasy world. I guess Natural Selection doesn't really apply to fantasy.

That's because elves can't produce as fast as humans. (In Dragonlance books) it takes 100 years for an elf to reach puberty. (yeah this is a nerdy post I know.)

JillyFoo
That's because elves can't produce as fast as humans. (In Dragonlance books) it takes 100 years for an elf to reach puberty. (yeah this is a nerdy post I know.)

That's funny, I created a totally different explanation for Deus. Elves are extinct, there was a huge war between humans and elves. The reason the humans won was because, even though the elves were physically superior, they were very primitive. As you can see, my elves are nothing like other fantasy elves.

The elf thing comes form unimaginative writers pretty much stealing from Tolkien and f**king it up. Almost ell elves in modern fantasy come form Tolkien, although indirectly because and lot of stuff has gone through the further filter of the nerdy Dungeons and Dragons game franchise. (I say nerdy because that's what the people who created it were)

I think Tolkien's elves were meant to be some kind of practise go at humanity by the god of that world... Most of them were original creations who were never actually "born", and because they lived forever their birth rate was almost practically nil.
The Elves you see in later fantasy are just compromises that try and make them a bit more prosaic and human, but without Tolkien's holy creationist origin for them they just don't seem to make sense when you consider the properly (as you guys have done).

One cliche I hate in a lot of media (web comics included, but most media generally), are the "evil" villains who want to take over the world. There's rarely any reason for it that makes sense... Why would they want to destroy the whole world? It's stupid. I suppose some of them might even get that from Tolkien in a way too, but in his case the character was basically Satan and had the exact motivations of that biblical character, so it did make sense, but usually I think people just make "evil" characters do that for the form of the thing and it does become cliche.
Heh, having an "evil" character in general is a cliche that too many are guilty of! What makes someone "evil"? Not reality, but the fact that their goals are in opposition to you, or their morals run contrary to your own... So even if they're "evil" in the eyes of the "hero" they'd be likely to seem pretty normal to most other people. That means portraying them as evil in other contexts is unnecessary and cliche. :(

Cats are widely used in a lot of comic strips. Japenese named heros/heroines are widely used in the "manga" world of webcomics. And the dorky stupid character is used in almost any media in the world. XD But ones I see a lot are the "stupid blonde" stuff. >,<

Other wise, everyone's pretty much summed it all up. :D

ozoneocean
One cliche I hate in a lot of media (web comics included, but most media generally), are the "evil" villains who want to take over the world. There's rarely any reason for it that makes sense... Why would they want to destroy the whole world? It's stupid. I suppose some of them might even get that from Tolkien in a way too, but in his case the character was basically Satan and had the exact motivations of that biblical character, so it did make sense, but usually I think people just make "evil" characters do that for the form of the thing and it does become cliche.
Heh, having an "evil" character in general is a cliche that too many are guilty of! What makes someone "evil"? Not reality, but the fact that their goals are in opposition to you, or their morals run contrary to your own... So even if they're "evil" in the eyes of the "hero" they'd be likely to seem pretty normal to most other people. That means portraying them as evil in other contexts is unnecessary and cliche. :(

I totally understand that one. I am also somewhat guilty for that as well. But the great thing is, if all of us are self-aware of the tired old cliches, we can fit them/change them down the line accordingly...

That's why the best villains are the ones who, despite all the suffering they're causing, think that what they're doing is actually a good thing. Just like real life.

ozoneocean
characters do that for the form of the thing and it does become cliche.
Heh, having an "evil" character in general is a cliche that too many are guilty of! What makes someone "evil"? Not reality, but the fact that their goals are in opposition to you, or their morals run contrary to your own... So even if they're "evil" in the eyes of the "hero" they'd be likely to seem pretty normal to most other people. That means portraying them as evil in other contexts is unnecessary and cliche. :(

great point~
yeah, it's so refreshing to have multi-dimensional "bad guys"... for instance, if anyone read "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison, Pecola's father rapes her and beats his wife and is generally an unsavory man. But then Morrison shows his past, explains why he's the way he is, and makes him kind of ... likeable. Or at least, understandable. When I read that book, it was like a light turned on somewhere.
Generally, my favorite characters in books or movies are bad people who are sympathetic. Like Javert from Les Miserables, or Bateman from American Psycho, or Perry Smith from In Cold Blood, or Humbert Humbert from Lolita (oh no... everyone I listed except for Javert is a murderer!! o_o I'm creepy!!!! ;_;!)

one of the best villans was star from preacher...before he used to want to take over the world, in the end he just wanted to get even with custer for making his head look like a prick, being sodamized by an english chap, his leg was eaten by cannibals, castrated by pitbull and has to pee using a tube valve.

the writer ennis has a lot of good characterizations with villans, just read his run on the punisher

Someone
When people mention webcomic cliches the one that immediately jumps to mind is starting off with the main character in a dream. (So very guilty of this one!)

I think these cliches dont nessecarily make comics bad though there is good reason why these cliches happen so much.

F_Allen

Someone
When people mention webcomic cliches the one that immediately jumps to mind is starting off with the main character in a dream. (So very guilty of this one!)

I think these cliches dont nessecarily make comics bad though there is good reason why these cliches happen so much.

It's funny this is what you guys are talking about because the FIRST brainstorm concept for a pilot comic I worked on involved like 3 different dream sequences. After writing it, I was like "that's the dumbest idea ever" lol

The best villains are those that really make you think, because you're not even sure if they're the villains or not. By virtue of their larger-than-life capabilities and their consequences, they have an impact on the world. It's up to you to decide what sort of impact it is.

They have no "villainous traits" otherwise. They don't laugh maniacally, don't have ugly scars, don't kill kittens/birds/little pauper boys, and don't beat up underlings.

Cliche #1001: Manga-type superficial suspenseful exposition.

"This is most likely a plan from the start... by ..."

Me: "So... what the **** do you mean by 'that man'?? Who the **** talks like that?!? Finish your ****ing train of thought!!!"

This is so common in manga it makes me puke. What's wrong with them Jpnese authors?!

I don't think they're actually trying to be suspenseful, I see it so often I think it might just be they ran out of room in the first speech bubble.

mlai
They have no "villainous traits" otherwise. They don't laugh maniacally, don't have ugly scars, don't kill kittens/birds/little pauper boys, and don't beat up underlings.

LoL - Pauper. That's an obscure word. It made me guffaw.

I know it's been mentioned, but bringing back clearly dead characters is something that bugs me. It's one thing to leave a villian in a about-to-die situation only to discover later that he escaped. But when you watch a pack of zombies literally rip someone apart and then later they're back, that's just bothersome.

I don't see this happening much in Webcomics though. It's mostly a print comic cliche since comics change writers' hands frequently.

But as far as webcomics go, I can't think of many cliches, per se. One thing I don't like is that there doesn't seem to be good use of "the camera". The horizon line, vanishing points, angle, setup, etc is usually exactly the same. Poor panel setup is very common and cliche in web comics. I really enjoy web authors that vary their panels.

One "cliche" that I really don't enjoy are "Sprite Comics". I know there's a demand for them and alot of people enjoy reading them. But I personally feel that they're just overdone now... trite... cliche... etc.

reconjsh
One "cliche" that I really don't enjoy are "Sprite Comics". I know there's a demand for them and alot of people enjoy reading them. But I personally feel that they're just overdone now... trite... cliche... etc.

I don't think that a genre of comics is cliche, it's just the content in them that is.

Like I said, sprite comics go in fads. First Megaman (LET'S ALL RIP OFF BOB AND GEORGE!), then Sonic (LET'S ALL RIP OFF IN-SONIC-NIA!), and now Pokemon (LET'S ALL RIP OFF POKEMON X!).

And because of that, a lot of sprite comics tend to suck ass. If they're not dead within a month that usually means they're good.

rengori

reconjsh
One "cliche" that I really don't enjoy are "Sprite Comics". I know there's a demand for them and alot of people enjoy reading them. But I personally feel that they're just overdone now... trite... cliche... etc.

I don't think that a genre of comics is cliche, it's just the content in them that is.

Like I said, sprite comics go in fads. First Megaman (LET'S ALL RIP OFF BOB AND GEORGE!), then Sonic (LET'S ALL RIP OFF IN-SONIC-NIA!), and now Pokemon (LET'S ALL RIP OFF POKEMON X!).

And because of that, a lot of sprite comics tend to suck ass. If they're not dead within a month that usually means they're good.

I just think they're done to death... done so often used that its original coolness has lost meaning. But so are superhero comics and everything else. So meh, don't listen to me. :)

Perhaps you're right though. Maybe I think they're cliche because I don't like them... or that alot of the content is lame and cliche.

I should say that some sprite comics are freakin' awesome and brilliant in my opinion.

Yeah, I'll be the first to say that 95% of all sprite comics suck ass. But luckily most of the either die off or improve.

mlai
The best villains are those that really make you think, because you're not even sure if they're the villains or not. By virtue of their larger-than-life capabilities and their consequences, they have an impact on the world. It's up to you to decide what sort of impact it is.

They have no "villainous traits" otherwise. They don't laugh maniacally, don't have ugly scars, don't kill kittens/birds/little pauper boys, and don't beat up underlings.

I want to second this. =P

I have a lot of people point out that characters in my stories speak odd and don't explain things well enough. But in real life, people don't finish their words. They don't always say what they mean, and they don't explain every little thing. I'm guilty of using dialogue to explain stuff, sometimes you have to. But I like to leave sentences hanging, to have people get interupted, etc. I think it might ruin the flow of the comic, but it is more realistic.

People don't talk like they're reading from a script... and characters don't narrate outloud to themselves when they're all alone.

Things I've noticed that might be cliche in my comic from reading all of the great posts here.

I had a character take a really nasty fall and survive, he did break his arm in multiple places, and several ribs, but he relaly could/should have died form it. =P People have survived worse in real life. But not often.

One of my villains is clearly insane and evil. I hope my other villains are more complex however. I have several.

I started one chapter in a dream. This is the first time I've done this in my entire life of comic crafting. =]

My main character is a pick pocket, a gang member, a street urchin, an underdog of sorts. But he doesn't have powers, so that's good I suppose.

I love seeing you guys list your own cliches. It is good to analyze your work this way. ^_^

Anime cliche 1002:

No matter where the character is injured, he/she should always be clutching the arm.

ozoneocean
One cliche I hate in a lot of media (web comics included, but most media generally), are the "evil" villains who want to take over the world.

Gasp! Ozone hates my comic! :O