You can only pick one thing, and it can't be one big over generalized thing, ie 'bad art'.

After browsing about twenty comics here on Drunk Duck, tonight I can safely say my new pet peeve is pages that are so big I have to scroll. Both ways.

Is it that hard to size a file to have the pixles no longer than 900 on any given side? Seriously, if I have to move my mouse to the scroll bar just to see the second panel, it's too big.

I'm getting a little sick of having to comment on otherwise good looking stories with 'it's a bit big to read'.

Well, aside from the usual "crappy sprite comics", I think I'm just tired of people who seem to think that something is automatically awesome if it's Japanese.

I get annoyed when people don't use backgrounds. As in they just leave it white. I mean, it doesn't have to be great, just people should add backgrounds. Even a flat color or a grey will do, but just something to make all that white less boring.

Ugh it has to be for me japanisation of things FOR NO FREAKING REASON. japanese SFX and right to left reading instantly stop me from wanting to read a comic, If a comic was orgionally made in japanese then so bet it, but otherwise it is uncalled for and annoying.

Mimarin
Ugh it has to be for me japanisation of things FOR NO FREAKING REASON. japanese SFX and right to left reading instantly stop me from wanting to read a comic, If a comic was orgionally made in japanese then so bet it, but otherwise it is uncalled for and annoying.

Reading right to left makes my brain bleed..it takes a super kick ass comic to make me do it. And even then, I secretly curse the artist for doing it.


tgrshrk06: Yeah, I can see that being an issue, but since you obivously try to keep a balance between size and qaulity, you care. I'm just sick of seeing crappy scanned pencil work at 2000x700, perticularly when it decent looking work..when I scale it down.

Since we're talking about pet peeves, not major issues...

Bad spelling. I can be a great story with terrific art, and bad spelling will take me right out of the comic. Jennie Breeden gets a pass, though... it's effectively part of her schtick.

What I hate most is an interesting description that makes the story sound amazing and you click on it to find unappealing artwork (or sprites) and/or actual story that falls way short of what the description promised.

For example, you read that its a dark tale of horrors and visions where the world is not as it seems, blah blah, etc etc...

And you go to it, and its a bunch of pages of stick figure people yelling in all kinds of bland profanity about how much they hate class. Then, it ends in some lame punchline. Then you go through it perhaps hoping its just that page but ITS NOT !! aarrgghh....

In response to the whole Japanese thing, I do agree its overdone and I do find a lot of it a turnoff myself, but yet Im a little itsy bit guilty of it -.-

One of my comics takes place in Japan, but its not manga style, has no toning, and doesnt read right to left and doesnt have japanese sound effects..
Just a simple block panel strip type comic with a lot of simple color and no flashy photoshop effects.

The only thing scoldable I guess I did was sneak a few Japanese words into the vocabulary (which I might change on one page).

My pet peeve in Print Comics at the moment is the coloring, actually. So many comics overdo the coloring. Invincible is my favorite, because it usually doesn't use more than one shadow shade on a character which makes it really iconic. But comics from DC and Marvel have this coloring which just overloads the senses. It's like TOO MUCH INFORMATION already.

Hm... y'know, I think that having the comic actually set in Japan (and I mean, some type of Japan that actually resembles Japan) justifies a level of Japanization in the comic. I've nothing against the idea of Japan existing in a comic, I just don't like haphazard insertions of Japanese culture (a character who is conveniently half-Japanese just so the author has an excuse to use the term "baka").

I would have to agree with Inkmonkey on this one. I recall a fantasy comic I saw a while back which injected random Japanese vocabulary and sound effects. It was a major turn off for me. I could see it somewhat in a comic which legitimately takes place in Japan or has Japanese characters.

Generally, it only works for me, though, when subtleties in the speech can't be conveyed through standard English. If everyone is Japanese in the comic and the speech is just translated, there isn't much reason to use terms which have a perfectly understandable English equivalent.

.: isukun :.

isukun
I would have to agree with Inkmonkey on this one. I recall a fantasy comic I saw a while back which injected random Japanese vocabulary and sound effects. It was a major turn off for me. I could see it somewhat in a comic which legitimately takes place in Japan or has Japanese characters.

Generally, it only works for me, though, when subtleties in the speech can't be conveyed through standard English. If everyone is Japanese in the comic and the speech is just translated, there isn't much reason to use terms which have a perfectly understandable English equivalent.

Much agreed, and it always irked me when characters who are obviously not Japanese, have Japanese names in comics. Double annoyance points if they have Japanese names that are also symbolic, ie 'Tenshi / Angel' or 'Hikari / Light'.

Im one of the four people left in the world with dialup, so I'll say huge, uncompressed comics. Especially when after four minutes of waiting for them to load they turn out to be crap and/or sprite comics. :(

Skulldog
Much agreed, and it always irked me when characters who are obviously not Japanese, have Japanese names in comics. Double annoyance points if they have Japanese names that are also symbolic, ie 'Tenshi / Angel' or 'Hikari / Light'.

I've also found that some people will take just any Japanese word and use it as a name, which is like naming a character "Potato". Further, there's a few I've seen where they'll give a male character a female name, or vice versa. Though I suppose that could be true of any language, but Japanese seems to be the predominant one. I think I'd find it equally stupid if someone used Spanish for no reason and had characters named "Luz".

I don't really have many pet peeves.... The only thing I find annoying with webcomics is how, on this site, people just go around handing out 5's for no real reason. It's just plain annoying.

ccs1989
I get annoyed when people don't use backgrounds. As in they just leave it white. I mean, it doesn't have to be great, just people should add backgrounds. Even a flat color or a grey will do, but just something to make all that white less boring.

Then don't read my comic.

equinox

LIZARD_B1TE
I don't really have many pet peeves.... The only thing I find annoying with webcomics is how, on this site, people just go around handing out 5's for no real reason. It's just plain annoying.

Would you prefer 1's instead?

If it was what the person really thought and they gave me the reason as to why they think it's bad, then yes, I would.

equinox
It's really simple, if people enjoy the comic, and have a good time reading it, it's a 5.

4 is usually used for comics that are ok, but need a lot of work.

Occasionally though you find something that really sucks, then you pull out the 3 or 2.

The 1 is saved for dire circumstances though, like horribly jpeg raped sprite comics with eyebleeding recolors.

Most people count effort in as well when they rate a comic.

Almost all the scores I've seen on this site have been 5's, though.

One thing I've noticed is that comics tend to only be read by people who enjoy them in the first place, so they only get 5's. No matter how terrible a comic is, they still manage to find some sort of audience. Thus they end up with a group of people giving it regular 5's. On the converse, very few people are willing to put up with a terrible comic regularly enough to give it the scores they actual deserve on a regular basis.

That is because of the fact that the rating system is horribly flawed, I personally would like to see things rated out of something over ten, odd numbers are good because there isnt a half way point, most of the time something isnt just average it is average in a good way or a bad way, 11 or 13 would be good, the fact that All comics get 5s as a majority renders the average page rating completley useless. The only way you can ever hope to reach a toplist is to have lots of people rate you 5 all the time.

So yeah, rating is pretty fucked up. To be honest you shouldnt be able to rate without commenting either, that is the one thing that annoys me the most.

It's not really a fault of the rating system. If you change the scale, people will just start using whatever is highest in the new scale. You can't convince people to continue visiting a comic they don't like and most people will take one glance at a comic they think is crappy and just leave without voting or commenting. In general people like to boost what they like, not tear down what they don't like. No changes made to the rating system will make that any different.

.: isukun :.

In fact, if it WAS a 2 or a 1 I would assume the person was just rating that to be a dickhead.

Which is the other major human fault found with any rating system. People are often too sensitive to take low scores. That was the cause of all sorts fo other problems which the admins tried to fight here with forced comments on low scores. Forcing comments, however, doesn't really encourage people to leave low scores.

.: isukun :.

I think my number one pet peeve in webcomics is an artist or writer who is blatantly a jerk or otherwise unlikeable. It could be the best drawn, expertly written, coolest storied comic of all time, but if the creator is an ass it'll shine through, either through his or her stupid attention-whoring rants or even in the content of the comic itself, and I will not be able to enjoy what I'm seeing because of it.

(Next in line would be side scrolling..., and then an overly busy website that distracts from the comic itself.)

Since I can't seem to narrow my dislike of sprite comics down to one thing, I'm going to have jump on the bandwagon and agree that Japanizing your comic is getting kind of old. I hate seeing a Japanese word thrown into the dialogue when they could have used an English one that people would understand. It's like they're trying to show people they're more Japanese or something. Then they look up some words in a Japanese dictionary to name their comic, which comes out as "Kaze no Shinwa", which means NOTHING to most readers except that you have a Japanese dictionary.

I think Japan is the new Australia. 15 or 20 years ago we were all crazy for Kangaroos, Koalas, and Paul Hogan. Now, everyone's eating sushi, playing Yu-gi-oh, and naming their characters Yumeko. This makes me sad because I really do love the (real) Japanese culture.

I don't really have many pet peeves.... The only thing I find annoying with webcomics is how, on this site, people just go around handing out 5's for no real reason. It's just plain annoying.

Not only does the 5-only practice help nobody, it invalidates the Top 50 list. Nobody can click on each one of those and say those are our best 50 comics. They're just the comics that are new enough to not be stung by a 4 yet.

Back when we were beta testing the Duck, one of the testers gave me a 3 and I've never seen my comic on the top-scoring list ever since. I'm okay with this now because I'm on some other lists. But I'm really thinking about telling my readers to vote honestly on my comic. Since my score doesn't matter anymore, I'd kind of like them to give me 3's for an average page and anything higher for when I do a good job, or anything less for when they feel I've slacked off. This would tell me what I'm doing right or wrong and hopefully motivate me to work harder.

I dislike people who rant and rave about what sucks about ANY topic, but are too egotistical to help someone who asks and wants to improve.

I dislike print comics that are FILLED TO THE BRIM with ads...it makes me never want to pick up another issue again.

I really dislike overdone game sprite comics, but also dislike those that can't see the positive side to them also (they allow people to learn and develop comic skills before moving on to bigger and better kinds of comics...if sprite authors never move on THEN boo to them). I also think that some people need to realize that there are sprite comics that aren't the crappy run-of the mill variety game sprites. There are hand-drawn sprite comics, and some of those comics can be very well done.

I dislike genre whores...those that only vote and love on a particular type of comic...you may complain about manga or sprites...but there are many other kinds of comics that people seem very genre constrained (ex.-those weird slice of life comics). I like all kinds of comics.

I dislike people who make a judgement on a comic after only looking at one page. I agree that sometimes the art is sooooo atrocious that you can tell that its a 1 or a 2 or a 3 right off the bat, but reading at least 5-10 pages will also let you find what they are doing well.

I dislike people that are unbalanced with their criticism. If you say something mean, balance it with something nice. Ex-"I think your art needs to be cleaned up, but I thing that you have a promising storyline" I hate negative ninnies.

Tater Salad
True. CAD I never cared for, but I didn't really hate it until I found out how much of an ass Tim Buckley is.

Very true. That guy is a power mad loser.

Anyway, on the subject of the ratings, I'm not sure that really affects anyone. I don't think I get as many visits from other DDers much anymore though, cause the amount of comments on a page of my comic has dwindled, even though the amount of pageviews by day has gone up a lot since the comic started. It's weird though. I have an average score of 5 on every page of my comic yet I've never seen my comic on the Top 50 list. I don't really care anymore though, now that we have favorites lists and can find out when the better comics update anyway.

One big pet peeve that I didn't see on the list. Badly drawn chibi humor.

When people have chibi humor in webcomics, it makes me feel like it's saying "look! I'm chibi! That means it's gawd damn hilarious!" When in reality it looks weird and scary...not funny.

best example i can find

Jillyfoo
One big pet peeve that I didn't see on the list. Badly drawn chibi humor.

When people have chibi humor in webcomics, it makes me feel like it's saying "look! I'm chibi! That means it's gawd damn hilarious!" When in reality it looks weird and scary...not funny.

well, crap...there goes my entire chibi based comic. You have broken my heart. (really...I'm not joking...I really was planning on having one of my comics be entirely chibi).

thatreevesgirl

Jillyfoo
One big pet peeve that I didn't see on the list. Badly drawn chibi humor.

When people have chibi humor in webcomics, it makes me feel like it's saying "look! I'm chibi! That means it's gawd damn hilarious!" When in reality it looks weird and scary...not funny.

well, crap...there goes my entire chibi based comic. You have broken my heart. (really...I'm not joking...I really was planning on having one of my comics be entirely chibi).

Don't worry about it. You can't please all the people all the time. I happen to think chibi humour is pretty cute if it's done well.

IN OTHER NEWS, I hate fourth wall breaks. They're all right every once in a while (I've even done it ), but when they become too blatant, too ridiculous, too often, then it just ruins the comic and becomes totally unfunny.

thatreevesgirl
well, crap...there goes my entire chibi based comic. You have broken my heart. (really...I'm not joking...I really was planning on having one of my comics be entirely chibi).

I think an entirely chibi comic would be way better than a non-chibi comic that places chibi stuff in at inappropriate times. At least it's consistent.

Chibis definitely get abused. I think some people like how they're easier to draw and it sometimes becomes the product of laziness.

I dont mind chibis, but I do prefer if the whole comic is completely based on chibi characters rather than a serious looking character converting to chibi form just to make a silly joke.
There are plenty of great expressions you can draw without turning them into chibis.

Of course, chibi promo/filler/bonus drawings not part of the actual story can be very fun =D

I like to draw chibis for the cute effect and not really humor, but if not drawn well, they can be stale and often disturbing looking therefore not cute, and certainly not funny.
Like a certain blue Kami !!