Is there anything that will straight away put you off of a comic?

For me:

-If it's a superhero comic (I don't like them lol but it is possible for me to like one if it's really good and different)

-If it's in Manga style (No offence to manga, I just don't like it that much. I can accept it if it's not that ultra cutesy kind, and if the story is really good though)

-A really annoying main character (If the main character annoys me, and the other characters don't make up for it, that puts me off lol)

I can't think of more right now, but if I do I'll add them.

What about you guys?

I am put off by-

Manga (I think it all looks the same!)

Sprite comics (I've never read on I liked)

Anything with Sonic the hedgehog (sorry sonic fans)

Anything really sexist. Pervy fan service just switches me off.

Anything unimaginative or ripping off something else.

Those are a few that spring to mind.

-Really amateurish art with no line variation, or looks like it was done in ms paint

-Furry comics

-'SO RANDUMB' main characters(the ones that act like Gir or some high ADHD 12 year old)

-Comics on smackjeeves where i click on an awesome looking banner and the actual comic is like...what the fuck not even 10% the effort. I feel tricked.

-Nothing happens in the first 10-15 pages, this is enough time to get the story on the road, i don't care to watch your character wake-up, smash the alarm clock and other cliches, and awkwardly chat with the family before getting to school where another 10 pages go by with nothing happening. Even if the character is good this just drives me nuts.

There are certain genres I simply don't read (superhero, romance, horror, fantasy) or any cookie-cutter feel in terms of story or art. If I've seen it done a billion times, why should I read another one? In addition to that...

~ Eye-burning colors or flashing animations of any kind. That'll make me close my browser on any site. I prefer not to maximize the potential for migraines.
~ Any image so big it requires horizontal scroll.
~ Indecipherable art or handwriting. If I can't tell what's going on, I won't stick around.
~ Excessive cursing. I find it distracting and sometimes offensive, esp. b**** or n*****. F*** and s*** doesn't bother me as much as long as it's not every other word to the point that I can't understand what anyone is saying.
~ Effected accents and speech patterns to the point that I have to spend a minute deciphering what people are saying
~ Poor spelling or grammar beyond the occasional typo.
~ Internet abbreviations. (WTF, OMG, LOL) People don't talk like that. I don't want to be around those who do.
~ Wall of text.
~ Confusing panel layout or "read right to left." If it's written in English, it should follow the left to right convention.
~ Skimpy outfits on either gender. Usually not an instant turn-off, but definitely a mark against it, especially when paired with grotesquely big muscles or boobs.
~ Grotesquely big muscles or boobs. I don't like seeing veins popping up all over a guys neck and chest, and if a lady is big on top, she better have enough of a body to support that weight. I aced physics, and I know boobs aren't made of helium.
~ Poorly written female characters. I'd prefer no women at all to a bimbo or ball-crushing one-dimensional feminist. If you want boobs in your comic, you better attach a real character to them.
~ Gore.
~ Can't tell the characters apart.
~ Filler on every other page.
~ The author acts like a jackass.

Usedbooks, Skullbie....You dont like furry comics and gore, huh?
You just like to say things to hurt me, don't you?
*goes away to sob*

Straight away? Bad art. It's pretty simple. If a comic looks like the artist/writer isn't willing to invest time and effort into it, it probably reads that way too. I don't judge based on genre or art style, I think anything can be done well.

Some of the mentioned above: internet slang (in a comic? urgh.. that's like reading a novel in lolcat speak); undecipherable art/text; too SMALL art (I have a 16 inch screen so I even have to zoom up text here on drunkduck, heh); too BIG art (scrolling sideways in a browser is a pain); painful coloring... and I guess sprites, (but I wouldn't mind a good pixel art comic, guess I'll have to make one myself, heh).

A lot of the stuff that I don't like have been said before...:

-Clashing colors
-An uninteresting story
-Anthro comics (the only anthro comic I have ever liked was Lackadaisy Cats )
-Internet speak
-Too large/small pages
-reading right to left in english
-filler pages all over the archives
-sprite comics

But to add:

-Bad site design; I don't want the site distracting me from what I'm reading
-Character introduction pages; I think they're a cop-out for good characterization
-In story comics, I don't like when things just run together, I'd prefer to see chapters

- When pages are unfinished pencil work and too pale to see
- When it's hard to distinguish the words
- Sprite comics
- Very bad art if there is no good story/humour
- Perfect main character(in the way of having no faults and weaknesses)

Art with characters completely lacking expression.
Too much internet speak or randomly stuck in notes from the author.
Too many chibis/SDs.
Huge pages...

And a bunch of other stuff that has been named already. Most styles and genres I'll check out though. Except maybe sprite and MS Paint comics. I'd even check out a pencil comic over MS Paint...

As far as the crucial split decision of whether or not I'm going to read more than one page (if that) of a webcomic:

Walls of text.
Insanely large archives.
Comic not displayed on home page of site.
Abuse of "infinite canvas".

Instant "click back":

MS Paint or sprite comics.
Coloring-book style linework with no contrasting tone/pattern/black spaces.
Gamer anything.
I have to read right-to-left.
No distinct style in art- ie: bad rip-off manga.

I have a decent pallet for comics IMO. But mostly story comics. Strip comics have to be really really stellar to keep me coming back. The only one I can think of off hand that I read is Vice and Virtue. Then again it hasn't updated in months so I don't read it do I? :P

I have yet to find a stick figure or sprite comic I like.
The next each have exceptions
MS Paint comics. exception was BloodHound the 1st version was made with MS Paint. I would have never known if the author had not told us!

Anthro- exceptions Purgatory Tower (I miss you) and anything that's 80s/90s adventure cartoony anthro like Punk Pink.

BOYxBOY GIRLxGIRL, the only exception I have found was JUXTAPOSE cause the art is so awesome I wouldn't care WHAT the comic was about! Plastic wasn't bad either.

Reading right to left in english - I try to say that if the author is from another country and is simply translating or is used to doing it that way that it's no problem... but I always seem to fall off these comics in the end no matter how good they are. But it has to be REALLY good to keep me enough to give it that chance.

Chibis/super deformed: You best be a stellar author to use these and you better not overdo them. ESPECIALLY in more serious stories. My biggest pet peeve in anime is that this epic entity will destroy the earth and the main characters are hitting each other with frying pans and turning chibi @_@

Filler page after filler page AGH!

------------------------

Vickie
~ The author acts like a jackass.

Oh crap!!!

1) BOREDOM!!!
- I cannot emphasize that enough. Especially if you got a large archive. Look. I'm a patient person. I have the patience to sit through 50 pages of boredom. If nothing interesting happens (be it a fight, an argument, something funny, or maybe something philosophical to think about), I just leave it. Sorry. I'm not interested in page after page of blablabla and more blablabla about small talk.

2) Walls and walls and walls of text
- reading something on the internet is much more difficult than reading something on a book. Just make use of short paragraphs.
- Also includes lots of unnecessary dialogue. I won't name names but there are comics here that could be edited down alot because of too much unimportant dialogue between characters.

3) Small and unreadable font.
- Please use the following fonts: Arial, Times New roman, Verdana, Comic Sans, Digital Strip. And please make it between size 12-15. Unless you're trying to put an effect like large explosions, soft-speaking characters, characters with demonic/angelic voice, etc.
- Small and unreadable fonts cause alot of eyestrain.

4) Filler page every other page.
- I understand that there is a need to put in fillers. I do that too. But if you wanna put fillers, at least put them after every TEN PAGES.

5) Confusing panel layouts and speech baloons.
- You may have the best art and writing out there but if there's difficulty understanding what came first, it might turn me off.

6) Lack of intelligence value.
- I am a thinking person. I want to read something that stimulates my brain cells. There's a saying that small minds talk about people, average minds talk about places and events, and great minds talk about ideas.

Think about that.

Right to left reading is a good one! I hate that!

I also agree on net speak and gamer stuff.


I just thought of another good one-
Comics that start with the characters breaking the forth wall to address the reader and say "hello and welcome to our web comic".
This is the most tired, cliche, boring, annoying and all round crappy opening possible....why do so many comics keep rehashing it?

Wow. I never knew so many people had an aversion to anthro comics. Oh well, can't please everyone I guess.


While this won't stop me from reading a comic, it will come close. Any comic that uses Comic sans or a few other fonts that come installed in your computer. With sites like BlamBot and so forth that provide free professional looking fonts to independent creators, there is no reason I should have to read Comic sans for your webcomic.

Pretty much any gamer comic where the two characters sit on the couch all day talking about videogames.

I will say I really don't like anthro comics where the characters physiques look to human. Catgirls and Horse Girls with enormous cleavage just don't do it for me.

Manga.

Boy Love.

Horrible artwork. It doesn't even have to be bad fundamentally. But if I find the style irritating, I just can't read it. This applies to all comics, just not ones on the web.

There is probably more, but that's about it for now.

-Copy/paste art

-Art lifted straight from a "how to draw manga" book (seriously, get your own style)

-Game comics (basically like golf jokes for the internet crowd)

-Bland characters

-"Right-to-left" in English

-Lame humor

Unlike some people, I don't mind a large archive, provided the comic is good and makes me want to read from the beginning.

I have a rather high tolerance for things that seems to piss off allot of people, so I tend to read and watch allot of stuff that others hate.

With that being said, I must admit that I don't like sprite comics.

I think that statement alone is a big enough insult to all sprite artists. Sorry about that.

Hm, I'll probably forget some but here goes:

-Politics. I normally don't read political comics, but I can respect that they at least acknowledge that they have a bias opinion. But I can't stand when I'm really getting into a comic and suddenly they insert their political opinions. Especially if it's really out of place, which it usually is.

-Bashing someone's person beliefs in general will automatically make me exit.

-An excessive amount of sex.

-Predictable romance. I get bored when you can tell a couple is definitely ending up together from the beginning. I like it to boarder on unsure or completely unexpected.

-Perverted art (Large boobs, panty shots, etc.)

-A narration every single panel.

-An overdose of anime effects. How about trying to give real expressions rather than going from Keanu Reeves to ^_____________^;;;;?

-When I can't tell if a character is a boy or a girl. Or if all the boys act like girls, dress like girls... might as well be girls.

A couple of mine have already been said.

-Female characters with Lovecraftian large breasts.
-Excesive Fanservice.
-Political/Religious preaching (either liberal or conservative).
-Wangst driven plot.
-Excess of fart/sex jokes.
-Mary Sues.
-Sudden change of tone without proper build-up.
-Bad writing overall.

I'm not turned off inmediately by neither Antrho, Sprites, Sticks or Manga. Specially considering that those are more aesthetics that anything else.

So far, Harkovast is probably my favorite Antrho comic and I catched a few good ones to check the comic before decide if I will throw it away. I'm a huge manga fan, so unless the story is poorly writen I have nothing against it. And both Sprites and Sticks comics can be pretty cool with a good writer (Bob and George and Order of the Stick are, IMO, good examples).

However, I do agree with all of you about Gamers comics. I love Videogames, but most Gamer comics are just blatant Penny Arcade (which I still like) rip-offs.

A big ol' opening exposition. Basically a giant wall of text that explains the how and why of the story and a brief history of the past 100 years. I've found that fantasy comics fall into this quite a bit and it's a pretty terrible way to start a comic. The again, I'm the sort of guy that gets put off by excessive exposition-- especially when it halts the plot entirely for the sake of details.
I've also seen comics that use ellipses as the only form of punctuation, well almost-- most of them use question marks and exclamation points too. I hate this!

-Walls of text.
-Small actions and conversations drawn out over pages
-Strips that start off with a meta-comic
-Strips that use awful puns
-Strips that seem to follow a newspaper strip template, by that I mean every strip has a rather shitty joke that is basically just a revision of "I hate Mondays," or something similar. In other words, jokes that make me roll my eyes into the back of my head instead of laugh.
-Excessive self censorship, won't stop me from reading a comic, but it certainly puts me off.
-Video gamer comics are ok if the focus isn't two guys sitting on a couch whining about games the author hates.
-When the author tries to force opinions down the readers throat.
-When the author behaves like a self-absorbed twat.
-Sprites.
-When the speech bubbles are so poorly laid out I have no idea who is saying what in what order.

Oh man! No wonder no one reads my gamer comic about manga chibis with un-proportionately large tits who talk in small font from right-to-left. It's drawn badly in ms paint and has more fillers than pages. ooohhh mmmaaannn

kidding, but what turns me off is:
-manga. I do have some exceptions but very few.
-sprite.
-Walls of text
-unoriginal story
-superhero, again, I have exceptions.
-many fillers
-lack of intelligence (unless it's suppose to be stupid. I sometimes like that)
-predictable anything.

yeah probably some more but that's what I've come up with for now.

kyupol
- Please use the following fonts: Arial, Times New roman, Verdana, Comic Sans, Digital Strip.

ARGHH no please! Times New Roman is a completely inappropriate font for lettering comics. Good for essays, good for novels, not good for comics. In general, anything that is serif (has a tail) is a bad choice for comics. Ariel and Verdana, while legible, are a too thin to be considered good, and all three suffer from having dreadfully boring type. Comic Sans gets plenty of hate, and for good reason: it is overused, it is ugly, it looks choppy, it is a bad font.

I agree that they are better choices than a really illegible font (say, TypoUpright), but that is like saying a poke in the eye is better than a knife in it. There are plenty of good free fonts out there appropriate for comics lettering. Digital Strip, Web-Letterer, and Anime Ace are all excellent fonts accessible to anyone. Downloading them is easy. Use them instead.

*breathe*

I... might be a bit of a lettering snob.

Things that turn me off reading a comic:

-Images saved as JPEGs that lose their image quality and get this ugly grainy film all over the colour and the white and ugh with a capital ugly.
-In a similar vein, white spots around the line art.
-Talking heads! Or talking bodies. Just people standing around, arms to their sides... talking. Have your character do something! Sit! Crouch! Run! Make silly hand gestures! Something to liven up the page.
-Inaction which lasts longer than, say, fifteen pages
-Loads and load of exposition
-Characters whose eyes are always open and subsequently look constantly amazed. It's just a thing.
-Gradients used as backgrounds.
-Lots of exposition. Walls of exposition. Exposition that lasts pages.
-Bad jokes.
-Gore.
-Poorly placed and lettered balloons.

Things that bother me put won't turn me off automatically:

-Bad fonts. :P
-Translucent balloons. I don't understand this. If you have the balloon, why don't you fill it solidly? It does not "save" your image from being covered by an ugly balloon; it is already covered by the ugly balloon, and now the text is harder to read.
-Annoying characters: the loud friend, the shy heroine... I can read this for a while, but probably not forever.

I think that is enough negativity from me now. I am starting to discourage myself.

you guys have said pretty everything allready.

first off is unoriginality, ussually in the art,specially with Manga. hell i can read some manga, as a matter of fact i've been checking it out a little bit more lately, but the straight from the how to guide type thing, im sorry man, but i wont hang around. probably not for more then a page or so.

anyways that's probably first and foremost. also shallow characters that're actiony for action's sake and that's all there is to em.

also,mounds of hype and bios before the story gets rolling. i know,ya gotta love drawing yer own characters and writing em out. hell i love it too! but at the begining of the story, no one CARES about that shit yet. ya gotta get some blood in the water if you want a frenzy!other wise it's just slow and really, just kinda full of yourself.

and i think those're my main things that send me away the quickest.

then of corse there's things that come down to personal taste but that's a whole other kettle of horse crap.

ParkerFarker
Oh man! No wonder no one reads my gamer comic about manga chibis with un-proportionately large tits who talk in small font from right-to-left. It's drawn badly in ms paint and has more fillers than pages. ooohhh mmmaaannn

Ahahaha yes

elektro
-Copy/paste art

URG! I've mentioned what I don't like, but I forgot this. And this is one of the things that actually makes me angry, I think it's dreadfully lazy! D:

Skullbie

ParkerFarker
Oh man! No wonder no one reads my gamer comic about manga chibis with un-proportionately large tits who talk in small font from right-to-left. It's drawn badly in ms paint and has more fillers than pages. ooohhh mmmaaannn

Ahahaha yes

hahahahaha, although I guess this comic would be 250 pages with all the extra fillers added in.

Nicotine

elektro
-Copy/paste art

URG! I've mentioned what I don't like, but I forgot this. And this is one of the things that actually makes me angry, I think it's dreadfully lazy! D:

There is one exception to that rule, in my opinion: When one character says something beyond stupid-awesome-enlighting-profound-dramatic and the next panel is the same with no dialogue at all.

Obviously, that is something that should never be overdone and should be reserved to particuarly stunning moments...

Another thing that it doesn't turn me off, but is kinda anoying, is humor based solely in pop culture references.

Beautiful artsy pages with little to nothing ever being said or communicated. If I wanted to stare at murals, I'll go to Deviant Art.

Self aggrandizing, cult of personality, or snobby elitist creators. Seriously, stop. It's not that cute.

Preachy or political agenda content.

Runty little characters carrying giant weapons.

Sprite comics. I've seen one that was half way decent a few years back, that's it.

Generic Tolkien fantasies.

Comments of many pages by the creator consist of whining and low self esteem. If you insist you suck, guess what?

Internet memes being shoved down my throat. -.-

Romance comics featuring people who are 1. all attractive or cute 2. fall in love/lust very fast 3. impossibly and unrealistically awkward.

Anything with pretty/cute vampires/angels.

Plots that simply cannot move forward.

Anything with the same 'shock' humor over and over.

Filler within the first 15 pages. Instant kiss of death.

Most superhero related content.

Horror comics defined by excessive gore. Just isn't horror to me anymore.

-Starfighter
-STARFIGHTER
-STARFIGHTER AUGH STARFIGHTER

Okay, that's out of my system here are the others on my *shoot to kill* list.

-Exposition!Comics. Especially in the beginning of the story that lasts TWENTY PAGES WHAT. I don't want to know the history of Gla'zothr and why there is a war going on and why the people are soooo vain and evil!

-Speaking of which. WHY IS IT ALWAYS IN FANTASY OR SCI FI THAT THERE'S A WAR GOING ON. ALWAYS WITH THE WAR PEOPLE. IS THAT ALL YOU CAN THINK OF TO PROPEL YOUR CHARACTER TO DO SOMETHING.

-What I like to call McFarlane-ing it. Just like everyone else has said, by shoving any political/religious/etc. standing. The author just ends up looking like a douche.

-MONKEY CHEESE SPORK BOTTOM HAHA SO FUNNY RANDOM CARROTS.

-Anime is all right as long as I can tell the boys from the girls and the characters from each other (not just from their hair, that's just stupid and lazy).

-ENOUGH JAPANESE SCHOOL KIDS AND THEIR JAPANESE NAMES I'M SO TIRED OF JAPAN.

-Fetish comics.

-The worst thing that keeps me from reading a comic is bad spelling and grammar. I'm so obsessed with vocabulary (Dictionary.com's word of the day, anyone?) that any spelling errors drive me mad. And especially: THAN, THERE, THEY'RE, THEIR, TO, TOO, WHY IS IT SO HARD TO REMEMBER ARG.

I really need to do something about my rage issues...