SailorSun.org

Ok, here’s a pet peeve of mine. Webcomics and fight scenes.

I’ve seen a number of non-combat webcomics (non-combat, as in fight scenes are not common on the comic) attempt to make a large battle royal between characters within the past couple years.

‘IT DOES NOT WORK!’

Stop it.. Bad webcomic author…. BADdddd artist…..

First of all, even commercial comics like Mavel and DC have fight scenes that are relitivly quick, and if it is a long drawn out battle, something else is going on, ussually to hold the reader’s interest.

Webcomics are a media where the readers will get to see one page, and then the next page a couple days later. So making a long drawn out battle over multiple pages, takes freak’n forever.

I’d ussually stick with read a comic for a week with a battle scene. After a week, I pretty much give up on it holding any interest. Any longer then a week, I’ll just visit but have no interest in reading. I’m just checking to see if the battle is over. So any important story points you want to make during the battle will just be lost.

Another thing, battles are meant to be very dramatic. Different angle shots. Different point of veiws. Everything’s mean to be kept moving. Keep the action going while only holding the ‘camera’ at the same angle and only having two characters in a panel from a multiple character fight scene is even less interesting.

You also need large grandious panels with the wide veiw of what’s going on. Who wants to sit and try to figure out who’s who and where is person A relitive to person B.

I know a lot of authors want to use webcomics to try new things. I understand completely… But large scale battles need a lot of planning ahead of time.

If you MUST have a BattleRoyal in your comic. Consider these tips,

• PLAN it out. Draw rough pages and a day or two later, read it and see if you find it intersting,
• Check out comics with large battle scenes in it and figure out what they do to keep it interesting to the reader,
• Keep the story going. If your just going to have a fight, you can do that in two panels, One with the characters starting to fight, and the next panel with the fight over and the winners standing over the losers. Long drawn out fights should contribe to the story.
• Keep the action moving, use different angles, and veiws.
• Cut out unlessness. You want to keep the fight moving, while keeping the reader entertained,
• If all else fails, try to have a little bit of a side story to help keep the interest… Like someone trying to escape the battle to get help.

A long time ago, a professional comic artist gave me a tip that I still try to follow. you should only need 3  pages to focus on one person/scene (5 pages MAX). Anymore then that and the reader will loose interest.