Before you post

Hi there. Nocturne was rejected this season and was notified in my e-mail that it was well-received, which I'm grateful and happy to hear, but that it felt that the story was "too early to tell" the future of it. This confuses me a little, because my comic is currently 90 pages long, so I figured that there was likely more to it than that and thought I'd pop back in for a second opinion.

I was informed by somebody that a glaring issue people had with my comic was that the art quality and page layout/speech bubbles were an issue--this is a slightly frustrating point of criticism for me in part because that was something that I assumed was fixed post page 7 of chapter 2, when I finally started to learn about proper comic page formats and layouts. If this is still a major issue in the pages following page 7 of chapter 2, I need to know ASAP. I've also made a lot of pages in my upcoming pages that are unreleased in the buffer, one of which was included in my submission (can be viewed here and here) that demonstrate the change in direction of the lettering and page layouts between CH1 and CH3. I cannot draw CH1 any time in the near future, so I can't do anything about the current quality it is.

I was also informed that my comic was "tonally confusing"--another slighty frustrating point of criticism, given that the genre of story that it is is supposed to be a bit dissonant. It is a comedy horror story, inspired by works like Dangan Ronpa, Ace Attorney, Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, Bear Stearns Bravo, Madoka Magica, etc.--all of these stories contain bright, colorful, lighthearted and cute elements that then get really dark and twisted over time.

From my personal perspective based on the information that I was given, it appears that I was rejected based on things that I cannot change (the first chapter of my comic is not being redrawn any time soon, and I obviously cannot change the genre of my comic.) I'd like to ask for additional insight, especially from those who specifically voted against my comic being accepted. If it's a matter of Nocturne not really fitting in with the "type" of work that falls in this collective, then so be it--I don't want waste my time reapplying if it's truly a matter of differing interests--I'd just like to know upfront. Thanks!

Hey ambattii thanks for taking the time to ask for crit!

Nocturne wasn't placed in my application group, hence I didn't get the chance to read it until last night, but I have a lot to say about it. Mostly because I am a HUGE urban fantasy lover, and I used to read a certain book series when I was a teenager that also prompted me to make an urban fantasy webcomic set in the 80s that may or may not have vampires in it.

Okay first the positive.

I liked the art style as soon as I opened the webpage. I'm a sucker for neon colors and 80s flare. The character designs all stand out dramatically well. Vespyrs lanky Gempire look is a good contrast next to Baines Gothpunk vibes.I know some had problems with the art, but I was fine with it.

The opening itself was good and informative. (The first chapter had problems with comic panel flow, which has already been addressed so I'll skip that) First three pages set up some of the the premise and we get a vibe of what our main character is going to be like. The two main characters meet and have a confrontation.



Vespyr is kind of a show-boat, flirty and likes to rag on people who ain't friendly towards him. Baine is angry and anti-social and shouts. Alot. Possibly due to mother/grandma issues.

This is where I start to find problems.

Now, I would like to say I don't believe Nocturne rejection was due to different tastes in art and interests. When members of the group said it was 'too early to tell' I believe they meant the writing and the characters. 90 Pages isn't a lot to go on when your pacing a story in a certain way, right now we're only just getting into Baine being dragged into The Call kicking and screaming. And that's...kind of the problem.

I liked the development of Baine Refusing the Call. It was a nice progression.



However.

There are Characters doing things in this comic that don't make sense for their motives. One of my first big major problems with the story was Vespyrs actions at the start completely contradicting his motives for teaming up with Baine in the first place.

So Baine throws water on Vespyr, a rather shitty thing to do but I'm guessing Baine is supposed to be a shitty person at this point. Cut to Baine walking home only to be confronted by Vespyr. He then proceeds to reveal himself to be a vampire, and tries to grab Baine by the neck. Only stopping because she was armed.

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Then, later in the story this happens.

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...a woman threw mop water on you and you preceded to follow her outside, bare your fangs and lift her by the neck.

Like, even if this character had no plans to actually bite or kill her, that's 100% him outing himself to someone who clearly has it out for him. What was he going to do when he went back to the bar the next night? You as the writer know Baines friend wouldn't believe her, but Vespyr didn't know that.

So this is either an overlooked plothole, or Vespyr is straight up lying. This is where the 'too early to tell' comes in.

Most characters seem to act on pure emotion rather then reason. And this seems to be in order to move the plot rather then having a scene make functional sense. This makes the scene with the cops especially jarring.

http://www.nocturne-comic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/PG4.png

When Chief Cooper doesn't get his way, he proceeds to assault Baine, who, as you've established, is apart of a well known vampire hunting family in the city. Someone that could get him into a whole heep of trouble if she pressed a misconduct complaint. Especially with two witnesses. It's like these characters choose to take actions they know won't have consequences even though it makes no sense.

We also have again, the fact that Vespyr bares his fangs . This time to someone who could probably kill him with no repercussions. (Cooper for some reason doesn't react at all to the vampire in front of him)

Is this overlooked writing where everyone's reacting with blind emotion and a script that tells them their actions won't come back to bite them? Or is this all set up?

Is the police force so corrupt cops can cigarette burn people out in the open without worrying about backlash?
Is Vespyr clearly lying due to his claimed wants vs his contradicting actions?

Again. Because of the way the story is paced, it's too early to tell.

But I think this story has a lot of potential! It's only two chapters in and it clearly still has a lot of explain. I do find the world interesting and I like the concepts your developing. I honestly just think character actions and motivations need to be thought on a little more. Especially between what the writer knows, and what the characters know.

Thank you for the in-depth response.

I completely agree and understand everything you've said especially in regards to the first chapter and the motives/story not adding up. It's actually a major problem I've had moving forward with the story, because I'm aware of the contradictions--the reason the contradictions are present is because when I first started the comic, I had so little of the plot actually figured out that I was literally going in blind and just doing whatever worked to get the story moving. I didn't even know who the culprit of the murder was at the time I made CH1! I was extremely unprepared!

By the time I reached the beginning of the second chapter, I had solidified the exact direction I was going and more or less had the fine tuned details figured out--but of course, the state that CH1 has been presented still will naturally lead to confusion. I get that. From the perspective of me reapproaching reapplying for the next season, however, I'm not sure what I can do to fix this--I am a student and a freelancing animator with two jobs, so redoing the first chapter in the way that I already have planned that better suits the narrative is not something that I can accomplish any time in the next YEAR, let alone by the next season. With that in mind, what exactly am I supposed to do...?

If it helps, I do already have some of the first chapter redone--when I finish redoing CH1, it will be in the form of an animatic as opposed to a comic. Here is an older scene test that revisits the scene where Lexi throws the mop water on Vespyr--I feel like it becomes a little more justified in this case, and I'd love to hear your feedback on it. I also have this short rough sketch storyboard video that would replace the very beginning of the chapter--my intention is to start with action and introduce the murders very clearly to set the tone of the story more clearly. I would again love to hear if you guys believe that this is heading more in the right direction, because this is the way I intend to tell my story when I get the chance to finally redo it and moving forward.

Thank you again for the in-depth thoughts on it!

Ah right. Yes we do have some people who have animated moments in their comics. Though, not so much whole chapters. More like cutscenes. I think a while chapter would make it a web original, not really a webcomic.

Redoing your first chapter is an option. I'm currently redrawing my own first chap actually, at a slow pace of one page per month, but it's getting there. And it saves me time when I'm working on my actual updates.

But my advice would be not to focus on correcting what you already have, instead improving on whats to come.

We have had comics apply that suffer the first chapter-itus so you're not alone. The only difference being, those comics usually had a much bigger archive. So we can see how the writing improved over time.

The problem was we couldn't tell where the story was going in terms of characterization. But like you said, you sorted that stuff out, so now it's just a matter of continuingand making sure the motivations are a little tighter.

Vespyrs actions don't necessarily have to change, you can use what you have and shine a lot on his actions. Even have Lexi call him out on being rather trigger-happy with his fangs. (and a straight up actual gun in chapter 2!) Mistakes of the past can become interesting character flaws.

But yeah new opening where we see the girl actually get attacked is def also an improvement. I think when it's done it would make a cool opening to the comic that could connect into the comic page opening you currently have. C8 And yeah, the 'tossing water' moment is a lot more justified in the animatic.

Heh, I was going to suggest what Clause did, have some sort of dialogue where his contradictions are called out.

"If you're a peaceful vampire why the hell did you try to bite me the night we met?" Kind of thing.

Perhaps he was suffering from low blood count, or he's new to the peaceful vampire life and hasn't quite knocked down all the urges yet. Something that makes it a plausible flaw in his personality.

Redux's aren't the only answer...

I tried to redo my first chapter... but always as an "as I have time" kind of things, and well after like 11 pages, I never had the time... so there is a HUGE jump in Plague from the newer back into the old, and then the natural progression of the art from there.

But they can be such a trap that many people don't recommend going back... keep moving forward and make writing and artistic improvements as you go!

ON TONE/WRITING

Seconding everything RedClause has said above.

Those character inconsistencies also add to the tonal dissonance issue, because it makes it harder to tell what is reasonable or unreasonable for the world. A zany comedy might make unreasonable behavior in, say, the cops a standard norm. Whereas in a crime drama there are consequences to those kinds of behavior. What is the case in THIS world? Right now, we don't know.

Fundamentally, the audience does not know the consequences to expect in this kind of world. As a result, it makes it hard to know what makes sense and what doesn't, what is intentional and what is inconsistent. It's fine to have both a comedy and a drama together, but it means it may take longer to establish the mood, tone, and rhythm of the work for a reader. Be aware of the inconsistencies and see if you can help the viewer bridge the gap more by establishing through character reaction what is normal for this world.

ON LETTERING

Your lettering has absolutely improved, and the new word balloon approach is a good direction too. Since you feel very strongly about the issues being fixed after page 7 of chapter 2, I made a point to jump to that spot in the archive and evaluate whether the issues are completely gone or not.

My conclusion is that the problem has more to do with page planning and layouts than word balloons or font choices.

I'm going to go into some examples below, all taken from chapter 2 after page 7. I'm not trying to nit-pick with this, but rather to highlight a few areas where the problems are especially obvious. It's not happening all the time, but it is happening often enough that revising how page creation and planning is done may be helpful for future work.

For more information on what I'm discussing here, I wrote an article about this topic for the WA a while back here. I'm not going to claim I'm an expert (folks in the comments have already pointed out exceptions or terminology disagreements) but I will say that this is something I learned the hard way, and I hope that I can pass on what I've learned to you, for an improved starting point on addressing these visual problems.

PAGE LAYOUTS
Western readers read a page from left to right and top to bottom. Therefore we as creators making comics for a western audience need to be aware of how the eye will travel across the page, and what order information will be taken in. It's also valuable for us to think of the flow of motion across the page.

In order to keep characters consistent in space, it's useful to keep them, if possible, on a consistent side of the page. It's also useful to have the first person to speak on the far left or top side of a page or panel. Take page 16, the last panel:



Vespyr is the last person pictured in the panel, but the first to speak. This is mitigated somewhat by having his balloon on the top of the panel, but the drawback of that is it creates a lot of dead space around Brandi. Speaking of Brandi, she appears first (on the left), but speaks second. It's not too confusing due to the up/down balloon arrangement, but not ideal.

Sometimes I know that a character is going to be speaking first a lot in upcoming pages, but isn't introduced until halfway through a scene, so I want them long-term on the left, but they might not speak until after an established character on the right. It happens. I might approach the problem the same way you did, with vertical balloon arrangement. It's not the best solution, but it works okay and sometimes that's all that matters.

However, in this case, Brandi's position actually gets flipped in the next page, which not only makes the tails cross (generally a discouraged practice in lettering convention) but also makes it hard to track her movements. There is no need for this to be the case. She starts on the left side of the page. Vespyr is on the right. Brandi should move into the panel from the left. She's the first to talk, which further emphasizes the importance of her being on the left. There are no background elements, so we're not missing something important there. Flipping that panel makes the lettering flow better and makes more sense for the motion of the characters.




Another example of flow of motion being disrupted is when we meet the vampire in the woods, Moonshine.

In page 33 he is established on the right. Vespyr and Lexi are both on the left. Vespyr reaches for the gun, which is to the left of him. Lexi, on the far left, kicks it towards him, pushing it to the right towards Moonshine. The gun is brought up, firing from the left side of the page towards the right side of the page…but then Moonshine falls to the left. The trajectory of the bullet should push him back farther right, creating a continuous arc and a clear line of motion. Otherwise it is very confusing to the eye as to what is happening.



This flip also allows the characters to flee to the left, keeping their location consistent relative to the page, which flows into page 36 better, where they are up against the cliff and yet again on the left side of the page.



Speaking of page 36, a lot of time is spent establishing the relative positions of Lexi, Vespyr, and Moonshine, but in page 37 Lexi teleports from one side of Vespyr to the other, creating a very confusing visual from one page to the next. This could have been avoided by changing the camera angles, or breaking up the paneling to allow different space for characters to react or speak.




All of these problems could be solved in the thumbnail/planning stage by thinking through entire scenes and choosing page break points and panel layouts that would allow character locations to remain consistent while working with natural reader eye-flow and corresponding word balloon placement.

As an example, here's page 44. Vespyr is the first to appear, but second to speak, while Lexi is second to appear and first to speak. This is addressed again with vertical balloon placement, but as with the example back on page 16, this creates awkward dead space above Vespyr and is not ideal for the flow of the eye. However, if we rotate the camera in planning thumbnails, we can still establish the relative positions of the characters AND make their lettering work much better.



Some super quick, super rough thumbnails with one of many options to address this problem:


Scribble explanation: Lexi and Vespyr are in the foreground. Moonshine is in the background. To start, Lexi is on the left. She speaks first, and she is left of Moonshine. Vespyr speaks second. He is established on the far right, because we know he will be exiting the scene and will have to move.

By establishing him on the right, when he exits the scene he will not have to move across any other characters to do so and his direction of exit is consistent. Note that he is exiting by moving to the right in BOTH panel one and panel two. In "reality" if he were exiting to the right and we flipped the camera, he would appear to be going the opposite way. However, for the sake of keeping the direction of moving consistent, we can choose to interpret his motion differently in the comic realm. It's less important here than in the gun example, but it's still something to think about. In some cases this idea of consistent motion is unnecessary or has to get ignored for the sake of other pieces of the page, but it's still valuable to consider. Alternatively, an overhead shot could be used, creating a more challenging and interesting visual that also allows motion and character location to stay consistent.

In later panels, which are completely the same as the final version of page 44, Lexi is still on the left of Moonshine, keeping all the character positions consistent.

Thinking of character speaking order, flow of motion, and consistent position relative to the page can all be worked out in the thumbnail stage where changes will take minutes, not hours, to do. This will also help prevent lettering problems before they happen, avoiding dead space and creating lettering layouts that flow more naturally without relying on up/down conventions alone to establish speaking order.

The lettering approaches you are using now are, in most cases, functional. What I am encouraging you to do is treat them as part of the artistic composition of the page itself.

Hi there Ambattii!

I read through Nocturne in one fell swoop and then ruminated on it a bit. Here are my thoughts:

Art: I like it. It's expressive. It's fun. I have nothing negative to say about it. You have a great handle on faces, character design, color palettes, and environments.

Stylistic Choices: Some of the filters in the later pages that separate out the colors + add blur (like it's old style printing) make my eyes hurt a bit, and it's difficult for me to read through those pages without getting a head ache. I don't know if other people have that problem, but personally I'm not a fan of that effect. Neon colors, sure. Amazing, eye popping color schemes, hell yes. 80's blur effects, please no. I enjoy your crisp line work far more than 80's-90's nostalgia of cheaply printed comics. I'd encourage you to ask around to see what others think. Maybe put up a poll on twitter of a before and after? I see you tweaking it more as Chapter 2 progresses, it becomes more subtle (which I personally consider a good move) ...but I guess I'd encourage you to use such effects sparingly, maybe to bring attention to certain actions or details rather than universally across the page.

Text/wordballoons/panel placement: You've corrected the majority of the wordballoon and panel placement problems from Chapter 1, but some problems still persist. I feel you should definitely decrease the line spacing of your font by about 30-50%. You have SO MUCH extra room, that it's even more than normal "breathing" room. Also, definitely please keep your font SIZE consistent. Small text = whisper, normal text size = normal voice, large/bold/italics = yelling. I know you already know this, because I see you using it elsewhere. But use the changes in size sparingly, and never to make the text fit inside the panels. For example, on this page, the font size of the final panel is bigger than all the other panels, but I assume the character is not shouting. I assume the text is larger because you are trying to fill all the SPACE in that last panel.

As Robin has already pointed out above, your comic pages, including the wordballoons, are all one composition. If your final panel has so much spare room that you felt the need to fill it up (or alternatively in this page, not enough room in panel 3 shoves the balloon in panel 2), then you should spend some more time on the thumbnail/sketch phase so you have the room where you need it, when you need it. Everyone is working on this all time, and for you, I don't consider this a problem that affected my ability to enjoy your work. Just a picky thing I think you have the skill to handle appropriately once it's pointed out.

Website:
You should strongly consider having the latest comic page on your home page, not your first page. If you are going to have a different page as your home page, it at least needs to be useful. Your last news update there was Nov 2016. Your home page is where (I assume) you tell everyone to link you. Therefore what people see in the first 3 seconds of clicking your URL are hella important. Generally, you want your best/most recent work first. If you're afraid of spoilers or want to provide trigger warnings/ratings, that's an acceptable purpose, but you need to provide that information up front. Right now it's just a filler image and old news, and makes your site look completely inactive.

Writing:
This...is where I had the most problems. I will be honest. I don't LIKE any of your characters. They all have few redeeming qualities. They seem one dimensional. Here's how I keep your cast straight in my head.

Vespyr: pointy-nosed narcissist.
Lexi: short jerk, nice lipstick.
The cop: tall jerk in trenchcoat.
Ladycop: a ginger pushover.
barkeep: omg, bad friend.
redneck vampire: has had the most character development so far.

For chapter 1, I expect to only just barely get to know characters. By the end of chapter 2, I expect to know them better, and admire or like or at least relate to something about them. Lexi spends the majority of chapter 2 yelling/screaming/swearing. Which, ok, understandable in one sense, but does not serve to further her character. As a writer, you script out what serves both the story AND the character.

Vespyr spends the chapter humiliating/insulting her in some way or another, which is right on point with his narcissistic personality. The cop is a major jerkbro, and even though you're setting him up as an antagonist of some sort, he still needs to grow as a character if he's going to be playing a part. Moonshine is the only one who, initially responding with anger, relents, demonstrating a deep, even contemplative personality in only a few pages. You pulled an amazing 180 on the audience and gave us something entirely unexpected. GOOD JOB!

I guess what I'm looking for from your cast is that their reactions to things outside of their control grow beyond yelling/anger. Currently, they ALL (except Moonshine) seem childlike and immature by responding primarily with tantrums. Even Lexi and Brandi, who seem to have a long history of being close friends. I want more like Moonshine!

Good news here is that you're only at chapter 2. It's easy to change trajectories for characters at this point. I think it wouldn't be very difficult at all moving forward to really focus on character growth in addition to the antics you already have. You've hinted at it with Lexi and her past, and that she remains in her grandmother's church...but it hasn't been explored beyond, again, anger/threats.

tl;dr you're off to a great start, and there's a lot you're already doing right. You're a great artist! I'd love to see your character writing get to the same level.