PEER REVIEW: the giving and the getting thereof
Comics are a complex art form! Sometimes you might find that, after you’ve been working on your opus for awhile, it’s not getting the type of reactions you were hoping for. Readers seem confused by scenes you thought were crystal clear, jokes aren’t seeming to register, or emotional beats aren’t landing. Or maybe, you’re starting to feel unsatisfied yourself; you feel like something might be wrong, but you’re not sure what it is.
Reader and peer critique is a fantastic practice that allows us to combine our experiences as readers and creators to help others with their comics. It’s hard to step back as a creator and experience your story, which you already know intimately inside and out, as if you’re a new reader who has no idea where this crazy train might be headed.
Whether you just need a second opinion or are stuck in writer’s block, it’s extremely helpful when done respectfully and well. But like any skill, we need to practice both how we ask for critique and how we receive it for it to have the best effect on our work and truly be constructive.
When should you NOT ask for critique?
When you just don’t care to change your work at this time. While on some level, we post our comics on the internet because we want readers, you might take a step back from your work and find that just making simple comics that you don’t have to troubleshoot or fit to anyone else’s ideas of “good” is what keeps you going. You might find processing different viewpoints something that’s too stressful with everything else going on in your life, or feel satisfied with what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.
Sometimes, depending on what your work is doing for you, it’s totally fine to not worry about this part! Art can be very intensely personal, and if you’re creating your comic purely for catharsis or therapy, or just for fun with no concern about drawing a wider or more dedicated readership, that’s perfectly fine and valid
Not asking for critique when you don’t want to make changes is also more respectful to your peers. Good critique takes time and energy on the part of the responder. They might have to read through everything you’ve done multiple times, and while time spent is not necessarily proportional to how useful the information is, it’s work you should be respectful of. If the hours of time they spend on you are not something you ever intended to use, be honest about that.
But if you feel that’s not enough, and you’re concerned your work may be falling short of your goals, that may be when it’s time to seek feedback.
When SHOULD you ask for critique?
When improving at the craft of webcomic-making will bring you closer to your goals. Applying with publishers or groups, making changes to reach new readers, or eliminating stumbling blocks in your story or art are all potential reasons.
When you can process* potential criticism from a variety of viewpoints, even if you might not agree with it. Critique is an evaluation of your work, not you as a person. While a critiquer should try to be constructive, reading honest criticism can be emotionally intense. Make sure you’re in a good mental place to take in everything, step back and take stretch/snack breaks before responding, and operate on the assumption that if someone is spending time on your work in good faith, they are here to help.
*Note also that “processing” does not mean “implementing” necessarily! The act of processing is just thinking carefully about it and being able to respond in a respectful, thoughtful way, even if you disagree.
When you have a circle of people you trust to take your work in good faith. While neutral parties or strangers can definitely give you feedback that can be used, the best feedback comes from people who like what you’re trying to do and are invested in your success on some level. Find people that like the things about your comic that you like about your comic and want to invest time in giving you thoughtful critique (and hopefully you’ll also be able to reciprocate this energy in some way, whether that’s paying them money, critiquing their work when they need help, or baking them very tasty pies)
When you know your boundaries. Sometimes very good friends can be very bad proofreaders, because their emotional investment in either you or how they perceive your story can cause conflict with what your goals are. You know your work and your goals best, and knowing how to politely disengage when you sense things aren’t working or open a dialogue about healthy boundaries (preferably before feelings get hurt and relationships get damaged) will serve you well.
When you can take a long view of a variety of feedback. All feedback comes with an element of individual experience and preferences. The more people you approach, the more you may get feedback that seems to conflict. Expect that you may receive very different opinions on the same piece, and nothing is gospel or universal. The more you can step back from the process and see where there’s overlap between more than one person’s observations is often where the most useful information lies.
How do you ask for critique?
Once you’ve found a good spot, what does a request for critique actually look like?
You will have to put a little work into setting your reviewers’ expectations. Vague “what do you think of my comic” requests can be good if you’re looking to see if someone is getting the general desired reaction or information from what you’ve done. However, that’s not always ideal if you’re:
Starting out and concerned about a specific direction or skill
Looking to practice specific art or writing skills.
Building a general base skill set and looking for the areas where you need work that you may not see yet.
Searching out the weak areas of an already-developed skill set.
Troubleshooting reader stumbling blocks in a chapter, scene, layout, or presentation.
The direction of your work might not always be clear to your reviewers, so including info about how you see your comic can avoid confusion about where you’re going.
Where can a reviewer read what you have so far? While it’s possible to troubleshoot on a conceptual level once someone gets familiar with your work (“Should my character date A or B?”), reviewers will need to get familiar with the characters, mood and tone you’ve used to executed things in the past before being able to provide in-depth critique.
What’s the description for your comic? You don’t always have to describe the entire plot, but knowing the basics about what the comic or scene should focus on is always helpful.
What other works are your inspiration or do you consider in the same “family” as your comic? This can help readers show how your inspirations have tackled the problems you’re facing.
Depending on your goals, reviewers (particularly in the case of a private review group) may ask more detailed questions about your characters, worldbuilding, plot, etc. that haven’t been revealed yet. For those new to critiques, this can sometimes feel odd - we all worry about giving spoilers! But it can also be discouraging to only get critique after it’s too late to implement it, or not receive critique at all because there isn’t enough content yet.
If you want to receive critique on upcoming or unfinished work, put together as much context as possible for the topic you want to be critiqued. For example, if you want crit on upcoming plot points, you can include an outline and as many sketches as they have on hand with as much detail as possible, or roughly letter some sketched pages. Even if it’s not a part of your normal process, your reviewers aren’t psychic and you may need to put in a little work to make your upcoming content understandable enough to give relevant, useful recommendations.
What does a good critique look like?
There are many methods of critique for comics. A short (and certainly not exhaustive) list of critiques you might receive in a particular group includes:
Basic feelings: The reviewer responds to your idea or pages with their general impressions and/or stream of consciousness thoughts about what’s happened and what they hope or expect will happen next.
Written analysis: The reviewer writes out what they think of the effectiveness of your choices and possible recommendations for fixing it.
Linking to examples or tutorials: A comic creator links you to another comic or tutorial that exemplifies what they are pointing out. We can all learn from insightful and specific tutorials and examples from other artists.
Comics are a visual medium, so a lot of times showing things with art or Photoshopping rough ideas around in the layout is easier than talking it out. Some visual critique methods:
Red-lining: An artist may take a screen shot of your work, and demonstrate a positioning (usually anatomy or panelling) correction through use of sketched lines. This is not theft or vandalism. It is a tool accepted by our community and by most art communities.
Re-drawing: An artist may sketch out a scene for you, for example, from another perspective, in order to demonstrate a concept or point out a flaw.
Re-paneling: An artist may take a screen shot of your work and adjust the panel positions, script, or compositions in order to demonstrate alternate pacing, layout, or writing recommendations.
How do you process critique?
If you or your reviewer are not used to critiquing each other, you might feel some intense emotions! You might feel guilt or personal shame, or the need to change everything as soon as you hear that someone doesn’t like something. You might get defensive and offer lengthy explanations of what they didn’t understand. You might get angry and think nasty thoughts about the critiquer’s personality, the tone or language they used, or their own skill if they’re also a comic creator.
In all of these cases, it is always important to remind yourself that critique is only an evaluation of a work in progress. You have the power to change course in whatever way you see fit, and making an art or writing mistake is not a judgment of you as a person.
Whenever you receive critique, make sure you’re in a good mental place for it. Step back and take stretch/snack breaks before responding. Operate on the assumption that if someone is spending time on your work in good faith, they are here to help.
Mary Robinette Kowal has a breakdown for written manuscript critique that lists out four potential reactions that you as the creator might have when you receive critique:
D'oh: You see and agree that there’s a problem immediately and there’s an easy objective fix. Things like typos and technical anatomy/perspective issues might all fall into this category.
I see what you mean, but..: The reviewer has identified a problem and you agree it’s a problem, but there is another way to fix it that would align better with your methods and goals.
No: The reviewer is projecting and seeing a different story than the one you want to be making and you’re probably going to disregard what they’re saying entirely.
WTF?: You don’t understand how the reviewer is making the assumptions they’re making, so follow up questions about why they think that can help pinpoint where the area of confusion lies.
How do you implement critique?
It’s up to you! If you received specific suggestions that align with your direction or give you ideas, you may choose to revise your past pages, tighten your pacing to remove extraneous elements or inconsistencies, add more explanatory scenes into your archive to clear up confusing things, make improvements to your art, implement more readable fonts, or all of the above.
If all you’re working with is general feedback about how readers feel when they read your work, a direction might not be as clear, but you can still work with it! Again referencing Mary Robinette Kowal’s critique info, the general feedback you collect can fall into a few categories of responses that require different fixes:
Awesome - What you have is working! Don’t change it!
Boring - This is often a pacing issue. Look for ways to introduce information to illustrate why the “boring” information matters, or see if you can cut it and tighten the scene without losing much. Artists coming from a storyboarding or animation background might look into this tweet thread of pacing tips.
Confusing - For writing, you’re possibly introducing things in the wrong order. See what you can shift from your later plot points into the current ones to provide context. For art, you may not be rendering things with enough contrast or clarity.
Hard to believe - You’ve violated the reader’s sense of how the world works. Revisit your world-building premises!
Another valid approach (especially with an ongoing project like a webcomic) is restrict your energies to only implementing such changes in your future pages, or even just working it into the planning process of your next project. Many readers appreciate that webcomics evolve over the years and will enjoy seeing your growth. Again, you know your project, time, energy and goals best, so be honest with yourself!
We hope that the tools of critique serve you well!
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