Roast my manga.

[Anonymous No.4089300]

Hi, this is the second draft of a one-shot manga I'm submitting for the MAGIC contest. A few pages are in the third revision. Planning on penning, etc on the 3rd or 4th draft so before then I'd love to get any feedback, whether on the story, paneling, artwork, composition, cinematography, etc.

Feel free to be as harsh as you want. I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read and comment.

Pic related is a drawing I made for a friend at a secret santa.

[Anonymous No.4089304]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pEsaedhkm9cTYQMweNxoM-C-24Ux001m

My draft. Thanks to anyone who spends time reading it. I'm fairly new to this board so if I made any mistakes please let me know.

pic related is a separate, gag oneshot I did

[Anonymous No.4089308]

>>4089304
>drive
Nigga I'm not letting you dox my email. Put it in an imgur like every other functional human

[Anonymous No.4089315]

>>4089304
>generic intro line
>first thing we see is a poorly-drawn head tilt
>establishing shot is obscured by main panel
>main panel is the flattest manga character in existence

bad OP! bad! you get no cookie!

[Anonymous No.4089318]

>>4089304
This first page doesn't bring me in at all in all honesty. Self aware parodies of anime tropes by westerners are really trite and overdone, honestly. The spiky haired protagonist having a literal pointy exclamation bubble for hair is kek-worthy, though.

[Anonymous No.4089331]

>>4089318
>>4089315
No, I don't want you to critique the gag manga, I want you to critique the the google drive link.
> pic related is a *separate*, gag oneshot I did
I want you to check out the manga at the drive link

[Anonymous No.4089333]

>>4089308
Huh, wasn't aware this was a thing, I must be low on IQ today. Gimme a sec.

[Anonymous No.4089336]

>>4089304
Look I'm not gonna lie, I read it through and it's bad in every aspect. But it's commendable that you made a whole draft. Very few people on here can say that, you can be proud of that. Now make another one. If you're having a rough time, read bakuman or something

[Anonymous No.4089341]

>>4089336
Can you be more detailed about what specifically you thought was bad about it? I appreciate your kind words but I also want to improve this draft and submit it, and I have confidence in it. Thanks. I love Bakuman btw, reread it 5 times probably.

[Anonymous No.4089343]

>>4089341
By "kind words" I wasn't being sarcastic, I meant the second half of your comment

[Anonymous No.4089353]

>>4089341
I don't know whether I can give you any useful critique beyond ''draw more and copy a lot more comics''. Going by your OP image you can polish things up to a degree but the characters are very static even for a sketch, like you're not very good at figure drawing yet. Some pages also have way too many panels where it's hard to see what's going on. I think there are helpful guidelines for comic page composition, like don't have characters suddenly flip positions on the panel as that confuses the reader and that sort of thing. I think you should finish it up as best you can without worrying too much, send it in, and immediately start working on the next one. And read some books on making comics while doing it. But whatever you do, just keep going

[Anonymous No.4089355]

>>4089300
>"we are the weapons of the future"
surely you understand "sounds cool" doesn't keep a sentence from sounding embarrassing.
>"you next-gens make us look old
Anon, this is light novel fan translation-tier dialogue.

>"ren, I'll ask you this only one time. would you stake your life on humanity?"
>"absolutely!"
Let me guess, your greatest source of inspiration is Naruto. I can feel the "air-headed main character that everyone is written into liking" in this. Does the MC also laught with his arm over his head and a chibi sweat drop on his face?

I commend you for creating a complete draft but the best attribute you have right now is your youth and willingness to learn.

[Anonymous No.4089360]

>>4089353
Thanks, will do for sure. I heard Isayama copied Ippo and KimiMachi so I'll try that too. Been working on figure drawing lately, and just finished reading Araki's book. I'll take all of your advice and try to fix the "too many panels" and "flipping positions" errors. Thanks so much.
>>4089355
The "weapons of the future" is the army's slogan, and they're dumb kids. It's meant to sound like cringey propaganda in retrospect.
> You next-gens make us look old"
sounds okay to me... what would you change it to?
> "Would you stake your life on humanity"
It's meant to be ironic considering what happens next.

DESU Attack on Titan is a way bigger inspiration for this one-shot than Naruto, in retrospect. Like the military-related themes.

[Anonymous No.4089372]

>>4089308
Here's the imgur link.
https://imgur.com/a/52m5DZm

[Anonymous No.4089385]

>>4089360
it's meant to sound like cringey propaganda?
I don't know about that anon, you gave it a whole page spread with the three main characters where they say an embarrasing phrase, sounds to me like you were implying coolness to the hero's words and are now doing damage control.

This draft feels to me like most things happened because "that's what happens in shonen" with no justification for them to happen, like most actual shonens have.

I wish I still had a page I found of a bad shonen manga where the guy lost his arm then threw it at the enemy's projectile, the projectile split in half and still hit the protag in the other arm, so he grabbed his other arm with his teeth but then wasted so much time the enemy shot another projectile and defeated the protag.
It made absolutely no sense and 9 pages could be narrated as "he ran towards his enemy in a straight line and fucking died".
But it's coooooool because that's what shonen doesssssss!

[Anonymous No.4089389]

>>4089385
I definitely get what you're saying. And yeah to be honest maybe I was doing damage control. But I always did have in mind that what they were doing was hypocritical and so their words, while they can be "cool" and all, are meaningless and disgraceful. I tried to portray that by Hairo (black hair) saying the same words while doing something pretty messed up, did that not come across well enough? Please let me know what could have let you experience that better.

[Anonymous No.4089392]

>>4089372
Big thanks. Reading now

[Anonymous No.4089395]

>>4089385
Btw do you mean most actual shonens do or don't have justification? It sounds like you meant "do" which makes more sense to me. At least the successes.
How would you suggest justifying what's happening? Is it grounding the setting better? Or... what? I know there must be many factors but even a couple of suggestions will be a big help.

[Anonymous No.4089397]

>>4089392
lol cute gif. saved

[Anonymous No.4089402]

>>4089353
Btw what are other guidelines for comic page compositions? I'll try to follow in general what most films do, don't move the camera around too much at a time, but got any other tips?

[Anonymous No.4089407]

>>4089355
Wait, I missed this past of your comment.
> I can feel the "air-headed main character that everyone is written into liking" in this. Does the MC also laught with his arm over his head and a chibi sweat drop on his face?
Did you not finish reading? I have a strong feeling your opinion may change if you finish reading it.

[Anonymous No.4089417]

>>4089308
>>4089333

people see your email if you download from their google drive?! Pirating patreon gdrives was a bad idea then...

[Anonymous No.4089418]

>>4089407
I got lost at who is who, did Ren get BTFO'd?

[Anonymous No.4089424]

>>4089360
>>4089402
You can improve your writing with time, and maybe you will look back at your old comics and think ''did I really write this shit?'' But the important part is to actually make them, or you'll never get to the retrospection. Whether it's deep and well written seinen, or over the top grade school humor like Cyborg Grandpa-G, the execution matters a lot and that is improved with practical experience. There's useful books on the topic of creating comics, some anon posted this image with a fair number of them. That also covers guidelines. You can find some in the megas of the artbook thread.

There's also other threads about comic art with artists above your skill level, try to absorb as much as you can from them. Good luck with the contest and draw every day, whether you succeed or fail or are sad or pleased draw daily like you eat daily

[Anonymous No.4089428]

>>4089417
just stay clear of anything google 100% of the time

[Anonymous No.4089432]

>>4089300
These pics are real small so I can't actually read it but from just glancing there are some action panels that look like they could be awesome if polished. There were a few pages that had too many panels but it's not terrible at a glance. Just keep grinding it

Also I had no idea whether to read right or left. Maybe I'm retarded but you could put an indicator on one of the pages for retards like me

[Anonymous No.4089438]

>>4089360
>Araki's book
That books slightly above your paygrade. The book is just watered down fundemental books with araki just going on random tangents. I know I guy who tried to use that, grinded the heads did everything araki said, and he still drew like a /beg/. Thats more of an intermediate "in the mind of" book. Not really a fundie book

[Anonymous No.4089451]

>>4089432
They're not small, just click them open. Or are you on mobile? Read right to left. Yeah the flashback (back borders) page in particular had too many panels.
>action panels that look like they could be awesome if polished
>not terrible at a glance
not to be gay but that made me feel really good, thanks man
>>4089418
Yeah
>>4089424
Thanks, I hope to think "did I really write this shitty shit" when I look back on this one-shot in six months. Thanks for this image, I'll try to draw daily like I eat daily.
>>4089438
Yeah Araki's book is more like reading creator interviews. Still I don't think it was above my paygrade, it helped me substantially.

[Anonymous No.4089477]

>>4089372
Be consistent with your onomatopoeia.

If you’re gonna do Japanese, like ゴゴゴ then make sure the rest of it is in Japanese as well. Don’t mix it in with English style like BOOM suddenly tossed in. If you wanna do it in English, do it all in English. You can still stylize it like Kana to give it that look, but don’t blend the languages. It’s a bit jarring. Like the equivalent of having your characters address each other as -kun and so on, despite the fact that the dialogue is written in English. Or like, having your characters say random weeb or Japanese words like Kawaii written out in romaji like that, when you’ve clearly written it in English.

Either go all in with the Nip, or don’t at all. You can have the onomatopoeia fully in nip and the dialogue in English if you want, but don’t mix and mash the languages within the two. Stick to one, and be consistent. Only exception if say the character was meant to be native to that country and is supposed to sound foreign to everyone else. So like, say for example you have a Mexican character, and he speaks like a Chicano and blends Spanish words with his English. That’s characterization, and that’s ok.

[Anonymous No.4089647]

>>4089477
Yea i'm gonna do it all in Japanese dw. English is just saving time for now. Any other advice, you seem helpful.

[Anonymous No.4089938]

roast my mango desu

[Anonymous No.4090009]

>>4089938
Are you the aspiring mangaka on /ic/ people talk about?
Can you critique my manga please?

[Anonymous No.4090018]

>>4090009
>aspiring mangaka
teh fuk?
You might be talking about the guy that made Tiger Square World.

[Anonymous No.4090049]

>>4090018
the guy mentioned here >>4089570, for some reason I thought >>4089938 was from a godly manga expert and they were just posting here to spite me or something. Idk how the fuck I thought up something so mental, mb.
I'll critique it if you critique mine afterwards.
There's not much honestly because it's so short and I don't really know what direction this is meant to be taken in (if it has a direction in the first place).
1. I prefer horizontally-spanning establishing shots.
2. If this is a school where's the desks?
3. From the 2nd panel's angle it seems like the two of them would walk straight into the sitting girl, why? Kind of awkward.
4. Don't think you need disjointed panels just for stepping on someone's feet. There's not much motion anyway
5. Transition into the punch is pretty hard to understand
6. Nice page flip though
7. camera angles shifting too much imo. Behind girl who got hit, feet, step-girl-friend's face close-up, zoom out of that girl (good), then directly stepped girl closeup, then zoom out, then mirror reflected back to hitting-girl again
8. If this is a manga the speech bubbles are flowing in the wrong way in the last panel, it makes more sense to go to the left imo
9. Obviously great pose on the last panel, jealous of being able to make simple poses so easily
Wanna team up and draw some art for some of my stories? lol

[Anonymous No.4090079]

>>4090049
1.personal preferences
2.it's outside the school, nice catch that it was a school.
3.rough draft is rough.
4. the foot stepping was essential to the short plot but I see what you're saying, too large a panel for its importance.
5.reader's meant to be caught by surprise.
7.that's manga, baybee.
8. refer to 3.
9.last panel's pose took the same time as sketching the rest of the page all together.

seeing as I wrote >>4089315 , >>4089355 and >>4089385 I think there's plenty of criticism given already.
I've been practicing script writing for 3 years and comics for 5. while I'm not as good as I could be at this stage, do understand your storytelling needs refining.

[Anonymous No.4090112]

>>4090079
(cont.)
Also on 7., the camera angle doesn't actually "shift".
It's a rule named the 180 rule, even though the camera rotates the characters are still in the same position as the previous panel for an easier read. punch-girl's still on the left, her friend's still on the right.

[Anonymous No.4090171]

>>4090112
Damn that makes a lot of sense, thanks for letting me know about the 180 rule.
Btw it looks like this thread is dead, if I make a completely new version of my draft should i make a new thread and actually dump my draft this time?

[Anonymous No.4090182]

>>4090171
If the thread's gone by the time you get back I suppose you could post in something like the /alt/ thread or the occasional webcomic thread and give a honest request for critique, none of this "roast my manga" title that invites unprofessionalism. Any thread that you see fits your shtick best, just post an imgur link.

Except for /asg/.
Step away from its discord.
You can still be saved.