Being the second thread I've seen for it here, I'll bring some criticism. I don't think elan school is a comic at all. There's barely any images and no panels to speak of. I found myself scrolling sporadically in an attempt to read each chapter/page, because that's the intended pacing of a work that seems to lack distinct guidelines that bind most visual mediums.
It's a shame, because the subject matter is interesting. I can't force myself to read it, though, the direction is just plain amature. Text alterations, spacing, and placement clearly utilized to guide the emotional response of the reader. I'm not a child; I can see through these methods, and instead of feeling engrossed with the narrative or caring about the scenario, I feel distrust at the overabundant manipulation and insulted as if my standards should be low enough to not care.
A plain text version would be better, I think. No special font stuff, no artsy editorialism, just plain text like a book. You could even sell a book - I think there's clearly a demand for the content.
It's packed with about as many images as a children's book. I don't consider those comics either, but at least they have to exist in a specific size format and be comfortably readable on something other than a cell phone.
If the author were to make that "I'm just an indy" excuse to me, I'd tell him to get serious and write a book. It's a severely unimpressive excuse to cite lack of staff/funding, especially when my criticisms would not be amended by the addition of either. I bet he'd convert to a video format using the exact same material if he made a patreon, so then you'd be totally corralled into his desired pacing.
I see plenty of images, but I think I get one of your points. I am not a fan of the scrolling thing at all. It works a little better on mobile it seems. Just I read really fast and don't think I appreciate the images as much because they often are cut off by the screen. I've tried zooming way out and that really just gives me the mobile experience essentially.
I think it's part of sort of how I'm used to reading as I don't like to read in little broken sentences like that and it's about the only way to see the picture. Personally on a larger screen I think I'd like it a lot more if it was set up where the cells were left to right, top to bottom across the screen like a comic would be. I don't think it would be super difficult to implement either, since it seems they are all the same size already.
I couldn't make it past chapter 3, so I'll accept that the images could have increased. I suppose even with many images, there's still a formatting sort of problem, close to what you express.
It's like, well, consider how your eyes move when reading. Simple motions for plain text, that builds a foundation. Once you arrange the text in seperated chunks across a page (especially a page with illustrations), the complexity increases and normal reading rules get slight modification so panelling can control the order your eyes hit a bunch of different text blocks on a page. This rule is standardized due to industry production workflow in part, but it's also pretty useful to have that kind of tool accepted because once you control the pattern followed by the readers' eyes, you then can try to control the pace that their eyes move with.
This work is what occurs when you attempt to disregard panelling completely. Maybe the author just hates comics. Maybe they understood that their content would generate a fanbase that simply does not care. Maybe they are performing an artistic experiment in defiance of industry norms. One might interpret that it is simply an issue of deficient organization, but that's nearly the definition of zero panelling in such a work.
I can't pretend the author is unaware of related principles, as he utilizes them. I'll reference the OP example. The first sentence is segmented in a style that suggests in text to use meter in recitation, like a poem. No telling if that's the intent or it just looked neat, but a reader familiar with prose would likely adjust how they read it. Third sentence comes in strong with a flipped gradient and increased font size, okay that's done for emphasis, fair. Big space, then fourth sentence, same presentation as the third, but split into two lines. Why would you put full emphasis on two sentences back to back? It isn't a meta narrative, so it must be emphasis. Unless it's a seperate narrator? But then it's still presented with more "depth" than the other narrative speaker. Why put the large space between the two sentences when there's not even a mode shift? It creates an emphatic silence. The last two sentences are gradient-flipped again, but this time there's no weird vertical spacing, the font only increased slightly, and it hilariously breaks what little boundary there was by putting text too far out left and right.
That's just a snippet or single page, the whole thing had my mind racing with such thoughts. You can write it off to autism (and funposting), but I think I just have a low tolerance for emotional manipulation. I can't help but then question the validity of the author's content because I find it hard to grasp that a person who grew up suffering emotional abuse could stomach trying to emotionally manipulate others. But that's a psychology issue and I may be wrong to think that.
I think it's more amateur work + attempt at an artistic choice than intentional emotional manipulation myself. That's totally fine, they can do what they want. But on the same token, I can criticize it as I want. I'd never call to censor it or anything of the nature. Quite the contrary actually, as from what I read I think it's a valuable story to tell. I just hate how the nature of the presentation causes it to bust up the thoughts in my head. It actually gives it less impact, because I'm pushed away by distraction rather than being pulled into the story.
Oh yeah, sure, I don't disagree with the premise of the thread. It's total bullshit it got smacked away like it did.
I just wanted to vent a little and invite others to engage in critique (as I believe sincere criticism can be a great help to creators). You did engage, so I suppose it was a success.
Being the second thread I've seen for it here, I'll bring some criticism. I don't think elan school is a comic at all. There's barely any images and no panels to speak of. I found myself scrolling sporadically in an attempt to read each chapter/page, because that's the intended pacing of a work that seems to lack distinct guidelines that bind most visual mediums.
It's a shame, because the subject matter is interesting. I can't force myself to read it, though, the direction is just plain amature. Text alterations, spacing, and placement clearly utilized to guide the emotional response of the reader. I'm not a child; I can see through these methods, and instead of feeling engrossed with the narrative or caring about the scenario, I feel distrust at the overabundant manipulation and insulted as if my standards should be low enough to not care.
A plain text version would be better, I think. No special font stuff, no artsy editorialism, just plain text like a book. You could even sell a book - I think there's clearly a demand for the content.
It's packed with about as many images as a children's book. I don't consider those comics either, but at least they have to exist in a specific size format and be comfortably readable on something other than a cell phone.
If the author were to make that "I'm just an indy" excuse to me, I'd tell him to get serious and write a book. It's a severely unimpressive excuse to cite lack of staff/funding, especially when my criticisms would not be amended by the addition of either. I bet he'd convert to a video format using the exact same material if he made a patreon, so then you'd be totally corralled into his desired pacing.
I see plenty of images, but I think I get one of your points. I am not a fan of the scrolling thing at all. It works a little better on mobile it seems. Just I read really fast and don't think I appreciate the images as much because they often are cut off by the screen. I've tried zooming way out and that really just gives me the mobile experience essentially.
I think it's part of sort of how I'm used to reading as I don't like to read in little broken sentences like that and it's about the only way to see the picture. Personally on a larger screen I think I'd like it a lot more if it was set up where the cells were left to right, top to bottom across the screen like a comic would be. I don't think it would be super difficult to implement either, since it seems they are all the same size already.
I couldn't make it past chapter 3, so I'll accept that the images could have increased. I suppose even with many images, there's still a formatting sort of problem, close to what you express.
It's like, well, consider how your eyes move when reading. Simple motions for plain text, that builds a foundation. Once you arrange the text in seperated chunks across a page (especially a page with illustrations), the complexity increases and normal reading rules get slight modification so panelling can control the order your eyes hit a bunch of different text blocks on a page. This rule is standardized due to industry production workflow in part, but it's also pretty useful to have that kind of tool accepted because once you control the pattern followed by the readers' eyes, you then can try to control the pace that their eyes move with.
This work is what occurs when you attempt to disregard panelling completely. Maybe the author just hates comics. Maybe they understood that their content would generate a fanbase that simply does not care. Maybe they are performing an artistic experiment in defiance of industry norms. One might interpret that it is simply an issue of deficient organization, but that's nearly the definition of zero panelling in such a work.
I can't pretend the author is unaware of related principles, as he utilizes them. I'll reference the OP example. The first sentence is segmented in a style that suggests in text to use meter in recitation, like a poem. No telling if that's the intent or it just looked neat, but a reader familiar with prose would likely adjust how they read it. Third sentence comes in strong with a flipped gradient and increased font size, okay that's done for emphasis, fair. Big space, then fourth sentence, same presentation as the third, but split into two lines. Why would you put full emphasis on two sentences back to back? It isn't a meta narrative, so it must be emphasis. Unless it's a seperate narrator? But then it's still presented with more "depth" than the other narrative speaker. Why put the large space between the two sentences when there's not even a mode shift? It creates an emphatic silence. The last two sentences are gradient-flipped again, but this time there's no weird vertical spacing, the font only increased slightly, and it hilariously breaks what little boundary there was by putting text too far out left and right.
That's just a snippet or single page, the whole thing had my mind racing with such thoughts. You can write it off to autism (and funposting), but I think I just have a low tolerance for emotional manipulation. I can't help but then question the validity of the author's content because I find it hard to grasp that a person who grew up suffering emotional abuse could stomach trying to emotionally manipulate others. But that's a psychology issue and I may be wrong to think that.
I think it's more amateur work + attempt at an artistic choice than intentional emotional manipulation myself. That's totally fine, they can do what they want. But on the same token, I can criticize it as I want. I'd never call to censor it or anything of the nature. Quite the contrary actually, as from what I read I think it's a valuable story to tell. I just hate how the nature of the presentation causes it to bust up the thoughts in my head. It actually gives it less impact, because I'm pushed away by distraction rather than being pulled into the story.
Oh yeah, sure, I don't disagree with the premise of the thread. It's total bullshit it got smacked away like it did.
I just wanted to vent a little and invite others to engage in critique (as I believe sincere criticism can be a great help to creators). You did engage, so I suppose it was a success.