[ SECRET POST #1374 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1374 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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148. [SPOILERS for Persona 4]



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150. [TRIGGER WARNING for non-con/incest]



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151. [TRIGGER WARNING for non-con/dub-con]



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152. [TRIGGER WARNING for lolicon]



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153. [TRIGGER WARNING for self-harm]



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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #196.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom.livejournal.com]

110. http://imgur.com/Z3NNt.png

[angathol.livejournal.com]

I don't think panelling, visuals and layout really have that much to do with writing, anon.

I'll give HINABN credit for those aspects, but the only thing it's really lacking is good writing.

[kartos.livejournal.com]

Actually, they do. Scriptwriters for comics write in panel direction and how the panel looks (examples: over the shoulder, birds eye view, etc), and if you have shitty paneling, in the layout, you don't convey the story.

[angathol.livejournal.com]

I can see what you're saying - that they supplement each other - but if your story is sparse and poorly-written but your panelling is good, you're not exactly telling an effective story with good panelling alone. I don't think the visuals can always just speak for themselves in a webcomic when the story is falling flat.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

But what exactly is this 'good writing'? Is it the plot? The characters? If HINABN is to be criticized for having bad writing, I just want to know how people are defining 'bad writing'.

I think that visual storytelling is to comic writing as prose style is to conventional narrative writing. Separating 'art' and 'writing' (by which people often seem to mean just dialogue) in comic writing just seems a bit artificial to me. Not all artistic aspects/elements are part of comic writing, but some certainly are.

[serenity-winner.livejournal.com]

What you said about paneling and layout is true in the sense that it helps you better convey your story. If a comic lacks good writing in its basest form, a good layout is only going to help that so much.

[(Anonymous)]

But it clearly is supposed to be a good story with likeable characters that you can care about, which it mostly fails at. She's already disclosed most or all of the characters that will appear and some of the events that will happen, so that takes a lot of the tension and interest out; the world-building is awful (we don't even know what people think of the supernatural - Hanna presumably advertises that he deals with the supernatural and the zombie just walks around looking like a zombie, but there seems to be an underground community of supernaturals so are they unknown or just disliked or what?) Nobody has ever tried to say the art is bad, to my knowledge, but you can't say the WRITING is good because the art/layout/typography is good...

[(Anonymous)]

zombie does have to pretend he's not a zombie - says he's in a band or something. and they mention that hanna seems to attract supes in an unusual way.

but i still agree that the world is underdeveloped - the only "not a supe or in the service of/against supes" character we've met is the liquor store kid (i don't think the bartender really counts...)

OP

[(Anonymous)]

I take the comic as it is and I don't follow her artblog or wherever it is that these disclosures are being made. I really don't see how [thing extraneous to the text] affects [the text] itself; in this case, how something that happens away from the comic (spoilers for future events) can affect the comic itself, taken as it is.

Agreed re: world-building. But I think that visual storytelling is given really short shrift. If, say, a webcomic had an amazing plot but the artist simply couldn't convey an action sequence in a coherent manner - because of panelling issues, not just art style - then I think that counts as poor comic writing. It's like having a novel with a great plot but awful prose.

[lovegonnadrown.livejournal.com]

...panelling, layouts, etc =/= writing, anon, sorry to say.

Also if a comic is meant to be at least somewhat serious you kind of NEED character development. HINABN definitely falls under that category.

You don't have to "hate" something to have valid criticisms of it. I personally like HINABN, but... I gotta be honest. It's not that great. The art is wonderful but she's got a lot of problems that she needs to work out.

You should check out Scott McCloud's books on the subject, Understanding Comics, Making Comics, etc... Comics are such an amazing and interesting medium and they're so much fun to learn about!

[lizzyborden711.livejournal.com]

IAWTC

Her problems really make it hard for me to pin a lot of hope on seeing this story finished. Many other webcomic artists have talked publicly about their panic/anxiety/depression issues (i think its a somewhat common issue in the career, there's reasons to be attracted to a job that involves being alone a lot of the time), but they chose an update schedule and they made it work.

i started liking the series a lot more as soon as i started thinking of it as pretty art with an obscured story line and less a webcomic.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

C&Ping from another reply: I think that visual storytelling is given really short shrift. If, say, a webcomic had an amazing plot but the artist simply couldn't convey an action sequence in a coherent manner - because of panelling issues, not just art style - then I think that counts as poor comic writing. It's like having a novel with a great plot but awful prose.

I definitely agree that HINABN is far from perfect, and that valid criticism is a good thing, but I don't know, there were some secrets about it that just seemed really ragey.

[aeonamber.livejournal.com]

I agree with what you've mentioned being important and that it's all done really well in HINABN, but visuals can only carry a comic so far. IMO writing, story and character-building are just as important.

[childings.livejournal.com]

All fiction needs character development, that is, if the characters are a big part of the story and the author wants you to care about them. Yes, comics are a visual medium, but I don't like it when people assume that the visual aspect of comics is all that matters. It's usually why I buy comics, yes, but if that's all there is to the comic, it's not a good comic.

Panelling and layout is more pacing than writing. It sets the pace of a narrative in the same way that a director sets the pace of a film

OP

[(Anonymous)]

I agree that comics should be assessed on both their narrative and aesthetic merits. But I disagree that panelling and layout is just a matter of pacing. Panelling and layout are the essentials of what a comic artist works with; they are to the comic artists as words are to the novel writer.

C&P'ed from another reply: I think that visual storytelling is given really short shrift in discussions of comic writing. If, say, a webcomic had an amazing plot but the artist simply couldn't convey an action sequence in a coherent manner - because of panelling issues, not just art style - then I think that counts as poor comic writing. It's like having a novel with a great plot but awful prose.

[kartos.livejournal.com]

I've looked at it a few times, never cared enough to bother reading it all. Less hate, more apathy.

[theredshadow.livejournal.com]

this, exactly. i'm just disinterested. don't hate it, don't care about it. whatever.

[(Anonymous)]

Reading HIABN, to me, is like running in place. It's moving, but it's not really going anywhere S:

[(Anonymous)]

Haha, this is the best description of it I've ever seen.

[thechameleonnn.livejournal.com]

because reading a comic, i want a STORY. i want to ENJOY it. if i only read comics for the pretty art, i'd just go look at drawings. it's the art that's supposed to CATCH your attention, but the story that's supposed to hold it.. and when only one of those is good, it's hard to enjoy it at all.

[agentak.livejournal.com]

The only thing that annoys me about the comic is the insanely slow updating, other than that I'm with you. I seriously don't get the hate either.

[spam-27.livejournal.com]

I think a great deal of the hate is from other artists or writers that work far harder than she does and will never get close to the same amount of recognition. It's jealousy over how easily people fall for her stuff and anger than she barely works to earn it.

I don't hate her but I don't find her story remotely interesting. Like my friend says "Pretty people doing kookie things." (Like a Gap commercial)

[(Anonymous)]

Wonky expectations may be part of it. I went in expecting to dislike it apart from the art, but found myself thoroughly enjoying the candy coated horror story. No, we don't know the fine details of the world it's in right off the bat. We find it out bit by bit as '...' does. For all that people moan about background info being revealed outside the comic, there is still a lot that we're only finding out in the comic, and that has yet to be revealed (Hanna's being a rotten shell of what now?) Problems are introduced and solved(vampire bat left, ghost gone), while an overarching story develops. Not sure what else people are looking for in a fun little webcomic.

Flawed writing, but writing I'm enjoying all the same. I'm digging the story, but I'm there for the characters. So when the story slows down to just hang with the characters like it did at the beginning of chapter 3, I'm all for that. It offered a nice breathing space and did flesh both Hanna and '...' out a bit.

The only place I can see the crit over there being too many characters added is with Lamont. What he brings to the narrative could have been handled by Worth or Toni. The other characters have a firm place in the story. Fans fixating on every last character, even nameless ones, just goes with fandom and is nothing unique to HINABN.

So... IDK. I think most of the hate is from hype backlash. The comic does get over hyped.

[(Anonymous)]

This sums it up well.
One thing I've noticed, but don't understand is the moment something isn't as good as it could be in this comic it has FAILED COMPLETELY and there will be no second chances to see if it explains itself/ improves.

[cykstar.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing I got way too occupied by the amazing art to notice the story. I dunno, I want to wait until it gets really deep into the story before saying anything about it.