Something I often think about and criticise for is a lack of editorial control. Very often, an indie/self published comic has all the right ingredients but falls short on even basic proof reading, let alone proper editing.
This is a great shame. How many otherwise great ideas have been sullied by this?
Sometimes a good comic could seriously benefit from someone just reading it through and saying, “Perhaps you should rephrase this” or “this is not how people talk” or “this would make more sense if put in a different order” and is an area where many indie comics unfortunately fall short. I can give you loads of examples where a comic could have benefited from proper editing but unfortunately have apparently had none.
As a creative person myself, I can fully understand the compulsion of the creator of an idea to not let it out of your control, but ultimately the role of an editor is not to take control but to assist the creator in refining and improving on the original idea.
Indie creators should, for the sake of broader picture, consider allowing someone else into the creative process who will be honest with them and point out inconsistencies, problems and gaping plot holes because it will really help them take a good comic and make it a great comic.
…and, to be honest, if creating great comics is not where their interest lies then I’m not at all sure I want to read their work anyway…
Cosmogenesis
Created by Adam R. Grose and Tony Suleri.
Cosmogenesis is an example of what I have been talking about. It is packed to the brim with brilliant and inventive ideas and illustrated using detailed, unique and often sublime artwork.
But it has a few cracks in the plaster...
Both the creators are obviously skilled at what they do. There is clearly a lot of talent being brought to the table here, and there is a massive potential to produce something worthwhile and brilliant.
The ingredients are right, and so right in fact that it hurts. They have this good idea about a comic that combines elements of Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, The Matrix and Foundation and tries to form a cohesive and believable universe, apparently mapping it out in detail. They produce gorgeous vistas and architecture and scenes and throw in interesting characters with consistency and skill, rendering them all in detail with an architectural pen (or something like it) in a very interesting and personal style.
The idea is ambitious, they have created an epic storyline with a backdrop of an intrinsic mythos so everything you might need for a top quality comic is there.
But it falls down in the editing. Least of the problems are the many typographical errors, which a good proof-reader would pick up on.
More serious is the confused ordering of the sequences and dialogue, on some pages it seems as if they had a load of things that needed to be said and they broke it down into short sentences then arranged them in random order on the page. It is common in the dialogue for it to jump from subject to subject in a manner that seems forced and unnatural. An editor would pick up on this and re-arrange the wording into an order that makes more sense.
Sometimes, the story jumps about all over the place seemingly without proper consideration for how best the story would flow. An editor would provide that consideration.
All this adds up to confusion for the reader. It took until the end of the first book, before I even had a vague idea of what was happening, and even then I’ve had to go back and re-read it before grasping what is being put across.
A comic cannot afford to lose its readers’ interest by losing them. If a reader isn’t able to understand he will just go and read something else and not many people are willing to persevere on something new.
I like Cosmogenesis and after I started to understand what was happening I enjoyed reading it, but it needs an editor more than anything else.
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