bishop2knight

The question seems simple enough...what, in your mind, makes a comic a good comic?

Let's take it one step further...what makes a good issue? And what makes a good arc?

DataZak

For me, it's simple: if it entertains me, then it's a good comic. A well written story plus nice artwork.

What makes a good arc? One where some major progress is made at the end of the arc.

But that's just me.

ytrez

Good Concept + Good Writing + Good Artwork = Good Comic

Examples: Dark Knight, Watchmen, Garth Ennis' Punisher

The opposite: One More Day

slop101

Continuity, and lots of it - the more convoluted the better!

bishop2knight

Have any of you ever really thought about what it is that entertains you? What about a story makes it "good writing" in your mind?

Meglos

Giant boobs.

fujishig

I like to think I'm pretty easy to please when it comes to comic books. It has to have decent, at the very least intelligible art. Even a good or great writer needs to have an artist who can convey their story. And pretty pinups often aren't enough if I can't tell what the heck is going on because the artist has no sense of sequential storytelling. It doesn't even have to be flashy, or full of details. A little continuity within an arc also helps: ideally, I'd like an artist to be the same across an entire arc, but at the very least get someone stylistically similar so the transition isn't jarring. I think Invincible, for instance, did an excellent job of this when they changed artists.

For writing, I'd just like a well-paced story with some kind of conclusion at the end of the arc. I want the writers to have thought out the storyline so it doesn't seem like it's being made up as they go along, or strung out endlessly. I'd like the characters, if they have a history, to stay true to the characterization done by past creators, and not just made into whatever the current writer wants. I'm all for putting their own spin on a character, but at least have some kind of explanation for it. Editors should make sure that continuity rules are followed: it doesn't matter to me as much for minor continuity details, but if Luke Cage and Danny Rand act like they've never met or something, that's a huge deal. I realize continuity is a huge sticking point, but comic fans want it because they've invested so much into these characters over the years, and it's like a slap in the face when the hot writer of the month decides to just crap all over it.

You would think that this would be common sense, and it should be the absolute minimum, and all too often I find myself just lost when it comes to what the heck is going on in a comic I'm reading... and if I've been collecting it for a while and I'm lost, how the heck is anyone else going to follow it?

The problem, of course, is that most mainstream comic books are not creator-owned and/or driven. It's mainly work for hire, and so you get dozens and dozens of different writers and artists writing the character over the course of a few years.

Yo Mama

75 cents

MartinBlank

Fixed.

It's probably debatable, but I think Preacher's one of the greatest books of all time.