Quantity vs. Quality

[Suuper-san]

I was tempted to make this a vote but I think most people would want to qualify their answer, so opted out of it.

I think everyone can agree that when we read manga, we want to enjoy the art, right?
But does that mean that we'd be happy to wait ages for a super high quality release, compared to waiting a normal time for a normal quality release?

Basically would you prefer a rougher quality manga if you could read it more frequently? (or if the chapters were longer etc)

I'm definitely torn between the idea, but partly because I use a lot of manga as art reference, so sketchy manga isn't as useful to me. But for stories that I'm really hooked on, I'd read the next chapter in almost any quality if that was all that was available. Especially once I've caught up with the latest release, it's soooo long to wait between chapters and when it does come out, the story doesnt progress very far and it's annoying enough that I wait a while to binge a larger chunk to get the feeling that I've actually read a proper amount of the story.

I think to some extent this issue only affects beginner manga artists, artists working on their own, part time, or on a minimal staff team where they can't generate a normal-to-high level chapter each week or even to a timetable at all.

I suppose a sub-question is, what is a reasonable weekly/monthly output for a manga, if the quality could be controlled to boost the output?
Most weekly manga are 15-20 pages a week, but if they "sketched" the pages, I bet they'd still look pretty decent and be a lot faster to produce. They could churn out 4 times as much at just half the quality I'd estimate.

Just wondering what everyone's thoughts were and if you can think of any other related factors.

[MK]

Readers want both XD

They don't want to see construction lines.  If you went sketchy, it would be more of a sketchy lineart with at least flats if not cell shaded.

It's better that you go with quality and speed will come.  Best way to avoid angry fans is plan out ahead of time with buffer chapters.  Open with at least 3-5 chapters minimum with an extra 5-8 buffer unless you plan to make it end very shortly

[Robin Rain]

I've been reading quite a few webcomics lately that have a rougher style, particularly in the aspect of coloring. That's not to say that they look unfinished, but that so long as there's some level of style consistency (and the plot is interesting) it should be fine to cut some corners.

Heck, I didn't even notice that the line art and shading in the webcomic NeverMore had all sorts of hanging and disconnected areas until looking closely the second time reading, because I was engaged with the plot.

Growing up Gerudo looks like pencil sketches and is grayscale, but the artist's understanding of how light values lead the eye and the character expressions are nicely done.

The Secrets of Soulford has minimal color that looks like watercolor on canvas. And the panel shapes are fluid and only focus on the details you need to see.

Another watercolor like comic with a sketchy style is Stand Still. Stay Silent. Much of the detail is greebling.

Meanwhile there's some comics that the art is stunning however by the time of each update I have to backtrack because I don't remember what happened last.

[anonymous]

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[Suuper-san]

@slammy that's so true, and I wonder if that mindset is what made me consider the question in the first place. I also mostly wait for shows to be finished before binging them lol although my favourites I'll devour the moment they come out XD

@robin thanks for the specific mentions it'll be good to take a glance at those. As you say, an amount of sketchiness can be forgiven if the style is consistent. I've been working on such a style myself for medium quality work.

and indeed if the wait time is too long it does make it hard to remember what happened last, I get that a lot.

@MK hahaha true true the best of both worlds would be great. Your advice is spot on with the buffer chapters, that's something I'll definitely be doing myself when the time comes.

[Coryn]

As MK said, definitely both, lol

Personally, I'd rather take quality (and I'm throwing writing into this as well) over quantity. Some of my favorite stories of all time (Gundam 08th MS Team comes to mind), are short, tightly constructed narratives. If you're aiming for speed and mass, you can produce a lot of work, but like a long running anime that 33% filler, you start to see the cracks.

[Suuper-san]

I had a discussion with a friend over a similar topic and we sort of decided that a lot of content consumers (aka the average Joe) don't have a very critical eye to notice such details, and so putting in the extra effort to write or draw higher quality doesn't yield much better results.

Art and writing critics can see a lot easier the minor errors and mistakes, such as animation tricks to save time etc.

Certainly you can lower the quality far enough and everyone starts to notice, you get memes made of the awful shots and topics trend on how the show is getting milked etc, long runners like Naruto have this big time. Maybe that's a budget issue as well, I would definitely like to see a graph of budget vs. quality for a bunch of animes. I mean Ghibli at the top end has a massive budget I would assume.

[Tenori Tejima]

Quality if I'm reading it...

Quantity if I'm the one drawing.

[Suuper-san]

@Tenori Tejima hahahahaha same same

[Coryn]

That all being said, some of the biggest names of all time (Berserk, JoJo, etc.) Definitely tread that line.

Just from my personal perspective as a creator though, I would feel kinda hollow and empty if I didn't value quality over quantity. Even if it's all "average Joes" reading my work, I have a personal standard I want to meet, and I don't believe that just because you're an average joe you don't deserve good quality.

I think at the end of the day you have to find the balance point between the two. Because as Suuper pointed out with the milking of Naruto ( wow there has got to be a better way to phrase that), too much quantity is as much as a problem as too little.

For the opposite, too much emphasis on quality leads to creators dying before finishing their stories. So pros and cons I guess.

[Robin Rain]

Some of the Naruto animation stuff is smear frames which has a reason. Googling it can probably give you a better explanation than I can.


Also, I feel the genre plays a big part of it something can be sketchy or not. Gritty dark stories can benefit from a sketchy style while say a modern romance probably would be rather off-putting.

[Coryn]

Smear frames are definitely a necessary part of the animation. I'm thinking more of times when artwork gets shubbed out to cheaper studios and you end up with characters being extremely off model, lower quality animations, etc.

One Punch Man season 1 vs season 2 might be the most stark example I can think of

[Robin Rain]

Yeah, hence the "some". Figured it best to point out in case someone is not familiar and thinks all the goofy looking frames were poor animation.

[legomaestro]

Ya'll all got it. I'm heavily on quantity side because mortality reasons. I'm so in denial about never getting to see Berserk finish that it hurts, and when I see my personal efforts as an artist I prefer to double down on 'imperfect, but finished'. After all, if the story is good and great enough you can always hope for a later-date Miura-level touch up on your stuff right?

Better a draft than an unwritten masterpiece I say

[Coryn]

That's true. When it comes to a story, thin but finished is better than a story never finished at all in some ways. The key I guess is to always think in terms of drafts so you don't get caught up on perfection.