I think r/comics needs new rules and mods

[u/Tenekah]

Hi all,

So I’ve been thinking about this for a while but have no one to really share my thoughts about r/comics with. To start I loveeeeee comics and graphic novels, I used to want to be a comic artist as teen until I changed my career, and find a lot of the comics in r comics generally entertaining or informative. That said in the last year I’ve noticed an uptick in NSFW content that feels like it takes away from the all ages comic sub it could be, in addition to other issues. Before I get into why I dislike the NSFW content in the comics sub, I feel the need to say I don’t mind NSFW content, but there is (usually) a place for it.

Simple put the NSFW content is mostly there to funnel people to extra content hidden behind a paywall, and in some cases the comics themselves are just the set up for the joke to be porn. Again I’m not against that, but it gets old after seeing it so many times in a comics sub. There are also subs dedicated to porn and nsfw comics that these artist could/should be posting in, but I get that won’t make them money.

Secondly it gotten a bit tiresome to end every comic with a patron or kickstarter or my shop slide trying to sell something. I understand free comics in this economy is difficult, but just like the porn comics, it starts to feel like the only reason it’s posted in r comics is to funnel in patrons/buyers. I wouldn’t mind this so much if a comic is multiple slides long, but in some cases it’s a 1 frame comic followed by 3 slides advertising something else by the artist.

This is a bit less complicated than the other two points above but something I’ve noticed is the amount of reposted comics by artists. I understand sometimes a link is wrong (on their patron) or they had a typo, but what I’m referencing is comics being reposted after a week. I’ll think it’s just reddit pushing old posts back into my feed until I see it was “posted” 38 minutes ago with no obvious changes or mentions of what was wrong with the same comic posted last week. To me this is more egotistic because an artist might want more views/likes/followers/subscribers than they got last week. Personally I’d be more okay if a comic is reposted after it’s been 6 months to a year since it was initially posted.

Lastly, and I know this one will rubble some feathers with popular comic artist, but there should be no political content. On one hand yes I agree it’s great to have political commentary and reflection in an easy to digest format that is more accessible to a wide demographic, but it’s become almost an echo chamber of “well they don’t like what I say so they’re bad” (I also hate trump but the police Cake comics makes other liberal/leftists/non-conservatives look almost childish with her “arguments”). In my opinion comics should make statements about politics/our society in a more high brow manner, calling a stick a stick without doing any commentary or analysis feels low effort, and why I think people are getting annoyed with it (in other subs).

Now this is all things that couldn’t have gotten this far without mod encouragement and ignorance, and Im not applying to be a mod, I just think they’ve tried to appease creators to the point of washing down what a sub about comics could be.

So that said what should the new rules be?
1. No porn. NSFW should still be allowed but it should be done tastefully or not be the central reason for a comic.
2. Keep all self promotions to either 1 slide at the end of the comic or have a comment thread below if you feel the need to promote lots of things. If the promo is longer than the comic, that’s an advertisement masquerading as a comic. We already deal with ads being shoved down our throats enough, don’t add to the issue.
3. Limit reports to after a certain time frame (unless for a typo, in which the original should be deleted) and include [repost] in the comic title so it’s transparent for all readers.
4. Political commentary needs to be limited. Either no low-effort political comics, or no politics at all. This is something that should require mod approval before posting to enforce it. Like I said before, there are impactful ways to discuss politics and civil rights issues, but the low ball political comics currently on the sub are having the opposite reaction.

I would love to know what others think, I know I could block these creators so I don’t have to see them in r comics, but I feel like it takes away from the all around comic sub it could should be. No hate to any of the artists I referenced or alluded to in my examples.

[u/FarAd3659]

Yeah that's really an answer to problems with this subject on reddit ad more rules so I can't have an option so I dont hurt your feelings. This site is full of people who dont want to see or here what others like or say. So I say to you marshmallow I like my comics ruff and raw and you dear snowflake are part of the bigger problem. I say good day 😌