when is too much dialogue too much in comics?

There you go -- succinct and accurate. Well said, Durakken.

A weed is just a plant in the wrong place.

You leave my big splash pages alone! Transmetropolitan used them sparingly, but every time it did, they made me go hell yeah.

Couldn't disagree more. Comics and OGN's are a visual medium. The art is supposed to be able to tell just as much of the story as the dialogue is.

In this day and age, we shouldn't have to witness the "idiot proof" scripting from back in the day. Like when a writer had to make certain the narration and dialogue also covered what was supposed to be depicted in the art, in case the artist did, well, whatever.

Webcomics are another beast entirely, as most of them are little more than talking heads. Some have great art and a good story. Some fall back on stick figures for whatever reason. Order of the Stick, from what I read, is usually pretty good with dialogue versus art, but the example you posted was horrible. But, then again, it's talking heads that happen to have some simple illustrations of those heads to go along with it. Personally, I wouldn't put a stick figure talking heads comic in the same league as, say, Infinite Crisis or Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, but that's just me.

It's "the Marvel Way" pioneered by Lee and a few others that they started out on. Once you get used to it, I -think- it's supposed to be faster than the script -> art method, but I have trouble wrapping my head around putting a comic together that way too.

Character development is good, too much dialogue would be when you reach DBZ levels of disproportionate dialogue vs. action.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

I agree that we shouldn't have to suffer the belt-and-suspenders approach of stupid storytelling, but I think comics are not purely a visual medium. They inhabit the space halfway between literature and film, so they can really go either way, being primarily visual or text-heavy. There's no wrong way with the comic book medium.

The Age of Reptiles books by Delgado tells the story of dinosaurs without any words, while Warren Ellis is known for scripting books with a ton of dialogue. I couldn't choose between these styles because they're both valid and worthy in their own way.

I very much agree with this too cept for one exception. Superman/Batman series will have great internal dialogue like in public enemies. It dealt shows how similiar bats and sups isand yet how their perspectives alters on he same thing. I am trying something similiar with my Stalktress mini series.

That's why I say it needs to be excellent in order to be used correctly.

BTW, I read the 1st issue of Justice-Knights and you're right that it needs a rewrite. You could lose a fourth or even a third of the pages without much trouble just by looking for more efficiency in the story and dropping the in-game references. There's no need for the SG to be "popular" to have experienced a sneak attack by someone who hates them. Compared to the excellence of the Stalktress second issue, the action is really muddied and hard to follow, plus the shots are really dark.

Or leave it as-is, as evidence of how much your writing has improved.

Which was the same model for my comic series.

My plan since it takes me a very long time to make these is to keep all the images and delete some scenes. I was going to delete or at least minimize the scene with dark and sin where sin is spying on his own members and shorten he beginning. I might also make it more linair.

I was planning on having the reference to them becoming more popular because I wanted them to really not be. I feel that there are so many heroes and SGs in Paragon that they all don't make the headlines, they don't all have Statesmans or Positrons number and they aren't a forefront group like so many fan stories are.

But now that you mention that, perhaps by saying this I end up doing the opposite. What do you think?

I like the first two pages. It's a grabber that made me go, "Uh-oh, what's going on here?" So no, I don't think going linear would be an improvement.

The main sticking point for me is that you've referenced stuff that's in the game, such as "top 100 SGs" and such. I don't think that matters for the sake of your story. As far as *your* world is concerned, why not make the Justice-Knights one of the few groups of heroes running around? Just ignore everyone else, or at least most of them.

The part I liked the best was that Sin is spying on his own people because the J-K was decimated by a mole setting them up. That's the kind of thing which seems perfectly rational yet tends to destroy relationships precisely because it fosters distrust. But what else can he do to prevent it from happening again?

I didn't understand the new recruits coming in and getting the tour except as 1) giving other characters cameos and 2) allowing you to do the info-dump about the HQ. I get that J-K is recruiting to fill out their ranks, but I think it would be more interesting to see that this is a wounded SG with the members who are demoralized by their experience with betrayal. (Empty chairs at the table are good for this.) Which underscores why they would react so negatively to Sin spying on them: betrayal upon betrayal. Of course, Sin doesn't see it that way. Thus is all good conflict born, because both sides have legitimate arguments.

As for the info-dump about the Rikti ship, why not make the meeting about *that*? Make it a snappy give and take, like, "How's the power supply?" "Still working it out, but we're at a consistent 72%." [lights flicker -- put dark panel here -- lights come back] "Sorry, make that 65%." Adds a touch of humor while showing they are still working out the bugs. Which explains later why the telepad can't send them all down at once. Also, make that element integral during the fight later. Nothing like a last-minute save from the second squad -- and if you've thrown enough action at the reader, then people will kind of forget you've got your deus ex machina waiting in the on-deck circle.

Plus then the discussion about private quarters could be re-purposed. Now it reads like internal SG talk from your forums. Instead, have someone say that they'd really, really, REALLY like it if they could get some air in the section of the ship where they can have private quarters because they are sick and tired of sleeping in the bunk under so-and-so. "I'm not 9 and this isn't camp. Plus, Indian food disagrees with him. I'm begging here." "Yeah, why can't we just go back to our homes, sleep in our own beds?" "Because we are more vulnerable alone. Our enemies know everything about us and I'm not about to let you suffer the same fate as [fill in hero]." Then you show the empty chair and them hanging their heads. Implied murder is powerful, too.

The action scene that makes up the last third was just kind of chaotic and I wasn't able to follow it very well. Only Nurse Frigid and Abraxxas had distinct personalities on the bad guy side, and only Sin Stalker seemed fully developed on the hero side. Compared to the clarity of the Stalktress action (realizing it's only three characters instead of a dozen), the J-K v. I-K fight is messy. I think you just need to break it down into smaller chunks so it's easier to follow.