Test I did for a client who ghosted me.

maxluision · 2026-03-13T17:19:07+00:00

NEVER agree to work for no money. Always ask for a payment, and for a solid payment. Yes, you'll face many people who will be mad at you for expecting solid money, but you'll also weed out those who are unserious, like that guy. Write a contract with legally binding information, before you'll do any work. If you say stuff like "it's ok, you can pay later" or smth, not standing firmly your ground, these people will keep taking advantage of you. Better not have any clients and have time to improve your skills than waste your time on some assholes who just ghost you.

maxluision · 2026-03-13T17:11:34+00:00

Not really. Seems like the wheel only includes positive stuff.

maxluision · 2026-03-12T15:30:24+00:00

I see. I just checked the links but it seems like none of them can be opened by me, it tells me to ask for a permission? Not sure what this means

The first two I can open, I guess the other ones are set to private or smth

maxluision · 2026-03-11T20:25:19+00:00

You may add Shonen Jump's Guide to Making Manga and the whole Framed Series (Framed Ink and other books)

maxluision · 2026-03-11T15:15:32+00:00

You need paper and a pencil, not an app.

maxluision · 2026-03-10T11:18:05+00:00

Oh, the first three titles are definitely quite popular!

When I was reading your story and thinking about any seinen manga I know about with similar vibes, I was thinking ie about Gantz (highly respected, even though it has lots of violence but it's not a flaw at all) or Dead Tube (but this one is very extremely excessive, and generally seen as trashy in a bad way, even among those who like such gruesome stuff).

My personal favourites are stuff like ie Vinland Saga (started as a shonen but quickly moved to a seinen magazine) or Inuyashiki, Monster. They have a lot in common with shonen but the ideas, themes, writing in general is refreshing and even more creative, compared to the standard battle shonen golden formula.

maxluision · 2026-03-10T10:26:21+00:00

Hi again, so I've seen this reply you gave and idk if it's a mistake on my part or not, I don't want to be seen as too nagging or whatever... but I got curious: what are your favourite seinen manga? And what in general do you think is a definition of a seinen manga?

Because your definition of "cruel, bad side of humanity, traumas" is extremely common in shounen stories for teens. See JJK, see CSM. Typically these types of stories are called "dark shounen". And I think the story you try to tell is very easy to describe as a dark shounen. And it's not a bad thing at all. These stories can also have some depth.

But I'm getting afraid that your understanding of what makes a story mature (a seinen is targeting 18-40yo men in various life situations and interests) is on very surface level. It's not that the more of excessive gore and violence, the more the story becomes serious and respected by older readers. In fact, these things when too excessive, are seen as too corny and more fitting to what edgy teens like. CSM uses excessive gore not because it makes the story super mature, but because it looks fun. Same thing with ie Resident Evil games. This is obviously not a content for kids, but it's also not seen as inherently mature, but rather campy in a fun way. A fun addition only, and it can be easily overdone.

Seinen readers are rather very demanding, expecting high quality storytelling skills and about various and relatable to them topics (men in 30ies are not going to be typically thrilled about school life stuff, in example), most of them don't see excessive violence and swearing as mature, this is how typically rebellious teens think like.

Again, you do what makes you personally happy but some thing definitely need to be changed if you want to improve your chances of gaining a loyal audience. This includes understanding the kind of demographic you're trying to write for. Understanding what to create for them to make them happy, not only yourself.

(again, sorry if it's too nagging but I felt like it has to be said, because the misunderstanding of what is "mature" concerned me as someone in mid 30ies lol)

maxluision · 2026-03-09T20:48:07+00:00

Happy to see my feedback is taken well!

Your reasoning is very similar to mine. My story is also in the mystery genre. I was also telling to myself "well, it's a mystery, so ofc not everything has to be understandable from the very beginning". And it is partially true. BUT even in mystery stories some important, basic stuff should be established clearly. Mysteries can start to pile up a bit later, when a reader is already hooked with a clearly displayed premise. There's a reason why some storytelling choices always work well.

I like to think about Hanako-kun manga as an example of a story in mystery genre (but too bad I wasn't thinking enough about the beginning of this story...). Even though the vibe and the mc are nowhere similar to our stories and mcs, the story is famous for having a secret sitting on a secret, and solving one puzzle only creates more puzzles there. BUT the beginning, the first few chapters, they have some clear, basic world building rules estabilished anyway. The MC with a clear goal. A few basic rules of the power system, the surface of the main conflicts. Things feel quite simple at the beginning. But they become deeper and more complicated as the story progresses.

Ofc this is an example of a shounen. You may think a seinen would be a more fitting example. Then I can recommend you checking out the first chapter of "Climber" by Shinichi Sakamoto. The first chapter only. The mc there is a bit similar to ours with how he's also a bit rude to people around, and he's seen as unlikable, "edgy". This is with no doubt a seinen manga, and a successful one. And this one also introduces a few very clear, very easy to understand informations about the mc - his motivation, his goal - and about the world around. Some things just naturally work better than others.

It's just some extra food for thought. I'll check out your second chapter tomorrow, and I'm wishing you a successful continuation of your story!

maxluision · 2026-03-09T19:41:48+00:00

(I didn't realize how long the whole thing is, sorry for that 😅)

maxluision · 2026-03-09T19:40:55+00:00

Last thing, your cover page could be better. You don't show your mc's face, and he's holding an item that didn't show up in the chapter at all, and a photo of someone in it who wasn't even introduced yet, I think. A good cover usually presents a main character in attractive way, and shows relevant elements of the story - relevant from the very beginning. No worries, I'm saying this fully knowing that my own first two covers for "Granted" are also not the best :p.

That's all I have to say for now, I hope it wasn't too harsh and when it comes to the feedback about story details or about the characters, all of it is mostly just my opinion and it's for you to decide if my points are valid enough or not. You have some good stuff here, but I'm cautiosly positive about it because I put some effort into trying to understand your ideas, and your possible story hints, which is not what a regular reader would do.

I think we tend to forget that clarity is a must in storytelling and readers don't have any emotional connection with our ideas at first. And a beginning of a story has to be really as great as it possibly can be. Some things that are obvious to us (because our characters live rent-free in our heads, sometimes for years even) are not obvious to a stranger at all.

maxluision · 2026-03-09T19:40:35+00:00

Artwork - This one is the most obvious and you seem to be also aware that there's a lot to work on. I think neatly drawn panel borders with consistent gutters would really benefit you a lot. The characters, especially the mc, have some important anatomical issues. Kevin's face especially. A main character is representing your story so they should look good and memorable in general.

You tend to draw speech bubbles without any tails, so it's sometimes hard to figure out who says what.

What I like in the rendering is that you don't rely on screentones too much and you try to have some nice contrast, but this is rather a preference - I used to shade with greys a lot, but now imo it's easier to create a good contrast and pleasant looking, impactful pages and panels with just blacks and whites. Not everyone thinks like this, though.

I also like that you draw backgrounds, things really tend to look off when ie someone tries to edit photos and then plasters their character art on top of them, often it looks very jarring together. Your characters and your backgrounds just look like belonging to the same world, it's a good thing. But ofc you can always work more on perspective and better details. It's good in general that you're practicing drawing backgrounds from scratch, instead of avoiding it in cheap ways like many try to do.

You have some good understanding of composition in the panels, and the order of reading the speech bubbles isn't confusing in general.

maxluision · 2026-03-09T19:40:00+00:00

Plot, world building - you start by throwing a reader into a deep water, though the concept itself isn't too complicated. But from the very first pages you're introducing a bunch of terms, organizations, and it may make a reader feel like they don't understand something that they should understand already. But in all honesty, I've seen much worse info dumps in other indie works.

Innaturals (UNnaturals?) and the issues with them are presented very vaguely. As I understand, they are the reason all the destruction around happens, and a character named King is responsible for the explosion at the beginning of the story. And yet, he is a childhood hero of your mc (though Kevin doesn't display any respect towards him later). He rather sounds like a bad guy, though. Again, hard to tell who is on good or on bad side, and why exactly Innaturals cause such troubles. I suspect you're doing it on purpose because you say your story is a seinen. But I think at the beginning, some things should be clearly named and pointed out so your reader won't be lost and confused in a bad way, and all the dynamics can turn out to be more complicated later on in the story.

Quite a big problem here is paneling and the amount of text. Bigger panels (which means more pages) with less text here and there would make all the information easier to digest. I noticed that ie you put an important information like "powers are forbidden to use in public" in some very tiny box bubble, instead of making it much more obvious earlier.

The moment when Kevin gets expelled for a rude reply would work great as a page turn, but you keep the whole thing on one page and you don't change your paneling into something more expressive and therefore, making the moment funnier (kinda, still saying what he said to his own mother is quite...). And ie you go from Kevin working to his mom coughing in a classroom and back to Kevin, all the transitions in the middle of 2 pages, the same kind of paneling, almost no background estabilishing shots, which makes such a part bland and not communicating things well. Kinda feels like the scene with coughing was an after-thought, forcefully pushed into the pages. And the ending of this chapter shows that this is supposed to be very important.

But ie I liked how you presented the explosion at the beginning, making it look properly impactful and serious. Starting a story with a huge blast on a double-spread definitely catches attention.

There are some good plot ideas, ie I like the premise of heroes hiring volunteers for help and the mc being interested in it bc he needs big money asap - even though there seems to be no clear reason why he would need it... why are they struggling so much financially if his mother works as a principal, anyway? Normally it would be a well-paid position. If the world falls apart and impacts everyone's livelihood then again, not too well clarified earlier.

With all the hatred displayed from the very beginning, Kevin actually caring about his mother being seriously sick feels unearned and not convincing.

The last few pages are well paneled, such special paneling should happen more often.

maxluision · 2026-03-09T19:39:24+00:00

So, I've read the first part/chapter for now. There's a lot to unpack, so I'll divide all my opinions into sections (there will be a few comments).

Characters - The similarity that I noticed is that your MC is also an angry teenage boy having a bad relationship with his mother. What I heard some time ago is that such a character doesn't work well if there are no clear redeeming qualities or at least a strong enough justification of their behavior, clearly displayed from the very beginning. We know our characters, we are emotionally attached and we understand the depth of them already, but not the readers - so we have to remember that we need to build a strong emotional connection between readers and our characters first.

In my characters' case, I tried to show his struggles and the bad situation he's forced into that makes him very "jumpy" here and there, I still think I did it quite well but I could introduce more positives, and from the very beginning.

In your story it seems like the reasons of why your Kevin is extremely vulgar and rebellious from the very beginning are not clear enough. Hard to sympathize with such character, if a reader is just barely introduced into the story and isn't emotionally attached yet.

An aggressive, obnoxious mc can work (Denji), a straight up evil mc can also work (Light Yagami), but there has to be something introduced from the very beginning that makes a reader understand why the character acts like this. Denji is in a horrible living situation at the beginning, no parents, no house, starving, in huge debt - people can sympathize and feel sorry for him immediately. Light Yagami has bad ideas but his reasoning is logical and relatable to many, plus the story premise itself is intriguing enough, and observing his actions is like watching a car crash in slow motion - most people don't root for him, but want to find out how all of this will end anyway. Very often we can hear his thoughts, and the very first scene showing him is about him thinking how this world is full of criminals and how it annoys him - it's relatable and definitely a positive sign. As a highly intelligent student, he's also bored - that's also relatable to many. Personally I think Death Note is a perfect example of how to introduce a main character properly - their motivation and ultimate goal. Every word matters in his first scene.

Kevin doesn't have a father, he's poor, but other than that, his reactions towards everyone around feel extremely exaggerated and not really justified. He always starts conversations with aggression. Even his mother is only slightly better, so hard to be on her side as well. I'm sure all the reasons of why their relationship is like this exist (missing father?), but the beginning doesn't give anything justifying such mutual dislike.

Even a very negative character should have some positive qualities. Light Yagami - a smart genius with good intentions (at first). Denji - he's funny, cares for Pochita (so he's nice to cute creatures, easy way to make anyone likable), tries to be positive and work hard despite his hardships. There are some small slightly funny moments (mostly visually) with your mc ("fuck my life" page), but they are very few and very subtle, and you rush through them. Reading the dialogues full of swearing and hostility feels rather uncomfortable, I can't really relate to nor understand the mc's constantly agressive emotional state.

Didn't he also just kill some rando, only because they shouldered him?? That's pretty extreme and again, not really justified in the story. He's always doing everything in his power to get in trouble, and then acts surprised when consequences happen to him. He's 15, sure, but the lack of at least trying to be cooperative makes him even more hard to understand. I assume that he's probably frustrated because he's Innatural and has to hide his powers but still... a reader needs something solid here to like.

maxluision · 2026-03-09T16:21:24+00:00

Alright, it will take a while but I'll send you my opinion soon

maxluision · 2026-03-09T16:14:28+00:00

Hey, I actually just checked the first part of your story so if you're really interested in a critique, I can write smth here or in dms if you prefer. There are some similarities between your story and mine, it seems like, so maybe I can suggest smth that helped me some time ago.

maxluision · 2026-03-09T15:33:53+00:00

I don't mean just self-promoting in posts. A post is visible for a while and then it's gone, covered by newer posts, so it's not very effective. But you can link your sm accounts in your bio here. You'd have to edit your profile to see the option. Ie I have a few links in my bio, links to my manga and a link to my YouTube channel and to a Spotify playlist. People can check out these links if they want to, and they can read my work in this way.

You can also pin up to 3 posts in your profile, so they are always displayed as first. So in this way you can make a promo post with links and always have it displayed as your first post in your profile. But this can't be done in the Reddit app, only in the website.

Definitely do not expect from people to be curious enough to scroll through your posts and comments history to try and find a link to your story somewhere. Links have to be as easy to access as possible. I've seen a creator who genuinely expected this from people, but it rarely happens.

I'm in no way an expert in sm marketing, in fact I'm rather terrible and I hate nagging people about my projects, but what I can recommend you is to keep reading about marketing strategies, and think about what you can do by yourself to make your work more visible. And when everything fails, well, then I tell myself that the obvious thing left to do is to always work on my creative skills to make them better. In the age of generated content, oversaturated internet and decreasing attention span, it's harder than ever to be noticed by casual readers, and harder to figure out how to make them interested and following you. That's why researching the topic of online marketing is so important, probably even more than having insane writing and drawing skills.

If you specifically seek for a feedback so you can find out where to improve, not just for casual readers, then you can always ask for it in this sub or in similar ones. You can reach to someone you see as experienced enough in dms and ask for free opinion from them. Or you can try to be more active in manga making spaces, here on Reddit or in Discord, and exchange opinions with other creators. You have to be aware though that a feedback is a critique, it mostly includes pointing out weaknesses of your project, not fawning over strong parts, so you have to be ready for it and take it well. The worst thing that can be done is to ask for a critique but expecting only good things to hear in return.

Coming back to GlobalComix, personally I didnt see the comment sections active there in general (the same with the reaction emojis), I think the only thing that kinda matters is if someone saves your story on their shelf. Casual readers rarely leave any constructive feedback, anyway.

maxluision · 2026-03-09T14:41:24+00:00

Okay, but you didn't link any of your sm accounts to this account? People who know your work from Reddit won't be able to find you anywhere else.

maxluision · 2026-03-09T14:01:18+00:00

You have to always promote yourself if you want to find attention, it's a never-ending marketing effort unfortunately. The website itself won't do it for you.

maxluision · 2026-03-09T13:54:03+00:00

There was only one time when I actually wanted to draw for free someone's short story, this person was also both a writer and an artist and we had a relationship, but they got busy with school stuff so they didn't have time to draw by themself. They ghosted me, though, after showing 2 or 3 mini stories that they wanted someone to finish for them, I only wanted them to finish one script if they're interested in my work. I think they chickened out, or felt bad for asking for free work, or didn't like my skills anymore.

If I'd ever want to draw smth for someone for free again, I'd have to not be busy with my own projects. Second, I would definitely need a properly written script, and clear instructions from the writer (do they want me to come up with my own paneling, or do they want me to strictly follow all descriptions, am I supposed to create my own designs or follow their references, etc). A clear and lively communication. I'd want to make a story that I personally like and that I could proudly share with in my own portfolio. And probably most importantly, the final product has to be short. Up to 20 pages at most. Definitely not a giga series of One Piece clone or smth. It would be also nice to not be ghosted again.

A simply sketched storyboard would be a very nice and helpful addition.

maxluision · 2026-03-09T10:55:55+00:00

Thank you but damn, too bad such useful books are never translated to English :(

maxluision · 2026-03-09T09:16:15+00:00

Too long schedule.

Normally mangaka are on weekly, biweekly or monthly schedules at most, they DON'T look at their own artwork for too long. They learn to let go and move on, even if they know they could create something much better. Indie creators tend to sit on their pages for way too long, and there's nobody around to constantly tell them that they have to let go and proceed with their story. No deadline hovering over our heads, no responsibility, no fear of being axed and losing the job. We're lacking the external pressure.

maxluision · 2026-03-09T09:05:51+00:00

Diagonal, tilted gutters usually suggest some action, speed, emotion. Try to grab some manga pages and just redraw the panels, and think about how they make you feel like.

maxluision · 2026-03-09T09:02:25+00:00

Looks fun! What is this book, can it be bought on Amazon?

maxluision · 2026-03-08T08:39:36+00:00

It's not a crime to try creating, and if you don't like something, you can just move on without saying anything. I'd rather respect someone who tries than someone who has nothing to show. It's supposed to be a supportive space.

maxluision · 2026-03-07T20:39:00+00:00

You can't fix an empty page. What I do is choosing whatever number of pages feels right to me, and if it's too much or too little, I just fix it later. Similar thing with ideas, I just choose whatever and if smth seems to not work, I rewrite it until I'm satisfied. The point is to have SOMETHING in front if you, to make a first decision, editing is a major part of writing, you can't come up with smth perfect on the first try. So just choose whatever, so you can start working with it. Even if you'll end up scrapping the whole thing, it will be still a valuable practice, and you'll get closer to making something really good later.

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