Foundation

From Brigid Alverson over at Robot 6:

"I call this the Zuda Test, because I formulated it while reviewing the comics at Zuda.com, DC’s webcomics competition site. Each month, I and my Digital Strips colleagues Steve Shinney and Jason Sigler read all ten of the comics at Zuda and discuss the pros and cons of each one.

Month after month, I found myself making the same complaint: After eight pages, I had no idea what was going on."

Read the whole essay. In those first eight pages you should visually give us an idea of what world this is, who the characters are, and why we should care about them...

They don't necessarily have to speak, in fact, it may be more intriguing to not have them speak to one another, but we have to have a sense of their characters and the world.