Comic Genesis Forums

I'm going to have a keen comic, two for pay graphic smash comics, and a free WCN comic or two! I'll have gone absolutely MAD with webcomic power!!!

How do you manage to update ALL THAT? I struggle to keep a week's buffer of just my one and only comic.

Bekka wrote:How do you manage to update ALL THAT? I struggle to keep a week's buffer of just my one and only comic.

Vigilante, Ho! is on hiatus, but coming back in a couple of weeks when I've got a 4 page buffer. It's once a week and full, painterly color, so it takes maybe 5 or 7 hours per page to do. I only have to do the layouts and dialouge in addition to the art, so I can spend more time on the color.

Felicity takes me maybe an hour a page, tops. John Troutman writes the scripts, I lay it out in a thumbnail, draw and ink, then scan in and arrange it. He colors it. It's also once a week and I've got a 5 page buffer for it including the pencils waiting to be inked.

Eat The Roses just came back off hiatus and is MWF. So far it's taking me maybe a half hour a page. I sketch it pencil, scan in and ink with a vector program, then color in painter 8 very quickly black and white.

And I spend maybe 5 hours a day sketching and doing misc art, especially when watching TV. That's how I've got time to plan and write another comic for WCN.

You see, I can't legally work, since I just moved to Canada, so I've got to do something. Other than laundry and groceries and long, long bike rides. 8) I've probably got the most webcomicy life EVER. I also write a column for comixpedia and frequent message boards.

It only sounds like I don't have a life. I just do this stuff while Damonk's at work, mostly. It's my non-paying-job! OK, it pays a little... just a little.

-Meaghan

BoxJam wrote:

Warren wrote:There actually isn't much wrong with being Spotted. Sometimes you get paid for your work. And allegedly, Keen will try and get you deals in other media. Allegedly.

The only real shortcoming (other than Keen wanting a nice slice of cash if they sell you in other markets) is that you can't set up a mirror site. IF you're spotted Keen has exclusive Internet distribution rights.

Say, Boxjam, if you decide to put your comic in print, won't that be a bit too unconvenient? So much blue colour needed, I think you'll need at least three packs of blue colour for one issue. What's worse, if you make a deal with getting colours in complete packs, you'll have three packs of yellow and red to waste on every issue. What are you gonna do with so much red and yellow?

mcDuffies wrote:What are you gonna do with so much red and yellow?

Sell them to me!

I need them for.. my... big.. secret... spanish... flags... project...

Admitt it, you eat paint.

yay! mr bob is back. looking very elvis i must say...

mcDuffies wrote:

BoxJam wrote:

Warren wrote:Say, Boxjam, if you decide to put your comic in print, won't that be a bit too unconvenient? So much blue colour needed, I think you'll need at least three packs of blue colour for one issue. What's worse, if you make a deal with getting colours in complete packs, you'll have three packs of yellow and red to waste on every issue. What are you gonna do with so much red and yellow?

Blue paper. The big problem is that each page in a book is the same size.

NotoriousMEQ wrote: stuff

Ah OK When I am at home from work, I draw a lot too!

NotoriousMEQ wrote:I too am waiting for WebcomicsNation, but only because I get it for free. I'm going to have a keen comic, two for pay graphic smash comics, and a free WCN comic or two! I'll have gone absolutely MAD with webcomic power!!!

-Megs

"Bwahahaha, mine, all mine!!!"

Phalanx wrote: *grin* I was about to say that too, Megs. I'm still deciding what comic to put on my WCN account. Maybe the alpha version of another comic I have in mind...

another one o_@.
I mean, another another one??? @_0
*_@
@_&
x_X

Yarpsie wrote:

Phalanx wrote: *grin* I was about to say that too, Megs. I'm still deciding what comic to put on my WCN account. Maybe the alpha version of another comic I have in mind...

another one o_@.
I mean, another another one??? @_0
*_@
@_&
x_X

*looks at signature*

You know, you have a point...

Keenspot looks rather interesting to me because I'm very ignorant on how the comic industry works.

I don't even know how to write a proper script. My artist, at first, complained about my two 'editions' of the script. Now my script is very free-form for the artist, but if I ever submitted to an actual publishing company, they would probably laugh at me and go out.

Of course, I have a feeling that there is a good chance of being Spotted. My artist, Elshad Kasumov, is amazing. I've talked to StrRedWolf and when he saw just the *sketch* of the first page, he told me to use that as a submission for Keenspace. If you want people to take you seriously, you need to have good artwork.

I'm pretty confident about my writing also. Maybe because I"m just too arrogant and an egomaniac to see anything wrong with it

BoxJam wrote:

mcDuffies wrote:

BoxJam wrote: Blue paper. The big problem is that each page in a book is the same size.

I may have a solution for you.

mcDuffies wrote:

BoxJam wrote:

Warren wrote:Say, Boxjam, if you decide to put your comic in print, won't that be a bit too unconvenient? So much blue colour needed, I think you'll need at least three packs of blue colour for one issue. What's worse, if you make a deal with getting colours in complete packs, you'll have three packs of yellow and red to waste on every issue. What are you gonna do with so much red and yellow?

Blue paper. The big problem is that each page in a book is the same size.

I may have a solution for you.

I might have another one...


Sorry, after mcDuffies' I just had to post it. Otherwise my brain would implode.

YarpsDat wrote:I might have another one...


Sorry, after mcDuffies' I just had to post it. Otherwise my brain would implode.

You're crazier than me.

BloodKnight wrote:...stuff...

http://garas.keenspace.com/

Holy freakin' crap!

Spotted? Why hasn't your artist submitted his work to Marvel?

Phalanx wrote:Regarding superhero comics: Not meaning to put down those of you who do superhero comics; but this is just my personal preference: I don't like doing superhero comics much...

I think it's because of the concept that they have that inherent edge (superpowers) over normal people, making them too powerful and invulnerable. When they get shot at, or fall from heights, or have a building fall on them, I don't really feel concerned because chances are, they get away with nary a scratch afterwards.

I like writing vulnerable characters. It makes it ten times scarier when I put them in dangerous situations and wonder if all of them are going to make it out alive. It's also interesting when I give them a problem to solve that others can't, and they solve it as normal human being, without the help of superpowers or magic or whatever. That's what makes a character special for me.

So yeah, give me heroes that bleed anytime .

(Nodding.) I see what you mean. That's where Frodo has it above a lot of heroes---he's all too human, indeed smaller than human, yet he struggles every inch of the way to Mordor...
Still...in defense of superheroes...there are a lot of fantasies that are best expressed through superhuman beings...much of mythology comes to mind.
Where the especial genuis of super-heroes came along is the way they accentuated the idea of a secret identity (an idea older than they---see the Shadow, and more importantly, see the Scarlet Pimpernel)---a contrasting secret identity. It's not enough to have a secret identity--but one that is notably different from the costumed self---for reader identification---makes the whole concept work.
Superman is Clark Kent. Kent is infinitely more interesting and fun to watch and act (especially in Chris Reeve's opinion) than the near-invincible, near-invulnerable Superman, especially when portrayed as weak or cowardly. When they redid Superman after Crisis, all the sudden he was a respected novelist and not especially cowardly....
Secret identities as a whole have been declining...
And coincidentally, so have comic book sales as a whole.
Flash was the perpetually late Barry Allen.
Thor was the lame Don Blake.
CAptain Marvel (the original) was a kid, Billy Batson.
The scary and relentlessly competent Batman is also party-loving rich man about town Bruce Wayne.
The sarcastic and often delightfully uninhibited Spider-Man is also the quiet nerd who did the best in tests at school.
It's the DUALITY that makes it interesting. Of course, secret identities aren't the only way to make characters interesting. Tarzan has an inner conflict between the oddly-shaped ape he was brought up as, and his being Lord Greystoke, one that Burroughs never forgot...and made Tarzan far more interesting than Mowgli, his predecessor.
Sherlock Holmes and the often dull and unperceptive Dr. Watson are in effect, a team that work. Dr. Watson is everything Holmes is not---keen appreciation for women, often married, often missing vital clues---he's the weakness with which we identify with. There are two stories without Watson. They are probably the least liked in the entire Canon.
My own comic wouldn't be any fun without MM's point of origin...Lorelei. Lorelei is the contrast, the emotional centre, the mentally challenged one, the one who is discriminated against, and mocked. A strip purely about the more-than-human superintellect MM would be boring to write or draw.
Comic book writers have more or less moved away from other identities. You have to be careful about them---too often Clark Kent was a charactature, not a character....but I regret that. I think they are losing reader identification thereby.
But no genre is exhausted...as long as talented people try to come up with new ideas for such.---Al

faub wrote:

BloodKnight wrote:...stuff...

http://garas.keenspace.com/

Holy freakin' crap!

Spotted? Why hasn't your artist submitted his work to Marvel?

Wow.
Seconded.---Al

alschroeder wrote:stuff

yeh - i'd agree with all that. the face behind the mask (or whatever) is what helps add the dimension to the character - their real life relationships and the like. the fact that people are so facinated by the life of celebrities kind of pays testament to that too!
btw - it'll be a while coming... but wait till you see go!anna's secret identity!

faub wrote:

BloodKnight wrote:...stuff...

http://garas.keenspace.com/

Holy freakin' crap!

Spotted? Why hasn't your artist submitted his work to Marvel?

Few things:

- He has a full time job
- He does get the prespective wrong from time to time (http://www.deviantart.com/view/7446353/ - Look at the knuckles)
- He can't draw vehicles very well, or in his words, 'cautiously'

He has sent some of his work to publishing companies before, and was denied. Don't ask why, but when I asked him to if he would be interested in drawing a tech fantasy webcomic, he said yes without asking for money. He loves drawing my characters (especially Red, the chick at the cover) and likes the dark storyline I'm writing, so I doubt he will want to leave anytime soon.

EDIT: I also think one of the big reasons why he wants to draw my webcomic is because I'm very flexible. I remember showing him a sample of 'commercial script work' and he didn't like it being too specific. I'm very flexible when it comes this type of media. He isn't following the script 100% faithfully, but I am not going to complain with this type of work.

YET ANOTHER EDIT: I might be talking out of my ass, but doesn't the comic industry, like any other industry, require you to build up a 'name' in order to get hired by a major company? This could be yet another reason why my artist wants to do this: If it becomes big, it could be something to help out his career.

Aaaaagh! No, not the Marvel! It will such all the individuality and originality out of him!
Honestly, I don't know why people don't try in Europe more often, their publishers are much more flexible.
Besides, it's true. American scriptwriters want an artist to be their dummy, their scripts are so detailed and narrow, that it doesn't leave any intervention to artist. I remember I had to fight with some local wanna-be-scriptwriters who imagined that they were in America, asking too much from an artist, not giving anything in return.