So why comics, anyway?

[Siabur]

But mostly, it's just because comics are neat.

So dirty-wording true! The only limits are the imagination, skills, and resources of the comiker. All of those can be improved. Not everything is for the masses is all that matters. Yea for the web!

[RobertBlake]

Simpy put, I grew up with a love for newspaper comics and ultimately decided it was something I wanted to do.

[Pimpette]

Same reason I do just about anything.

Because I was bored, and it seemed like a fun thing to do at the time.

[RobertBlake]

Same reason I do just about anything.

Because I was bored, and it seemed like a fun thing to do at the time.

Which is also how a lot of people got into shaving their pubes.

[Axonite]

Peanuts books. We had a lot of them around when I was young.

Also Andy Capp, Family Circus (ugh) and Dennis The Menace.

What he said, except more B.C. books than Andy Capp.

[Cope]

I started making comics because I loved reading comics (mostly Asterix at the time).

[Rcmonroe]

Peanuts books. We had a lot of them around when I was young.

Also Andy Capp, Family Circus (ugh) and Dennis The Menace.

What he said, except more B.C. books than Andy Capp.

What they both said, as well as books of other popular newspaper strips of the 70's like Doonesbury, The Wizard of Id, Beetle Bailey, etc. Later on, Bloom County and Calvin & Hobbes. Later still, older, classic comics like Pogo, Li'l Abner and Krazy Kat.

And Mad Magazine.

And "underground" comics (Crumb, Shelton, etc.). Superhero stuff too.

Amidst this plethora of influences, I did little else besides draw comics for a little over twenty years, then got fed up with trying to find my marketable niche, and gave it all up. For a very long time. For several years, I didn't draw a line.

Discovered webcomics early last year. My life is once again in ruins.

[Geekblather]

Like a lot of people, I've been drawing for a long time. My first couple of characters were Harry the Dustbunny and Adam Alien. I made up little stories and cartoon doodles of them. But, pretty much just doodled. Went to college for English, with the idea of working towards a masters in teaching, because I like kids. As it turns out, I not so much like kids, as I essentially still am one. I still laugh at fart jokes, and the word 'poopy' and stuff like that. So, I graduated college, and ended up minoring in studio art, as well as studying English.
I always kind of thought it would be cool to make a comic book of medieval stories, because of the cool heroes and monsters and stuff.

As it turns out, that supposedly an english major is good for working at Mcdonald's and Starbucks, is not true. I was considered 'too educated' to work places like that. So, while working on finding a job, I started drawing a medieval kind of comic, and also role playing. My webcomic came out as a combination of the two.

The comic itself has proved to be a nice resume piece, because even if I'm not the best cartoonist out there, I like to think I draw pretty well, and it's lead to getting some graphic design and illustration work. So, I'm making a go of things in that direction, since people are apparently more likely to pay me to draw than rent videos...

[Shishio]

As a child, I was so enamoured with cartoons that I wanted to be an animator. Upon discovering the obscene amount of work this would entail, I focused on comics. Upon realizing I could not draw, I focused on writing comics, and upon realizing I could not write, I gave up.

Then I started writing anyway.

[LibertyCabbage]

I don't know, and sometimes I feel like I could easily be cured of this affliction if only they pummeled me with candy canes and put me to work in one of their slave pens. I don't have any glaring psychosis to pin the blame on, either, so unfortunately I'm not being drugged into complacency. Anyways, I guess the brief moments of industrious satisfaction I derive from the medium are slightly better than sticking thumb tacks in my forehead or something, so I might as well keep trudging along until sometimes interesting happens, like I get attacked by an aardvark.

[Hilarioushenry]

It's been said here a few times already, but I've been drawing since I was a little kid. It never dawned on me that I could do much in this until about a year ago when I started reading other webcomics.

[Phact0rri]

really it started as a joke, with a few friends. then well it just stuck.

I never really thought I'd be drawing comic, even with my life long obsession with art and comics.

go figure.

[Prettydragoon]

Hm. I've always liked comics. Donald Duck, Peanuts, Asterix, Iznogoud, Tintin, Natacha, Yoko Tsuno, Spirou... Then I found webcomics and it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

[Eve Z.]

When I was small my dad showed me a book of comics made by him and I liked them, because they were funny. It was the only book he had left, but he told me the whole story.
After a while I begun to make up my own comics - amateurish ones, I'd say, manga type. Then, for a while I gave up. Then, new characters were taking over my head. Then stories about them. I was even beginning to write stories and make few illustrations with the characters in the scene, but they weren't comics - just a story with few illustrations like screenshots from an anime show. Then, one day like more than an year ago I begun to make comics. I took a random episode from Synthetic Life. A random one! After I finished it, I made the first one. That random episode will NOT appear, considering the story has a bit changed and my style had way improved!
And I thought it will be a good idea if I make a webcomic out of it! I was reading a few webcomics at the time and I found them really cool.

[Killbert-Robby]

Three words : Calvin and Hobbes. The best comic ever, hands down. Although I'll admit that back when I first scibbled "Nas' Adventures" in my elementary note books, I didn't read it. But now it is my inspiration. If I can ever accomplish a fraction of what Watterson did, I'll die happy.

[Adobedragon]

Well, actually, when I was growing up, comics were discouraged in my household. My grandmother used to read the "funny pages" as she called the newspaper comics section, to me, but comic books weren't allowed. I guess my mom thought I needed to read "real books." Somehow a few Scrooge McDuck comics snuck into my reading list, but otherwise, no comics. At the time, the field was dominated by superhero comics, which didn't interest me anyway.

A couple of years ago I stumbled on the webcomic <a href="http://www.platinumgrit.com/" target="_blank">Platinum Grit</a>--from a link on a writing blog, I think--and fell in love. I'd never read a webcomic before that. About that time I had discovered Gaiman's <i>Sandman</i> graphic novels.

I had a finished manuscript lying around and figured it might be fun to try turning it into a comic.

Nowadays, my mom has moved beyond her "comics are for dummies" belief. She recently read Jeff Smith's epic, <i>Bone</i>, and dutifully reads my comic.

[Garneta]

When I was younger I drew a some comics, mostly one panel far sidey kinda things.

I got into webcomics because of Jim and Role of the Die. Before that I'd never even heard of webcomics. But then I started reading some, and eventually wanted to do my own, but didn't start it until last year because up until that point I just didn't have a story. Now I do.

[McDuffies]

Well, there are a lot of things that drew me to comics in favor of other arts (people regularly tried to convince me to write fiction, thinking that if I was talented for writing, I was wasting my time on comics).
I guess my brain works visually more than verbally. I'm a slow reader and my writing style is crappy. But I'm ok with pictures, simply put, drawing a scene has always worked better for me than trying to describe it in remotely aesthetic way.
I like that this orientation of comics towards visual makes them universal, easily translatable. They also allow you to work with limited resources. They are things for individuals, for people who like to do their thing sitting in a room all by themself, or those who like to pull all strings of their work. I'm mostly individual as well, so comics suit me fine.
Then, of course, I like the freedom of visualising a completely different reality that comics allow, one that doesn't have to have any similarity with real world.
Comics were actually a big thing here in 80ies. Later, during the war, I was intensively drawing, perhaps what drew me toward comics was that they required less resources (a pen and a paper) than any other art - and we were quite short on resources in those days. So comics allowed me to retreat to my room, draw, and cut myself from cruel reality for some time. Therapeutic.

[Vorticus]

I like to make people laugh and I like to tell stories. By sheer random conflagration of threads of fate I ended up drawing comics.

[LibertyCabbage]

The fog came up: I've been doing little shitty comics here and there throughout my youth, and when I got my hands on the Squee! comics in 9th grade I've been making comics since.