Observations

[MixedMyth]

Ever realized something about the nature of comics while you're working on one? List them here!

For my part, I have two thoughts-

1. Writing summaries of comics is hard. But it's really helpful to frame it as a 'once upon a time' story. For some reason when I do it that way, everything else falls into place. I can tweak it afterwords to get away from the fairytale beginning while still leaving the substance of the summary intact.

2. Superheroes are like bananas. If you mix them into a cross-genre comic, the whole story will be superhero flavored. Even sci fi, fantasy, mystery, or other elements that didn't inherently smack of superheroics before. Suddenly, they are.

[Killbert-Robby]

Comics are a lot more artisically challenging than your art teacher wanted to admit to you

[Rocknjosie]

Your best ideas mean nothing unless you can convince someone else to care about your great ideas. Without a hook you're just speaking to yourself.

[Redtech]

1) Soft porn is a great place to learn anatomy. Especially if you *ahem* choose some unique proportions.
2) After a while, you don't need to remember what your characters are meant to say, because they whisper in your ear what they're meant to say.
3) If you're doing it right, your comic is more interesting than your job. If you're doing it wrong (mostly) than your comic IS your job.

[Rkolter]

Gag a day comics that start to carry a storyline usually fail to pull it off properly.

[Td501]

If a character is to pull a gun later on, draw him with a holster NOW.

[Yeahduff]

Comics are gizay.

[Dr Legostar]

Gag a day comics that start to carry a storyline usually fail to pull it off properly.

on the other hand writing a storyline when you're doing a gag a day comic is really hard.

[Fishies]

It takes damn near forever to do anything when a plot happens.

See That Night Felt Like Months

[Dreamaniaccomic]

1. Three days a week may seem pretty unimpressive, but in the middle of school it's amazing to pull off.

2. Drawing even a simple comic can take a long time. Drawing a good comic WILL take a long time.

3. Practice is ALWAYS good.

4. It's amazing how much time you can save on backgrounds by using simple white space.

5. There will always be a comic more popular then yours, and that comic is Penny Arcade.

[IVstudios]

4. It's amazing how much time you can save on backgrounds by using simple white space.

That this is not a good idea.

But black space, black is where it's at.

On a serious note: That backgrounds are a pain in the ass. If they suck everyone will notice, and if they are good people will hardly look at them (maybe if they're spectacular people will glance at them and go "wow, nice background.") . But in the end, you just have to suck it up and learn to do them.

[Komiyan]

You need at least one establishing shot of the background per page. For closeups on faces, heads and shoulders etc, you don't necessarily need backgrounds, but never ever have your characters floating in the void of nothingness for an enitre page. It's lazy.

[MixedMyth]

For gag comics, it pays to have a little tablet with you most of the time so that you can write down those funny little thoughts that occur to you out of the blue and are shortly forgotten. These are excellent material for comics.

Umm...also, it's a bad thing to lose the sheet of paper that you wrote those down on.

[Dr Legostar]

For gag comics, it pays to have a little tablet with you most of the time so that you can write down those funny little thoughts that occur to you out of the blue and are shortly forgotten. These are excellent material for comics.

Umm...also, it's a bad thing to lose the sheet of paper that you wrote those down on.

that's why you have a notepad... or a notebook, your a word document.

[K-Dawg]

tattoos, they last forever. Use those.

Umm observations?

Whenever you stop caring about other people liking your comic is when it gets decently popular.

[McDuffies]

You need at least one establishing shot of the background per page. For closeups on faces, heads and shoulders etc, you don't necessarily need backgrounds, but never ever have your characters floating in the void of nothingness for an enitre page. It's lazy.

Word. If you have background on one of a few panels, reader's mind will fill out backgrounds on the rest. But if there's no background in sight on page, there's nothing to base this filling out.
I don't like to see comics where background is on every page either. They testify of author who's afraid of the void. Artists are often afraid of the void and fill up every little free space on page, cluttering in with too much detail until we lose sight of what's important.

My observation is that you can spend a lot of time drawing ambitious and convoluted storylines, but it's always those little ideas that you just write in the burst of inspiration that people like the most.

[MixedMyth]

Whenever you stop caring about other people liking your comic is when it gets decently popular.

Amen and halleluja.

[Dr Legostar]

Whenever you stop caring about other people liking your comic is when it gets decently popular.

Amen and halleluja.

preach it.

[Dreamaniaccomic]

Whenever you stop caring about other people liking your comic is when it gets decently popular.

Amen and halleluja.

preach it.

Is there a church of K-Dawg that I can join?

[Cope]

Seeing your comic all the way to its conclusion doesn't result in angels descending from heaven and rocking out. How disappointing.