Where did it come from?

[cuddlycornpone]

I came up with the idea for my comic about three years ago. It started off as an idea for a novel as opposed to a comic, but I like drawing so that's how that happened. I knew how many main characters I wanted to include, although it took a really long time for their personalities to flesh out more (they all were really plain and lame in the beginning). Some of them did a complete 180 from where I had originally thought they would be. And I knew I wanted to have it set in some sort of early 1900's era- originally it was going to be modern times with just a 1920's feel, then some sort of weird futuristic time when everything reverted to the way it was at that point, until I finally settled on the wacky idea of actually setting it in the 1920's- how original. And morbidly the first thing that I thought of was how all of them would end up dying, how the story was going to end, and I built back from there.

This all happened because I was listening to a Doors album. Kind of a weird point of origin. I was thinking about it- what makes ideas go from being the little daydream that you have before falling asleep to becoming actual tangible projects that you can show people? Where did your ideas come from? How did they start out? What motivated you to develop them? How far did your arrow land from your initial bullseye?

(Mine flew out the window and popped somebody's tire. But I like it. And it can only improve from here)

[Redtech]

A very good question!
I've always wanted to do "something", and originally I had created this "something", but it was DBZ inspired and used copyrighted characters (not DBZ ones) and it didn't feel like "something" I could run with.

I'm not really sure how, what or why Meiosis came to be! I recall I chose the name since it is biology themed and pretentious, but logic and reasoning are my poor points. I have always worked behind-the-scenes in a scientific environment (that is, too smart to be a grunt but too stupid to be a tech) so I felt that creating a story about individuals in a similar role with a twist would be something I could relate to and work stories around. I did have some detail on what I wanted to do with the story, such as never specifying what year it was, or refraining from using jargon and terminology and character ideas. The hard thing is making sense of it all.

I'm influenced by current events, some life history and some sci-fi with a mix of real science, or at least the crazy sections of old New Scientist magazines while I actually studied. I find that actually doing well is a great motivator and I am pleased that people enjoy my work although I am a harsh critic towards myself.

My arrow is more a tomahawk missile. I think it blew up some poor innocent bugger's house.

[Warofwinds]

My story came about because I wanted a creation that was the culmination of everything I loved to read: Wheel of Time, Belgariod, Pern, Star Trek, etc. I wanted a story that blurred the lines between fantasy and sci-fi, that was long and involved, with a main character that had to earn respect. At the time, I read no comics (didn't get into webcomics for a year or two after starting to write), and I had no real movie or musical influences.

I know how my story is going to end, and all the of the backstory, and all of the first book actually (planning a trilogy, the first book is complete). The comic came about because I wanted to illustrate it, and see how it would play out visually. I feel it's really helped me grow as a writer.

Good topic!

[Inshue]

Hmm. Well, it came from screwing around on Wikipedia one day, until I came across the Hellboy page. It had some random mention about steampunk, which I had never heard of before. Curiosity took control, and I took a peek. The concept of steam-powered robots got in my head, and just wouldn't leave. Over the next few weeks, I doodled some concepts, wrote ideas, and came up with Mr. Jeffries. I was working on several other comics at that time, so I didn't want to start producing this new steampunk concept just yet. So I kept developing, and eventually dropped the other comics to restart another day, and began drawing Empty Space. I eventually decided it was crap, redrew it, and started it up again. I then decided the name was crap, changed it to Empires of Steam, changed sites, redrew some pages, and I'm still posting the old pages, now recolored.

As for how far off the original mark it is, I was going to make it a post-apocalyptic blend of magic, hard sci-fi, and steampunk. It still is a little, but not noticeably so. BUt the original idea was completely different from what it is now; there are still some concepts I like, and will probably do some day down the line.

[VinnieD]

The comic its self started with a dream about a single cynical chain smoking rabbit ina gritty Noir style world. The idea grew in the back of my head and was screaming to get out. I have particularly obnoxious muses.

[McDuffies]

Idea for Little White Knight came from one short dream, but it was a long road from that little bit to anything resembling comic in this form. Kill'er Now came from my interest in cult cinema and urban legends. And mcDuffies is CRFH ripoff.

[Cope]

My current comic originally sprang from all the fantasy novels I was reading years ago; I was big into the genre and wanted to do my own fantasy webcomic. It was quite different back then (Cerintha wasn't even the main character), and only two characters survive from the prototype version (Hellebore and Cerintha herself).

In the end, the story fell out of my favour, and I ditched it. Still, the old version ended up seeding Cerintha as it exists now, which I started developing when i was about a year or two into drawing Atavism.

[K-Dawg]

Horrible animes that I'd watch, and horrible mangas that I read.

I seen so many of them I just had to use this knowledge I had and put it onto paper. Thus Angry D. Monkey was born.

[Eve Z.]

it all started when I found and read the first webcomic. And I wanted to have a webcomic too. I like reading comics. My dad used to make humour comics for fun in his youth. many-many factors.

I think the idea came from many directions like Metropolis, A.I. and that song called 'Electric Barbarella' by Duran Duran. I was trying to figure out how that Electric Barbarella would look like and I created my main character. I am craving for this Sci-Fi stuff and in consequence, I chose to make a sci-fi comic. Well, sort of, with many everyday life elements.

[McDuffies]

and that song called 'Electric Barbarella' by Duran Duran. I was trying to figure out how that Electric Barbarella would look like and I created my main character.

She would look like Jane Fonda, probably.

[Metruis]

Oh, goodness, I don't even know anymore. This is going to be a long post...

When I was 13, I wrote my first story. It had a magic system involving the old and new magic, the old magic being a four/six element system and the new magic being TK/TP a la the Force. New magic users were from a futuristic place that basically trained secret agents to fight an evil empire. Original, huh? Old magic users came from an old fashioned place that was essentially a rip off of Middle Earth, to be honest, and the main characters were two girls--one was one of the children of a ranger and one was destined to be the Empress of the future world. The past world consisted of one half being an LotR ripoff and this shadow world run by the true villains of the story (the real villains were not the Empire, they were these guys, and the Empire in the future were merely puppets). Neither of them (the MCs) knew this. The story led them to discovering who they were, or was supposed to, and it was a very ELABORATE story, considering it was essentially a ripoff of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings at the same time. The story was insanely elaborate for a 13 year old. I mean, it passed 100 pages in word and heaven knows how many handwritten pages, concept art and maps and languages and magic rules and sequels and prequels and an entire history stretching over thousands of years, until the character who was essential the main character (her name was Talnaver Arinon, and she was a Mary Sue) died, ending up in a floaty between place. There is your key word.

When I was 14, I met another girl online; we both wrote Star Wars and Lord of the Rings fanfiction. We began writing together and though I occasionally dabbled back into my own story, mostly, we wrote a lot of crappy fanfic together. Somehow in the process of writing a sequel to our original parody series, it devolved from being ridiculous Star Wars satire to focusing on another world. That world was, at the time, called the Shadow Realm, at first a place between places, a place where you could teleport from world to world in Star Wars, but it quickly became its own world with a monachy. It became critical to our obsession with multiple universes and time travel theories.

I was 15. We were two teenagers writing a crappy fantasy story which included the "narrators". Key word: the narrators. The narrators were people who could "create stories". People with the ability to influence the line of the story, creating worlds within worlds. It became a sort of magic. They were targets. They were creators. They were--

It was 2005. I wrote my first Nanowrimo novel. It started as a parody, called Through Silver Glass, about a girl who had some curse on her. Somehow I wove some confusing thing into the middle of it, where there was a princess asleep in a place between places, and her mind created a world.

I was 16. It was 2006. We grew sick of writing Star Wars and developed our own worlds (as well as Almaera), I made one called Metruis, and it was the home of the generic Order, because we couldn't think of a good name for them. I occasionally tried to start rewriting my first story and others, and even fanfics. Each fanfiction fell back to the same themes. Mirrors, time travel, worlds between places. I did my second Nanowrimo novel--the Legend of Scarecrow--which dealt with a more elaborate magic system based on times. Dawn, Daylight, Twilight and Midnight. Each one of these times had a GUARDIAN. Each place/form of magic...

I got sick of it for a bit in the middle of the month and since I was shooting for 100k, I wrote a second story in the middle, and pulled out Talnaver again, who had apparently been rescued from her floating in the middle by a guy named Hellion and was now a protector of the multiverse and various stories created. In October, a bit before Nanowrimo began, my friend had told me about her Nano that year and one of her characters. His name was Gabriel. I drew him for her and he jumped out at me. I mean, I literally couldn't get rid of this guy. I asked for permission to use her character model and name to make my own character. He and one other woman, named Raiyn, starred in this bonus Nanowrimo story. I'd created her not that long before as a generic vampire villain--apparently I didn't know the word succubus at the time, because her abilities were sex related rather than blood related--and they set off to rescue Talnaver from the clutches of evil vampires who tried to kill "stories". She'd formerly been one of these.

It was 2007. Script Frenzy happened for the first time. I wrote a story called Dreshae which started being about a kid named Dreshae haunted by the ghost of the planet Mysada who needed him to carry her to the heart of the world in order to revive her, and about some elf named Shay who dropped off the radar, and some guy named Avante, and some dude named Dayun who had been summoned there by the wizard Order to save Mysada--he was apparently Gabriel's apprentice--somewhere in the middle of the story, Gabriel reappeared on a planet named Falahil, which was subsequentially destroyed, there was some blather about Talnaver's original world and elemental guardians and Maldlahin, and this story spun completely out of control. It was a wreck with no logical plotline or direction and--uh--that was the script I used for my comic. If it's any consolation, I threw out the original script before the end of chapter one and started going with an outline.

I developed a second system of magic, based on my previous systems. Time, memory, mind/space, order, chaos, dream.

Rather than referring to stories and narrators, I began to refer to dreams and dreamers, dreamworlds created by a character I'd made off the spur of the moment for another Mary Sue story. Her name was Saerin and she was a calligraphy enthusist with a slight ov--I mean!

My graphic novel is the result of a story five or six years in the making and I STILL DON'T KNOW WHERE THIS CRAP CAME FROM. An LotR/Star Wars ripoff original story, but neither of those fandoms dealt with time travel/multiverses/various forms of magic and the ability to seperate mind from body. I still haven't figured out why I've been obsessed with these themes since I was 13! I blame Star Wars, just because I can. (I mean, honest to goodness. I read Hardy Boys as a kid, not fantasy!)

While we're at it, I feel the urge to blame The Death Gate Cycle, which I believe I read around 14, or 15. Most people go all "it's like Final Fantasy, kinda!" when referring to Between Places... which it is, but I didn't even play a FF game until last year, which was FFX... which probably influenced my choice to go with dreams rather than 'narrators'... ahem.

As for my decision to make it a webcomic? I hovered over ComicGenesis's signup page many, many times and finally went TO HECK WITH IT I'LL NEVER DO IT OTHERWISE. Funny thing was, I didn't even really read webcomics at that time. o_O




In short: The first story I wrote carried forward over years and influenced my writing for years to come, because apparently I've been obsessed with "dreamworlds", elaborate magic theories, and "magic guardians/Maldalhin" since a young age, just using different names.

[Eve Z.]

and that song called 'Electric Barbarella' by Duran Duran. I was trying to figure out how that Electric Barbarella would look like and I created my main character.

She would look like Jane Fonda, probably.

yeah, probably. not.

[Dr Legostar]

Legostar: I was trying to be funny, my friends found it amusing, i kept making the comic.

Shenanigan: Pimpy and I were at CN expo, digging through batman comics and struck on the idea of Shenanigan.

it's all very simple and straight forward, it just got a little out of hand later when the world's kinda took over my brain.

[Heart]

i kept making the comic.

We have an early candidate for understatement of the year.

[Dr Legostar]

i kept making the comic.

We have an early candidate for understatement of the year.

i don't do things half assed, it's whole ass all the way!

[McDuffies]

And a very large ass for that matter.

[Dr Legostar]

And a very large ass for that matter.

you're one to talk.

[Paul Escobar]

I think the general inspiration for me making comics comes from the American and Japanese animated cartoons I watched and the French and Belgian comics I read while growing up. A very specific inspiration comes from reading the works of two Belgian comics artists, André Franquin and Raymond Macherot, at a young and impressionable age. I'd read lots of other stuff, but reading Franquin and Macherot taught me that there were different and individual ways of telling stories in pictures, and that was quite the revelation.

As for specific ideas for specific comics, fuck if I know. Ideas just seem to pop up from somewhere, sometimes. They can be triggered by an event, a concept, a word, or whatever - but those seem to be just that: incidental triggers. Depending on philosophical bent, one can call it divine inspiration or creative genius. Being agnostic, I'll go with the latter concept.

[Cxm]

Nowhere. No, really.

I'm one of those people who get loads of ideas, plan out some sort of story/comic/game whatever and then loose interest before it gets finished. I was getting tired of all the notes and sketches I had lying around and decided to put them all to one side and do something new. I even have a folder on my computer filled with about 20 aborted comics. Some partially drawn, some just ideas typed into a txt file.

Deciding to ignor everything that went before the first thing I did was draw a picture of some woman walking down a corridor, then some robot with glowy lines, add an explosion and there it was. That was a few months ago and now not only have I came up with a motivation, backstory, a dozen characters and an ending, but also a way to link it to my other sci-fi/fantasy ideas which are now going to make up future story arcs.

Basically dropping all the different ideas I was trying to do at once let me put them in some sort of order. Hence Canis Ex Mechanica.

[McDuffies]

And a very large ass for that matter.

you're one to talk.

What? I was giving you a compliment.