So I was just wondering, how far ahead you guys plan and create your individual strips?
Personally I have mine planned for the next couple years, and have made strips up to about November...but haven't posted them due to hackers and cheats... I like to have a backlog I can fall back on if there's any trouble.
So how far ahead do you work on your strips?
Last edited by Cindermain on Wed Sep 18, 2002 4:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"For those of you who've just tuned in, the Pinedale Shopping Mall has just been bombed with live turkeys. Film at eleven." - WKRP in Cincinnati
I've already started on the storyline for my new comic, "Weirdism". It's not coming out until the beginning of the new year. Nobody's going to believe I spent so much time preparing though once the damn thing comes out! I'm very new at gag comics so I'm taking my sweet time.
I did 5 month's of drawing before I started posting my strips.. I have written about 30 strips for the future, but I trashed them and did something different.
There's a lot in my head but I'm working strip by strip now.
"Where are my groupies? She! She is my groupie!!"
"She is my niece, Rick!"
I fly by the seat of my pants! Staying up the night before and drawing whatever the heck comes out my head. Some would say this is because I like to live dangerously. It is, however, simply because I'm completely stupid and insane.
JasterW wrote:I fly by the seat of my pants! Staying up the night before and drawing whatever the heck comes out my head. Some would say this is because I like to live dangerously. It is, however, simply because I'm completely stupid and insane.
I have the skeleton of the overall saga of Kari & Doug, but stips come pretty much off the cuff, personally. As it goes, I add things of remove them from the general plan, but there is always the eventual destination.
I usually try to stay a week ahead but not more than that. Of course sometimes you do get into drawing mode and produce a lot of stuff all at once! If you get to far ahead you can feel like your stuck in an old plot line forever! I know that happened to me and I got over a month ahead and now it's like "When will the back log end!"
I have a notebook full of random ideas that I have written down, whether they totally apply to Elf Only Inn or not. I usually make a week's worth of strips, slack, and then cram in another week's worth of strips. But for the last week I've only made strips at the last second. And instead of making tomorrow's strip I'm back on the forums again. AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!
Plus, the next strip is going to be mostly hand-drawn, and I haven't finished the drawings yet...
Well, I usually have, like one or two surplus, but that's it.
It's like making fun of George W. Bush saying "dignitude" when he just said that "Fool me once...uh....uh...can't get fooled again..." thing. You gotta keep current, or something.
i just keep a general idea for what I want to do story-wise and then see what happens when I make the comic for the next update, it's happened many times where I suddenly get an idea that's a lot better than the one I had and I was able to accomodate, instead of not doing it because I already had that strip done in advance
At one point, I was 2 months ahead at a time on my comic. But alas, distractions (IE video games such as FF8, and Animal Crossing) do derail me, and that backlog gets eaten up pretty quickly. I'm lucky if I even have 2 weeks worth of strips ready ahead of time.
As far as planning goes, the storyline in my head is already planned out to the end (yes, there is a definate ending to PSC) but the actual individual strips are written as I'm drawing them. I've always worked this way when doing comics. It's just...easier, somehow.
The story is done years in advance, the writing months in advance. Although I don't actually put it to paper until the night before, and usually make changes at the last minute.
Glad this topic came up. I'v made a really general plan for the next 2 years, and I try to have a more specific but flexible plan for the next few months. I actually draw a months-worth in advance in case I get sick or something. Just writing the story for my comic and realizing that it must see the light of being on my website at some future date keeps me fired up and ready to draw more!
I did the first 60 or so strips with almost no plan, and a couple days ago I finally plotted out the whole thing in tiny tiny writing on a single sheet of paper. I'm at #67 and still on the second sentence.
I'm ahead in drawings right now, by a week-- but only because I'm leaving to Vermont for a week, and had to have them ready for my brother to post... Usually, I figure out the particulars of a strip 2 nights before it has to go up, and finish drawing it 5-0 hours before it is posted. And aside from the overall story arc, the individual strips I write in batches, maybe sketching out 10 at a time.
But the actual comics are rarely done too far ahead of time...
Something is currently <a href= "http://polygonreports.keenspace.com">HERE</a>.
I just draw my comics whenever I can be bothered, and try to keep about a week in advance (which in my case is only about three comics) but every now and then I get really stressed because I've been slack. Like now. Dammit.
I also keep a little McVille notebook in my pencil case just in case I get an idea during English or Chem or whatever. Yay high school. *waves arms half-heartedly* I'm even sposed to be studying Macbeth as I type. Perhaps it'll make an appearance in a future strip... hmm...
I have about a week's buffer in drawings, which are uplaoded in one or two week blocks.
Writing is a week or two ahead of the drawing. Never too far because I like to keep the content reasonably current.
I've already got the entire story for my comic palnned, with just enough room for leeway.
I plan a comic about a week before I draw it.
I have a 10 comic buffer, but expect it to fall to 1 or 2 when the school years gets tougher.
I like to have a backlog I can fall back on if there's any trouble.
