upcoming webcomic

Gauge · Post by **Gauge** » Mon May 17, 2004 3:33 pm

well I'm 18 years old, I'm COMPLETELY new to the whole webcomic game, and I'm gonna be starting one this summer. I've read over the how not to do a webcomic section ((for the most part)). And I've spent a buncha time sketching out my characters ((which are basically just my friends and myself)). Well anyway enough blabbering, here's a pic I did of the main character ((me))
Any crits are appreciated and any advice on drawing/WRITING a humorous webcomic would be much appreciated. I'm having so much fun doing this but I'm a little stumped as far as humorous situations go.

William G · Post by **William G** » Mon May 17, 2004 4:01 pm

I realize that I'm leaping to conclusions here, but please bear with me.

Read this and avoid:
http://www.operative.net/archive/column ... rigin.html

As well, beware of slipping into "Boondocks" territory.

Simply put: Unless you're the next Chris Rock, don't make race the central theme of your work.

Garasade · Post by **Garasade** » Mon May 17, 2004 5:03 pm

As far as drawing goes, I would like to commend you for your skill. I think in that department you have a solid foundation to build upon. I look forward to your comic.

Sorry I am not much of a humorous person, so my tastes in humour is rather pedestrian, but I would advise staying away from more popular video game and related culture and references. They are getting rather stale.

IVstudios · Post by **IVstudios** » Mon May 17, 2004 7:22 pm

It looks cool. But like garasade said, be careful not to let your web comic end up just like all the other web comics who's artist did about them and their friends. It fine if you

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Tue May 18, 2004 12:11 am

Nice drawing. Come back when you have the comic up, cos you got my attention already.

Writing tips..... I don't know. Don't explain everything away from the start. Keep some secrets (even if you are just doing humor). Make sure it's not just your friends who are gonna laugh, but make strips about what you're interested in exploring, not what you expect an audience to enjoy. Don't introduce characters by saying, "This is Lyndsey and she's CRAZY!" or anything like that. As a matter of fact, skip the introductions and just show us what these people are like. Have them interact. Start with two or three together and expand from there slowly. Ummmmm.... that's all I got.

Oh yeah. http://hntrac.keenspace.com
Lots of helpful tips there.

Jim North · Post by **Jim North** » Tue May 18, 2004 1:49 am

If reading Calvin & Hobbes has taught me anything, it's this: try to keep in mind while you're writing scripts that funny situations are better than funny punchlines. If you can make the whole strip humorous instead of just the last panel, you're well ahead of the game.

Gauge · Post by **Gauge** » Tue May 18, 2004 8:54 am

Wow thanks for the advice guys.

As far as the race issue goes, that character is me. And I happen to be black. It's really that simple. My friends are a pretty wide mix of races as well, hispanic, white, asian, bengali, jamaican...etc. I'm honestly not too concerned with the whole race issue because frankly, my friends are what they are. Most of their attitudes and personalities don't fit the stereotype of their race ((myself included)) and so I'm not too concerned about it. Thanks for the link to that site though and thanks for lookin out man. I appreciate it

And I have to admit, I'm going to be pretty stubborn about making this webcomic about my friends and I. Maybe this will be a mistake, maybe not. But it's just the way I want to go about it. I'll try to make sure that it doesn't make the comic any less enjoyable.

I'll do my best in the writing department, although I have to admit that I'm not very confident in that area. And I'm already having trouble thinking of scenarios because my mind just keeps goin blank.

Well thanks everyone for the great replies and advice, I'll be updating this thread with more pics of the characters.

Terotrous · Post by **Terotrous** » Tue May 18, 2004 9:40 am

Gauge wrote:And I have to admit, I'm going to be pretty stubborn about making this webcomic about my friends and I. Maybe this will be a mistake, maybe not. But it's just the way I want to go about it. I'll try to make sure that it doesn't make the comic any less enjoyable.

Writing about your friends is perfectly fine. You just have to keep in mind that your audience has never met these people, and you have to treat them like any other character. There's a fine balance of providing details and not going too far into description that can be tricky to handle when you're talking about people who you know so well.

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Tue May 18, 2004 11:27 am

Gauge wrote: I'll do my best in the writing department, although I have to admit that I'm not very confident in that area. And I'm already having trouble thinking of scenarios because my mind just keeps goin blank.

Since you're already having trouble coming up with material, why not go the whole route and keep a journal about things that actually happen. Use snippets of that for inspiration and when all else fails you could use some of it directly for material. Keep sketches as well as dialogue because sometimes the best material isn't what's said. Also, if you have a digital video camera, why not use it? Be that guy. (P.C.U.) 8)

At any rate, if you make a roomies comic you have to deal with the fact that Mac Hall, Real Life and a couple thousand others have already done the same thing and they have been around much longer and will be far more popular (at least initially) than your comic. You will have the comic that "looks like" somebody else's so make a concerted effort to find something that is unique to you that will separate you from everyone else.

Example: http://yeahduff.keenspace.com/ amounts to a roomies comic but noone could pretend to say it looks like Mac Hall. The style of the art and writing is too unique for that.

Phact0rri · Post by **Phact0rri** » Tue May 18, 2004 6:52 pm

I write a slice of life comic myself. And well the first piece of advice is look at what makes somthing funny. I tend to throw in a lot of fiction into my webcomic, and balance it out with real life. ya gotta mix it up and have fun with it.

And what jim is correct, i think Real life is a good example of not just the last panel being funny.

good luck in what ever you do. just be careful not to be serious, and also remember not to use to many "inside jokes" if your looking at moving into a large audience.

Ladydarke · Post by **Ladydarke** » Tue May 18, 2004 7:13 pm

Check out:
http://www.somethingpositive.net/

This humourous webcomic by R.K. Mulholland is also based on him and his friends, and it is one of the funniest things I have ever seen on the net.

Mr.Bob · Post by **Mr.Bob** » Wed May 19, 2004 10:43 am

ladydarke wrote:Check out:
http://www.somethingpositive.net/

This humourous webcomic by R.K. Mulholland is also based on him and his friends, and it is one of the funniest things I have ever seen on the net.

You are a bad person.

Christwriter · Post by **Christwriter** » Wed May 19, 2004 6:16 pm

Art: You're already good. I'm interested.

Writing: Ok...Get comfortable.

Read. Anything. Everything. Stick especially to the genre you're going to be writing in (Horror if it's Horror...Dave Barry if it's that kind of humor) but read other things too...ideas come in all places.

Practice writing and give pieces of your writing to other people. Don't strangle them when they take out the red pen or black marker and molest your writing. They see something you don't...your mistakes.

Try to make funny situations rather than funny one-liners. A girl showing a guy around her room, then realizing her laundry is sitting on her bed with her underwear on top is funnier than a one-line joke about her house. If you don't want to plot than at least have it be driven by situations. THis means taking your characters and doing really mean things to them.

College Roomies From Hell!!! is a really good example of funny situations.

And don't be afraid to have serious as well as funny situations. Drama is always a good thing, and people who don't like gags will like yours because they know once in a while there will be something a bit more...well, dramatic.

CW

Gauge · Post by **Gauge** » Fri May 21, 2004 7:49 am

I'm learning photoshop and trying to experiment a bit with it. Here's another character from the comic

Sopheia · Post by **Sopheia** » Fri May 21, 2004 8:33 am

Well... from what I can tell... It looks good. My advice to you would be: know what you're getting yourself into. Making a comic is not the same as making one picture. It takes a lot of time, planning, patience, and discipline. When I started making my comic, I thought it would be easy. I see lots of people updating every day, three times a week, two times a week... so I thought: I can do that too. But I can barely manage to get a page done in one week. I discovered that art-wise I'm not as good as I thought. Learning a new style, AND learning how to draw things from different angles and in different poses was really much more than I could handle. Besides that, there was a background to think about, pacing, dialogue... Though it looks as if you know your style, and different angles and poses shouldn't be a problem... so focus your learning on pacing, dialogue, plot.

When you start your comic, make ten to twenty pages, and then start asking critique... that's one of the best ways to improve. Ask everyone in fact... friends, family, teachers, collegues, everyone. Though most people will politely tell you it's very nice... there might just be a couple of helpful hints here and there. When people start asking questions, wonder whether it is the good one. "Who is this person? (talking about main character)" is a bad question, it means that the reader doesn't get anything that goes on. "What is the teacher planning to do? What does he need that pot of honey for?" is a good one... it means that the reader's curious about what's going on in the story, and is waiting for his questions to be answered further down the road. It keeps them anticipating for more..

Let us know when you have a page done... somewhere. I'm getting curious.

BOMC · Post by **BOMC** » Fri May 21, 2004 8:58 am

I like the art so far. Just make sure that it's a style you are comfortable with, and not one that takes you forever to draw or else you will get tired of it (unless you like drawing for hours on end).

Also, get into the habit of drawing comics regularly. See how many you draw each week, for a while before the comic, that way you will be able to pick an update schedule that best suits you. If you can whip out 5 comics a week for the next month and are still loving it, then you know you can update often.

Make sure to draw tons of comics before you put the first one up, at least 3 weeks worth. Try to stay that ahead of schedule once you start updating the comic. Not only does that mean you have a buffer of comics so they will never be late, but you will have plenty of time to fix up or catch in mistakes in each comic before it goes online.

As for writing, making it funny, here are a few tips. 1) Carry a notebook around with you everywhere. Whenever you or anyone else says something funny, write it down, or just write down anything funny that occurs to you. I guarantee you, if you don't write it down, 99% of the time you won't remember it later. (This is also good since you are doing the comic about your friends, you can remember actual things the people have said). 2) Read and/or watch anything funny. Think about what make it funny for you; is it the dialogue? the facial expressions? the situations? the random situations? 3) Remember that no one online has met your friends. Introduce them as you would any other character. Perhaps even exaggerate them a bit at first, so it's easier for the reader to get to know them.

Gauge · Post by **Gauge** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 9:49 am

a little update. I changed the style a little bit.

the upper body is colored with marker, the lower body with photoshop.

IVstudios · Post by **IVstudios** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 11:10 am

Oooooooooh shinny

Very nice. What did you use to color it?

Caduceus · Post by **Caduceus** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 11:27 am

Okay, I posted this to the wrong topic a second ago. Whoops:

I like the art a lot. I especially like that last one; the marker gives his skin a nice organic quality while the photoshop gives a slick look to the clothing. Good job. I also approve of increasing the size of the head; that makes fitting your characters into panels WAY easier and alows for a large face while still having the whole body in the panel. Large face= very readable facial expressions.

I don't really know what to tell you about writing (I don't do much of it, though I am writing my strip at the moment) but I would like to just agree with everyone who says you should make sure people other than your friends will find this funny. Putting up strips here and asking us if we understand what is going on might be a good idea.

I will say I'm sold on your strip already just from the art. Great stuff!

Whoever was dissing on Boondocks: Hey, I love Boondocks! It would use some more focus on character, though.

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 2:02 pm

Hm, if you're stumped with comming up with humor, I'll point you out to my tutorial covering that:
http://mcduffies.keenspace.com/tutorjokes.html