Nervous about starting

Noise Monkey · Post by **Noise Monkey** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:40 am

there's a tried and true formula...

Moonshadow · Post by **Moonshadow** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 4:10 pm

Just dive in and go for it. ^_^ I think I spent about a month planning things out with my writer, but then we picked a date, and dove right in, so we couldn't back down.

Give yourself a starting date, and stick with it, and see where it takes you.

Czar · Post by **Czar** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 4:15 pm

Trust me, if you don't start right away you're just gonna keep postponing it.

Siabur · Post by **Siabur** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 4:15 pm

moonshadow wrote:Give yourself a starting date, and stick with it, and see where it takes you.

That's great advice. I did it with mine, Feb 5th was the goal. I was surprisingly ready in early january, a went for it.

Kasaii · Post by **Kasaii** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 8:55 pm

Legendary wrote:I probably would never have gone through with it if somebody on a forum I go to hadn't posted this.

My god, it's full of stars.

No, wait. What's something that's not anything like "stars"?

Ah, right. "Complete lack of talent, humour, and anything approaching good sense."

Well, it gave us Legendary, so that's sort of something good. Every steaming pile of crap has a silver lining, it seems.

Anyway. Back on topic.

I'm going to chime in with a hearty "DO IT!" Just jump in feet-first, or else you really won't ever get started. Worst case scenario, you'll have learned a lot for your second attempt; best-case, you'll have an awesome comic and be saying "Why would I ever have waited?"

Rao! · Post by **Rao!** » Sat Feb 03, 2007 5:48 pm

I'd add my voice to the crowd, but really, if you haven't decided to go for it by now, after all these acclaims...

Black Sparrow · Post by **Black Sparrow** » Sat Feb 03, 2007 6:20 pm

What Rao said.

Comicking is a risk and an adventure at the same time. You may get stuck in a pit of snakes or crushed by a giant rolling rock, but if you don't try, you'll never get the chance to reach that gold at the end.

TigerEye · Post by **TigerEye** » Sat Feb 03, 2007 6:25 pm

I know how you feel, I've *just* started a comic myself, and got the first few pages done and haven't even got a website going for it or anything but like everyone said, it probably is best to just go for it.

Best of luck!

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Sat Feb 03, 2007 9:58 pm

This is turning into the Just Do It chorus, and for good reason. The true beauty of Webcomics as a medium is that one really can learn by doing, and have one or two readers right away.

(Actually starting up a reader base is probably way harder now that there are so many webcomics; when I started there were probably less than 200 webcomics in the WORLD.)

But reguardless, DO make comics! It's very fulfilling!

But build yerself a buffer before you start posting. You'll be happier if you do, trust me.

Cope · Post by **Cope** » Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:00 pm

DON'T DO IT!!!!

...what? You've never heard of reverse psychology?

Wp · Post by Wp » Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:05 pm

Reverse psychology hasn't ever worked for me.

One day... one day!

Cope · Post by **Cope** » Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:10 pm

WP!!! DO IT!!![/reverse-reverse psychology]

Biev · Post by **Biev** » Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:11 pm

It doesn't matter how long you prepare before you start, you're still gonna end up thinking your first chapter looks like crap : )

Kirb · Post by **Kirb** » Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:36 pm

Biev wrote:It doesn't matter how long you prepare before you start, you're still gonna end up thinking your first chapter looks like crap

QFT.

Seriously.

Go for it. You can't find if you're cut out for webcomickry if you don't even try.

Black Sparrow · Post by **Black Sparrow** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 7:53 am

I guess that's another piece of advice. Don't ask for critiques/criticism until you're really, truly ready for it. Positive feedback gives you warm fuzzies, but negative feedback can be a bullet through the head, if you don't have a tough skin.

Thera Dratara · Post by **Thera Dratara** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 8:26 am

You should just start.

I'm a regular visitor of this Naruto(a manga) forum, particulary the art section.

Now there's a lot of people there who are like 'I'm going to start a manga!'

One of those people is a fourteen year old girl, who is very good at figure drawing, she made a thread, made a plot, put out some character sketches.
But after a year, she still didn't start it.

Then there's this guy who did make some chapters, then restarted, and now stopped it for whatever reason. The guy drew like a fifteen year old doing a manga. And if you told him the art wasn't good, even in the most sugary coated way, he would go beserk, saying you should shut up, and have symphaty with his situation.
All in all, I think the guy was just not strong enough to take the critism and accept his comic wasn't going to become popular within the first few chapters, so he quit...

Then there's me, who just thought one day 'I like writing, I like drawing, why not start a comic?' then visited sevensanctum, abused the story idea generator, and pasted together a basic plot and setting, and then just started drawing, and now has 60+ pages done, although the first few looked like crap. But I had a great time drawing it.

You could end up like any of the above, depending on how much effort you put in your work, how strong you are to continue no matter what others say, and how willing you are to start.

I say, just take the jump, and if you keep strong, then the least you will end up with is a great expierence and a good time!

Redtech · Post by **Redtech** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:07 am

And another thing. Don't ask professionals for reviews unless you want it! There's a huge range of talent out there, and let yourself and your readers be your biggest critics before you get people who DON'T know you start ripping you a new one.

Hmmm, that sounded negative.

Let's put it better: Do a comic because you want to, because you take pleasure in it and because you are proud of YOUR OWN acheivement.

Consider weightlifting, would you pump iron because you want to be fit, or because you want girls to fancy you? Same argument.

Killbert-Robby · Post by **Killbert-Robby** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:13 am

Actually a better use of that metaphor is you should pump iron everyday obsessively, and feel free to walk around girls with pride, but only actually hit on them once you're uberhawt.

Redtech · Post by **Redtech** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:31 am

But I do that and I ain't uberhawt.

It's endurance training versus bodybuilding. I can walk for miles but my fat-muscle ratio makes one cry.

Compare Garfield to Picasso!

Dragonmajik · Post by **Dragonmajik** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 12:30 pm

Just jump in and do eet!

Net and I spent about 3 months working through plans before we launched our comic...only to re-write most of it at least twice, scrap most of the drafts I labored over, and generally making up the details as we go along. We know where we want the chapter to end up, it's just we don't quite know exactly word-and-verse how we'll get there... it's been much more fun that way.

Comic Genesis Forums

Nervous about starting

I'm Mary, Mary, quite contrary.

At least it isn't reverse-reverse-reverse psycology.