Comic Creators Free Talk

[Kupocake]

I would put "giving your characters a goal" as a pretty high-ranking writing point, but once again, Slice-of-Life follows different formats. Perhaps you should just have one character have a pretty strong goal, and the others are caught in the middle of it? MacGuffins would work, I guess, but then it wouldn't be quite Slice-of-Life anymore, the genre would be defined by how the characters try to get at the MacGuffin.

Carl and Dude of my comic Cans of Beans have their own goals, but it's more of an underlying story point that gets more and more apparent as the story goes on, since the month and date gets factored in.

[Kaxen]

My characters have goals, but they're usually kind of vague and they don't always have a concrete plan on how they want to attain it... Aurus just wants to be well-dressed and happy (though he's usually doing counter-productive things...). Whitby wants to know what he wants (he's a NEET/ took the semester off after getting turned into a monster crow and going to court against his ex-girlfriend for assault).

Landon is probably the most defined in his goals since his POV in Magical Los Angeles is more "they fight crime!" than slice-of-life, but his life is shown more than the usual crime show (it occurs to me that the vast majority of TV shows I watch involve fighting crime in some way...). Since Landon's goal is usually to help people in whatever law-abiding way he can.

I can't decide if it's weird that Landon never mentions that he was in the army. Though minus a cousin who was in the Navy, I dunno enough people in the military so personal experience is not giving me a large enough reference pool. The only way I know anyone is in the military is the guys and girls who run around campus dressed in their ACU.




My God, my watercolor class is so hard. I CAN'T EVEN PAINT A FLAT WASH CORRECTLY. And something about the professor makes me immediately nervous all the time.


And my school needs to actually hire people to sort mail instead of making students do it. They've had my book since Tuesday based on the package tracking, but haven't sorted it and told me to pick it up. Though sometimes the pick-up slips up and disappear inexplicably too. ._. I think I'll go bug them in the afternoon. My Blick shipment came in today.


...And Holbein watercolor's "Opera" is probably the classiest name I've ever seen someone name "hot pink."

[Empuska]

Kupocake

Empuska

...by conflict you mean the "grand scheme"-conflict, right?
Just saying that there is still room for comics that build worlds yet not necessarily tell anything particular. Quiet Country Cafe is the best of those type of comics I ever come across, and Para-Ten had a bit same sort of touch in it. Of course, mixing up slice-of-life and fantasy/scifi-kind of world building isn't the easiest way to win the audience on your side.

I've never heard of Para-Ten, interesting comic!

The problem with Slice-of-Life is that it follows an entirely different set of rules compared to traditional story arcs. There may be problems for the characters to solve, but they're usually not enough to constitute as a crisis for the entirety of the story. Technically, slice-of-life works better when you do have an established world with all the ground rules set. The problem is to get slice-of-life interesting.

I personally love the genre, and the comic I've been working on (Cans of Beans) does follow a Slice-of-Life format. It's just messy to deal with and hard to promote. "It's about two roommates! YEEEAHHH!"

I think it's more about the reader expectations for the story rather than slice-of-life wouldn't work in that sort of setting. I mean, most of the stories in Flight-anthologies had lots of same elements as slice-of-life-stories, yet quite many of them weren't based on this world. Personally, I was tad bothered for some to leave the world alone after reading the story.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the slice-of-life stories, and that's why I wanted to bring this aspect, because I'm not really into the adventures what are usually expected from stories based on made-up worlds. That's why I loved Para-ten; though short and tad rough, yet still having that kind of charm, what I usually find in slice-of-life stories.

At least roommates is something enough universal to relate to. :B

[Sunen]

burning_eyes

[Roshtal Maverick]

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z6/gokurulzu221/elisparks-1.png
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z6/gokurulzu221/butchdukem1-1.png
i just started concepts for the comic but generally i want it to be a steam punk western with a bit of mystery to it..... but the problem is im scared to death to go past concept and into actuall dialogue since i am an extremely lousy writer any pointers on that?
and yes i know the steam punk thing has been done to death but i feel i could put a good spin on it.

[Niiwa]

Roshtal Maverick

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z6/gokurulzu221/elisparks-1.png
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z6/gokurulzu221/butchdukem1-1.png
i just started concepts for the comic but generally i want it to be a steam punk western with a bit of mystery to it..... but the problem is im scared to death to go past concept and into actuall dialogue since i am an extremely lousy writer any points on that?

As a writer, I always find that more believable dialog comes from A) real life or, less desirable B) Your own head (But that's only if you're used to having imaginary friends.

I tend to base characters either partially on myself or on my friends, and hence try to (undercover) instigate conversations similar to ones that might be in the comic. This gives you a good structure for pretty much any conversation. For arguments, I know this sounds weird, but try to watch breakups. Either in movies, or more preferably, real life, breakups ome in all shapes and sizes with all sorts of different people, and give a wide range of arguments you can pull from, from furious, to depressingly sad.

For any sort of fear, the only reliable way is to draw from your own childhood experiences. Generally fear is experienced alone, and people will always act different when they are alone.

Also, I'd always suggest going to some kind of support groups for inspiration on personalities and deep discussion. They're incredibly helpful.

[Kupocake]

Funny how things turn out...

I created these two guys for silly gag-type animation, but I'm now making a somewhat serious comic out of them. At the same time, the character in my signature (Marcellus) was originally created for a long-term fantasy-drama graphic novel, and all of the sudden, I will be animating him in a comedy short in the near future.

I'm terribly confused.

[Kupocake]

I felt like I sunk this thread somehow. Oh dear.

So how's everyone doing?

[Kaxen]

My watercolor teacher told me I'd most likely be getting C's most of the semester, then he told me to gain some confidence. ._.


School is kicking my a**.

[Kupocake]

That sucks hardcore, especially when you hear it from a teacher. :/ But hey, what matters most is what you learn from it, not what grades you got. When you're applying for jobs later down the line, they're not going to ask what grades you got in your school's watercolor class or your GPA.

May I ask what he means by "gain some confidence?"

[Kaxen]

I act really panicked around teachers.

[Jovian Temple]

Does it seem like the old comic book creator resources are starting to dry up? The Scryptic Studios site used to have creator resources, which was mainly Ryan Scott Ottney's blog. It seems to me as though Digital Webbing has basically went on lock-down since shortly after having changed their "Help Wanted" section. Arcana Studios used to have a forum where creators actually talked to people-- now that's gone too. Has anyone else been having this problrm?

[Kupocake]

Not really? Then again, I never really went around websites looking for comic book resources. The best ones I've found were through books and just general trial-and-error through hundreds of pages.

Besides, some of the best online tutorials I've found aren't on traditionally comic websites, they're on sites like deviantArt and Tumblr, through other indie comic creators.

[Seijaku_Ishida]

Shouting Fox

Does it seem like the old comic book creator resources are starting to dry up? The Scryptic Studios site used to have creator resources, which was mainly Ryan Scott Ottney's blog. It seems to me as though Digital Webbing has basically went on lock-down since shortly after having changed their "Help Wanted" section. Arcana Studios used to have a forum where creators actually talked to people-- now that's gone too. Has anyone else been having this problrm?

On the contrary, I've been finding more and more amazing discussions on longform webcomics. The hashtag #lfwc on twitter has some amazing conversations, and I find Fantasy Comic Portal to be a useful resource and community.

[Mangabot]

HELLO EVERYONE smile im a wannabe cartoonist looking for some criticism on my only two fan comics....
http://mangameister.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4lyma1
http://mangameister.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4r03ic
eventually i want to do my own comics but for now im keeping to these ... so any way that i can refine my comics the dialogue the humor paneling maybe?
also.....im terrible with writing...... so is there any pointers in that deparment?
ps i know my drawings suck im 21 but hey im still improving or trying to atleast.