Comic Creators Free Talk

[Mr McGrumpypants]

enchantedsleeper

Vergessen - I thought you had a studio at some point... but how long ago was that? I might just be imagining it, I mean I've been on this site since 04 but I've only been in this forum since January last year, more or less.

As best as I can remember, the studio closed down sometime in the summer of last year. I think I was manager about 2 years ago. If you saw me involved with the studio, you only saw me popping in as a guest to see how everything was going without me. Beyond that, I stopped touching studios back in sophomore year of high school; I'm a senior now.

For me, bad experiences don't just come with studios; I've yet to start a comic because I have trouble finding artists I like. I've found a couple of artists that I like a while ago, but they ended up having to drop out due to commitments in real life. Which is fine, I guess, since I don't think my comics would have turned out as well if I had started back when I first found my artists compared to how well they'd turn out if I got started tomorrow. I take a long time to mature ideas. I've gotten huge bursts of inspiration and just wanted to sit and bang out an entire novel, but I always have to wait even when I think my plans on doing it are brilliant.

[Emihaumut]

Ack! You people write too much when I go sleep or goto school. stare

I think I was a nicer person back then. I mean I wasn't a saint, but nicer. It's just that over the year, I see the same s**t over and over again, so it gets a bit redundant to keep typing the same things over again. (I was actually looking for Darth Versace's thread about the n00bs that swarm in here so I can just copy and paste stuff and came upon his old thread.)

And yes, studios suck. But studios are not too bad when you can only do one of the big jobs (like only drawing or writing). Yes, yes, I know what you're going to say. Practice whatever it is that you are faulty in. But sometimes, it's nice to take a break and learn from someone else who's better than you at it, no? The only problem to studios that I'm finding so far is finding reliable people to work with who are actually decent at what they do. Like most of the people who waltz in here flake out three days into a project and I hate it. I'm just lucky to have found a studio with at least one other person who hasn't flaked out yet.

I think it is a concern as to whether the studios here produce anything because they started with the cause of doing something but then they just dwindle down into nothingness...

Really, I think the only studio here who has done anything is PBS. I can't think of any others off the top of my head right now who even finished one chapter of a comic which is kind of sad considering how long some of them have been around.

[enchantedsleeper]

Exactly how many other studios are there? You guys all talk like there are loads but lately I've seen all of three: CP, PBS, and this one. There used to be Glass Moon Studios as well, headed up by OctopusCt9, but I think that one died.

Emihaumut

Really, I think the only studio here who has done anything is PBS. I can't think of any others off the top of my head right now who even finished one chapter of a comic which is kind of sad considering how long some of them have been around.

You could help solve that, if you felt like it... :3

Aren't I just the subtle hinter.

[Mr McGrumpypants]

Flaky people are one reason why I'm considering taking art courses in college to improve my drawing ability. I just hate the idea of waiting a good 5 years while improving my abilities just so I can publish my work.

And I used to be rather polite because I was obsessed with anime and manga. Considering this forum tends to see that kind of art, it makes sense. Then I got really mean and pissy because I actually read some western comics and fell in love with them. I'm still mean and pissy; I just stay away from critiquing ideas most of the time these days. That, and art questions are something I can't really answer. gonk

EDIT: enchanted, this place used to see them every other day. I've been around so long that it feels like I've seen at least 50 studios in the 3 years I've been in this part of the website. That's really ******** sad.

[enchantedsleeper]

Wow, that's a lot of studios. @_@ A lot of dead studios, most likely.

[Emihaumut]

Of the 50 studios, I can bet that 30 shut down within a week, ten more within a month of starting. Then the last ten linger about for a few years of inactivity with the grand exception of one. (Yes, that one would be PBS).

And I could help make CP super active, but I don't have the time to commit to it yet. Probably after this year I can sign myself up as artist--that is, unless I actually start on my own comic. I'll still help CP out, but I'd be pouring a lot of attention to my own project(s).

[megrar]

enchantedsleeper

Well isn't that nice.

Is it really of that much concern to you whether or not the studios in this forum produce anything?

i don't give a s**t what YOU do. i think you're kind of a p***k.

but other studios--frankly, i want my faith in humanity back. i want to see people succeed. i'm tired of the hordes of wannabes and their naruto rip-offs. i want to see some people get out there and kick some a**.

like verg says--we've had tons and tons of false starting groups here. it sucks, and it makes me want to shake the forum.

[enchantedsleeper]

:3 That's fine. I expect it'll be better once we get onto a bigger project where we can have more than one artist working on it, so that if one of the artists isn't available, things don't grind to a halt.

Oh, and hey! What about the Artists' Rebellion? xD Okay so it's not a chapter, but you guys have managed six panels in the time it took us to do about one storyboard for the Domino Project. That counts as output, right?

[enchantedsleeper]

megrar

enchantedsleeper

Well isn't that nice.

Is it really of that much concern to you whether or not the studios in this forum produce anything?

i don't give a s**t what YOU do. i think you're kind of a p***k.

but other studios--frankly, i want my faith in humanity back. i want to see people succeed. i'm tired of the hordes of wannabes and their naruto rip-offs. i want to see some people get out there and kick some a**.

like verg says--we've had tons and tons of false starting groups here. it sucks, and it makes me want to shake the forum.

The feeling's mutual, then.

You say you want all these things, but all you seem to be doing about it is complaining. At least some of us are actually in studios, so that we might have a slim chance of improving the situation.

[Mr McGrumpypants]

There's no way to "improve" this situation. The fact of the matter is that most people don't have the drive to succeed in creating anything, especially when they try to work in groups with people they barely know or don't know at all. I think that more studios would be successful if people started them with others who are driven and talented where they live.

I'd like to do that where I live, but I don't know many artistic people around my hometown.

[megrar]

well, encouragement and membership doesn't seem to help any of these fledgling studios. this is the first thread i've really bitched about it in.

when i was still in high school, the teacher would organize the class into groups for science projects. every group i was in would invariably end up like this: one kid did all the work, the rest slacked and goofed off, and took the credit. i was the one kid working my a** off. now that i'm out of school, i'm not willing to do this anymore. i'm not going to join a group just so i can "ensure" their success. if they cannot succeed without me, they don't deserve to succeed. your infering that you're somehow better than i am because you're willing to try and cart these people along is absurd. verg tried, and it didn't work. now,maybe verg and i together could do it, but you know what that is? a writer/artist pairing, not a group. and if we joined a group, and discovered they won;t do anything, we'd probably end up quitting the group and doing our own thing.

clamp was one of my favorites for a long long time. so i want groups to succeed, but i'm not willing to kill my own productivity for a group.

[enchantedsleeper]

Well, I think in what you said lies the problem, Vergessen - "driven and talented". The people that I've encountered, both in the real world and online, are often lacking severely in one of those, usually the first one. And hey, I'm not excluding myself from that generalisation either: I frequently lack in either one or both of those departments. As far as setting up a studio where I live goes, I don't know anyone who's willing to dedicate the time. I can think of one friend who's into drawing comics and who started drawing her own, but even that's fizzled out as far as I know. I don't think it matters whether you're a studio, a writer/artist pairing or a 'lone ranger' - if you're not dedicated, you're not going anywhere.

It may seem like I'm stating the obvious but my point is, it's not just limited to studios. How many single artists are there who post in here with plans to do comics, and out of those, how many do you think succeed? The number might be higher than the number of studios who make it, but in terms of percentage, I reckon it's about the same. Almost all of the criticisms that can be made about studios can be made about other wannabe comic makers too - lack of originality, lack of dedication, lack of talent - but what can be done about that?

[megrar]

i would say that the percentage is higher for single people. it may not be good, and it may not last, but individuals have fewer obstacles. they don't have to ask anyone their permission or opinion, or wait on someone to finish their part. i did a few pages of my own at 14. i know a couple 8 year olds that make their own. hell, i have a comic in my collection that is absolutely awful. one year, when i was selling prints at an anime con, this girl came up with a stack of comics she'd made. she had no money, so we did a trade--one comic for one print.

i pull it out whenever i need inspiration. if she can do it, so can i. it doesn't matter that it's awful, it's still inspiring. it's complete. she put a lot of work into it. she kicked some a**.

[enchantedsleeper]

That's a cool story. So would you be an advocate of quantity over quality, then? I mean, obviously it's nice to have both, but if push came to shove...?

[megrar]

well, the thing about comics, is that quantity eventually BECOMES quality. you learn more from actually making the pages than you do from studying the individual parts. and when you push ahead, you prove you have the drive to complete a project.

besides that, if you take too much time between pages, then each page becomes glaringly different in skill level. and the better pages make you look like you half-assed the older pages.

there's a thread that was up recently, where people said they'll forgive bad art for good story, but not good art for bad story. so,really, you should spend the most time ensuring the writing is good. and then after that--yes, push ahead. it's easier to work/draw well, when you're in the habit of doing it a lot.