Publishing my first comic. Advice?

[Little Wachan]

Yes, yes I am. I debated between sending it to a publishing firm or just doing a webcomic, and I'm leaning toward the web. I've worked on and polished this story obsessively for more than a decade, so I think it's worthy! Only problem with making it a webcomic is that it's 3x the normal length of a webcomic (at least). I have it plotted out for 12 books, normal manga length, 190 pages to each planned book.

It's called 12:11, and I have some of the artwork up on my DA account. I'm using mangastudio to create it. Anyone have any ideas for a plan of action, or getting notoriety?

Yes, the first two books are indeed, scripted, word for word, down to their expressions. So yes, I know where I'm going for quite a while. I'm just cautious with beta-readers of the script, and of course where I should release it.

[EternalFlame]

Take a little time and plot out the story.

i draw and write my own webcomic, but the writing has always been harder for me to do. i focused almost solely on making my art better, and it shows. i have a hard time sticking to telling the story because i want to do something more fun. i'll write like five pages of story then just goof off for ten pages, making silly jokes and drawing whatever im in the mood to do.

think about where you want the story to go, plot out as much extra stuff as you need to, in order to tell the story, etc

cause at the end of the day, if you cant get the story across, it doesnt really matter how nice the art looks smile

[Amentar]

Little Wachan

Anyone have any ideas for a plan of action, or getting notoriety?

Yeah, worry about getting one chapter of this zillion page epic scripted and thumbnailed, and the first few pages drawn. Then ask yourself if it's something you'll keep up with. Too many people choke on their own ambition.

Quote:

Only problem with making it a webcomic is that it's 3x the normal length of a webcomic (at least).

Maybe because most of the people who start out with zillion page epics give up near the beginning. At any rate, I wouldn't advise making the planned length a concern in avoiding web publishing. There's always the option to put out print volumes after publishing on the web, or making it into a series of e-books.

[Little Wachan]

Amentar

Yeah, worry about getting one chapter of this zillion page epic scripted and thumbnailed, and the first few pages drawn. Then ask yourself if it's something you'll keep up with. Too many people choke on their own ambition.

Yeah, I can see, even with people of more normal length comics. I have worked on this one and understand how much work it takes, and I'm in the process of drawing out the first chapter as a sort of premier now. I just got a worthy computer to do the work efficiently, too. (My old one was 10 years old and freaked out when ever I opened art programs.)

I'm thinking I'll just post it in a sort of comic forum thing first, instead of making its own website to start off with. If it shows interest and I've proven to myself that I can handle it, I might branch out. I just don't know how to get a following and stuff.

[Little Wachan]

EternalFlame

Take a little time and plot out the story. smile

Oh yeah. I have the first two books entirely plotted out, word for word, from action to moods and expressions. (It surprisingly takes very little to write out a chapter! xp And the rest of the story is indeed plotted out, just not written. The goal is to have the written part ahead of the actual comic so I have buffer space if I get stuck for a bit. And I'm experienced enough to make sure not to change rules in the middle of the story. Yay for no plot device!

In fact it's so plotted out, that I insist that others be able to read my imagination. The story must be told! I'm just much better with art than I am with words. xd

[EternalFlame]

Little Wachan

Oh yeah. I have the first two books entirely plotted out, word for word

Good. For me writing was the harder mountain to climb. I have major focus issues when it comes to the storytelling..

[Little Wachan]

EternalFlame

Good. For me writing was the harder mountain to climb. I have major focus issues when it comes to the storytelling..

Ha ha, I know what you mean. My first drafts were SO terrible, even I didn't know what was really going on! But my friends are highly trained writers, so I learned eventually. One just graduated with an english degree and took lots of creative writing classes, and showed me all the mistakes people make when she was a TA.

So the first chapter is in the making right now, now that I have mangastudio. I LOVE the page templates and toning tools and all the neat gadgets that make my life so much easier and makes the comic look more professional. smile

[EternalFlame]

Little Wachan

So the first chapter is in the making right now, now that I have mangastudio.

Ah. Where'd you get that? I just draw my own stuff.. usually in ms paint.

[Little Wachan]

EternalFlame

Ah. Where'd you get that? I just draw my own stuff.. usually in ms paint.

Well, unfortunately I worked at Office Depot for the LONGEST FREAKING TIME (I hated it, if you can't tell), and it was sitting in our software section forever. No one ever bought it, but over the years I would stare at it lustfully, especially when I read online what it could do. It was only $50, but with my discount and some rewards, I got it for $15.

It's incredible. Thing is my art rocks, but I'm not creative with layout. I use other manga as reference all the time, but I still suck with panels and texture. So mangastudio fills in the blanks. Not only that, it's formatted to the perfect manga page size, AND it can be uploaded ready-to-go straight to a webcomic site.

[Little Wachan]

I just realized my first chapter is pretty busy. The whole series is. I'm quite certain there is minimal filler. I have a lot to go through just to get those first 30 pages out...

[Little Wachan]

I finally posted artwork of all my mains on DA. I'm re-tweeking for the majillionth time the first chapter, but that should only take me a day to composite my thoughts. Then I can get a beta reader and draw it out! Yay!

I'm a cautious writer.

[Little Wachan]

Yay! Finally finished my picture of Murasaki and posted him on DA! I'm kinda of tired of looking at him now. You should take a look and let me know what you think. 3nodding

Murasaki

[Madcap_Bekkers]

Little Wachan

Yay! Finally finished my picture of Murasaki and posted him on DA! I'm kinda of tired of looking at him now. You should take a look and let me know what you think. 3nodding

Murasaki

That's a lovely drawing. You've got some interesting things going down in the character design, not the least of which being that he looks like a real dude. And that you've managed to give him a unique hair shape without it looking impossible or ridiculous.

I have some advice! Take or leave it as you will.

1) you have beautiful linework, and clearly spend a lot of time and concentration on your work, which is excellent. You may want to focus some time on the structure of your underdrawings, though, because sometimes under your beautiful finished pieces, your characters have problems with anatomy. Arms that are different lengths, legs in improbable poses, that kind of thing.

2) The first page of the comic is a little confusing. It's unfinished, but even when you said in the description what was going on, it was still unclear. She's sitting there with her eyes closed, she's falling, she's sitting and opening her eyes, there are some bubbles, she sees a samurai. If your intention is for the falling panels to be a dream sequence or memory or the like, it needs to be clearer that it's not happening in the same space/time as the waking up sequence.

3) Don't concern yourself too much with how you'll advertise or where you'll publish until you draw some more comic pages. Not character designs and bios, just comic pages. The rest can come later.

[Little Wachan]

Madcap_Bekkers

Little Wachan

Yay! Finally finished my picture of Murasaki and posted him on DA! I'm kinda of tired of looking at him now. You should take a look and let me know what you think. 3nodding

Murasaki

That's a lovely drawing. You've got some interesting things going down in the character design, not the least of which being that he looks like a real dude. And that you've managed to give him a unique hair shape without it looking impossible or ridiculous.

I have some advice! Take or leave it as you will.

1) you have beautiful linework, and clearly spend a lot of time and concentration on your work, which is excellent. You may want to focus some time on the structure of your underdrawings, though, because sometimes under your beautiful finished pieces, your characters have problems with anatomy. Arms that are different lengths, legs in improbable poses, that kind of thing.

2) The first page of the comic is a little confusing. It's unfinished, but even when you said in the description what was going on, it was still unclear. She's sitting there with her eyes closed, she's falling, she's sitting and opening her eyes, there are some bubbles, she sees a samurai. If your intention is for the falling panels to be a dream sequence or memory or the like, it needs to be clearer that it's not happening in the same space/time as the waking up sequence.

3) Don't concern yourself too much with how you'll advertise or where you'll publish until you draw some more comic pages. Not character designs and bios, just comic pages. The rest can come later.

Yeah...I posted that page when I was not thinking straight. You have a point on getting the pages done before too much finished artwork, cuz I have nothing really to present or interest besides pretty pictures. And the more I look at that ridiculous first page, the more I'm like, "Yeah, that doesn't quite work..."

Sai is supposed to be having a dream sequence, but it needs to be drawn out longer, and I should choose different angles for it. And some thoughts from her further clarifying what she's thinking about.

As for the anatomy, I'm curious as to which pictures you're referring to. I should know which parts I'm getting lazy on.

[Madcap_Bekkers]

Little Wachan

Yeah...I posted that page when I was not thinking straight. You have a point on getting the pages done before too much finished artwork, cuz I have nothing really to present or interest besides pretty pictures. And the more I look at that ridiculous first page, the more I'm like, "Yeah, that doesn't quite work..."

Sai is supposed to be having a dream sequence, but it needs to be drawn out longer, and I should choose different angles for it. And some thoughts from her further clarifying what she's thinking about.

As for the anatomy, I'm curious as to which pictures you're referring to. I should know which parts I'm getting lazy on.

You don't necessarily need written-out thoughts from the character to get the point across. You may not even need to draw it out longer. The show-don't-tell you already have going is appealing, and I'm personally a sucker for wordless opening scenes. They can be pretty powerful, and make the reader feel like they're taking part in a story rather than being told a story; it's like we're having the dream with the character.

I think what would help is if you keep the separate scenarios consistent within themselves and delineated from each other. There's a reason a lot of artists employ "tells" for dream sequences--thought bubble panels for some Western artists and black backrounds behind panels for a lot of Japanese artists. These tells make it obvious that what the reader is seeing is different from the "normal" world of the comic.

For example! If you made the two normal-world panels the same size as she's waking up, it would be clearer that those two panels are happening in the same place. And then if the dream sequence panels are borderless whereas the normal world panels have borders, that's another hint that these things are happening in different planes. Not that this is definitely-for-sure the way you should do it, but that's one of many ways to get the point across neatly.

Anatomy-wise, I wouldn't call it laziness. It happens. One example of it going a bit awry is in your Sai Flat Color drawing. The hair got a lot of love and attention, but her arms are slightly different lengths and don't match each other, and her legs are spaced a little too far apart for the way she's standing. If you were to draw in the underdrawing on top of that, it might look like a barbie doll where the legs are attached with spokes into the hip. If she's standing that wide apart, her legs shouldn't be going straight down. The eyes have a nice shape to them, good and three-dimensional, but look a bit like they've been pushed into her skull too far, which makes them skewed to the side.