The Wed Night Comic Book club will be right back

[arschgesicht]

as far as i see it, the only problem of the comic-threads is their emptiness. probably because people on this board are not so much into sequential work to post every week.

i myself hardly find time to draw my personal fun comics and i'm usually not allowed to show my current storyboard-work.

why don't make one sticky comic and storyboard thread and spotlight the newer stuff together with the sketches of the week?

just my thoughts.

[TimWinkelman]

I think there are some people here interested in doing comics. It seems like the regulars on this topic just got busy with other things or burned out. That happens to a lot of people.

I wanted to join in, but was too busy and stressed while I was working. Now that I am unemployed and have more time, I am planning to do some web comics again and participate in this topic.

The IP development thing might be a good thing. I feel like I need to do some practice comics to be sure that I have everything the way I want it for the real comic strip in terms of characters and the type of stories I want to do.

I also need to experiment with art styles and software. I feel like I should be doing web comics digitally, but I have drawn most of mine on real paper because I am not happy with most of the things I have done on the computer.

I guess for me, this Wednesday Night Comic Book Club would be good as a place where I could experiment and get some feedback.

[FRENZIEDmind]

#1: Give the COMIC/SEQUENTIAL-ART its own forum so it's not buried in the sketch forum. I've mentioned this before and think it would help give it exposure and more deserved fame. This medium is important enough to not be buried in another forum. Even if the new forum goes slow, it'll be a lot better and gather a lot more attention. Having the "COMIC" threads disappear from the main page from all the other SKETCH threads on top of them was discouraging.

I was on a roll making weekly comics but like TimWinkelman points out, I got way too busy with my 3 other jobs, roofing my house, taking care of my neglected back yard, lost cats, broken down vehicles... I also have the problem of when I create a bunch of art (comics in this case) and my wife notices, she then thinks I'm in the basement having lots of fun and decides that my time would be better spent doing something that she wants me to do. With that, she'll do everything possible to make it impossible for me to do anything with sketching and drawing. I mean I love my wife, but she can make things difficult for me and my haphazard art-career (she was an engineer in college and quite frankly doesn't appreciate art very much). I'm still recovering from her realization that my last FRENZIEDmind episode was featured on Autoblog.com. ...and she "commissioned me" to make some "cool" art for her and the kids. I'm motivated but I have a lot of opposition and other regular-life situations that place great limits on my time. Have no fear though, as I'm figuring out how to deal with my wife and her skewed attention to my artistic creations... :D Anyway... [/endpersonalrant]

COMICS, SEQUENTIAL-ART and STORY-BOARDING take a lot of effort and time, and I think more so than other art mediums. I've often wondered why the COMIC threads keep fizzling out. I think it's because of the work it takes both mentally and physically. If the artist isn't self motivated by great amounts and or if the artist isn't rewarded some other way then the work stops. With the great amounts of work it takes to create sequential-art, in it's many manifestations, come a great deal of power (hence the amount of work it takes to create it. Sequential-art art by it's very nature requires a lot of strength to bring it to life). Sequential-art is powerful. With that power come many obstacles and pitfalls (and social dangers as well if the artist is misguided and or hell-bent on injury & mayhem). There are also many more rewards that come from sequential art (creating it and viewing it). With sequential-art there is the ability to reach the highest heights of visual success and influence or fall to the lowest depths of failure and misery. Either life's-chance or serious motivation and promotion are the key... I'm guessing.

I don't where I'm going with my post, other than to say COMIC/SEQUENTIAL-ART needs more recognition. I don't think it'll ever do well in another forum. Even if it's just visible and read more (through having it's own forum) that could be enough a reward to help. I don't know, just thinking.

[RedPeril]

Ah, Frenzi. I missed you. ^_^ Thanks for the genuine explaination.

And now, I'll give you all mine. As I said from the start back in December, I had around 20 comics in mind, and aside from a one week break in between, I did manage to attain my goal by mid-May. I'm not even sure why I was so committed, other than someone had mentioned that you should really have at least 20 comics before posting them to the general public. I, however, don't quite feel ready to open my comic to the public.

I have been missing the forum, however, and feel like I'm ready to start back on a more casual basis. Casual, as in, not weekly, but perhaps monthly, as I have several projects going. Not the least of which involve keeping up with a nearly one-year old, and tending to my incubating offspring that is due to make an appearance sometime in March. So yeah, I'm not going to pretend that I'm oozing with free time either.

That being said, until my hiatus I'd been finding this little mismatched community extremely helpful in terms of motivation to produce, and in feedback towards improvement. I made significant strides thanks to the constructive advice and kind suggestions of this particular group, and I still consider that to be invaluable. It is difficult to find such a safe place for peer review. I would like to see it recieve more attention, as more attention equates to more feedback.

So, I'm going to totally agree with Frenzi here on the thought that this topic, in it's many forms of expression, recieve it's own forum to decrease it's obscurity and increase it's exposure. The daily sketches are a great snap exercise in their own right, but in my opinion, finished comics or even storyboarding involve an entirely different thought process and execution that is very time consuming for most of us. I think I was averaging 20 hours for my 3 panel completed product. Granted, I'm a super-noob at this and don't like to settle for posting my progress. But the fact remains, it's discrouaging to post something and have it not be up there long enough or seen by enough people for the creator to recieve that precious feedback, or have a real shot at that coveted remark of approval.

On the note of incentive, I also wanted to suggest that there be added some way of voting for one's favorite comic of the month. Bi-monthly at most. Maybe even involving categories from humor to artistic style, most original concept, etc. if that isn't too complicated? Just throwing that out there.

[RobertoOrtiz]

I cant open a new forum...
That is not going to fly with my bosses.
But I can post voting for best comics.

But in order for that to work we need more content being posted.

=R

[FRENZIEDmind]

What about a sub-forum?

Posting comics (or anything) in a forum style manner only works in forum ways. If the threads are always disappearing and getting buried then it is counter productive and won't work. I mean it could be that this just won't be possible in a forum-style publication. I would like this to work as well, but but frustration will always abound which, most likely, will result in failure and or never ending re-starts. It's like driving a car trough a swamp. It can be done, but at what cost and is it worth it?

What do you mean by "IP development"? Property rights or navigable comic page sites... or both?

[RobertoOrtiz]

What about a sub-forum?

Posting comics (or anything) in a forum style manner only works in forum ways. If the threads are always disappearing and getting buried then it is counter productive and won't work. I mean it could be that this just won't be possible in a forum-style publication. I would like this to work as well, but but frustration will always abound which, most likely, will result in failure and or never ending re-starts. It's like driving a car trough a swamp. It can be done, but at what cost and is it worth it?

What do you mean by "IP development"? Property rights or navigable comic page sites... or both?

I can only justify sub forum if there is enough volume of work to justify it.

Sadly right now, we just dont have it.
I do think we can make this work in the forum. We just need to treat this as a puzzle.
And about the IP development.
I want for us to be able to develop ideas that could lead to other places.
I want to be able to develop ideas that could be developed into other media, not limited to comics.

[Revalis]

I want for us to be able to develop ideas that could lead to other places.
I want to be able to develop ideas that could be developed into other media, not limited to comics.



ie, like how concepts from the sketch forum are used in the HCM challenges? Using storyboards/comic frames for animated shorts or something?

[RobertoOrtiz]

ie, like how concepts from the sketch forum are used in the HCM challenges? Using storyboards/comic frames for animated shorts or something?


That one way we could go.

[cowtrix]

Yeah I hope to see the comic book threads again. I'm just starting on a new webcomic project, I'd really appreciate some feedback.

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