Your webcomic ideas you can't draw

Recently, I had a number of webcomic ideas I can't draw since I can't draw. I tried to draw one of them in MS Paint, but I concluded after the first release of the left mouse button, that the results would be horrible.

So I spare you of my pathetic attempts at expressing myself visually. Instead, I opted for describing the strips. So here is one of my ideas (try to imagine them in the style of XKCD):

• Panel 1: Stick figure on the street, holding a radio in his hands. Text bubble above his head says: “It’s 15:12 local time. I have successfully arrived to the paralel dimension. Everything looks quite the same as in our world. Over.” On the street, there is something which identifies this street as one that could not be found in our universe. Say a billboard which says: “Terminator 3: Directed by James Cameron” or something like that.

• Panel 2: The picture is the same, the text bubble is pointing at the radio this time: “State your primary objective! Over.”

• Panel 3: Picture is the same. The soldier responds: “Roger that. Primary objective: Locate a DVD-store and ask for Firefly Season 2 DVD Boxset. If the answer is anything else than You can find it at the letter F, sir, return to base immediately and enter the next portal. Over.” Text bubble from the radio: “Excellent! Over.”

• Panel 4: The left side of the picture of this panel depicts the control room of the experiment. There is a general standing in front of some displays. He is surrounded by scientists who take notes, turn knobs and do other science-y stuff. On the right side of the picture there is an endless hallway with portals on both sides. Above the portals, there are captions: “Parallel universe #1542, Parallel universe #1543, etc.”. Text bubble above the general in the control room says: “Browncoats will rise again…”

• Alt text: “This is why it’s important to have a standardized protocol for scientific experiments.”

Do you guys have similar ideas you can't draw but can describe? If yes, share them here!

edited 26th May '11 4:22:22 AM by Sati1984

I wouldn't know where to start

You have that many ideas? If so, you should hire an artist

But in the meantime, please share some of your ideas with us!

AB!Beowulf will technically be a webcomic (but for all intents and purposes it's more like a traditional comic as it will be released by the chapter), but there's a lot of things (ie: backgrounds, some poses, Grendel) the story demands which I'm still not very good at drawing yet.

edited 26th May '11 5:58:35 AM by annebeeche

If all you want is something XKCD style, you can probably just sketch it on a piece of paper and scan it — I never did it myself, but it might be doable. Using the mouse to draw, as far as I heard, is really counterintuitive and awkward: for this reason, most webcomic artists use a graphic tablet, not a mouse.

Oh, I have many, many of these. Some I got a friend to draw for me, others will have to wait until I get a bit better at drawing myself.

Often I think of short strips related to videogames. For example, my brother recently got LA Noire and is a terrible driver.

Actress: Of course I was drugged! I do not usually drive off cliffs!
Phelps: I do! 8D
* silhouette of car driving of cliff with a speech bubble "Phelps! Goddammit!" *

edited 26th May '11 6:33:55 AM by LoniJay

I used to feel this way, about ten years ago. So I learned to draw, and now I am a cartoonist.

Doesn't matter if you can't draw. You have several options:

->Cut and Paste Comic ->Sprite Comic ->Photo Comic ->GIS Syndrome

Or some combination of the above.

I've always kind of wanted to make a fancomic starring the Iconic Characters from Dungeons And Dragons 3.5, who I don't think get enough fan attention, despite having some amusing personalities and relationships established in the obscure novels.

...although granted, the bigger problem is that I need to think of a good storyline first. Maybe try riffing off a few of the classic modules or something.

edited 26th May '11 11:20:13 PM by Jeysie

I kinda want to make comic book adaptations of literature and writing. Like the Shadow Unit. Sounds cool.

I have my own idea too - a comic book epic about two mercenary feline assassins who uncover a plot by PETA to send animals and humans into civil war, and discover that it's the author who is responsible for putting them through so much struggle and pain. Then they beat up her author avatar in a fight scene where the characters STEP OUT OF THE FRAMES. It sounds so good in my head and looks so stupid on screen...

I normally think in terms of the written word, but for some reason I can only picture superheroes in the style of old comic books. This is problematic, since while I might be able to create a computer-animated comic, I would have difficulty making one that actually looks like a comic book.

If anyone's interested, I've written about it a bit more here. (And it probably says something about me that, rereading it, I'm embarrassed that I forgot to think of an effect if a character whose abilities have already been tweaked gets an artificial boost to their initial ability.)

I have the opposite problem. I started a Bachelor of Design at university this year and have totally lost my ability to think in words. I used to do a lot of writing but now I can only visualise the stories in comic panels! And as I cannot draw at all (you'd think this would be an impediment to my course but it's actually not), this is a sad, tragic situation.

...my webcomic, when I learn to draw, will be about a futuristic theocratic dystopia being racked by civil war in the wake of increasingly draconian laws, while a race of genetically engineered humans try to overthrow the government and take over the city.

"I'm A Mac And I'm A PC" skit with Adolf Hitler and Stalin. With accents.

edited 27th May '11 1:28:06 AM by Signed

Any serious story I can think of because humans are pain to draw realistically. I'll give you all of your buildings and structures all day long since I took an architecture class but humans. Need to go recruit my artist best friend to do all of the people for me and then we can make the best webcomic EVER.

A bunch of people who worked for an MMORPG company who are actually paid to screw normal players with their uber characters. Lots of WWE-style theatrics between them.

An illustrated retelling of the War of the Oaken Bucket, using the original poem as the text.

—has a shitty graphic novel script 70 pages long and counting—

I have lots of webcomic ideas. I can't draw them because I can't draw. Should I find an artist, though...

God's Daughter and Satan's Son meet and become Like Brother and Sister in preschool.

^That reminds me of similar idea I had only they shared a flat, I love lucifer.

edited 31st May '11 7:02:15 AM by joeyjojo

Wouldn't this be better in Writer's Block?

Well, I can't draw bodies in dymantic positions yet, so any action series is out for me.