Making Webcomics Questions and Answers

The reason for this topic is to cover some technical questions that can come up when making or wanting to make a webcomic. First of all some of the questions are covered in the topic in the following link:

So you want to write a webcomic

Some questions and answers will be readdressed if necessary but the idea is that some of the technical issues will be discussed in this topic for helping anyone who needs to do so.

Some questions can arise based on the areas not covered by the link of “so you want to write a webcomic” and hopefully this topic and the discussion can help if it comes to it.

Before starting let me add a particular warning: If you start one please try to take it to the end. It is sad that some people start one and then leave it completely.

Questions

• Do I have to have good art to have a good webcomic?

Negative. While good art can help, it isn’t the point as shown by Randall Munroe of Xkcd or Rich Burlew of The Order of the Stick. If you really want to do it, just do with whatever means you want to experiment with. Just give it a lot of effort and a lot of love.

Do note that while “Good Art” can help, if the writing is poor then it is all for nothing.

• Does a writer and artist combo work?

It can only work if the idea flinging is going back and forward rather than one person hogging all the idea flinging. Only exception can come if you have enough dough to keep the “art monkey” happy with cash but even then it is better to listen to that person.

If you can write and draw; then you are set if not just recall there are several ways to do things.

• Where do I host my comic?

Some people start by getting a good expensive host for starters. It is not advisable to do so unless you are rich and or have plenty of stuff you know will hit with the target audience. It is not advisable to do so for any starter.

Some sites like Drunkduck (now known as Theduckwebcomics), Smackjeeves and Comic Fury are places for any artist whom has no capacity for coding nor money can just go and setup shop there.

Another solution is to deal with the TAPAS solution. This can also help with finding a writer or artists which can unite with the previous answer.

• Why am I not getting hits/traffic? / Why my work isn’t popular?

Do note that getting traffic, especially traffic that comes back is hard work. Word of mouth can go far but even then some circles can be limited. This is why the Shameless Self-Promotion trope comes into play a lot with some people; otherwise they wouldn’t get the chance of new readers.

A particular note is that even if you spend a lot of time promoting your stuff you have to have plenty of work ready or pages ready… not be an one hit wonder. In other words your content has to be sufficient and work on the schedules. This leads to the following question in the list.

• Update Schedules. What to do? (Time Management)

This is perhaps one of the nastier topics to deal with because there is a reason why the webcomic time trope exists. This is in part that several people start a webcomic out of a whim and then when things get rough the lack of knowing Time Management in itself becomes an issue. Taking a look at the other wiki you get this: Time Management

Some particular way to deal with the update issues can be onto preparing a few pages in advance so if you have something which makes you unable to update on update day you just use one of those without worrying about leaving without an update. The practice is known as Strip Buffer and you can look at the trope page for more info. A practical way to see it comes like this:

• You update at Mondays and have a leftover of 2 update pages, keep those at hand.
• If at the next updating Monday you have no problems on making a new or new pages then put the older update pages on the recent pages.
• Now if you have a busy week and you can't work a new page during the week and it is Monday, your updating day, then you go to your Update stash and use one of the older update pages to update said day.
• Said page will be a cushion for you to be able to keep on updating regularly.

• Writers Block. What to do?

For this it is suggested to go to the writers’ block part of the forum.

• Grammar and Spelling Notes

Before any groaning calls and all that there are reasons for this postulate. Good Grammar and Spelling can help people to like your know better rather than letting it rot. Do note that this can be troublesome at first but the case of the spell check in any way can save you a lot of time and fix some typos you leave up by marking them up. Worth the usage of any writing software that has one to help you out.

• Which tools to use?

This is entirely up to the person. Some people can work by hand and then use a scanner. Others can use a tablet. Others will use 3D model programs. You just use what you feel will make you more comfortable to work with. Just try to make the page size viewable from most devices without scrolling all four sides.

• Working in one series or many at a time

This postulate is onto the case that some people can and will start several projects and try to carry them all over at the same time. Do note the call of Time Management before this postulate and that it can be wiser to focus in one at a time.

• On the TV Tropes page issues

When making a page in this site for your own webcomic a good list of advice before going into page creation methods starts with having a rough document in another program. A good suggestion is to use a word document program that can help highlighting grammar issues and spelling to help. Before giving it to the other tropers you have to do the stuff in the following list:

• "Do your own archive binge, so you can see which tropes you have used"
• "Check the tropes on your favorite works, those works give you inspiration but also the tropes those works have used might be in use in your work"
• "Check the YKTTW every so often for new tropes in progress"
• "There are index tropes, use them to find the one you are using (or plan to use)"
• "Doing a Wiki Walk or two in the site will be your friend to find the tropes in the list"
• "Do frequent saves on the preliminary document in your hard drive/cloud before showing it to other tropers"
• "If you have problems with the English Language and you are near the end please use this topic: this one"

Any other questions not answered will be answered when they do arrive. While I might not be answering them in some cases there are other people around which have worked around the issues that can and will be asked and I rightfully want this question and answer of issues to go through.

For all your attention thanks.

edited 4th Oct '17 3:44:53 PM by Mauri

Well here goes nothing

Dunno if this thread is really best one for commenting on this issue, but figured out its close enough.

So I've kinda noticed the trend of "Oh hey this webcomic has been running for like three years, but it still feels like its barely begun plotwise". Like in same amount of time when compared to comics and manga, in three years you have roughly idea about what plot is overally about and where it is headed(at least for near future), but when it comes to webcomics you still might not really know what the heck is going on after that time. I don't think its all about updating schedule and hiatuses though, I think its partially also about story pacing <_<

Overally as reader that is really annoying to read 1000 pages of comic to realize you already read all of the pages and you still feel like story didn't fully start. Especially since sometimes webcomics just end due to real life getting in way or artist/writer losing the interest. Especially when you realize to see further continuation it'll probably take few more years to see more

(like its not even archive binging at that point, archive binging is more like "Oh so comic has run for years so to read it completely it'll take week or several, also yeah you have way different experience than if you had followed comic daily", like in these types of comics they tend to work best when reading them all together and its kinda hard to imagine what reading them would have been like if you were following them in same time as they were posted. Daily webcomics follow same logic as newspaper strips, they try to hook reader to continue to want to see what happens next each time while these feel more like pages of a complete thing)

Edited by SpookyMask on Dec 11th 2018 at 6:33:47 PM

Speaking as a webcomic creator, a lack of plot even after many chapters is often a result of how the webcomic is laid out. Let's say you have a webcomic that is structured like a novel, for instance. Every chapter of the webcomic is one chapter of a novel. Usually this means that all the chapters are sequential, with little time passing in between. At the beginning of a novel, you expect there to be some setup before the plot kicks in. But in a novel, all the chapters are presented to you at once, with your own reading speed the only barrier to finishing a book. With a webcomic, the pace is set by how many pages are posted in a week. So it might take months to finish the first chapter of a webcomic, and years to finish the first three introductory chapters. Barring authorial issues, like a lack of motivation or poor narrative planning (1000 pages without plot? That's poor planning), this is the typical reason why webcomics can take a while to get to the plot.

My own webcomic is structured like an animated TV show. Each chapter is like an episode, and thus each chapter is self-contained. I think this works pretty well with keeping the story moving, as something is happening every chapter, while allowing the Myth Arc to build over the course of the comic. But that's my own bias.

Creator of Heroes of Thantopolis: http://heroesofthantopolis.com/