there’s been a few folks talking about the state of webcomics in my last post, particularly how the landscape has changed since webcomics became something bigger corporations could make money off of…. and, well, exploit people to get it.
I want to talk a little more broader on the topic at one point, but yeah, it’s been a tough few years seeing ‘new shiny thing’ and uncovering the rot beneath.
Please support your fellow indie creators however you can- tell your friends about your favourite comics, make posts reccomending them, share your fics, fanart, your fave moments, etc etc. Word of mouth is still one of the most powerful and nebulous ways to support folks!
I’ve seen a few additions on my webcomic posts talking about the ‘barriers for entries’ when making webcomics and my stomach just dropped.
It wasn’t always like that. The expectation to feel the need to be perfect before you begin a webcomic, the need to be Super Popular On Social Media to be ‘relevant’, the want to have 1million subs to feel you’ve ‘made it’ even though the payout is scraped from the platform for their benefit (and nice 50% too).
The amazing part of webcomics is the fact that you can and WILL grow as you make them. This is what makes them special.
I will be honest in the fact that, there are Very Few People nowadays that can make a living off of webcomics. Even those who seem most successful still have other avenues to generate income. I think it’s unfair that theres this corperate greed that drills this expectation in folks to match industry standards, and imho, that is the opposite of what webcomics should be.
They should be wonky sometimes, have some typos, linger too long on things, read imperfect, and most importantly- show that growth of creation over the years. I have a webcomic podcast (screen tones) and our theme always comes back to anyone can make a webcomic, because its what makes webcomics unqiue and accessible. It’s what makes them what they are.
So please, if you feel like you’re ‘not good enough to start a webcomic’- stop lingering on the Expectations these greedy companies have to make you obsess over subs and likes and contests, and make your comic. And make it as unhinged and wild and indulgent as possible. Because i guarantee you, even if they are silent readers, SOMEONE needs your story.
I just want to say, (at least in Korea) the corporate-sponsored webtoons/webcomics industry literally shoves people into the meat grinder to fuel their weekly updates of 80+ full-colour illustration-quality panels. There’s separate people for putting down flat colours, shading, and lines. and even then people literally die from overworking. I’m not joking. People have died because of how hard the webtoon industry works them. You get a bit of leeway depending on your style and genre but this is what happens as a result of corporations setting the goalposts to attain.
No single person can compete with that.
Webcomics used to be something you did because you wanted to, because there was a story you wanted to tell, and the line has now blurred between these personal projects and the “comics that are held to a quality standard that also happen to be accessible via web”.
If you have a story that you want to tell via comic, you should go for it. You probably wouldn’t make money off of it, but the discipline of making something consistently (not even of consistent quality, but literally just having something to post weekly) is pretty gratifying! It literally doesn’t matter what the quality is like. If someone is mean about it, it will hurt but also what have they made? what kind of effort have they made into being creative? have they pursued a project with any kind of effort? you’re doing so much more for yourself and for the world by making something and putting it out there.
The social aspect can and might bog you down, because it’s nice to have that quantifiable validation that your work is liked. It might even stop you from posting. But it’s not the core aspect of making a webcomic, and it’s certainly not a Necessity to getting started. And if there’s readership to be gained, you won’t get it by never starting it. Just make your thing. Also your art will improve so fast when you’re literally drawing so many panels every week. Don’t worry about it. Post on a private blog if you’re really afraid to show people. But really, just get started. And don’t worry about it.
This is something deeply personal to me and yes, the landscape has changed SO much. I started making webcomics in 2005, fresh out of high school and have been making them ever since. I make mostly grayscale comics on a schedule that doesn’t overwhelm me (1 comic updates twice a week, the other once a week, and the third twice a month). I use the same program I used back in 2005, though the newest version of it that came out in like 2010 I think.
The very first comic I worked on was silly and fun, but I still get the occasional email today of folks telling me how much it meant to them. After years of rejection & getting better each year, I started working on the stories I wanted to tell. I managed to get an agent, and one of comics was picked up by Dark Horse. I did not go to art school, I never got the networking a lot of the bigger folks got, and I don’t live in the US (which, fun fact, locks me out of being able to use Webtoons fully - they’ve region-locked their app AHAHAHAH FUN).
So yeah, start whenever the heck you want! If you have a story you want to tell, that is the only reason you need to start. The more YOU enjoy your story, the more that’ll show through. If you want your art to grow, nothing will improve you faster than starting a webcomic. Also, read comics, look how your favs construct a page. Panel composition is more important than you think. The main key to a good webcomic is “is what I’m trying to show clear” and just keep on pushing.
You can start anywhere. You can show whoever you want, or no one at all (I did comics for me all through elementary school). Everyone has their own personal goal of where they’d like to be. And I’m by no means a success story. but only YOU can determine your success, and I’m happy where I am.
START THAT COMIC! you’ve got this ^_^ (also, if you don’t want to do color comics YOU DON’T HAVE TO! If anyone bugs you about it, just tell them Elaine said it was fine and they can go make their own comic in color if they care so much XD)
And readers? SHARE THE COMICS YOU LIKE! Word of mouth does so much, and if we ever want the little folk to have a chance against the mega corps, or even just the highly popular aggregate sites, boost the heck outta the comics you love ^_^
Man, remember the days of SmackJeeves and all the absolutely crap but insanely compelling webcomics that started there? I miss those days.
So I was having a conversation with a friend about old anime and in the middle of it she forgot the word “canonical” and she instead inflicted a spectacular new aesthetic and slew of mental images on me by saying the phrase “Biblically Accurate Ouran High School Host Club”.
The term canonical does originally refer to biblical canon, so it is essentially a synonym for biblically accurate
Which is exactly why she used it! The problem is that I’m a feral agnostic and the connection I made was to the eldritch depictions of “Biblically Accurate Angels” so the image that popped into my head and that I’ve been compelled all week to draw was:
But the thing is often people haven’t written it because it’s not profitable to, or not feasible to make it widely accessible. It also serves as a tool for synthesising information in one central place, it’s common to see/hear people in education asking (mostly chatGPT) to explain things because the explanation at their level isn’t available, or the information is sparse, or hard to find. It’s like a search engine for human knowledge, which is an amazingly powerful tool.
It has flaws, yes, but shouldn’t be condemned by an unduly high value put on what humans have published
Sorry, but this is completely wrong.
Bots like chatGPT will straight up lie or make shit up or give demonstrably false answers when asked simple questions. It is not an information repository or search, it is a text generator. It is completely incapable of verifying if the text it generates has any correlation with reality, only with whatever text it’s trying to replicate the patterns of.
Do not buy into the idea that it is some revolutionary tool for writing or learning.
It is longform autofill.
Also it will not write anything new /by design/ because all it can do is source from existing writing and regurgitate it. This doesn’t seem novel when all art allowed under capitalism is overly crowd sourced, derivative crap but the reality of art is that it should be unique to each creator and AI /literally cannot do that/ it can only copy existing work.
Frankly, I won’t be considering anything (visual, written,etc) to be ‘AI generated’ until the artificial intelligence responsible is able to actually choose to pursue that medium and is actually using it to say something. What we have now aren’t AI, they’re just complex algorithms that mimic human activity without sentience.
AI art will probably be a real thing one day, and it will be incredible because it will be created by a thinking being with its own motivations and identity. What we have now is very much not that.
I was going to play the original MW3 before the new one comes out… turns out the PC version doesn’t support controllers 😭
my KBM skills are abysmal and I don’t even have space for a mouse with my current tiny living situation set up.
guess I’ll just watch a play through…
I got like 30 hours into Baldur’s Gate 3 when one of my PC’s drives started failing. I am still working on fixing it because I’m neurodivergent and trying to figure out what drive cloning software to buy is so confusing.
Yo, in COFY, is Zuko/Azula's Typhlosion a regular one or a Hisuian variant? Asking because I feel like there's some absolutely DELICIOUS angst to be had from Azula taking a pokemon that's supposed to purify lost and angry ghosts and inflicting her particular training style upon it. Bonus points for the Hisuian variant being half-ghost, and therefore only being touchable by humans when it wants to be (once it figures out it can refuse without punishment anymore, that is).
That’s brilliant for the narrative and I wish I could say that yeah, that’s totally how I planned it, yes….but it’s not lol.
Azula’s typhlosion is just a regular garden variety with added anxiety. I think Ozai would specifically go for a regular one anyway what with him being a type purist and all that. Zuko’s fire-breathing pikachu is Ozai’s worst fucking nightmare.
LOL Ozai foaming at the mouth during every one of Zuko’s televised exhibition matches where Peony participates is TOTALLY worth Azula’s Typhlosion not being a 9-foot-plus fire-weasel.
Okay, so I know I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll never actually do anything with this Spirited Away/Avatar AU,’ but things have Happened since then and it is now 6000+ words in my drafts, which I guess means it’s probably Going Somewhere.
So here, have a rough cast while I hammer together the rest of the first part of it. These are like, ROUGH approximations of the roles people will play, and the cast includes a LOT of fan-made characters. Some belonging to @muffinlance, Teruko belonging to Vathara (from Embers).
Sen/Chihiro: Li (Sokka).
Haku: Li (Zuko).
Yubaba: Ozai
Lin: Teruko
The Boiler Man/Kamaji: Hanako
Yubaba’s Son: Azula (DW, she plays a very different roll to the giant baby).
Zeniba: Iroh
Bathhouse Manager Guy: Zhao
Staff Supervisor: Jee
Greeter/Concierge: Kyo, Kazuto (He‘s still learning, okay?)
Staff W/O Specific Roles Yet: Genji, Satomi
Head Cook: Dekku
The Lamp Thing That Hops Around in the Swamp: Toph
No-Face: Let’s be real, I haven’t decided how/whether that’s going to be a plot point in this fic. I don’t really see Sokka making the same mistake that Chihiro did in letting the dude into the bathhouse.
Not Appearing In This Fic: Katara, Aang, Hakoda, Bato, etc.
Still working out the details of this, so feel free to shout at me about it.
Okay, a further development of this idea that I just had an LITERALLY cannot keep to myself for another minute:
The name Zuko got when he ended up at the bathhouse?
Li.
What name does Ozai gives Sokka when HE ends up in the bathhouse?
Li.
-X-
“Okay, when I asked ‘What now,’ I was kinda hoping you’d come up with a better plan than ‘become a ‘masseuse’ at my asshole dad’s bathhouse,” Li says the minute the door slides closed behind him.
Scarred-Li glares at him and smacks him in the chest with a bundle of cloth in the same black-and-red that all the rest of the staff wear.
Captain Cyllene: We’ll just throw you out of town so the Pokemon can eat you.
Zuko: Welp, guess it’s better than getting my face burned off and sent on an impossible quest.
– Several Hours Later –
Zuko, standing in the Captain’s office, several pokemon climbing over him and trying to eat his hair: So, did I pass?
-X-
Please blame @sword-and-stars for this idea. Their ‘Carry On for You’ series put this idea in my head.
The last thing Sokka remembers is Aang sneezing.
Which might not sound particularly remarkable if the guy hadn’t been doing his whole ‘Avatar State’ thing at the same time.
“Are we dead?”
Sokka lets his head loll to one side to see Zuko staring back at him, brows furrowed in confusion. He can also see the short stretch of distinctly-not-Fire-Nation beach behind him.
“Probably not? There’s no leeches,”
Zuko frowns at him. Sokka sticks his tongue out.
“One day I’m going to get you drunk enough to tell me that story and I’m going to laugh when it turns out you were held hostage by pickens.” He lifts up a hand and a short tongue of flame shoots out of the tip of his finger. “This isn’t the spirit world.”
“Cool.”
“I don’t think it’s the regular world, either.”
Sokka pushes himself upright, looking around. It looks pretty regular to him. “You sure?”
“Sun feels different.”
“Riiiiiight.”
“And I vaguely remember this big yellow thing going on and on about the world and people coexisting even though they poked each other a lot? I think it wanted me to poke everyone?”
“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head? That’s some Aang-level nonsense.”
Zuko shrugs and reaches out to prod Sokka in the side. Right in the spot that he knows is ticklish, the asshole.
“Hmmm, not sure. That was pretty satisfying…”
“Excuse me?”
Sokka jolts in place. Zuko, the gymnastic show-off that he is, does some sort of impossible-looking maneuver that lets him flip right up on his feet, body settling into what Sokka’s come to recognize as ‘guard’ stance.
Their interruptor is a strangely-dressed man in an even stranger blue-and-white hat.
Sokka has a bad feeling that whatever happens next is going to be either exceedingly dangerous or upsettingly ridiculous.
