A comic taking place in a real city, where the author has never been to

[heiseihi]

Hi everyone!

I have a wierd question - what would be your attitude to a comic taking place in a real nowaday city existing in some country with the views of it's famous sights and some well-known toponims, but when the author is not familiar to this city quite well: so he/she can make some stupid mistakes about the details.
For example: I have a comic, where my characters live in some city (I do not want to name it) I have never been there, but I have seen it so many times on videos, photos, tv so I fell in love with the charming atmosphere of this place, and I wanted my OCs to live there for no reason. Just want. And I started to work on it long ago, but have never shared in the internet because it scares me WHAT IF... somebody living in this city reads it, and says smth like "What the hell, we don't have such shop/park/bar here! We do not dress like this in our city, we don`t have such buildings" and so on. This really freaks me out. What do you think? Does anyone have common problems? Or does this really matter?

[SirHellsir]

It doesn't have to BE that city, it can be INSPIRED by that city, that way you can change as many details you want and keep only the details you actually want/like about the real one.
And you can always spell the name backwards and voila, original name.

[heiseihi]

Oh, thank you for the reply! It sounds like really good ideas!

[punkarsenic]

i dunno - if it was new york i wouldnt care in the slightest because hey, its comic books and everyones seen enough new york media to kinda get it. london or paris? also get a lot of screentime, so id probably let it slide (but as a londoner, ignorant stories abt my city do tick me off.) japanese cities? like... you could probably get away with it, because so many people do it, but do your research

however, if you wanna do a story in like, cincinnati or bahrain or lagos, youll probably need a more personal connection. a lot of people from that city could be attracted to your comic for that personal connection, and thered be an excitement to seeing their city in a story. so even if you dont go there, youd want to do a lot of research and have some friends from there - you wouldnt get persecuted if you didnt, but it would make your story so much better

[AngieVX]

I think they do it in comic books all the time, in movies based on comic books, in movies of all kind, it's not the documentary comic book that you're planning to make! It's a common practice!

[heiseihi]

Thank you. I will take your advices into concideration.

[heiseihi]

Hey! How do you manage to find my posts, Angie ? XD

[AngieVX]

Accidentally! I didn't even realize it was you until I wrote half of the message! It's because you don't have an avatar here!

[joannekwan]

My two main series are set in a city heavily inspired by San Francisco, since my parents live there and I go there fairly regularly. But even so, I still never specify the name of the city they live in. Generally, I try to keep place names very vague.

However, in one of my series, the main character traveled to Budapest (and I specifically stated it was Budapest) recently and for that I did a simple Google search for street views to get a gist of the architecture there. I also had a local policeman in one shot so I looked up their uniforms. For those few pages of Budapest scenes I did more research for that setting than for their usual home setting combined.
It seemed to have paid off as I had a few readers comment that they're from the Budapest area and that I got the location just right.

[Ambat]

I think the best way to go about it is to make it a fictional city that draws inspiration from a specific place (or multiple specific places!), that way you don't have to worry so much about being 100% accurate. The city my comic takes place in is basically Orange County, CA with the exception that it snows there in the winter because I'm a snow lover HAHA. Palm trees everywhere, modern buildings, tech/industry heavy areas as well as poorer/more run down areas, etc.

[VermillionWorks]

I live in Ohio, USA, but my comic's story takes place in a town inspired by Oak Park, Illinois, that's basically right next to Chicago. It's a place I have not only never been...but the story's set in the 1930s, so I can only find so many references for the town in that time period! XD

I just changed the town's name to "Oak Parkland" and hope no one that may actually be from around that area cares how completely wrong it is.

[Vanesalisa]

my story takes place is States , Seattle . I was on born and raised in the Philippines and I focus my story in States because half of my dad's family members live in states and my mom she likes watching American shows than local shows and we were hooked up on Greys anatomy and that's how I got the idea that the MC lives in Seattle

[scythe]

My comic starts in London, a city I only visited once, and will also go to Paris, where I've probably only been to ten or so times. I think as long as your story isn't about some idiosyncrasy unique to a city, you shouldn't run into any issues. There will always be people who like to pull you up on details, but whatever. I like to use Google maps street view to get a better idea of any given locale.

[Michelle]

I only feel it's weird to have your story set in a foreign locale if you're writing about a character who is a native to that place. It's pretty easy to look up photo references of location, clothes etc, but if your only reference for a culture is via tv shows/movies/books, it might feel artificial.
Like, I would never write a story set in Tokyo if my only knowledge of the place was from watching a bunch of anime. If someone from outside the U.S. wrote a comic set in Los Angeles or San Francisco, I'd be less concerned with how accurately they portrayed every building and more with how believable the people and culture felt. Though, admittedly I would be pretty amused if someone wrote a story set in SF and filled it with all the tourist stereotypes as if they were true to life. :u

If I were to write a story set in a locale I had never been to/lived in, I would probably write from the perspective of an outsider, because I wouldn't feel comfortable pretending to have a familiarity with a place or culture I'd never interacted with outside of looking at pictures.

[sefra114]

I was actually thinking of this recently, too. I think the idea of being inspired by a particular city is good. That way, you can take what you like from the location, and also have your own creative liberties with it. My current webcomic, for instance, takes place in Japan. While I've visited there before, I try to avoid naming specific areas in the story for the same what if reasons as you have, haha.

[heiseihi]

Thank you all for your comments!

@joannekwan @VermillionWorks @Vanesalisa that was interesting to know, thanks for sharing your experience! ：）

@amberavara I`m a snow lover too =D thanksfully there are a lot of snow in my homeplace

@scythe I use google maps too for walking along the stree's views =D once I even have managed to get inside the shop in google maps O_o

@Michelle Yeah this is exactly what i meant but didn't know how to say it correctly =) about "the tourist stereotypes".

@sefra114 good thing to know I'm not the only one XD btw I've visited Japan too, besides, japanese culture was my major so japanese city would be much more easier to properly depict for me then the one I`m trying XD

As for me i would prefer to make a fictional city where would be combined features of the different cities which i've visited and which i didn't, if it were the only location. But the point why i came up with the real one is because my story is happening in two places real and magical, while in magical world i can mix different architecture, style of clothing, ect, in real part i wanted to outline its realness by placing charachters in the real place, which is on the Earth. When I had started I wasn`t thinking about uploading it anywhere, so for me it was ok. But now i'm starting to think to make every location fictional, to overcome this issue, which would allow me to concentrate on much more important problems like fixing plot holes and developing skills XDDD the city would not affect the story itself, because it is not a slice of city life after all, so i can fix or remake or remove some pannels while its not too late. Not sure yet, but it makes sense ._.

[heiseihi]

I can not upload it D:

[saerel]

Mistakes happen even to those who have been there, as memory is a tricky thing. I used google maps /street view for my comic also, despite the fact that I come from Paris...