Advice on Building a Webcomic Buffer?

[thoughtfulboxful]

So I started sketching out pages for the first chapter of my WEBCOMIC and I'd like to know from your experience(s): How many pages should I have finished before I begin posting?

I want to post two pages a week, but at the same time I don't want to eat up my buffer as time isn't always on my side. As readers what's the most satisfying amount of pages to have during the week?

I'd appreciate your thoughts!

[Evan]

I usually have 1 or 2 weeks of comics already made in case I get sick.

[ghostly]

I didn't post anything yet, but I plan to do a whole chapter before beginning to post. This is because my first episode will be 6 or 7 pages.

[punkarsenic]

i also post 2 pages a week, and my buffer is smth like 20 pages. so that takes about 2 months to all come out. id say thats a fairly large buffer? i know ppl whose buffer is legit a week in advance so... anyway

the pros to a large buffer are:
- if you get into a funk, its a while before you have to like, actually worry about it. schedule wise
- similarly, you can get away with a cheeky holiday
- you can wrap up an entire chapter before anyone sees it, giving you editing leeway youll prolly never use but itll feel nice
- more to tempt patreon supporters with?
- more or less the same as the three two but you will no longer feel apollos chariot nipping at your bloody heels every time you draw which is really nice

the cons:
- i dont remember what the fuck is happening in each update, because i drew the pages two months ago and scheduled them last week (technically this could be a pro bc it means u have to repeatedly reread your comic. which is good)
- your published comic will never reflect your current ability, because its two months behind. this is especially hard for me, bc im in a state of rapid self improvement and learning, but might not be so deep for others.
- similarly: you might cringe so much that actually scheduling updates is painful. might not, thats another one that varies from person to person
- your motivation can wane a little, because youre not desperately catching up with yourself. its nice that you get more time, but you can get kinda... complacent.
- very hard to earn back if you do use it up, say, to go on holiday or suffer a horrible art block.
- also, theres smth a lil sour abt all those pages just sitting there for so long with nobody to look at them and tell you how great and talented you are

the pros to a short (under a month worth of) buffer:
- aforementioned motivation will wane with the consequence of death missing weeks / late installments / spotty hiatuses. meaning it should wane less.
- you feel more connected with the story youre posting, because it wasnt very long ago you drew it
- problems with progress lag are less
- takes a couple sleepless nights drawing, or a couple weeks adding an extra page to the rota, to get it all back
- near-instant gratification

the cons:
- aforementioned motivation will wane with the consequence of death missing weeks / late installments / spotty hiatuses. which is bad if your holdup is life and not motivation.
- not as much time to catch mistakes and edit things
- overhanging anxiety
- less to tempt patreon supporters with, potentially
- very very easy to deplete, leading to more hiatuses or less holidays / revision sessions / dedicating yourself to anything other than your comic.

personally, it sounds like a long buffer would suit you better. id say its just the better option in general, although im sure theres specific circumstances a short buffer is better and i could be missing some major point entirely.

also, two pages a week seems fairly average an update schedule. anywhere between 2 and 4; more is moving into 'wooie mama' territory and im not sure how those people manage it, aside from like having teams of multiple professional adults getting paid for their time.

[shazzbaa]

My advice would be to draw pages for a few weeks -- maybe keep it up for a month at least when you're first starting! After that it's dependent on you, and how much deadlines stress you vs motivate you.

This isn't just to have a buffer, but it will also give you a chance to work AS IF you were already updating, and find out how long pages take you to make -- to make sure you're able to finish two pages a week before you announce your update schedule. It's better to post one page a week and always update on time, than to promise pages twice a week but not be able to keep that promise.

[Rhombik]

I think it depends what your comic is about and what you want to do with it.

To give you an idea, mine is a gag comic so there is only a loose story. My buffer is 20 strips. I also think it's a good idea to put up a few comics for people to look through.

I would also recommend making the comic for a month without posting as I think Shazzbaa suggested to see how many you end up making. Then you will know how many you will actually be able to do a week.

[thoughtfulboxful]

Thanks again, peeps!

@punkarsenic Super insightful, thanks a lot!

@shazzbaa Looks like I'll be posting once a week until I'm comfortable. Thanks!

@GombikComics Good point! My story is a slice-of-life where each chapter is a standalone story, so in my case I'd probably have to at least complete the first chapter before posting (unless I get bored).

[NanettesClouds]

Hey there, I have sorta a weird approach to my buffer that I thought I might pop in and share.

So for my comic Skeletons in the Closet (cough..) I have a 10 page buffer of sequential finished pages, that's about 2 months for me because I'm uploading at a page a week.

BuuuUuut I have another 20ish pages that are in a state of work-in-progress, because I work on multiple pages in a week, all of these pages are in different stages of production as well, (for example lets say pages 18-20 are almost finished and just need some cleanup while pages 15-17 are just thumbnails/rough pencils and pages 10-14 have rough flat colors.) because of this, I can always find something to do depending on how much energy/time I have, (for example If im watching a show I can do some flat coloring because that doesn't take much focus, but if I've got a lot of time to focus I can finish up a page and do a lot of detail work.) These pages last me for the rest of the year.

I feel like this method is sorta a hybrid of the two approaches that @punkarsenic was talking about, it has the pros of keeping you on your toes because you only have a short backlog of finished pages, but it also lets you have a bit more control as far as planning your story goes (assuming you arent working from a complete script like I am) As an additional bonus, this method keeps the artwork across a long stretch of pages more consistent, so you wont feel like you're not able to show your best work (or at least not as badly)

I'd reccomend giving it a shot, and if you dont like it you can easly phase into either a long buffer or a short buffer, whichever you think you'd be more comfortorable with.

Hopefully that made enough sense? lemme know if I can explain anything better.

[ratique]

My advice to building a webcomic buffer?

Well, I never had one and I can advise you to never do that, because it stinks.

It has a few pros, or I wouldn't have done it for over two years - but I would never do it again for my new project.

Give your best to work ahead and not let your buffer disappear. The advice here is already great and I wish I had considered it more back when I started.

[punkarsenic]

thats an interesting opinion. what stinks about a buffer?

[ratique]

Oh, no, I might have written it funny.

I meant: Don't go with no buffer, because having no buffer stinks.

There. Poor language fixed. ; )

[punkarsenic]

ohhh oops. that makes more sense haha

[heraclus]

My advice is to not have buffer , finish the whole thing , scheduled it and have a nice summer!

[EdenStar]

I'm a writer not the artist on my projects but I pay for work so I do have some control in this respect and preferences. I'm planning a 5 page opener so people can have something to get hooked by rather than having to wait a week until the first page after the cover comes up. Then a 20 page buffer with bi-weekly release date initially planned but a weekly page production schedule. It will go to weekly updates if patreon goals and general enthusiasm for the series warrants.I have a soft ending planned so that if it flops I can call it at a set point and have a decent ending still rather than leave it in limbo or have to do something ridiculous to wrap it up on the fly. If it works out then I have the hard ending already planned at a much later date.

I know not everyone writes with the ending in mind but I find it takes pressure off in my case and the soft ending makes it so I don't feel locked in if the piece doesn't happen to find an audience in a reasonable time frame.

[NanettesClouds]

unfortunately this isn't always the most feasible thing, a lot of artists depend on the revenue and feedback and support from their readers in order to make the comic. And most webcomic people tend to have very long projects in mind. Also if you dont have anything posted it becomes very tempting to re-do your older pages, and eventually you get in a loop of constantly remaking things and not making any progress.

While having the whole comic ready in advance is great, in practice it doesn't work so well for anything much longer than a minicomic.

[Chopythes]

When I started in the webcomic area, I went with having about 60 pages finished. 3 years later I ran out of the buffer.
So it's always a good idea to start with as much as possible but I understand if most people go with just 2-3 months.
Having to look at old art sucks, but at least you have a buffer in case something happens and you're unable to make a page that week.

And like some also stated: Don't go with 2 pages unless you know you'll be able to pull out more than that.

In order to keep my buffer, I only post 1 page/week, but I try to make around 2-3 pages so that my buffer won't run out.

And as a reader POV: I usually wait a few weeks before binging on comics, so I don't really mind all that much about the consistency.
But.. Always be on time with one page, than never with 2.
It looks better and you'll feel better about being able to keep the time frame.
win/win right there ;D

[thoughtfulboxful]

Hopefully that made enough sense? lemme know if I can explain anything better.

So basically you're saying do what you want to do when you feel like doing it? I've tried jumping around like that on other projects, and I ended burning all my previous work and starting fresh (because image 13 looked better than image 2 and all that angst).

Plus, that would require me to have the story completely planned out, which also kind of trips me up because I'll get stuck writing and eventually lose interest.

Perfectionist woes...

[thoughtfulboxful]

I went with having about 60 pages finished. 3 years later I ran out of the buffer.

(⊙_⊙)

I'm impressed. And extremely tempted.

[NanettesClouds]

So basically you're saying do what you want to do when you feel like doing it?

Not quite? It's more about finding something to do in the time that I have. If I were to go at it page by page (which I've done before and I hate doing it) I would end up in situations where I don't have the time or energy to do the work that's needed to be done on the page where I'm at. Say I have a busy day with lots of bus rides, If the page I was working at was at the detailing/line-art step I wouldn't be able to work on it because busses are bumpy and it needs a steady hand, so all that time on the bus would go to waste listening to podcasts or something, with the method that I'm currently using I can use that bus time to do quick messy flat coloring or sketching, which takes up a lot of time but not a lot of focus or precision, on days that I'm not super busy I can spend them doing that complicated detailing work or doing thumbnails (which take a lot of mental energy because its basically writing a draft of a scene for me.)

It's not that I'm only doing what I want when I feel like doing it, it's that I'm finding things to do with the time and energy that I have, rather than letting that time go to waste or something else.

that would require me to have the story completely planned out

Not necessarily, for my comic I have an outline detailing all of the major story beats and a rough "page budget" for each scene. It's nowhere close to being completely planned out. Having some sort of a plan for what your story is going to be is really important unless you're planning on making a journal comic or a gag-a-day. At the very least I would recommend having your basic Beginning, Middle and End planned out.

Perfectionist woes...

Perfectionism isn't something that comic artists have time for :V its so much better to get something to the point of being good enough and moving on and making progress, and if you notice a mistake just learn from it and do better next time. I get it tho I really do, but perfectionism is a trap that leads to multiple false starts and a ton of abandoned projects that could have had potential, I'm speaking from experience here.

[69Michi]

Buffer is indeed nice to have. Personally I run my series with absolutely no buffer whatsoever because I just can't find enough time to churn out enough page that I can keep back for later. (I update every 2 weeks with approximately 20-30 pages per update, it's really impossible to have a buffer at my posting rate) I see the pros and cons of buffer, but I also see how hard it is to contain yourself from spoiling just by knowing the script ahead of time, so like if I have a big buffer... oh boy, when I'm excited about something, my readers are on a totally different subject, it would suck very much haha.

But advice wise, everyone here have given you a lot of good advice, so you do you!