Anybody think it is too late to restart a comic?

[Hippiemoe]

I have a comic which I love the storyline and all the ideas I have with it and this also includes the characters I have created for it. But, I still can't find myself being in love with my first page of it, nor do I like the formatting of the panels and am wanting to start over. But I feel if I pull it to restart it, I may risk losing all of subscribers in order to take more time on it. I don't know, kind of a confusing situation. I understand I have one page so starting over would definitely be easier than having to start over 30+ pages in, but I don't want to be 'that guy' who just restarts.

[keii4ii]

There's also the option of fixing a few earlier pages while keeping the rest intact? That seems like a reasonable option to me, unless the problems affect all or most of the existing pages.

[Hippiemoe]

I sort of get what you are saying. But I don't know, I look at the first page and go how bland

[keii4ii]

So why not just redo the first page? Any particular reason you wanna redo all the other pages?

[Hippiemoe]

My thoughts is just do redo the entire thing because it just isn't appealing in my eyes and I feel like I may have rushed something out just to have something out. I want it to reflect my actual artistry

[mikemacdee]

Redoing the whole thing might be an option if you're rebooting it and telling a different story altogether. If you're just not happy with the early art, don't bother. The earliest pages will never look as good as the most recent pages, regardless of the sequence.

For example, you do a five page comic, then decide to redo the first page cos your art style got refined with each page: in the time it took to complete the comic, page 1 and page 5 look like they were done by different artists, and page 1 is obviously the least refined. You decide to redo page 1 so it looks as good as page 5, but now page 2 is the worst page, so you fix that, and then page 3, and then page 4. Now, suddenly, page 5 is the worst page because it's now the most "outdated" example of your art style.

So you'll embark on an endless cycle of "fixing" the comic that never ends, because you're always growing as an artist.

I recently restarted Daddy's Girl because nobody on Tapastic knows it exists. It's 260 pages, so I can update every single day and guarantee somebody will notice and read it. That's one time I would support restarting a comic.

[shazzbaa]

I still can't find myself being in love with my first page of it, [...] but I don't want to be 'that guy' who just restarts.

Well.... how long do you plan to be working on this story? If you re-do these first pages, then work on the new version for a long time and look back and don't feel like you love your first page anymore, are you going to want to redo it again?

A lot of artists look back and groan at their first pages. I don't love my first page anymore -- I've improved a lot since I drew it! And this isn't even my first webcomic, but I'm still improving and growing out of my old pages. There are plenty of parts of the first chapter where I feel the urge to say, "I promise it gets better later!!" But those pages still work! They do the job, even if they have problems. I don't have to redo them, so I don't -- I'd rather spend my time making my new pages better and better.

I do think there's a time where restarting makes sense, but it isn't just "I don't love my first page anymore," because that happens to (almost) everyone. I do think it's possible for a creator to feel so constrained by the beginning of their comic that they can't get any joy out of moving forward, and it's not worth it to keep forcing their comic to lurch forward when they can't muster any passion for it. It might be worth it to reboot then! So, I won't say "never restart," but you should think very carefully about it before you do, and put it in perspective. Is this really a one-time restart? Or will this be a process you'll be tempted to repeat later when your style and panel composition and skill improve again?

[SynergyEclipse]

The final time I restarted my comic, the previous version had about 120 pages. I restarted it because there were a lot of improvements I was making to the writing, the characters, the world building, and plot points that it would've felt a lot smoother to just restart it with all of those changes applied at the beginning. There were also major issues with the pacing that could only be fixed by restarting it.

Looking back at the earliest pages of the final rewrite, I fixed up the art and dialogue a couple of times to fix the worst anatomy mistakes, and make the dialogue more clear. I accepted that I'm not going to get those early pages to be "perfect" in my mind, but I'm okay with how they turned out, and prioritize moving forward to working on the next pages.

Restarting a series should be considered a last option,only if there will be drastic changes to the entire comic overall, and being certain that those changes will be an improvement. That's why I restarted my comic.

If redoing early pages, you should consider that's time not being spent working on your current pages, and the art is expected to get more refined over time, in the later pages compared to the earlier ones. If you were to redo them, would you be able to without slowing down your comic's update schedule?

[Hippiemoe]

Thank you guys all for the replies. I appreciate all the advise and hoping I can continue to be motivated with my art and wanting to improve it as I go!