Deciding When to Go Back and Re-Create Some of your Comic

Dingbat1991 2016-02-19 04:59:38 UTC #1

Hi Tapastic team!

Now, I'm not trying to promote my comic by any means here. It's about the evolution and refining of a designer's style towards the comic. Let me show you a snippet from my first strip in the series:

Now here it is roughly a year later:

If I say so myself, a pretty significant improvement. So here's where I explain my endeavor to Tapastic:

I'm interested in recreating the first story arc, but at the time of its creation, took between 14 to 15 weeks and some additional problems are is that the series is still producing new content (In no desire to putting it into a hiatus at the moment) and I don't always have all the time in the world. I know that the benefits to doing this is that I can make stronger first impressions to other webcomic based websites. I feel that a recreation was inevitable anyway but I wasn't anticipating it to be this soon. So my question is: Is it worth it? What is your input on this issue and maybe ways to approaching it?

Many thanks for any response.

mariusthered 2016-02-19 05:10:11 UTC #2

I had the same problem when i decided to bring my comic here to Taptasic. the first chapter had been done before i started using manga studio 5 and were a little rough, I also wanted to drop the drawn backgrounds on all pages and just use poser 3d backgrounds.

so i decided a do over it has meant me pulling all my comics off my main site and only posting here ( to avoid spoilers) but it has had the advantage that i could change a few plot holes along the way.

in your case I suppose you could just swap it over a few pages at a time

SethJH 2016-02-19 05:17:01 UTC #3

I'm also recreating the first 3 episodes of my comic. I'm not revising the story or dialogue, I'm just upgrading the art quality. Originally, I did the first 3 episodes in a fury of inspiration and ideas- in their current state- they're just storyboards. When you compare these episodes to the rest of the comic, it is a glaring difference that I want to get rid of. I feel like I might be losing potential readers because of the low quality introduction.

The problem for me though is that I put more priority on working on the newest episodes (since I have no buffer) and I don't get much time to work on the revisions.

demthorshie 2016-02-19 06:03:59 UTC #4

I was actually planning on resurrecting and remaking an old comic series I made back in 2006. I not only wanted to reboot the entire series because of the art but I was also not crazy about the original story's setting and the direction that it eventually went in. I never finished the original comic primarily because I wasn't happy with the story or the art. I think that if you're generally unhappy with the previous work you've done on a project, it may be totally necessary to start over from the beginning if you have to. Yeah, it stinks to have to remake everything but in the end, you'll probably be a lot happier with the remake.~

Starfestival 2016-02-19 06:24:04 UTC #5

I like the art progression that goes on in my comic. I don't really need to go back and change anything to add to the story at this point because back then, everything I did was so vague. I never really stated in the beginning that the Main red head character was originally supposed to be from a completely different dimension(our world) and got thrown into some futuristic steampunk/cyberpunk world. It was vague enough that I could just drop the whole inter-dimensional subplot and keep with the steampunk cyberpunk stuff and it has absolutely no impact on the rest of the story whatsoever.

AnnaLandin 2016-02-19 06:55:31 UTC #6

1.) Do it if you feel you have the time for it, while at the same time keeping up the updates on the current story arc.

2.) You don't have to. The art quality of webcomics change over time, because most of us create over such a large span of time that change is inevitable.

3.) Going back and re-doing stuff runs a very high risk of you getting stuck redoing old stuff forever, and losing steam on the story, and maybe quitting altogether. You wouldn't be the first creator it's happened to, and the more time you spend worrying about the quality of old stuff, the less time and energy you have to spend on making something good currently.

Kura 2016-02-19 16:33:50 UTC #7

Art is generally not the 'I gotta go back and fix this' thing for me. It's when I'm reading through old pages and the dialog doesn't flow with the panels as well or easily as I thought it (like drawing you also improve in layout as you continue making pages) did were the 'I gotta go back and fix this' holds more ground, since a comic that is difficult to read isn't going to be picking up many readers fast.

I have gone back and fixed up art once for one chapter though, but that was because I made the comic under the impression that no one would care about it or read it, so the art was horrible, the series it was more a make sure I put in a little drawing time everyday in an attempt to get more used to drawing and arthritis project, as it was really messing up things for me previously. I figured the 'light physio everyday so you can keep walking' could somewhat apply to drawing too.

Aside from that I really try not to go back and re-do things over and over again, as that was a hole I was stuck in when first attempting to make comics before decided to upload them to the web

Doubtcent 2016-02-19 18:45:27 UTC #8

Believe me, it can be pretty hard starting over, but easy to look at the old stuff and want to re-do it.
I started over out of nesessity.
But I'm not going to do it ever again. I really want to just... keep moving forward. In fact, if I keep remaking and looking back, half of my energy for the now will be spent! Just worry about the recent stuff and keep moving forward I say, unless your art is so terrible back then that it doesn't even look like art anymore compared to the stuff you do now... no, you should still keep moving forward.
Make new things. That way you can get better and see where you are.

winglesscomic 2016-02-19 18:57:57 UTC #9

I'll be honest I'm wrestling with the same dilemma, though my problem is more with how the story was delivered than the art. When I was first doing the comic nobody on our team knew what the fuck was going on, my art style was unrefined as I was delving into deep waters I've never swam in before and overall it was bad. After the third chapter we finally cleaned up our act and got the ball rolling. I looked back at the old chapters and it's a mess. Utter shit. I'm not sure why anyone chose to read my comic past the prologue.

Anyway, as for the topic of art, I've come to peace with the fact that it sucks cockballs. I don't think I will change it, at least not in any near future, because it lets me show to the audience that I have been working and I have been learning, and I've improved, visibly.

The story however..well let's just say I will always be ashamed of my comic because of those first few chapters, no matter how much the story has improved.

thekampe 2016-02-19 19:43:59 UTC #10

Wow all of these comments are amazing. I feel the same way about my comic and it's only been a few months. It's one of those things where you have to decide if you want to show improvement over time or do you want to go back to spruce up some (because you can't redo it all).

I'm personally of the opinion that it's best to show improvement, at least to show yourself that you are when you have those really rough art-block days.

ToonDoctor 2016-02-19 22:42:10 UTC #11

I say if you really are compelled to go back and change something, do it. If it's not necessary, don't. Just understand the time and work involved and be smart about making the right call!

Dingbat1991 2016-02-20 00:07:59 UTC #12

It's more or less about making first impressions elsewhere because there are still more outlets I can put my comic on. If it was any other case, I would say nuts to it. The first story arc is the one I care about the most, the second one is passable and it gets better onwards.

What if I did the more important episodes in the 13-strip arc including the first one? Would readers question the inconsistency?

hushicho 2016-02-21 03:35:11 UTC #13

This is basically what I tend to tell people tempted to go back and redo old things.

It is so easy to get stuck in a cycle of redoing things. Oh hey, my style developed, I don't like how that page looks now, I'll just redo it. Oh, my style developed while I was doing that, I need to redo that whole chapter. The thing is, your style is always going to evolve and develop if you're continuing to draw and create.

I advise looking back, finding the things about your work that you appreciate, and letting it go. You can't go forward if you're constantly retreading your path.

When I did a collection of my comic Incubus Tales, which ended up having over 700 pages and running over 7 years, I only ever altered one single panel that I'd never been happy with...and it took me a really long time to even get the panel looking right. The rest I could appreciate, take something from, and move on. It's such an easy trap to fall into, the "improvement means going back and redoing" one.

It is almost always a better idea to just keep doing new and developing, not going back and redoing what you already did that was fine. The only exception to this would be if you were doing some test runs of ideas and you went back and redid the whole concept in ways that you couldn't just change the dialogue for or something; I did that with my comic OCCULTIS, but that was just a couple of pages each time before I figured out that I needed to rework the premise and, after a couple of experiments, ended up finding the approach that worked.

Everything you do, whether you use it or not, has value and should be kept. You can still get something from it. You can still be inspired by it and work with it.

Don't get caught in the trap.