honestly, I often think of how cool it would be to have a few comic-artist friends to share booths at bookfests with, help each other proofread, brainstorm together etc.
But I click with very specific people, my brain is always distracted by its own ideas, and I'm always busy with irl stuff so it's been difficult. This forum has some cool folks whose work/convos I appreciate tho.
I made most of my friends through making comics, and also my fiance, and I've made a good number of friends on Tapas, so yeah, there are plenty of people who want to be friends.
I think the fact that you're not currently updating a comic is part of the issue? It makes it hard to have common ground, because creators can bond most easily over that weekly grind of getting their pages done, and it's way easier to talk about your comic if you can show each other what you create and discuss your different approaches and aims, while having that common ground of hard work and the courage needed to put that imperfect creation out into the world and deal with people telling you exactly what they think of your labour of love with varying amounts of tact.
When a person wants to talk comic creation but hasn't actually got anything out, it can be a bit of a red flag. People like that often either ask for a lot of advice without providing much in return creating an unequal feeling relationship (like you're not really friends so much as you're an unpaid mentor), or they insist on giving advice, but their advice, coming from somebody without experience of having to maintain an update schedule for months or years or building an audience, is often impractical and based on assumptions rather than things they have put into practice themselves successfully while under pressure to maintain weekly updates at a consistent level of quality that effectively attracts and retains readers.
It's so easy to sit on the sidelines telling comic people they should put more effort into their pages and not cut corners, and to never chase market appeal, while always being the person whose comic will come out "eventually" and they're confident it'll be the best comic ever and an effortless hit, but never releasing it because they built it up too much and they're scared to actually face the music, that a lot of comic creators will instinctively avoid anyone who seems like they might be that sort of person.
If you actually start putting your work out there, you'll have an easier time making friends with people who can also relate to the ridiculous amount of hard work that does into making, updating and promoting a comic every week and trying to make it look as good as possible while knowing it can never really look as perfect as you'd like it to. Passionate comickers respect hard work, motivation, bouncing back from mistakes, self-learning and dedication. If you demonstrate you have those qualities, you'll easily make friends with comics people.
My experience at university pretty much FAQ'd up the little social desire I had, so I'm pretty reserved and only meet/talk with the friends I made before I started getting tired of people.
I'd like to be more open again but there is some stuff I need to reconsider about what I want and ultimately who I am, but that too will mean breaking bonds with things and people I don't want to hurt.
I am anti-social by nature despite people telling me the complete opposite. I am just an individual who prefers to draw, watch anime, and play some games. Hanging around people always makes me feel awkward and I've always been indifferent about friendship. That might explain why I didn't lose my marvels when the Covid-19 hit and we were forced to stay in Quarantine and isolation, I didn't really have to do much of a change of lifestyle.
Communication & online friends are the only 2 reasons why am on this forum.
I´m also not one of the 30 year olds with no time to work on my hobby,
I´m 46 and I spend all of my time on my passions which are rock´n´roll and comics.
I´m always interested in creative projects and I think that this is a great way to make
friends, contacts, be creative and to communicate. Unfortunately things don´t last very
long and people lose interest. I have one big real life illustrator group in my hometown,
it started great before the pandemic and not it´s almost dead. At the meetings we were
12 people, that we had a smaller split group of 5 people who were doing studies, we did
"drink and draws" which was great. We also did a 6 hours comic day (6 pages in 6 hours)
in a craft museum which was in the newspaper and that was also great. But now it got
very silent which is maybe because of the pandemic. Creative people are often introverts,
a part of me is an introvert but the other part is someone who is very communicative
and wants to meet people all the time.
I think having a creative project group would be a great way to have friends
BTW I am 30 and I DO have time to work on my hobbies, i will always make time to draw it is my passion. but I guess it's one of those anime video game stereotypes mentalities... once you reach the elder age (you know, above 25) you pretty much useless and your life is pretty much over... at least according to anime and video games
I think the stereotype is actually 30-year-olds are trying to get themselves established in their careers/family so they have no time, while 40-year-olds are already established or at least saved up some money so they have more free time? I has a group I'd play board games with and they were pretty much middle aged folks.
I used to go to one of those too! I find them fun and helpful (and I've responded to the thread on this forum which I think is trying to start an online version of this). I also find it easier to interact with people if we're actually doing a specific activity instead of just being like 'let's be friends', in which case I'm like "okay!! ... how do you do a friendshippery?"
Yeah, you also contributed to the jam comic which was great
Biggest fun I had on this forum.
And yes I think that´s how the friendshippery works
I have activities/projects with all of my friends, I have 3 bands at the moment and
one reason is music, the other big reason is to hang out together and have a laugh