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Feb 2022

I won't lie to you this shit is lonely. I feel lonely as hell tryna make comics and nobody to talk to. Every time I join a discord or a reddit or whatever its all so focused on not hurting beginners feelings I feel like nobody's being real with me. Don't get me wrong I haven't ever published more than a chapter and I'm working on a complete overhaul of my series but like damn. I wish I had some friends who I can be real with about this stuff. Is anybody else like this or are you all just 30 year olds with no time to work on your hobby and 13 year olds who I can't communicate with
I hope this doesn't read like a callout post I just want to talk to someone my age who's as into this as I am.

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    Feb '22
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    Mar '22
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19-year-old who's pretty indifferent about friendship and not very comfortable around people, but starting to opening up more socially... Online, anyway.

Reading the first chapter of your comic right now you're spitting some hard facts do you have discord

Now that I'm thinking about it, I don't have much of a social life. I eat, write, work, and sleep. Rinse and repeat. I'm not even 30.

Or let me know if we can talk elsewhere I don't wanna be pushy I'm just honestly surprised by the skill

(I'm down to talk about whatever though, and if friendship happens, great! I'm just kind of selfish and talk for my own amusement rather than putting actual effort in developing a friendship and do stuff like read people's work if it's not my thing or coming up with things to talk about etc :'D)

honestly just a 20-somthing in the middle of bad burnout and work/life/social media doesn't help plus it's hard for me to either a. find people with genuinely similar/same interests and then b. actually getting myself to talk

there's other random metrics when it comes to social interactions too since i feel like sometimes i'm a little more irritable about certain things so it's easier to be quiet and alone than trying to figure out some social relationship/interactions

Thank you, this is how I am with most people who approach me so I get it. I really like the art in your comics and the monologue in the first chapter of the one about the homeless guy is great. You seem to have a lot of ideas and I'm glad you responded to my thread.

I'm not sure if you were talking to me. I have always been called boring. I guess I couldn't find many people that like the same stuff as me, but I haven't been really looking for people. If I find them than I'm glad to be friends with them or at least have someone to talk to. Having someone critique my work would be a bonus.

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. :smile_01:

I’ve made a few friends here. :blush:

I don’t think I went out of my way to find them, we just clicked I suppose. They’re the reason I come back here to be honest. I like to see what they’re up to (with their projects), or even just to hang out and be silly. :sweat_smile:

im a 21 dude in uni who has just realized they hate their course and would rather be poor than do a job they hate lmao. I also have not really made very many friends out here, tho i am new.