Does a Comic Ever "Haunt" You?

[winglesscomic]

yeah long story short they piss me off crying about "no gore wah wah" while having skullkickers (a super violent comic) on their front page ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)

[keii4ii]

I haven't come across a comic that's too similar to mine, so I don't have any specific... rival comics. XD I get the occasional "I hope to be doing as well as this comic some day!" but that's about it.

I do get frustrated, though not in a jealous way. I look at not-so-hot reader response as a symptom; I believe there's something I'm doing wrong, whether it's the art, the writing, self promo or whatever. So for me, it's more about "I'm doing something wrong... BUT WHAT IS IT???"

That question used to get so intense. It used to give me full blown, ACTUAL panic attacks. And it had nothing to do with getting more or less subs/likes? Because external validation cannot cure anxiety. It was something else entirely.

[joannekwan]

Glad you've gotten past those panic attacks! Those are the worst.

[mariusthered]

yes , from time to time people compare my talesfromswipecity to sin city. now I have come to love sin city and the work of frank miller but in truth I had not heard of sin city for a long time after I began writing mine. if only I had the same kind of cash flow coming in.

[Jacen]

Hmm, not necessarily comics all the time; I mean there are plenty of gaming - gag a day - autobio comics but I don't really care because the comics are instances from MY life. (be really weird if the exact same thing happened)

Because I play some games and visualize my comics more in an 'anime' rather than comic, I get more flustered or change my ideas because of games that I see or play such as Undertale or WOW.

[kazukitakamura126]

That feeling of your work being too similar sounds like it can quite a deteriorate.However, you have to consider your own work its own entity something that offers an experience that is a little different than the series you are comparing yourself to. This hasn't ever happened to me but, I hope you don't let it get you too down.

[Dorian_Grey]

I'm ...actually shocked that you should feel this way!!
It sort of makes me feel not alone on this matter, and that makes me feel better some how
BUT your work is fantastic and immensely popular. I see no reason for you to feel like "an insecure ingrid." I'm envious of you actually haha! XD
But I suppose I feel deep admiration and complete envy at the same time for a popular series for the exact reasons you do. Because I thoroughly enjoy the stories and artwork being done. It's amazing work! (Besides the popularity contest feeling of course.)
I don't feel this way about "themes" however, since any form of media can share very similar themes and be similar stories, yet it doesn't make it the same.
Now it could be because I wish I could work solely on drawing, and sadly because of financial needs I cannot work on solely my art work. I feel everyone is consistently getting better, and I feel stagnant. But we tend not to see my own improvements and comparisons start.
I think it's natural though to feel this way, it shows you care about your work and that you really want it to grow better and get better. I think we all get a bit impatient with ourselves in the long run though.

Just know there is no rivalry, we should just take in our pros and cons from each other as creative individuals and move forward. (easier said then done of course) We all have a little green monster inside of us.

[joannekwan]

Aw shucks, thanks for the kind words!

But on this note

But I suppose I feel deep admiration and complete envy at the same time for a popular series for the exact reasons you do. Because I thoroughly enjoy the stories and artwork being done.

lol I actually don't particularly like the series that are giving me these issues. The stories are just "ok" for me and I find some of the artwork to be mediocre and a few suffer from same-face syndrome. I can see the appeal of these series to a wide audience though and reluctantly understand how they're so popular.

If I did like the work I wouldn't think "Ugh, this again. NEXT!" every time I saw it. xD

[Dorian_Grey]

The stories are just "ok" for me and I find some of the artwork to be mediocre and a few suffer from same-face syndrome.

AH I misunderstood then! THOSE stories.
I cannot stand same face syndrome....you found my pet peeve of all time.

I agree then, I understand why these comics are liked, and then I completely don't understand it. Probably my line of questioning is the same as my questioning of why something like Twilight is so popular, and yet i understand why it gathers such a large audience. Okay stories for simple people are easier to appeal?? Either way, you got me. XD

[kambreapratt]

I can't think if any particular comic that is like ours or that bothers me. I get more bothered by people who but traffic, alexa, etc. ir super arrogant people.

[AnnaLandin]

I don't think I have a particular comic rival for Grassblades, no. I mean, I get sudden stings of jealousy, yes, but that's mostly for other artists in general and their mad skillz or cool jobs, not because their work is particularly similar to mine.

Grassblades is already consciously inspired by a good number of established tropes (as seen in Lone Wolf and Cub, Blade of the Immortal, etc.), so I was kind of aware of that going in. Up until now, I haven't really found anything that makes me feel haunted in that way, I guess?

I do have a BUNCH of anxieties about my work, but they're pretty non-specific. Just this.... amorphous cloud of fear that occasionally forces me to unplug my computer and go play Spyro the Dragon and eat cookies until I feel better. >.<

[Aspie_Gamer]

Well nothing out there is quite like Life of an Aspie so that's good though at the same time I've worried in the past that nobody's really going to read it either because of my art style or because LoaA hasn't found its "footing" yet story wise.

[R.n.P]

I don't get that feeling cuz I take mine as a hobby, plus I know if I should start comparing mine to another persons comic it will give me unnecessary things to worry about.
But I guess if I actually know the person I'm comparing myself to it would be fun to have a friendly rivalry n all but its too bad that my friends that make comics don't seem interested in uploading them on a website, they juz draw them and keep them sealed up from the world

[KSlinger]

Yes. A thousand times yes. And I feel awful about it too.

Sometimes I see comics that are insanely good and I promote and adore and gush over them without a second thought-- probably because they're fantastic but so far removed from my own I feel no contention. Then there are others I'm way too bitter to acknowledge. They're like a beautiful family member I penalise for being everything I'm not. It isn't fair and they deserve recognition, but seeing them around is just a reminder of all the things I'm not doing.

Can't help it. Can't stop. But we can be bastards together, hey?

[MrKyleRose]

My comic The Working Stiff is about two horribly frightening things: Zombies and Working in an office, so yes it haunts me.

[DeadAccount]

I do get a little jealous of any comic that gets featured and rakes up more subs in a matter of days than I've been earning for months, I'm not gonna lie! But at the same time those comics are usually very different from what we're doing, so I guess the issue here's that D&W doesn't cater to the target audience as much as BL/fantasy/gag-a-days/young adulty stuff. Having said that, considering how niche our genre and premise is, I'm not too haunted or anxious about it, if anything, things are going better than expected. I'd much rather stick with what I enjoy drawing than try to appease everyone anyway

[joannekwan]

Absolutely! Drugs & Wires is super unique and I like it that way! ^^

[DuneDeca]

I actually had a super similar thing happen to me back when I was working on a fancomic!

I was working on a fancomic at the same time another one built around the same idea was around. It started out on pretty even ground before some of their fans said very negative things to me. I grew more and more bitter over them when they got special treatment from the content creators. ex; They were allowed to charge 30$ per page while my donation button got me slammed with a salty cease and desist. I eventually quit but it left me pretty scarred about putting any sort of hard work or effort into fanmade things.

Other than that though, I consider myself pretty lucky to have an original enough concept for my comic that I haven't run into anything similar. It's always really worrying when something similar comes up. You never know how it will effect relations between you and it leads into this awkward nervous "do I approach this person and attempt to make friends, or ignore them entirely?"

[joannekwan]

Gee! That's horrible! I'm sorry you had such a crap experience.

And yeah, if I saw a series or idea that was too close to my work I would sweat bullets! Even so, if something is remotely in the ball park of where I'm hitting I get a little pestered.

[Wolven_Sister]

It's such a curse to bear being an artist and even more so as a comic artist since we're not only competing with art but also with story. And there's so many people in this world, a lot of very creative minds some stories become accidentally similar to each other so we're also vying for originality too.

I've come across so many comics similar to mine and at first it scares me. I get worried that people may think I'm "stealing material". But I'm the type of person that I'll defend my works to my grave and I always review my plots to ensure that I'm really not clashing too close with another person's storyline. And on the rare occasions where I'm nervous I may be cutting it too close with another creator's story then I edit mine, some minor or huge overhauls.

But other than that, what really gets me envious is when I see a comic series similar to mine that obviously took less time with their art, like it takes them an hour or so to make a page while it takes me 6+ hours to make one of my pages and I see them with a billion subscribers. That irks me and then I feel bad because I have no idea what kind of hardships that creator may have gone through to get that kind of popularity. So instead of viewing them with bitterness I try to rise to meet them, and view them as an obstacle I can rise above in a friendly positive way like "I respect this creator but I'm gonna try and get my comic more popular than theirs :') "