Holding my first Q&A for my comic, any tips or advice?

[dotsandswirls]

I got a request from one of my readers to do a Q&A for my comic. I thought it sounded like a lot of fun and an excellent way to celebrate reaching 1'300 subscribers on my comic Cover-up!

It's just that I've never held a Q&A before.

So I was wondering, have you ever done a Q&A for your comics? Do you have any advice? Any tips on what I could/should do? What is expected of a Q&A?
I'd love to hear what you think!

(I've posted a kind of "call for questions" on my wall, if you want to know what I've posted about it here.)

[jacintawibowo]

Hi there! Congrats on the milestone 8D
I did a Q&A session for my second series and considering it was also my first time doing it, I did a bit of research. The research paid off, and there was an overwhelmingly positive response- even people saying they didn't usually enjoy Q&As said they loved it! I'd love to share what I found :B

• Readers prefer to have the session between finished stories. Whether its at the end of a chapter or story arc, make sure it doesn't interrupt the flow of your comic.
• Making the sessions a satisfying read is important! I'll go over how that works in the next few points-
• Get a handful of questions to answer in each episode of Q&A, one or two tend to be too short.
• Avoid short answers. Let the character ramble for a bit so that the interaction between the reader and character is more fun to read. If you want to answer a short question (for example, what's your fav color?) mix it in an episode with long answers in between.

• Don't focus the questions on one character. Make sure you have reader questions for as many characters as you can, and preferably for your main characters. A Q&A session that focuses on supporting or background characters comes off as weird.

• Make the answers fun and entertaining to read but don't lose sight of answering the question. I've seen some Q&As that do this, (and all though it's fun seeing the characters go off tangent and make a bunch of jokes) sometimes your reader REALLY wanted to know the answer to their question, and it looks really clear that you're avoiding it or forgot about it. Be enthusiastic, but stay focused.

• If it's a world building question, please for the love of exposition gods make it interesting! Don't wall-of-text an explanation like a textbook. Readers tend to scroll past that stuff.

• Figure out a drawing style that's easy to draw so that you can answer a lot of questions. In my case, I drew head-to-waist characters answering questions so that there's plenty of room for acting and that I don't strain myself drawing their full bodies. I focus on flats with no shading, just so that I can get lots of drawing done. No need to over-render for a Q&A session.

Hope that helps!

[Zanreo]

Clarify what "kind" of Q&A it is - is it an "ask the characters" Q&A, "ask the author"/questions about the comic itself, ect?
I once got a question for me on a Q&A supposed to be "ask the characters" (however I still managed to make it into something amusing x3)

[dotsandswirls]

Wow! Thank you so much, those are some great tips! I'll definitely use them!
I have a little chapter-break coming up now, so that will be a perfect time to post Q&A comics

[dotsandswirls]

I have three characters that will be answering the questions, but I've left it open for questions about the comic as well. So far I've only gotten questions about the characters though ^^