How did you decide to start making comics/novels?

[Wolsal]

Hi all! So, what inspired you to make comics/novels in the first place?
For me, I’ve been drawing since I was super young, so it’s always been a thing I’d do. My dad used to tell me stories, and when I was a little boy I’d draw them.
I continued creating art until eventually, almost 2 years ago, I decided that I’d publish my first comic on Tapas. It’s now inactive, but I have better comics now that are active! What inspired me in the first place was YouTubers/artists like LavenderTowne, SirFluff, TwistedDoctor, the list goes on. Nowadays, my inspirations include those, but I’m also inspired by things like Cult Of The Lamb, Jhonen Vasquez, etc etc.
So, artists and writers, what’s your story?
(Also, feel free to link to your stories of course! I’d love to check them out and see what inspiration and see your creations!)

Read The Totally Not Evil Angel | Tapas Web Community

[Aeneas1]

This is going to be difficult to explain. Several words: Shakespeare; Harry Potter; Dante Alighieri; Lloyd Alexander (an author virtually no one here in Britain has read); Narnia (the BOOKS, not those DAMNABLE films); Wind in the Willows and so on. I always wanted to write books for young-adults, and that was partly as a result of Harry Potter’s success. To be honest, I rested on my laurels back then. I should have published here on the Internet ten years ago.

As for what got me into comics, well, eventually I decided I wanted more pictures and less words. I suppose part of what converted me, even before I read Alan Moore’s Watchmen was Stephen Collins’ The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil. That was one of those things which awakened me to the medium’s potential. Other works I read after Watchmen included Raymond Briggs’ When the Wind Blows, The Sandman, and every single major Japanese comic strip under the bloomin’ sun!

[Ayumi]

I always loved drawing, and writing stories. I met manga and anime in my teen years, and had so much fun with reading and watching them, and they made me comfort when I felt out of place. I've found a hungarian comic too, and I thought that this is something I could do too. If I like drawing, and writing, and can make others to enjoy my works as much as I enjoy mangas, then why not start to draw my own comic?

[rosskesi]

I’ve always loved manga and anime and used to draw A LOT when I was child. I have always dreamed of creating my own one day. My story has been in my head since I was in middle school tbh but it wasn’t until COVID hit that I decided to put the pen to the pad and just go for it!

Manga and anime impacted me so much and I truly love it.

[Leyelle]

I've been writing stories my whole life. I loved reading, listening to audio dramas, etc. So I just started writing. I've been writing stories since I was like five and I just never stopped.

I started writing professionally in my teens because I needed to make money lol. I don't have a lot in the way of education and live in a developing country, so writing is the only thing I have going for me where I can say 'I'm just as good as other people, just as qualified to work this job, even if I don't have the degrees etc. that other people have.'

The first piece I published was when I was 15 in a magazine, and since then I've been published in a few other magazines and one anthology, and I also have my other stories I share here on Tapas. It's not an easy career, but I'm dedicated and I hope I'll do well XD.

Read Damsel in the Red Dress :: Damsel in the Red Dress | Tapas Community

[ArtGremlin]

I think it started over two years ago- My older sister and I liked to play role playing games together when we should have been sleeping. (we share a room) The last time we ever did that started with her telling me I should draw a guy with a treasure chest for a head and that he should be a pirate. We made up a story and more characters surrounding this guy and my unnamed pirate story that I hope to make in the future was born.

From this story I realized how much I wanted to make it into comic, but I knew I wasn’t ready for something quite that ambitious. So I started my first Comic, August. Then I restarted it because it got off to an awkward start. Then my current comic (which got started as a side project) was born.

[vapidink]

Well, I've been a bookworm since I was little. Also, my brothers are all much older than me and had a lot of comics, so I was reading those and watching anime when I was still in pre-k, lol. My parents didn't really care what I watched/read so long as I didn't get scared, so there was baby me watching all sorts of movies and being exposed to so many stories that I kinda fell in love with storytelling. And then came fanfics, lol.

I stared writing fics in middle school, got a pretty good following online and then moved onto original stories sometime in high school. During this whole time I read and watched a lot of manga and anime, so I got into drawing, but I knew I didn't have the skills to make a comic. The first site I posted original stories on was FictionPress, but then I moved to Wattpad.

I got into digital art around the time I joined Wattpad because I wanted to be able to make my own covers, so I've been improving enough to where I knew it was possible for me to do a little comic. I made short one for a contest on Tapas because I've always wanted to try it out. I'm hoping to make another short one in the future, because it was a fun experience!

[justincarbunkle]

When I realized animation was too time-intensive for me, but I still wanted to create stories with my cartoon characters. After years of making nothing, I just started doing it, forced myself to stay consistent, and haven't stopped since.

[binahwrites]

well, I always like writing stories and characters, i used to share my docs with some of my closest friends then one day they told me "You should put them online" but I was indecisive so they bribed me with a cheesecake if I uploaded for one month, I won the cheesecake and people like Tales of Valor so I keep up updating and now the first volume is about the be fully updated, I'm working on the second and have some other side projects.

The moral of the story, just hit upload especially if you get cheesecake from it.

[ArtGremlin]

The moral of the story, just hit upload especially if you get cheesecake from it.

Wise words.

[twenty characters]

[kyupol]

Decided to go When I was 15 years old. Just a loser stuck in my corner when everyone else socialized.

[Wolsal]

Honestly that’s a great origin story. Cheesecake.

[dayworks]

I was inspired by my two adopted children. Over the course of 2 or so years I told them the ongoing story of their adventures with their talking dogs. (got me out of getting them a real dog - for awhile) Most of it was complete nonsense. If you have to come up with with 20 minutes of original material every two days you will be making a lot of hack crap in short order. In any case, at some point I decided to bring the story to a conclusion AND that story seemed like it might be good. Hell I wanted to know what was going to happen next. One part of the story freaked my youngest out so bad that I had to skip a lot of the middle and get to the happy ending so everybody could get to bed but I was inspired to Write THAT story down. Which I did to the tune of of about 69,000 words.

Later on I decided to turn into a graphic as a Pandemic project to keep myself busy and away from the Pandemic day-time despair drinking.

Read Two Dog Paranormal Investigations LLC | Tapas Web Community

[Wolsal]

This is genuinely the sweetest thing! Your art is so beautiful too! Reminds me of the stories my dad used to make up about me and my siblings. When they grow up, I’m 100% positive they’ll cherish the art and stories you make, I know I did.

[supriyashukla2398]

Read Imperfectly - Perfect | Tapas Web Community

It all began when I started creating characters in my imaginary world. These characters and their stories became so vivid and compelling that I thought, "Why not bring them into a novel?" That's how my journey into novel writing began.

[riddp]

I mostly write but for a new series, I felt it would be good as a comic. And after asking my friends to draw, I thought maybe I could draw. Considering my characters were also simple for a beginner like me, I gave a try

[SagaHolmgaard]

At first I wanted to be an illustrator, who also wrote books and illustrated them sometimes. I started wanting to make my own webcomic when I first discovered webcomics, somewhere during highschool or right before starting highschool? Back then I was reading Paranatural, Monsterkind, and some other hiveworks comics and I was really inspired!

I tried a bunch of times during highschool, but I clearly just didn't know how to create such a big project. It was while studying at uni that I finally managed to launch my own webcomic on Tapas. That was in 2019, and I'm not updating it currently. Now I'm more interested in making comics in Swedish and sharing more locally But I wouldn't have gotten here if I hadn't first decided I wanted to make webcomics!

[Lensing]

True story, kind of embarassing but also cute:

Summer of 1983, I was at 8 years old and my uncle and aunt´s place in Frankfurt/Germany.
My uncle had Asterix comics. I started reading the comics and fell in love with
the medium and the characters. I wanted to be Asterix, then this feeling transformed
into wanting to draw Asterix, then transformed into wanting to be a comic book artist.

I was always a strange kid and my parents supported me being strange. I was wearing
a bowler hat in school when I was at that age and I had a weird clothes style which made
me some kind of outsider anyway. I sucked at everything, I had bad grades in school
and was bad at sports. I was very creative and one of the reasons was that my parents
didn´t have much entertainment in the house but we had one acoustic guitar and always
large printer paper and pens. So my brother and me would draw comics all day to entertain
us. Then I started drawing in class instead of listening to what the teacher said.
Girls started to get interested because they liked that I was good at drawing.
That´s how I pretty much spend my life until I was 16 and left school with horrible grades
and no plan what to do

[Emalie]

I think it's because of my family. My dad liked to draw although he took a different path towards art. Let's say that his life had many ups and downs and although he loved to draw, he never had the opportunity to be an artist.

His sister was a painter, and she dedicated herself to painting portraits until she couldn't anymore due to illness, so I think some of their talents impacted me, although if I'm honest I'm taking it as therapy for myself and not as a profession. It makes me feel comfortable with what I do.

As for writing, although my mom is not a writer, she won two short story contests when she was young and loves to read. However, as in the case of my dad, she works on something different that is not related to writing a novel.

[2DLenzy]

I actually used to do short comics/stories since a young age. I remember listening to amazing stories told/enacted by the teacher aid, in elementary school, which is where I learned to daydream and grow an imagination.
But my real "I wanna make comics" moment happened around 4 years ago, when the pandemic was still a thing. I was actually hanging out with my uncle and mom and they were talking about fryer chickens. Gave me the idea to do a short funnies comic based on a chicken who was a friar, but that story soon spun into more heavy dramatic stuff. It's technically not the first comic/story I've ever done, but it's definitely the first ever to be published online.
I had wanted to do comics since I was very little, just had a hard time actually doing the work cause I was alone in the process. Now that I'm older and have access to technology and resources I'd never thought I'd have, it's been a fun process.

This current comic is all by trial and error, and it's gotten me very interested in doing digital art overall. I'm very excited to see what other stories I can come up with down the line.