Mar 2023
4 / 10
Mar 2023
Mar 2023
moontokkym
Mar '23

So I'm going to try and congregate every current question I have in one thread because I don't want to spam, so here we go:

1) Pacing issues
I've been doing my best to mitigate this by doing a lot of work in the storyboard and text writing stage but it's still really difficult to judge if my pacing is too fast or too slow. Basically the issue I'm facing is that there are two different audiences for my comic: the current audience reading 1 page per week as it publishes for whom I'd be inclined to speed up the plot so that they don't have to wait 3 years for the really juicy stuff to happen, and the people who'll read my comic in a year when there's like 70 pages for whom I want to slow the pacing because otherwise everything can seem like it's really rushed and happens really fast. I personnally am a terrible judge of this because not only am I hopping around drawing chapter 2 while outlining the middle of act 2 while writing chapter 7 and rewriting chapter 3, it also takes me like 72h per page to draw, so everything seems so slow.

All that to say, my question is: do you have any tips to take a step back and more objectively judge pacing despite this time difference between how long it takes to make, how long it takes to publish and how long it takes to read?

2) Artstyle
I have a dream sequence in my comic that is... Freudian, shall we say, and these dream sequences will be semi-regular throughout the comic. I want to make it a bit floaty and trippy so I decided that the dream sequences will have a slightly different artstyle to them, traditional lineart and colour imitating watercolour paint drawn digitally (where as usually everything is digital and lineart is less visible). I'm sort of doubting this choice because of elements of question 3 and because I publish a page a week, I'm worried that a sudden shift will confuse the audience into thinking this is a permanent thing.

Question: is deliberate temporary artstyle change something that would potentially confuse you as a reader? Or should I put a disclaimer "this is a dream"? (There are 5 pages for the dream sequence so there's a month of publishing in this style)

3) Artstyle part 2 electric boogaloo
Drawing takes time and I've noticably improved (to me at least) in drawing since I started. However, because I'm so slow, this noticable shift has happened in the space of 40 pages, which seems like a new reader would notice too. I also don't want to go back and fix the older pages right now because I've already been trapped in the "not good enough" loop of going back and fixing stuff for 2 years and not getting anything new done. I also know that to some extent readers expect improvement through your comic in time as you get comfortable in your style, but I also don't want to rely on them trusting me to do well when they have no inherent reason to.

Question: when do you know it's time to go back and fix old pages for the good of the comic and when is it ok to leave them and move on?

4) Moral quandries about advertising
I am a queer person and I love seeing LGBTQ+ people in books and comics because when I was a teen I straight up did not see myself anywhere, even in characters that had thé same label as me. I want people who are like me to find my comic, because I have a lot of LGBTQ+ characters and themes of self discovery and found family and learning to open up that I and hopefully other people can relate to, all while being cool scifi characters.

However, again the slow problem: a lot of that part of the character's identities (or even some of the characters themselves) have not been introduced or explored yet and won't be for a while at the current pace. In my comic there's a lesbian couple, a gay couple, multiple trans and non binary people, ace people and even a couple of hetero people thrown in the mix for flavour but I don't want to just chuck them around as marketing even when people explicitly ask for them (or feel bad when I do offer them up) because they're not only more than just that, they're also not out yet, some in multiple senses of the word. I feel like advertising my comic as LGBTQ+ is like quasi-queerbating and/or outing certain characters before they're ready because it's not explicit yet. I know when things are marketed LGBTQ+ people expect to go in and actually have those confirmed gay, bi, lesbian, trans, ace, non binary, etc... characters running around doing their stuff, and they are, it's just not confirmed yet.

Question: would you think it's ok given the circumstances to talk about my comic as having LGBTQ+ characters in it now? Or should I hold off and wait for the story to be further along?

Thank you for your time reading, I'm kind of nervous posting this. There may be more questions lower down in the thread if I think of any more, I'll try and keep everything clear for you.

  • created

    Mar '23

  • last reply

    Mar '23
  • 9

    replies

  • 960

    views

  • 8

    users

  • 17

    likes

  • 2

    links

BlairFujin
Mar '23

Can't really answer all your questions (for example I've decided against going back and redrawing my old works, the only retroactive changes I made was fixing some spelling/grammar errors when compiling first part/season/whatever of my comic into a single pdf)

But, for the temporary artstyle change, maybe you could just start page/episode/chapter in your regular style, add some transition and the within the same release go with the dream one - I think that would communicate what you're going for

And I think it's fine labelling your work as lgbtq+ before those topics get brought up, just if asked let people know that this subject will be discussed later on

darthmongoose
Mar '23

1)
So long as your weekly updates are mostly, in and of themselves, interesting content, you can go as slow as you like and still maintain an audience. There are a lot of comics on Tapas that after establishing a very strong core concept in the first few updates, just kinda drift along with little bits of character interaction for hundreds of pages. If the interactions, jokes, plot reveals, action sequences or whatever that are happening are interesting and worth chatting about or reacting to, you're fine!
Personally, I try to make sure every update has at least one thing that's funny, cool, emotional or plot important, so just like something readers can react to and feel like choosing to tap that update notification wasn't a waste of their time.

2)
I think it really depends on the length of these dream sequences. If the updates look clearly different from what's established, people will probably pick up on it being a dream and a deliberate stylistic choice. Like there's a chapter of Gunnerkrigg Court where everything goes into almost total black and white, and this much more pulpy style of dialogue and stuff... but because it's so clearly deliberate, it works. Naruto does a pretty clever stylistic thing in using black borders on pages that are flashbacks to differentiate them from the present events with white ones. So consider things like blurry or cloudy or different coloured borders, really push the psychadelic angle and the weirdness, and people will probably pick up the point.
I wouldn't recommend putting this sequence too early in the comic though. Best to establish what's "normal" first.

3)
The difference between your art a year ago and your current art will always look bigger to you than to other people, and if you look back on two pieces drawn at the start of the year and end of the year from 5+ years ago, they probably won't look that different relative to the much bigger improvement of those works from several years ago compared to your current art.
Only go back and fix old pages if the comic has been going for at least 3 years and the early pages are so different that they actually might give a wrong impression. Honestly, I wouldn't personally recommend it unless there's been a really drastic style change, like a switch from black and white to colour, or swapping from pencil crayons and fineliners to full digital inks and colour or something.

Honestly though, unless the existing comic has a significant readership, you'd be better off just finishing it up and starting something new. Usually it's not just drawing skill and presentation that improves, but writing and storytelling skill.

When I came around to the idea of revisiting my comic I'd taken a 9 year break from, I ended up just completely rebooting and taking the opportunity to fix issues with the plot, make the cast more diverse and have more freedom to draw it using what I'd learned in the meantime. Trying to go back and fix Fan Dan Go and bring it up to the level of Errant would be close to impossible, because even if I redrew all the panels, it'd still have the weaknesses in the storytelling and characterisation. Don't be George Lucas and keep going back to fuss around with something that was already fine. Make it, release it, learn from it, move on.

4)
I've been in this exact situation with my comic. I actually originally launched Errant in the Action section on Tapas, and honestly I see it as an Action Fantasy comic with queer characters (and eventually romance), more than a "queer comic".

I think overall the thing is, queer people aren't only queer when we're doing activities or dealing with feelings based around our sexuality and gender, and LGBTQ+ representation isn't only valuable when dealing with those things. I do like to think of Errant as a comic that anyone can enjoy; you can be 100% cishet and enjoy it as this story about this well meaning lass trying to atone for bad life decisions and punching demons in the face (and some of my readers are, which is great!).... But for some people, it's a story about a woman coming to terms with being kinda less straight than she thought on top of all the other hassles of being a young adult woman in a judgemental society... or it's a story about a group of friends all working together and dealing with one of them being nonbinary and autistic, a bisexual guy whose ex boyfriend still lives with him, a lesbian who has obvious trauma caused by the main villain and feels scared to commit to anything because of it... And also they fight monsters and have cool swords and stuff. For some people, it being not just a fun action fantasy story, but one where they can see somebody like themselves getting to be cool and a main character rather than a side one, written by a queer creator who can base things on real experience, is a really important ingredient, and those people would be looking for that content in the LGBTQ+ section, and browsing hashtags for queer comics.

thepenmonster
Mar '23

Sad truth is that archives are rarely accessed on any sort of online medium. So draw for the people going on the journey with you.

Trust them to not be idiots. And if they are idiots trust them to eventually stop being so.

Always move on to the next page.

If the discovering one's queerness is the point of the comic, it would make sense to start with that in the open. If it's just that you have some queer people in it... ehn? Either or.

rajillustration
Mar '23

1.) Pacing is really tricky! I do long scroll format, which actually makes this a little easier since I have to do at least 15 panels an episode, but when I was doing page and only had like 5-10 panels to get something interesting out it really was hard to hold an audience. It may be helpful to release more than one page at a time, some people update like 3-5 pages per episode, although it may be less times a month. that's something you have to figure out on your own, by experimenting with it and asking your audience what they prefer. But, people do expect every update to have something of value. It doesn't need to be a huge plot development, but it must have some sort of value, even if it's just aesthetic.

Doing webcomics makes you super aware of the pacing in other media and in other comics, and I think that if you read what other people are making it's a really good study to just take notes of how they're doing it. Like how do they leave some sort of hook at the end of the update to keep people coming back? How do they condense lore information that would have otherwise been a few episodes of plot dump? since I only update 2x a month, if nothing happens for 50 episodes, that's 2 years of nothing, and basically the death of my comic, so I've been really trying to pay attention to that.

2.) this is very common, you're fine. I do this, too, no one gets confused.

3.) When it comes to redoing all work, while I do think there's merit in redoing your first 3 episodes, there really isn't a point to redoing all of your old work for no reason other than you improved. The first 3 episodes are what's going to really hook your audience, and so they're the most important. But as for the rest, it's most important that it's legible, not that it's the best art ever made. So if there's legibility problems and confusing areas, absolutely go back into it and fix it. But if it's just less polished, you can leave that for when you truly actually have the time to fix it (which will probably only happen if your work got popular and you had to take it to a printer).

4.) So like this is more personal opinion from a straight perspective, but while it makes sense to use the LGTBQ+ genre if your story falls into that, I think we should be more careful about how we use social media hashtags that are meant for visibility for people--like real ass people, not fictional people--and the struggles that they're going through--real struggles, not about the fiction you wrote. So since you are from that group, it's fine to use that hashtag. It's meant to highlight you. But for me, a straight person, I should probably leave it for people that need it. There's no hard set rule about this, but it's something I feel very strongly, especially after seeing how people drowned out activism during Black Lives Matter, speaking over the people who were actually trying to protest and get things done because they wanted to advertise their shop and their products and fictional characters.

If there's a place like a discord where people are seeking comics with LGTQB+ characters, or if there is a list someone is making of stories with that, then yeah, absolutely let them know your comic will eventually have that. It's up to the reader at that point to decide if they want to wait to see who it is.

But as for using the genre tag, I personally wrote a comic before my current one where the main guy is bi, but because it wasn't like he walked around with a sign on his face, you really couldn't tell. (in fact, it was a plot point he didn't like to be labelled, so it didn't make sense for me to label him or for him to assign a label to his feelings, especially since everyone else around him knew his dating history.) So while at first I was like, yeah, I'll use this label in comic places because it has a character in there, I realized...that's not enough for my audience's expectations. Same thing when I was writing a comic where it was a sci fi and my starcaptain was a lesbian, but I never got to the part where her wifey shows up, like it just wasn't really worth taking advantage of a minority group to try and capitalize on them. Especially since like I go the library a lot, and maybe it's just my library, but it is not hard to find LGBTQ+ fiction anymore. It is 2023. I don't deserve a gold star just because I wrote a few LGBTQ+ people. I have done nothing different than most writers who are writing today.

So like if you feel like your story matches other LGBTQ+ content, then use the genre all you like, it's not like there's a genre police or a hashtag police for that matter. But if you're feeling like you know what the audience expects and that you're not giving them that, maybe ask people's opinions who write in that genre what they think. It's in the end a personal decision, and I don't think people judge other people about what they decide to do, ultimately.

TheLemmaLlama
Mar '23

Ah yes, the question of 'should you advertise an element of your comic that hasn't appeared yet and probably won't for a while?' I've struggled with this as well, though my element isn't LGBT themes ^^; It's one of the reasons I'm trying to hold off on advertising my comic until I've finished my first arc :stuck_out_tongue:

But yeah, I don't see many people talk about this particular problem, and I'm not sure I have the best answers either, but I guess you could do the 'golden rule test': If you yourself as a queer person looking for representation stumbled across a webcomic that is marketed as LGBTQ+, but the LGBTQ+ elements hasn't showed up for a while, would you feel queerbaited? Or maybe you don't feel queerbaited, but you get bored of waiting for the part of the comic you're there for?

I personally feel like I would get bored with my own comic as a reader if I advertised some of the elements of my later arcs, and that's why I've made the decision to wait and get more stuff out before advertising. You might come to a different conclusion for your comic. In the end though, I feel like as long as you're transparent (e.g. just tell 'em what you said here that you will have explicitly LGBTQ+ character comfirmed at some point in the story), no-one can really hold that against you and if they do, I'll fight them :stuck_out_tongue:

Katzalcoatl
Mar '23
2

1) Pacing

DON'T RUSH!! Let your story flow naturally. Make a faster pacing when there is action, danger, or other tense moments that need it. Having a fast pacing the whole time can make important scenes seem less important. Balance your work with the slow scenes. Changing pacing makes danger scenes seem that much more intense. Or slowing the pace can make a romance scene feel more personal.

2) Artstyle

Like everyone else said, it is fine. Just make it clear it is a dream somewhere along the way. Like making the character wake up. It really depends on how you handle the dream. Some dreams it is easy to tell they are dreams. Artstyle changes do not confuse readers when done right.

3) Artstyle 2

If your artstyle has changed a lot, then I suggest only going back to redo the first few chapters. They are the first thing your audience sees. But like @darthmongoose mentioned, most of the time it is the same artist the only one who notices. I would suggest asking a third party before deciding if you should redo a chapter or not.

4) Moral quandries about advertising

Slow down!!! It is a super common mistake that writers have. They want to introduce every character they have. They also want to be inclusive so everyone can identify. This causes the opposite effect.

Wanting to rush your character introductions only makes your readers feel like your story is forced. It also prevents your readers from identifying with anyone. Mainly because you are trying to give air time to all characters. The is (s)he or is (s)he not is a great weapon writers have.
Just look at "She-ra and the princess of powers." All characters are different and only a few had their identities clear from the moment of their introduction. Some got introduced slowly while others were left in a limbo of is (s)he is (s)he not.

My suggestion is to introduce the characters slowly let the reader get to know them with you, the author.
Don't rush. Don't make things forced. Concentrate on your MC's introduction first. Introduce every once in a while characters with clear identities while keep the others in a state of is (s)he is (s)he not.

I have seen many great stories get ruined just to touch all identities of all characters they want. But that just makes it feel forced. Perfect example of this is the novel of "I'm in love with the Villainess".

The story started as a GL comedy. But then it added several characters that created plot holes and complecated the story a lot.
They added a girl love rival who was the cousin of the FL but for some reason she didn't show interest in the FL when the MC wasn't in the picture. The new character basically let the FL flirt with scumbag secondary ML until the MC appeared she suddenly became interested in the FL in a romantic manner. Then they added a plot in which a person was cursed to become a woman which is fine. I really liked how said person was exploring their sexuality. Then they added an incest plot (literal brother and sister)... I was like alright.... then they added a past life plot in which the MC was lesbian who got bullied by another lesbian. MC got isolated. Years later she met the lesbian bully again but it turned out she wasn't lesbian. He was a trans person. They apologized for bullying MC and then they suicided.

Back to present life incest couple tried to kill everyone they got exhiled then they got supported by MC to win money (even though they tried to kill her an the FL she loved). MC supported a revolution from the background. She met another lesbian who fell in love with MC but she could transform into a man who was hypnotized and was the main enemy?

Anyway as you can see it got super messy and confusing the plot. Instead of feeling sad about the suicide of the bully I was just left confused with how many things were happening at the same time. I prefer a slow and steady introduced character over just introducing a character identity just for the sake of having an identity.

P.S. Remember your story is still at chapter 1... you can't expect to introduce all characters in just 1 chapter. Take your time and let the story flow naturally. Casually explore each identity once the times come. Rushing never does anyone any good.

moontokkym
Mar '23

Thank you everyone for your feedback! I didn't respond to all of you individually because I wanted to take time to digest what you've said and try to apply it!

For current pages I'm going to take your advice and work hard to make at least one stand out element on every page, be it a story beat, a really cool panel or just the art and colour generally. I'll also try and make sure each page has a unity of new information and/or action with character reactions to that, hopefully that'll make sure the pacing is engaging while giving the comic time to breathe with character feelings in more heartfelt moments. I have no idea if I'll be able to pull it off, but I'll try!

For the dream sequence, I'm going to trust my readers. I know that how I've made it I would pick up on it and I'm not the brightest, so I really shouldn't underestimate them. I tried doing black panel outlines like was suggested but that makes the page look a lot heavier (it's a very bright white sequence at the start) so instead I've opted to change panel outlines to be thinner and have the panels be more like floating boxes over the main page panel, that way it still noticably shifts but without breaking the general light feeling of the page. Thank you for your suggestions, I don't think I would have gotten here without them!

I've decided against going back (yet) to fix previous pages, you've really helped me get some perspective on how other people see what I draw vs how I criticise everything I do. I will definitely go back of I ever get a print run to fix a couple of faces before printing because they're not up to snuff even by previous me standards and I couldn't in good conscience put them on a tree. But that's for later :wink:

As for the advertising, I've decided to maintain the LGBTQ+ tag for now, and to everyone I've talked about my comic to in this light I've made sure to warn them that it's not going to be explicitly there if they look right now so that they can take that info and choose for themselves. Chapter 2 is when some topics start to get hinted at and I'm really not that subtle, so I know that by chapter 2 people who have felt these things will pick up on them and see the characters for who they are before having it explicitly confirmed. Like you said I should trust my readers more. I'm currently drawing chapter 2 so even if it only starts publishing in May, it's still May rather than January 2024 like I thought it would be for explicit confirmation.

I also did a bit of thinking and a lot of the elements like found family, relationship to religion, fighting for rights, coming of age, feeling like you have to hide parts of yourself to fit in... Together they make the story have a lot of themes queer people can relate to, even outside of the queer characters, so even the stuff in the story that isn't explicitly about being LGBTQ+ is kind of a queer experience.

This also made me think about the audience I want and the audience I want to protect, so I went back to my comic blurb and added a warning about current and future content because (basing myself on film age warning standards) the stuff in my comic will eventually make it 16+ advisory despite there only being some foul language in it right now. In the same way I want people who will enjoy the comic's future contents to come and see it, I don't want people to get into it and then be blindsided by stuff they don't want to see or they're not comfortable with like distorsion body horror half-way through and need to stop.

I want to thank you all again for your feedback and prompting me to think about related topics as well, you've all been so helpful and kind for taking time out of your day to write here!

I'll get back to drawing now, I've got a lot of work to do ~

Katzalcoatl
Mar '23

Love the hinting in chapter 2. Also glad we could help. I am delighted to savvy that you now know which direction you want to take your story on.

tyowens
Mar '23

I love your fourth question. As a fellow member of the queer community and writer of content that I've labeled LGBTQ+, I struggled with similar thoughts about my story as I was working on it initially. I personally made the choice that I did not want to reveal everyone's identity at the start of the story because I think it's really important for the readers to see some of the characters come out on their own terms and when they chose to do so. I feel strongly about that because it's part of what my characters are going through and the reasoning behind some of the story, and also like you, is a story that I had wanted to see growing up. But I also struggle with wanting to hint at and advertise that there is more diversity coming in the future of my story if people can stick around long enough. Or maybe we just accept that a long time from now people will be able to read more content and see where the story got to, and that will pull in new readers or bring back the old ones who didn't see it all at the start.

Based on my limited experience, I have seen a range of other stories out there. I have seen some stories where readers want to see character sheets and have every character labeled with their sexuality and pronouns so they can feel like they understand who the characters are from the start. I've also seen some really great stories that have gone on for YEARS that took forever, or still haven't gotten to the actual queer reveal. Is that queerbaiting? Idk, but I like the build and mystery better than just having a story rushed and being told upfront who everyone is.

There's nothing wrong with labeling out all your characters up front, there are some stories that are not about the process of coming out, but just showing queer characters in literature. If coming to terms with queerness is minimal or nonexistent in the theme of the story, and it's more just about having (for example) a sci-fi space opera that just happens to have a lot of queer representation, then maybe you want your characters to be all on display at the start. But if part of your story is the intention of slowly adding more characters and revealing their diversity over time, where their own coming to terms with their queerness is important, then be confident and own the slow reveal, I think it's a great way to go. I also have several characters that I won't introduce for a long time. I really think it's ok to take your time. I fully support you labeling the work as LGBTQ+ because you have the right intentions, and I'd love to read another story that has a slow reveal of characters and learn about them as they grow comfortable in expressing themselves.