Many of you mentioned "my friends are making webtoon" ... Do many of you live in the same city???
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Feb '21
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Feb '21
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Many of you mentioned "my friends are making webtoon" ... Do many of you live in the same city???
There's a comic makers group in my city, which I've never attended, but I intend to visit in the future. I think it meets monthly. I forgot it existed until a couple of weeks ago! Turns out I followed their Facebook group years ago, way before I was even considering making a comic.
I also work with a friend as the colourist for her comic, though we actually met through our respective partners. They've been friends since high school, and just so happened to both end up with artists.
I also think tabling at a convention would also be a fantastic way to meet local indie comic creators IRL. I haven't done that yet due to COVID, but once that's no longer a concern, I will be.
People reveal to me that they're making a comic and it's like a secret hi-five of "hell, I'm making a comic too" and then we follow each other's work for life because we know each other's dirty little secret.
TBH part of the reason I got back into comics is because a friend of mine was making a gag comic of the bookstore we both worked at, and he couldn't make it to wondercon, so I went in his place and went to a webcomic panel to take notes for him (It was right before a panel about how to submit a comic to a publisher, which at the time was what I was more interested in--which, made me realize that my story I wanted to pitch would not work for standard publishing)--and then I was like "actually, I'm gonna do this online thing, too"
But I still follow his gag comic. It's still at that bookstore although it got turned into a Nike.
Before pandemic, I met most of them during conventions-- the one centered for independent comic creators and I share tables with them (because I'm usually the one making slot reservations) then we usually ask about each other's interest and tell each other about comics.
Sometimes, I meet other creators when we're attending the same comic making seminars and we have the same interests and we like the same genre -- by the end, we follow each other's social media and at the end of the day when there's another convention coming up, we ask each other if any of us wants to share a table.
Another incident is when I was applying for a job before -- we are both applying for the same position usually if it is an illustrator job post and then usually, either I start conversation or the other start it the conversation while waiting for our turns interviews and when we found out we have the same interests and find out one of us is creating comics, we converse in social medias and ended up meeting each other again in conventions
Right now, I met fellow creators online -- take note, none of us lives in the same city, I can't really say I have good social skills so I don't know if I found them or they found me lol ^^
I not only made comics friends, I ended up engaged to somebody I originally came across on a comics making forum, so yeah, this stuff can definitely happen!
It's usually easiest to look for comics creators who make work with a similar vibe or in a similar sort of community to you. I'm personally in a few communities, like one with UK print people I've known for years since my small press days, and then others with Tapas people, like one where LGBTQ+ Tapas people hang out. People you have something in common with, like rough level of achievement, experience or ability, drawing style, genre or themes or being from a similar region or community tends to make it easier to be friends because there's common ground to build on. With my UK friends, we've all worked professionally to some extent, so we can talk about the industry, high level craft discussion, how Brexit is messing up everyone's attempts to send out their kickstarter rewards (UGHHHH), and with LBGTQ+ friends it's often talking about social justice issues in webcomic communities or being excited about relatable queer content in each others' comics.
The best way to start is to look for somebody you totally feel like you're on the same page with, like say they wrote a post on the forums you just 100% empathise with, and just send them a message like "yo, you seem really cool! I loved your post!" or just... follow somebody's comic and say "wow I really love this comic, it's totally my jam!" and start commenting regularly. Basically, engage with people's work and give out sincere compliments if it resonates with you.
Irl I met most of my artist friends in uni because, since basically my whole class knows I like drawing because I can't not doodle on pages, my friends usually told me if there was someone with a similar style to mine and introduced them to me hahahaha.
That's the way of the introvert I suppose xP let your extrovert friends do the job for you.
Online, though, I've usually had to be the one to give a step forward. Most of the time I just really liked a comic/story/art style, commented quite often on their work, they answered, we chatted and friendship evolved naturally from them onwards.