Jan 2021
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Jan 2021
Jan 2021
feuersichel
Jan '21

I decided to redo the beginning of my story for various reasons and I already have about 40 pages ready.

Now my problem is: How do I do the restart properly?

I want to keep the old pages, as I think, they are a nice way to show my art-process and the page count wouldn't match up anyways.

I thought of those variants:

  • Making a new series, changing the old one to something like "the story of Osram - Old", or even give the new series a completely new name, and update on both series ( the old one is still going). That way I have to update two series, which is kinda... meh... especially for new readers. Also I need to find the final "merging-point", where I stop posting on the old and only update the new. I can imagine it will be difficult, to bring all my readers to the new series.

  • Update all pages on the existing one and put the old pages in a seperate story or delete them entirely (only leaving a link to deviantart). Would surely be easyer for new readers but I'll loose the comments for the old pages, which I want to avoid as they have a high vallue to me.

So, have you ever made a restart of your story? How did you do it? What are your thoughts on my ideas? I'm really glad for any tips I can get (also criticism is very welcome), so thanks in advance :smiley:

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    Jan '21

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    Jan '21
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siluscomics
Jan '21

I'm thinking of doing this myself with one of my older stories. I think I'm going to just put up a notice saying that it's restarting, keeping the existing pages there and just carrying on if that makes sense? I'm lucky in that there are only two long chapters already, so maybe you could consolidate your other chapters into one long one?

darthmongoose
Jan '21

In my case, I've done reboots before. For example, Errant4 is a reboot of Fan Dan Go7 (from around 2010), which is a reboot of FanDanGo7 (from around 2006). They use the same characters and some concepts like the runes and sword draw magic, but the plotlines are significantly different as I slowly learned how to set up and tell a narrative. Because they're total remakes, I kept the originals online.
Mostly this was fine, but I remember one or two people getting annoyed with the FanDanGo to Fan Dan Go switch, specifically about the story restarting as a different one (which surprised me because the plotline of the old version was....not great? It was really all over the place, I'm amazed anyone was attached to it). Changing to Errant was much easier because it was like 9 years later and with a different name and on a new platform.

I'd recommend archiving the old one in some way, adding "OLD" or "ALPHA" to the name and putting a note to say it's the old version just being left for posterity and directing people to the new one. You probably don't need to remove it though if you're proud of what you accomplished. I feel the same way about my old comics after all!

IndigoShirtProd
Jan '21

I remade my first chapter recently, and ehat I did was update the new pages on the original comic. Then i posted the old pages on their own separate comic made new on Tapas. I didn't want to start from scratch cuz I already jad an audience on tapas for the comic even though I remade the first chapter.

Chopythes
Jan '21
1

It sounds like the best option is to create a new comic (as in, uploading it to a new "comic"). Do as you've said, rename the old one to just... Old?
You can also notify your followers through a post, or make a page where you explain the resons (if you want to) and link to the new comic.
Edit: You mention the old comic is still ongoing, I probably would stop updating it at some point, where it feels good enough to stop.
You don't have to merge it, unless you want to yourself. Making several comics are tedious and time consuming (10/10, would not recommend if you have a life, if not, go ahead! 8D)

So if I were in your position, I'd probably just create a new series, upload the new comic, keep the old one and rename it to old, notify the readers and update it until it feels good enough to stop.
/edit

I've restarted one of my comics like 5 times, but they were also less than 30 pages.
The reason always was that I didn't think it was interesting enough to draw and kinda quit halway through.
I never did pubslish them on any sites tho, for the reasons above xD
However, I'm currently putting all those into a PDF adn offer them to my patreons, because... Well, why should I not show it? Even tho I put a lot of hours into the comics, I feel like I can't post them online as they're incomplete, contains spoilers and overall looks goofy xD

feuersichel
Jan '21

Wow, thank you all for your help :smiley:

@darthmongoose @Chopythes that's what I fear aswell. Especially if I would update the new and the old at the same time... super time-consuming and might confuse new readers.

@IndigoShirtProd That's kind of the misery I'm in right now. On one hand, I want to keep the old pages and the comments on them, on the other hand I fear I'll loose my audience. But maybe that's not too bad after all. People who think it's worth to read will follow and those who lost interest won't, both ways are ok.

I think the best would be, to update the old one until the current chapter is finished and then start with the new one. So I have somewhat of a "clean cut". The only problem I have now is, when to stop redrawing and start using the existing pages again. Later on, the story itself doesn't need a redo but the artstyle would definitly be a hard drop in quality. But I might even do a complete redo. Changing the name entirely for the new one sounds like a good idea aswell (now I just have to come up with an idea :,D ).

@Filthiestboi It is your decicion in the end. The problem is, if you only concentrate on redoes, you spend alot of time changing everything, everytime you improve, so your story might never be finished. I personally waited with my redraw until I really could say: "yes, my art looks ready now" and "I realy don't like, how it is written". It took me like 4 years to get there. But if you feel your story needs change, go for it :smiley:

IndigoShirtProd
Jan '21

When I redid my first chapter, I mainly did so because story elements needed to be addressed and I wanted the art styles to match for printing. I was able to make a clear line in the sand about what was going to be redrawn since the style change between chapter 1 and 2 was so drastic. I even considered redrawing major parts of chapter 2 because of some critiques I received, but decided against it recognizing the issue listed were things I was going to learn and get better at as time went on (granted I'm considering redoing a couple of panels because of characterization issues).

There are plenty of subtleties in art styles that shift from chapter to chapter that you may feel you need to account for them, but I recommend not addressing them. Using myself as an example, the way I drew hair changed from chapter 2 to chapter 3. Around the time I was making chapter 3, I was also redrawing chapter 1 and the way in which I drew hair made it to the redraw. You'd think I'd go back to chapter 2 to make everything look cohesive, but I decided the hours of backtracking wouldn't be worth it. Because then I would notice other things that needed "fixing" and then fixate on those things. That's the spiral people warn against when redrawing pages.

I personally would advise against redrawing pages for the art alone, unless you plan on printing, but even then. However, it sounds like you've already started. You should probably pick a chapter (or page) that is similar enough to the style you prefer and have that be the stopgap. Even if the chapter doesn't look exactly similar, as long as it looks close enough.

Kittosaurus
Jan '21

I am struggling with this as well! I have been on hiatus for about 6 months and during this time I was doing a lot of worldbuilding in the background. I started my comic on the ground running with almost no planning because of competition and now that I am looking back there are soo many elements that I wish I had incorporated/ could be improved. But part of me also wants to start a separate series where I can tell backstories that aren't part of the main plot.. it's such a tough decision!

feuersichel
Jan '21
IndigoShirtProd

That's a really good point and I'm certainly a person, that cares too much about the art not being perfect. Best thing, as you said, is to evaluate the point of "until there and no more". Might hurt a little but at some point I have to move on and finish the actuall story.

feuersichel
Jan '21
Kittosaurus

My story started with zero planing aswel, and it was good for that time. Otherwise we might have never continued our stories :slight_smile:
How many pages are you in and do you know, how you want to have the plot now? I thought about restarting a while ago, but back then I wasn't so sure about the plot like I am now. Now I know exacltly how I want my story to go, this makes a restart easyer. The danger is, that you restart over and over again without actually finishing the story.

Kittosaurus
Jan '21

I have about 85 episodes (https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/the-librarian-arachnid-slayer/list?title_no=209825) The basic plot would still stay the same, but a lot of the world would change ( I didn't do enough concept art to differentiate the different kingdoms/ cultures) I also feel like I could use a lot more panels to flesh out certain storylines that I rushed.

So my dilemma is do I just update/ add where needed or do I do a full restart.. I am also not in a place where I can update regularly, so do I simply keep world building/ working on concepts or do I just redo the first few chapters to make them a better draw in and leave the rest as is so I can finish the story?