Heeeeeyyyy Tapastic. Forum regulars probably know who I am. Even if you don't, you've probably seen my little shoujo influenced slice of life comic about Asperger's Syndrome called Life of an Aspie trending before here on Tapastic. Anyway, speaking of my comic, On Friday of this week, I will officially be done with the fourth chapter of my ongoing long-form comic which has racked up over 120+ subscribers since the beginning of this year back when I wasn't sure if I was even going to bother continuing it seeing as how I had no traffic to speak of at the time and barely any subscribers. For those who are subbed to LoaA, you already know that this past chapter has been a departure from the fairly light hearted shenanigans of the previous three chapters and instead is fairly serious all things considered. Being more of a comedy guy than a drama guy, I wasn't sure at first how this chapter would turn out, but my subscribers seem to like how well I handled the subject of school bullying and what happens when a bully says the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time and how everybody looks at such an event from all angles.
That is, the way I told the story in this chapter, I went for a "suspense reveal" if you will building up Susan as this emotionless monstrosity if what her peers say is "true" about her before revealing her rather emotional side of the story thus humanizing her a bit. Plus, given that in the past three chapters, readers saw Susan as this quirky, but seemingly normal girl, my aim for this chapter as well as the next two is to show that there is more to Susan Graham than her being the weird, but cute little aspie girl. That there is a very human side to her that her peers (besides Hiroshi, who's known her since childhood and ditto for her grandmother) don't see. A fragile emotional being that both craves to have the things girls her age want or rather have as the case may be as well as a strong desire to fit into this crazy thing we call life. The latter of which is definitely something her peers don't see given how Susan is a girl with Asperger's, she can "blend in" (thought not perfectly) with society explaining why she at times seems to be a fairly normal young woman.
With that out of the way, the reason I made this thread is because going forward as I begin work on building up a buffer for Chapter 5 which will not be published until after the New Year (thus giving me more than enough time to build a strong buffer) is because both from an artistic standpoint and even from a writing perspective, (which I consider myself to be better at though I am making an effort to at least get better with anatomy and go for more interesting poses and angles) I want Life of an Aspie to be the best that it can possibly be with the hope that I might entice new potential readers on a more frequent basis while still being true to who I am as a passionate writer who does this not for the money, but because of the value it brings others. (particularly anybody who can actually relate to a unique character like Susan Graham.)
Any suggestions for how to make my tones look better? (I use Manga Studio 5) Post them here! Any meaningful feedback on the latest chapter? Post it right here! Any character you feel you could use more work? Go on ahead and post it here! I want as much feedback as possible so that I can fully assess just where my strengths as well as my weaknesses in both the art and writing departments respectively are.
