Hi there!
I know there are quite a few topics about redoing your comic but from what I have found, it never really fit the situation I currently am in, so I'm just gonna put this out here?
Sorry for being so wordy. I know that it's generally frowned up on redoing comics but usually I see it when the content already is quite considerable and there weren't any major breaks in the creation, so I'd like to hear your two cents on this.
In early 2016 I started my first "real" comic, which - admittedly - was a huge project to start comics with in first place (it technically covers 2 decades of plot and has 4 MCs plus many important secondary characters) and wasn't classically planned out AT ALL when I drew it. I usually am someone who overthinks and overplans everything in my head a thousand times but NEVER get to do it (or even... writes notes.)
I never had worked with scripts before, which is basically a death sentence to a project as big as this. I generally have a relatively good memory of stories so I never really saw the necessity of it back then because I still could 'wing it' in some way and characters do what they want anyway.
However, I loved this story so much that I didn't want to see it never get done. So I basically said "F*ck this" and got to drawing. I managed to draw 14 pages like this with relatively regular updates for ca. half a year until June 2016 where I had planned a short hiatus for the entrance exam for art school.
After that, I never got back to draw another page, even though the next 3 or so were already sketched out.
Now there are almost 2 years between the last page and now, and during the (admittedly very) long hiatus I eventually realised that I needed to actually plan this story out with notes etc. as it is very complex, has a lot of foreshadowing, and I really want it to be cohesive. Last spring I tried to just get back to where I left off but I never finished that page because it somehow just didn't work. The flow I used to have was just gone and it feels like the gap to the prior pages is just too big and weird because it's basically mid-scene. This threw me off a lot and I was pondering over whether to redo them or just leave them a lot
I hated especially the first 8 pages because not only my art style had evolved massively due to drawing classes (I even had a comic class) and generally more knowledge of panelling etc. but also my story-telling and understanding of my characters and their individual stories and relationships improved a lot.
By now I love the story and the characters too much than to let go, but what I've created so far feels like it's so crusted and stiff that I can't work with it anymore, and while the two scenes would still be there and probably also very similarly to how they are now with improved panelling and art, I now would start the story to a slightly prior point.
Currently, I have the (quite detailed) summary/synopsis of the complete story roughly 50% done which includes 5 of the ca. 9 arcs, by May this year I wanted to start the chapter synopsis and actual scripting them but at the same time I get scared that I get back into my usual "planning but not doing" mindset. I know there's also a good chunk of world-building left to do but at least I'm very familiar with the MCs by now.
Is this a good approach? Is there anything that I should keep in mind? Would this disappoint the readers even more? I mean I most likely disappointed them already with no update in basically 2 years. I never expected to take that long to get back on track and actually working on the comic and not doing some kind of "fan art" for it or dashing out some irrelevant character info every now and then. Does anyone have tips to get to work quite straight-forward/to get shit done because I suck at this majorly?
Also how do I handle what I already published here? Should I start it as a new comic or just delete the old pages and post the new ones there? Put the old pages as some kind of "pilot" or something? (which doesn't really make sense either because they'd somewhat re-appear in the new comic.) I actually hate deleting the old episodes because the comments were always really lovely but it probably won't work any other way, so yeah, I don't know how to handle that either.
Additionally, if anyone has experience with creating a comic epos, I definitely appreciate any kind of advice you might want to offer. Same goes with complex timelines/skipping through time/multiple locations and storylines and how to script them properly because now I do this mainly chronologically which won't necessarily be how the story is told. (However, I won't skip within one chapter.)
I know it's a terribly ambitious project but I really don't want to give it up, I've done that in the past so often and this one just. Stayed for so long already.
Here is the comic I'm talking about if anyone is interested.
Thank you!