What inspired you to make comics?

i draw manga with paper pencil. but i like typing fan fiction

I'm so long winded when I post here and I'm sorry in advance for this wall of text... Here we go!

I've always been a voracious comic reader. My dad introduced me to Marvel comics when I was around four years old, so I really don't remember a time before comics! They've always been a medium I've loved to engage with as a reader. Later I got super into graphic novels and manga as well and once webcomics moved to more long-form storytelling rather than gag-a-days or four panel strips, they super caught my attention. I think I read more comics now than I ever have and it's super inspiring to see just how inclusive, diverse, and accessible comics as a medium have become both for readers and creators. I truly think that the medium of comics is thriving like never before. Webtoons and Tapas are totally viable means of publishing comics these days and I think that is just plain awesome.

All that said, I'm yet another "always wanted to draw comics" person. I was enthralled by Jim Lee, Joe Mad, and Alan Davis as a kid (and still am--I have a sketch commission from Alan Davis framed on my wall). When I was a kid, I had this assumption that only boys were allowed to draw the kind of comics I liked to read, which was a gigantic bummer to me. Of course, that perception changed when I moved away from just reading Marvel comics, though it still seemed like it was a near impossible feat for a woman to break into mainstream comics as an artist back then. Then I started reading manga and I fell for it so hard. Unlike the comics I was used to reading, in manga there were women drawing comics for girls (which in itself was awesome because HECK YEAH GIRLS EXIST AND WILL TOTALLY READ COMICS IF THE STORIES ARE ONES THEY ACTUALLY RESONATE WITH AND WANT TO READ), women drawing comics for boys, women drawing comics, WOMEN DRAWING COMICS. It was so neat and so inspiring. I devoured manga by Rumiko Takahashi, CLAMP, Katsura Hoshino, Kaoru Mori, Kentaro Miura, Takehiko Inoue, Nobuhiro Watsuki, and more. After that as I continued reading comics, I noticed more and more women entering print comics as artists and writers. And then webcomics came along and woooooo! The possibilities were endless!

As for my creator journey: I made tons of comic strips in elementary and middle school. My sister and I made a children's book in high school for a class and I drew a fancomic in my spare time. After I graduated high school, my sister and I illustrated a children's book that my mom self-published and I made my first attempt to draw pages for my current comic (that were all reworked and redrawn because my first attempts at anything are always sooooo baaaaad lol). I've been to tons of comic conventions, talked to so many creators, attended so many "how to make comics" panels, befriended some incredibly lovely people who self-published comics and have a huge wealth of experience they've been willing to share, and have been blessed with a group of close friends who are comic creators and artists and writers themselves and are huge sources of inspiration. I've also been playing DnD since 3.5 was the newest available edition and that has been a significant source of inspiration for me over the years.

Comics have always been a huge huge huge part of my life and I hope to keep reading them, being inspired by them, and drawing them for the rest of my life. ^^

Nothing in particular. Ever since I was a kid, there was something about making comics that just interested me. I don't even know what initially sparked that interest. It was just always there

The love of wanting to tell stories.... yea, gay stories <3

Ever since I was young, I loved to draw. I had this dream that one day I'd share my own ideas to others (either through novels or comics) ^^ I've always been awed and inspired by animation and comics, so it's not really a surprise that what inspired me to make comics of my own was my love for them and my respect and love for all the creators and their works that got me through a dark year last year and continue to get me through my recovery and the dark times we're all facing now. I thought "If creators have made me happy by their works and helped me through the darkest times of my life, I wonder if I can at least make one person's day by doing the same." There's also a lot of people in my life that helped me through my trials and tribulations with so much love and support and it made me want to give some love and support to others to repay their kindness. So, in a way, me making works is a tribute to all the wonderful people in my life, as well as all the wonderful creators and readers. I love making comics just to make comics, but it's even more worthwhile when I know that I've made someone's day or helped them smile a bit ^^ I can't stress enough how much you all make a difference in other's lives, thank you all, you're all doing wonderful work, and much love to everyone!

Even though i redid some of my comics a lot of times till i became satisfied with them XD, when i first started posting on webtoons and tapas about 3 years ago i had three objectives to make comics.

1. To have fun and because i enjoyed writing stories in my spare time since i was a kid so i figured "Why not make it a comic and share it with the world?"

2. When i first started posting on webtoons and tapas there wasn't a lot of black male protagonist representation when it came to romance or harem stories so i wanted to change that. (That's why most of my comics have a black male character.)

3. I wanted to make stories that would give people a good laugh or brighten their day in someway.

Hahahaha like a lot of people here, I grew up with comics around my house.
They were mostly anthologies of newspaper strips, though. Garfield, The Far Side, Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes.
I really liked drawing, and started making little cartoons and comic strips (mostly featuring dragons, but one featuring a time traveling cat) pretty much as soon as I was able, followed by some superhero stories about a girl who had six wings.

As I got older, my friends and I made little comics about our friend group and inside jokes, but eventually I started wanting to make something more substantial. In high school I started serializing an (admittedly terrible) webcomic that wound up lasting around 3 years. I never want anyone to find it, but I was somewhat proud of how far it went and how much it grew.

After a pretty long break, I finally realized that making comics is the thing that makes me happy. I might not be great at it yet, but I'm getting better and having a pretty good time learning and telling the stories I want to tell.

Six-eight year old me is flattered, but regrettably I don't have them anymore. From what little I can remember, the cat lived with a mad scientist who had a time machine, and went on misadventures. It was pretty standard fare involving dinosaurs, robots and the like. The girl with six wings did standard basic superhero stuff with the whole fighting bad guys based on things like planets and black holes. These were mostly drawn in the margins of class notes and on scrap paper, and got lost in between several moves and purges of old papers.

During the journey though, i found my love for anime, and manga, which inspired me (And my familiy liked animated anything which helped me). I would draw pictures based off of my own stories. As i saw there characters that i drew they would 'speak to me' in a sense. I would look at them and get lots of ideas about who they were and their world. I eventually started drawing panels here and there for excepts i would see in my head, and the write about them. My love for comics evolved as would free write and draw. After a while I had a comic idea, where the boy fell from the sky into a wasteland. I wanted it to be an arena style comic, but soon after designing him, people kept comparing him to al from fma. This kinda annoyed me, and i kept re-designing him over and over. . So i let it die. or so i thought, when my cousin saw it. he encouraged me to continue with it, and to make it into a comic. the story changed to an urban fantasy, when i realized that did know what else i would do with the original story I tried writing the urban fantasy over a few times, with the concept that the spell casters could travel between dimensions, where one existed with magic and one without. (i may flesh out this idea more later for a new story, because my concept for it was good, I just wasn't ready for it) but most of my main cast for my current comic were born, although they have gone through a lot of changes since then. I decided to abandon the urban fantasy idea because i have never stepped foot in a city before, and realized that I didn't have the experience to draw that. but, i kept concepting into a pure fantasy world, where i can design everything the way i want, and lots of natural landscapes. which, country kid me, was most familiar with. it took me another few years to decided how to go forward, and I tried making my comic many times over, trying to find a beginning i was happy with, because there was so much information i needed to tell about my world.

yeah XD it was a process

I guess the biggest would be other comics. I loved reading comic as a kid. I still love reading them.

Later on YouTubers where my biggest inspirations to start making comics again. They gave some really good tips on actually finishing your comics.

Quick question: Why was I notified about this topic with a: notification?

Ah, okay then. That makes sense. I was just curious about the notification given that I've never seen that type of notification before. Thanks for the clarification on that end of things.