Hi! I have zero to no experience making webcomics (the only one I ever did was a four or five-episode mini-series for Webtoon contest) and currently facing a dilemma. I have two comic ideas fighting each other in my head and can't decide which one I should do first. I would genuinely appreciate your advice.
You see, I have this idea for a story about this frustrated cop who teams up with a homeless superhero to solve a murder.
It deals with LGBTQ matters, trauma, racism, COVID-19, poverty, disabilities, the 1960s Brazillian military dictatorship, and mental health. I am also planning to toggle at least some of the most problematic aspects of police work (when it comes to the reality of my country) and superhero fiction.
As you can see, it is quite a lot to unpack. And I haven't even started to do my research yet, which I am pretty sure will take months to do. I also plan on submitting the comic to hive works so I will be able to make it bilingual (Portuguese\English) while hosting both versions in the same place. So the quality needs to be at the very least adequate for them to take me in.
The thing is, I am not sure this should be my first webcomic series. I have already written the script up to chapter 5 of 10, and it already has 94 pages.
If you consider that one written page becomes two comic pages on a regular format and four tapas\webtoon chapters are about the same as a 24-page long traditional comic book, then I would have 188 comic pages or about tapas\webtoon 28 chapters to draw.
If we continue with this logic, I would have 376 pages or 56 chapters to draw in total. Maybe even be 400 pages\ 57 chapters. If every chapter has 25 panels, this means I would have 1425 panels. If I draw five panels a day, I could complete the comic in 285 days. Promising, right? But "drawing" doesn't include lettering, coloring, posting, planning, and writing. So I estimate that it will take me about four to seven years to complete this comic once I start working on it.
But I also have this idea for another story. It is about a plant creature that gets trapped underground, where the undead dwells. It is a combination of two of my favorite stories from Greek mythology: the Kidnapping of Persephone and the Twelve labors of Heracles.
I even know exactly how many webtoon\tapas chapters I need to tell it: 18. Three chapters to establish the world, the main character, and the inciting incident. Twelve chapters for the tasks the main character will have to complete to get back to the surface. And three chapters for the climax and ending of the story.
If I make 25 panels for a chapter, it will amount to 450 to draw. If I make five panels a day, it will take me 90 days (about two months) to finish drawing this comic. At maximum, I would need only one year and a half, maybe two to three years.
It is much easier for me to draw plants and rocks than buildings and cars. The themes of loneliness, hunger, and inadequacy are much more manageable for me to toggle. It is a fantasy story, so I have to do little to no research.
Which one do you guys think I should start with?
