Why did you start making your comic?

[alexhoel96]

My comic is rather new (not even a year old) but there's actually a reason behind why I started. I'm currently at college, and have a history of anxiety with slight depression. I had a notably bad semester the spring of 2018, and then couldn't find a job that summer which threw me into an anxiety tailspin. it was getting really bad, but I remembered from when I was younger that a good tactic to get through anxiety spells was to distract myself and get out of my head, so i started drawing to do that. I started with basic figure stuff, faces, and characters I enjoy. I have a large collection from that time of characters I drew from shows i liked (a lot from Dragon ball and dragon ball Z).

I had always been a fan of webcomics, mostly reading the big names out there. one day, in my search to find something to draw, I decided to make a little 4 panel comic for my girlfriend (who i live with). I made basic little characters and just threw it together in an afternoon, and gave it to her when she got home that night. she insisted I make more saying she really enjoyed them, then said I should share them because others would probably like them. so I started there, and have kept them up to this day.

This is pretty long winded, and a lot of people will probably pass it by, but I want to know why people started they're comic. Was it for the love of art? For someone else? For the chance of fame? I know everyone has a story, even if its super simple, and I want to know!

[BobbyjoeX]

in my case, i wanted to do a comic since i was 12. i grew up with that mindset, i wanted to make a comic... at 21 i sat there and said "you wont get there by just dreaming"

so thats why i started my comic, so my dreams wouldnt be memes

[danitasibert]

I started making a comic because in middle/high school i started making my own stories... originally wanted to make animations, while going to school for just that i realize I'm not too good with it and i don't really have the attention span for all the key frames you would have to do. I figure to start making comics after i got out of school because i wanted to get these ideas out of my head and onto paper/print( hopefully one day).

[KoreanTacos]

I've always had a love for comics. Especially Calvin & Hobbes, I would earn my own money in Elementary school and bought nearly every Calvin & Hobbes book made. I liked the idea that something as simple as a comic about a boy and his imagination could bring such joy, and I just wanted to replicate that with my first work I do (except that ones about adults finding entertainment in how crummy life can be sometimes). Then I wanted to work with creating stories about people and their lives which is where my second comic stems from (granted that ones about magical girls in high school). If I can make my audience feel something (hopefully not boredom) while reading either of my work that's all I can really ask for really.

Also I want to make lotsa cash to feed my pixie stix addiction.

[SleepingPoppy]

My reason is actually very similar to yours! Anxiety tailspin, issues with work. I had always wanted to work on a web comic, and I decided then was a good time to sit and start as a way of regulating my day and feeling less crappy. It really helped me while I got some other things back on track. And of course I have continued it, as making a comic had always been something I wanted to do. I really love it, and I'm glad I'm still going a few years later now. =)

[teasidesketches]

I'm in the same boat of having had a story for a comic since middle/high school that I was very much in love with until now, so I'm finally making that comic a reality for myself to be proud of!
For a long time I had been putting off making a comic of my own because I felt inadequate, but I finally had my own revelation that it's never going to happen unless I start, so the best time to start is now--so I finally did, and I'm happy that I kicked myself into gear!
If anyone else enjoys it, too, I'd be thrilled, but ultimately it's the satisfaction of really creating something I love that got me started and keeps me going.

[Kittosaurus]

My DailyDevon series grew out of OOTD (Outfit of the day) drawings I used to do. I just did little comics about random events in my life to keep as a record or journal of sorts.

As for my main series... I had a couple ideas floating around in my head for awhile but I was never confident enough to pursue them, then when Webtoons hosted their big competition last year I decided to give it a go and I've been going strong for about a year now

[vothnthorvaldson]

Long story.... for a long-form comic!

Six years ago, I started having to drive a lot more than before, for work, on a boring straight highway with nothing to see.
To avoid falling asleep, I started making up stories that I would record on my phone. I had written a lot younger, but stopped because I'm not great in any language anymore. But at the beginning, it was really only to not fall asleep, so there was zero pressure or expectation out of these stories, so I felt really free.

After a while, I thought some of them were nice enough, and could be combined and used to do some actual project with them. Because of the language problem, my first idea was illustrations with a very short text associated to each. A bit like a children's book, only not for children (and not as much text as in an illustrated novel for example).

So for a while I continued working on the story the same way, while driving. I did not even start on the illustrations because I was too busy.

But what happened is that very early on, I started creating music for these stories, and little by little it became a music project. That's actually to date what I worked on the longest. I spent about 2 years working on a prog/folk metal project for these texts.

Only, after 2 years I had to accept the project was over-ambitious. Not only I was not going to be able to do that alone, but I could not really look for a collaboration because I have very little time, and it's always unpredictable WHEN I will have time. It would have been unfair to any collaborator. But I could not abandon my story, so I was looking for another way to tell it.

A little bit over one year ago, I discovered webcomics. Obviously I did know they existed, but I was not reading any and had no idea about how diverse it was.

I quickly realized that would be a great medium for my story. I could go at the speed I wanted, build buffer when I can, etc. and use my little time at the fullest.

One year later, I'm very happy with my choice!
And if I ever want to work on the music project again, I can, so I don't lose anything!

[irene_addler]

I'd never made a comic in my life, I'd read some comics, mostly Marvel and DC, but then found out about webtoons and got hooked! Then I wanted to see if I could do it, and so I started drawing a comic. I've written stories since high school, and wanted to see if I could tell it in comic form

[Humbug]

The characters from my fantasy comic have been with me since I was 12. For years I've always wanted to create a story about them. I dabbled in writing fiction in school and came to the conclusion that I suck at it. Art has always been one of my stronger suits.

I finally decided to draw them in a comic when I was in college. The technical skill I picked up from classes gave me the confidence to do them justice. I still suck at writing though, that's why someone else is doing it for me. XD

Although I will say that I started to pick up some writing skill after years of collaboration with my writer, and my second comic is me giving writing another go (with my writer still helping of course). It's a completely different format and genre though; short form comedy is much easier to write than a serious long form story.

[djwaglmuffin]

Well...I was in college learning animation. The teachers were awful to me all the time because "you draw anime" and I was convinced by one instructor that I would never make it in the industry. He insulted all of my work and failed my projects because I wouldn't use clip art. (i swear, that was an actual thing)

So, someone gave me a manga from Yuu watase and I said to myself "Huh...what if I just did comics instead of trying to get into a studio if they're really not going to be interested in me." And that's how it happened. I have been practicing and writing and drawing ever since. ...but I'm 35 now and was thinking about quitting.

[amortelito]

Well, I have been writing and sketching stuff related to Amorte since I was a teen. It was always a secret project and even when I made some covers and the first pages I was not planning to share it until I realized that when we die we take nothing with us and all that is left is our legacy. This comic also helped me to have a good time during my depression. It means a lot to me.

[Cavechan]

I draw comics in general because I have to draw comics.

For my completed/sequel series, True Power, I had a dream I was flying around on a flashlight so then I took that idea and expanded on it.

For my current main comic, Celestial Chronicle Shion, I have been wanting to write a story where I can really torture my main character (who ended up not even being the MC......) and I wanted to do some fun occult stuff. But I'm not really interested in doing just a straight up occult story, so I decided to make it in space.

[rajillustration]

This is a fascinating thread. For me I just want to get good enough at comics in order to do justice to a StarControl II comic one day. It's a very nerdy dream of mine, and strangely, this keeps me motivated. One day it will come out of copyright limbo and when that happens, I will be ready.

So I've made about 4 not great comics (not on tapas) and am now on my 5th, and the method and pipeline is finally clicking and for the first time, I'm actually making a good comic haha. My current comic is mostly about kid's failing magic school and while I do feel strongly about that, I continue to draw and write it because--and I mean this--I very seriously want to learn to be better in order to draw Captain Zelnick crushing some Illwrath one day in the same way I felt it when I was a kid, playing that game every summer.

[Anithia]

I love stories, every story is amazing in its own. And i have a lot of them in my mind filled with memories, fears, dreams, and the way i see the world.
I started writing them to not forget, but deep inside me i had the need of sharin these stories. However, im not very good at weiting, so i used drawings!

[saak]

so, i was writing novel here for about 3 weeks and i heard about webtoon so i went there to post my novel only to find out there is only options for comics so, i tried making and doing sketch for the first time in my entire life and on the same day I AM A ROBBER was born around 2-3pm of 2 june

[Domae]

Warning: Long post, but worth the read. TL;DR: Always loved story telling, but SO's encouragement made me take the plunge.

I participate in an event called Flash Fiction Month, where I write a short story (called flash fiction) every day for the month of July. In my second year of participating, I came up with the vague premise of my current comic. I've always loved plot/developing characters and worlds, so I continued to develop the world of TNS throughout the July of 2017.

I'm also an artist, so I painted a large 3 -panel acryllic painting of a scene from TNS, and hung it in my dorm room for the last two years (I'm a college student!). I worked on the comic off and on between 2017 and now. I created a basic plot and some character sheets, but didn't take the plunge to make the comic until this April with my current SO's encouragement.

He had asked me the story behind the 3-panel painting, and commented on how my eyes lit up when I talked about my characters and the story. He got really adament about it, actually, considering I was pretty depressed at the time. He told me that the comic brought back the fire that he used to see in me before some life events, and the next day I laid the groundwork for the first act of The Nymph's Story.

The Nymph's Story | Tapas

[Rhonder]

The main "why" of TreasureHUNT!! was to unshackle myself from a story I had been working on for like 11 years prior lol. I've always drawn as a hobby, and have been interested in comics since I was a little kid! Sometime in middle school I came up with this giant shonen manga/anime inspired story that I was super enthusiastic about developing and working on~

The problem was that I was still at the stage in my art journey where I was rapidly improving all the time, so I fell easily into the infinite redo loop. The farthest I ever got was like... page 2 or 3 of Chapter 2. But that was just on one attempt. I probably have like 5-6 versions of the first 2-5 pages sitting in my piles of old drawings lmao. But so I kept slowly working on developing the story and characters surrounding the comic without ever really getting to the comic itself, all through middle school, high school, and university. Granted, in Uni I actually stopped drawing as much as I did prior- school work and other hobbies took priority during those years, so I kinda stagnated for a while.

After graduation I spent several months job hunting and just kind of lazing around- and sometime in that period I realized that I missed drawing and wanted to give my old story another shot. So I started yet another reboot. Fast forward a few months, I got a temporary holiday season job in retail that left me drained after every shift, so I stopped drawing again. Fast forward more, I landed my current job in an architecture office and decided that I had finally stabilized enough to actually get back into drawing this time. I participated in Inktober for the first time in 2017 as a kick start for that process, and it worked! So after Inktober I decided... to start another-nother reboot of that old story LOL By this time I had been lurking around these forums for a while though, I think I had discovered tapas the summer prior give or take.

Anyways I got... 8 pages into that reboot before I finally put my foot down and was like "this is dumb." Several reasons: too long for a first project, my drawing was way too slow relative to the project length (I realized that it was an action/fantasy series and it would take me like a year to get to the first small action scene at the pace I was completing pages...), the whole story was kinda meh as written and needed major overhaul, same with many of the character designs, etc.

I had seen several people on these forums suggest new creators try starting with a shorter project or two or 3 in order to get their feet wet and get a feel for the process, so I was like "yeah, that sounds like a reasonable idea!" And shortly thereafter, I began brainstorming the story that would become TreasureHUNT!!. Finally the first new story I had worked on in like 12 years, so liberating! So yeah, that's the story behind why I started this comic~

[Moshimitsu]

The main reason I started to create comic was because I had to make something for my final project at university so I could graduate. Even though I was doing fine with programming subjects, I had problems with one of them. This made me lose all self-confidence, I had little breakdowns every project we had and then I cried a lot at nights. I wanted to make a visual novel with some other game mechanics as my final project, but all those insecurities caused me to believe that I fail anyways.

Then one time professor said there were a few students that created comics as their finals and with encouragement from my family I decided to do the same. I wanted this for some years now but apparently I had to have something to force me to start. Now, after final exam, I'm just enjoying making comic and draw them to help myself gain my self-confidence again until I continue studying

[ble]

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