You’re not too old to start!

[eyewhiskers]

@Puck Couldn’t agree more

[emil_k]

I hate to say it but I used to be very guilty of this mentality when I was in my teens; I think this mainly builds from the fact that there are so many free publishing sites like wattpad (well mainly wattpad, or was now that it's done a 180) where younger kids who genuinely want to write stories get the assumption that if you publish something you'll start making it somewhere, which is superbly misleading and a recipe for distress, frustration, and insecurity that is hell to dig yourself out of. Luckily I was able to escape it, but years of trying to be successful at a young age actually stunted my growth; I'm no better than where I started and I've just embraced that you need to write for you and no one else.

[Scarlet_Cryptid]

you're way more likely to regret the things you didn't do than the things you tried and failed at.

This is what drove me to finally start making my comic at age 37 (now 38). If you want to do something, START. Don't chicken out, decide that you 'can't', let ten years go by, and then look back and wish you'd started ten years ago. I made this exact mistake, and I will be kicking myself about it for a while.

But at least now I've started.

[Kaydreamer]

I'm 31, and just at the very beginnings of a career pivot into comics. You're never too old. I've seen friends hop careers in their 40's, 50's and 60's. It may be a little harder when you're older, for family and financial reasons, but plenty of people make it work!

The pressure to make it big by your mid-20's is so unreal, and so stupid and damaging. Our society definitely needs to stop glorifying early success. It's so stressful and damaging to the younger generations, and demoralising to the older ones.

[SurvivALIST]

To be honest, I do find 17yo too old to start. For me, it just comes with regret that I didn't discover Tapas as early as 15yo when I was a constant daydreamer (well I still am). That I should have came up with this novel idea earlier than I thought. How do you guys feel about me stating this here as I am one of the people who thinks they are too old to start? Anyways, this is just me overthinking and wanting to hear an answer in a "straight to my face" style.

[eyewhiskers]

@SurvivALIST It is absolutely not.

You’ve got to realize that for us older people, tapas (and other webcomic sites) hasn’t even been around long enough for us to start at 17.

Youth glorification has to end. You don’t even know what kind of person you’re going to be when you grow up.

The best time to plant a tree was 5 years ago. The second best time is today.

All I’m saying is don’t look back and regret lost time only to look back in the future and wish you’d started today.

Good luck!

[Fafnir]

I've seen posts like that, and yeah, chill out teens!. Everyone is at different life stage. It has nothing to do with age.

When I was younger, I didn't have the mentality to really grind at art, and learn to be better, it just seemed impossible. I learned enough to get a job in animation, and stayed stagnant in my drawing skills. The combination of time, confidence building, and losing the ego I had when I was younger has given me the ability to learn from tutorials and practice more without disparaging at how I'm not good enough. I'm finally improving, and continue to do so, at 38.

So look at where your at in life, and give yourself a break. Not all young people can be self driven confidence monsters. I sure as heck wasn't. But you can get there. Eventually.

[DanielRKM]

Lots of good stuff here.

I'm really happy to see so many people's journeys mirroring mine in some way, shape, or form. Thanks for making yourselves known, kindred sprits.

I've typed (and retyped) my response to this a few times because it feels so important to respond to this... yet it also feels SO SILLY to feel like I have to respond to this.

I think that for a lot of us (that are older than 17), have gained the perspective that it's just really silly to box ourselves (or anyone else) in as being too old to start something (especially art).

But I do remember feeling the weight of all my decisions and opportunities while being a teenager. How every relationship was the biggest thing, how every mistake seemed so crushing (etc). Being a teenager is like being trapped in a pressure cooker where every aspect of life takes on hyperbole. And it's SO hard to get out of your own headspace.

As a teen, you have so much understanding, and yet, so little perspective. I love the term "sophomore" because it so succinctly sums up the collective experience of being young- a "wise fool." I'm still this in many ways, but honestly, I just want to live a life where I'm not left regretting anything at the end of it.

Failure sucks, but it's nothing to regret. Regretting a failure is "wasting" that failure (to quote Mo Willems). Life is a journey and we are life-long learners. Failure is our greatest teacher and the only way to be too old to make art is to be dead (... unless it's not, which would be AMAZING).

It's HARD to get over the stigma of age, though. I battle it everyday (but I also tend to make something that delights me in such a way that it cancels out the stigma and I get to close out my day with a winning record in the 'ol game of self-esteem ('cause good lord, that's a game too).

Anyway, have fun, y'all.

I continue to enjoy being here with you.

[Fafnir]

Instead of regretting not starting earlier, just think about that time as something you needed to go through to get where you are now, and actually start. That's how i try to look at it. (and im in exactly the same boat as you)

[DotCalmComic]

I am in my 50's and just starting my first serious webcomic this past year.
Google Gramma Moses.

Seriously.
Never. Too. Old.

[DotCalmComic]

You are giving up before you've even started.

Get going.
Now.
Hop!

Don't make me come over there....

[SurvivALIST]

Don't make me come over there....

Me: I'd like to see you try! (laughs maniacally in a good and sincere way)

[OffBased]

I don’t have any encouraging words to add, I’m just happy to read all these replies.

I’m also pretty young. Even if I’ve “gotten ahead” starting comics, I’m just starting out with stuff like learning piano. Then I see my friends making music with hundreds of thousands of plays that get used in really popular YouTube videos, and it feels like I missed the boat. But I just haven’t put in the same time yet. Thanks for the reminder guys

[jensrichard77]

If you started back when you were 15, would you had the life experience to make you dream real, as you do now?

The content you can make now, you could not do back then, and the time you have spent up to now have only give you some other life experience that you can use now.
You newer know how your past could have changed you present, but you do know what you can do with your present to make your future.

[Caro]

My favorite comic was created by a woman who had never written or drawn a comic before the age of 50.

And I’ve shared this before but my husband didn’t draw at all until he was about 20, then started drawing comics, and now is swinging bigger deals than me and I’ve been drawing comics since I was an infant. His whole family is comprised of late bloomers who usually don’t get going til their late twenties/early thirties and then they thrive.

I just started learning guitar and bass two years ago at age 25 and I’m just getting comfortable enough now to make my own music. If there is something you like that you’re interested in doing its always always always worth trying regardless of the quality of the outcome. My music isn’t great but its something I enjoy the process of trying to get better at. And that’s really what it should boil down to: is it something enjoyable enough for you to see through to the early bad beginning stages? For a lotta folks, the honest answer is no.

I think its easy to get tricked into thinking everybody with any degree of success is really young when you’re only looking online but when you go to a con or a meetup you’re the baby if you’re under 30.

I think the only thing its truly too late for is maybe training to be an olympic athlete.

[pilot-obvious]

I'm so sad that so many young people think life ends in your early 20s. There are so many amazing opportunities that will come your way throughout your entire life, so there's no need to write things off when you're still a teenager. You don't have to have a big breakthrough by a certain age to be considered successful in your field... hell, you don't even need to achieve whatever life goals (whether that's marriage or finding your dream job or settling down, etc.) by a certain point in your life. I see so many people settling for less than their best because society tells them they have to hit specific life milestones by a certain age and give up things they love because they're too old for it...

I'm excited to be 70 and still watching cartoons and making art because it brings me so much joy!

[rajillustration]

I also want to bring up that we're seeing a lot of people in their late 20's who were successful really early on get into really big legal trouble because they honestly got that success way too young. Youtubers getting sued because they didn't know how to be professional and they videoed straight up illegal things in a desperate cry for views. We're seeing Twitch streamers losing their partnership because they didn't watch their tongue in years past or they took advantage of their audience.

We're seeing people left and right be kicked directly off of that same pedestal they were put on for being young and successful in their teens and twenties, because honestly--despite what it may seem like with all of our stories of successful kids from pop singers to kids with tech companies, the world doesn't really want to work with those people. They want maturity, and that only comes with time and age and experience or really good publicists that carefully monitor your every waking move.

And honestly, you don't need to know what you need to do with the rest of your life at 15 or 17 or whatever. It takes time to learn that, and it takes time to learn how the world works, and how business works--because business is very different from just being talented or making things that are viral.

[gabriellabalagna]

Great advice! I always feel like my drawing skills are behind for my age group. But that just gives me motivation to keep working at it.

[the_elven_starship]

I tried several times to make one of my comics be alive, but I was learning how to draw, and also my stories weren't so mature (in therms of characters and plot development). Then I gave up for a time, and pursued another of my "dream careers": game development. Now, after almost 6 years learning 3D modeling and honing my storytelling and computer coding abilities, I think I'm ready to get back. And I'm 46 now.

[BitterBadgerZ]

Sounds like those people who feel they missed out on so much of life when they didn't have the greatest time in high school. You have the rest of your life to make up for those four years, ya know. Everyone starts out in different phases of life.