Your opinion on "Your first comic should be short"?

[magerblutooth]

I can think of many reasons why a person would want to start with a shorter story as your first comic. Increased flexibility on the work, the ability to get familiar with the process and test your limits, less commitment toward a single idea in case it doesn't pan out, and also the option to try out many different ideas instead of only focusing on one.

Back when I wrote non-comic stories, I got burned by starting out with a super long 200K+ story. I made it halfway through and burned out after two and a half years, despite still having a great deal of passion for the story. Then I got a new idea after switching to the medium of comics, which was another super long story idea. That one went on for 6-7 years and ended with its completion. It could be that I'm better suited to the medium of comics than novels, or it could be that my first attempt with novels helped prepare me for success later on.

For someone that wants to start long, my personal recommendation would be to subdivide your long story into arcs. That way, you can set yourself up with "checkpoints" in case you need to take a break or want to swap to a different idea for a bit. You can get the feeling of creating a huge epic while focusing on a smaller story within it. Ideally, it'll give you a taste of both without overwhelming you with the magnitude of workload.

[TheLemmaLlama]

I don't think your absolute first comic attempt has to be short. It should be something you're excited about, and you'll probably end up abandoning/shelving it if you're not very experienced with writing and art in general, but even the experience you get from an abandoned project or a 'first draft' you intend to reboot is really helpful.

That said, I do recommend doing a short comic early on, just to have the experience and morale boost from finishing something. I'm talking really short; like 5 or 6 pages short. Again, the key here is to finish something; once you have a complete comic under your belt, you really feel like a real comic creator, even if it doesn't do very well. (Also, I think it's a terrible idea to commit yourself to 50 pages of something you're not that excited about XD)

[UrMom]

Honestly always thought it depended on the person, some people are just naturally dedicated and can pull off long-form stories right off the bat, while others are better with short stories, or would benefit from start with shorts. Overall I feel it would be good to switch it up, short stories take a different skill set than long ones, it's good exercise to go between the two. That being said I've never been good with short stories, whenever I try I end up detailing out character/world building stuff, then the story becomes longer. The current project I have is the shortest I've done, pretty much because I knew how it would go from beginning to end, but it'll probably end close to 1,000 pages still.

[AuxwaveCreations]

Have to agree with some of the other folks here, I think whether or not your first comic should be short is totally on a case by case basis! Some folks have the passion and energy to do long projects right away, but others may need to test the water first and get a feel for how they like doing things.

I would say though, for those working in a more collaborative fashion, a short comic first might be a good way to figure out what dynamics are good for the team as a whole.

[redfish]

the problem with going for long form comics early without much experience, is that you'll make mistakes you won't even think about then.

A loooot of artists I've seen had to go back to redraw their old first chapters simply because the size of their comic was not suitable for printing. They figured it out along the way and now had to go back and fix the beginning.

Or they start a comic in black and white but decide they actually find it better to do it in colour (or the reverse!). You learn new techniques as you develop and sometimes that makes the changes pretty jarring in your story, enough that you need to go back and redraw.

[GumshoeComix]

I agree you should make a short comic first, It helps you get used to making comics and gain your footing in this specific genre of art.
cause if you want to commit to one longform comic, you'll need the practice.
Although my page might not show it, my first few comics are hidden away in the depths of my dropbox and one is completely lost due to a computer (hard-drive) malfunction rip

[Phantomobservant]

I personally like drawing smaller comics because I use a mouse to draw
well kind of smaller
I'm doing a prologue for my main comic I plan to make in the future
then after the prologue (raining down Monday)
is over I plan making an even smaller comic series of college students finding ghosts that look as if it could be in a newspaper

[MichaelToczny]

When I'm finding myself trying out a new medium, I am always looking to create a proof of concept.

To me, this is a bite-sized creation that needs to gain a specific amount of traction or else I will go back to the drawing board, re-strategize, and come back with another one.

In the realm of comics I'm doing exactly this. I'm writing a fully contained scenario in a 1-Page comic, keeping track of how long it takes, and weighing that against how well it does.

If it does badly, something needs to be reworked, so I will create another small proof of concept and see how that sticks.

[Caro]

I'm honestly a little surprised that people think just ONE short comic is enough! Comics have a very steep learning curve that learning how to draw well and write well separately is going to be surprisingly unhelpful. It is a whole other beast in itself!

When I had started taking comics seriously as a potential career, I completed somewhere between 250-350 pages of comics (some short stories ranging from 8-12 pages, some 30-60 pages, and one 145 page graphic novel) that I never even really posted online-- it was all just time spent practicing things I knew I needed to practice. Writing and structuring, pacing, actual drawing speed, coloring methods, exploring digital and traditional (trad won), lettering, paneling, exploring different genres, etc. There were a lotta things I ended up really figuring out for myself by doing the amount of work I did beforehand. And one of the things I realized was a weird skill I didn't know needed to be "learned" was finishing projects.

I've been a comics industry professional for a few years now with well over a thousand pages under my belt and I still consider every project I start to be something of an "experiment". To be frank, I wouldn't be earning a decent living off of my own comics work (and the work I get from animation studios who see my different skill sets in multiple projects) if I tried one project for years and years. But I understand that's not everyone's goal! Ultimately, you should just do whatever makes you happy and excited to work on your comics if that's where your goals lie.

[cfmateus]

I agree with you. I started by doing fan art comics when I could barely draw people (I mainly drew animals and dragons until my University time then I decided I needed to do something about it if I wanted to do comics). Drawing these characters multiple times was the main reason I improved so much in such short time.
I gradualy raised the number of pages for each comic I made, from 10 pages to 25 and there was another I started but never finished that was set to have 45 pages.

It's also a good start to see if you like comics at all. I did animation during High School because I loved the idea, when I did my 2 first animation shorts I hated the process. However I love the process and specialy the end product when you have all the pages done of a chapter and see how things flow it's so satisfying.

Another reason I find shorter comics to be a good start is that you have a start, a middle and an end set. If you go big you might have the begining and the end in mind but what about the middle? I find the middle the hardest part of a comic now that I am currently working on a big one.

[Radio_chio]

It’s probably not bad advice to start with a short comic if you’re unsure about what you’re doing. You can learn a lot about technique, experiment with a style you like, and so on.

I started my first comic with this in mind, thinking it might be a project I would do for about a year and then reach the end. I ended up having so much fun with it that it’s turned into a near decade long thing, and still going for the foreseeable future. Weirdly, I’ve done more short comics since starting my long, main project, since it gives me more room to experiment and wander around with ideas.

Is my comic perfect? No. There’s a lot that I’m going back to fix and change in preparation for doing a book, so taking the time to plan, test, and experiment earlier on could have saved me that hassle. But on the other hand, I really love digging into a longer story this way and I’m not sure I would have kept going if I were limiting myself to a shorter story.

So I guess it depends on the way your motivation works, in my opinion.

[iHateFridays]

I think it's good advice :o I also think doing practice comics, or practice drawing scenes from your big project are good ideas too

[Noorie]

I think, because consistency is more important in short stories (it would look too strange if your style changed a lot), it's better to start with a longer comic and experiment with style during drawing it. You can also publish when you draw a page and use criticism to improve

[smokesalty]

I mean I'd say making shorter comics allows your style to change without committing to a massive project. You're better off learning consistency before you jump into a bigger project (ofc your art will improve a lot more visibly in a longer project, but it's still important to keep the style consistently.

[Noorie]

Hmm, when I started publishing my first comic, I specifically wanted to improve during it, it took 200 pages till I understood that I can go further. But it's probably really individual, some maybe can find their style in a shorter period. I also never saw my first comic as important, it's goal was to enjoy and learn

[steffiemusings]

While I do agree it's great advice, I think it can be hard working on a short story when you don't have passion for a short story/want to do webcomics for a particular story in your head.

My biggest reason why I want to draw a webcomic would be to tell my Nebula Beings story. I tried making short comics, but I just don't have the same fire to improve my art than when I work on my webcomic. I actually have quite a few short stories just sitting there in my tapas library. I might finish them when I finish my Nebula Beings story.

I relaunched Nebula Beings for the second time. I want to post the last couple of chapters for the previous two before focusing on the third. I got much better at creating webcomics and drawing. If it weren't for my love and passion for the story, I would've given up on webcomics way back in 2019.

[Lensing]

"And one of the things I realized was a weird skill I didn't know needed to be "learned" was finishing projects."

this sentence was really important for me because I´m really bad at finishing projects. I have thousand pages which I only
started but never finished. I read what you wrote a couple of times and then swore to myself that I will finish things from
now on

[AlydaB]

Reading all these replies and knowing I ignored this advice.. :')

My current project is both my first serious attempt at a comic and a long fantasy epic with a very detailed and time-consuming art style. I have a pretty busy life and keep active with many different interests (in addition to work and school) that suck up my free time, so this year hasn't exactly been an ideal time to start it either.

I know it's inadvisable, but I'm doing it anyways because 'The Herald's Soul' is the story I want to tell and I create it primarily for myself, keeping aware that it isn't likely to become as successful as if I'd approached it the right way. It's my hobby and recreation, and I get a ridiculous amount of satisfaction from simply working on it and completing a single page to add to what I have. I'm happy with the quality of the comic, and have my story planned out far enough that I feel I can maintain that, accepting the downside that episodes will be infrequent.

My decision to make this story at this point in my life might've been a mistake, but it's one that I'm growing and learning from, and I'm having a lot of fun with it.

I guess what anyone "should" do when approaching their first comic depends on their goals and expectations. Accept that you're going to make a lot of mistakes, know what you're getting yourself into, decide what you want from your comic, and plan accordingly. If you're going to ignore the rules like I did, be aware of the risk you're taking and note that it might not work out the way you wanted it to.

[rajillustration]

The way I see it, is that even if it's a long comic that you're doing as your first comic, it will be short anyway. Kind of like how as a teenager I wrote out my long epic fantasy onto MS Word, spending years revisiting the document in my spare time, deleting stuff, rewriting stuff, really putting my heart into it. Came back to it my Sr year of college after I forgot about it for 6 or 7 years and it was only 28 pages.

As for comics, my first comic was an epic long comic, but it only updated for a year before I ended it early and did something different. I've done that to about 4 (5?) different stories, before doing a short comic that I did finish. (I have only truly finished one comic and it was because it was part of the webtoon contest and had to be finished to count) and then started on the comic I'm doing now.

Only now do I feel confident that I have the discipline and skill to finish a comic, as well as enough knowledge about the industry to help more than like 5 people see it (because despite how many comics I've made, I was basically working in a vacuum, no one cared.) And I don't really worry that my other works were unfinished (especially since one was fanfic so like eh I can't monetize that one anyway) because I can always finish them later.

I think the idea that you're doing a short comic first is because you are assuming that you'll have a ton of readers that you don't want to disappoint or something--which no you're not. Your first comic will rarely have like any readers at all. So like--just do the story you really want to do for as long as you want to do it. If it feels to stressful to take on that long of story then yes, don't do that story, but if there's only one thing you want to draw right now--do that thing.

Like I spent a few years more than I should have before starting that first comic, and it looked hella dated when I finally made it because it was really meant for a different time of my life when that look and that storyline was more trendy. I'm glad I finally started it, becuase it helped me make other things, but I think I would have been happier if I had made that earlier when I was a goof that could barely write 28 pages of a MS Word document. It would have been a 4 page comic, don't get me wrong, but I would have really enjoyed it.

But like as someone who's in her 30's--trends come and go so freakin fast. When I was a kid every comic was steampunk: now steampunk is hella dead. When I was a kid everyone was doing a tim burton alice and wonderland thing: now that's dated. Hell when I was as a kid, so many comics were using flash to try and be Homestuck, really interactive works that were almost video games--now that is an impossible format. We have trends now that I don't need to name, but we can basically guarantee no one will care about them 3-4 years from now. So get it out of your head while it's still fun.

[system]

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