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

[Zhengo]

I took a few courses in college about comic making so I have made shorter comics in the past, even though I haven't put it online. The main reason why when working on projects of my own, they tend to grow into long form stories is mainly because I end up thinking of all the possible character arcs and world building I can explore and the project just ends up expanding

I do think there is merit to the advice, but I feel maybe that if you want to work on a long project, you might as well go ahead. I agree with what the above said that you should put your all into whatever project you're working on. And there's no point in working on a short project first if you don't really have your heart in it, especially if it's supposed to be an independent project. I think you can still practice storytelling structure in a long form project. Most long form stories are comprised of many arcs within them, and each arc is basically its own substory.

[powerplantanimations]

I don't agree with the statement that your first comic should be short, I agree with the statement "you should do whatever is possible for your first comic". Basically try to figure out ways to get much out of your story in the most creative ways possible.

For example, I'm actually going to be doing Diary of the Wimpy Kid page segments to expand the plot further so people can have more content (they don't take long) :v

[frgmnt]

...I want to see someone hard disagree on this, y'know?
I didn't read all of the thread but I agree with @FruitTartz, pretty much.

I have made the mistake (?) of starting with my magnum opus destined to be +600 pages, gave up less than 10% through it... And I don't completely regret it, it did show me a lot of my weaknesses. But I also haven't gone back to drawing comics since abandoning it, other than a few random disjointed pages here and there.

My main issue with the advice of making your first comic short-form is... at the time I was starting my comic, there was just no other story I wanted to tell. My comic-making was 100% motivated by me wanting to make my magnum opus reality. I did not start with a short comic, because I did not want to waste time making something disposable I would not care about.

Would I do this differently today? Maybe. I'd probably start by making a few random scenes from my story into comics, for practice. But it would still be the same story.

[MeltingCORE]

Whether one's first comic is short or long, I think one of the most important things is learning how to focus in your own way! (Speaking from experience!) I've been making my own comics since 5th grade because I was so inspired by manga. But it wasn't until high school that I actually sat down and finished a comic in full.

[Swamp]

I think it is a better idea as a general rule. Learning to finish projects is an important skill, and, as you're learning, your rate of improvement is so fast that, by the time you get going, you'll usually want to set the start on fire. It's really nice now to have plateaud enough I can go back to a five year old project and not feel like it's an unsalvageable trashfire.

That said, I think this advice often fails to acknowledge how... short stories are a totally different skill than novels. The stories I want to tell are long, and they always have been.

[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