Your thoughts? On Starting a Comic All Over

[frostdrive]

I've seen some artists, get really far in a comic. Make a great story.

Only to start it all over because they think they can do the art quality better.

I always hated this. I just want the artist to get further in the story. Not destroy all their hard work and start over.

But I'm looking back on my own comic now. And for the most part it's only been one year.
but I've gotten so much better in just one year. And it seems like I improved my style alot. Or, I don't know really.

What are your thoughts on starting over?

At the very least, I want to redo the beginning. Just five pages or so.

but, do you think it would be distracting to go from the art quality/style in this last panel here. Back to the style in the first panel?

Here's my comic if your looking to read something.

Max Parrish | Tapas

If you do, lemme know if the changing quality is a distraction or anything like that! I"m trying to gauge how much of a deal it all is.

[dawgofdawgness]

My advice is to finish the story, then change it if you really want to. Going back and making the art better in the first pages won’t matter since you’ll improve even more in the future, and the art won’t match again. Also it’s easy to get stuck in the loop of changing the art style over and over again- remember finished not perfect!!

[DiegoPalacios]

Hi Frostdrive!, i just reread the first pages to compare it to the latest ones.

I can tell you improved a lot, but the thing is, your art will keep improving more and more, and your eyes will notice more and more details that can be perfected. Many artists live something similar to what are you living now. See this graph for more details:

Your ability to evaluate art increased a lot, so you may see your starting art as "bad".

In my case i am planning of remaking the pages of my comic to digital because i know the initial art of my comic may seem amateurish,

But in your case, personally i would not recommend you to start over, because even your first pages look good.

[frostdrive]

Thanks Dawg! That is true.

Finished, not perfect. Is also true!

I feel like, in this same logic. It'd be better to just do black/white pages, until the stories done.

And then decide to color or not. Which, I've been debating doing this too.

[frostdrive]

Thanks Diego! This has a good point that I wasn't really considering!

I hadn't considered that, where I got the notion that the quality variation was distracting, came from an artist, who, has a high level of 'ability to see'

and in reality. Most people aren't artists, or have a high abilility to see either!

And wow! I hadn't noticed you redid the first pages of Rocky! They look really good!

[Zugaikotsu]

Don't do it. PLEASE. Unless you have a huge reason, like getting a contract with a publisher which demmands some more 'polished' art. If you want to change this much, you can always do it after finishing everything, but still, as Diego said, you ll be always improving, so this is a vicious void of doing and redoing.
Besides, the fans will get soo angry, and maybe many will just give up on you.

[Progg]

I did redo my first pages, because they really looked awful. But I think yours look pretty good. I mean, you've obviously improved a lot since then, but it's not a problem if the first pages look bad by comparison with the latest ones. Seeing the artist develop his style over time is part of the charm of comics. As long as the first pages don't look objectively bad by themselves (which they certainly don't in this case), you're good.
All comic artists develop their style noticeably over time, and that doesn't make their previous work invalid. For example:

(Though the earliest Tintin albums should be avoided for non-art related reasons...)

[A-weird-girler]

just don't. It's not worth it in the end.

[Rhonder]

I would advise against it, for a couple of reasons.

1.) Potentially getting stuck in the infinite re-do loop. For a lot of people, once you tell yourself that re-doing pages is okay, you'll be tempted to update old pages somewhat frequently. The fact of the matter is we're always improving, so work you did a year ago is always going to be somewhat lower quality than your work now. While redoing pages to make them pretty and current is fun, it gets in the way of continuing the story. I got stuck in this for years. I have like 10 versions of my first 10 pages of a story I started in middle school. I'd draw some pages, get stuck or distracted, put it away for a while, and when I'd get back to it I'd think "wow, my art's way better now, I'll just restart" and... I never made it past Ch 2 Page 3 xD;; If I had just trudged forward I could have quite the comic by now, 10 years later!

2.) Redoing just a few pages (first 5 or so) seems like it would feel... jarring? It feels weirder to see the quality drop suddenly than to slowly improve over time imo. However, having a strong first impression is important. I think as long as you keep the artwork of the series thumbnail up to date, and maybe the cover at the start. I see you also have a note to readers in the first episode. Doing these few things are a lot more time efficient than redoing full pages, and get the message across.

3.) It's kind of sad to remove the history of your work for new readers. A lot of people like to see artists grow over time :]

4.) I agree with @DiegoPalacios, although your new pages are definitely better, your first ones really don't look bad at all xD

Ultimately it's up to you, but definitely weigh the pros vs. cons before you decide~

[shazzbaa]

My thoughts on starting over are:

If you're considering it, think about why you're doing it, and whether or not that reason will keep happening. If it's something that will keep happening, it is usually better to keep going, and not redo pages.

So for example, if you want to redo the beginning because you want to make a book, but you weren't working at print resolution so you'll never be able to print your story unless you redo the first chapter, that makes sense. Once you redo it, you'll never have to redo it again -- you're fixing a one-time problem. It won't happen again. So it makes sense to redo those pages for that reason.
But, if you look back at the beginning and just think "my art has gotten better, I want to redo it" -- that's going to keep happening forever. If you just redo the first five pages, what are you going to do when 2 years pass and you improve even more and your first five pages look bad to you again? And what about page 6, which is going to keep looking worse and worse?

I know there are some folks who redid their beginnings one time and felt better and were glad they did it, so I don't want to say NEVER DO IT..... but I think it'd be better to wait until you have a little more perspective. You've only been doing this a year and you have no idea how much more you'll improve or change or if you'll feel more settled in a particular style later as the years go on. If it were me, I wouldn't start over right now.

[kazukitakamura126]

I think you should keep going, I was stuck in the redo loop for so long well, for me it was more or less bettering the story. However, my latest comic is a redo of a 2015 comic I made but, I only returned to this comic after I had 2 years of lackluster comics . This 2015 comic kept coming back into my thoughts so I give it another shot. However, this time I will see it through to the end. This time I have this feeling in my gut that tells me to keep going with this story no matter what happens. I have never felt that way about a story before though.

[SynergyEclipse]

I started my comic over multiple times, but I only recommend that as a last resort, and only if there are drastic changes to justify it, or if it needed to be redone to be published in print. If starting over, it should be done with the understanding of why it's being done, and how to make sure it doesn't need to happen again.

Starting all over for minor changes to the story wouldn't be worth all the time lost catching up again. Significant changes can also be made without starting over. If a comic shifts in genre from what was originally planned, it doesn't need to start all over, neither if a few retcons need to be made. These changes can be made smoothly.

When I restarted my comic and scrapped it again, I was sort of stuck in that redo loop because I could never feel satisfied, but there came a point where I knew to move forward.

The final rewrite for it started a few years ago. I was reluctant to start over, but I did as a last resort because of previous issues with the pacing and continuity, and the extent of those issues which I couldn't fix any other way. There were a lot of changes to the lore, characters, etc. I made while working on the previous rewrite, but retconning all of them in would've been very messy, and would've worsened the pacing problems. I tried to fix them, but it would've been smoother to start over, and have all of those additions and changes there from the beginning.

I made sure I wouldn't make the same mistake by more carefully planning out the final rewrite by establishing as much as I could about the lore, characters, the setting, the rules of the comic universe before I began making the pages for the reboot.

[KrispyKremeBits]

I've been told time and time again to not restart my comic, that I'd be stuck in a loop of redoing the opening over and over again. I've been told this by friends and comic creators and they all tell me the same thing. "It will improve as you work on it! Your art will get better!"

But for me it wasn't about the art quality, it was the characters. The dialogue was stiff, the protag seemed stupider than I originally intended! The relationship between the two opening characters looked more like an impatient small child and her worrywart chaperon, than a somewhat arrogant yet kindhearted adventurer and a sassy magic using companion.

I don't personally mind when others start over their comics, at least once because it is their story and they can tell it how they please. But if they keep starting it over and over again? Their never gonna finish it.