# Dear present and future comic authors



## Ak-Nolij (Oct 6, 2010)

In my honest to God, humble opinion: Working on multiple comic stories, at the same time, is a bad idea. While I've never attempted to produce more than one story for the world to see, as an amateur artist just starting out, I'm seeing a disturbing trend come into perspective. *TL;DR* at the bottom, with my reasons being: 

ONE; your updates become slow as shit.
TWO; your readers will have a difficult time keeping track.
THREE; you start to cut corners.
FOUR; your chances of meeting your deadlines are little to zero. 
FIVE; your audience becomes divided, making you either work double(or triple) just to appease them OR therefore crush their expectations and risk losing them.

First reason, this is pretty much common sense. More projects = more time on your plate and more energy you have to put into them. It's a thrill, yes, when you're drawing/writing about your characters and having them interact in this little world you've built. Hell, you'll enjoy it even moreso when you've completely embedded yourself into this fabulous piece of work. It's a thrill to suddenly think of a couple other stories while driving or riding the bus. To think, you've garnered the gonads to bring the world more ideas that set you apart from other amateurs, maybe even being on par with the pro's you look up to. But heed this warning, if it takes you at least one week to produce one comic page, you seriously need to rethink your strategy if you're looking to start a completely new story. Instead, jot your ideas down, open up CeltX and make notes. Assuming you come up with dialogue at the final stage of production, it won't hurt to also write your other stories. That way, you don't lose sight of your goals and you have another project you can come back to.

The second reason is one of the most important problems comic authors should avoid AT ALL COSTS. Your best strategy to making a decent comic is clarity: this, plus creativity is the stuff of the best comics known. If you're juggling from one story, to another, then to another, and back again, somewhere along that creative process you are gonna lose that momentum to keep your main story consistent and suddenly produce something that's either gonna fuck up the pace or leave your audience scratching their heads. You might think "Oh I'll just rush it in", for love of Christ DON'T. The same could be said about your main comic's story, if you can't decide what to do next, stop yourself and set your priorities straight.

The third reason speaks for itself. Once you become occupied with one story, it WILL be difficult to focus on others. You'll start to do things just because it saves time for the other; sketch less, use cheap Photoshop techniques, not check your damn spelling, not check if your flow is okay. All of those factors will mean the difference between the comic that shot you to the top of the charts and the comic that was only glanced at for a second then forgotten about the next. No one likes a a lazy-ass. I should know, I used to be one. But then again, there's a difference between being equipped or not for whatever work comes to your plate. If you realize there are undesirable elements in your comic skills you wish to improve, then take the time to improve them. That means mo' practice, mo' practice and mo' practice. On the flipside, stale artists gain no respect, let alone deserve it. Stale artists are the worst kind around and no matter how popular, if you choose not to improve then you're only wasting time.

The fourth reason is what frustrates potential readers, as well as dedicated readers to an extent. When you have an update schedule set in stone, readers will notice this and thus your views will improve most on those consecutive updates, because it's on time. Making comics is hard, whoever tries to convince you different can eat shit. On average, a dedicated comic artist should be able to produce at least one page a day. As intimidating as it may sound, it's that kind of discipline that separates the boys from the men. Like I said earlier, if it takes you a long time to complete a page, it's gonna cost you double with an additional story. The more stories you start, the more the shit's gonna pile up and it'll turn your wonderful weekly schedule into once a full moon. This goes hand-and-hand with the fifth reason. Your readers will begin growing attached to your other stories and thus, you feel obligated to continue working on those other stories; which again will cut into your time for your main comic.

Time is something you will never get back, therefore you have to invest it wisely. Having to work on not one, but three, or maybe even seven different comics at the same time and expect to put in the same effort, earning the same results like you do with your main hit, will only end in tears.

*TL;DR* - Don't work on more than one comic story. Just don't, the hiatus was created for a reason. Your audience will lose focus and you'll likely stress yourself into a ragequit. Avoid starting more than one comic story unless you feel you're prepared to face the Pepsi challenge. Remember, one page a day.


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## Dee (Oct 7, 2010)

Couldn't agree more with your doing more then one comic at a time will overstress and eventually lead to all the comics you do suffering in some way, shape, or form. I've experienced it myself and I've seen it happen more then once.

Dee


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## cpam (Oct 9, 2010)

As a counterpoint from someone who _does _do three regular webcomics on a regular basis - I was doing five, but two came to planned conclusions - the real secret is in planning.  Know your limitations and know the realities of publishing before you commit.  Build yourself up a backlog of material before you start publishing it to the web; that gives you some leeway if some catastrophe comes along to derail your momentum.

It's not all that uncommon for artists to do more than one strip; in fact, it was quite common in comic books, especially during the Silver Age (the 50's - 70's).  Some were doing three to four books on a monthly basis; that's roughly 60 - 80 pages a month, or between 7 to 20 a week or 1 to 3 pages a day.  The best known artist of that time was Jack Kirby who averaged about 12 completely penciled pages a week -- plus covers.  The reason for this prodigious volume of output was simple: money.  Their pay, which was usually based on a low page rate, depended a great deal on how much work they could turn around.  The more pages they completed, the bigger the paycheck -- and, of course, the more work they turned in, the more assignments they got in return.  Of necessity, they needed to be fast _and _good.

Be ambitious, but be careful not to bite off more than you can chew.  Learn to plan accordingly.


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