For authors/artists

chrcontagious

What, for you, is the biggest challenge in writing a comic?
i.e. the art, the editing, sticking to a schedule, that kind of thing.

All aspects of the art is my biggest weakness; I have no natural aptitude for it and don't even especially like drawing, and yet I'd rather write a comic than a novel, so I soldier on ;)

captaintemerity

In Baujahr, it's the format. Writing a two-panel (normally) ongoing strip is challenging, because you have to (try to) write something at least somewhat witty/self-contained in each comic, but it's still meant to move forward as well. Further, since it prints 3 strips at a time each month in Flint Comix Magazine, that adds its own challenges.

Plus, we lost our buffer, so we're posting once a week, but do three strips a month in the mag, so the schedule is off.

djsprockets

Right now the toughest part for is the writing. Being funny is really difficult, mostly because I spent about 15 years thinking it was easy and concentrating on drawing. Now that I can [mostly] draw, I'm spending more time writing, rewriting, and editing the text.

prydonian

I'd chip in and also say the writing, especially when you do a gag-a-day strip that relied on geek news. There were long periods when the geek and pop culture news slowed, it caused me to panic to come up with something to fill in the gaps.
That's why I had to rest my comic, to rethink it's direction, to move away from relying on outside sources for my jokes, and move towards a more storyline based affair, which now is another challenge.

chrcontagious

"Writing a two-panel (normally) ongoing strip is challenging, because you
have to (try to) write something at least somewhat witty/self-contained
in each comic, but it's still meant to move forward as well"

Yeah, I hear that.

terence

The biggest challenge for Average Joe is the drawing - I can take up to 10 hours to draw each update (and the end result does NOT look like it!*sigh*) which then has the effect of making it hard on scheduling time to do it! I usually have a pretty good idea of what I want said and shown in the comic though, so at least that eases up the writing process (whether it comes out funny is another matter entirely ;-D)

Captaintemerity, I can't even imagine the challenge of moving things forward with a two-panel strip; kudos!

billmurphy

I found the writting easy for me. (unless no one is understanding my gags) My comic (Casually Employed) is a gag-a-day storyline style comic. So when I write on a theme my mind is already focussed on that theme. I just daydream what my characters are doing in a certain situation and it starts to write itself. I found writting stand alone gag-a-day strips to be much more difficult. I have trouble staying focused on one stand alone idea/gag at a time.

I agree with Terence, drawing is the biggest hurdle for me because if my character's expressions or body language cannot convey the gag, then my joke is lost on the reader.

lkhedlund

I'll definitely weigh in with the writing as well. Coming up with a compelling story and sticking with it is tough stuff! My second would be meeting update schedules with work and everything else.

chrcontagious

"My second would be meeting update schedules with work and everything else."

Agreed. It can be a real challenge some days, I have to treat it like "actual" work to make sure it gets done, which stops me enjoying it quite as much sometimes.

Keeeng

I find the art to be the biggest hurdle.... I can always dream up some crazy story... but when you look around at the amazing art that is popped out by webcomicers... eeek... I always feel like I come up heavily short.

Even simply drawn comics like robbie and bobby I always feel like I fall short.

PontiusMorgan

The art is a definite balancing act, between detail, scene compostion, and simply not overdoing it. The same can be said for writing. Weaving a coherent and compelling story with good timing and delivery are something that I struggle with.

I have all the art, scenes, dialogue an everything in my head, it just seems to be translating what I imagine to what others can see.

workingstiffscomics

Art? My artwork is shit! My feeling is that as long as the public understands what's going on, everything is fine. As for schedule,puh, I don't have no stinking schedule! When I start making money off this thing, then I'll worry about a schedule. Writing can be tough. I carry a small notebook with me everywhere I go in case a gag pops into my head and I don't want to lose it. Unless of course, I lose my notebook.

http://www.workingstiffscomics.com/mybook/

john_wigger

My biggest hurdle is progressing the story and being clever/funny/or having a joke for the individual strip. I do a long form comic (plot advancing/character development/etc.) in the format of a strip. I try to pull in the best of both worlds when it comes to a story strip or a gag-a-day.

I have tons of story ideas outlined for my comic, but getting there while making the comic that is on the front page significant can be a struggle.

Art has been the easy part of doing my comic... and as I've been doing it I've made the look more and more complex.

chrcontagious

@workingstiffscomics "When I start making money off this thing, then I'll worry about a schedule."

While I get that, I want to stick to a schedule just to be known as reliable. I think it's more likely I can build a reader base if people know they can more or less trust that there will be new content each week.

chrcontagious

@john_wigger "My biggest hurdle is progressing the story and being clever/funny/or having a joke for the individual strip."

I struggle with that. I've decided that I've found a middle ground in just going for being amusing rather than hilarious and hope that some readers grow to like, and thus derive humor from, the characters.

Lo

I'll be the combo-breaker: one of my biggest hurdles is figuring out where the story and the worldbuilding overlap. As in, what to include and not include when it comes to background information that only I know, how that may impact future stories I do, how set in stone my stylization is, stuff like that. Also there's always the trouble when making something consistent with the worldbuilding is actually worse for the story than coming up with something new.

AlienShoresBand

I just can't get my darn pages done on time!

chrcontagious

@doitforscience That's an interesting comment. One way in which I tried to include a lot of my world-building was in conversations between characters where they might joke or argue about (for example) their beliefs, introducing concepts like religions in that way, rather than taking "time out" to explain everything.

terence

One thing I recently heard Kellie Turnbull (www.thepunchlineismachismo.com) mention on a podcast really resonated with me, so I'm gonna post it here too - when the drawing process takes you so long that you start to lose sight of whether the joke was funny in the first place or not! I've had to be "talked off the ledge" more than once after becoming convinced the strip just isn't funny (after spending hours drawing it), so I'd count that as a challenge as well ;-)

Lo

@chrcontragious: I do that too, and also pedestrian stuff like invented swear words and obscenities. For me, though, it's not quite enough because my story is about aliens, their culture and history, no Earth anything if I can avoid it (I can't about 75% of the time, tbh). You've gotta show -and- tell in this situation, and it's a delicate balance. And unfortunately, just to even get folklore/mythology explained adequately by making passing mentions in casual conversation, that would take a hundred pages of exposition. And what if I wanted to do a prequel? I don't wanna screw myself over for that, etc. etc...

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