I haven't posted anything here in a while. Probably another platform among many I left to rot.
But here's a link to my new webcomic. It's called Digby. It's about a deeply confused space babe falling into someone's life.
When you look at a webtoon you note that you get a single, usually badly rendered, panel out of 40 that features a background or environment.
This used to irritate me. Why call yourself a comic artist when your comic is 70% words on a blank canvas and 30% Sad Princess drawings?
Hello, Tapas!
I assumed it was a result of artists adapting to the extremely shit screen that is a phone, as well as trying to meet the deadlines laid out in the extremely exploitative contract they signed. These are correct assumptions since phone screens are shit and webtoon contracts are exploitative. But I came across some information that changed my view on the modern process. It may or may not be accurate because it's from the internet but here it is;
**A comic reader spends no longer than 3 seconds on a panel. Usually less time than that. **
I grabbed a bunch of comics off my shelf and tested how fast my own snobby ass read. From wordy 1960s cowboy comics to modern gag manga. Reading the dialog took up the most time. Makes sense. A 1950s cowboy comic is far more information dense and so those obviously took longer. Was I spending much time on the backgrounds though?
I had to admit, my eye time was seconds at most. Even with comics with gorgeous art. And a dense splash page that used to be popular in cape comics? Even less time as there was rarely anything in it worth inspecting. In the comic Watchmen every panel needs investigating because every panel has something that ties into the themes and plot. Random Guy in panel four on page one is going to be important in Chapter Nine. You better be paying attention.
Most comics are not Watchmen, nor are they meant to be. Let's stay real about this.
While it stings the artist's pride to know that no one will care about the hard work it took to draw a car, I grew a new appreciation for the artists who always skip drawing cars.
They understand the ancient wisdom: Don't cast pearls before swine.
Save the actual work for the commissions and the Patreon. For the people who actually care about the effort you put in for them.
To be clear: I am drawing every day with my webcomic Eternality (available on Tapas, Namicomi, and Comic Fury) but that's a comic with a deadline. Deadlines suck the joy out of art for me. I wanna get back to comic illustrations as my focus.
And do them with pen & paper like a real G.
Pillowfort Blog. I'm also covering my favourite things from 2024 this month.
Eternality comic at Tapas. My webcomic but at Tapas size.
Eternality comic at Namicomi. My webcomic but at Namicomi size.
Eternality comic at Comic Fury. My webcomic but in 2007 mode.
After a year of fussing with improving my writing chops and improving my art chops I finally decided to start posting my webcomic today.
First, on Tapas- https://tapas.io/series/Eternality/info
Currently I'm working on sizing images for the smaller hosting sites like Duck Comics or NamiComi because... well... stuff gets pushed down the list on Tapas' Community tab so quickly that even if you were looking for it, you'd give up long before you found it. It's the same problem you'd get on any large platform. DeviantArt comes to mind. You're not likely to find your audience because the audience is unlikely to see your work unless they happen to be skimming when the post goes live.
I'm going to keep posting it there because the folks at the Tapas forums have been pretty helpful and I figure I should show some sort of loyalty to the brand. But I'll probably abandon it if a second comic ever gets made. (Don't tell them!)