i am new in webcomic and the truth is, the comic i uploaded is actually a standard format of print comic, so when i saw another person webcomic i realized my story is kinda... CRAP!

the different pacing in webcomic and print comic is kinda problematic because it ussually need 5-20 pages to make people understand the story. While webcomic as far i had seen only need 5 pages of direct story to make it interesting...

now i got 'after 20 pages and two weeks i realized my story structure is kinda crap and need rewrite that maybe take another week to be good, even then i am not sure it will be good enough....' syndrome..

I need some profesional opinion on this, do i need to rewrite or just keep forward hoping the story will suddenly good enough?

i've re-written my comic 6-7 times.

I personally think a re-write is good thing, but then one of my readers has always suggested that I should just keep moving forward.

And he's been through about 4 of the re-writes, and made me make a new years resolution of not re-writting.

Unless the first twenty pages are going to contradict any plans for the story later on I wouldn't bother going back to correct them. There are things that I'd like to change about the beginning of one of my comics too and maybe will when I reach the end. But if I kept trying to change all the little things that dissapointed me I might never have gotten anywhere with it and eventually just given up. If its not horrifically bad just take away what you've learnt from it and move on... though if its bugging you to the point where you're wondering if it worth even continuing its probably better starting afresh rather than givinig up.

I'm of the opinion that once it's been publish/uploaded, that it's been set in stone. I really wouldn't change it unless there's some crazy continuity error in there.

I also think you should do your pacing the way you originally planned because when you've been working on you comic for a while and the new readers start coming, they are going to be reading your previous pages back to back. I know it seems like the pause between each update ruins the pacing, but I don't think it does. You have to think of your comic as a whole entity, I mean that is unless your doing a strip format where each page is a self contained thing.

I am sort of in the same boat.

When I started my comic it was very much a strip. Just gag after gag. And it was crap. Now I have a full story in mind. Rather than tear it all down and start over I just started letting my readers know that a reboot is coming. I am leaving my old comics up because I have some faithful readers who enjoyed what I had done. But they also know that the comic is now going in a new direction.

Druss01

if you dont like the story or the way you drew it out, i say scrap it and start a new. i know i have done that to my daughter of a god comic about 8 times now within the last 10 years, and i am considering to do it again ^^;.

peace!

Man, the eternal "re-do". That right there's the snake what eats his tail, if I ever did see it!

This is my first webcomic, too; so there's plenty of stuff I'm learning as I go along- especially with the first issue. But I'm with the "once it's done, it's done!" school of thought. Focus on learning from those mistakes instead of feeling compelled to correct them. I'm never gonna be 100% happy with anything I do, and I'm always gonna look back at older pages and think they're kinda crap. I just focus on making sure that what I'm posting is the very best I could do at the time, and don't worry about it anymore. Or else I'd just keep re-drawing/ re-writing the same page forever.

I understand the pacing thing. I'm used to print comics, and it took me a while to realise... damn, my story is moving awfully slow! Eh, well. I don't plan to mess with my pacing to make it read better as a webcomic. The comic was intended to be read as print media; I'll keep makin' it that way. Hopefully soon I'll just be able to upload more often, so it won't matter as much. But hey, if folks like the story enough, then they can deal; if not- well, then that's my fault, isn't it? ;)

Hyena H_ll
I don't plan to mess with my pacing to make it read better as a webcomic. The comic was intended to be read as print media; I'll keep makin' it that way.

If you mean you're going to get your comic printed someday then yeah it's fine, if not you're just being foolish. Webcomics do not follow the print formula and there's nothing wrong with adapting your writing to suit another form, in fact that's just plain common sense.

Anyways I look back over my first pages and you be surprised how much better the story flowed from me correcting and fixing the dialog here and there. But I believe the key to good writing is revision, revision, revision and i'm not afraid to say 'wow my pages really ARE shitty but i CAN fix that'.
Or maybe that just means i'm anal retentive? Oh well i learn a lot more from revision those pages then i do ignoring them ;)

wulfsaga, first you need to please yourself. Amateur cartoonists or illustrators or storytellers do what they do in order to make themselves happy and to connect with an audience. It's a type of performance art, I suppose.

Here's the deal, however, when you are just starting out with the artform -- in this case, webcomics -- you are almost certainly going to make some false steps. Most of us have. Many of us have scrapped strips and comics in the beginning and started over again from scratch. There is nothing wrong with this to start with. What you have to watch for in yourself is if this starts to become a habit. Don't let it become a habit.

Allow yourself only so many restarts before you say "No more!" and simply force yourself to tell your story from beginning to end, living with the inevitable and occasional fault.

Ahem! The advice would be slightly different if, for instance, you were intending to become a professional webcartoonist by the way.

Skullbie
If you mean you're going to get your comic printed someday then yeah it's fine, if not you're just being foolish. Webcomics do not follow the print formula and there's nothing wrong with adapting your writing to suit another form, in fact that's just plain common sense.

Right now I print 'em up zine style; maybe some day I'll self-publish. Not with this economy, though. Heh. No, You're right. I just still tend think of this one as a "book"; like it's my comic that I happen to post online, as opposed to my "webcomic". But I might just have a big ol' block of stubborn on my shoulder. That's been known to happen, too.

My goal is print with webcomics being a preview/serialization and I recently did some really minor rewrites. After the whole text was checked for grammar/spelling by a friend, I went over it again and rewrote some minor bits while relettering everything (and possibly made some fresh typos, haha). I didn't touch the art beyond minor fixes though.

As for rewriting in general, I found it easier NOT to do it than in case of short stories. On some of these I went through 4-6 versions of the text, each one taking the story in a totally different direction... currently I'm trying to do all the story rewrites BEFORE I draw a single page, leaving just enough room for text changes as I letter the pages. My suggestion for the future: want to avoid rewriting and/or even redrawing pages? Do a full script with thumbnails beforehand and tweak that and THEN get to drawing. Also, there's no problem in making a story that reads as well in print as online, you just need to remember to put something on the page that will make the reader want to return... kind of like you should put something on the bottom of the right page in print that will make them turn the page more eagerly , except twice as often and try not to spoil any big reveals by placing them on the right side by mistake.

Oh yeah. I'm rewriting two of my comics and my friend and I have rewritten the story for our joint one so many times. We found it easier in the end to start the comic and to cover up minor plot problems as we went, otherwise the comic would have never started.

I have been writting my story in many forms since I was about 7. It has never gone beyond Chapter 2. I am now 19.

haha writers paranoia! love it.

I have it all the time. especially in a medium like webcomics, where 90% of the time you are doing everything yourself and theres no editor, its really a very self-contained thing. there are plenty of times where i sit there and think "KFK is the stupidest thing ever, this story doesnt make any sense" and so when i think that i stop and move onto something else. come back to it a wekk later, re-read it, and see if im right. if i am i fix it. if im not i let it alone.

Truly, unless you read through your archives and your only thoughts are "how could I have been that stupid back then?" "What madness came over me to write that line?" Don't be afraid to redo the intros, but if the comic is tolerable, it's in your best interest to keep your comic evolving, and moving forward. There's something to be said for revision, and it is necessary in many forms of writing, but not in Webcomics. It's generally accepted that a comic will get better over time, and that quality will increase over time. I've been considering redoing my intro for a while now, and probably will, on the sole virtue that the "art" is eye-bleedingly bad. Straight up screencaps from World of Warcraft do not a pretty webcomic make.

i was thinking to remake chapter two of my webcomic because due to self-imposed deadlines, the continuity and flow are awful, but then i decided to leave it as it is, as a testament to my laziness, Till the end of times ... Amen (note: "till the end of times may vary")

I do it a lot of times. But before I upload them on here, I'll finish them up and look at them a day or so later and see if the writing held up like it should have, or if the visuals were off.

I tend to view the online incarnation on here different than the version that I am getting printed now. There are some changes in there, additional artwork to bridge some strips together more seamlessly, stuff like that.

BUT, more recently, I've been quality controlling myself more and more in the online version so there won't be as distinctive a difference when I get issue #2 done.

It's not really re-write syndrome, as much as re-draw syndrome.

I've completely re-done my comic about 6 times now.
I've re-drawn countless pages, and yet I'm still somehow managing to go strong.

I'm still rewriting mine. It turned into an animated film somewhere, and then a game, and now it's a comic again.

I'm never going to get this bastard finished and posted, am I?

AHEM, I am the KING QUEEN AND JESTER of remaking comics, I think I remade my first comic 5 times, the second about 8 the third 15 times yes thats right folks 15 times I've also had several other comics that lasted 5 pages and were also remade several times. Also the comic I'm working on now is also a remake. Though that probably doesnt put me in a place where you want to read my comic so I'm just gonna comment and say I've matured and Won't be quitting any time soon.

What did I do different you ask? I really thougth it through this time I didn't just jump into it I did some sketches saw if it felt good I thought up some new ideas I figured how do I wanna start it I practiced soem of the things that are gonna be in the comic I wrote some script (though not all because as I am one of a short attention span I tend to get bored and then I just say "I'll quit this comic its too boring" ) like about 8 pages of script is what I have so far and I have a rough idea of what I want forward I have an ending in mind, mighty important and I've gotten over my THIS HAS TO BE THE GREATEST COMIC EVER complex because the only one who seems to not like my comics is me.

Hello My name is Eddie and I'm a Rewrite'oholic.

I do re-writes up until I post.

1.There's the original script
2. Edit/Re-write #1
3. Re-wash of the garbage from Re-write #1
4. Addition of filler/cool stuff so the story makes sense.
5. Cutting of scenes previously thought cool but now hokey/redundant/not-so-cool-as-I-thought-it-was
6. Changing the rest of the story because the new filler changed stuff.
7. Re-write to smooth stuff out.
8. Shooting pictures/drawing: stuff is compressed or expanded.
9. Layout of page, compression or expansion again for speech balloons
10. Small fleshing out of expressions and thought balloons/reactions.

Posted!

11. Inevitable spelling/grammatical errors so re-write #upteen billion.

Done! Now leave it alone! No, leave it alone! I said bravo, leave it alone!!!!

I normally don't rewrite my comics, unless they turn out really bad. I had to resize many of my comics before posting them because the last server I posted on (Facebook...yeah) would change the size to save memory, so I had to adapt.

Ha what a great topic. I can definitely relate with your situation. I'll list some pros and cons for both and hopefully you can make your own decision.

Move Forward:

Pros: You can see your progress through time in your art and story telling, you get to move onto more exciting and new ideas and directions for your comic instead of dwelling on the same old stuff.

Cons: Looking at your old stuff might bother you forever. You might run into obstacles in future storylines due to continuity issues. You might be embarassed about it later on when you become a big webcomic superstar and the old stuff comes out..haha you never know

Rewrite:

Pros: You get to start refreshed and with more wisdom from learning from your mistakes, You can change anything you want to open new possibilities and doors for future stories. You might be able to sleep at night because you're not embararassed with old work.

Cons: You'll be working on old material with the story not progressing. You may never be fully satisfied with it, and you will continue rewriting. You are motivated by accomplishment and you will have nothing much to show for all the time you've put in.

hope that helps!