What's the best approach if you seem to be getting behind more frequently.

I think it is a combination of slight burn out, my new more time consuming style, and the amounts of action I need to put into this issue. Not to mention the backgrounds.

I don't really think it is burn out, cause I want to draw and love doing it. Some days lately I don't want to as much. I'll find ways to distract myself on these certain days and then by the time it is getting late I get into draw mode but can't complete anything cause I get sleepy.

I think I am going through a small phase. Should I just update whenever I can on days I say I will update? Skipping a day or so on occasion.

Perhaps I should decrease yet again the days I say I will update?

Or should I just take a small hiatus working when I feel like it and when I come back I will have buffer again and have all this nonsense out of my system.

Your thoughts? And what do you do if/when this has hit you?

I do it during the day, every chance I have the time.

Then I take a break.


...

And lastly, I ink and colour it right before I get ready to sleep.

Just tell them you have a life and have to attend to it besides comics. Not the very best reason, but it's the most realistic explanation you could give.

Do we do comics so we can update on some set schedule, or do we do comics to tell stories we love, in the hopes that others will also appreciate them?

If the point of all your effort is to keep a schedule, then come hell or high water, meet your schedule, & quality be damned.

I would NEVER take that route, but I'm not you.

I'd rather post a solid piece of storytelling once a month than post a rushed, half-assed piece of storytelling once a week (or day).

But that's me...

Later,
Chip

Well, I do the comic because I like my story and want to tell it.

I've been told many times I should set some sort of schedule to make things easier for my audience and try my hardest to stick with it.

And I could easily adhere to my schedule if I wasn't falling into these "off" days like I have as of late.

I guess I just don't feel like working on it EVERY DAY now. But I do want to be fair to my audience.

Since I have told them my schedule and am fairly decent at keeping it I was merely wondering if I should change it or something till I get out of this rut I hit on occasions.

Obviously I won't just finish something up for an update or I wouldn't even be posting this question and I would have an update ready for tomorrow like I am supposed to =P

JustNoPoint
I think I am going through a small phase. Should I just update whenever I can on days I say I will update? Skipping a day or so on occasion.

Perhaps I should decrease yet again the days I say I will update?

Or should I just take a small hiatus working when I feel like it and when I come back I will have buffer again and have all this nonsense out of my system.

Your thoughts? And what do you do if/when this has hit you?

I know most of the comics I read have gone through these types of things. (I have had major slumps too, but I have an insane "buffer" so it doesn't show.) I've seen people approach it all three ways, so I'll give you my thoughts (as a reader).

The hiatus: This can work, but you could lose readers in the meantime. If you choose to go on hiatus, try to set a "return" date. Doing that will assure that people know when to expect you back, so they can return to reading. If you don't give at least some idea of when you'll be back, it could appear that you are potentially "gone forever." If you can't return around the time you expected, just pop back in with a note that it will be a little longer and you haven't vanished.

Decrease update days: Once a week is perfectly reasonable. Less than that if you need to is fine. It's your comic, so whatever you want. Set it at fewer days than you expect to update, and you'll be able to build up that buffer you want, so when you have even slower times, you can relax a bit. (I think this method works best with readers. But do what works for you.)

Update on your regular days -- but only when able: I think this would be the most stressful for you, because you might feel bad at not keeping your schedule. Being unpredictable can be bad with the readers too, especially ones not on DD. Plus, you won't be building any buffer. You could do filler on the days you can't make it, but too much of that can be a bigger disappointment than no update at all -- and it would disrupt the flow of the story.

I stop it for awhile. Longest hiatus I took was 3 months. Then I usually do a hiatus for about a week or two after a chapter is completed or when something of "slight closure" has happened in the story.

Though I try to follow my update schedule which is usually every other day. :)

I think it depends on your goals. With the SuperFogeys, it began as a professional exercise. I wanted to see if I could keep up a certain pace for a certain amount of time. When I did and people liked it, I went on hiatus to really think about whether I wanted to continue it or not. Once I did, I set a schedule and haven't flinched from it since.

Part of the reason for that was my goal: to create something suitable for publishing. I felt that if I wanted to do something on a professional level then I should keep a professional, regular schedule.

Luckily, it paid off for me and a publisher (Th3rd World Studios) approached me last April and on the year anniversary of the first strip I ever drew (last week), I had a book in my hot little hands.

Not the path everyone is going to take (not everyone has a big ol' plate of luck handed to them), but I had a goal and part of the reason I think I met it is because I stuck to a schedule. I couldn't expect to be published if I wasn't already conducting myself professionally.

You may not have that goal at all. If you don't, what is your goal? Is it to attract as many readers as possible? Then a schedule will help that. Is it to simply tell your story to your satisfaction? Then maybe a schedule isn't as important to you.

Its discipline. That and shortcuts. If you can set aside time everyday to work on your comic stuff, its not so bad. If you're feeling particularly creative, do some buffer stuff. I've a pile of stuff that just is so bad that I would never want to publish it, but if I get into a pinch and don't have time to do the usual penis stuff: I'm publishing the crappy stuff. I don't want to. I want to use my best worst material. Sometimes you get busy with stuff and ya know, the internet isn't everything for everybody.

I usually stay a few days ahead to make sure I have everything ready. Right now I just barely managed to get todays page up. To me it doesn't really matter if its not up before the server rollover, but I like it to be there to greet people. If I have to do it the next day, I feel bad. I got this one up at 2:46 and I feel like a douche for being just a few hours late. The only excuse for me not doing my comics is that I'm just deathly sick and can't move, which has happened to me before. Either that or I get so busy with other stuff, I just don't have time to play in the internet drama and hilarious small politics of doing a web comic.

I feel burned out sometimes, and there are days when my job either leaves me no time to work on my comic or I'm too tired in the evening. The only way to work around this is to have enough buffer material at all times.

Also, my comic is split into 22-page "issues", so I can take breaks between issues to whip up enough buffer material so that it will run on time.

I really try to stick to my deadline. My reasons are based on the same goals Brock has. I feel the best way to prove myself is to work hard on the discipline aspect of being a regular artist.

Also I fear losing my small audience. It's already very tiny. I don't want to damage that.

Odd thing is, right now I'm not working with any buffer material.

I need to change that. Heh.

The worst thing about all this is I had just finished an issue. So it would have been a great place to take a small break =P

I'll do that for sure when this issue ends.

usedbooks
Update on your regular days -- but only when able: I think this would be the most stressful for you, because you might feel bad at not keeping your schedule. Being unpredictable can be bad with the readers too, especially ones not on DD. Plus, you won't be building any buffer.

I think this one is the less of 3 evils until the end of this issue. From now on at the end of an issue I will take a break to get some buffer ready.
I don't work on filler, because if I am, that is time I could be working on an actual page =P

Brock
You may not have that goal at all. If you don't, what is your goal? Is it to attract as many readers as possible? Then a schedule will help that. Is it to simply tell your story to your satisfaction? Then maybe a schedule isn't as important to you.

I would say my biggest goal is to tell the story to my satisfaction. I don't want to work for a comic place or anything like that. I don't enjoy this enough to do the same work on a project that isn't my own.

However, I also like to get more readers, because that gives more potential for feedback on story and art which can also convey the story in a more satisfactory manner.

I realized that once I finished Book Three of Due East , I would need to take a hiatus for several reasons.

1. To keep from getting burned out.
2. To take time to write/develop new material for Book Four with my wife.
3. To build up a buffer.

Realizing that a prolonged hiatus means potentially (or definitely) losing readers, I came up with an idea to keep content coming without uploading Book Four pages.

1. Falling back to once a week updates
2. Fan art (we've got a few really good ones submitted and a few more on the way)
3. Some filler material (stuff that would normally go in Behind The Scenes of Due East )

JustNoPoint
I don't work on filler, because if I am, that is time I could be working on an actual page =P

I agree with this principle. Fortunately, when you're developing concepts and dialogue, it frees you up to draw fun filler stuff! :)

People (myself included) like a reason to come back to a comic and they often leave if nothing is posted for too long. I've given up on a few comics because of that, and I think it's justified.

Most people understand that real life interrupts creativity, sometimes for extended periods, but you must show some signs of artistic life to keep people's interests.

Last tiem I checked, most of us were still doing this for free I think that's a big factor. I used to obsess over my self-imposed deadlines, but I've calmed down. As busy as I am, it's amazing it gets done at all. And all 4 people that are reading KFR are very patient with me.

With my bi-weekly update schedule, even a week's delay doesn't seem to make a difference lol! That happened with the latest page, by the way. But those that stuck around for a while, were there as soon as it went live. They bear with me and they're a very faithful bunch, for which I'm very very thankful. However, a lot of people who liked the comic post one comment and I never see them again, because by the time I update again, they forget all about it. I HAVE thought of posting fillers, but frankly, I have no time to draw filler art, my comic takes up all my time. And it wouldn't be fair to reduce quality to make work faster. On the contrary - I try to push my artwork a step further each time.

I should start drinking coffee.

I think updating depends on your reasons for having a webcomic.

I think if you're doing this professionally, you need to have a regular update schedule while simultaniously keeping a certain level of quality.

If your doing this for creative recreation, however, I think it's okay to get a little behind once in awhile. Sometimes you might run out of ideas or, *gasp*, get tired of drawing. In order to not let your whole comic suffer, it's good to take a break sometimes.

I personally have had problems updating from the start because I'm a really, really busy high school senior (editor-in-chief of school newspaper, 5 AP classes, ect.), so I often have to put drawing and my comic on the back-burner, even when I don't want to. I love to draw my comic, I love to tell stories, I love every aspect of it, so even if I don't update regularly, I'm glad I can always come back and share my stories with people. Once my schedule calms down though, I plan to try and update at least once a week.

cs3ink
If the point of all your effort is to keep a schedule, then come hell or high water, meet your schedule, & quality be damned.

That one sentence is pure gold. :D

But I agree; I don't like having to wait weeks or months between each update as much as the next guy, but I'd rather have that than for the comic to be updated every day and look like total crap.

aw man... when I started up school again I was updating once every other week for like... 3 updates, and I remember putting up 2 pages of 'sorry there's no update, these are my reasons' I'd rather put one of those up at the end of the week. I try to have an update up by Sundays and if I miss a few then I try to put up a 2nd one the same week. That's lately, I used to update once every few days when I had the time but well... school and all.

Regardless, I also get 'up and down' times while doing my comic and what I suggest is that when you have an 'up' time, get ahead 1 or more updates but the problem with that is that you CAN burn yourself out... it's happened to me while I was redoing old pages, it was good for a while but then I just CRASHED on that... I redo like.. 4 or so at a time because I rearrange the paneling somewhat and the storyline. I have one set of 4 where I've redone 2 bu not the other 2... I should get on that... sometime >.> after I finish my homework for the holidays XD

but I've gone on a tangent, basically, I'm saying is that, you update like, 3 times a week O.o so I suggest maybe cut that down to 2 and 1 at the least for a time if you want, and at least put up a 'I'm feeling bad, don't want to give you crappy work' page up and maybe, (I haven't done this yet but I like the idea) put the script up instead and draw the page after so that ppl who really like the story can see what's happening that week still ^-^

my 2 cents

Way, way back - when I still had a huge bumper, and did my pages in greyscale - I updated twice a week. Then, I switched over to doing my comics in colour, which meant that they took more time to produce - when I realised that, instead of trying to keep up the twice a week schedule with a steadily dwindling supply of comics and sanity, I decreased the update rate to once a week.

That way, I can produce one page a week, and still have time to do other stuff. While a deadline is good - once a week is still a steady demand, and it keeps me from wandering off and just procrastinating endlessly - having a too heavy deadline (especially on something that earns you no money) is simply a quick way to get burned out.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do. :)

I'd agree with everyone here who's said change your schedule. Choose a schedule you can keep to comfortably.

Once a week, once a month (or even once a year!) doesn't really matter. Yes, you could well lose readers if you update less frequently than, say, once a week but (a) that's not certain and (b) does it really matter? You're doing this primarily because you enjoy it, right? Choose a schedule that lets you keep enjoying it.

Oh, and - as Frostflowers said - good luck with whatever you decide!

HAHA, it's funny how this topic came back to life. I'll go ahead and mention what I ended up doing.

I reduced my update schedule temporarily to 3 days a week, I am trying to see if I can do 5 and once this issue is over the comic will take a small break so I can continue to build buffer.

Once I start the next issue I want to go back to 5 updates a week, but may go to 4.

There are 2 reasons I make my comic.
1 because I like to

2 because I really really want to draw some of the cooler stuff I have planned in the future.

The problem there is I have to get to it, so it irritates me to have to slow down the amount of updates I make. If I had stuck with my daily update schedule that I started with I would be getting close to finishing my Prologue. But that was leaving me with NO personal life at all cause I had to work on the comic every free chance I had.

I have 4 full days off a week so 3-4 pages is pretty simple to squeeze in. Just a page a day and I usually am pretty good at just working on the comic.

So in short, yes I enjoy making my comic. I will enjoy it later on even more though if I can ever get their haha =D