As time goes by and you get better at drawing comics, don't you look back at your first pages and think they look like ass?

Then this feeling gets you and you're tempted to change everything or even start over fresh with your comic!

Did it happen to you? How do you get over this feeling?

I used to, but I have way too much story to tell, so I choose to progress and let my ugly old pages just be a testament to the progress I've made.

That's definitely how I felt with my last attempt at Ryu's Krew. There was so many things I wish I could change, but that's how it goes.

Hopefully with this attempt, it'll all work out ^__^

Yes.

And as for getting over that feeling, I didn't.

I'm not really ashamed of my old art, it's all building blocks, but I did think I could do better, so I redrew the first three pages (I just checked and I still have both sets, even though that's been like 7 years and 4 computers ago) and realized I would be spending more time going back than moving forward. It wasn't realistic, and at least for the art, not really worthwhile. But as a writer, as I had more time to reflect on the story, I saw what I believed to be both maddeningly glaring holes, and conceptual opportunities missed. It got to a point where I could only see the flaws, but I tried to push on until it burned me out. I stopped work completely for a couple of years.

At the end of that time I rewrote the initial origin story over about six months (it would have normally taken me six days for only scripting six issues, but I was taking my time to think things through). In that instance I think I created a much better telling of the original story, though it ended up being three times as long. At some point I'll go back and do it.

However, after that I had a different project that I started, and lost interest in, and went back and retooled some of the original pages. Making corrections on the original art itself, to salvage it, clean it up, as opposed to investing so much time completely redrawing it. That was enough for that one to allow me to get beyond it before it became a problem again.

Yes, at least for the story and jokes I use. Since I don't do my own drawing, I can't speak for my artist, but I would love to go back and redo certain scenes.

I see, through the beauty of hindsight, how many foolish mistakes I made, characters that became tossed aside, and plotlines that could have been tightened up. But you know what? Why focus on the past? Learn from it and make yourself a better future. That's my stance on it. Every time I start wondering if I should rewrite, I remember that every step teaches me something, and every mistake helps clarify what I should be doing.

To be honest I don't think my current art is so hot, not to mention older stuff. But that pushes me only to work harder on the next page. So far every ten pages or so there's a noticeable jump in quality. Hoping it'll keep on growing :)

Would I restart Din Krakatau? No. Would I redraw pages? Perhaps. But I still have another 64 pages to write and draw (after a short break), so I can't waste time on redoing old pages. Maybe fix some minor mistakes here or there, but that would be it. I want to finish this story, and start working on the next one :)

Besides, there have been already few people who expressed interest in purchasing a printed edition (even for an outrageously high price of a print on demand color book), so I guess it's good to continue.

So no restarting :)

Also, I never put any art online if I don't think that at the very least it is telling the story it's supposed to tell. All 64 finished pages do (with perhaps couple confusing panels here and there), so there's really no need to change anything (other than fixing grammar and spelling on some of them). :D

Starting over? Oh hell no.

It took years to get to where my comics are today, and there still years more of story to tell. Why would I trash all that to go all the way back to square 1? Me and Ed's early art are acceptable enough. Move forward, tell the story.

Maybe after everything is said and done, I might go back and retool a few pages. But even now, I can't think of any good reason to do so.

I created my first few pages when i knew nothing about art or computer editing, as time went by i got to a decent point and i thought if seeing the old pages made me go 'wtff.' then others would too.

So yup starting to re-do the first 10 pages or so. :o

I have!
And I did.
Like when I moved to DD.
Like when I ended LOLZ and started GIADC.
Like when I ended GIADC and started Pancakes.

Although, these last three comics all exist in the same reality, in that GIADC is the past of a character, and Pancakes is just more LOLZ, really.


My main motivation was I hated the name of the comic Laughing Out Loud Zombies, because it misrepresents the comic, and I was switching from Paint to Photoshope.
Then when I was done with that prequel, and wanted to return to my old (more natural for me) style, I just named the new comic after my favorite character.

I don't delete my old comics, though.

I got this great idea how to have my redo cake and eat it too!

Listen...

In order to redo a scene and not back track myself I'm planning on having...
a FLASHBACK!



I'm gonna flash back to certain scenes from a different character's perspective. Instead of cutting and pasteing the past scene I will redraw it. Better. Stronger. Faster. Marvelous eh?

mlai
Starting over? Oh hell no.

It took years to get to where my comics are today, and there still years more of story to tell. Why would I trash all that to go all the way back to square 1? Me and Ed's early art are acceptable enough. Move forward, tell the story.

Maybe after everything is said and done, I might go back and retool a few pages. But even now, I can't think of any good reason to do so.

I totally agree with you. However, my past art was very poor but I'm gonna progress with the story and art because it's gonna take years for me to complete the stories that I have. Starting over is gonna waste more of my time... I'd say when I complete my comics, I will retouch the few bad pages.

starting over... hell no... at this point!

JillyFoo
I got this great idea how to have my redo cake and eat it too!

Listen...

In order to redo a scene and not back track myself I'm planning on having...
a FLASHBACK!



I'm gonna flash back to certain scenes from a different character's perspective. Instead of cutting and pasteing the past scene I will redraw it. Better. Stronger. Faster. Marvelous eh?

Jilly I am honestly very much impressed with this idea. It is subtle but brilliant. It is a very clever way to get some of the best of both worlds. If you execution is as inspired as the idea I'll very much enjoy seeing that. You get a gold star!

I am scared to look at my earliest pages because they look so bad - I mean, really, really crappy.

But I'm not going to start over, because that would mean redoing far too many pages - I wouldn't have time to do anything else, and I want to finish this comic sometime. If I just start over every time I get better, I'm never going to reach the end, you know? My only goal is to have each page be better than the previous one - even if it's just by a little.

Evil Emperor Nick

JillyFoo
I got this great idea how to have my redo cake and eat it too!

Listen...

In order to redo a scene and not back track myself I'm planning on having...
a FLASHBACK!



I'm gonna flash back to certain scenes from a different character's perspective. Instead of cutting and pasteing the past scene I will redraw it. Better. Stronger. Faster. Marvelous eh?

Jilly I am honestly very much impressed with this idea. It is subtle but brilliant. It is a very clever way to get some of the best of both worlds. If you execution is as inspired as the idea I'll very much enjoy seeing that. You get a gold star!

Actually, I think this has been done a few times with comic artists who refuse to cut and paste. Personally, I completely support Jilly's move.

As for the topic of discussion, I look back at my old pages and shake my head, but then I take a look at my new stuff and I'm inspired to draw more. It gives me a bit of an ego boost, really, seeing how far I've come

mlai
Starting over? Oh hell no.

It took years to get to where my comics are today, and there still years more of story to tell. Why would I trash all that to go all the way back to square 1? Me and Ed's early art are acceptable enough. Move forward, tell the story.

Maybe after everything is said and done, I might go back and retool a few pages. But even now, I can't think of any good reason to do so.

^ Me... um... minus the Ed part, it don't apply to me.

It's taken over a year and I am still not done with the bloody frikin prologue!

When I started this I said at longest it would take till March of this year to finish.

The only thing that kinda really haunts me is my old mistakes. When people critic my comic now they tell me a lot of issues from the oldest ones. Though I look at it as a reminder to never make those mistakes again.

-----

And it's really fun redrawing any flashback scenes. I generally always do that!

I'm in the process of retooling my comic, but then I didn't have that much of an archive when I decided it sucked so I don't have the problems other people have with throwing out and redoing years worth of work. And then there's the fact that the writing was just as bad as, if not worse than, the artwork and... Well, I just had to start again to get it how I really want it.

Right now I'm working on doing a basic plot outline for the whole thing (one of the many basics I neglected when I started, such a noob... =P) so I can make sure there aren't any noticeable plot holes, then I'm gonna do a more detailed one to work out where I'm gonna slip in backstory and foreshadowing and all that stuff so it flows good, gotta work on improved character designs, a better drawing method that suits my style and weaknesses... Everything I'm improving is worth losing those 50 crappy pages for.

So, pretty much, I got over it by giving in to it and I feel so much better now. XD

JillyFoo
I got this great idea how to have my redo cake and eat it too!

Listen...

In order to redo a scene and not back track myself I'm planning on having...
a FLASHBACK!



I'm gonna flash back to certain scenes from a different character's perspective. Instead of cutting and pasteing the past scene I will redraw it. Better. Stronger. Faster. Marvelous eh?

Yeah, why I didn't think of this option I'll never know! I want to add some events that happened it the past and I'll be using the FLASHBACK, baby!

I once read here that a comic maker has 100 bad pages in them before the quality comes, so better get those off quick!
I really try to think of it as an exercise and if I don't like a page I can try harder on the next one!

I also trick myself thinking: Yeah, the page is good enough, upload it already so the readers can see it, You can change it later and add more detail when you have time!
Of course I'll never touch the page again, but it's a way to push yourself to upload an "imperfect" page and move forward the story.

You know what some web comics have been doing which seems like a nify idea to me is creating a "restart point".

Basically the idea is you start a new storyline as if people we're reading it for the first time. That way when new reader come in you can direct them to that storyline to get a feel for the comic and get an idea of what is going on in the comic so they don't have to read the old art of they don't want to.

This isn't redoing persay but it does give you a chance to clear up some things for old readers or revisit some things that happened without flushing all your hard work and starting over.

I'm not a big fan of restarting comics and flushing away archives for a new take. It is not that it can't be done & done well it is just that very often it isn't. Plus when you flush away your past you have to build from square one. Stories, generaly speaking only get good once you've established things and can start to play with your reader's expectations & start building off the base you set down. To flush away the past throw a lot of that out the window and I know as a reader can be very frustrating. Particularly if the restart means changes to your favorite characters.

I think your better off trying to find someway to get the best of both worlds unless you old stuff was just really, really bad.

Like 6 times I made a new comic everytime I got inspired. Deleted the old ones. I'm now trying to stick to one comic.

Oh yeah, Ive gotten better, and better tools. Want proof? Go look through my 'Barely Listening' archives. I started at first hand drawing in black an white, then I got a tablet, and drew everything by hand first, and then drawing them on my tablet in MSP. Fugly times. Then I got GIMP, and hand drew everything, scanned into gimp, and then colored it (thanks to my learnings in IT class) and then shaded it. And now I can just draw everything in GIMP. So yeah. It was a long journey (Six months) but I learned a lot in that time.

I absolutely hate my old art. It's terrible. Just look yourself, go back to the prolouge page, it's just awful. But the terrible art shows how much I've improved in a year.

i think there comes a point where a comic needs to be consistent. Doing it once teaches you the major flaws etc. Doing it again can't hurt. I think the trick is not to have an insanely long story, otherwise you have to keep the crappy art because redoing would take years. perhaps smaller works, with more well thought out ideas and art are key.
I don't mind doing extra work for a good comic.

Restarting? Eh hehhhh, well I know how it feels to want to...but I wouldn't recommend it. I've sort of dug myself into a weird hole with the restarts, VP X is my attempt to get away from that hole for a while.

Perhaps restarting to fix up your art isn't such a bad idea if you see it as absolutely essential. Restarting repeatedly for story purposes is what messed me up. Don't be like Sarah! Have at least some sort of solid story summary sitting nearby and stick to that as best you can. (Which I still don't for the main VP comic. God help me.)

I also recommend trying short(er) stories before a long-running series as well. Perhaps build up your ideal long-running series on the side? Or even merge your smaller comics into something bigger? I dunno. Just experiment first if you're inexperienced, then go from there.

With my first comic, there were definitely times when I considered redoing the first twenty or so pages, but in all seriousness...they would've taken forever to finish. :P I would like to go back and start it all over from scratch when I've completed Faust.

My first thirty or so pages were done with only a mouse. And even though I think they look like absolute crap, I still fin something charming and amusing about them, so I never even thought about going back and redoing them. Now, I'm always so busy working forwards, I just don't have time to go back. Any more, if i start a project and don't feel it's good enough, I just drop it and sit on the idea until I feel like I've improved enough otherwise that feeling will just bug me until the project loses all interest to me.