Here is an example of what I'm talking about:

This page works:


The next page is god-awful:


The composition sucks, the perspective is just plain wrong, the lines are sloppy, and the colors are inconsistent.

I could try to fix all these problems, or I could start from scratch, or I could leave it and move one, hoping that the next page is good enough to pick up the slack.


These are old pages. I'm asking this question now because I'm working on three new pages, and the first two just look ugly, but the third is really shaping up.

What is more important to you? Quality or quantity? I have 244 pages to finish before I publish the first collected works (out of five) so if I want to finish within my lifetime I'm going to have to call it "good enough" every now and then, but how badly does this hurt me? As a reader, do you forgive the occasional blunder if the story has hooked you?

Here is another example- Penny Arcade.

The last panel in this strip is TERRIBLE! (simply by virtue of a poor choice in filters) And it's Penny Fing Arcade! Certainly my favorite webcomic, but apparently they too are falable.

We are all constantly improving as artists. The more we work at it, the better we get. So is it better to continue working on flawed art so that we know how to fix it, or is it better to press on and improve over time, so that eventually you're overall average improves.

A combination of the two naturally, but what ratio?

Thoughts?

I stick with it and improve... I dunno.

If I know that it sucks beyond redemption, I scrap the storyline and start with a new one. This is what I did with American007's previous incarnation. After realizing it was nothing more than a mediocre comic with a bad and confusing formula, I re-made the comic into what it was today. Best move I ever did.

I'm unsure how you made your pages. Is it entirely drawn, or did you use heavily edited polygonal models or photos or something?

Regardless of your creation technique, I'll bet it takes you hours for each page. Right? So here's the thing: The most important factor to webcomic success is regular updates. You can draw like a 12 y/o, but if you update daily over 5 years, you will have 5000 visiters per day. If you're awesome but update once every few weeks, you have no readers.

So I'd say, move on.

If you insist on fixing the "godawful page" somewhat, then I say just re-do the figure in the center panel. Then call it "good enough."

I'm guilty of revisiting pages myself, when I find a fault or feel it could look "just a bit better." But I only go so far as adding a bit more shading/background or correcting a minor blemish. I never go back to redraw an entire page/panel, because that time can be spent on the next page.

Just, keep drawing.

That's just what I do. I mean, I understand that my stuff sucks most of the time, so I just get over it and keep drawing.

mlai
I'm unsure how you made your pages. Is it entirely drawn, or did you use heavily edited polygonal models or photos or something?

All of the above. I use photos whenever I can, CG only when photography isn't logistically plausable, then I print out each page very low contrast, hand draw over everything, scan the drawing in, and apply it onto the original. Naturally if I could afford a tablet I'd be using one. I caught my girlfriend pricing them though, and a buddy of mine might have an old one in storage, so with any luck I'll be saving some toner soon :)

Consistent updates are gonna be hard for me. For instance these three pages I'm on now. I've been working on the CG environment for more than a month. Now that it's finished I'll be able to crank out pages pretty quickly (once I've worked out a RAM issue) because I can render the scene from any angle in minutes, but once this battle scene is over I'll need to start cracking on the next CG enviroment, which I haven't even started yet. I'll need to make half a dozen models, probaly twenty or thirty textures, the lighting rig, and I still have two, no three characters I need to cast and shoot against blue screen. I'll have the first issue in print before Christmas, but it might be three months later before you see the first page of the next issue.

This first issue required eight environments, and so the pages were finished in eight batches, a couple months apart each. Of course it didn't matter because we were still finishing the site, but when the site was done and I uploaded the pages I uploaded them all at once, one per callendar day. I worry that people are expecting a page a day, and think becuase it's been a month, that I've given up. Of course I keep people posted on the news page, but I am definatly loosing readers due to lack of updates.

When the site launched I ran an add on S*P an got an initial 50,000 hits (roughly 1/5 S*P average readership, but the add went up on a day that Randy concluded a cliffhanger, so that's gotta help.) Of those 50,000 hits, I got 5,000 returns the next day, and each day after, but that has dwindled down to between 2,000 and 3,000. I'll have three new pages up by tomorrow, so those 2,000 remaining readers will have the pages they were waiting for, and hopefully will continue to check in, but I've still lost atleast 1/2 my potential readers.

I'll probably run another add though, once the first issue is in print.

Here is an idea- what if I were to finish these lumps of pages, but post them in a trickle, so that by the time the last finished page from one batch goes up, I'll have more ready. It'll take a lot of self control to have finished pages sitting on my hard drive and not upload them, but I think it's a good idea. Thoughts?

An exclusive:P sneak preview of the third page in this batch-> (the one that doesn't suck)

Fuzzy Modem
Consistent updates are gonna be hard for me. For instance these three pages I'm on now. I've been working on the CG environment for more than a month. Now that it's finished I'll be able to crank out pages pretty quickly (once I've worked out a RAM issue) because I can render the scene from any angle in minutes, but once this battle scene is over I'll need to start cracking on the next CG enviroment, which I haven't even started yet. I'll need to make half a dozen models, probaly twenty or thirty textures, the lighting rig, and I still have two, no three characters I need to cast and shoot against blue screen. I'll have the first issue in print before Christmas, but it might be three months later before you see the first page of the next issue.

Damn you're nuts. But then, the results speak for themselves.

Someone
Here is an idea- what if I were to finish these lumps of pages, but post them in a trickle, so that by the time the last finished page from one batch goes up, I'll have more ready. It'll take a lot of self control to have finished pages sitting on my hard drive and not upload them, but I think it's a good idea. Thoughts?

That's what you're SUPPOSED to do! Have a little self control.
I finished 3 chapters before I even started my comics account, and then I only released 1 page per day max. If I had 100% self control, I would've released only 2 pages per week. But then I thought "What if I die tomorrow in a car accident?" And with that excuse, I upload 1 page daily.

But you have someone who knows what you're doing and can upload for you in case of your death/dismemberment, so you can't use that excuse. ;p

After looking at the pages you have here, I have a recommendation...

IMO, once a comicker gets advanced enough, panel layouts and balloons placement become an art in themselves. You might consider having a co-artist whose sole job is to help you with page layouts. You send him your scripts in detailed prose, and bounce off screenplay ideas on him. Then you 2 can make screenplay thumbnails together.

This way, you'll avoid creating "godawful pages" with mediocre layout. With the abnormally significant investment you put into each page, you need safeguards more than the rest of us. It hurts you a lot more than us to say, "This page just isn't working I'm gonna have to redo." So I recommend putting a bit more resources in the preparatory phase, by having a screenplay thumbnails assistant.

The problem with help is that unless you're paying someone you can pretty much count on them flaking out on you.

The only exception, EVER, has been my web page designer, but as much work as he put into the site design, he hasn't actually read any of the comic! Also, he has a vested financial interest in the success of the comic, as we're splitting any profits from the site 50/50 (though I keep 100% of hard copy sales.)

No, while I have plenty of friends who will help out every now and then, an assitant would have to be paid, and I am very, very poor...

The thing about your art is that it isn't really all that bad looking. Its just the way its laid out and like you said, the perspective is lacking something. Just need to watch some older films when people actually cared about camera placement. Another good thing to do is look at well done comic books layouts. You can usually tell them from the usual character-licensed comic driven stuff. For example in something like V For Vendetta the angles they use go all over the place, showing off not just the characters but a lot of the scenery as well, or having focus on a hand or object.

In my comic, I do a lot of that type of thing as well. As a rule, my comic is overly cut and pasted like the average web comic, but I generally attempt to mix it up. Unless I'm going for some kind of blatantly awful looking page that has nothing at all to say other than something like "you tube stinks" with no movement or perspective at all. A lot of times I try to be very subtle with my changes to the characters or the way I move the camera. The reason for blank backgrounds in the comics is because all the older semi-animated penis stuff (which most are on my DD site now) had photograph backgrounds with all sorts of little things hidden in them. I thought it would be more interesting if people just pictured anything in the blank negative space. A few other comics do that as well.

In this example of penis, I mixed things up pretty well. The second panel and the fourth panel look a lot alike, but I think its more excusable since the fourth one is zoomed out further than the second. I think it conveys whats going on pretty well with that last panel. Without even showing the dead body, it works to show you that he's killed someone. Less is more, even in something as over the top as penis.





This one here has three panels that look almost exactly the same. The two other panels are close ups on the characters. I feel bad when a panel looks exactly the same as another one from the same comic. I keep telling myself "don't do that," but sure enough I keep doing it.



And I think the joke in that Penny Arcade strip was that the quality from the internet is so god awful. I was attempting to stream loony toons from their official website and it had some weird pixels and general bad looking spots compared to TV or dvd quality. Also keep in mind I'm not a fan of penny arcade by far, and would never encourage anyone to read it. If you want jokes about video games, read penis on a Monday.

I just finished, and I managed to make the first two pages look not like crap.

I'm gonna buck up and hold off on uploading all three, I'll post them incrementally rather than in one lump, but I like you guys, so I thought I'd share all three with you here and now :)





I just thought of another benifit to uploading them in a trickle. I have a habit of constantly revising little things on each page, and it's a pain in the ass to go back after they've been uploaded. This way I'll be able to do my touchup while I'm waiting to upload them and I'll eliminate the redundancy :)

You guys notice anything that needs work?

I keep drawing/writing/taking pictures. I just want to make sure what I put out is my personal best.

well, as far as the layout goes , i would proll use less space between panels, add more variation in panel shape and size (i'm looking at the set where he says "let 'em go" i would maybe stagger those like a starcase) try overlapping the baloons and naratives to go a little outside the box (symmetyry is highly overrated) or have a character come out of the panel and into the blackness. my first impression on seeing these pages was a feeling of being constricted , like i'm looking out a window or through a microscope, does that make any sense ?

Firstly, you realise the whole point of that Penny Arcade strip is that the last panel is supposed to be terrible, right? It's purposely like that to aid the joke in the strip, right?


Secondly, in response to the threads title.

You WORK and you WORK until it doesn't and you know it.

Yeah, I didn't get the Penny Arcade ref.. I mean, it's meant to look like a photo of a TV image, so they added a wave. It serves it's purpose- like all PA art really. I don't follow it at all, but it mostly seems pretty standard, serves-it's-purpose-to-tell-the-joke-art-work; nothing amazing to criticise or praise, just stuff that does the job. Not a good example to illustrate your point, -not in the specific or the general.

Now, Dreamland Chronicles would have been a better choice (for example), since the one of the main selling points is the amazing look. If you could point out an off page there it'd have more impact. :)

Your work is fine though man, I don't see the prob.

Actually, I do see a prob. And I'm gonna agree with Marine here. I'll just tune out the latter half of his post which is a self-plug, but the first half of his post is accurate.

Combine the 1st half of Marine's post, with Lothar's post, and you have your basic layout problem.

Because of the obscene amount of effort you put into your pictures, you might be suffering from a sort of artistic tunnel vision where you want every panel to demand the same attention as a full-page poster art, and that's why you are reluctant to assign varying levels of page dominance to panels.

Unfortunately, no matter how awesome your art is, if you don't mix it up in panel layout and screenplay, the reader will instinctively get bored and disconnected by the 10th page. As one example, in the flying squadron scene, even tho there are a lot of speaking parts there is not ONE close-up of the command pilot (the semi-closeup doesn't count; if you can't see the whites of his eyes, it's not close enough).

You're not bad. It's just that it's not on par with your awesome art technique.

I just keep goin and goin...

There are days when I just cant put out the same quality I put out... because of some reason where I'm in an awkward position...

Some pages I remember:

Drawn when I was a bit tipsy:
http://www.drunkduck.com/BK_Shattered_Hate/index.php?p=6605

Drawn when experimenting with a different coloring and lineart method. It was in its infant stages when this page was made.
http://www.drunkduck.com/BK_Shattered_Hate/index.php?p=61631

One of my worst cover pages. Cover pages are supposed to be a slight notch higher than your normal pages. I think I drew this after putting in a 10 hour shift working in the auto garage (my hands were pretty sore from taking out so many drain plugs and lifting so many tires...)
http://www.drunkduck.com/MAG_ISA/index.php?p=281179

Drawn when my char design of "Claudita" was virtually non-existent.
http://www.drunkduck.com/BK_Shattered_Hate/index.php?p=6284

Drawn when I had very little experience drawing backgrounds :(
http://www.geocities.com/bk_katropa/act_1/chapter1/chapter1_8.jpg

If I draw something that sucks I delete it, wait a couple of days and then start again. Usually it's just because I need a little non-comic practise or because I've burnt myself out, or both. Thankfully I have (had...* XD) a big enough buffer for this to be a viable option. I've found myself using it a lot this chapter. If it's still not quite right by the third try, that's when I say 'good enough' and stick it up anyway.
I try to balance it between making each page as good as possible and sticking to my update schedule so there's actually something to read. That's seemed to work so far.

*Been too drunk/hungover/busy the last week to draw anything. My buffer's draining away like... Um... A drain, I guess. >_<

I usuaully end up redrawing the shit I can't stand looking at. I'm doing a book right now of Dasien, and I'm having to redraw a number of pages, just because some are way too embarrassing to ever put into print.

I usually catch my worst stuff before it gets inked. If it stinks, I throw it away and don't waste any more effort on it and start over.

Aside from the already mentioned layout issues, which I agree about, the rest looks very interesting. Just keep plugging away at the pages and yes, space it out for regular intervals that will keep your readers coming to your comic.

Enef
Firstly, you realise the whole point of that Penny Arcade strip is that the last panel is supposed to be terrible, right? It's purposely like that to aid the joke in the strip, right?

I dunno man. That blur is just painfull... If it adds to the joke I just plain don't get it... Oh well, wouldn't be the first time.

I think it would help if I read more comic books. I'm ashamed to say I only own one copy of Transmetropolitan and one copy of Clerks, and that's it. Maybe I'll hit the Comicshop on my lunch break...

I think it was Rob Zombie that said "If you look at your work and aren't even the slightest bit embarassed, then you have a long way to go as an artist."

And I honestly agree with him. Even what I consider my "best" work I find absolutely atrocious to look at. I'm proud that I improve at every opportunity, but you will always be the harshest critic of your own work. The reader doesn't know what you're thinking, so they'll generally accept what you may not like because it's good to them.

I say post it. Keep on posting. Keep on working and keep on improving. The more faults you see with yourself, the more room you have to improve. It'd be pretty boring if you were perfect because then you'd never have to work on anything.

Presumably you make your comic this way because you want it to look different, and that's great, keep it up. But don't think for a minute that it's getting you more readers. Apart from the three pages you just posted, those pages would look just as good in regular techniques and take a tenth of the time to make.

To answer the question that is the title of this thread simply:

Find a real artist or keep drawing and never quit trying to improve. But whatever you do:

1. Don't just use talking heads and call it a comic.

2. Don't use clip art and call it a comic.

Call it a script if you do either of those things. Just don't call it a comic.

Just responding to the title.

It depends on the level of suck. If I drew a page and didn't learn anything new or attempt to fine tune "something" I know I need to work on then I will restart the picture/page.

However if the art seems on par with current standards and I am trying new things/successfully correcting something then the page is acceptable. A bad perspective here or a mishap there that I know I could have done better on is natural with me.

For the sake of a story line moving along decently I take note and try not to repeat that mistake next time.

Okay. Fixed up that page.

This is the before->


And the after->


I still think it sucks, it just sucks less. It will have to do. Gotta keep plowing ahead... How does that saying go? Something about how art is never finished, just abandoned...

Someone
I use photos whenever I can, CG only when photography isn't logistically plausable

you might have problems publishing it if you are editing pictures that other people have taken.

First I have to say that this whole thread reeks of self promotion & fails to strike me a wholely genuine. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't.

If you are generally having layout issues, your problem rests before you even turn on the computer. Simple thumbs would render the issues you've brought up mute. If you're going straight to the computer, then your designs are suffering. A strong layout should dictate the formation of a page.

It's really that simple. To discover you have a design problem after you've spent hours & hours on the page strikes me at the very least as suspect, at the most irresponsible. You take an outrageous amont of time on these wonderfully rendered pages, and your understanding of color & light are both humbling. If you really want us to help you, post your thumbs *before* you get started on a page. Showing us finished pages means you're spending several mre hours on a page than you need to.

And your newest revised page still suffers from breaking the 180 rule. Plus, your aliens all look the same, so it's hard to have a frame of reference from panel to panel.

Later,
Chip

what's a 180 rule ?

The 180 rule basically means rotating the camera 180 degress from one panel to the next. In the page in question, the shot goes from a straight-on, front shot in one panel to a straight-on, back shot in the next. How do we know it's the same character(s)? In this case its's *sorta* obvious, but it still requires too much of a stretch of the reader. It's not a law, by any means, but paying attention to it can make a page far more readable.

Later,
Chip

cs3ink
The 180 rule basically means rotating the camera 180 degress from one panel to the next. In the page in question, the shot goes from a straight-on, front shot in one panel to a straight-on, back shot in the next. How do we know it's the same character(s)? In this case its's *sorta* obvious, but it still requires too much of a stretch of the reader. It's not a law, by any means, but paying attention to it can make a page far more readable.

Later,
Chip

wait, I don't think I get it-- could you post a pictoral example of the 180 rule? (sometimes in my comic my angles can be pretty bland, so I'm really interested in this!! :D)