Webcomic Hate

[Bustertheclown]

I just update what I want, when I want. If readers are forgiving enough to wait months and even years for print installments of various works, I believe that there's some squeeze room to go a couple of weeks between updates, should I feel like it. I make up for it over averages, since sometimes it'll be big chunks of material, sometimes it'll be a couple of weeks between single strips. Honestly, I planned it this way. There's a reason why I went with more of an "anthology" model, rather than focus on one single concept. I've got a lot of material to show, and even more to create, and not enough time in my life to create it. I don't need to put more pressure on making my comics than I already feel. So, I do it on my own time. I have faith that my potential audience is sophisticated enough to deal with that.

[Wendybird]

If that works for you, that's cool. I happen to like writing long, complex stories with deep characters that grow and change, and if I don't artificially increase pressure on myself, I may stop entirely, lose interest in the story, lose everything I've done and need to start again.

If I was passionate about short comics, I might work that way myself. I work a similar way with crocheting, which is the only art or craft I've found I can come back to after a long interval and continue as if I'd never left.

[Redtech]

I suppose it depends on whether one's readers expect a schedule though. A nice big "updates irregularly" is at least honest, but if it's a lenghty story, it just screams "Blarrghh" at the back of my mind.

[Jekkal]

I suppose it depends on whether one's readers expect a schedule though. A nice big "updates irregularly" is at least honest, but if it's a lenghty story, it just screams "Blarrghh" at the back of my mind.

I hate irregular updates with a vengeance. Especially as I use "Morning Coffee" to keep up with all my webcomics, so if something doesn't update on their specified day, I have to wait a whole week sometimes for a new one (or remember to check it later myself).

I find that RSS updates that put the image inside of the feed mitigate this problem nicely, though. Or at least remove that "Blargh! Now I have to remember!" detail. (Then again, I like having an RSS feed with the images in it for an entirely different reason... that reason being that Squidoo has a nice feature for RSS feeds that allows me to post the comic on any pages I build there as well.)

[Dreamaniaccomic]

Wow, I'm barely managing two pages a week, I color the lazy way, and I have no life or job. You know, besides having friends and family who I sometimes cook food for. I guess maybe I have a pretty complex plot (which is still largely invisible to the naked eye).

Be warned: I am very, very good at predicting plots.
*reads all of the comics thus far*
On second thought, I'm not THAT good.

[Bustertheclown]

If I was passionate about short comics, I might work that way myself. I work a similar way with crocheting, which is the only art or craft I've found I can come back to after a long interval and continue as if I'd never left.

I wouldn't say that I'm passionate about short comics. Neither would I say that I really ever leave making comics for too long an interval. I just have the sort of creative ADD that comes from having way too much in my head, all wanting to come out at once. If I work too long at a single project, all the other projects start to come knocking.

No, I guess what it all comes down to is that I feel like I'd already put in my valiant efforts at web publishing years ago, and other forms of media are a lot more seductive to me. So, posting my comics online are more of a secondary afterthought, done mostly to maintain that expected "online presence." I really have no emotional involvement in the digital process, and my comics would exist with or without the internet.

[Deathbringer]

Hmm, the regular update schedule is something i used to do, back when i was doing my old comics Insanity Please and (early!) Felney. Then as i got disinterested with Felney the schedule dropped off and i just uploaded stuff when i felt like it, which is how i've done things ever since. Perhaps i ought to get back into some sort of regularity, though my current comic i'm working on (Eugene Manx) is actually for my self-published paper comic, so updates come when i'm working on a new issue, but once the five pages for that issue are done i don't draw any more until the whole issue is finished, and each issue takes months! Plus the current storyline will end after one more page, and then the character won't return for several issues... which may take 2-3 years to do.

I guess New Felney (dot co dot uk) which was weekly for a very short time and then became "at least one update a month!" (in april 2007, when the latest update was made!) could be returned to a regular schedule of one or two pages per week, but then that's easy to say now... when i get abck to university it could be a different matter. Maybe i could draw several of them quickly... but i still have more stuff to do on the next issue of my printed comic... tis a tough balancing act, and all for stuff nobody reads anyway .

Bemoaning the lack of regular, clockwork updates is one thing i have never "got" with the webcomic hate blogs, mind. I mean it's not like people are being paid to do this (the very very VERY few super-sucessful comics people make a living from aside). Back when i was doing both old Felney and Insanity Please i used to get quite obsessive about "must update!", and would get supremely angry whenever my parents got me to drive them everywhere (i was learning at the time and it was "all experience", we also had not had a computer for too long so i was "always on it", these days we have several computers and they are "always on" thiers, so suddenly the petty sniping and insults stopped). In the end i guess i stopped seeing the need to get overly obessive about updating the comic on time, but i suppose then standards slipped a bit too far in the other direction

[Redtech]

I find that RSS updates that put the image inside of the feed mitigate this problem nicely, though. Or at least remove that "Blargh! Now I have to remember!" detail. (Then again, I like having an RSS feed with the images in it for an entirely different reason... that reason being that Squidoo has a nice feature for RSS feeds that allows me to post the comic on any pages I build there as well.)

I am going to have to say that you are far, far better at tracking down the comics that you want than I! I tend to be along the lines of "I wonder if x,y,z has updated yet?" I'm a very patient person so I don't mind the odd skip, but I'm at the stage when waiting a month is pissing me off and suddenly quitting... it burns a little, it really does, especially when a comic has some sort of potential. That is another topic through.

I can't really say I'm a saint myself when it comes to updates anyway.

[Metruis]

Be warned: I am very, very good at predicting plots.
*reads all of the comics thus far*
On second thought, I'm not THAT good.

I'm pretty good at it too. I had to stop reading fanfictions because I knew what would happen before the authors did. Shortly thereafter, I had to stop reading novels for the same reason.

Unfortunately the effect it has on my plots is that I write contorted, twisted things that make no sense.

When it comes to updates, I want to see regular updates. Not to say I follow many comics, but I have a great many more I read than I follow. The ones I follow... one... I... always follow... yeah. I follow one comic every time it updates, from the very beginning. The others, I only try to. The rest, I go back to every few weeks. If you update irregularly, you'll lose my traffic, me coming back every week to read the updates. Then it'll be a month... three months... and I'll just read the larger archive chunks.

It does burn when people suddenly quit or don't say they update irregularly. It won't hurt as much if they say 'I usually update every week but not always, kay?'. I'll add them to Piperka then.

Wow, I'm barely managing two pages a week, I color the lazy way, and I have no life or job. You know, besides having friends and family who I sometimes cook food for. I guess maybe I have a pretty complex plot (which is still largely invisible to the naked eye).

Yeahhhh... I don't know how I'm doing it either. I'm working--admittedly it's work compatable with graphic novelling, because I can doodle concept art while waiting for further instructions, et all, I have an insanely complex plot, and I color. I have no life, which helps.

(Of course, you know Nanowrimo? 50k in a month? I can, and did, double that and make it coherent. I'll produce pieces of my unedited manuscript to anyone who says you can't. I think I can just work faster than normal human beings. Doesn't make it good, necessarily, though. XP)

I keep meaning to read your story. I've visited a couple times. It looks like it contains a lot of complexity and thought. Can't say anything about plot since I haven't read many pages, but it does look like it contains a lot of thought.

[Jekkal]

I find that RSS updates that put the image inside of the feed mitigate this problem nicely, though. Or at least remove that "Blargh! Now I have to remember!" detail. (Then again, I like having an RSS feed with the images in it for an entirely different reason... that reason being that Squidoo has a nice feature for RSS feeds that allows me to post the comic on any pages I build there as well.)

I am going to have to say that you are far, far better at tracking down the comics that you want than I! I tend to be along the lines of "I wonder if x,y,z has updated yet?" I'm a very patient person so I don't mind the odd skip, but I'm at the stage when waiting a month is pissing me off and suddenly quitting... it burns a little, it really does, especially when a comic has some sort of potential. That is another topic through.

I can't really say I'm a saint myself when it comes to updates anyway.

Not tracking down so much as knowing that Morning Coffee + RSS goes a long way. Especially when said Morning Coffee makes it so easy to follow comics you just stumble across, since it does all the remembering of when to check comics for you and saves you the trouble of going to each site individually.

[Webkilla]

woe... fifteen pages? that just screams tl:dr

anymoo - from what little i could see, then a common point is irregular updates... a thing that i personally hate with the burning fury of a thousand wediged 14yr olds - but equally it is a sin that i am quite guilty of.

i figure that my problem primarily comes from external sources. I mean, i have hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of pages of script ready (very few webcomic writers/artists can claim this i believe) but what mostly kills my buzz is... well...

i need everything around me to work - before i can work properly. i'm of course not 100% sure of this, but atm i'm having issues with getting my WoW to work... it simply occasionally disconnects me and then wont log me back on for an indeterminable amount of time. truly annoying, since it is the game i play when not doing comics.

if the game doesn't work, then i cant really get myself to do webcomics - call it an MMO-addiction, call it frustration, call it whatever you want - when i dont get to play for a few horus, then it can be quite hard to play for a few hours.

[Dranxis]

I don't think I've gotten complaints about my irregular update schedule yet, and I'm kinda surprised because it's -very- irregular. Honestly, if I was a reader to my own comic, I would be kinda annoyed. But to me, I don't really care about getting alot of readers... Even if no one read or commented my work I would still work on it, because it's basically a practice work for me. A chance to help me learn what it takes to become a comic artist. So I care much more about the final product (it's written to be a 200 page graphic novel) than I do about maintaining a schedule or gathering a large readership. If those were my goals, I would be much more concerned about sticking to a schedule. But honestly, every page I encounter different challenges than the last... I NEVER know how long each page is going to take to draw, until I've drawn it. A 10 or 11 panel page can take me less time than one with 6 panels, if those six panels contain unusual angles, detailed backgrounds, or just difficult to draw facial expressions. Every time I start a page I feel like I'm learning to draw for the first time. So I finish it when I'm satisfied with it, not sooner nor later.

[Dreamaniaccomic]

Regular updating can only help a webcomic.
I think it makes a loyal following even more loyal, because they can rely on you to produce a comic on a regular basis.
That's how I see it.

[Fishies]

Regular updating can only help a webcomic.
I think it makes a loyal following even more loyal, because they can rely on you to produce a comic on a regular basis.
That's how I see it.

I agree. Add to that making it harder to forget you and I think regular updates are one of the best things a webcomic can do for itself.

[Jekkal]

I don't think I've gotten complaints about my irregular update schedule yet, and I'm kinda surprised because it's -very- irregular. Honestly, if I was a reader to my own comic, I would be kinda annoyed. But to me, I don't really care about getting alot of readers... Even if no one read or commented my work I would still work on it, because it's basically a practice work for me. A chance to help me learn what it takes to become a comic artist. So I care much more about the final product (it's written to be a 200 page graphic novel) than I do about maintaining a schedule or gathering a large readership. If those were my goals, I would be much more concerned about sticking to a schedule. But honestly, every page I encounter different challenges than the last... I NEVER know how long each page is going to take to draw, until I've drawn it. A 10 or 11 panel page can take me less time than one with 6 panels, if those six panels contain unusual angles, detailed backgrounds, or just difficult to draw facial expressions. Every time I start a page I feel like I'm learning to draw for the first time. So I finish it when I'm satisfied with it, not sooner nor later.

Only fifteen pages so far? Yeah, you're just getting started. As the story gets longer it'll get much more annoying

[Koad]

I try to stick to a schedule, but more for my own sake than anyone else's. I find that if I don't have some sort of regular schedule I'm easily distracted, and probably end up playing GTA4 instead of drawing. I do try to make it a very easy schedule by only updating once a week. Since it usually takes me about 2-3 hours to do one page, I probably could update more often, but then it might get a little stressful. I've only started a few months ago and so far I've been able to make all the updates on time. If I do miss an update I'll see if any of my 3 readers complain

BTW Dreamaniac what happened to your moon? Wasn't there like a whole thread based on your moon?

[Dreamaniaccomic]

Well, It started out like that, then I killed astronaut bob while revealing my true form, and then it turned into a really weird jam, and then I changed my avatar to this little guy so I would stand out a little more, and I very nearly quit on that Jam while attempting another, which didn't turn out to well, so now I'm going back to "Do Not Post" cause I feel like it. Still keeping this little guy as my character though.
Go check out the Do Not Post Jam in Off Topic. Its crazy.

[Koad]

Go check out the Do Not Post Jam in Off Topic. Its crazy.

Yeah that's the one I was thinking of, just forgot the name. That thread totally grew into a monster.

[Dreamaniaccomic]

It happens.

[Dranxis]

Only fifteen pages so far? Yeah, you're just getting started. As the story gets longer it'll get much more annoying

Yeah, I'm painfully aware of that. Thing is, I don't really treat it as a proper webcomic. The story is intended to be read all at once, so even if I could manage to hold down a schedule, (which I won't until later, I'm going to become a freshman in college so I'll have to adjust to that before going back to my comic) it still wouldn't be the way I intend my readers to see it. The whole point of posting it on the internet is to be able to show it to people whenever I need a critique or some advice. Otherwise, I don't really care if anyone reads it at this point.