Short stories in place of comics.

Assumedfailure · Post by **Assumedfailure** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 10:25 pm

Ok, I started up a comic. Mostly because I really like reading other web comics, and while I enjoy making my comic, and the website and all that. However it is reminding me how much I hate drawing. Ever since 6th grade in Mr. Miles begining art class, I just haven't liked drawing. Now sometimes I can get myself to put pencil to paper and draw some crappy thing, and I sometimes even enjoy it. That is very helpful to me in the thought of expressing a short bit of time. However I also like writing little short stories (1 to 2 pages). So what I was wondering is can I post such stories where a comic would normally go? Such that when I write a story I can put that up, when I draw a comic I can put that up. The bandwidth consumption would be less, But when I signed up for my account on comicgenesis the agreement said that the site was for comics, so I figured I better ask first, and not knowing a better place I asked here. Can anyone point me in the direction of who exactly to ask?

LibertyCabbage · Post by **LibertyCabbage** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 11:03 pm

Shouldn't it be wumpi ? =D (MTG reference ftw)

Assuming that it's okay to have short stories on your comic site (which I'm almost sure is allowed) you might wanna use that as a way of displaying your writing abilities in regards to looking for an artist to collaborate with. Apparently you want to make comics but you hate to draw so you're gonna need some help =D Hopefully you can find an artist you like (hint: try DeviantArt) and you'll have your writing available there for them to check out and decide if it'd be worth their time to work on.

Assumedfailure · Post by **Assumedfailure** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 11:24 pm

I still remember when John and I were playing MTG at about 3 in the morning and I guess one of us decided to build a new deck when we came across "Hunted Wumpus" It rapidly became side splittingly funny. I later found out that Hunted Wumpus was a reference to an old computer game. This could be great with a 6 degrees of kevin bacon. (would it be wumpi? I remember looking up the plurl of platipus and it was platipuses, which makes me wonder about what the plurl of wumpus would be, I wonder if a wumpus would be closer to a platipus or octopus?)

Well I do hate drawing, but I guess from time to time I feel masocistic, and enjoy drawing something (if I really only had to pencil it all I would probably not mind, but I don't like all the steps, and if I don't do them I don't like the art at all). And while I wouldn't say no to someone who wanted to draw for my comic I wouldn't want to drag someone into it, because I'm horrible at keeping on task and coming up with things to any regular basis, and while I don't mind it isn't something that I would want to inflict on someone else. So what I more wanted to do was just have some short stories, and some comics (for thsoe times that I feel masocistic), but I wanted to make sure that I wouldn't be breaking any rules by doing this.

Thanks for the info.

MixedMyth · Post by **MixedMyth** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 11:34 pm

Oh man...I used to play Hunt the Wumpus when I was little.

We had an old TI, back when they made computers... *trips down memory lane*

Ahem. Sorry...that was a bit off topic.

Assumedfailure · Post by **Assumedfailure** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 11:39 pm

haha, awesome! I found a version online, and through the science of guessing based on nothing I actually hit the wumpus. Then I tried to get eaten by the wumpus, but I fell in a hole and died before I could get eaten by the wumpus. I was rather sad to find out that I could hit the wumpus but not be eaten by it.

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 6:20 am

Hmm... I can't imagine how you intend to be a comic artist if you hate drawing... Enjoying drawing is a sort of prerequisite for being a comic artist.
Well, I think that as long as you have more comics than fiction on your site, it can technically be considered a comic site.
However, be aware that people who come to a CG site expect to see comics, and are actually often irritated when they run into a text instead. I for one read very little fiction I find on internet, when I want to read fiction I usually look elsewhere.
Finding separate short stories is probably less irritating than when you realise that entire chapters of comic series are done in fiction (which is very irritating). However, it's still sort of counterproductive, you'll be offering comic readers fiction, while there are communities out there that are centered around amateur fiction, where such stories would probably have much better response.

Assumedfailure · Post by **Assumedfailure** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 9:45 am

Thats a good point. While I don't want to irritate people intentionally, so long as it is online I am bound to bother someone. And you are right, with just one short story I could make a whole adventure in a comic, but the thought of crudely drawing something which I can better describe with language, kind of itches at me. Looks like it might be best to make a seperate site, then put a link up to where a story is when I make one of those instead of just putting the whole story in there. I update so irregularly that I couldn't expect it to bother many people. hmm...many options, not sure what to do. Thanks for the input.

FLittle · Post by **FLittle** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 11:21 am

I recommend you switch to either DeviantArt or LiveJournal if you just want to do text updates. They are more conducive to that kind of work and you'll find your audience better. CG really is for comics, and there are places better suited to just writing. Would you go to the grocery store to buy a computer? Probably not.

(Of course, I'm not a mod or admin so don't think I'm *telling* you that you have to leave! I'm just recommending other options that will probably serve you better.)

Assumedfailure · Post by **Assumedfailure** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 1:03 pm

Well in the world of the audiance I attract most I know personally. And then I would like to think that whatever audiance I attract that they would be flexable enough to either read things in a non-comic form that I write (after all it is the same author...or is it?) or to just ignore the text updates. At least from an audiance point of view about the worst thing that I can see happening is getting hate mail, which in all reality if I get enough I oculd make a section just for hate mail (probably causing more to come in, all kinds of fun). I've been trying to keep myself from trying to draw an audiance, and instead just make something that I enjoy. (if they come of their own accord that is fine, but I don't want to go out and publicise to any major degree) Which is sometimes comics, sometimes just writing, sometimes some other kind of art, or something else entirly.

You are quite right in that I could take the different facets of what I like and put them into more approperate places, but I like them all in one place, and a website as a website I think is a great place for all kinds of strange and unrelated things. However in this case I am not paying for the site, or anything, so It seems approperate to find out if I can indeed do this. If not that would be fine, I could find somewhere else to go, but I do enjoy how comicgenesis has things set up, so I figured an investigation would be worth it instead of just picking up and leaving.

Anyways, thanks for the advice.

Mr. Caravaggio · Post by **Mr. Caravaggio** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 2:59 pm

There's already a minor precedent for the idea of balancing text pages with drawings here and there.

The author of "Everything Jake" was for the longest time just writing out all his comics in narrative form. He always seemed to struggle with the art. He could draw characters well, but that's all he'd draw, a bunch of blank frames with floating heads that wuold rarely even make eye contact (at least for the early comics). If you look through the archives you can see the ratio of text pages to actual comics shrink over time. I think he kind of corrected it for a while, but I stopped reading it after a bit.

And it's hosted on Keenspot to boot, hence a emphasis on "precedent".