the planned monthly update rate for ddvau is fucking insane and i wanna tell you why bc i feel like doody and maruu need more recognition for the shit they’re pulling off to bring ddvau to you guys
so first off. hi. if you do not know me. i am a webcomic fiend. i am not an artist nor have i ever drawn a comic, web or otherwise, but i have been an avid webcomic reader for a very long time. i’ve been reading and following, without exaggeration, hundreds of webcomics consistently for about a decade. at my last count i am currently actively following around 200 ongoing, still-updating, non-hiatus comics in a week across a few sites. i’ve also been following most of my favorite comic’s artists on other social media and reading about the process of webcomic making from them. these are my credentials for Knowing Things About Comics—no personal experience, but a decade of observation
that in mind. ddvau is a page format webcomic (as opposed to a scrolling format webcomic, like the sort of thing you generally see on webtoon). both comic formats have their own norms and rules, so we’re just gonna compare ddvau to other page format comics, bc comparing page and scrolling format is comparing different animals
most if not all page format webcomics update at a rate of one or two pages a week. i’d say loosely i’ve observed that hobbyists or people with busy full time jobs tend to update once weekly, while people making some income off the comic or with more time to dedicate to the comic might update twice, tho this isn’t a rule.
this means you generally see roughly 4-8 pages a month for most page format webcomics
the most recent two monthly chapters of ddvau were 18 and 16 pages. both of them were double the rate that’s standard for the medium and has been standard for the last decade i’ve been reading webcomics
genuinely i don’t know how else to get across how insane that rate is. like. if they were updating at a "one-page-per-update, x many updates a week" rate like most page format comics do, they’d be updating four days a week. they would be releasing a page on at least half of the days of month. do you have any idea how absolutely fucking crazy that is? double the pace of the average artist in their medium. i haven’t been able to get over it since i realized it
and this is double the normal workload/rate of a page format webcomic artist on top of weekly art on doody’s kofi! a bunch of extra sketches or even full color illustrations! i happen to know one of the next weekly kofi arts that is coming out will be a bunch of full color, which is, and i cannot stress this enough, a fucking insane choice and doody is crazy. and doody also draws the merch that they make! i know for a fact those two are planning to do several merch drops this year with unique new designs in every one
(and like, i didn’t even touch on the extra work maruu is also doing, like helping manage the fan discord or coordinating the merch drops and running the shop with their merch and shipping companies, as well as maruu’s work as a writer and her color work on the comic itself, simply bc i don’t understand much of anything maruu is doing there enough to talk about it in depth. what i DO know is that those two rlly are lucky to have each other, bc someone could not to all the shit they’re doing at the rate they’re doing it alone)
which… kind of points me to the whole point of making this post. doody and maruu are doing something absolutely fucking phenomenal and delivering wayyyy more shit to you guys than is standard or like. honestly more than what is reasonable i think you two are crazy. the amount of work that is going into ddvau behind the scenes is fucking unbelievable, like, “the longer i think about it the less i can wrap my head around it” level of unbelievable to me. especially with how consistently high quality ddvau is, especially these last few episodes
i guess my point is. the work these guys are doing is crazy and way above the standard pace, so much higher than anythign ive personally seen from any hobbyist webcomic makers. i'm sure that's lost on a lotta readers who aren't otherwise familiar w the medium, but i dont want it lost how crazy impressive and kind of unprecedented it is for a webcomic, esp one without any professional publishing backing. doody and maruu are something else for even attempting this tbqh.
so like. keep that in mind when you engage w the comics, esp in the next few months while doody and maruu try out this "full chapter every month" update pace, and def make sure to give em the support and grace they've earned w this sorta workload/pace they're setting just to bring you the story you love
germansingergirl
pixelskylines
origamiaround
gummygunk
dededos
izzy806
