Sweet Seals For You, Always
i don't do bad sauce passes
pixel skylines
No title available
JBB: An Artblog!
shark vs the universe
oozey mess
DEAR READER
I'd rather be in outer space šø
Aqua Utopiaļ½ęµ·ć®åŗć§čØę¶ćē“”ć
#extradirty
Cosmic Funnies
wallacepolsom
Peter Solarz
ē„ę„ / Permanent Vacation
JVL
styofa doing anything
PR's Tumblrdome
@theartofmadeline
Three Goblin Art
seen from Belgium
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
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seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from France
seen from Malaysia
seen from Yemen
seen from Malaysia
@kevinw
THE NIGH HEAVEN & HELL KICKSTARTER HAS LAUNCHED!
Come check it out HERE!!!
From October 1st-29th
If you like Medieval/Fantasy/Horror about a bunch of bisexual disasters who must fight god or die trying, come give my comic a try~
A new kickstarter for a comic I've had the pleasure of working with - check it out!
Backups and you
Heya, I wanted to write a little thing about how to automate your backups, since Iāve seen too many artists lose a bunch of work recently and it breaks my heart! Did you know itās possible to nearly entirely automate your backup system? Because it is, and itās really worth doing!
Where to store backups
External Storage: Buy an external hard drive.Ā This isnāt the cheapest option, but itās worth making the investment, if you can. Iām particularly fond of Seagate drivesĀ (Ā£40-100, though people are selling them second hand for Ā£25), and thatāll store between 500GB-4TB of your work- Iāve got about 1000 high-res comic files thatāre between 50-150mb each on my 1TB drive, for reference, and Iām not quite out of room yet. Theyāre all very compact, and just connect via USB, generally, so they donāt take up much room.
If thatās a bit too pricey for you, maybe grab a USB stick or two- Sandisk are good-Ā and thatāll cover you for 64GB for Ā£13, which for me is a couple-hundred high res comic files.Ā
Cloud storage: Dropbox gives you 2GB of storage for free, so use it! Itās not a lot of room, really- I can fit maybe 50 comic pages in there- but itās better than nothing. Google Drive also gives you 15GB of free storage! You could use both, if you like, 17GB free is not nothing. If youāve got the money, hereās the current prices for upgrading those:
Dropbox Pro (1TB, or 1000+ comic pages) - Ā£80 a year, or Ā£8 a month Google Drive (100GB, or Ā about 600+ comic pages) - Ā£1.59 a month Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā (1TB, or 1000+ comic pages) - Ā£8 a month
Itās worth having BOTH an external and a cloud backup. Please, if possible, do both!
Backup programs
(This will be all Windows-based, Iām afraid, if anyone wants to tag on a Mac version of these, please do!) Hereās a couple of programs that make the backup process really easy, and bonus, theyāre free!Ā
FreeFileSync is my fav right now, all you do is set up the folder pairings- so you pair up your usual art folder with your external drive, USB, dropbox folder, or whatever- and let it run. So my dropbox backup looks like this:
meaning that when I run this, itāll compare all of the files on my C:\Comic Files folder to the ones in my Dropbox. So if Iāve done some work on a fileā¦
..it shows me, and I hitĀ āSynchroniseā to copy the updated file over to the dropbox folder. Nice and simple.Ā
Thereās also a microsoft product called Synctoy that does the same sort of thing, also free!
Thatās all well and good, but I keep forgetting to run my backup program!
Then automate that too! You can use Task Scheduler to pop up your Sync program at a certain time of day, and thatās already inbuilt in Windows.Ā
Just set whatever time of day suits you hereā¦
Then click browse, and find your Sync program.Ā
This whole setup means your very easy to use sync program will pop up at a set time of day, every day, and all you need to do is hitĀ āsynchroniseā and youāre all backed up. Thatās it! Easy, stress-free backups.
I canāt stress enough how important it is to have something in place for this- trust me, as someone whoās had a whole unbackedup laptop stolen previously, losing all your hard work is pure pain. Please back up!
Edit: Thanks for this info about programs for the mac, @theblamegabe !
To fill in the gap: Macs have a built in feature called Time Machine. Itās pretty plug and go - turn it on, indicate how often you want it to do back ups, and choose your external HD as the save location. Itāll run all by itself. Easy!
You can even get it to keep multiple separate backups throughout the hours, days and weeks.
Some great advice for artists on setting up backups and syncing them!
I can't stress enough how much I miss StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon once sent me to a supercut of Lion King, Lion King 1 1/2, and Lion King II, the main edit being that the scenes of Lion King and Lion King 1 1/2 were interspersed so that they happened in the order they actually happened.
stumbleupon not existing anymore can be directly traced to a dramatic decline in my mental health, I could do a thesis on it.
bestie stumbleupon very much still exists its just called cloudhiker now. i use it all the time.
mini compilation of suggestions from the replies:
The Bored Button - "Press the Bored Button and be bored no more."
The Useless Web
Cloudhiker - "Discover the most interesting, weird and awesome websites of the Internet" (not really a rebrand, it's a different person running it but they have the same intention in mind)
Astronaut.io - "These videos come from YouTube. They were uploaded in the last week and have titles like DSC 1234 and IMG 4321. They have almost zero previous views. They are unnamed, unedited, and unseen (by anyone but you)."
Marginalia - "This is an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed."
Every time someone says āI miss thisā about the internet - itās out there. You just got used to not looking for it or knowing people who knew about it. Just ask, itās all out there.
7 days left to support the Nix of Nothing Kickstarter!
We still need to raise 30% more of our goal, spread the word!
Just opened up 100 more slots for the "Signed Bookplate"
If you wanted a personally signed piece from me with your Kickstarter support, it's up for grabs once again!
Micro Comic Summer Returns for 2024!
In 2022, Hiveworks introduced Micro Comic Summer, an online comic challenge shared via the #MicroComicSummer tag on varied social media channels.
Micro Comic Summer is one of many online art challenges that bring creators together to complete a project and share their work with their community. Other well-known examples of art challenges include Hourly Comic Day, where artists draw a comic panel for every hour of their day, and Inktober (along with its inspired spin-offs), a daily illustration challenge in October.
Micro Comic Summer focuses on sustainable art practices, story craft, and art exploration, by encouraging creators to take an entire summer to draw a 4-page comic.
The rules of Micro Comic Summer are as follows:
Rule 1- Tell a story in four pages. This rule is possibly the most challenging aspect: to be succinct and efficient with your page count. Some creators have used this challenge as an opportunity to redraw old webcomic pages or introduce new readers to their pre-existing characters and story. What story you tell is completely up to you!
Rule 2 - You have all summer (or winter, for the southern hemisphere) to do it. From June to the end of August, take your time to perfect your paneling, edit your story, and choose your palette thoughtfully. There is no need to make snap decisions or cut corners for this challenge. The timeframe is meant to encourage exploration and growth.
Rule 3 - Share it online. Use the tag #MicroComicSummer to share your work with others on August 31. Contribute to the conversation around comic artist working conditions.
While Hiveworks introduced Micro Comic Summer, anyone is free to participate. Participation in the tag does not mean youāre submitting your work to us, nor does it mean we own it. Itās just a hashtag, for fun.
We canāt wait to see what you come up with!
š Donāt forget to visit the tag to see what artists have created in 2022 and 2023!
š For long form webcomics, check out Hiveworks' amazing library of works, all free to read!
Microcomic summer is here! Check it out!
āØššHappy 10th anniversary Ghost Junk Sickness!ššāØ
We've made it to 10 whole years and we're so proud to be making this comic for as long as we have! Thank you to all our readers and friends who have supported us on throughout our journey, this has been such a wild ride! Not only is this a huge milestone for the comic but we will also be finishing production of the main story this year as well. This is a big year for GJS so here's to myself, my co-creator Krispy and to everyone who has read GJS and cheered us on!! šš¾š„āØ
Thank you to my co-creator @feathernotes as well for doing the lines for this piece as well! āØ
We also have some limited prints of this illustration that are numbered, signed and also have iridescent spot foil, get your copy while they last!
Happy 10th anniversary Ghost Junk Sickness!
āļøWEBCOMICS!āļø A poster Collab I was happy to organise to celebrate WEBCOMICS! Check out which comics are what below!
I always love images like this, where you get to see such a huge variety of visual styles together in one place. Check out these comics!
Tbh at this point you should just make your own webcomic app/website because it would probably be 100 times better than whatever going on with webtoon right now.
hahaha it wouldn't tho, sorry š
Here's the fundamental issue with webcomic platforms that a lot of people just don't realize (and why they're so difficult to run successfully):
Storage costs are incredibly expensive, it's why so many sites have limitations on file sizes / page sizes / etc. because all of those images and site info have to be stored somewhere, which costs $$$.
Maintenance costs are expensive and get more so as you grow, you need people who are capable of fixing bugs ASAP and managing the servers and site itself
Financially speaking, webcomics are in a state of high supply, low demand. Loads of artists are willing to create their passion projects, but getting people to read them and pay for them is a whole other issue. Demand is high in the general sense that once people get attached to a webtoon they'll demand more, but many people aren't actually willing to go looking for new stuff to read and depend more on what sites feed them (and what they already like). There are a lot of comics to go around and thus a lot of competition with a limited audience of people willing to actually pay for them.
Trying to build a new platform from the ground up is incredibly difficult and a majority of sites fail within their first year. Not only do you have to convince artists to take a chance on your platform, you have to convince readers to come. Readers won't come if there isn't work on the platform to read, but artists won't come if they don't think the site will be worth it due to low traffic numbers. This is why the artists with large followings who are willing to take chances on the smaller sites are crucial, but that's only if you can convince them to use the site in favor of (or alongside) whatever platform they're using already where the majority of their audience lies. For many creators it's just not worth the time, energy, or risk.
Even if you find short-term success, in the long-term there are always going to be profit margins to maintain. The more users you pull in, the more storage is used by incoming artists, the more you have to spend on storage and server maintenance costs, and that means either taking the risk at crowdfunding (ex. ComicFury) or having to resort to outsider investments (ex. Tapas). Look at SmackJeeves, it used to be a titan in the independent webcomic hosting community, until it folded over to a buyout by NHN and then was pretty much immediately shuttered due to NHN basically turning it into a manwha scanlation site and driving away its entire userbase. And if you don't get bought out and try your hand at crowdfunding, you may just wind up living on a lifeline that could cut out at any moment, like what happened to Inkblazers (fun fact, the death of Inkblazers was what kicked off the cultural shift in Tapas around 2015-16 when all of IB's users migrated over and brought their work with them which was more aimed towards the BL and romancee drama community, rather than the comedy / gag-a-day culture that Tapas had made itself known for... now you deadass can't tell Tapas apart from a lot of scanlation sites because it got bought out by Kakao and kept putting all of its eggs into the isekai/romance drama basket.)
Right now the mindset in which artists and readers are operating is that they're trying way, way too hard to find a "one size fits all" site. Readers want a place where they can find all their favorite webtoons without much effort, artists wants a place where they can post to an audience of thousands, and both sides want a community that will feel tight-knit. But the reality is that you can't really have all three of those things, not on one site. Something always winds up having to be sacrificed - if a site grows big enough, it'll have to start seeking more funding while also cutting costs which will result in features becoming paywall'd, intrusive ads, creators losing their freedom, and/or outsider support which often results in the platform losing its core identity and alienating its tight-knit community.
If I had to describe what I'm talking about in a "pick one" graphic, it would look something like this:
(*note: this is mostly based on my own observations from using all of these sites at some point or another, they're not necessarily entirely accurate to the statistical performance of each site, I can only glean so much from experience and traffic trackers LMAO that said I did ask some comic pals for input and they were very helpful in helping me adjust it with their own takes <3).
The homogenization of the Internet has really whipped people into submission for the "big sites" that offer "everything", but that's never been the Internet, it relies on being multi-faceted and offering different spaces for different purposes. And we're seeing that ideology falter through the enshittification of sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. where users are at odds with the platforms because the platforms are gutting features in an attempt to satisfy shareholders whom without the platforms would not exist. Like, most of us aren't paying money to use social media sites / comic platform sites, so where else are they gonna make the necessary funds to keep these sites running? Selling ad space and locking features behind paywalls.
And this is especially true for a lot of budding sites that don't have the audience to support them via crowdfunding but also don't have the leverage to ask for investments - so unless they get really REALLY lucky in EITHER of those departments, they're gonna be operating at a loss, and even once they do achieve either of those things there are gonna be issues in the site's longevity, whether it be dying from lack of growing crowdfunding support or dying from shareholder meddling.
So what can we do?
We can learn how to take our independence back. We don't have to stop using these big platforms altogether as they do have things to offer in their own way, particularly their large audience sizes and dipping into other demographics that might not be reachable from certain sites - but we gotta learn that no single site is going to satisfy every wish we have and we have to be willing to learn the skills necessary to running our own spaces again. Pick up HTML/CSS, get to know other people who know HTML/CSS if you can't grasp it (it's me, I can't grasp it LOL), be willing to take a chance on those "smaller sites" and don't write them off entirely as spaces that can be beneficial to you just because they don't have large numbers or because they don't offer rewards programs. And if you have a really polished piece of work in your hands, look into agencies and publishing houses that specialize in indie comics / graphic novels, don't settle for the first Originals contract that gets sent your way.
For the last decade corporations have been convincing us that our worth is tied to the eyes we can bring to them. Instead of serving ourselves, we've begun serving the big guys, insisting that it has to be worth something eventually and that it'll "payoff" simply by the virtue of gambler's fallacy. Ask yourself what site is right for you and your work rather than asking yourself if your work is good enough for them. Most of us are broke trying to make it work on these sites anyways, may as well be broke and fulfilled by posting in places that actually suit us and our work if we can. Don't define your success by what sites like Webtoons are enforcing - that definition only benefits them, not you.
I'm absolutely on board with learning some self-reliance in the webcomics arena. Remember when Tapas included a grab for the right of first refusal in their general terms of service? Yeah. I'm 100% on with you on trying to manage your stuff yourself.
ANYWAY.
@nattosoup, @respheal and I wrote an blog post about this years ago, when Project Wonderful still existed. It has been a long time, and the landscape has changed, so please bear with me as I provide some updated information.
(See also: the archive of the FreeJeeves page. There's a wealth of information here, including some ways to make your comic website more mobile friendly.)
Please visit these resources and see if any appeal to you. They're a mix of materials that are like textbooks, as well as free courses. Some links may require signing up.
I am not affiliated with any of these websites.
1. Learn HTML + CSS
HTML and CSS are the foundation of every page. You don't need internet access to build an HTML page -- you can do it all from your computer at home. But you do need some basic knowledge to get started. If you can format a tumblr post or ever feel adventurous enough to poke at tumblr's themes, you can learn HTML.
https://www.w3schools.com/
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-html
https://web.dev/learn/design
https://www.freecodecamp.org/learn/2022/responsive-web-design/
https://www.theodinproject.com/paths/foundations/courses/foundations
Once you learn how to build your website, and have a place you want to upload it? You might want to learn about FTP, which is the file transfer protocol. This lets you upload files to your webhost. If you need an FTP client, Filezilla is absolutely free and works Windows, Mac, and Debian flavors of Linux. (important note: Download the Filezilla client. Don't download Filezilla server unless you know what you're doing.)
2. Where to Post your Webcomic
Here, I'm focusing on places that let you customize your layout and allow for some freedom.
In that old blog post, I mention different types of hosting. We're going to focus on "shared" hosting, which is usually fairly inexpensive on a month-to-month basis and requires almost no knowledge of the server. For a webcomic, you do not need to use AWS, buy a VPS, or rent a dedicated server. That'll be overkill for most folks. If you're at that level, you should know what you're doing.
2.1 Existing Services
Existing services can change their rules or go offline at any time with no notice to the user. Please keep this in mind.
https://comicfury.com/ - Free, Requires HTML knowledge. Has Templates that you can customize when you build your site, but also some documentation on their forum.
https://www.tumblr.com/ - Free, might require HTML knowledge. Simple Webcomic Theme: https://www.tumblr.com/theme/39018 Baidi Webcomic Theme: https://www.tumblr.com/theme/40103 If you do this, I would recommend setting up a dedicated secondary blog for your comic.
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/ - Also free. I have no idea where the theme documentation is without having to log in, so... I'm only linking this because it exists and people still use it.
https://neocities.org/ - Free hosting? Yay! When I was a kid, we had free websites through Geocities and Angelfire, and this is much like that. Rarebit template for comics: https://rarebit.neocities.org/
2.2 Self-Hosting with a Content Management System (CMS)
I cannot recommend any webhosts right now, but I can recommend software you can use for posting webcomics, if you feel like getting into the weeds way more than basic HTML/CSS will allow.
These will require the ability to read documentation and follow instructions, as well as basic knowledge in how to upload/edit files using FTP. Your webhost will have documentation if you need access to it.
At the end of the day, a webcomic is basically a blog, so most blogging software can be modified to make it work for this purpose.
If you require technical support for these options, please visit the websites for these tools.
Also, please remember support the developers if you can. Making tools for webcomics is largely a project of love (...sometimes spite), but many are discontinued because the devs become tired, burnt out, or simply lack the energy and finances to do so. It takes a lot of spoons and energy in general to provide technical support, especially when so much knowledge has been lost.
Wordpress + Toochecke - Great for webtoon-style comics, rather than graphic novel style comics. If you don't want the theme, the Toocheke companion tool can be used for making any theme a comic theme. Requires PHP and MySQL.
Wordpress + Manga+Press - Works with some of the default themes for Wordpress. Documentation is a little sparse right now.
Grawlix - A webcomic dedicated Content Management System, now maintained by folks who want the software to continue to exist. Requires PHP and MySQL.
ComicControl. - Created by Hiveworks' developer, available to download for free. Requires PHP and MySQL.
3. Promote your Webcomic
Let's assume you know about social media, and skip right to some other resources:
ComicAd Network - You can put ads on your website OR you can put out ads and get the word out on other webcomic sites.
Piperka - I'm not sure how much this is used anymore, but you used to be able to list your comics for people to find it.
Archive Binge - This functions as an aggregator tool, letting readers track comic updates and keep your place on one website.
TopWebComics - It's a toplist -- which basically, you get your readers to vote for your comic to boost your ranking. (They can vote for others, too!)
Link to your comics and make it possible for people to link back! A lot of people forget -- link exchanges and sharing content you like? Unequivocally a win-win for everyone, and it's good for SEO. I actually built a banner display script that you can look over and reuse, if you wanted to make a webring or something.
@bogleech as a seasoned webcomic maker do you have insight on this?
Hosting a webcomic is free and almost effortless actually. My multi gigabyte 22 year old website is now hosted for $5 a month on neocities, but the free neocities also gives you enough space to host hundreds of comic pages and more.
The html I use is less complicated than what many of you used to do for your custom Tumblr profiles, or what kids used to do for their neopets lookups. I made one simple template to my liking and all I do to update is copy that template again, then manually alter the links as needed.
For a typical webcomic that would mean you're only updating the links to the comic page and navigation buttons, then adding a link to the new page in some master "archive" page.
I can just upload a template myself when I get home later, or alternatively, you can save any of my pages off bogleech.com as a .html file, open it up in a text editor and see how it's laid out. If you change it all around to your own content you don't have to credit me, since it's bare bones universal css code anyway.
This is a really interesting discussion of comic platforms and also a ton of resources on making your own comic site! I've been working at Hiveworks for years making websites for so many great artists - so I have loads of thoughts. But instead I'll add a few more resources to add to the list! CSS and HTML are...a lot... People over at Neocities have loads of guides on how to build sites, written in very easy and accessible ways! One of my favorites is this one that breaks things down in very simple chunks. You can always customize how you work and what you do, but having a simple guide to start with can help make things less intense. Okay, but how do I make my site look good? Second I highly recommend this zine by Jackie Liu that goes over a lot of topics that a lot of coding guides don't touch on. Like how do you think of what your website will look like? I'm already further down this road and want something fun Eleventy Theme for Webcomics - for people interested in the world of static site generation and things like Eleventy, I found this theme maintained over on github that looks interesting. A bit more technical but I've wanted to try it out someday. Alright. Site done. How can people find my site? This can be intimidating! So here's some options: Knifebeetle - Knife beetle is a wonderful webring for longform, narrative driven webcomics. They're great!
Comics Rocket - Comics rocket is an RSS reader for comics that has all kinds of comics in it.
Webcomic Library - A great index of tons of comics, letting you tag your comic by genre and a whole lot else. And there's lots more!
happy #webcomicday ! š»š§āšØ
what if YOU could code your own RSS Feed Reader to follow your favorite webcomics?
š https://diyrss.neocities.org
tl;dr: I coded an extension and wrote a tutorial so that ANYONE can edit it and make it their own extension. rss feeds are AWESOME for keeping up with your favorite webcomic, and this little project will let you take customization for an extension into your own hands
Webcomic day is over but I never got around to sharing some of my favorite webcomics these days. I've been really loving 3rd voice by Evan Dahm. Evan's work has always had this spellbinding effect on me, and 3rd voice continues to do the same. Next is Demon's Mirror! I've had the amazing luck of being able to help the artist build a website for this comic, and really got into it as I was working on it. And lastly I wanted to add Deeply Dave, which is a fantastic webcomic that features animations, music, and more. I've always loved comics that play with the medium by using the random things browsers can do. But these are just three of my favorites! I have many, many more I could go on about. I hope everyone discovers a lot of great new comics to read during webcomic day!
āHappy webcomic day! ā
Featuring the process of Ghost Junk Sickness we did a while back!
Check out the comic at www.ghostjunksickness.com
Two hunters try to survive and end up being pushed to pursue a deadly bounty dubbed
Happy webcomic day! Gosh, thereās so many I like and love, so Iāll start with ghost junk sickness!
Basic Money Guide for Comic Artists and Other Freelancers
Do you know the difference between a traditional and a roth IRA? No? Ok, sit down and read this zine. Basic Money Guide for Comic Artists and Other Freelancers is a 12 page risograph zine designed for print in blue and red ink.
If you're a comics person, an artist, a writer, any kind of creative or any kind of self-employed person trying to make it work in the US and you don't know how to save money or pay your quarterly taxes... well, I can try to help!
Disclaimer: I'm not a money professional. This guide is extremely basic and serves as an introduction to some terms and concepts that will start you on the right path towards financial literacy. I'm just a dumbass who has been doing this for a couple years, sharing what I've learned.
Read it for free here: https://www.renstrapp.com/basic-money-guide
Options to buy and download the PDF ($2):
Patreon
itch.io
Gumroad
Really good money guide for artists, freelancers, etc. Check it out!
yknow i never noticed the sheer rareness of images having ids or alt text on this website until i started adding alt text to my art (and trying to remember to add it to any images i post in general, especially text screenshots) and that makes me kinda sad
I feel like a lot of people just don't know how to do it or are intimidated by the prospect. I was too, actually, and I couldn't find any good guides on how to do it (beyond basic formatting) and most guides boiled down to "just describe what you see and important details!" I really wanted to add alt text bc accessibility is important to me, but I would always get kinda stumped on how to do it.
But then I saw this image, I think in a discord server, and I immediately started doing it. It kinda broke the ice for me
Oh my goodness thank you!!
Something also worth keeping in mind with alt text is the intent of the image. You don't (and probably usually shouldn't) necessarily need to include every fine detail of the image if it isn't pertinent to the intent.
Also don't include things like "image of..." Assistive tech will convey that it's an image already.
This is a terrific guide for writing alt text on images. Give it a try!
Just formatted this zine for print! I'm hoping to have it for C2E2 (will you be there? will I see you in Chicago?), definitely will have it at VanCAF, and later on my shop.
Until then, you can read the whole 12 page zine for free on my portfolio site, which also has the download links for PDF šš¤
Some really good art finance tips in here.
Here's another thread I don't want to leave languishing at the old site, relevant because another case of shitty pseudo-mentorship is in the news. It's tough to start a career. I'm lucky to have had good mentors. I'm grateful and want to pass it on. These are some notes I made on ways to do so.
1. Promote artists a generation younger than you. Share your platform. RT them, mention them in interviews. (This means being aware of what younger artists are doing!)
2. Hire them if you can. Pin ups, commissions, variants, fill-ins, assists, anything. A small gig can be what helps them make rent.
3. (The same applies to creators a generation older. Many of them helped develop the visual language, the audience, and the industry infrastructure we rely on. Tell your reader how these artists' choices informed your own. Help your fans see what you saw in your influences' stories.)
4. Support anthologies. They've always been a key place where new and marginalized talent can incubate, & established artists can try something new. (They certainly were for me. Many of the big leaps I made as an artist happened on anthology stories where I had freedom to experiment.)
5. Mentor new artists! Even if their subject or style is different from yours, you still have much to offer. Just be sure to frame your advice in terms of goals & principles rather than "the right way" or "the wrong way." You want to help them find their own voice, not echo yours.
6. Suggest strategies for dealing with challenging clients or collaborators. The industry may be very different from when you broke in, but those young artists are still going to face the many of the same problems you did.
7. Steer them towards someone trustworthy when they need a consultant. It's not easy to find an accountant, an agent, or a lawyer who understands what we do. Your contacts are valuable!
If nothing else, make them aware of Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. https://vlaa.org/get-help/other-vlas/
8. Share your understanding of industry standards for pay rates & professional practices. This doesn't mean posting your rates in public. The main that does is anchor your position when negotiating rates with a potential client. But in private, TALK. This benefits ALL your peers.
9. There will be times when you can't answer a question. It happens all the time. No one knows everything! But you probably know someone who *can* answer it. Use your network of connections and make the introduction.
10. And finally, take questions about the art, the craft, the culture, and the business on your social media. Answer them as honestly as you can.
-end-
A lot of really good comics advice in here. Especially for people with experience in the field and wanting to help keep the ladder intact. I try to give advice to anyone looking for it when I can, especially if youāre new to comics. My focus is mostly in design and building websites, but I will take a lot of this to heart.
There's been a big discussion about webcomics lately so I thought i'd post about my own webcomics that I've been drawing since 2009 LOL (Started posting on Smackjeeves in 2010) and have all seen some amount of a reboot or redone art but are also still updating after all these years.
And heck even one of them is in it's final Volume while the other 2 are FINALLY done laying down the groundwork so I can start heading towards the end game story-wise lol
I seriously appreciate folks that have stuck around reading my works for so long and to newer folks just stumbling onto my comics now that I'm updating on Webtoon/Tapas
And I hope ya'll continue to join me as I chip away at my little stories. ;u;
Main Website
Webtoon
Tapas
NamiComi
Itās my birthday SOOOOO you should read my comic maybe hahaha just kidding haha.. unless
RIDEORDIECOMIC.COM
Happy birthday to marsoid and go read ride or die ~
