Fan Comic General Discussion

[Neoriceisgood]

Your webcomic, of course! What's coming up? Spill the juicy details!

Uhm ... I don't quite remember, were you a reader of the old comic I used to post in the fan comic section?

[Emperor Ing]

Here's a spoiler from my comic

The Emperor destroys the world!

A lot!

[TaiLiu]

Uhm ... I don't quite remember, were you a reader of the old comic I used to post in the fan comic section?

I was, yes.

Here's a spoiler from my comic

The Emperor destroys the world!

A lot!

What a jerk, the Emperor.

[ti'esar]

In his defense, he also puts it back the way it was a few seconds later.

[TaiLiu]

In his defense, he also puts it back the way it was a few seconds later.

Well, yes, but he killed people!

[Neoriceisgood]

I was, yes.

Okay uh ... All three old protagonists will be back with their own stories.

That's your spoiler.

[TaiLiu]

Okay uh ... All three old protagonists will be back with their own stories.

That's your spoiler.

[Neoriceisgood]

What?

[Emperor Ing]

I think Tai wants to know how our comics end.

If you follow my stories you know I rarely plan more than 3 comics in advance, except I have a general idea which direction I want to go

[ti'esar]

Well, it looks like the seeming resurgence of this forum has proved pretty short-lived.

[anthonyshepherd]

Since thread creation in this forum will need moderator clearance, this thread will be for general discussions about the fan comics and the new forum. That way you don't have to start a new thread for such.

If you are thinking of doing a fan comic or want to discuss the fan comic phenomenon as a whole, this is the place to talk about it.

I love to read this type of comics

[Dueldragon1]

I am thinking of making a fan comic. However, if anyone does decide they want to follow it, I'm warning you, updates are going to be extremely irregular.

[Jinglebelle]

Has anyone noticed the dearth of comics lately? It's almost enough to make me want to restart my comic from four years ago. I'd probably need to think up somewhere for it to go, first, though.

[Neoriceisgood]

Has anyone noticed the dearth of comics lately? It's almost enough to make me want to restart my comic from four years ago. I'd probably need to think up somewhere for it to go, first, though.

Don't blame me, I lost my place in this subforum after getting my own site..


Which makes me curious, how many comics from the fan comic subforum actually evolved beyond it? Anti-Heroes did as well, right?

[Asmodean_]

I'm thinking of starting one based on the D&D campaign I'm currently in (vis. Thirteen Blades of the Necromancer but there's only 2 sessions of gameplay so far so there's a high potential that either I'll run out of material for it or something before the tenth strip. It'll be in OOTS-style art (since I'm absolutely at drawing) and I should probably have the first couple strips done by next week.

Unless of course it grinds to a halt before it even begins (which it very well might, given my track record). We'll see.

(Yes my posting this here is to motivate me along the lines of "well I've posted about it now I have to go through with it")

1: Not a Morning Person:
Imgur: dboNPY8*

*I can't even post links yet. You'll have to just type it in.

[Asmodean_]

I'm thinking of starting one based on the D&D campaign I'm currently in (vis. Thirteen Blades of the Necromancer but there's only 2 sessions of gameplay so far so there's a high potential that either I'll run out of material for it or something before the tenth strip. It'll be in OOTS-style art (since I'm absolutely at drawing) and I should probably have the first couple strips done by next week.

Unless of course it grinds to a halt before it even begins (which it very well might, given my track record). We'll see.

(Yes my posting this here is to motivate me along the lines of "well I've posted about it now I have to go through with it")

1: Not a Morning Person:
Imgur: dboNPY8*

*I can't even post links yet. You'll have to just type it in.

As it turns out I can't draw to save my life.

I'll be working on words instead. Let's hope it works out better.

EDIT: Where would I put this? I've got the first bit as a taster:

Spoiler: Chapter 1: Dunkelheim

Show

Well of course the home of the drow (literally "dark") elves would have "dark" or some variation thereof in its name. Otherwise, how would anybody be supposed to know that we lived there? We couldn't have somebody just wandering around expecting some jolly (read: drunk as a badly-planned analogy) dwarves, sly but ultimately cute gnomes, or even, Lloth forbid, surface elves! Shocked gasp! Thems! Ohhh nooo!
Of course given that this is an at least slightly forward-thinking continent we happen to have the (mis?)fortune of living on, we wouldn't dream of being racist, oh no. No racism involved here, of course not.
It's just fact that the surface elves were scheming bastards who drove us out of our lands and into the caves that we live in for no particular reason other than expansionism, or maybe even just racism. Yeeaahh... that makes sense. It's just them what're being the racists!
It's 'cus they's surface elveses. That's why. Them surface elves is always racists. All of 'em...
say any acquainted with the history of the drow with no apparent irony.
As a cave, as a natural formation, it's nothing special. Just a large area where, for one reason or another, rock has rather noticeably failed to appear. As a city with things like architecture and windows, it's the same kind of story. Just a place that defies the outside by not having a severe lack of buildings. We're a functional race, for most intents and purposes. Those are our houses: a lack of nothing. You have to be functional, practical, when you've no contact with the outside world and the main gain in life is to personally gain the favour of Lloth. There are thousands of us; I hardly think she's going round with a clipboard going "ohh, Na'cine hasn't finished her history homework: minus three favour points." But that's religion, and for the time being, at least, we're stuck with it. It's not like atheism or anything else could ever gain a foothold in all the dogmatism going round. I mean, half our idioms mention her in one way or another.
Politics-wise, it's a complete web of lies and deceit that you could just unravel by thinking something along the lines of: "well, Ker'anson gave me his quote unquote guarantee that he'd have my back if we were ever up against Ci'vaula, so the one thing that *can* be guaranteed is he won't." It's astonishing that nobody's ever thought of actually telling (shock gasp horror) the truth for once, so people think the opposite.
There are a grand total of 64 ruling houses, although if you want to talk in terms of actually wielding any significant power, it caps out at about a dozen. The rest are either just fragments, remnants, descendants or the ghosts of previous houses, or a new upstart house planning to single-handedly revolutionise the system, or the gov-apostrophe-t, or the "freakin' universe, man". As the proud Secondborn Son of the Almighty 57th House (in, rather obviously, descending order) I can boast having exactly zero power. Hell, I doubt if anyone had ever even heard of the house, let alone a boy - and a second one at that!
We managed to gain this glamourous (read: W-list) lifestyle by eliminating threats not when they attacked, or when they were still dormant, but *before they had even thought of being a threat*. Somehow, it's worked and House Asmodean is amongst the greats, if only to nab all the cocktail shrimp backstage. We are probably known as the only house which, in a language seemingly centred around the apostrophe (or 'postrophe if you will - and they will) has a name which lacks one. The fact that we'd only have our house recognised from pub quizzes is not lost on us, and most of us spend our days jostling for whatever power percolates down from the top. I never really participated in this affair, if only because I really couldn't be bothered with it all, and had better things to be doing with my time - that is to say, anything else. But it really shouldn't have come as a surprise that despite wanting to get involved as little as possible in the matter, the matter was, slowly but surely, involving me.

In the way that most things that bring utter despair to those involved happen, it all began on a Monday. I could go on about how it brought my whole world crashing down upon me, but in reality my hold on drow politics was already tenuous at best. At the very least, I doubt Lloth would ever care what rank of son you were if, either way, you were part of one of the least powerful houses in existence. I'm a practical man, and I'd much rather be not dead than a soon-forgotten martyr to whatever cause I could be said to follow. So when my elderbrother turned up with a crossbow, there wasn't much point in staying. I would like to stress at this point that I was to be killed because *I might try and have him killed at some point in the future*
So I left.
Not a big thing, I mean, I had been contemplating just packing up and jumping ship for a while now and this was just the final push I needed. I made decent progress the first day, not really running to anything, since the geography we'd been taught could be summarised as "thems be evils above; don't go there", but running away from the place where I was wanted dead. I'd forego a master plan in favour of just not being killed.

[Asmodean_]

As it turns out I can't draw to save my life.

I'll be working on words instead. Let's hope it works out better.

EDIT: Where would I put this? I've got the first bit as a taster:

Spoiler: Chapter 1: Dunkelheim

Show

Well of course the home of the drow (literally "dark") elves would have "dark" or some variation thereof in its name. Otherwise, how would anybody be supposed to know that we lived there? We couldn't have somebody just wandering around expecting some jolly (read: drunk as a badly-planned analogy) dwarves, sly but ultimately cute gnomes, or even, Lloth forbid, surface elves! Shocked gasp! Thems! Ohhh nooo!
Of course given that this is an at least slightly forward-thinking continent we happen to have the (mis?)fortune of living on, we wouldn't dream of being racist, oh no. No racism involved here, of course not.
It's just fact that the surface elves were scheming bastards who drove us out of our lands and into the caves that we live in for no particular reason other than expansionism, or maybe even just racism. Yeeaahh... that makes sense. It's just them what're being the racists!
It's 'cus they's surface elveses. That's why. Them surface elves is always racists. All of 'em...
say any acquainted with the history of the drow with no apparent irony.
As a cave, as a natural formation, it's nothing special. Just a large area where, for one reason or another, rock has rather noticeably failed to appear. As a city with things like architecture and windows, it's the same kind of story. Just a place that defies the outside by not having a severe lack of buildings. We're a functional race, for most intents and purposes. Those are our houses: a lack of nothing. You have to be functional, practical, when you've no contact with the outside world and the main gain in life is to personally gain the favour of Lloth. There are thousands of us; I hardly think she's going round with a clipboard going "ohh, Na'cine hasn't finished her history homework: minus three favour points." But that's religion, and for the time being, at least, we're stuck with it. It's not like atheism or anything else could ever gain a foothold in all the dogmatism going round. I mean, half our idioms mention her in one way or another.
Politics-wise, it's a complete web of lies and deceit that you could just unravel by thinking something along the lines of: "well, Ker'anson gave me his quote unquote guarantee that he'd have my back if we were ever up against Ci'vaula, so the one thing that *can* be guaranteed is he won't." It's astonishing that nobody's ever thought of actually telling (shock gasp horror) the truth for once, so people think the opposite.
There are a grand total of 64 ruling houses, although if you want to talk in terms of actually wielding any significant power, it caps out at about a dozen. The rest are either just fragments, remnants, descendants or the ghosts of previous houses, or a new upstart house planning to single-handedly revolutionise the system, or the gov-apostrophe-t, or the "freakin' universe, man". As the proud Secondborn Son of the Almighty 57th House (in, rather obviously, descending order) I can boast having exactly zero power. Hell, I doubt if anyone had ever even heard of the house, let alone a boy - and a second one at that!
We managed to gain this glamourous (read: W-list) lifestyle by eliminating threats not when they attacked, or when they were still dormant, but *before they had even thought of being a threat*. Somehow, it's worked and House Asmodean is amongst the greats, if only to nab all the cocktail shrimp backstage. We are probably known as the only house which, in a language seemingly centred around the apostrophe (or 'postrophe if you will - and they will) has a name which lacks one. The fact that we'd only have our house recognised from pub quizzes is not lost on us, and most of us spend our days jostling for whatever power percolates down from the top. I never really participated in this affair, if only because I really couldn't be bothered with it all, and had better things to be doing with my time - that is to say, anything else. But it really shouldn't have come as a surprise that despite wanting to get involved as little as possible in the matter, the matter was, slowly but surely, involving me.

In the way that most things that bring utter despair to those involved happen, it all began on a Monday. I could go on about how it brought my whole world crashing down upon me, but in reality my hold on drow politics was already tenuous at best. At the very least, I doubt Lloth would ever care what rank of son you were if, either way, you were part of one of the least powerful houses in existence. I'm a practical man, and I'd much rather be not dead than a soon-forgotten martyr to whatever cause I could be said to follow. So when my elderbrother turned up with a crossbow, there wasn't much point in staying. I would like to stress at this point that I was to be killed because *I might try and have him killed at some point in the future*
So I left.
Not a big thing, I mean, I had been contemplating just packing up and jumping ship for a while now and this was just the final push I needed. I made decent progress the first day, not really running to anything, since the geography we'd been taught could be summarised as "thems be evils above; don't go there", but running away from the place where I was wanted dead. I'd forego a master plan in favour of just not being killed.

I've found a place for it: see The One Sane Drow.

(i can't believe i can't even post links yet)

[Marlowe]

Does my...thing qualify as a fancomic?

I never thought of posting it here because, of course, it doesn't contain original art.

[Fay Graydon]

Well Dawn of Yesterday is being revamped now that i have a bunch of free time.
So I guess i should change my banner from "indefinitely dead" to something like "Updates weekly, sometimes more"

[Shoreward]

Leaving aside the eternal quiet of the subforum, I thought it might be nice to grease the rust-eaten wheels of discussion here again.

I’d love to see this subforum invigorated, but I’m one person. If I could think of some kind of thing we could do on the regular here, I’d take a stab at it. Maybe some form of advice or random regular thoughts about comics? Foster creative spirit for those people on the fence.

Is anyone working on something right now? Coming up with future schemes? Planning to come back to an old project or start a new one?

To those of you without comics, do you have plans to make one? I actually have some advice for this! This one’s a bit technical.

Comics, like any serial writing, are more of an endurance game than you might think. Get some practice churning out your content once a week or so for a little while before you submit it. A lot of new comic artists I’ve seen drop off around page 10 – 20, so it’ll help you know whether your passion for an idea wanes with time and it’ll give you a handy buffer of built-up comics for when you finally take a shot. I had ten pages before I submitted my comic, and more ready by the time of mod approval. It’s why I was able to post one a day during one of the early weeks.

No matter what, make sure it’s a story you want to tell. Passion and energy marinate the meat of a project. Your fans will feel how much you love what you’re making, just as much as they will feel when you get bored with an idea. Have at it, I say. It's always nice to see something new around here.

If you don't have ideas, think of a few things you like, and figure out how to blend them into something of your own, the way you would write it.

Now, there are other technical aspects I could get into – scripts, characters, all that stuff... but frankly some of those would take a lot longer to get through, and this is already too long for what was supposed to be a random call for discussion.

[ti'esar]

Like I said in the past, I think the inactivity of this subforum is because it requires both the desire and commitment to do a comic in general, and some interest in this particular site (usually but not always limited to inspiration from OOTS) that would make someone do their comic here. I mean, if I personally ever manage to motivate myself to do the comic I've been thinking about for ages, I'd probably just set up my own site, or at the very least use a higher-visibility host.

[Shoreward]

There's truth to that, of course, though in its heyday this section seems to have been quite active. Made because of a flood of fan comics, even, if you can believe that. Perhaps the fan-artists have mostly moved on since then.

I myself have no real aspirations of visibility with my comic works. It's not my primary project. I enjoy it, and that's enough for me, but most of my time is funneled toward my writing. Were I to draw my comic rather than use templates, I might host somewhere else... but I'd also expect it to be a primary focus rather than a secondary one. So I think you're right that it's a very specific set of circumstances in my case which make this section a perfect fit.

Still, I'd love to see more activity in general. Always nice to have more to read, and I think a smaller place like this is a good staging ground for projects tailored to the kind of crowd we have here.

[ti'esar]

Thought that came to me today: did anyone ever make a tutorial of some kind for doing OOTS-style or more generally vector/template-using comics? I think there's been a handful for individual drawings or avatars and that sort of thing, but I dunno about full-fledged comics. It occurred to me that having one might make a few more people interested in this forum.

[Shoreward]

Thought that came to me today: did anyone ever make a tutorial of some kind for doing OOTS-style or more generally vector/template-using comics? I think there's been a handful for individual drawings or avatars and that sort of thing, but I dunno about full-fledged comics. It occurred to me that having one might make a few more people interested in this forum.

Trazoi's Inkscape Guide is the only one I know, and like you said, it's focused around avatars. Good place to begin, though. I'm not sure what a comic guide would entail in this regard. Comic making is pretty broad, and tends to be more "useful, time-tested principle" than "hard-coded templates". What kinds of things did you imagine?

[ti'esar]

I was thinking just basic principles beyond those of a single static image - backgrounds, posing, blocking, SFX, so forth.

[Shoreward]

I could probably try to work on something, but I'm unsure where such a thing would go. It'd probably be an essay huge beyond belief.

[Mikemical]

Is anyone working on something right now? Coming up with future schemes? Planning to come back to an old project or start a new one?

As you might remember, I'm currently working on one based on a 3-year D&D adventure I played with some friends. Would love to see more comics in this forum too.

[Jubal_Barca]

Does anyone know how often the gates of this forum are checked? I think I submitted a thread yesterday, and I'm just wondering if my browser messed up the submission process. It probably just hasn't been got to yet but I'm aware things might have messed up at my end too - not meaning to hassle anyone, just wondering. :)

[Shoreward]

Usually a week or two, but I was waiting at least a month for mine and ended up having to message the mods. If you're comfortable waiting a little, try that first (you can make some comics while you wait!), but if you feel like you've slipped through the cracks it's worth checking in with them. I imagine they have a lot of other priorities and don't always check down here.

[Jubal_Barca]

Oh, eep, OK! I'll wait another week or so, don't want to bother the mods, I know from experience how hectic mod-life can get :)

If anyone wants to read the first couple of strips, I've got a mirror thread here in any case (and would appreciate feedback/thoughts):
https://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5721.0