Comic Creators Thread: Ways to Stay Motivated, Creative, and Productive?

Anjin-San

Lordy this sounds nice. I am down for any collaborative shenanigans.

wwtMask

Okay then, let's shoot for Thursday evening around 9 pm EST. Open Canvass will probably be the program, and amateurhour can host the session. Bring your thinking caps, gents. If you guys can coerce an artist or two into the session, that'd be awesome.

amateurhour

wwtMask wrote: »

Okay then, let's shoot for Thursday evening around 9 pm EST. Open Canvass will probably be the program, and amateurhour can host the session. Bring your thinking caps, gents. If you guys can coerce an artist or two into the session, that'd be awesome.

we'll need a backup host just in case, but my machine should be able to handle it.

Just head over to the Artist's Corner and check out the OC thread for the software.


I'm, an artist, just not a great one, but I could whip up some rough "kirkman originals" to whatever ideas you guys have, if no one better shows up.

Mr Pink

Dammit, why can't OpenCanvas have a mac version? Oh well.

amateurhour

Mr Pink wrote: »

Dammit, why can't OpenCanvas have a mac version? Oh well.

I submit that "I have a mac" is no longer a valid excuse. I will not pity you sir.

1) Macs now run windows flawlessly, and at one point were the MOST powerful machines running Vista

2) Microsoft owns virtual PC, which makes it insanely simple to install windows on older mac OS versions and hardware.

(just messing with you, btw)

Mr Pink

Well I just wanted to whine anyway. Stop stealing my thunder!

So I'll get this up and running. I'm sort of an artist, though a lot of my stuff might be too abstract or cartoony for you guys.

DouglasDanger

As soon as I can stick with a chapter until the end, I am going to begin the process of a turning it into a script.

I'm thinking of just embracing the absurd video game elements that are just beneath the surface.

Projeck

hello, anjin directed me over here

me and him are workin' on a comic idea

and i would very much like to join in on this collaborative stuffs

if you need examples of some of my art, just click my sig

provided there is a quality standard, of course

amateurhour

NO PROKECK! NO PROJECK!

(kidding)

SageinaRage

I've got a superheroish comic idea bouncing around in my head. I'll try to flesh it out a little more, then come back once I've actually got something concrete.

wwtMask

Guys, I'm assuming we're using the newest shareware version, right?

amateurhour

wwtMask wrote: »

Guys, I'm assuming we're using the newest shareware version, right?

no, go to the Artists corner and hit up the OC thread. it links to version... you know what.... nevermind.. here..

http://www.teamspecialolympics.com/scraps/oC11b71.exe


: )

only the first version was free, but it's more than enough.

The Geebs That Is A Pony

Hot damn, I just found an old notebook that had most of my concept ideas for a superhero ghost investigation series, and it jogged my memory on the stuff that I had that wasn't there.

Mr Pink

I wrote a huge amount of stuff as a pre-teen about a superhero guy who turned into a rat. A small, normal rat. And he solved crimes and stopped badguys by being clever, and a rat.

Seriously, I have like four notebooks of crudely drawn rat-guy adventures.

wwtMask

Oh god, this reminds me of the reams of crappy comics I produced from 6th to 8th grade. I figure I plagiarized just about every moderately well known Marvel character in the early 90s. I still have most of that stuff. I apparently haven't grown out of my inability to actually finish a story. I may have finished a grand total of one "issue" of the comics I created. :oops:

amateurhour

I dug up two comics I did on lined notebook paper back when I was ten, both were about six or seven pages each.

The first was atom man, who was a nerdy loser who was accidentally delivered a superhero costume for a costume party that actually made him a superhero. (in all fairness, I had never seen "the world's greatest superhero" at the time, so I thought it was an original idea)

The second was about a group of intergalactic royalty who were kicked from their kingdom and are living among us, called the starfighters.

my tagline (bear in mind this was in '93) was...


"they're...

all tough...

all rap...

all attitude...."

"all rap..." I actually wrote that. They had backwards hats and baggy jeans and it was horrible. One of them shot compact discs out of some type of wrist launcher.

Munch

I've got a ton of ideas scribbled on the edges of my sketchbook. Here's a few I've had laying around for a while.

Springheel- Jacqueline Beresford is the latest in a long line of monster-hunting heroes known as the Spring-Heeled Jacks. The product of a centuries-old globe-trotting family, the multiracial teenager uses a pair of high tech boots and other gadgets to battle monsters, supervillains, and aliens. A reluctant hero, Jacqueline's forced into the role by her overbearing family. Each arc would see her paired with a former Spring-Heel, where she'd draw upon their experience to more effectively combat the menaces she'd face, and learn more about the role she's inherited, and slowly gain an appreciation for it. She might meet her uncle Spring-Heeled Jaxon, famed inventor and mechanist, to battle a giant robot. Or her cousin Jack Spring, famed monster hunter, that helps her bring in a villain bearing the moniker Jersey Devil. It'd basically just a big legacy book exploring a hero's familial heritage and heroic roots, with plenty of globe trotting and exotic locales.

Return to Base- I've always enjoyed superheroes just sitting around talking. So this book would just be a lot of that. It'd center around a group of heroes that live in their headquarters, and their relationships, personal feuds, hobbies, and so on. The reader would see them leave the base on a mission, and their return to the base, but not what actually happened on said mission. So the second one of the heroes steps out the door, the book shifts perspective away from them to someone else. There'd still be action; holographic training room malfunctions, villain attacks, feuding jilted lovers, and so on. All in all it'd be kind of the Real World of superheroes.

The Perfect Man- This is a one-shot idea I scripted, where a former superhero with super-senses develops an obsessive compulsive disorder, and is forced to give up heroics. Going outside causes him horrible pain due to loud sounds, bright lights, cold, heat, and so on. The comic would basically follow him through a day in his life where he's forced to go outside to leave the house to buy groceries, and the hellish experience that follows. The comic would be silent, with sound effects replaced by visual ones. A dog barks and screaming skulls and vipers sail from its mouth to assail the protagonist. A car horn honks and an atomic bomb goes off in the background. And so on. The comic opens with the hero sleeping alone in bed, his wife seemingly having left him. He walks to the store, getting assailed by sounds, smells, and feelings the whole way. At the store, he walks into a robbery and completely dismantles the robbers as he gains focus, only to flee, almost deafened by the cheers of the grateful civilians. The comic concludes with the hero stumbling home, nearly blind with pain, to see his wife unpacking her baggage from their car, obviously returning from a simple vacation. They embrace and all he can see, smell, feel, or hear is her. Skulls, lightining bolts, vipers, and other such unpleasantness are replaced with flowers, doves, and other such sweetness.

He asks, "How was your sister's?" She says, "Fine. How was your day?" He looks at her and smiles, completely focused on her, "Perfect."

amateurhour

Alright, I officially vote that we all team up to write/draw "Return to Base". That sounds awesome. We can each make up some new characters to give personality to.

Nogs

i have class until 9 Central Time, but if I can I'll show up. If only to sit in and observe.

Sars_Boy

The only idea I have thought of that I think has any merit is for a Batman Elseworlds.

But yeah, if there is an internet connection at my house tonite I will most assuredly be up for this.

wwtMask

:^: to the Perfect Man. That'd be a good single comic book.

ITT, people have better comic ideas than me.

Sars_Boy

yeah this thread is making me depressed

i don't have any good ideas

Crimsondude

The exchange in Illuminati... 4? was priceless. But I think its rare insight made it that much better.

wwtMask

To be fair, I'm still really excited about my Monkey Girl comic. I also have a very controversial superhero that I'd like to write about one day. Most of my other stuff is fairly pedestrian though. Like zombie apocalypse survival pedestrian.

Nogs

Perfect Man sounds really good.

this is a long ways off, if even possible. but I think that there are enough artists and writers around here that we could maybe even publish, or produce a book.

Like I think it would be neat if we all got together and worked on something, and then found a place to make like, I dunno, 20 copies, and have them sent to all of our houses. Just to have a book at home to be like "yeah, me and a bunch of internet dudes made a comic book once, check it out"

Nogs

What I mean is using something like this:

http://www.lulu.com/en/products/comics/

To make a Graphic Violence comic book. I'm sure there are better deals and stuff around, that's just an example.

Munch

wwtMask wrote: »

To be fair, I'm still really excited about my Monkey Girl comic.

Oh Mask, I forgot I did a few quick sketches for your character. You never did PM me a character description so I just drew a short haired Asian girl in a tank top. With a tail. Ignore the other stuff around the sketches, my sketchbook pages tend to be a whole bunch of doodles all compressed on top of each other.

wwtMask

Amateurhour, make sure to post your connection info in here. Also, I figure we should keep an eye on the thread in case anyone's having trouble connecting.

gredavin

Hey all, I lurk here a lot and have posted a few times as well. I hang out mostly over at the Writer's Block.

I've been working on about 7 projects off and on over the last two years and just recently presented the first four pages of Snow Angel online.

I'd be curious to know what people here thought, as we are going to be releasing a full 24 page print at the Calgary Comic Expo at the end of April. I posted over at the WB thread because that is where I'm most active.

Here's a link. Thanks for your time, gents.

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=51696

amateurhour

Nogs wrote: »

What I mean is using something like this:

http://www.lulu.com/en/products/comics/

To make a Graphic Violence comic book. I'm sure there are better deals and stuff around, that's just an example.

Thing is man, that's good and all, but eventually it boils down to money and copyrights, and you just can't split that between a bunch of random people on the internet. What we COULD do though, is make a cool comic, and sell it through Lulu, and give all proceeds to Child's Play, and sign a release saying it was a one time collaborative effort that none of us can use on future jobs, and make it one hell of a portfolio addition for future resumes...

amateurhour

alright, try connecting to: 97.82.38.226

use your PA forum username, no password required

wwtMask

Munch wrote: »

wwtMask wrote: »

To be fair, I'm still really excited about my Monkey Girl comic.

Oh Mask, I forgot I did a few quick sketches for your character. You never did PM me a character description so I just drew a short haired Asian girl in a tank top. With a tail. Ignore the other stuff around the sketches, my sketchbook pages tend to be a whole bunch of doodles all compressed on top of each other.

Yeah, sorry about that, it fell under the radar and I forgot to get back to it. I'll find what I wrote up and send it to you in a PM.

amateurhour

24.197.7.53

That's the new server if someone wants to put it in the OP

There is no password, just click the client tab, type in your PA forum username,NO password, and click the "...+" looking button to join.

Heads up: OC only allows three or four other people besides the host to connect, so anyone that doesn't get in just post in here, and we can start up an IRC chat or something if we need to for the writers side of things, till we get all of this software worked out.

Munch

gredavin wrote: »

I'd be curious to know what people here thought, as we are going to be releasing a full 24 page print at the Calgary Comic Expo at the end of April. I posted over at the WB thread because that is where I'm most active.

I dig the art and writing, but you need to work on your lettering. Right now you've got all the text in the caption boxes aligned to the left. You need to center it. It seems like a quibbling little thing, but I assure you, bad lettering can make a comic look just as amateurish as bad art or writing.

Check this out for some more tips and advice.

amateurhour

munch, I saw you in there, but everything you were typing was in Japanese. Did you change your language settings?

Anjin-San

hrm

i will hop in about 4 or 5 minutes

anyone still in there?

gredavin

Munch wrote: »

gredavin wrote: »

I'd be curious to know what people here thought, as we are going to be releasing a full 24 page print at the Calgary Comic Expo at the end of April. I posted over at the WB thread because that is where I'm most active.

I dig the art and writing, but you need to work on your lettering. Right now you've got all the text in the caption boxes aligned to the left. You need to center it. It seems like a quibbling little thing, but I assure you, bad lettering can make a comic look just as amateurish as bad art or writing.

Check this out for some more tips and advice.

Munch,

Thanks for the feedback. I personally don't do the lettering, but you aren't the first to complain about it. I'll forward the link and the advice to the artist.

I'll check out that link myself, too, actually. I've been meaning to learn how to do it, as doing so will save me time and money later on when doing collaborative submissions.

Cheers.

amateurhour

Alright, it's up and running, I won't be on for a few but anyone who gets in early feel free to organize it a little. Use the lower right hand corner and some small text for anything that needs to be written, feel free to erase my welcome message and welcome cock. And have fun.

edit: Welcome message and welcome cock have been erased. If you missed it, too bad.

Scooter

Hmm, I'd like to join in/watch, but if only 5 people can hook up I'll wait and see if there's space. All I've got is my CoH-based character concepts I haven't written anything for in a couple years.


My non-CoH (copyright infringement free!) setting for them is

Spoiler:

that you've got a world with superhumans, but not quite as many as Marvel/DC verse. You've got Scooter, a mutant force fielder, who did some decent hero work and became a B-list hollywood star ala Wonder Man. Using that money he dropped acting and open heroing to become Scott Helms, CEO of Power's Apex, a corporation that hires superpowered types and uses their abilities to create amazing products and superscience advancements (since I gotta imagine this happening at somepoint in a superpowered world). He'd also send his employees out as superteams for various purposes, but he believes in a higher concept of "the greater good" and not so much enforcing the law, and is as likely to work through former and not-so-former supercriminals as he is newbies and heroes. Ultimately he sees all superhumans as "his people" and is working towards a world where everyone is superpowered, with as minimal destruction and chaos as possible. Power's Apex is the public front for that, but he's also using darker channels to influence politics, spread powers through the population, and defuse anti-super groups and such.

So in addition to combat between Apex members and various supervillains, you'd have the consequences of supertech and superpowers spreading in the world, Apex members trying to figure out what their boss is up to, trying to decide if this is what they want to be doing, etc.

My main frustration with this line of story is that Scooter is, well, based on my ideal self as a superhero, and I constantly find myself Mary Sueing him in my imagination. I'd probably have to change him or at least his name to stop myself doing that, and put some set limits on his powers (I tend to see him as a kind of mutant Ion, although he rarely exhibits his powers anymore).

If anyone cares I could write up bios of the other characters.

The Geebs That Is A Pony

man you guys realize that lost is going to be on when you start this