A Comic Without an Artist

[KabeRinnaul]

So Kheldarson and I have been working on a superhero/supernatural story for a long time now. At first it was meant to be a comic book, but when we left college we lost touch with most of the artists among our friends. So we decided to turn it into a novel, which we're working on finishing up. Exploring the fallout of that novel lead us to outline a second, and from that sketch out a third.

Now we've been talking about the potential outcomes of this third and came up with a fairly ridiculous number of plotlines in a great little brainstorm session, and realized that these stories would work far better in an ongoing comic than a novel. So we realized that starting these off with a webcomic and releasing the books as prequels could work really well.

But we still have no artist friends.

So, anyone feel like helping us out and trying their hand at webcomicry, or have a suggestion as to where we might find help on this?

[Taboo]

Hmm. Well, as far as suggestions go, there's this: a webcomic is a huge labor of love. Whoever you get as an artist needs to be so into the storyline that they're willing to work on it for free if necessary because they believe it is a great story that needs to be out there and shared with people. That takes someone who loves the story and also has a lot of drive. In all honesty, this means you're probably going to need to find a student, or someone who only does art in their free time, and you'll have to be understanding about real life coming before the comic. This means you should probably get a huge number of 'buffer' comics done before you start posting the webcomic at all; that way if your artist is taking finals, or has a rough week at work, they are able to take that week off from drawing and don't need to stress about missing the update schedule. Also make sure that you know how long it takes to make each page, not just as far as number of hours but how many days out of their schedule that time takes up. You need to be realistic about how often you can update so that everyone involved doesn't burn out, and so that the readers don't get stuck waiting weeks at a time for updates and lose interest. Better to update only once a week, but do so consistently, than to start off with three pages a week and then have gaps of 2 or 3 weeks when the artist gets busy.

Also, don't expect to make money off of it. Even the webcomics that are popular and make money now didn't do so the first year or two they ran; if they made any, it was balanced out by the costs of going to conventions and paying for table space to promote the comic. If the idea of doing it just to do it is exciting, and the idea of getting paid for it is a happy bonus rather than the main point, then you're in the right mindset.

Eesh. This turned into a bit of a rant, and I'm sorry if a lot of it is stuff that you already know, haha. Just started and it kind of spewed out.

I'm juggling school, work, and the concept art for a webcomic of my own that should be launching some time in 2012, so I can't really volunteer myself, but I hope you find someone good. Maybe you could look around an art website like DeviantArt for people with a style that you think fits your storyline, and then approach them and ask them if they might be interested in reading the script.

[Kheldarson]

We've been working on this story for six years. As Kabe said, we've got one novel completely planned and in final writing stage (pre-editting at least.), a second book plotted after that, and a third planned for.

We want to see this story out. We want it to do well. Yes, we'd like to get paid for it, but we mostly want to share it.

That's why not being able to find an artist has been disappointing.

[Taboo]

That's why not being able to find an artist has been disappointing.

Yeah, I get that.

I wish I had someone I could recommend to you guys, but the people I know are all a month or two from graduating and would be too busy to look at this even if they were interested.

[charred]

I know a few people whom I'll be seeing next week. I can ask around if you'd like.

[Ree]

If my very talented nephew wasn't already over-extended, I would suggest him.

[hinakiba777]

When I saw the title of this I laughed a little. Since I was in the same boat a few months ago. Well, technically still in the same boat.....

Anyway, good luck finding an artist. Hope you find one.

[KabeRinnaul]

Thanks for all the replies, and anybody anyone wants to talk to about it would be great.

The main goal for the comic is to build interest in the books, but we think the comic itself could definitely turn into something profitable on it's own too.