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Posted: Tue Nov 02, 2004 6:11 am Post subject: Online Comics Forum
Hi everyone.
We now have a seperate forum for our online comics venue. All the different aspects involved will be discussed here. Thanks everyone for your interest.
Alex _________________ I am a romantic, a seeker of beauty.
Even from souls corners most despairing,
Beauty none the less.
-Sunheart-
Last edited by Greek on Tue Nov 02, 2004 2:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Jan 10, 2004 Posts: 107 Location: Atlanta, GA
Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2004 8:45 am Post subject:
heh, anyway, my one comment about all this is that we seem to be talking too much and not producing anything...
I think we need to get a bunch of comics done in flash, 3d, 2d, ceramics, plasma or whatever you want, then with all that, say "ok, we have all this, let's organize it!"....
So, start creating people! the selling and distributing will come in due time... in order to sell something, you need the product first (though hell knows sometimes this isn't the case... but let's apply it here).
Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2004 6:04 pm Post subject: Re: Online Comics Forum
Nim_Prodaction,
I would think that one or two would be more than enough. If the first few pages do not get a person interested, then they probably will not read further.
Anyone else have an opinion? _________________ I am a romantic, a seeker of beauty.
Even from souls corners most despairing,
Beauty none the less.
-Sunheart-
Here's a medium-winded 0.2 Euros, but I'd appreciate any comments on the idea. At least it's a strategic sketch for how to create, publish and sell comics at no charge other than creator time ;o)
If the problem is that users expect free web comics and the creators would like to be paid, a good solution seems to require any comic to be both free and for-pay.
So why not "borrow a page" from another niche and do a comic strip (continuous story, not one-strip gags) and "collect" it later in a sort of "virtual DVD" compilation with extras (making-of, tutorials, previews of next story) later?
The strip could run in the galleries - for free - and the compilation could be set up as downloadable zip in the marketplace (I'd do the "virtual DVD" in html, but that's just my preference). What added-value would the customer be paying for in the compilation? A better "reading interface" providing a better reading experience, and the extras. Would they pay? Well, there's only one way to find out ;o)
The humble strip format forces one to really learn how to tell a visual story succinctly and strongly - believe me, I'm struggling with it right now! On the plus side, you don't have to sweat over a story for six months before even seeing it "in print", you just need to be a week or two ahead. You can predict your workload to a reasonable degree, and match time and resources to ambitions - not unimportant to part-timers like myself!
For the reader, it means a qucik, daily "shot" of, say, 900x300-pixel story that can be d/l'ed in no time flat and viewed on any machine with a browser. Beats d/l'ing 50+ Mb to watch 3 minutes of matchbox-sized animation - if only you had the latest codec ;o) With the strip the reader can drop into the story at any point, and back up or go forward as desired.
The web galleries, such as Animotion's, will get pics with an in-built incentive to return. Since the strip has none of the bells and whistles of advanced comics storytelling, it will be "reader-friendly" to just about anyone, too.
What if the strip flops? Well, at least it's cheap - you lose the work you've done so far, plus the extra week or two in your "buffer". What if the "virtual DVD" gets warez'ed? Happens to all products - keep the price reasonable, most people are honest enough, they just ain't rich ;o)
All the tech and knowhow to do a strip is readily available, and since the strip is 2D still images, you don't need a ILM-grade hardware or headware to create it. And if you just happen to be the next Mike Mignola, your storyboard is already done when Hollywood calls *LOL*
Seriously, the real attraction of the strip format, IMHO, is that the limited workload means you don't need extra funding or people to do it. Whether you're a one-man team or a small group of like-minded enthusiasts, you can make it YOUR story, no compromises. That makes the stuff more interesting to do, and occasionally even to read, too ;o)
I think in reguard to Anon's suggestion, that maybe there should be room for both strip and book. Contributors would be free to work in whichever format they feel most at ease with. Some folks may perfer to do their stories in book form due to the greater freedom of space a comic book page allows. There's oonly so much you can do with two or three pannels at a time.
There's room for ANY format. My "concept" is simply a "what can be done with what we have NOW" solution. How to get your comic published and - hopefully - sold, using the technology available (forums, marketplace, zipped downloads). I prefer the strip format because it's the simplest kind of PRIMARILY visual storytelling, and hence :
- it's workload-friendly -- work is "spread thin" over time
- it's creator-friendly -- you'll know early if it's hit or flop
- it's resource-friendly (CPU, disk space, bandwidth)
- it's reader-friendly (fast d/l, well-known format)
- it's technology-friendly (galleries and marketplace)
I would even say it's storyteller-friendly, too. Dialogue and visuals have to be consistently sharp and to the point. Great training for storyboarding, and equally great groundwork for moving on into more advanced storytelling.
On the basis of my own experiments I have to agree that 900x300 pixels (my chosen format) is not much, but I find that it's a stimulating challenge. Whether the result makes for a stimulating READ has yet to be decided ;o)
I didn't mean to knock your idea. I have seen strips which tell their story very well. I just meant that contributors may want to have the choice of which format to use, that's all. I know the stories that I'm working on- based on a book I had published some years ago- seem to work better in book form. Everyone's going to have their own prefrence- which is as it should be.
No knocking taken ;o) I enjoy all forms of comics, I just have a hunch that a simple "base form" could bring on board both more creators AND readers. There seems to be lotsa people around who write or do single-pic-and-text-block stories well, all they need is a basic storytelling vocabulary to start telling stories that are reader-friendly, too.
The strip has one added advantage : by posting daily you stay in your readers awareness far more easily than by posting the once-a-week full-blown page. Or so I think, but as I said, I still have to try out the theory in action. As Sandmarine says, above, we need less talk and more production, so I'll get back to production now ;o)
New question I don't think anyone's asked yet: How soon are you expecting to put all of this in motion? The planning and the talk have to stop sooner or later or the publishing part can never begin. I don't expect it to start tomarrow or even next week but a ball park idea would be good.
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 10:41 pm Post subject: Re: Online Comics Forum
Topan,
Just so you know. People have already started working on them. They can upload whenever they are ready. _________________ I am a romantic, a seeker of beauty.
Even from souls corners most despairing,
Beauty none the less.
-Sunheart-
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