Graphic Novelists: You Should Quit Webcomics – For Now At Least

First off let me say, not everyone’s goals are the same.  Some just want an avenue for self expression.  Some are looking for a way to just get their work out there, or are looking for work.  This post is for those who say that what they want to do is write and draw their own graphic novels, mostly.

I think you should quit webcomics.  Just do it.  Go on, go ahead and do it.  You’ll be happier, healthier and possibly more productive. 

Webcomics/novels do many things well for an artist.  It gives them a means to share, and build a community around other artists.  It helps you to develop good habits, like working within deadlines and, you know, actually working period towards a goal.

But I think you should consider quitting them because, let me tell you, after making one graphic novel completely offline and now starting another… it’s just plain better.  So much better.  People fight to have a buffer ready of like two months for their webcomic.  Well sir and maddam, I have a year and half buffer of a two page a week webcomic, just waiting if I have to.  Do you know how freeing that is?  Very freeing.  For a whole list of reasons.  I will share a few right now.

1.) Changes Get Made All Of The Time-
When you make a webcomic, you are usually making it on a week to week, update to update schedule.  Usually those updates and all are your first draft of the material.  You can’t see the whole thing yet and there are things down the line that you may change and improve and simply put, its not your best story yet.  When Hollywood makes a movie they don’t edit the movie and show us all bits and pieces without ever once conisdering the whole and how it all works together.  Instead they sit down after it’s all done (and this could be your thumbnails or pencils for the whole book) and review the entire story: the pacing, the dialogue, the shots themselves.  I found that after I was done with my book, I was changing stuff all of the time.  I was adding new shots, new pages, new scenes. They weren’t just like, “add on” scenes that I could say were bonus content later.  They were important pieces to my narrative that drastically changed the reading experience in the book.  Making your book offline, allows you to make decisions about your book without the pressure and input from an entire internet of people.  I do recommend sharing your book with people, but maybe only five to ten friends and colleagues for their input and let them function like editors.

2.) You Pay Forward The Business-
One of my favorite things about having done all of this work now, is that I finally get to share a completed story with everyone and can focus on that instead of making the story and sharing it too.  Normally we are busy tweeting and posting and advertising our book to everyone, as well as trying to finish up our book.  That’s too much!  Consider the benefits of being able to with all confidence tell everyone, this book is done and it’s coming your way, now let me share it, kickstart it, publish it.  Whatever!  The freedom I am finding now is that I am planning and writing my next graphic novel without any hestiancy and can play in that book’s playground while the other book goes into the real world to become a man.  This I think gives a huge amount of confidence to your readers, you, publishers, reviewers etc. They know you are good for it.  So like now, I get to do all this fun stuff, like query agents, submit to publishers, consider Kickstarters and webcomics and share it… and all the comics work is done!  Huzzah!  It’s a beautiful thing.

3.) This Isn’t Goodbye To Webcomics-
I don’t think webcomics should go away as an option for graphic novelists.  I just think they should be delayed, but I know how hard that is to do,  I don’t think we’re making a daily syndicated comic strip.  We’re composing a book and the whole thing is one thought.  Without giving each and every part it’s attention and detail, we run the possibility of putting work out there before it’s ready to go.  If you want to put the book out there before its 100% done, I would recommend breaking your story up into parts, finishing all of that part, and then start serializing it.  I can tell you that my friend Josh Ulrich tried this approach before having his whole story figured out, released his first issue of his book, completed ALL of issue 2 before realizing it didn’t work and scrapped the whole thing.  In the end he had to rebuild from the ground up. The point being, taking the time to get it done right before you go public with your work.  Trust me, as someone on the other side of taking a year plus to make a book in private, it is much better, healthier and freeing to have it done and ready to go after the fact.

With that said, go make books!