I do though. Terrible slash-filled comics.

Because it's not in my skill set and I know my limitatins.

I can't draw, and I don't want to beg people to draw for me.

I don't really want to. I like to read them but I write translations of Old and Middle Irish texts, some Latin, for academic use, and I love my work.

I can't string a decent idea together.

I do, but it mainly caters to yaoi-loving fangirls (ie, it's on smackjeeves)

I mean, I like it, but it's mostly for art and writing practice.

I did!

But /co/ said the writing sucked, and I can see why, so I'm studying more before teaming up with an artist again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxYVNr2J3F8

I'm too busying creating something even more beatiful

I'm working on it, but I refuse to have this idea brought to life by anyone other than a professional.

>>17624401 I like to read them but I write translations of Old and Middle Irish texts, some Latin, for academic use, and I love my work.

You narrow-minded classicist, you.

I want to be an animator...

>>17624334
but I am.

>>17624401

Are you me?

Are you me from the future?

Please stop posting this, you're destroying the drawthreads by making people rush off to do bad comics...

I'm swamped with school

>>17624657
But the drawthreads are usually just as bad...

>>17624623
What?

>>17624656
No, I'm you from an alternate universe where My Mother The Car was a runaway hit. It is a bleak and horrible place.

...God I'm old.

>>17624662

1) Lazy, making a comic is a lot of work
2) I'm not too confident in my drawing skills yet
3) I have tons of other shit I still need to take care of

I'll probably never find a writer as insane as me. And my ideas are just too nebulous to put down on paper in concrete form. I just have images and concepts floating around my head, not narrative or story.

So until that day, I'm stuck just cartooning random stuff until either I make it as an illustrator, or actually get into comics.

Pic not really related. It's my Illustrator project at the moment.

Because I can't draw.
And I can't find anyone to draw with me.

I've got over fourty ideas, so conceptualising isn't the problem. It's roughing out the script that's the problem.

>>17624657
The only way to make a good comic is to first make a bunch of bad comics.

We ought to encourage drawfags to move from drawing portraits to practicing sequential art.

>>17624775

McBess? What're you doing here?

>>17624775

Funny, I find my writings seeming too crazy for any artist.

Perhaps you and I shall speak.

i will attempt and make one, someone give something to make one about!

I only really want to write for established characters.

My original stuff is rubbish. My Flash comic is fucking gold. The Superman one was embarrassing. I deleted that.

Also, no art skills. My stick figures sometimes end up with extra limbs. I'm still working on that. I can draw a damn fine shooting star...

>>17624401
Write a graphic novel version of the Song of Roland.

>>17624844
Warren Ellis?

Is that you?

I'm terrified of the idea of /co/ doing to it what they do to other webcomics fawning over it, turning it into a daily dose, creating their own shitty fanart/fic/ships, being thin-skinned sycophants wailing against people who don't like it and generally shitting up the fanbase.

Actually I am.

>>17624906

No, not at all.

>>17624814
Who, now?

>>17624844
Perhaps. Though, to be fair, I've never actually met a writer with good comic ideas. They always muck everything up with drama and emotion and subtle underpinnings.Writers have no concept of action and visual translation.

>>17624865
A futuristic domestic cook-bot from the future has come back to the 21st century to save the world... BY TEACHING IT TO DANCE!

Already am.

>>17624917
Hey, now. We don't do that to all of them.

B^U

>>17624905
Been done.

>>17624932

This dude, your art reminds me of his.

>>17624935
ok i need to find some paper, and i will prob just take a pic of it with my webcam because my scanner is not set up...DAMN MOVING EVERYTHING IS EVERYWHERE!!!

>>17624917
Don't forget about the inevitable backlash. You could spawn the next "gunnershit fail" meme!

I am in alpha sketching and sorting out the story.
Thing is I am good at writing detective stuff, but want to write a superhero, and don't want to come off too batman

>>17624932

Not a problem with me, I assure you.

>>17624992
Your options are Grimdark McAngstingston or Heroic O'NeverScrewsUp.

Pick one.

>>17624981

Or your comic could be the next Menage a 3 or Questionable Content - nobody likes it, but someone always posts it multiple times EVERY FUCKING DAY.

>>17624935
what do you think the odds are of this thread 404ing before i finish?

>>17624932 They always muck everything up with drama and emotion and subtle underpinnings.

wat

>>17625033
You know, I wanted to post C-3PO saying 473 million to one, but I don't have a Threepio pic.

How odd.

We did yesterday

>>17625033
I suppose that depends on how long you plan on making it.

>>17624992
Could read about actual detectives and PIs, and go for something realistic. Overly angsty or infallible never get close to that (as much as some grimdark authors like to tout their realism).

>>17625021
I think i'll stick with the detective sort of superhero.
His powers are not as good as the other heroes flying about, but he uses his brains to find things the other heroes have to stumble upon.
So he is weaker than most of the villains but inevitably beats them via brain power or prep-time.
I'll try and make it at least a tiny bit exciting.

>>17624970
Oh, I dunno anything about him. I'm actually trying a lot of new things illustration-wise. I'm constantly finding new influences and styles that I like (and that sell), and I'm trying to mash them all together and come up with something that touches on all of them.

>>17624998
Well then, you're cool in my book.

>>17625066
And possibly senile! :D

>>17625106
WHATS THAT SONNY WELL BACK IN MY DAY ECT ECT

I'm working on something new, something to do after I finish the comic I'm practicing with. Right now I'm doing the character designs for a comic that could turn into a webcomic-y thing.

>>17625074
well i am gonna do a quick stick figure version, and if it is up to your standards i will attempt and make it awesome! or leave it it all depends (i am on the third panel)

>>17625076
Like, wolverine noir?
He has no powers but can use knives, gets beaten up and had to figure shit out

>>17625104

So, you mentioned ideas you had?

I'd like to hear them.

>>17625133
>ECT ECT
Ewww. Grandpa coughed up stuff on me again!

etc :3

>>17625076
Nobody cares for stories about a detective who has around an 80% chance of being married and who probably barely makes a living wage doing private investigation alone, let alone a fucking superhero. It'd be lower-middle class Batman.

>>17625180
YOU BEST BE GLAD GRAMPA CANT SEE U RIGHT NOW ECT ECT.

>>17625155
Wow, now I'm kinda excited to see this.

>>17625197
Hey, a lot of people seemed to like that Spirit guy.

because you have a million bad drawing and stories to make before you start being good.

>>17625066
heeeyyyy you're that drawfag!

>>17625197
Don't forget the huge number of PIs who engage in at least a little petty crime to make ends meet.

>>17624992

>>17625175
Ehh, I feel like I've typed them up a hundred thousand times already. I'm pretty sure everyone on /co/ has read it at least once. Besides, I can't escape the notion that trying to get someone else to write something I came up with would just end with us not seeing eye to eye on how the story should be or the characters work, etc.

I wanna create something new. Something that people would want to read, and don't see all the time, but not something convoluted and obscure just for the sake of being different.

This is exactly why I don't have anyone working with me.

>>17625197
What was that about a middle-class Batman?

I can't draw.

Plus I posted my idea on /co/ a few days ago (jetpack guy), and I was told it sucked.

>>17624428
take small stories about future from 60 published in soviet union .. works always for marvel.

Oh look this thread again...

Anyway... I am, as I've said for the third time I guess?
Here's the cover...

Also, I got a job and I'll be soon working on another comic book/animation.

everyone is OP.

>>17625066
I still laugh at the fact that this series barely picked up and theres already porn of it. Feels good man

>>17625298

Well if you don't like working in groups then that's your choice.

>>17625263
>>17625197

The point is he is supposed to be very good at it and gets a lot of work.
I was thinking it starts with a kidnap victim, but I can't think of a type of benefactor that isn't cliche.
Rich guys daughter who either becomes his secretary or love interest is too cliche, and some random guy just wouldn't work.

>>17625300
Jetpack guy? Was he, like the Rocketeer?

Pic semi related. It's WINGAXE. Do not steal.

>>17625371
Yeah. In retrospect I wish I'd never thought the thing up. It was a stupid idea.

I've been working on a cartoonish comic series. Not short episodic comics, but full length stories. It's mostly just slapstick and the ocassional dirty joke but nothing much more than showed up in vaudeville picture-novels. They're more for my own amusement than anything though. I don't think there's a great market for things like this anymore anyway.

>>17625342
Then again a financially struggling super-detective might be more interesting than I first thought

>>17625342
Make him have a modest amount put back from that time he took a snoop job for a pop star on her husband-of-the-week and found him doing unnatural things with a Venus fly trap.

Never elaborate.

Just say something like, "she still didn't pay me enough, considering."

I've got three stories set up, one of them fully planned out and the other two waiting for inspiration. Beyond that, I'm in limbo. I have a cautious err about artists and since I write cinematically and visually, I already know what I want the art to look like. I doubt I'd even find an artist willing to put up with my personality. I'd really hate to force someone to put up with that shit.

So yeah, still working on it.

How do these design I'm working on look? Better or worse than the old ones..

I know this is a bit commercial, but bear with me;

Batman, or some Batman analogue with the serial numbers filed off, has to fight a villain. Doesn't really matter who, best if it's someone more like a low powered Bane or Deadshot analogue.

The first two pages show the threat against the city. Batman figures it out and plans to stop it.

The next two pages show the fight between Batman and the villain, in which Batman easily defeats him.

The rest of the issue shows how Batman painstakingly prepared each individual aspect of the villains defeat, from scouting out the location, a warehouse, to laying tripwires, to moving crates around the warehouse so he could more easily ascend and descend, to his martial arts training, to his new design for batarangs, to how he planned to lure the villain into the warehouse, to every minute detail, taking days. The flashbacks are not in chronological order, but come up in the order that he had to make use of those tools or skills in the fight.

At the end we have the villain and the cops who come to arrest him dumbstruck at how 'easily' Batman won.

>>17625342
If you're just getting started with this, I'd advise you not to worry TOO much about being cliche or not. Focus on introducing the character, his methods, his personal quirks, etc. Hell, sometimes a cliche setting works better for this, since you get to see how the character reacts to what both he and the readers consider a routine case. Make them think this is just another detective story, introduce what makes the character unique, then introduce a twist on the case that surprises the detective. Now both he and the readers have experienced changes in what they individually consider routine/cliche.
It's all on the writing. You worry too much about being 100% original and you'll end up burning-out faster than you can say "The stuff that dreams are made of".

>>17625316
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9RBCr56i08

Anyway, I hate an idea about a group of people called the Star Forge Corps. Kind of a cross between the Green Lantern's and the X-Men, but not quite.

Each Cosmic Body (Black Holes, White Dwarfs, Red Giants, etc) gives off a specific kind of Cosmic Energy, which can be absorbed by lifeforms unintentionally. It causes them to gain random superpowers, generally based around colors and energy.

The main character is a human named Connor who absorbs the power of a small Black Hole near the edge of the galaxy. He gets the power to project fields of black energy. This thrusts him into Interstellar and Terran politics in a huge way.

>>17625208
Ok, here is the first 7 panels/first page. Let me know what you think so far.

>>17625499
You make me sick

>>17625438
I know you've had the real skinny abdomen thing since the beginning, and they've been gradually getting bigger, but you just have to get rid of it. It doesn't work.

>>17625438
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/05/animation-school-lesson-5-line-of.html
http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/05/media-preston-blairs-animation-first.html
http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/05/media-preston-blairs-animation-1st.html
http://bobcampcartoonist.blogspot.com/2007/10/blog-post.html
http://sevencamels.blogspot.com/

>>17625342
Higher profile PIs tend to attract higher profile cliental, which increases the scrutiny of their activities. They make more but it's increasingly routine jobs. The reason people go to them for dangerous or odd jobs that might be semi-legal because they're avoiding police entanglements usually. Though how a high profile investigator avoids legitimate law enforcement to help a client could be interesting too.

>>17625447
>>17625391

I think I will mix the two.
No one loves any thing more than a pastiche, so I think struggling super-detective who has to resort to sleeping on friends sofas and so on.
Get's a semi-cliche job or acquaintance, with a twist, and let everyone know that I know it is a bit cliche, without turning it into a comedy

>>17625063
that is odd, The question becomes when i finish this. And this thread has 404'd. What do i do with it?

>>17625380
That reminds me.

Has the whole 'space / flying knight' thing been done before in either Marvel or DC?

Because I was thinking of making the costume / hero personality a bit more similar to a knight, to set it apart.

But knowing me that's probably been done to death already, so I'd thought I'd ask.

>>17625511
IT is a quick pencil job on some scrap paper from a request much earlier in the thread. What do you want from me? I am not going to spend an hour making it look really good only to have this thread 404 i am working with what i got!

>>17625447

So very true. I've seen too many OC threads working on costumes or origins or powersets -- a complete waste of time. Character and motivation come first, always, in storytelling.

I'm working on it

>>17625604
That looks awesome.

Please tell me this is part of a Hot Fuzz style police epic?

I am creating a comic. Stuck on a part of my plot, though, since I'm trying to get some halfway decent characterization.

>>17625539
I think that will be his "big break", start the series showing how boring his previous jobs where.
Then have it that all the other PI's are under to much police investigation and he is the only one left to turn to.
He obviously does well and is suddenly on the rich and famous' speed dial.

I am not good at art and am better at writing.

IN the comic industry they make writers goes through a maze of pure chances and maybe we will maybe we won't to get work.

>>17625499
Haha, this is friggin awesome.

>>17625579
"Future knight" has been done in Camelot 3000, and Atomic Knight seems to fit the mold vaguely, too.

>>17624334
I actually am, sort of. I'm still in the rough planning stages of several stories, but I want to turn them all into actual comics or novels eventually.

I don't suppose anyone's curious?

Need to improve my drawing skills, learn how to color on a computer and convince my partner to do the damn thing with me. :|

I used to make some short stripes, but now I can't find a good enough idea.

>>17625598
I haven't even got onto a name or costume.
Working on the bar I should set his intelligence at and what type of intelligence he has e.g. social, intellectual.
Just thinking if I build a slight base for his past then it will help the character fall into place

I'm thinking of making a pulpy comic about a Crocodile Dundee-type guy going around beating up monsters, cryptids, and Nazi experiments with his bare hands and a machete. He works for the San Diego zoo.

>>17625672
Sure. That's what this thread is here for isn't it? Well if not, then it is now!

Can't draw, can't find an artist willing to colaborate, can't afford to comission, etc.

>>17625525

Does it look less noticeable in this design:
>>17624662
I trimmed down the width of the legs and made his torso a little squatter so I'm hoping that's a step towards fixing the problem

>>17625629
haha not quite, but it is very british and pretty epic.

>>17625641
Sounds cool.

It's notable that independent detective agencies routinely engage in semi-legal or simply illegal activities sometimes (a lot of their surveillance shit is flatly illegal); if that comes to a head, the desire for a low tier guy to do work becomes pretty important (particularly getting him before he's being looked at too much himself).

Organizations that specialize in it rarely break out of a fluctuating cycle of 'little work, lots of work, buy fancy new toys for work, police interest, little work again' that comes and goes with how much police are paying attention to them. Really big ones get by that problem by having lots of lawyers in their employ.

>>17625672
I'm thinking less 'future' though, and more 'Silver age homage'.

The kind of guy who thinks speaking in Ye Old English is what you're supposed to do. You know, the kind that throws out quotes worthy of Zapp Brannigan while pursuing bad guys.

I draw shitty comics in drawthreads if I like the subject material. I also have a plethora of webcomics that are all on hiatus or archived.

I guess you could say I learned my lesson.

-Not a good enough artist
-Not a good enough writer
-Got lots of ideas but can't decide on the full direction to take them, or to write them like a novel or just a comic straight off
-Lost contact with my dealer so I can't get high, close my eyes, type all night and read what I wrote a couple days later

>>17625490

Since everyone deserves some C&C

It sounds like a solid idea, and Cosmic Power is always a good excuse for superheroism.

So are the Star Forge people organized at all? Is it a GL type Enforcement system or a loosely organized group of people? How does Connor get wrapped up in politics?

Because no one would like it.

>>17625528

So, my construction and line of action needs work?

I think of an idea and it starts to form over the course of a few days, then I forget about it, and a week later I read something I'd never heard of before, realise it's what I was going to do, feel unoriginal, lose interest
or I read a really good comic, and at the same time as thinking 'god I love this' I also think 'fuck I can never be this good'

>>17625382
Cartoonish stuff is kind of under-represented. I don't think it's that there isn't a market for it, there is one, but it hasn't been fully exploited.

If anything, that just means it's wide open to try.

I'm working on a low fantasy comic set mostly in pre-Roman iron age Britain.

>>17625847
I say just start doing the comic already. How long have you been preparing these characters, again?

>>17625893

soo you studied etruskian and greek history?

>>17625909

A year or two...

I'm starting to run out of excuses other than I'm afraid I'll lose motivation after the first few pages and I'm worried I'm not yet good enough for a major project like that...

One big problem I have is the length thing. Like I have an idea I really like right now, still coming up with more concepts for it, doing a little design too; but I don't know whether I want to do it as a kind of scifi novel, a young adult book series, a comic book miniseries, or an ongoing comic... Obviously the ongoing thing is a lot harder to get going for a first time unless you blow the right people

>>17625782
If you want a good example of future knight speaking in ye olde english and throwing heroic quotes and speeches at every turn, I'd recommend you check out ROM: Spaceknight.

>>17625808

Thanks.

No, the Star Forged aren't organized at all. There's a small number of them that actually care about Law and Order, then there's a bunch of freewheelers who use their power for personal gain (but not in a villainous way), and then there are some who are outright evil.

Connor is generally ordered around by the "Law and Order" types, and tempted by the Freeloaders and Villains. He usually goes with the L&O for the sake of heroism.

>>17625782
That actually sounds pretty cool, I have to admit.

>>17625730
Okay, I'm going to start with bare details because I have a lot of stuff mapped out and if I said it all the field would be too long

Dr. Detective is about a Batman-like vigilante who is actually nothing like Batman. Unintelligent and broke, he's forced to rely almost completely on his ridiculous physical capabilities to make it through the night alive. I've got a pretty big rogue's gallery lined up for him, and more info on the man himself, if you want to hear it.

Sgt. Swagger and Combat Company is a tribute to every classic war comic, especially Sgt. Rock and the Howling Commandos. A squad of morons and fuckups is sent behind enemy lines in WWII - mostly to get them out of the military's hair while still using the manpower at their disposal to potentially accomplish something. Got more on these guys, too, if you guys care.

Deadville is set in a post-apocalyptic city, the last bastion of human society. Population is estimated at 9 million, and all of those people are affiliated with a roving gang battling for control over what's left of mankind. The main character, Warren, is a straggler who made the trek to the city alone, and if he's going to see civilization be reborn he'll have to become the baddest man alive. Again, more info if you want.

>>17625913
Aside from traders from Hellas trading for tin, that'd be irrelevant, considering that's almost invariably myth. Mostly basing it on archaeology and what Greeks and Romans tell us of Celtic peoples. Set about fifty years before the first invasion by Julius. We know a fair amount of the culture for that period from their physical objects, and the Roman reports from about half a century later can help a bit too.

>>17625847

Basically, yeah. You see how your torsos and arms have parallel outlines? Don't do that, it makes the figure flat and boring.

>>17626004

>>17626004

Cool, I'll work on that.

>>17626027

The Bob Camp article describes this pretty well, as well - making your shapes interesting.

>>17625435

The one I have mostly planned out is about the modern occult underground evolving to include technology AND magic. It focuses on the secret "war" started when a black magician infiltrates, betrays and destroys a cabal of Cryptotechnicians. Only their latest project, a man gifted a piece of cryptech called The Hand of Fate, survives to avenge them.

The second is about a utopian/dystopian future controlled by a divinely technological Theocracy, within huge walled cities. An underground resistance has been formed, run by a group of elemental magicians, to combat this regime since they have found evidence that the government had a hand in creating the wastelands beyond the city walls and all the vampiric and mutated fiends that live there.

Noticing a pattern? I don't think there are enough quality book involving magic anymore.

The third is just my take (like Squadron Supreme and The Authority are to the Justice League) on the X-men that involves a peaceful collective of former circus freaks trying to make it by in an america where their kind are feared, hated and enslaved into entertainment purposes.

I don't have any artistic talent.
So I stick to writing. Its what I'm good at, or at least people tell me I am

Personally, I think I'm a hack

>>17625991
All those sound decent, but deadville intrigues me the most. And on the same note, you should check out a series called Wasteland. Very cool post-apoc comic.

>>17626060

General posting for all concerned drawfags.

>>17625991
A few more stories

198X is my love letter to 80s pop culture, featuring ersatz versions of every 80s property (from GI Joe to MASK to Tiger Sharks) in some way or another. The plot is that the millennia-old conflict between the Infiltrator Technomechs and Sinistroids (REALLY proud of those names, by the way) has reached earth, and the nations of the world, as well as the villainous organizations, must take sides in a conflict of galactic proportion. It's actually pretty dark. Again, I can expound on this if you like.

HARM: A Brief History of Crime is about the leaders of the world's ruling supervillain syndicate being ousted by upstarts and forced on the run from villains, heroes, and law enforcement. By the end of the week, either they'll be dead, or everyone coming for them will be. Once again, if you want some more detail, I got it.

>>17626089

Stuff from the Disney studios - tips on layout, construction, etc.

http://sevencamels.blogspot.com/2006/09/comic-strip-artists-kit-redux.html

>>17625766
Have you got a link to any more of it?

>>17626141

Actually SevenCamels is a really useful blog for would-be animators and cartoonists, especially if for whatever reason you don't want to trawl through, say, John K's blog.

I'll post my "concepts" This is the closest I came to fleshing out ideas for the characters, though they're not even real ideas. More like, trying to find an art style that actually works.

Also, I HATE this picture. I don't know why I went through with it this far.

>>17625991
>>17626140
If they were good, I would totally read Sgt. Swagger and 198X. Like, buy individual issues, then TPBs, then Absolute Editions.
Just sayin'.

>>17625966

Your welcome.

It's a good idea, keep using it.

>>17625991
>>17626140
Any other comments? Nobody wants more detail?

>>17626075
Thanks, and I will check that out. I think one thing that's important before you start work in any genre is to read/watch some classic works in it. As it is, Deadville is inspired by Fist of the North Star, the Warriors, Mad World, and the Road Warrior/Mad Max, and probably some others I'm not remembering.

I lack talent and motivation

>>17625849

I know the feeling. The worst thing is when I think of an idea out of the blue, and I really get into it. It becomes my focus for weeks! Only to hear it has already been used in something like Bleach (which I do not read), and often in a less...how can I put it? Intelligent manner.

Now of course I never knew the idea had been done because I never read the material (so technically the idea was still original prior this knowledge), but no one is going to believe me now right? The author who has a legion of fans and lawyers beat me to the chase, even if I did have the idea first he or she used it first and no one is going to take my word.

But I think that's all the more reason to become driven to publish your ideas! Those authors took a chance, and it worked for them. Think about it that could have been you if you tried! You don't want to wake up every day for the rest of your life and hear someone else is getting rich because they did something you were hesitant about! You never know when you just might make the right thing and become that author beat everyone to the punch!

>>17626190

Thanks so much for these resources. I've been hating the stuff I've been drawing lately and these are making me realize why.

I've got some drawing to do...

Also, I absolutely suck with a tablet. I've had it for over a year, and I'm just as bad as the day I got it.