Art Improvement Diary 3: Random Musings As I Gear Up For Pt.4

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I decided that five to six traditional pages per installment is the format for Digby. I decided this after reading a lot of old Archie comics AND a lot of old 2000AD progs. 

While the 2000AD progs were segments of a longer story, they did tell a complete event in their five pages. Archie generally told a full tale within its limited page count. I admire the skill of being able to tell a story in such a economical way. The first John Wick was like that. Dead wife, dead puppy, stolen car. Fifteen minutes in and Russian mobsters start dying in entertaining ways.

 In theory it'll make the posting come faster, but I'm not leaving my "When it's done" schedule. Comics are too much work for the sole reward of knowing I finished it.

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Up above you see a three panel gag. I noticed in part 3 that a lot of the cadence of the story was very 4-Koma like. You might have seen the formula in manga like Azumanga Daioh and K-On! A comedic version of old newspaper adventure strips where a story was told in three or four panel chunks.

Part 4 had that cadence as well. I decided I was going to move out of my comfort zone with it and actually do it as a series of 4-Koma. Pushing yourself to do difficult things is all part of any Project Git Gud.

The thumbnails look good IMO. Next is the actual getting-it-drawn part, which I'll start next week.  

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I accept that keeping Digby a black and white comic is not going to get my comic eyeballs. Comics readers only like black and white comics if there's a ninja turtle or anime titties in it. Otherwise they hate it.

Personally, I always see a lot of excellent comic art marred by adding colour. I also see a lot of bad comic art being carried by the colours. I definitely need to keep working on how I do my black and white, but I feel that's the look that works best for the comic I'm making. Colour won't improve anything visually. 

Colour will pander to the limits of others, but if I'm going to do that, I might as well start drawing Digby as a big titty anime girl and tracing Clip Studio assets.

 Bah! to that! 

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However the saying "Know your audience" is a wise one. I find in 2020s the audience for comics online are generally weebs and Tumblr kiddies and they only like certain types of comic. No hate. The middle-aged Wednesday crowd at comic shops are the same way. It's just in the nature of fandoms.

I won't lie to myself about most of it being my fault. If I want those eyeballs I must draw in those styles. Even if it's done badly, it's like what they like and that's the important thing. When all is said and done, me not doing that is me kneecapping myself.

 On most platforms. 

When I look at the platforms I've been using since I started drawing comics again;

Site A - All of my love came from other artists.

Site B - All of my love came from site runners. 

Site C - All of my love came from readers. 

I do appreciate all of the folks who showed me love on sites A and B, but it makes sense to put all of my focus on Site C, doesn't it? In theory they're the ones doing the word of mouth.

Dare I put all of my eggs in one basket? 

Okay. Egg. I have one egg.  

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None of that matters until I can level up my skills to the point that it's undeniable the people not reading Digby are missing out! I will keep in mind every bad habit I uncovered drawing Part 3 and strive to not repeat them. 

Back to the grind next week.

Next week because I'm still sore from my return to swimming yesterday and I'm a giant ball of ouch.