In a world of webcomics there is a famine of analysis.
Maybe I’ve started too broad.
On today’s interwebs there is no help for newborn webcomics. I don’t mean to say that it is hard to publish (ex. A-One, A-Two, and A-Three). The difficult part is figuring out how to do everything else. Perhaps I should start at the beginning or, rather, at my beginning.
On January 27th, 2011 I started my own webcomic almost by accident. I had been working as a writer for a college cartoon (Squirrel and Crow - Don’t look for it on the world wide web; you won’t find anything but dead links and dust piles). I was satisfied with my written product, but I was getting personally frustrated in not being able to influence the final, physical product (i.e. the actual cartoon).
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| 'Squirrel and Crow' drawn by Blake Kendall |
I’d convinced myself that I was unable to draw.
You’ve met those people; you might even be one. You tell them that you’re a cartoonist or that you have ever drawn anything and they’re like, “Woah, brah, that’s wicked crazy. I can't draw to save my life, mon.” (Apparently my internal luddite is a Jamaican living in Boston.) The truth is you can draw. You might not draw particularly well, but not many people do at first. Much like anything else in the world, it just takes practice.
At that point in my life I was still part of the 'unable-to-draw' crowd. However, as a deep-thinker, I had taken it a step further. I actually reasoned my artistic handicap down to an inability to think three-dimensionally.
That’s bananas.
Here, let’s do an experiment. Close your eyes. Does everything look like old-school Mario? No, you say? Then guess what? You’re thinking three-dimensionally.
In any case, I found myself fiddling around on my computer one afternoon and, on a lark, I opened up MSPaint. Now, I don’t know how long it’s been since you’ve checked out MSPaint, but if it's been a while you should go have another look. The last time I’d spent any real time in there was during my Lorax years
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| Not entirely sure if I can explain this whole thing succinctly. |
Needless to say, new MSPaint surprised me (specifically MSPaint on Windows 7 of the 2009 varietal) It has a new kind of line correction that makes all your lines sort of even out (kind of like in Illustrator if you leave your smoothness super high). I finally saw a tiny bit of symmetry in something I’d drawn.
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| First character sketch. So beautiful...like a kitten sneezing. |
Before I knew what was happening, I’d come up with a premise for a webcomic and three fresh comics.
The rest is a long story that isn’t important right now. In short, I eventually put down the mouse, picked up a pencil, and almost immediately started looking for resources to make myself better.
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| Things got better. |
This is where this entry comes full circle. There wasn’t a lot of coordinated help for me as an up and coming webcomicer. I got bits and pieces from around the internet and the forum at my host site was fantastic, but it just wasn’t enough. I delved into Deviantart looking for "tuts" (that means tutorials for all of you living lives that are too busy for complete words or sentences) and I learned the true meaning of hit and miss. I have maxed out Google searches for “how to draw a cartoon eye” and “cartoon textures”; now I just get a white page in my browser reading, “Stop it. I’m tired.”
Come on, Internet! It’s the 21st century! There should have been a website devoted to making me better at least a decade ago. I’ve yet to find this site, so, as a last resort, I’m doing it myself…and you’re reading it.
“A Study in Ink” is a title lifted almost verbatim from a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story about an uptight detective with a cocaine addiction (Brief Sidenote: How have we, as a community of sarcastic thinkers never fixated on Mr. Doyle’s middle name? Conan? Seriously? How has that been allowed to fly without some semblance of a joke. When I search "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the Barbarian" I should be SLAMMED by images. Shame on you, Internet.) I chose this title because, much like the coke-addled detective, I intend to explore every avenue of webcomicery; leaving no stone un-turned in a quest to bring you all the know-how you need to succeed on the internets.
Each week “A Study in Ink” will focus on a particular aspect of webcomics in an effort to more fully flesh out our collective understanding of the genre and how it works. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “But what if he doesn’t talk about the issues that I’m having trouble with? What if I’m stuck in a creative swamp forever with no hope of rescue? What if I die alone and lost in a desert devoid of smiles or laughter?” Don’t worry. In addition to the subjects of my choosing I will also be taking any suggestions that you may have for subject posts. I just ask that these questions be limited to the arena of webcomics. I cannot and will not fix your humidifier for you.
This blog will update every Wednesday for the foreseeable future, so I expect to see you all then. Until then, good luck with your cartooning endeavors!
