Raymond Arotin
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I can’t say that I follow very many webcomics, but I do buy a lot of paper Graphic Novels, Zines, and floppy comics. I, personally, have never been turned off by black and white as opposed to color. Some of my favorite graphic novels are only black and white – The Portable Frank by Jim Woodring, Blankets by Craig Thompson, many of Gilbert Hernandez’s books, Chicago by Glenn Head, and Robert Crumb’s many comics.
I think what’s most important is if the comic when done in black and white is bold enough from a design stand point and doesn’t appear thin and weak. If your black and white work (or even shaded) is done well, I think most people will be attracted to it. But I think it should be “graphically strong” – textures, patterns, bold lines or even large bold black shaded areas. Each page should “pop”. The problem with a lot of gray and gradients is… it tends to all muddle together and looks weak overall.
If you want to go black and white because your coloring skills aren’t quite up to par or perhaps it will be very time consuming… I feel that those are legitimate considerations and nobody should think any less of you for it. You have to make smart and personal decisions when producing your comic. (I hate coloring, myself.)
You might want to compromise and choose just one other color to help tone your comic, along with the black and white… like a light blue or a tan. That can have a very nice graphic effect without much more work on your end.
I’m a bit confused and a bit curious… Are you a programmer / coder / developer? Are you saying that you are going to make your very own Content Management System from scratch, that does not rely on WordPress? That sounds like a huge undertaking… but good luck if you do.
I personally hate WordPress and I’ve searched for frameworks/themes that work with WordPress and allow you to drag and drop design without coding. So far, though, none seem to really be what I’m looking for. I’ve also recently heard that many people are going back to good old static HTML pages and Static Page Generators, as they load much quicker and don’t have the security risks. I’m considering going that route in the near future.
As far as “must haves”, I’d say a Products / Store section with shopping cart capabilities might be good, in addition to the Pateron stuff you mentioned above.
This is an old post, but I just wanted to give a word of warning about my reply above. Apparently in the last few months, Headway has been experiencing massive troubles and is supposedly in the midst of going under as a company. Lots and lots of complaints from members. Lots of run around from their staff. So… if you thought about using Headway as an option, please move on to something else. I will be exploring other “Drag and Drop” WP themes or other options in the coming months myself. Beaver Builder? Divi? Not sure. Luckily my website is fairly new and I haven’t really gotten it off the ground yet, so I don’t mind starting over.
(Sigh)… gotta love how easy it is to design a website. LOL. Gee…you’d think SOMEONE would create an easy to use, drag and drop web builder that doesn’t involve learning to code. I don’t have to “code” my graphic design programs to make comics and illustrations? Why should I have to code to design a website. Insane.
Yes, it is rather fascinating. Not that I’m advocating that books, graphic novels, and comics develop a rating system… that “can of worms” was opened long time ago and it was implemented poorly leading to lots of censorship. But that was long ago. I find it very interesting that books and comics are getting a wash on all this today, while the other forms of media have had to adopt a rating system. Almost like books are a sub-standard thing… old and quaint, and not worthy of regulation. Only straight out pornography seems to have any sort of rules as to not being sold to minors and what they can openly display on racks. Perhaps it’s because the content of books are so “hidden” while the others are loud and out there. I guess Marvel and DC “Superhero” comics are still thought of as child-oriented and thus their self-adopted rating system. Maybe they don’t want a repeat of the old days?
Video game makers started in 1994… (from Wikipedia)…
The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is a self-regulatory organization that assigns age and content ratings, enforces industry-adopted advertising guidelines, and ensures responsible online privacy principles for computer and video games in the United States, nearly all of Canada, and Mexico. The ESRB was established in 1994 by the Entertainment Software Association (formerly the Interactive Digital Software Association), in response to criticism of violent content found in video games such as Night Trap, Mortal Kombat, and other controversial video games with excessively violent or sexual content.
TV ratings… (Wikipedia)
Many countries have their own television rating system and countries’ rating processes vary by local priorities. Programs are rated by the organization that manages the system, the broadcaster, or the content producers.
I think you are right though… probably the simplest thing to do is to just mention the adult content somewhere and let the purchaser be the judge as to the age appropriateness.
Just thought I’d throw this in here too as an option. I use a premium WordPress framework called Headway to build my website. I signed up when they had a special. I believe it’s about $39 a year (but half-price when you renew each year). (My site is still fairly new and I don’t have my comic posted yet, but you can check out what I do have anyway. RayArotinPublishing.com)
It allows you to design your site using drag and drop frames. Once you have the layout done you customize the look and feel. I really like it and I honestly think most creative VISUAL designers would like it too. It’s very visual as you draw out your layout. There is a bit of a learning curve, though, especially if you are new to WordPress. You must understand the post and page heiarchy and how templates “trickle down” and such. I’m a newbie as well… so I can’t really offer you much advice, other than you can check it out and you may like it. I think it combines the flexibility of designing your own website with the complexity and freedom to host it anywhere (they aren’t a system that hosts like Squarespace, which I guess is a matter of opinion whether that’s good or bad).
Oh, also you can use a child-theme or use their own “Live CSS editor” which PRESERVES your custom code, even after a wordpress and theme update. (I haven’t used this yet… I’m still grasping the basics). And it’s built in Mobile friendly. Anyway… I’ll stop now as I’m beginning to sound like a commercial. (I’m not an affiliate, I swear! LOL!) I’m not sure why Headway isn’t mentioned more as an option? It seems pretty powerful to me.
Jaya, you mentioned meditation and how to maintain the habit…
I used to meditate a bit, but never regularly. And, yes, I found guided meditation (in audio mp3) very helpful. But what I wanted to say is… meditation doesn’t have to be sitting silently with legs crossed and trying to blank your mind. Cartooning, doodling, or even just getting quiet and listening to your thoughts and writing them down in a journal is also meditation.
I credit my 10+ years of journaling in loose leaf notebooks for helping me to get out of a very dark place in my life. Also, opening my mind up to other religions and philosophies in life that aren’t based in guilt, judgement, or hypocrisy really helped me to feel better about life as well.
I had to play around a bit with my settings on the Brother MCF J6710DW to get a good scan. If you want to look at a high resolution of the scans I did (1200 dpi, 24bit color, watercolor pencil art) you can go to… http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/raymond-arotin.html
and then click on the drawing “Hat Trick ver2”. Then once that page loads, you will see little green squares appear over the artwork. If you click on a square, it will bring up a full resolution 6400×9600 image of that section. That might give you some idea of the quality you can get. I’m pretty happy with it myself. Gray and light images tend to be harder to scan and require you to turn down the brightness setting quite a bit. I’m assuming that this scanner is just a CIS system as Steve said… but I don’t know…. I’m pretty happy with the pencil scans I did. Although, they aren’t light graphite lines, but bold watercolor pencil lines…. so, yeah, Steve may be right.
(This is just a wacky illustration I did for fun a couple weeks ago… playing around with my watercolor pencils, scanner, and CorelPhotoPaint program – BTW.)
Often times criticism from someone else isn’t as useful as SELF criticism. I often see critics try to mold someone into their own form. “Text and word balloons should be like THIS, and THIS alone”, “Figures must be 8 heads tall”, etc. While SOME criticism should be taken, much of it turns into a agenda to turn someone’s artwork into something it’s not… based on the personal preferences of the reviewer or perhaps a long standing tradition of style that needs to be challenged… rather than a thoughtful survey of what artistically can be improved. In Art School… the criticism was brutal… but always intelligent. Constructive criticism… a word that The Savage Critic doesn’t want to even try to use.
Having an awareness of your own faults and shortcomings and making corrections (that you determine to be relevant), I think is the best use of criticism. The lack of sales, the lack of interest, the lack of ad revenue… will tell you that society doesn’t appreciate the value of your comic. And if you’re smart, you make changes. You don’t need a hate filled critic to tell you that. You don’t need to pull the one or two semi-intelligent things from a rambling jealous rant, just because people say “oh you have to take the good from that post and learn from it”. Really?
Seems to me Zen Pencils is doing pretty damn good… a lot better than many webcomics around. Society has spoken. All of us can improve, including Gavin… but do we have to sit by and let a troll tell us what we should be doing? … and then, when Gavin defends himself people criticize him for not having a thicker skin? …. “suck it up, you have to deal with criticism”. Really? Insanity.
I see nothing but HATE at that Savage Critic page. I don’t consider that to be “satire” or “lampooning” in any way, shape, or form. It’s an attack filled with name-calling and swearing… with little, if any objective and constructive criticism. And certainly no intelligent humor. I know Zen Pencils isn’t everyone’s cup of tea… and I do see the validity in some of the criticism about him not writing his material… but his comic wasn’t designed to be THAT kind of comic. It’s like comparing apples to oranges. Not fair. Illustrated inspirational stories are just as valid as any other comic. He found a great angle that works for him… artistically, spiritually, and financially. KUDOS for him.
Just my opinion, but The Savage Critic seems to be a weasley way of spewing hate and insults… all the while hiding behind a label of “Oh, I’m just kidding… wink, wink”. I can understand why Gavin felt the need to call out Trolls and do his 4 part comic.
Hi Alex,
I use a Brother MCF -J6710DW. It’s an inkjet printer and it has multiple trays and an 11×17 scanning bed. I recently scanned some watercolor pencil drawings into my CorelPhoto Paint program at 1200 dpi and they look great. I had to lower the brightness setting on the scanner down to “-35”, though, because the default setting of “0” was too bright and washed out my colors. No big deal, though… it’s just a software setting that’s easily adjusted. I bought this at Staples for $250 about a year and a half ago. (Actually… I bought it TWICE. My first one got hit by lightning! Doh!)
It looks like they have a newer model out now… but it looks almost identical to mine (except mine is black the new one is silver)… http://www.staples.com/Brother-MFC-J6920DW-Color-Inkjet-All-in-One-Printer/product_213372
Anyway… I’m very happy with it. It’s wireless, so I can keep it on the other side of my room. Sweeeeet.
