TWG Comic

[Spriggan]

Yesterday Skar brought up TWG having it's own webcomic(s) again, now for those of you familiar this isn't the first time we've discussed this or even had a comic.  EUOL did a comic for us back when TWG first started up and there's been off and on discussion about this.

Skar came up with something intresting though this time which is a comic that's written via the forum or forum posts by the members so people who want to participate can.  Also there was discussions about trading off via various artists so the same person isn't always making it (so as to no overwhelm/load the person doing it).

So lets get this ball rolling and see where it lands.

[42]

Well, I like the idea of having various artists trading off.

What I see is that there are a lot more people who would be wanting to contribute to the writing side than the visual side.

I don't see anything wrong with people contributing ideas for the story line or writing jokes, they just would have to understand that they may not be drawn into the comic.

I was thinking that it might be best for those of us who can draw (I'm thinking me, Skar, and CtrZ at the moment) just to get together and get started on a web-comic. Then have a part of the forum where people could contribute ideas and hopefully keep us motivated.

[Spriggan]

I'm not one of those that can draw but I'm happy to help out on layout and paneling if you need like if you want someone to do sketches of possible view angles in each panel before actually drawing things.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

what would help would be for the people who can draw to make vector images of the characters, so that others could use them and make the comics from start to finish.

[Spriggan]

That would really depend on the art style of comic we were doing, if it was something as simple as OOTS then that would work fine but I think if people are going for anything more complicated it wouldn't look good at least to me.  There are a lot of comics out there that feel like they use this method even if they don't (like Questionable Conetent).

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Mousewax turns out just fine and he uses stock vector images he's created. Let's not kid ourselves, we're not going to churn out a MegaTokyo or an Inverloch. We need to do something that's simple to put together. and if you're going to be realistic about multiple people doing it you *cannot* rely on a group of even 3 artists that arent' getting money from it to draw all of them.

[Spriggan]

No I understand your point SE, and I think that might be a good way to go, but I think we're jumping the gun here, lets wait to see what the people drawing the comic are willing to do and want to do before we start getting too involved.  If we start dictating what they should be doing before they even sit down themselves to see what they want to do then we might turn them off from this project.

[42]

I like the idea of using vector images, but it takes little while to build up a good stockpile. A lot depends on comic's basic concept.

[Spriggan]

We really need to get Skar and CTRLZed on on this discussion since they were the one's talking about it with 42 and I at the Magic Party.

[Skar]

I think vector is the way to go.  However I don't think it's possible to come up with a unified style.  At least not in any timely fashion.  So we'll have to plan on working with three, maybe more, distinct styles.  Work it into the concept from the beginning.

Maybe having certain characters assigned to a specific artist each time.  Artist 1 always draws Joe the Cat while artist 2 always draws Maggie the Blender, even when they're talking to each other.  We could probably unify this after just a couple of iterations using photoshop filters  and adapting to a middle ground.

Or cycling the comic from one artist to the next by week.  One does the whole thing one week, another does the whole thing the next.

Just brainstorming here.

[EUOL]

I wonder if we should be stepping back even further.  Before deciding the artistic style, perhaps we should talk concept. 

1) Would we want to make a gaming comic?  If so, how are we going to offer anything new?  That's a flooded market. 
2) Would we want a continuing story or a gag-a-day? 

[MsFish]

Isaac, if you say yes to this project know that I will mock you mercilessly for your inability to say no.

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

There is the option of doing both of option B EUOL. Just doing both once a week.

Say the gag comic on a monday and the story-lined comic on a friday or something.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I think that the format should be free form. There should be no pigeonholes.
FPM concept was going to start as a gag a day. But more jokes came out of situations I created. I still occassionally launch off a one-shot, but most of them turn into concepts that stretch out.

However, I think funny comics are more interesting. Esp. if they're going to be written by different people. Locking ourselves into an evolving cohesive story would be awkward. Even consistent characterization would be difficult. We go for the funny.
If someone wants to build off a funny someone else has made, let 'em.

Because it's a collaborative comic, though, it's going to be a lot easier with stock characters. So... i say we do that.

It would probably be best if we came up with some ideas for strips though so character concepts can be written.
I have been pushing around the possibility of a comic about an office of rabbits. I even have some character designs. I'll try to draw them in Illustrator and pass them around. Naturally they are occasionally assaulted by ninja monkeys... without realizing it.

Also, as a young adolescent, I did a few pages of a comic about Biff, and his Quest for the Golden Surfboard. I had a wide variety of characters for that too. This is where the Masked Platypus and the Samurai Armadillo originated.

[Skar]

I think E is right on the free form gag-a-day format, though I think we should start with gag-a-day.  Getting content from the forums will be far less complicated if each piece is self-contained.  And, if the flow goes that way, a longer story can always be implemented.

I do think we should have a stable of characters everyone draws from.  Again this simplifies things.  People contributing the dialogue know what they have to work with and the artists know where they're coming from.

To start, (after we decide on the context the strips will happen in, world-building, general subject matter etc...) I think we should collaborate on a list of 30 characters, flesh them out with a character profile of a couple of paragraphs and a pencil/vector sketch, then start brainstorming the first couple of strips.

And, continuing my stream of consciousness, perhaps we should make an article with the character sketches (text and graphic) with a form at the end through which contributors can submit their dialogue and concept description for each panel.