What parts of your work have been influenced by RP?

How is developing a character in an RP setting different than writing one without? What does the process look like, and how did they work your way into your comics?

What is your advice to someone looking to take their RP sessions, settings, their characters or their friends’ characters, and turn them into a longform narrative like a webcomic?

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Episode Release Date: May 15, 2024

Episode Credits:

Ally Rom Colthoff (@varethane) - she/they, chirault.sevensmith.net wychwoodcomic.com

Rae Baade (@overlordrae) - they/them, empyreancomic.com

Phineas Klier (@tentacledeity) - they/them, heirsoftheveil.fervorcraft.de

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Transcription

00:00.60

Thane

So what parts of your work have been influenced by RP?

00:06.39

Phin

So basically I think at the moment right now in my work, a lot of the things that storywise happen in the comics that, when it comes to character relationships, a lot of that has been established through RPs, and I've been doing RPs for a pretty long time. I think I started to RP with my husband in like 2008, so there's, I don't know, about 15 years of of baggage. But even before we actually started to RP together and to put these things into stories, I got a recommendation from an acquainted comic artist who was like, "Yeah if you ever get stuck in your stories, get yourself someone you trust and just play out the scene with the characters to basically get loose and maybe get new ideas". So before I even knew what RP actually was ,I was kind of already using it for my work when I got to like scenes that were hard, or character relationships that I couldn't figure out. Because it can help a lot to basically just...

01:33.88

Phin

Because it's kind of like a form of freeform writing, where you basically don't think a lot in the moment depending on the RP style. You basically have a look like I don't know kind of like this kind of rapid fire exchange. where you get into a role basically and play that out of someone else. And that can actually like be really cool to just, I don't know, just let your thoughts flow, and not be as restricted as you would be by just trying to plot everything like the conventional way. I also like use RP a lot to try out story ideas or plot ideas mostly for one of my work in progress projects, where every time I change the plot a little bit I go to my RP partner and ask her to like try it out with me to see what works and what doesn't work and the things that work that get um and get basically written down, and in some way adapted into the comic, and everything that doesn't work gets thrown out, or maybe I'll think about it for later. So I think RP is basically a little bit like trying to figure out the characters and the stories in itself. It's like a pretty strong basis for the comics that I make.

03:21.39

Thane

And there's definitely a a lot to be said for the freedom of kind of exploring things that way where you're really kind of thinking from the inside out from the perspective of the characters and there's not really like expectations or pressure of putting it together, you're just kind of having fun with it. It can be very freeing in that regard. How about you, Rae?

03:45.65

Rae

Well, for me I've pretty much been role-playing since I was like probably 11 on like Dragon Lance roleplay forums and chats and stuff. So, pretty much since I started comics. A lot of my influence actually came from role play, because a lot of people are like "hey you should draw comics of our characters and put me in there!" and stuff like that. Pretty much ever since I've drawn comics was pretty much ah said kind of like the push and pull has been influenced by RP and I find a lot of the exploration and characterization. A lot of the settings that I've never done before I've just been like "oh hey, this is cool. Let's toss in and see what happens!", a lot of it has been RP. And it's been pretty interesting because it's just all this back and forth, a lot of surprises, things that you've never probably never thought of doing on your own, because you have this partner that isn't you. So you're like "oh I never I would have never thought of that on my own!" So. You know and I use I originally started out in like group chats and stuff. So it was a lot of people but it now it's like 1 person that I've pretty much work with exclusively because ah group fallouts and stuff do not make good comics. And they end up being my writing advice person to go to? But yeah, I go to it mostly for characterization nowadays. Character settings tend to be mostly something that I come up on my own now though. But originally, it was pretty much exploration and new ideas working with working as a collaboration type work that was the main thing for me.

06:57.74

Thane

And yeah, that collaborative aspect and like other people throwing in stuff that is different from what you might have done if you'd been solo can be like so invigorating about it because like I I mean we all got into this because we like storytelling on some level and. I guess ah in rp sometimes you really truly are kind of also hearing the story from another individual which has its own kind of joy. Ah I I actually Turalt got started in part from sort of a variant. Roleplay type I guess ah so back in like 2006 I used to hang out on these this type of board called a paint chat where you have ah it was like a branch of oy cocky which is like a browser based painting software and there were all these paint chats that used to be around. Ah.

07:47.48

Rae

And ah I remember those.

07:50.92

Thane

There was one called Niko's that was pretty big. Ah there was but some people could just set it up on their own server for fun and a user on a web comic forum that I was a member of had their own actually no, it wasn't even that one anyway. Ah, someone had their own paint chat that they had just installed on their server for fun to invite a handful of friends to and I joined it and was doodling around and I doodled this character and a whole bunch of other people started doodling around him. Ah, showing like their characters interacting or poking him or like drawing bugs around him and stuff like that and as they did this I would like erase out bits of the face and change the expression and add like a little speech bubble and then they would add a speech bubble and we would like talk to each other that way. Ah and it was ah. It was not necessarily the first time I'd ever been I'd ever seen Rp online but it was kind of the the first time I'd seen anything like I'd I'd been in it like in the middle of it like that. Ah and the next day when I rejoined the paint chat I drew the same character again. Ah, but like in a different pose and then people would draw in different things and we would kind of all have like this little rotating cast of characters and the doodle that I had done ah was just I thought it was going to be a one off of this this character with like fun horns and like sort of dreadlocks hair.

09:19.83

Thane

Know it was a hood and at the time and like a scarf. Um, but the more I drew this character and the more other people drew around him more I was like Wes like I'm getting like a feel of the personality of this person ah like seems like kind of a lot of fun to like just kind of kind of poke him and I ended up. Ah, merging it together with this plot premise that I'd been turning over at the back of my head completely separate I was like but like I kind of want to do something with this guy because like I have this feel for him as a person now and I'd love to like make him a part of an actual story and I sort of smooshed them together. And ah one of the other people on that like that character was Kian who became the protagonist of geralt. Um, and actually one of the other paint chat users ah came up with Tyko. Ah, so I got permission before going in and like starting the web comic but that's actually the ah the deep law origin story of how how geralt got started. Um, anyway. I'm going to go on to the next question which is how is developing a character in an rp setting different than writing one. Outside of that setting. What does the process look like and how did that work its way into your comics or.

10:40.10

Phin

Um, so I would say that it's a little bit more chaotic and that it can be difficult when you develop a character just in rp to translate all the context, especially when it's like from. Long form rp from a long rp but that might span like months or in some cases even years to like translate all that context then into the comic because you kind of. At some point already have like this fully fleshed out character. But how do you like explain to the readership who this character is ah what's what's going on. So sometimes when you adapt characters like that. Um. And you do not change a lot from 1 medium to the other it can sometimes feel a little bit jarring um like there's already context that the readers should be aware of about that character that ah might be difficult to establish. In the comic itself. So. That's why for me when I actually develop characters in r piece I kind of try to like look ah at what I do in the r piece as kind of like more of an alternate.

12:12.21

Phin

Universe and then I take the trades and what I like about the character and ah once they are supposed to like go into comic form I try to like rearrange them a little bit so they're basically still the same character. But.

12:32.19

Phin

I'm kind of rebuilding them without like the baggage from the r piece because in most cases, most r piece that I did I was never like active in in groups or did group r piece because I was too like socially awkward. So I only ever did like 1 on one r piece with very close friends so because and that's why um, most of the r piece that I had were like long and every character that was like developing. In such an rp head like this like these really um, like longwinded backsttories that develop during the rp process. Um. Like I remember like Corus one of the protagonists from hes of the veil went through like I think a thousand iterations. Um, at some point he was like part lizard god and that's all like basically yeah.

13:40.11

Thane

I oh.

13:44.82

Phin

Ah, through like through like weird our piece. So when I started to do um straa like the pre decesor of hes of the veil where that was basically still a part of his Backstory. Um. Kind of when I went to heirs of the veil to reboot the comic I kind of was like okay um, what are the things that I like from these are peace that I should throw out. Um because it makes the story less cohesive if it's all there and. That's actually like a process that takes a little bit of work to actually because you already know who the character is you know everything about that character because you like played this character's story. This character's life so much. But at some point like you have to sit down and figure out what is important for the readers. What is important for the story that you want to tell and what are the things that will be left out because they're kind of too wild or don't really make sense in. Ah, basically a comic format because yeah, our piece can be really longwinded so it like kinda makes it kind of difficult to ah, go about having like long-unded stories and long-winded characters in a format that.

15:13.93

Phin

Will probably not spend like 20 to 50 books. Yeah.

15:18.21

Thane

And yeah, that part can definitely be tricky and adapting things from prose to where you can really literally get into the character's head and have whole like paragraphs about like their inner thoughts and like what they're feeling in the moment and then turning that into visual. Unless you do the manga route of having like a million thought bubbles of them hyperanalyzing everything. It could be tricky to be like what are they smelling in this moment and maybe that's a huge thing during the prose version but you can't really, it's difficult to Illustrate. Ah. How about you ray.

15:53.99

Rae

And I do think viewing it as a alternate universe is definitely a good route to go because you definitely are going to have to do some sort of editing to get that into essentially what's an adaption of your role playing. Because um, it's going to be a different format is essentially what it is like it's just like going from prose to comic is you're going to have to make some changes because it's a different medium. So um. It's just going to have to change because it's different. Um and I will say when you're taking it from Rp Sessions you're also going to have to consider that it's. Going to take a lot longer that to turn this into a comic so you're going to have to consider that um, you're that. Is this person going to be my friend in 10 years ah for me to finish this thing because um, my first web comic that did not happen.

17:25.86

Rae

And that certainly did is a blow to motivation when you're making a web comic is if you have a huge falling out with your friends and half the the characters are theirs. Well. It's good to get a lot harder to write your ah roleplay comic if um, you don't like the person that half the characters are based off of anymore. Um, even if you like the characters themselves. Ah it. Definitely can get a lot harder to write those characters.

18:06.49

Thane

So yeah, the web comic that was the the first comic I ever read ah that ah well, the first web comic that made me that introduced me to the scene. It started that way was literally the the creators were a couple initially.

18:12.86

Rae

Oh yeah, yes.

18:22.16

Thane

And they had been roleplaying their characters with each other and they broke up and that was the that was the end of the comic ah in some ways. Ah I was I was talking during the first question about ah teralt and how. A form of Rp was kind of partly responsible for starting it. But I feel in some ways kind of lucky that it wasn't really a story or it didn't really go further than that it was like the seed of the character that I took and could kind of do my own thing with. And I was completely free to like come up with my own story direction. It was not a collaborative effort. Other than that like very initial like spark of an idea. Um, and so to some extent I'm I'm glad that that was ah that that I had that freedom although sometimes ah i. Do look at other other comics that are collaborative efforts and I'm like ah be nice to have help from someone but it's never it's never that simple and I have done freeform text Rps with friends ah in stories and I have some characters from those that I really love and like the storylines were a ton of fun. Ah, in some cases we have storylines that actually finished like it became a completed narrative in a sense I'll beit a really long and rambling one and sometimes I kind of wish like it'd be neat if we could get a comic of that off the ground but ah it it can be tough if like the.

19:49.52

Thane

The 2 creators are operate at different speeds or aren't quite like in sync or in agreement about what direction that's going to go in so I'm not sure whether those will happen but it would be cool someday. Um, so the ah.

20:07.73

Phin

I have something to add if I may because I think um, the point about um creators working in different speeds or creators maybe not being able while. Um, the ideas and the bouncing of of each other might work in something like freeform rp might not be like translatable to an actual comic and the energy that you have during those rps like might not be something that translates. Into working in a different medium because um I kind of like um the experiences I have is that you often have like 1 person who's can be kind of the main idea guy and then like. Takes a lot of the things and does a lot of stuff with that and especially when you adapt something like an rp um figuring out who takes what role and who is basically a. With a comic doing most of the work and actually drawing that comic can be kind of difficult and something that I ran into recently after? um, basically I was writing heirs of the whale with my husband.

21:33.46

Phin

And he like dropped from the project not because like something terrible happened but he didn't feel the project as much anymore and he had a lot of things going on in his life. But I kind of noticed that um the characters that we like developed. In those Rps Um, especially his characters I didn't have that strong connection to Them. So I'm right now in the process of building like a connection to these characters making them kind of mine so I can write them adequately and like give them. Um, ah, satisfying story.

22:22.38

Rae

And yeah, having the same energies if you are collaborating is definitely important for my first web comic which um as I said did have end up having a falling out. Um. We did try having a collaboration at first where I was the main idea person as well as drawing it. Some of my other roleplay partners did offer to do the writing and the coloring and. Inking at first to but um, they the but they never actually would ever meet the deadlines and I would end up having to do it myself in the end and it was. It ended up being very frustrating and I would end up having to do all of it and to be honest, it was like a 3 3 times a week comic so it was like not exactly a very healthy schedule in the first place. But. Um, it was. It was very fair, very frustrating though to end up having all of that expectation and having to.

23:52.81

Rae

Do it all on your own in the first place. So it's one of those do you do do you do you do it all on your own. Do you try to collaborate. Do you just be like hey can I use your characters and I'm just going to draw it or and consult you on if they're in character in the first place. Or what you just need to have the expectations in the front. Um, before you get started I do suggest maybe starting a scene and going from there if you're trying to collaborate though because. You don't want this happening at launch.

24:49.69

Phin

And yeah, I Personally think it's also very important to very early on when you basically decide to turn this Rp into more and like be it a comic. Be it like a novel or some other kind of project. To basically set ah your expectations the expectations of your collaborator and know where you both stand because um I remember like I knew someone once? um, they also like worked on a comic project. And kind of ran into the problem that a character that had kind of like gotten pretty popular within that comic could not really be used could not really be expanded about ah about because it was a character from um, a friend of theirs that they. Compete with um that they like used for the comic at some point. Um, mostly I think um like as this kind of like yeah um, how do you say it is there a character between themselves. Um, but he kind of got like really popular and they ended up like having to drop some of the storylines that the character was um, involved with because um, the person. Ah their friend wanted to use their character for their own Story. So.

26:23.64

Phin

They basically had like loose ends with this like kind of popular character that they had in the comic that like never got expanded on because the other collaborator wanted to use the character for an own project which I do not think like ever came to be but. That's also something especially like if you use other people's characters from those Rps like you have to write from the start know what can I do with this character. How much can that character actually be involved in the story. Or does the other person want to do something with that character later on. So maybe it would be better to like have the character not be there or.

27:11.50

Thane

And yeah, that's ahd be a pretty ah pretty important thing to to iron out. Um, which kind of leads into the third question. Ah, which is what is your advice to someone looking to take their rp sessions settings. Their characters or their friends characters and turn them into a long form narrative like a web comic.

27:32.33

Phin

So yes I think um, we already mentioned a few things that might go awry if you like try to adapt the web comic I think for me, um, it would be that. If you want to adapt like Rp into a comic or a web comic take some time um figure it out try to maybe like for the fun of it work with your collaborator see what the roles are how.

28:06.11

Phin

Um, the other person works how you actually work together when you work on something that's not freeform rp and to write in the beginning like maybe try to um, already set a list of um, the things that. Cannot make it into the comic because they might be too difficult because I think especially with our p comics. Um, especially with like very long form r piece. There is like um this um yeah, you might be. Ah, you might be tempted to be like okay I'm going to make this like huge epic story with all these characters and all like their interactions and entanglements and I think if you like try to adapt the Rp it would be important. To give it like a good structure and see basically what you can actually take into it because comics aren't like such a time intensive form of labor and it takes. So long to actually get through the story to actually draw the comic. So keeping it a little bit shorter is probably like beneficial unless you have like a lot of time to work on it. So for me I would say give it like form. It.

29:40.67

Phin

Ah, the thing ah try to like streamline it and try to like be on the same page with your collaborator and know exactly where each of you like stands and even then there might be like problems in the future. So. Um, adapting our piece can be a little bit difficult unless it's really someone you know 100% like you can trust and you've been like friends for like 15 years and you will probably be friends for like 15 years more um I guess that that would be like an extreme case. But um, yeah, it's like a lot to think about if you like if it's actually worth it to like adapt the thing in the end to.

30:31.70

Thane

And yeah, in some cases like it could be such a blast just writing the thing out but part of the advantage of Rps is that freeform nature and how you're just kind of having fun exploring and wandering around and not necessarily thinking about optimal story structure. Or trying to be concise for a graphic novel adaptation. What do you think? ray.

31:00.63

Rae

I would say don't be afraid to go off script to edit or honestly just go off the rails completely when it comes to um, using the narrative of r piece and just use the characterization as a base. Because what makes an interesting rp and what makes an interesting comic story can be completely different things especially since Rps can tend toward what would be considered melodrama for comics. Um. So I would I would honestly personally just use the characterization for ah, a base because especially since personally my comic my ah role plays end up to be kind of meandering in story. And um, a lot of my characters tend to get tossed in and no focus point tends to be tends to happen. Um, where for comics I think um. What is really beneficial is when you tend to have have ah just a couple characters in focus and most of the other characters tend to be background or supporting characters.

32:29.55

Rae

Um, and one of the main drawbacks for our piece stories tend to be character blue and you keep getting characters introduced and then the focus goes on them because they're the care. They're The. Author's new blurbo and all the focus is on them and the old characters go in the background and the reader goes. Well what happened to them. Um, so that tends to be something that. Ah, tens that can get really really frustrating for a reader that I think you um as an author you really need to keep in mind for um, that role Plays. Can be really fun, but maybe not so much when you're a reader.

33:29.93

Thane

And yeah, definitely when I was ah doing those like text form role plays a lot of it was just like we thought this would be cool at the time like reading over some of those logs which can take a while because some of them are like hundreds of pages at Microsoft where ah like after i. After I extracted the logs and kind of put them together and I'd be reading through it and I'd be like wow this is the section that we wrote after I like read full metal alchemist or something like that and like you can kind of see that right there whereas if you're adapting it. You want to you want to kind of soften those things like. Merge it into a single consistent storyline that doesn't jump around too much and have like themes. So ah ultimately I think I I agree with Ray that it's often better to just kind of start completely from fresh and don't try to directly adapt. The entire thing. Um, I know we didn't really touch on it but like this probably goes double for anything based on like a tabletop role play like a d and d kind of thing that.

34:35.43

Phin

Yeah, um I I Totally agree because I think what something that's like also important to keep in mind that like like you said then that an Rp can be like colored so much by the things that you're reading at the time that you're consuming at the time. Or even like the stuff that you're going through at the moment because sometimes you also are pee in a way that like maybe helps you like deal with stress or other things that you go through in that moment and like that might make for fun or cathartic or like. Cool Rp but not really for like an enjoyable story and I think um, something that I like keep in mind a lot is that like um, the characters that I Rp like I Rp them in different scenarios. And sometimes we don't need like that much setup because we already know the characters. So when we get to like an emotional scene or of course that scene will be emotional for us because we're already familiar with the characters because we repeat them for like a long time. So if I would take like any of these these scenarios and try to extract them exactly as they are into um, a story. They would not really land emotionally because um, the reader They don't have like the family or like look.

36:07.38

Phin

The reader doesn't have the familiarity that like we have with the characters that ah that we are appearing with with.

36:13.88

Thane

And yeah, and some on some levels. It almost feels like ah these kinds of Rps in in a way. It's like ah it's a similar thing to fan fiction where like you're you're sort of I guess it's almost like you're you're telling fan fiction to each other kind of about your own characters. Ah. Like hitting that that like little itch in your brain of like being like I love these characters already and now I want to keep exploring but ah, a new a new reader to a comic won't have that bit of context. It's like ah reading fan fiction for a series that they don't know. Ah, so you got to make sure that when you are adapting a role play that you do lay that groundwork first and really kind of analyze like in this storyline so who are these characters. How can I like I guess ideally as concisely as possible. Get the reader up to speed with what they need to know ideally by telling the most compelling part of their story. Ah so an rp I guess an advantage of it is that it is such a character focused storyline that if ah. When it when it's nailed the the readers will often kind of fall in love with the characters and that's awesome to see but you definitely have to make sure to put in the work of letting the reader know who they are and what their deal is without it being like ok this is backstory dump time. Ah.

37:44.95

Thane

Yeah, you got to walk them through like a like a story this is kind of where ah where I guess I'm I'm at with those long like text form rps where I feel like they really do have to be like stripped down to the bones and rebuilt to turn into a comic and it is a lot of work and getting a collaborator. On board with that level of work is something that ah I'm pretty new to and can definitely be a challenge in its own right? So yeah, huh and with that I think that is a roasted red pepper and goat cheese wrap. Ah. So thank you for listening to our episode today I've been your host farthane and you can find my comics at chealt.sevensmith.net and at wiitchwwoodcomic dot com.

38:35.16

Phin

I I've been fin and you can find my comic at airsofthewale.com

38:41.26

Rae

I and I've been Ray and you can find my comic at comic dot com and overlord of Raven fell on webtoon.

38:54.81

Thane

And who ah and see-you later slappers.

38:57.17

Phin

Yeah, I'm going to go back and make my characters kiss the characters of my friends and arties Newcom just all kissing yes.

39:04.79

Thane

Hell yeah, new Comic just all kissing. Yeah.

39:09.31

Rae

Always it.

What do you find the most fun and the most rewarding about your comic making process? What is the difference to you between “fun” and “rewarding” when making your comic?

What is your advice to someone who doesn’t feel like their webcomic idea is “fun” anymore?

What is your advice to someone who isn’t seeing any kinds of “rewards” from their webcomic?

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Episode Release Date: May 1, 2024

Episode Credits:

Christina Major (@delphina2k) - she/her, sombulus.com

Kristen Lee (@feathernotes) - she/they, ghostjunksickness.com lunarblight.com

Megan Davison (@star-berrymint) - she/her, sorceryshenanigans.com

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Transcription

What experience do you have with groups like collectives with your own work?

Why did you look into them, and is there anything you didn’t expect going in that you were surprised by?

How is a collective different than a publisher?

What kinds of things do collectives focus on that are helpful for webcomic creators?

What is your advice to someone looking to join or start a collective?

What are some bad and good reasons for looking to joining or starting a comic group like a collective?

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Episode Release Date: April 17, 2024

Episode Credits:

Christina Major (@delphina2k) - she/her, sombulus.com

Ally Rom Colthoff (@varethane) - she/they, chirault.sevensmith.net wychwoodcomic.com

Phineas Klier (@tentacledeity) - they/them, heirsoftheveil.fervorcraft.de

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Transcription

00:00.50

Delphina

do do do okay hello and welcome to screen tones where we talk anything and everything web comics today. We're going to be talking about collectives and peer groups focused around comics or art what they are what they can do and why you. Might want to be involved with one I'm Delphina I use she her pronouns and I make the web comic sombulous.

00:26.70

Phin

So I'm fin I use Theyam pronounce and I make the web comic as of the veil. So.

00:34.50

Thane

I and I'm verthane I use she they web ah sorry um, ah yes, my pronouns are web and comic. Um I.

00:38.70

Delphina

She they web comics. Ah.

00:43.50

Phin

Ah, the coveted web pronouns.

00:50.82

Thane

Ah, Redo I'm verethhane I use she they pronouns and I make the web comics teralt and which would.

00:55.23

Delphina

I excellent. Okay I'm so happy to have everybody here. Um, we're going to be talking about collectives. Um, ah, full disclosure. We're all part of a collective together. So I really wanted to get this group specifically talking about it. Um collective groups used to. Be a little more popular than they are today. Um, but we still have a few options around and new ones can crop up. Um, that's worth revisiting what they are how they've worked historically and how they work now. Um because they can really be a source of support among artists. And especially in situations like right now where social media platforms might scatter all your friends and colleagues to the four wins. It's it's really important to kind of have that support. Um and come together in in maybe a more structured way than just a follow list. So we're going to talk. About it today. I'm excited. Um and I'm just going to throw the question out there to to everyone. Maybe we'll start with you fin like what experience do you have with groups like collectives with your work. Um, why did you look into them. Is there anything that you didn't expect. That you were going in that you were surprised by like kind of talk us through the history of of how you felt about collectives. Yeah.

02:21.64

Phin

And um, so yeah I think um, Spider Forest was like my first proper collective I was a part of um, back in the day where I was like more active in the. German manga enemy scene I was also like part of a smaller collective. But um, that was run a little bit weirdly I would say um, it was more on the line of um, someone. Was like um managing the thing and when they had an idea about like 1 a comics ontology or something that they wanted to publish. They asked members of the collective and everyone had to kind of like fro money. Onto the table to get that financed. So um I don't know that was like a little bit chaotic and also very much like.

03:21.21

Delphina

You withsstep like pre kickstarter days or like did you have.

03:30.31

Phin

I think Hickstater was like already a thing but it wasn't really like utilized by a lot of um german artists at the time and I think like in Germany for smaller collectors like these it was. More of a given that you would like invest your own money to help or get something to print. But yeah because um, yeah. Because 1 person was kind of managing that on their own and nobody else and that small collective really had any like say in what was happening. Um, it wasn't the most pleasant. Um.

04:26.68

Phin

Kind of like experience I would say and it also took me a while until I looked into collectives again after that. Um and that was basically when I got into webcomics because beforehand i. Was basically um I don't know publishing comics um in print and so when I actually got into web comics. Um a few years after that I was like. Finding a lot of comics that had that little spider forest banner. Um, and I thought a lot of the comics were really cool. So i.

05:14.53

Phin

Looked into it and I actually applied with um the first comic that we published which in hindsight I'm kind of glad that we didn't get interest by their forest at the time because the comic was not very good. But. Like my main incentive for trying to get into spider forest as a collective was I kind of wanted to like I don't know how do you say it? Um I don't want to say profit of of the community. But. I think it's more like I wanted to like be part of a community and maybe kind of help build a community at the time and like find connections to other artists. I think that was like 1 of my main incentives because. But comics can be kind of lonely and a lot of the times you're just like you don't know what you're doing and I think collectives are just like a great place to. Find like-minded people who can help you in your endeavors or which with whom you can maybe organize cool webcomic related activities.

06:35.85

Delphina

Yeah I Definitely hear you about like where it's a little different when it's It's like somebody's the leader and you're kind of going along with whatever they want to do and they're making the decisions about what anthologies you're going to or what? yeah. Places that you want to go for conventions or or whatever. Um, and that can be really good because you get things done that way you like there's a focus. But if you're not completely aligned with whatever they're doing that can be a kind of wobbly structure and you know eventually you might not be satisfied with the direction. It's going. So um, so I Yeah I much prefer like having those. Those peers knowing that we're we're all on the same level. We're all working together and all of our voices kind of matter I think that's one of the strengths of a peer group to be honest. So yeah.

07:36.23

Phin

Yeah, yeah, like the problem with collectives that are mostly structured around one person can also like lead to even the person taking on too much of the work and. Burning out by trying to keep the collective alive or in the case of um, the person that was leading or collective like at the time it was like after a while it became pretty apparent that she. Basically when we did antologies and stuff like that that like she would basically give herself the most space with her stories in the antology so she basically kind of used the collective as like um. Someone to give her money so she could like publish her works and.

08:26.70

Delphina

You Oh no, Yeah I you have to keep that in check if you're going to be part like leading a group or something like that you do have to sort of be objective and that's hard. It can be very hard to be objective because we're all working our butts off here and we all want to like showcase. The hard work we're doing with a collective but ah, you have to kind of take it in Moderation. Um, yeah, what about what about youthhane like what kinds of experience. Do you have with comic groups Collective groups. Um, you know why did you look into them initially. Um, what did you find tell us the stories and.

09:09.54

Thane

Um, I feel I've been in Spider Forest for a long time I think I applied in 2009 and at the time I had been ah the comic had been going for about 2 years and when I started it. I was posting it mostly to an audience that I assumed consisted mostly of my like real life handful of friends and a couple of family members and a couple of co-workers who asked about it and the idea that there were more people out there who could be reading these things ah came to my awareness and I started looking at um. Forums and things like I found ah a web site called the web comic list which is still around as a web site now. Their goal was just to have be a list of all the web comics that existed which is ah even at the time it was pretty ambitious. Ah, so they had like a website they would track like what was updating on what day so people could use it as kind of a reading list assistant ah to check like oh this updated today I'm going to go read it? Um, and they had a forum attached to the site. Which had a pretty big community that was pretty active about posting about things. There were a lot of ah, a lot of folks on there who are now like really active in web comics or comics in general ah who were regulars on that forum at the time so I was checking it on the daily.

10:33.10

Thane

And I saw announcements that Spider Forest was open for applications and I was like what's this spider Forest thing. What a funny idea. Um, and I didn't apply right? A collective ah a group another forum like this one.

10:44.30

Delphina

Spidders and forth.

10:51.90

Thane

But like slightly more exclusive kind of exciting but also kind of scary so I didn't apply the first year that I saw that ah those ads but I think the next time I saw a post about it like a year later I did apply and and I got in with my first comic charl and just kind of started. Poking around and I think the main thing that I was after at the time was really just that community. Ah, which I kind of had gotten a taste of through the the web comic list forums like those were. Completely public so it was a mixture of like regulars who were making web comics but also like people who would pop in and make an account one day just to be like has anybody heard of this web comic I read it three years ago. It had a girl who turned into a bear or something like that and like people would try to guess. Like just posts like that and then they would disappear and never come back. Ah so the idea of a group where like it was a little tighter. Um and just having kind of access to that space ah was really was really important to me. Ah, and ah yeah, once once. Ah. Once I got to kind of knowing everybody. It was really nice just having like a social circle of people other creators who were all a bit more like on the same page and ah sharing resources and doing cross promotion and the cross promotion itself is like also pretty valuable when you're like starting out with a comic like.

12:21.57

Thane

We all are posting these on the internet because we want people to read them and to get people to read them. They need to hear about it first. Ah so groups like that. Ah Lake spider forest which is a collective that also has a link share where everybody will have a banner at the top of their page which randomizes. Ah, randomly goes through other banners of other members so that you'll be linked on multiple other websites that can be useful as well and spider forest isn't the only group that is doing that even today ah because in 2009 there were a bunch more collectives. Ah, that used to be kind of the main way people would find comics was through link pages on web comics or through groups like Spider Forest or at the time there were like several other collectives out there. There was one called sage comics that isn't around anymore that was pretty ah large. Um, unfortunately Spider Forest is now the the sole survivor. Um, but as as far as collectives go but there are other types of groups which are just link or banner exchanges and there are still a few of those out there like there's one that I was just I just heard about ah which is literally. Just called webcomic ring dot org and if you go there, you can see like a little a little dropdown with all their comics on it and ah the link to each other on the page There's also a knife beetle which is the same kind of thing like you join it just to have access to the web ring function but it doesn't have.

13:55.90

Thane

I Guess all the all the bells and whistles of a full collective where they run like different projects and stuff because Spiderfor has the anthologies and they have like the big community hub and a lot of other like outreach going on. Ah yeah, that's kind of my thoughts.

14:12.56

Delphina

And yeah I think it's important too that like it's It's not like a publisher. It's not like a a business or anything. It's just a supportive environment for for people to kind of grow and teach and build each other up. Um. And like there are a lot of bells and muscles. But those like came over time for sure like Spider force didn't start off doing. Everything under the sun and it kind of um you know you'll see it wax and wane depending on how you know how many people are Active. What's going on in people's lives and I think that um the fact that we do have regular applications seasons to get new people in and and. Kind of engage people on a regular basis kind of helps it keep you know helps keep the membership wanting to innovate it and like figure out. Ok. Well let's do another convention. Well, let's start doing anthologies. Let's start doing bubble bla Bla Blah Blah Blah blah but it like. I Think the takeaway there too is just it didn't happen overnight. It doesn't none of this is going to happen overnight and I would love to see more collectives again. But like you know, just take it one step at a time start with a webring start with a you know.

15:34.68

Delphina

Just link exchange. That's that's simple and a little discord where you just chat about stuff and like it can grow from there for sure. Um I think that's just there's a lot of strength in that. Um, for me I I Definitely um.

15:54.27

Delphina

I liked comics I was doing them on my own and it's kind of a similar story where ah, you know and I just wanted a community I wanted to like I I was passionate about being an indie creator I wasn't really sure if I wanted to approach a publisher or anything like that. But I didn't know if there were any other groups out there that were just for you know organizations to like make comics and kind of talk with other people. Um I was listening to the paper wings podcast way back in the day which was kind of more art-centric and. Hey. Well you know let's let's talk about let's let's do inspirational things and 1 of the guest posts on there was a member of Spider Forest and they talked about being involved with Spider Forest I you know I got familiar with their work I saw that they were saying hey our application season is open. Um I think it's a pretty cool place if you want to try to check it out. Go ahead. Um, and so I I didn't really know what to expect? other than that. But I knew that I liked this comic and I liked the the person running it I'm like well yeah I would I would be in company with that I think that's a cool thing. Let me just ah. Why and see what happens. Um and I did get in um and it was it was a little different than I was expecting I wasn't really sure what to expect. but um but it was big it was a lot bigger than I thought it was gonna be.

17:27.62

Delphina

And I I don't think I realized like how many people and how much history it had until I got in there and I'm like Whoa. There's some seriously cool stuff going on here and um and I have volunteerism I I am. Chronically trying to stick my nose into organizational um Roles. So It didn't take me too long to like get involved and and start like hey we should do this and that and the other thing and it was just so cool to have like a body of people who were on board with that like yeah. Yeah,, let's do things and um, because because it's hard to do alone like how am I going to make an anthology by myself that seems like a lot. But if somebody else knows how to like do the you know the artwork if someone can make a cool like cover if somebody else. Can you know, figure out the crowdfunding or however, we're going to do this and if somebody else can do the um, the ah print um production part in ah in design or whatever. Like you're kind of assembling Voltron At that point you're just yeah, bringing together. Everybody's strengths and and doing something that no none of you could do like on your own and that part is really cool to me. Um, also recently I think in the last year um car.

18:56.28

Delphina

The cartoonist cooperative um popped up and I applied for that and so I'm also a part of that too. it's ah um it's a little different. Um, they're kind of um, a member driven organization. Um, that like is a little more career focused I think there's a lot of like high profile names in there that like wow I'm I'm in this this place with this person. Wow okay, um, and the scope is a little more broad. It doesn't seem to be um, genre or. Format based I think you can have web comics or print comics or whatever. Um, and and also you know just spider force kind of tends towards genre fiction. This is not exclusively genre fiction. Um, but um. The the membership is decided by the founders. Um, there's actually a lot of people. Um and how they do it is they have um, structured promotional campaigns is 1 of their main features. Which means if you're a member you can submit a campaign. Through a form and if it's approved it runs for two months and it's basically your chance to ask the rest of the members for help with stuff like making flyers or getting editorial feedback on drafts. Um, someone went in and say said hey I have this.

20:23.90

Delphina

Video can someone chop it up and make it ticktock size um like reaching out to comic stores to get them to order print copies like all this like marketing outreach stuff. We wish Publishers would take our comics and do for us but like the. The cartoon is cooperative doesn't make your sign away your rights to get access to that stuff. Um, so it's It's also kind of run on this many hands make light work philosophy and I think that's just so Cool. Um, they're they're not. I Think they're they're pretty New. We'll see how it holds up. But I Really hope it works out. Um because that kind of ah Mutual Aid Approach is just very very intriguing and attractive to me. Um, so ah, with that I mean I just wanted to ask because I think this comes up a lot. How is a collective different than a publisher like what kinds of things like it. Why would you want to be part of a collective versus trying to get your work published like what? What's the dichotomy there I'm gonna. Throw it to you then.

21:37.47

Phin

And yeah, so um I think they're very different from each other because um so a collective you have like your building Community. No matter what the collective is actually for if they're like. I Don't know just a community that helps each other out or if it's like people that help each other market so you have an active community that for the most part will be there for you if you have like problems questions you can reach out to them and with. Ah, publisher. Well do you have your publisher. Um I mean depending on what kind of publisher it is if there may be a little bit small if it's an indie publisher if it's mainstream publisher you might. Get into contact with other people that are published by that specific publisher but it's not really community building. Um. And for the most part I guess you approach a publisher to get your works out there and you hope that if they do they will market your comic um to a degree that you do not have to put.

23:02.34

Phin

As much work into that. Um, so the main difference for me. It's like that one is like a business relationship. So Each party is like contractually obligated to fulfill. Their side of the deal while in a collective. It's a group of peers I mean there can be business related things. Especially if you do projects like antologies and run Kickstarters together. But for the most part it's. Way more chill I would say um and of course the expectations that you have to go into um I don't know approaching a publisher for your work and going to a collective with your Work. Should be different because if I go to a publisher I Want my work published I want um, editing for whatever I'm publishing. Um and I want marketing even though.

24:18.89

Phin

Nowadays We all know that especially in the marketing department that can be really lacking. Um and a lot of like artists are kind of forced to do the marketing themselves but with a collective my expectations are like way different. I Basically only expect the community and the community aspects and depending on the collective and how the collective is structured. Um, ah maybe also some sort of. Marketing help. But I Also think that with a collective. Um, there's also kind of this part that you have to be constantly a little bit proactive to like um, be um. Ah, productive part of the collective like with publishing for the most part. It's like you draw your comic. It goes into editing and like with having the comic Done. You're basically done you fulfilled your part of the deal. But with a collective you kind of have to like if you want to receive something. You also have to give something you cannot just be like okay here's my thing ah please share my thing with others please give me all the like um positives of the collective without.

25:52.60

Phin

Having to actually invest something and I guess that kind of like makes it sound like work. But I think that actually like interacting in a community is incredibly Fun. So It's not really like I don't know something Stressful. It's just like. If you're in a collective and you like the other members of the collective and you like other people's comics then you will probably already be incentivized to like go and interact and do your part and try to help. Other people in the collective. Yeah.

26:32.95

Delphina

And that's such a good point too about like it you you already kind of have that disposition right? because if if you have friends who make web Comics. You're already kind of rooting for them So in a collective relationship like that that. Follows Naturally that feels so natural. Um to to kind of like yeah I I want to give back to them I Want to be proactive and you know here's a structure that I can work within to do something that I know will be meaningful to them. Um, and I do think like it. Being published or going to a publisher is completely valid. Um, if like that that's just not your jam If you're just making your thing and you don't want to have to you just don't have the bandwidth to be you know, pushing other people's things or reading it or keeping up with. With things I think um, that can be just really tricky to balance. Um, if if you just don't have the energy for that. Um, So definitely no shade to people who um, who aren't like oh yes I Want to be involved with. Every other comic person in the world like nobody has the energy to do all of that. Um, but if you do if you're already like feeling that vibe just go with it I think there's just so many cool options for you in terms of either joining existing collectives or um.

28:04.60

Delphina

Or you know I don't know making your own it could happen. Um, how about you thane like what are the key differences because yeah, do you work with publishers and you also work. Um with the collective. So I'm really curious to hear your thoughts. Yeah.

28:18.10

Thane

And um, yeah I'd say I mean you you got you guys have covered most of the the big the broader differences between the 2 in that like ah the the collector will be much more of a reciprocal social relationship. Um whereas ah a publisher is much more of a binding kind of a. A legal business relationship that you enter into and the nice thing about the collective approach is that I mean in addition to just having access to a social circle that feels like a bunch of friends who can be like supportive of each other. Ah, it can be a lot more flexible like whenever life gets in the way if you need to go on a hiatus or something like that. It's just as easy as being like hey folks I'm going on hiatus um, whereas if you were in a publisher relationship and you need to take like a month or a few months off of like working on new pages for whatever reason accident. Family situation whatnot. Ah you may have to answer to to them legally speaking. Um, if deadlines start slipping then suddenly there's like money involved and it's a whole it. It becomes a problem. Um my publisher involvement has been kind of a bit more limited. Ah so. Which would is in ah a publisher called hiveworks which is ah a web publisher and they're kind of a hybrid publisher model that like on the outside. It looks an awful lot like a collective in that they have a hub website with a listing of web comics and if you go and visit it.

29:46.44

Thane

It It can look a bit similar because you'll be like oh here's all the members and like here's banners for their comics and you can read about the the little blurb and then go click a link to take you to the page itself. Um under the surface. The the publisher aspect kicks in ah where there's a um. There. There's an ad ring that ah the contract gives you access to so all the comics that are a part of Hiveworks will have these ads on their pages and ah and that's kind of the the main financial Incentive. Um. When it when it comes to that circle. Um, and ah yeah, it's just it's it's a bit of a different slightly different vibe like.

30:32.26

Delphina

And yeah, I mean it. It sounds interesting too because um I think there's a lot of print publishers out there. There's not a lot of like web publishers out there. Um, unless you're talking about like webtune or or tapest or something like that. Um, but there is money involved you you are like selling a product basically which is your work and so you do have to show up for the job. Um, so it's it's important to kind of keep track of what's going on there. Um. I'm going to pos it. Ok I mean and and yet publishers are are really interesting. But um, you know if you're still feeling like you know the collectives. That's the vibe for me. Um, what is your advice to. Someone looking to either join or start a collective like what are some bad or good reasons for trying to to get involved with ah a group of peers. Um, you know, maybe a collective maybe a webring just like anything like that. What do you think? Finn.

31:38.22

Phin

I. So um I think for bad reasons I would say if you only hope to find a place where your work I'll do that again because super.com so um, for bad reasons I would say if you're looking for a place. Um, where you can um like but to only promote your work um without like investing a lot I think that would be like. Ah, bad reason to join a collective or even start a collective because like um, yeah, the second one I mean I've I've already experienced someone starting a collective to kind of try. And promote their own work and get money together to get the stuff printed. Um like I've also seen like a lot of small indie publishers like popping off out in Germany which were mostly like single people who. Try to benefit from the publisher status to get like their own comics out and to get ah isbn numbers like Sheper. So I think like that's for the most part, not a very good reason and i.

33:04.55

Phin

Don't think I've ever seen like a collective or a publisher build on that basis actually like survive them like for more than a year or anything. So I think that a better reason would be actually to want to build a community. And to want to interact with community to actually like create a space where people can help each other um and one of my tips would probably be if you want to start a collective. Then I would first look for people who you know are actually reliable people where you know that they have like resources that they can add to the collective because there's like. And lot that has to be taken account when like starting an endeavor like that. Um, yeah, and ah people that you know will stick with the collective at least for a while to get it going and not. Like flake on the project. Um, as soon as stuff starts to get difficult because I think that there's like.

34:30.78

Phin

And the past there have been like so many collectives and like a lot of them. Don't exist anymore for 1 reason or another and a lot has to do with like time and ah people being unable to put as much of their time. Into those collectives. Um as they've used to. So I think like if someone wants to start a collective It's also like there's no shame and just like going slow with it and slowly building. Um, ah it up and not. Like investing too much into it because you could like run the risk of getting burned out if you like put too much into it like in the beginning.

35:23.26

Delphina

Yeah, absolutely.

35:27.94

Thane

I feel like that is ah a pattern that I've seen in in a lot of other ah like collectives that start up and then don't last super long there. There's kind of a few a few things that can go awry like. Ah, if they're leaning too heavily on just one person for organization like even if they're the person who founded it and is the most excited at first I feel like that can also be kind of unsustainable ah including for them because even if you're super excited about this thing at the beginning it can actually be a lot of work keeping this kind of. Ah, they that there's kind of operation going for like for more than a year or so. Ah so if you spread around the responsibility and also to make sure that like all the members feel some sense of agency and involvement within like the way that things are run. I think 1 thing that Spider Forest does that's really cool is when there's a round of new applications coming in everybody will vote on it like every single member and it's very democratic in that way. Which has ah a couple of functions because it makes sure that the the new people coming on board are folks that the majority of the existing members of the collective like they like their work or feel like they vibe with them. Um, but it also helps everyone kind of feel I guess a sense of ownership.

36:45.94

Thane

Over what's happening like oh I'm involved like I'm a part of this and I have ah I have a voice in what's happening here and.

36:52.71

Phin

And yeah, I totally agree I think something that I also think is really cool about Spider Forest is that there is like the possibility of starting your own project within the group. So I think like. What you've mentioned having agency is actually like a really important point that you actually feel okay, you're doing something within your collective. You're involved um and like your. Getting something like off the ground and people are actually excited or participate in like your ideas or what you're doing for the collective. Yeah.

37:38.60

Thane

And yeah, it's that sense of like my cool big idea has like just as good a chance of getting off the ground as like as anyone else's within within the group and within on on kind of that that topic there's like. There's a lot of cool big projects that a lot of creators just get very excited about like anthologies and kickstarters and stuff like that. Ah and being in a group where there's people with experience in all those things whether it be they were published in another anthology previously. So they kind of have seen that process from the inside. Or this person knows how to run a kickstarter and this person knows how to lay book lay a book out in Indesign or is really good at wrangling people. Ah you can kind of have folks step into those roles with with no actual pressure because it's not like ah there's no formal relationship here forcing people into it but like. When when you get like how many members are in Spider Forest it's like 70 or 80 when you have that many people around who've been doing comics for a long time. Ah some some folks just have these skills and are excited to use them to help out like their friends and their community and.

38:47.34

Delphina

And yeah, absolutely I think one of the admins at Spider Forest was like a spider has eight legs and that that's the metaphor for like how it walks and how it moves and how how it goes because you need like all 8 legs to to keep going. Um, some people are going to get tired some people need to take a break for life reasons and it really kind of sucks to feel like oh no I'm ah like I'm going to let the entire group down the entire thing is going to die if I am not one of the legs that's moving and that's not the case. And I think that's kind of one of the secrets to our longitivity that I would like to share with like anybody else who wants to start a group just like get some friends um to Finn's point make sure they're reliable and and they're they can you know do the work and step up when they need to but like you know, just. Ah, take advantage of everybody else's skills like make sure that comes together in a way. Um, it can really be something beautiful and cool. Um I'm going to pause and um, so. Tell me too. Um, like what is your advice to someone looking to join or start a collective like um, what? what should they be thinking? What? What's the mindset going in what are some bad reasons to do it like yeah, what do you think yeah.

40:19.91

Thane

Ah, well to get this out of the way I think a bad reason to do it is for money. Um there, there's not money in web comics I'm sorry um so don't have that as your guiding star. Um, otherwise I guess ah when like.

40:25.80

Delphina

You There's no fort bunny. No no no I.

40:36.23

Thane

Do lean into the ideas that excite like everyone who's in the group that keep the expectations kind of mitigated and stick to things that you know immediately out of the gate that the people who are involved right now are definitely experienced with. Um, so like if you don't have someone who's really good at building websites or something like don't worry about offering hosting or building like a super like fancy site like if it needs to stay on Wix or Weebly or something like that like maybe maybe that just has to happen. Ah, you don't need to jump straight into. Big exciting like crowdfunders and like ads and like all kinds of crazy bells and whistles. Ah because that can burn people out very quickly. Um, and ah I think getting getting that starting momentum. And going from that kind of honeymoon phase of like cool new shiny project into like making it actually last a long time. Ah that first like after that first maybe three or six months or so when the initial ah hype about getting started wears off like what's going to keep this group. Going and sticking together. Um, and if everyone is like if it's a tight circle of friends then like that can kind of work out on its own hopefully but you want to make sure that the things that you're promising to one another are like within scope and don't let that get away from you when you.

42:06.80

Delphina

Absolutely it's just ah I've seen so many people with so many big ideas and it's just like do what you can do the small things because like the. Act of finishing things. The act of completing things is kind of its own like endorphins like you you get excited about what you've achieved and and yeah, what you can do and then you can build off of that. But if you keep like trying and and going for the moon and trying to be a. Big like name or a big splash and like it doesn't work out initially like that. Yeah, that kind of damages morale. You kind of have to figure the the morale piece out to to make everybody feel like yeah, we're doing something and it's cool. I know like 1 of the projects we have in spider forest right now is we all make a group Spotify playlist every month and people can contribute their songs and somebody puts it on Spotify in a playlist. That's it. That's the only involvement and there there always little themes about you know? ah. You know drawing grass like what what kinds of things would you listen to you while you have like a repetitive thing that you're drawing what kinds of things would you listen to while you're waiting for the train or whatever and like it's so simple and it's so easy that anybody can do it.

43:31.55

Delphina

And at the end you get the product and like that's the key you have to do things that you can accomplish because that's what makes people feel like they're they're contributing. They have agency and and you know, just um, making things that that other people can appreciate. Um, I think another thing that comes up in Spider Forest is people try to apply because they want to see if their comic is good enough. They want to see if like ah the the merits of their comic are are the best and and and stuff and that's a kind of tricky one to like to to be. Going into a collective mindset like for that validation I think that can be dangerous because every group is different. Every group is going to have its preferences and um, you know, even though we are very democratic in spider forest in my personal opinion like that's ah. We. We do have our preferences. We do have our biases and um and you can be doing something amazing that just doesn't like we can't figure out how other people who like our stuff would necessarily transition into like your stuff and like and we don't want. To be a situation where we can't genuinely endorse somebody who joins Spider Forest if it's just like well this is kind of a a thing that somebody else is doing. But yeah, so that's the thing too like you. Whatever you're doing whether you're part of a group or not like.

45:04.46

Delphina

That has value you are learning. We're all learning and nobody is perfect. Um, so joining the collective expecting to be like part of this upper echelon of like top tier comics like that's not necessary either. Um, what you want what you want to be cultivating is that relationship with your peers with your friends and really saying like you know we're all the same here where we all have different experiences but we all have this in common. And we want to be able to work together as peers to make some cool stuff and that's what it's all about to me. Um, so unless anybody else has anything else I think we're going to call that a wrap here. Um, thank you both for joining me. And um, yeah I've been delpha you can find my web comic sombulous at sombulous dot com and our collective at Spider Forest Dot Com

46:06.50

Phin

I I've been thin and you can find my the comic as of the veil at airsofthevalil.com and yeah, check out spter for this.

46:15.35

Thane

I and I've been verethhane, you can find my comics at cherat dot sevensmith dot net or at wiitchwwoodcomic.com

46:24.20

Delphina

So go read webcomics and go join collectives. But only if that's your thing whoa.

46:30.60

Phin

Go make your own. But.

46:34.50

Delphina

Are go make your there's I want to see more collectives for sure. Go we're gonna do it. We're gonna make it go make collectives everybody. Yes.

46:36.41

Phin

If yeah, it would be so we need another golden age of our comic collectors.

46:44.29

Thane

Start This trend.

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Episode Release Date: April 3, 2024

Episode Credits:

Christina Major (@delphina2k) - she/her, sombulus.com

Kristen Lee (@feathernotes) - she/they, ghostjunksickness.com lunarblight.com

Megan Davison (@star-berrymint) - she/her, sorceryshenanigans.com

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Wait you thought this episode was about relationships? April Fools!!

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Episode Release Date: April 1, 2024

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• People stumbling across your work for the first time may only want to grab a $5-$10 digital tier. This can feel weird if you make a comic that’s free to read online or you already offer a PDF in your store, but that’s extra steps they’re probably not going to take. Make it super-easy for people to start your comic by offering a PDF.
• Casual fans will want the basic reward, and maybe one or two extras if they’re reasonable.
• A few superfans or very excited friends and family might want to drop hundreds of dollars on you and will grab just about anything you offer, no matter the price (or sometimes choose the “no reward” option if they just want to give you general support). It’s usually not a LOT of people, but they will contribute a good percentage to your full goal, so try to give them one or two easy options they can pick on the list..

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Episode Release Date: March 20, 2024

Episode Credits:

Christina Major (@delphina2k) - she/her, sombulus.com

Ally Rom Colthoff (@varethane) - she/they, chirault.sevensmith.net wychwoodcomic.com

Kristen Lee (@feathernotes) - she/they, ghostjunksickness.com lunarblight.com

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Transcript

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Episode Release Date: March 6, 2024

Episode Credits:

Christina Major (@delphina2k) - she/her, sombulus.com

Renie Jesanis (@renieplayerone) - she/they, kateblast.com

Phineas Klier (@tentacledeity) - they/them, heirsoftheveil.fervorcraft.de

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Transcript

00:00.00

Renie

Hello and welcome to screen tones where we talk anything and everything webcomics today. We're going to be talking about character Morality. I'm Renie. I use she/they pronouns and I make the webComic Kate Blast

00:12.57

Delphina

And I'm Delphina. I use she/her pronouns and I make the webcomic Sombulus.

00:18.68

Phin

I'm Phin. I use they/them pronouns and I make the webcomic Heirs of the Veil.

00:24.78

Renie

So where your characters fall on a morality scale can be 1 of the juiciest things to play with and write for your webcomic. There is a lot of intrigue and showing what pushes people over certain ethical lines. And what might bring them back from a dark place and how you might tie themes like redemption or forgiveness or statements about society into all of that all kinds of delicious food to think about. Let's talk about it. How does morality play into your work and what kind of themes do you guys hold on to? So I guess to start things off I want to ask you guys how does morality play into your work and what kind of themes do you dig into when playing around with morality in your work.

01:25.80

Delphina

Um, so for Sombulus it's actually um, pretty core to to a lot of things and a lot of Siney's arc is related directly to morality um, but just in general I feel like I've been told that I have a lot of morally good character. Unk and morally interesting characters. Um, so I mean that's that's just I I sort of when people talk to me about like oh good characters are so boring because they're perfect in stuff I really want to bring some nuance into that because writing. Good characters are actually just a little more complex than writing somebody who's perfect which can definitely come across as flat and boring. Um, there's a really good breakdown I always come back to that was mentioned on the writing excuses podcast about. Um, 3 prongs for writing protagonists and you have sympathy. you have proactivity and you have competence so if you take Sombulus for a character like Rana I made her very sympathetic by making other characters like her. She's friendly and nice to everybody. Um, sometimes to an almost humorous extent because she's also nice to machines because she can talk to machines and so we see her like making a nice conversation with a coffee maker. It's like kind of like goofy. Um, but she's not a fighter. She's kind of content to take a back seat.

02:56.63

Delphina

For most things and she listens more than she talks. She has a very gentle and passive demeanor. Um, so even though she's sympathetic and she's competent. She's not very proactive. She's very restrained and I think that makes her you know she has a good. Side but she's not doing much with it and and I think that's an interesting dynamic. Um, especially contrasted with Sidney who's living with a very strict anti-magic anti-demon moral code. She considers herself very moral. Her morals are extremely important to her. And she's very proactive about imposing them on everybody and anyone she meets which like kind of dips her back into that's not very moral. Actually that's kind of the the tipped side of like you know that's the flip side of her character. She thinks she's very moral and that actually makes her.

03:43.44

Renie

I.

03:53.52

Delphina

A little more morally gray.

03:56.44

Renie

It's really interesting thinking about because like one of the things that you hear so much in writing and comics is, there are a lot of villains and antagonists that just, they operate like they think that they're you know they're doing the more elite right thing. And on the flip side. It's also interesting playing with that idea of does your character think that they themselves are actually a good person.

04:16.25

Delphina

Yes.

04:32.35

Renie

Um, because you can have a good character who thinks they're a terrible person and you can have a terrible person who thinks they're the good guy right.

04:39.54

Delphina

Yeah I think it also plays into how other characters perceive them like in the context of your story. I don't think Morality exists in a vacuum. Morality is very subjective. Morality is you know, depending on what kind of setting you have.

04:49.50

Renie

Oh yeah I.

04:56.80

Delphina

If you're in Gotham City with Batman he's like you know the the moral scale there is different than like power puff girls or whatever like there's there's you know, just definitely a balance in genre and a balance in you know what are all the other characters acting like this person is the most atrocious.

05:02.63

Renie

I.

05:15.31

Delphina

Person in the world and I really love coming back to Batman too because like he is like there's so many villains. There's so many treatments of those villains and sometimes the villains are very sympathetic sometimes the villains are very not but you can tell they all are coming from a place of. Passionately believing that what they're doing is right for the most part they are acting within their own mindset that they are doing the moral thing that nobody else has the courage or power to do and they are fighting against a corrupt. System but everybody has a different definition of what that corrupt system is and that's so interesting to me I love thinking about that.

05:56.90

Renie

I Yeah ah I Love that.

06:05.56

Phin

And yeah, I personally think that in cases like that the narrative and the framing of these characters within the narrative is like really key for how the reader will react to these characters and if they will see them as. Ah, moral or moral in these instances because I think Batman is a really great example for that because you can have characters that basically do the exact same thing. But um, if we. Take into account how the narrative treats these characters and we get a completely different view on them. For example, if you have a character that steals something and the character steals for like because they want to feed their family. And we already get a sympathetic angle and the reader will be more likely to empathize and think that this is like the morally right thing to do in a corrupt system. But if it's framed slightly different, if the reasons for stealing are like. Something that the audience might consider a bad reason than um, the character even though the action is kind of the same is suddenly not moral anymore which I always think is kind of interesting because it also um.

07:32.57

Phin

Makes you as the writer have to take into account how different readers might interpret what you are like putting onto the table. Um, yeah.

07:51.73

Phin

Okay, yeah, and how I personally like to go with that in my own stories I normally try to. Personally I Really like the approach. Ah that Delphina mentioned that you have a character who basically thinks they are in the right. They are doing the morally right thing. and post that against another choice or another view on a certain thing where you have like this power struggle where you have maybe 2 sites. Of the story and both have like some valid ideas about what they are doing and ah you kind of pit these moralities against each other and it might be kind of vague or be more like up to the reader's interpretation. Ah, who is actually like in the moral right? And who's not or whether or not there even is something morally right? answer to the thing.

08:57.58

Renie

I right? exactly and it's ah it's Funny. So I think about it like ah putting on like beer goggles almost. But yeah, instead of be It's yeah, what's your O C. What is your occ. How does your how does your character see the world. And you have to like really get into that headspace on you know when writing any character as far as Morality is concerned because sort of their lived experiences the way that they interact with the world the way the world treats them All. Mix together into what forms that character's moral compass and um, it's it starts becoming less about what's right and wrong and ah in a lot of situations. There's still some that are very obvious but like there are others that get into this really murky Area. And I think that the murky space is where a lot of the best stories come from and.

09:55.43

Phin

Yeah I personally also feel that it can be very restricting to just work with a character by the notion of what is correct and what is incorrect in that situation because it kind of limits you like I noticed that when I was. Writing a certain chapter and ears of the veil that I was kind of um, acting on the thing. Okay, this is like the right course of action to take. This is like the correct and the nice thing but it made the story kind of boring at that point and it also didn't feel organic for the character. So. I was like okay Victoria is going to do a break and enter because it fits to her in her situation. Um, is it a moral like morally correct choice. No, but it fits the character. It fits the situation so that was how it had to be done.

10:49.97

Renie

And I see this a lot in the tabletop universe. Um, where you're playing a character in a tabletop game and you get to a point where you're trying to make a decision and it's you know would I do this. Absolutely not would this character do this one hundred percent and you have to start really considering. Okay, but is this the decision that the character would make or is this me putting my own morals on this character and.

11:22.76

Phin

So yeah, exactly like especially in tabletop but also in webcomics. It's also sometimes nice to consider to just be like not only what the character would do but what would enhance the story and the drama in that moment. So It's kind of fun to play around with these. Like ideas and then maybe act on some of that to just enhance the story a little bit and.

11:51.44

Renie

I hear a lot of people also like to take their webcomic characters and take them into like Rp and you know but have like Rp partners for them and that's a great way to sort of get into a character's headspace and explore.

12:06.65

Phin

I Yeah I do that I do that too and it kind of helped me to figure out a lot about certain characters made them kind of more interesting but also made them less probably morally upright in many cases.

12:21.69

Renie

Yeah, oh yeah I.

12:22.42

Delphina

And well that's the interesting thing too when you're mixing and matching characters with like other people and stuff you're you're all bringing something different to the table versus like a webcomic where there's one writer. There's 1 person who's calling all the shots and they're the one who's deciding whether they're there. Trying to convey a moral stance whether they're trying to be like a cautionary tale or something like that. there's a lot of ways that you can convey your morals but when you're working within the context of webcomic. You're also using the setting. You're also the setting is almost another character. Because you're showing here's a character but here's what they're up against here's the context of them and I think that it is really important to distinguish well is this person a murderer or are they, you know a fighter who's like. Fighting for the right thing and and yeah, they happen to be killing but it doesn't make them a murderer I mean it's all super relative. Yeah.

13:26.20

Renie

I yeah and it's ah one of the fun things that I've had fun exploring is the fact that in my Kate Blast there are two worlds and cultures that I have to sort of compare morals because then there's there's earth with. All its messiness and you know ah hodgepodge of different values and cultures and whatever um, put up against the ah the cat the cat people from space and what is their planet's morals. How is it similar? How is it different? To really start I really start having some fun once I start getting you know okay cat person is now interacting in human society where do the morals clash. Um, where do they match up and and you can get to a point where we can relate to each other on this thing. Or oh that's odd you can play with the cult like a little bit of culture shock there with a morality space too and.

14:28.92

Delphina

And yeah, ah, sci-fi and fantasy is so great for that like you just have so many options for introducing non-Earth morals or not and that helps you like kind of challenge. What you've been taught too I think ah you see it in Star Trek a lot just they come up with an Alien race and and they have a completely different way of viewing things. They have a completely different system of right and wrong and so you're trying to in the process of saying well this Alien Race is right or wrong. You're also making a comment about humanity like we should be challenging these things. Is this moral and that can be a really interesting space and.

15:13.27

Phin

And yeah, I Also think that if you have different factions where you have to like kind of not compare their morality but the more ah their moral compasses are kind of clashing with each other it kind of can help to like create conflicts. And um, the story kind of writes itself a little bit because there is something that you can work on without actually having to think about it too deeply but I also kind of like the kind of ah the the aspect of just um. Because you have this contrast between like ah differing factions that you basically by contrasting them can um, enhance their views and their moral standards. Basically just because they're interacting with each other. So I Really like that.

16:06.88

Renie

I gonna hit pause. So I guess that brings us sort of into sort of our next question and 1 of my favorite spaces to play around in is the classic redemption. Arc. Um, how do you work with redemption and incorporate that into your work and what makes a character redeemable or irredeemable after they've done things that might not be entirely moral.

16:39.10

Delphina

Oh such a good question. I think that again I'm going to come back to Sydney. She's a main character who starts with a very strict moral code that's at odds with pretty much what everybody that she meets and so it. doesn't make her very sympathetic it doesn't make her very likable but 1 of the things that I wanted to do to keep her interesting as a protagonist and make you want a root for her is that I ramped up her emotions to such a degree that she's. Not super rational about it and she can often be provoked into doing things that are technically against the rules against her moral code. by the other characters around her. Um, and so part of the fun of the story and yeah, her semi-redemption arc is. Um, is seeing how the other characters that Sydney meets and comes to care about shift those reasons and break them down and I think that's at the core of a lot of redemption arcs like you're. You show a moral character. They're doing bad things. Maybe they're killing or they're stealing or they're doing something that the other characters don't necessarily approve of and is not approved in their society. But once you start breaking down the reasons for why they're doing them you start seeing.

18:02.87

Delphina

Finding the touchpoints that are relatable. Sidney was told to fight these demon type characters because they were evil and maybe that's not true, but the reason ultimately why she wanted to do that is because she wanted to protect something she wanted to protect innocent people. Um, who were being abused by systems that were taking advantage of her and that is the touch point that's relatable. Um, you ah a steer is you hate this demon character. Um, she's been magically super glued to this. Demon character and she hates him and she thinks it's about using magic irresponsibly about like being this, you know, following these rules that are heinous to her. Um, but ultimately what she hates and what comes out is that. He doesn't he's dismissive of her agency and she treats the things that are important to her as a joke and that's relatable. We. Ah, we've all felt like discarded or discredited before and you know we all want that. Level of respect and that's how we come around from a not so great character like morally to a more sympathetic character because protecting things and from being abused and being respected are actually pretty relatable things to want so when you.

19:36.83

Delphina

When you're able to erode those reasons and let characters come to an understanding with their setting with the other characters. Um, that's when you start getting into the you know the process of redemption. That's when they can start making friends and they can start reaching out. And understand that they were in a very limited space and they want to be better.

20:07.26

Phin

And yeah I think like um, creating that relatability is kind of like 1 of the first steps to enter like a successful redemption arc because there has to be some understanding like doff. You know, you have to kind of be able to grasp where the character is coming from. and I think sometimes it's kind of hard to find a balance, especially when you have a character that's not super like that is. Doing very immoral things and you try to like um, bring them onto the path of a redemption arc it can sometimes be like ah hard to balance um, making this character relatable and understanding why they became the way that they are in the story. And making up excuses for them. Um, because what I kind of see a lot or also especially with maybe um, more inexperienced writers is that you have like this character who's kind of edgy who's also a pretty bad person. Who murders and is an asshole and whatever and you still like you're still supposed to like them because um, they had like a very tragic backstory where I don't know their teddy bear got thrown into the trash by the parents and.

21:29.72

Delphina

Not the sunny bear.

21:33.36

Phin

But the Terry bearing that traumatized them so much and now they're really like a bad person and you yeah, the most tragic one? Um, yeah, but.

21:38.11

Renie

What what? a true great origin story.

21:48.95

Phin

Basically you have to kind of balance it and you also have to do it a little bit more gradually because it can be really jarring when a character. Oh okay, um, it can be really jarring when a character that was basically um. A villainous character before someone who was fighting against the main characters antagonistic suddenly turns around and is nice to everyone. Um, like there has to be a little bit of time. The character's getting used to that and also the character probably should. Kind of Face. Ah the immoral actions that they've committed like not necessarily be punished for it because I kind of think that's I don't really like calls for punishment for character if they've done something bad because I mostly think that's not like. In many cases. It's not very interesting to go that route but actually like having the character face What they have done and deal with that and ah try to be better and then you have to actively like to see that in the Story. So I think that's like a redemption arc.

23:04.30

Phin

Is mostly successful even though I think they can be kind of hard to pull off.

23:10.58

Renie

Like and sometimes like pure punishment so to speak can be kind of Unrealistic Um, and I think that what's often more realistic and interesting in stories is consequences. Ah, because there's lots of things that can go like punishment is very much a culture centric thing. Um, you know you go in, you get Justice. You get it. You go through certain systems and it works and whatever, whereas consequences for your actions can be punishments but it could also be because I chose to do X Planet Y is now toast. Um, and then having characters live with the consequences of their immoral decisions. Is often just way more fun to play with and gives the other characters stuff to bounce. Ah off of or even moments for other characters with conflicting morals to have moments of oh I get it. Oh that kind of sucks or more of a. Reap but you so yeah.

24:22.94

Delphina

And yeah, absolutely I feel like when you see somebody and they did something for reason X But like reason y happens instead then they're like oh oh that was not something that was on my radar at all. Then you started getting that sympathy like oh I get it now like this I was thinking all along that I was doing something for this cause but the effects that that's having on the side. Are are a little too much for me. They kind of blindsided me. I think that's so interesting and.

25:00.71

Renie

Such devastation was not my intent and.

25:04.96

Phin

Yeah, basically I Also think that if you deal with consequences and the character is supposed to go on a redemption arc having them face consequences that actually like gets them right in the heart something that was important to them and it goes horribly wrong because of their actions. I Think that is like such a strong trigger to basically go on this redemption arc and try to change because it's something so vital for the character that just like something devastating that went wrong. So You can then Like. Destroy and rebuild so to speak.

25:45.66

Renie

I yeah I I love doing that and that's one of the areas that I like playing with in Kate Blast too is you have a bunch of different antagonists and villains with very different ideas of where they want the end game to go. Um, so then that gives a ton of room to play with for ah characters that were part of that group moving forward and then went oh wait. The group's gone a different way and I don't like this anymore. Um, it's it's. Those moments of clarity are very emotional and impacting moments in storytelling. So definitely don't shy away from that.

26:32.93

Phin

Yeah, I also feel in that regard. It can be super interesting because I kind of like stories where you have an antagonistic force that is basically doing the right thing but maybe through the wrong means so when you. Then combine that with like the thing that they were trying or the means that they were using ah blowing up in their face. You can really work with that and also I really like to kind of try to interlink how they can be on the 1 hand. Doing the right thing but still failing miserably on the moral scale and how do you redeem that and how do you kind of play with the readers by having like the setup where basically what they're doing is right but the means are just completely wrong.

27:36.70

Renie

Yeah exactly and like that's something that's explored a lot like to circle back on the earlier Batman or if it's because Batman like is a great comic about morality in almost every single arc um, just because ah of who. Bruce Wayne is he's a billionaire he has he he does billionaire things that aren't great and it's arguable that his ah some of the things that he has done for Wayne Corporation

28:11.37

Renie

Definitely had a negative impact on Gotham itself. Um, and ah, especially a lot of you know more? the the oneshot stories explore that a lot too. But there's a ton of other webcomics and things like that that dive into that and. Never be afraid to like put like your hero ah through so through a more scrutiny lens and you know hold that mirror up and be like are you sure this is what you want to make like.

28:44.34

Delphina

Yeah I Really love a like the ends justify the means sort of approach like you see a lot of characters who get into this kind of mindset where oh I I need to I need to do this thing. It's really important for me to do this thing I.

28:50.59

Renie

Yeah.

29:03.65

Delphina

I can't care about all the little things that are happening in it. It's usually that contrast between my big grandiose goal and something small like a you know a kid who is who is now lost because you know. They lost their parents now because of something that you did and just balancing those larger moments with the small moments like how many small moments are going to add up to a large moment for you. What makes the balance shift for you when all of a sudden you like the things that you're doing. Are just a little too far gone from your original goals. I just watched RRR on Netflix which is a fantastic movie. I love it so much. Um, but you have the 2 main protagonists. There's like just this one guy who is very ‘the ends justify the means’. He has, you know, this very strict adherence and he's doing very despicable things even things that the villains of the story are just like wow man that. That's a little intense. Oh my god you're you're a little scary to me. But you can tell there's a drive behind it. You could tell he wants something really really bad and he's willing to do a whole lot of bad stuff before.

30:34.37

Delphina

1 person comes into his life and says you know what there's people here. There's things that you've forgotten about. You've lost your way and I'm here to remind you about those and you're going to punish me and you're going to like you're you're going to try to justify your worldview by silencing me. But you can't silence me and in some ways I have actually touched your heart and made you better for it like that's how you get this like really powerful redemption arc yeah.

31:04.90

Renie

So yeah, oh I love that. So.

31:12.50

Phin

Yeah I think that's like that's that's exactly it like you have this as as you said, like this tipping scale like how much is too much and when does the character realize and I like I really like that. But I sometimes also am okay with a character not being redeemable or staying completely unredeemable like um, one of my favorite villains ever is ah Claudia Wolf or from Silent Hill Three. And she does some horrendous things for a cause that is just in her head basically to create a paradise where everyone is happy and what I like so much about a character like Claudia is that she knows 100% that she is doing terrible things. She knows that she is not going to enter that paradise that she wants to create because she is a bad person but she's basically willing to sacrifice that and become someone who is so terrible. So everyone else can be happy and I mean she's also kind of religiously fanatic and the story is not quite as she thinks the story is but I also think that characters like these can be really interesting because it can be so tragic to see that.

32:44.89

Phin

They had like a course that was just to them and you can understand their cause but they are basically so set into their tracks that they just steamroll into tragedy.

32:59.25

Delphina

And yeah, if you're going for a tragic story that can be like just a very effective way to just show an opportunity and opportunity again where people have the ability to either walk away from what they're doing or double down. And they keep doubling down and they keep doing worse things and they keep going down this path because they see no other alternative and it is really kind of it. It accentuates to me the theme of like it. You need to be Flexible. You need to understand that Morality does not exist in a vacuum and there are nuances that you need to consider and if you don't This is what happens This is what happens to you You are going down this path that you can never return from And. That's really sad.

33:53.37

Renie

I Yeah yeah, it's so fun to play with the points of no return because like those are very dramatic moments that have a lot of punch when they have the thought but into them and the correct setup. One of the problems that I see with that in a lot of media is when they try and hit that point of no return a little too early. and I know that a lot of the intention behind that is because they don't want to. I Know a lot of writers have said that you know that oh well I don't want to have to worry about you know readers thinking that this character's morals are Mine. So I'm going to have them go off the deep end early so that we can really pick on them and I feel like if you're writing that Way. You're going to. Tell yourself short on the full potential that the story can have and.

34:49.44

Phin

Yeah, to be honest, it can be so hard sometimes to like just sit with these things especially when you publish a webcomic and you get to read their feedback and you get these kinds of feedback that are like, readers might be concerned about the course a character is taking or that you might endorse. Ah what the character is doing there like I had a scene and heirs of the veil where ah corus basically misuses his power and authority. And um, I got a few comments where people kind of had problems with it because they were, in my opinion, a justifiable ah thinking of stuff like misusing your power in like a police context and police brutality and for me it was like. Was never meant to be a scene ah where he was supposed to be in the right, but the scene is also not like concluded in a way where they talk about him being in the wrong or whatever. So I then had to sit with it for months until I could like actually concluded and give like the conclusion like the to give the conclusion and show like the characters in a struggle and turmoil with what he has done and sometimes like especially publishing in that format.

36:18.10

Phin

It can make it really hard to not immediately like panic and go like oh fuck people now hate that character because he did something immoral I have to rectify this some somehow or um, all people now think I align myself with the horrible action of that character.

36:23.50

Renie

Mmm.

36:35.86

Phin

Have to make them extra bad now. So people don't think like I'm trying to be nuanced. No people don't think I'm actually condoning these horrible actions.

36:47.23

Renie

It's the classic. Ah ah the ah just just hold on and then it's coming out next chapter except in webcomic time next chapter is in like eight months and by then it's like uh-o.

36:59.53

Delphina

It. It's so true. It's terrible and like do you ever get the impulse to go into your comments section and argue with people like wait wait wait wait. You're you're not but bla bla I think that probably makes it worse but I always have that impulse.

37:16.21

Renie

I hundred percent every single time arguing with your commenters in the comments always makes things worse. Never do it top. Tip: Don't do it.

37:21.36

Phin

I mean I did that with the person especially who made the police brutality comment. I actually talked with that person and we had a really nice conversation about that. So I think there was.

37:22.77

Delphina

Don't do it.

37:34.75

Renie

That's really good. The 1 time free pass.

37:37.64

Phin

Yeah I think that was the 1 time where I would say okay, what's good that I talked with them the one time. Yeah.

37:43.76

Delphina

Yeah, yeah I Do think if people are getting like escalating arguments in your comment section. You might want to cool it down, you might want to say Um, ok, um, you know these are all really good points. Um, there's definitely more to this character coming up. So just just hold on.

38:01.65

Delphina

I Guess that would be my advice for that if if people are getting really because people can get very um, argumentative in your comment sections when you're you're presenting kind of a morally gray character and somebody's like well they're they're doing the complete logical thing and somebody's like well no, but they're assholes. It's like. So. There's a balance here, Please please wait it out and.

38:26.16

Renie

Yeah, and I think this does bring us sort of into our last question where it's what is your advice to people who are looking for ways to shift to their characters around ah morally and how to keep that impact and.

38:40.61

Delphina

And oh gosh well Finn brought up a great point of what not to do and that's to give your character a tragic backstory that's their excuse for all of the horrible things that they've done like don't do that because like even if something bad happened to you. In the past, you're never going to be able to shift people away unless they're doing something in the present that acknowledges and makes up for in some way and this is a very broad way. There's a lot of different ways you can make up for it. The immoral actions that a character has done in the past but like that's that's one of the things that like ah like just giving them a tragic backstory isn't enough. I think a lot of comic artists lean on that early. And hard and it's just not. It doesn't work out the same way to a reader and that can keep them very unsympathetic. Um, another tip I've seen is if the character is not your focal character if they're not the viewpoint character make them a viewpoint character for a little bit and show their thought process. Show what they're going through show the other things that maybe the other characters don't see because bringing somebody into a third person omniscient or or first person view.

40:14.94

Delphina

Can actually increase reader sympathy a lot even if they're still doing terrible things. Even if they're doing the exact same things knowing why knowing the why can really help with making an unsympathetic character more sympathetic. Um, and if you're. Going the opposite way. Just do the opposite thing just Zoom out of their head Zoom into the consequences that they're having in the world around them and how other people are viewing them and why they're so blind in their own little path. That they're not seeing the outside world around them and how it's changing based on their actions. Um, that can reduce the sympathy and kind of make them slide a little further down the immoral scale. Even if they're doing the exact same things and.

41:09.13

Phin

Yeah I would also absolutely say like take your time just allow yourself the time to have the character change gradually like no matter in which direction you want to change them take your time show it like piece by piece. Give a little bit of the reasoning why they are changing now because a lot of the times I think changes in character moralities like fall-flat for me because it is too sudden like. There is like 1 scene of one very impactful thing and the character is suddenly like a changed person and a lot of the times that doesn't work for me and even if it's like something really big and impactful. The character should still like to be allowed the time to unpack. What they have done to struggle to maybe sometimes fall back into old habits and then um, get back out of it because it makes for like a little bit more interesting storytelling but also it makes it more believable for the reader to really see. How the character is changing and.

42:27.92

Renie

And oh a hundred percent I had a thought and then my brain just went fly away.

42:35.98

Delphina

Ah, yeah I think it's important to remember too that Morality is relative. It's contextual to the setting. It's contextual to the other characters. It's contextual to the theme and I think what a lot of people struggle with is they. Try to make it all fit within the character. What the character does or doesn't do or how the character acts and Morality is necessarily a thing that affects other people and other things in the settings. So If you're zoomed too far In. And really only looking to change the way that a character is moral by changing what that character does or doesn't do. I Don't think that's usually enough. I think you do need reactions from other people and consequences and all those good things. Those external things that will. Show the reader. This was a good idea or this was a bad idea.

43:35.99

Phin

And yeah I Also think another thing is don't be scared to not have your characters actions always align with your own Morality I Sometimes see that. People have this style of writing where they really want the character to feel good and be a good person. and a lot of the times that can make for a weaker story. So don't be afraid to have the character do things that you would normally not do. Or that you would consider immoral if it fits your story and if it makes the plot work better make it more interesting because this is particularly something that I have struggled with. Ah, that people will read my stories and think oh you have this thing in that story or you have that thing and that story that means you condone it that means you're a bad person. So I kind of constricted myself a lot by just being like Okay, how do I make the character. Look like a nice person and I notice just makes for pretty boring writing and you kind of have to sometimes deal with the fact that maybe readers might get upset with the characters but remember they're not upset at you. You are basically doing your job and you.

45:02.93

Phin

Doing it good and.

45:03.61

Renie

it's a hundred percent yeah it's such an issue all across writing where you get these characters that are just nothing where it's this perfect character. Nothing bad happens to them. They don't do anything bad. Everything's perfect and. Those characters are just boring because a lot of the best writing and best ah moments and stories comes from those moments of conflict the moments of self reflection where you go is this really the right thing to do or. Oh no, this thing that I did had these consequences. How do I live with this or how do I move forward and that's just good writing where it gives you more flexibility with your characters and makes the scenes just more interesting to read. It's just when you're making characters just remember. Pu but he's nerfect.

46:02.81

Delphina

You Poe buddies nerfect I I think too like if you can if they if you really want some somebody who who really focuses on on on their morals and they're like a really good person and they they always do the thing. Like pile on the external conflict pile on the things where like there wasn't anything they did wrong but like the world was just wrong or like it they yeah it like I think that's.

46:28.17

Renie

I write Oh I Love those stories. I'm a sucker for that.

46:36.86

Delphina

An important aspect of morality in real life too is that you can do everything right and people still won't like you people still won't like it. It won't go over perfectly because there is no perfect action and the more that you can illustrate and that in your writing the realer those characters will feel. As opposed to kind of this cardboard cutout like oh here's a hero here's Superman he punched the villain and nothing bad ever happened ever again like no, that's not the way the world works. We all know that and we need to? oh.

47:06.27

Renie

I know we all know that Superman had had a fascist arc. Yeah, yeah, there was an arc.

47:13.38

Delphina

I didn't know that until just now. Thank you for that. Superman is canceled. Ah yeah, but ah, but yeah, like we all know that the world's you know, kind of sucks sometimes and that that's part of life and I think. That makes your characters that much more lifelike and.

47:34.71

Renie

And that reminds me of my favorite star trek next generation quote and it's arguably one of my favorite episodes of star trek ever and it summed up where ah Picard is talking about. You know they're trying, the crew of the enterprise is just trying and they're doing all the things and.

47:53.11

Renie

It's still not working. Nothing's going right? And Picard says you can do everything right and still lose that's life and I think that's such an important thing to carry with you both in real life and when you're writing.

48:09.76

Delphina

Absolutely.

48:14.55

Renie

Pause. Oh and I think that brings us to the end of this episode. I think that's a bacon cheddar wrap I've been Renie. You can read my work at kateblast.com

48:26.62

Delphina

And I've been Delphina you can read my comic Sombulus at sombulous.com.

48:31.90

Phin

I've been Phin and you can read my comic at heirsoftheveil.com and now let's go and commit some crimes or something more.

48:39.90

Renie

Yeah, be gay, do crimes.

48:40.79

Delphina

Murder Er. Ah.

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Episode Release Date: February 21, 2024

Episode Credits:

Ally Rom Colthoff (@varethane) - she/they, chirault.sevensmith.net wychwoodcomic.com

Renie Jesanis (@renieplayerone) - she/they, kateblast.com

Rae Baade (@overlordrae) - they/them, empyreancomic.com

----

Transcript

00:01.88

Renie

Hello and welcome to Screen Tones: A Webcomic Podcast, where we talk anything and everything webcomics! Today we're gonna be talking in a little jam session about drawing exercises and fundamentals. I'm Renie, I use she/they pronouns and I make the webcomic Kate Blast!

00:22.37

Rae

I'm Rae, and I use they/them pronouns and I make the webcomics On Empyrean High and Overlord of Ravenfell.

00:28.26

Varethane

And I'm Varethane, I use she/they pronouns, and I make the webcomics Chirault and Wychwood.

00:35.67

Renie

So if you're just starting out making a comic, or even if you've just been doing it for a while, it's a great idea to incorporate drawing exercises into your schedule on a regular basis. It keeps us in touch with the fundamentals of perspective, anatomy, color theory, and all that good structural stuff that really gives our visuals the impact that we want. And it helps us avoid the distracting mistakes that we don't want! So let's get into our favorites and recommendations. So what kinds of exercises do you do to practice, and what are some good resources for those practices?

01:18.36

Rae

I would say that figure drawing is probably really vital to webcomic making, since usually people are the focus of it. I personally use just like either Clip Studio poses to make some challenge out of perspective, or I use a website called Line of Action which… that refers to the animation term “line of action” where you can get the flow of the motion, and I tend to find that really good as a digital alternative to a figure drawing class that you might not be able to afford or be able to go to in person. I also tend to do a lot of self-study and online tutorials for something that's my focus at the time. Like for On Empyrean High, I wanted to get better at pushing my boundaries for color, and in that regard, I tend to do cool colors, and I wanted to push into a bit more into warm.

02:42.21

Rae

So I would go and self-study a lot on gradient maps and see how my artwork would look in different kinds of colors, and then try to paint something with those colors the next time that I did something. There's no real like… linear way to work with it.

03:13.46

Rae

I would also say that when you're using a new tool, I love to see like all the kinds of ranges that you can get with it. And that usually includes the boring stuff like coloring cubes, and triangles and doing gradients and stuff like that with the tool that you are thinking of using, and that way you don't have like a gagillion downloaded brushes in your CSP file like I used to.

03:54.40

Varethane

And yeah, the notes about colors are interesting, because I've seen all kinds of funky exercises that you can do to kind of analyze the colors in pictures that you see, and one of my favorite little quick games to play, I feel like I've never incorporated this into my actual work, but I've always wanted to, to get a quick color palette that can be appealing, is find a photograph where you really love the colors and lighting in it and using… Photoshop is the software that I know, Clip Studio might have something like this too. But use the Mosaic filter on it at a really high setting, and it'll reduce the whole entire color palette of the photograph into like 5 or 10 swatches of pure colors that kind of match the palette of the overall image. And it's kind of a neat way of looking at something that like... with a photo it can be overwhelming how many colors are in it, but then just instantly, you could be like ”Oh it's like this nice like peachy color and a teal and then a darker green” and all that, and then you could kind of use those to build up a new image. When it comes to my own art and the practice that I do, I do try to do life drawing weekly. There's a group that organizes in my area where every week, it'll be hosted at a different member's house.

05:17.95

Varethane

And they're very active about finding models to pose for the group, which is all free. The models are basically paid in snacks and getting to hang out with a bunch of nerdy artists and seeing themselves getting drawn and it's not like… it's definitely super unofficial, pretty casual in terms of vibe. But it's a great regular thing for me to attend and kind of keep practicing that like, looking at how people look from different angles and in different poses. And like they'll often have cool clothing on, so you can figure out the way fabric drapes and stuff. This is obviously something like… I live in a pretty large city. This is the kind of thing that might not be accessible in other places. But there are often schools and things, and I definitely recommend taking at least one kind of formal life drawing class, even if it's an online one, at some point, just to get a sense of the basics and going through the poses and stuff. When it comes to online resources, there is a website called Posemaniacs which uses 3D stuff, and it has like a game on it where you can set it to thirty second poses and then 1 minute long poses, and it can go through basically an entire session of changing up the pose regularly.

06:45.68

Varethane

I find that fast poses are really helpful for really forcing you to figure out which part of the pose is the most important thing to nail down immediately, so you don't get caught up in the details, because you only have 30 seconds, you can really only draw maybe the line of the back, the hips, the legs and like, are the arms up or down, here's a circle for the head. But doing a lot of that will kind of help you get faster and faster at nailing down the action and selling what's happening, which is something that's important for any comic or narrative work. Another fun online resource to look at is SenshiStock which is… it's a collection of stock photos, but there's so many poses, and just like browsing through them is so great. Feel like if you're having trouble with a pose and you can't make it yourself in the mirror or get a friend to do it for you, going through their galleries and seeing if there's something that's close is a really good way to see how that might actually look in space.

07:53.59

Renie

Yeah, and I know they recently rebranded to AdorkaStock, which is great, and they have a sketch site that similarly has that timer that you can set to multiple different things and they've just they just have a wealth of just great figures to study and from all different poses.

08:08.95

Renie

I know they like to go out in the world and use trampolines and mattresses and get weird angles. It's great. They're awesome.

08:20.75

Varethane

And I think they did a series, like the two that impressed me the most were the one that was like poses taken underwater, so like models were weightless, and then the other one was through glass.

08:25.91

Renie

Yeah, oh my god.

08:32.64

Varethane

So you could get these crazy angles, like completely below, but from like two meters underneath and stuff like that.

08:38.64

Renie

It’s really cool! I also like to figure draw, figure drawing is just in general a number one practice for you to incorporate it. The other thing that I like to do for studying figures in anatomy is I have a book that if you went to art school which I didn't but I found out from someone who did um, it's the constructive anatomy by George Bridgman it's like a hundred year old book first published in like the like 1920 s or something. Um i.

09:18.94

Renie

Another great resource for studying anatomy is this book, it's from the 1920s, it's Constructive Anatomy by George Bridgman. It's really ancient, but it's got tons of diagrams and information on how various different muscle groups interact when you're drawing them, how poses work, and even though it's like 100 years old, it still holds up, and it's a great resource to just flip through like “Boy, I'm really struggling drawing elbows”. And you can just dive right in, and it's I mean it's a really good resource for high detail. And that's the other thing to think about too, is when you're doing fundamental studies is… everyone always has that moment where they're like “Well, I don't really want to draw realism, I draw more cartoony, or I draw anime, so I got to study that.” and it really comes down to, you have to really study the basics of human form whether it's realistic or not. You got to really get the realism down before you can sort of break it down into your own stylized version.

10:46.24

Rae

And I think one resource that's really good for that particular part is a Twitter account called Manga Materials. They do a really nice breakdown on their personal anatomy studies and why some things for that get stylized often look weird and ways to make it look more natural. So.

11:13.14

Renie

I love that Twitter account.

11:16.66

Rae

Yeah, I would really recommend giving that one a look if you are trying to stylize something, and you're going “That doesn't look quite right?”

11:26.89

Renie

Oh absolutely, yeah, it's great that there's just so many resources online too, because as Thane said, I also get the benefit of living in a big city. So I'm able to go and take maybe a class or two a year over at the Museum of Fine Arts, or at one of the other local community colleges. But there's all these resources online or in book form that you can obtain, that are just really good to have to sort of help with that. The other resource I really like having a physical form, to sort of talk about the comics making process specifically, is the Making Comics series by Scott McCloud. It’s a fantastic little resource for talking about panels and perspectives specifically from a comics perspective.

12:40.69

Rae

So how do we distinguish between art that's breaking the rules for stylistic purposes, and art that's breaking the rules in a distracting way that maybe we need to practice?

12:56.20

Varethane

I feel like this one is always going to be kind of subjective, because my personal answer is like, if it distracts me! I know that that's just kind of… well the definition of this word. But really I think what it comes down to in comics specifically, because of course we are talking about comics, is that if it gets in the way of the reader understanding what's happening, or if they can't focus on the intended tone of the story. Like if you're trying to tell a really dramatic and serious story, but maybe the character expressions are just looking goofy, and it's hard to pin down why. But it kind of wrecks the mood that you're trying to sell, then I would say that that is definitely something that practice is going to have to come into play to to help address, because it is definitely... you can convey a whole story and it can go totally well with art that might seem kind of rough or unpolished or whatever, but it still has to communicate what you want it to the creator, and that's where practice can really help, at least for specific things.

14:18.76

Renie

And it's interesting because you can see that a lot in comics and manga, where the creator definitely has a strong grasp on anatomy and on the drawing fundamentals, and then they get into a silly scene and they just draw like.

14:37.60

Renie

Noodle arms and like everything's all broken, but it still looks like it belongs in that comic, and a lot of that just comes from the practice, because they've had practice and they know “Okay, here's how I can break the rules and have this pool noodle look and things still look like an arm and have everyone recognize it.” Because if you've tried drawing in that noodly style, it's hard to get it right.

15:06.97

Varethane

And it really is surprisingly hard to draw, a good… even those super silly TVs and stuff in a lot of manga, they can look very awkward and it's hard to pin down. So I feel like it's a bit of a cliched phrase, but you have to know the rules before you can break them, and to some extent this doesn't mean like everybody needs to go out and get a Bachelors of Fine Art or something, but spend a bit of time figuring out what things actually look like when you look at them for real.

15:23.46

Renie

Absolutely.

15:39.36

Varethane

Instead of only reading other cartoons and seeing how other people have simplified things, and not actually going back to like what those things look like for real, so that you can find your own take on them.

15:55.60

Renie

Oh absolutely. It's really hard to get into that, because that just takes time, and that can be very hard for people too.

16:11.57

Varethane

And there's all these weird little… I've been doing design work for props and things like that a lot as kind of my full-time occupation now, and this means a lot of looking up references, things like jars and doorknobs and megaphones and stuff like that. And often the way I would draw that thing before I look at a reference is going to be pretty whack after I actually look at a reference and draw it out and I'm like “Oh! I didn't even realize that there was this attachment here and like, oh it's got like these extra lines and like, that's how those pieces fit together!” Just little things that when I'm going in and drawing them for my own comic, maybe I'll decide to leave those things out anyway. But knowing how the actual thing functions can help me kind of build a mental library of those objects or character designs or costume pieces or whatever in my mind, and then it's easier for me to draw them in the future.

17:15.79

Rae

And that is undoubtedly good advice. I always tend to draw things a lot better if I know why they are the shapes that they are, and it really does help. Even if you don't draw the thing, you at least know the function. I find for me, I'm kind of like Thane, if it's distracting, then it's distracting. But overall, I try to view comics as a whole, and it really depends on if it breaks immersion for me in the actual storytelling, if it's just like a “Oh. This person drew 6 fingers on this character in the background,” I'm not going to really care. But if you have this super cool zoom-up of this character doing an action pose, and they have 6 fingers, that might be a little bit distracting for me.

18:20.95

Varethane

And their hand is like right up in the camera zoomed in, too.

18:21.30

Renie

Yeah, and it looks like one of those AI drawings.

18:32.69

Rae

And if it's not the princess bride, we don't need 6 fingers.

18:36.12

Renie

Intend your 6 fingered hand.

18:42.10

Rae

But yeah, overall,I find that as long as you're clearly telling the story for a comic, I don't really particularly care how polished artwork is. But you do need at least some illustration overlap to be able to tell a visual story clearly.

19:05.31

Renie

Absolutely. And I think that one of the things that comes with a lot of the fundamentals practice is like when you've done those enough, then you can go back to those same studies and go, “Okay, how do I now translate this into my style?” And you have to really think about it with intention, and you can't really do that from the start. So that's where going in doing, once or twice a week, doing these studies and that helps you build that bank of information that you can dip back into when you're having an artistic block, or if you're struggling, and it's a lot easier to figure out what's going on when you have that structure in your approach.

19:59.74

Varethane

Yeah, definitely. So for the last question that we have in this episode: What is your advice to people who are struggling or might be reluctant to take time out of their busy comic-page drawing schedule to practice things on the side?

20:17.21

Renie

My first thing is to just slow down, because when you rush through um, trying to because I know webcomics is a long game… you're playing the long game when you start a webcomic. So if you're looking for something fast that you can get done in three weeks, maybe pick a different thing than a webcomic! But where with webcomics, you have that time as a benefit because then you can be like, “Okay, I can just pick a day and be like ‘Okay this is my studies day of the week where I don't touch the comic, this is just when I draw for myself or do figure studies’ or ‘I'm going to study how to do a limited color palette’” And once you make it part of your routine, it becomes part of a practice. The other way to really help that become a part of your routine is to grab a couple friends to do it with, like they must say and with their figure drawing, or join a class. A lot of local libraries will also do figure drawing, maybe not on a weekly basis. But if you see it coming up, sign up for it, or drink and draws are a great place to sort of go in and practice fundamentals in a lighthearted setting with other people.

21:44.79

Renie

Definitely getting people involved in your process helps you, because it's a lot easier to go to the gym if you have a gym buddy, so it's the same thing with drawing practice.

22:02.53

Rae

For me, I'm all about multitasking. Want to push color? Well, maybe try that next scene to push your color, and just make that entire scene a challenge for you. Or want to do figure drawing? Well, don't put too much detail in it, and then make it your character later. I actually did that quite a bit when I was taking in-person figure drawing classes. Or you know, want to practice expressions? Well, you can always make a bank of character expressions you can sneak into panels later, and that will be less drawing for you to do in the long run as well. So I’m of the mind that no practice that you do is necessarily a waste in general. But if you can save yourself some work, or multitask in some sort of manner, then definitely go for it. And, in my opinion, webcomics in general are supposed to be for experimentation anyway. So even if you want to drastically change styles for like, an April Fool’s joke or something, just go for it.

23:27.93

Varethane

And honestly my approach boils down to… I just find ways to trick myself into wanting to do it.

23:37.92

Renie

Artistic Stockholm Syndrome.

23:41.49

Varethane

I like the life drawing thing. It's absolutely become like a social thing for me, where I look forward just to spending time with the group. But outside of that specific context, like among other groups of friends online and stuff, sometimes we'll organize little life drawing sessions just among us. Like a few years ago… I think it was when the winter olympics was happening, and Yuri on Ice had recently come out, and I have a friend who's extremely into figure skating, and a bunch of my friends… like I'm friends with a lot of artists for some reason? I don't know how this happened!

24:15.41

Renie

I know, really.

24:18.22

Varethane

We had an evening where we got skating videos, and we would watch the videos, and we would freeze-frame the skaters, and then we'd all sketch the skaters in the poses that they were doing. Because if you actually watch figure skating, they make some incredible positions. And you only really see these if you're pausing it, because when they're in motion, it all kinds of flows together. But they're extremely flexible and they look really dynamic even in still frames. So I have sketchbook pages that are full of these figure skaters, and it didn't feel like work because I was just spending that evening hanging out with my friends, and we're all having fun like laughing and joking about it. So getting things like that together with buds like ah the SpiderForest Collective has been organizing these regular life drawing sessions that are just held in the public part of the Discord server, where someone will stream like pictures, or they've done sessions about horses and different animals and stuff like that, and then like action poses, and all kinds of fun things like that. So joining in some group activity like that, it can be extremely chill and casual and free. It can be just your friends, or it can be like a group that you kind of pop into and then pop out of after the session, like no pressure or anything, but stuff like that is great to look into.

25:43.80

Renie

And the other benefit of doing it with a group too is that it can remove some weight that you can put on yourself. Because I know sometimes when I'm doing studies and I'm just by myself, I'm a lot more critical of what I'm making, and I get into more of a mindset where I'm like “Oh, well this has to be perfect”. Then I lose sight of… figure drawing is best when you're studying it and you're going through it and it's loose. So doing it with friends can really help you sort of relax your shoulders, and sort of breathe a little easier and have more fun doing it and that will just help you in the long run.

26:20.22

Varethane

And it's also very fun in groups. I mean, depending on the group; sometimes people don't share what they're doing, but very often people will also be sharing what they're doing, and you can see how other people are kind of solving the same visual problem, so to speak. Like how do they handle their lines when you're all drawing the same thing, it can be really informative and kind of help you kind of pick apart some stuff in your own style, just to see like, “We're both looking at the same thing literally in this case and they drew it completely differently. But how did they draw it differently? How many lines did they use to draw the face? How did they render the nose?”, like all these little things like that. Another thing that I like to do, I am terrible at using references as I actually work on comics. Like once I'm getting into the zone of a page I never want to stop and find the right reference because I'm like, “That's going to take me hours and that's time that I could be spending just drawing the thing wrong first.” Um, and so sometimes I do draw the thing wrong, and then later on I have to go and spend 2 hours finding a reference and then redrawing it. But anyway.

27:29.86

Varethane

Sometimes I'll try to think these things through a little bit in advance, and spend some time getting to know what I'm about to be drawing, So there's a setting in my comic which is based on a part of Ontario, the province that I live in. And knowing that this setting was coming up, I played a very long game and spent years doing landscape studies of this place. Just like sitting down and painting in acrylics, like the trees and the rocks and stuff like that, just to kind of get a feel for what it all looks like. And it's all very beautiful, and it's very nice to sit in nature and look at nature for a long time, and have an excuse, because now you're painting and nobody can tell you to come inside right away. And it did help me kind of build… like going back to the idea of having a mental library, like now that's been added to my little rolodex of things that I can pull out and draw quickly.

28:31.54

Renie

And if you can't get into the wilderness right away, what I like to do as well is… I love that you said “Draw the thing bad the first time”, because what I'll often do is if I'm in a panel where I can't quite find the right reference, or I'm struggling with a pose, I'll go into a sketchbook and I'll draw the thing there. And I'll break it down to its fundamentals and I'll just draw it somewhere else, and then when I finally nail it there, then I just take a picture of it or I copy/paste it over. And then, bam! I've got the thing without having to redraw it on the actual page. So definitely take a break from your pages, or even have it like have a separate notebook or sketchbook that is just for this, so that when you open it up, you aren't greeted by like “Oh look at this amazing drawing I just did a while ago, right next to pictures of blobs!” Like have a sketchbook that's just blobs.

29:28.25

Varethane

And it's funny, I forgot to mention that, because I do have separate sketchbooks for different kinds of things. Like my life drawing sketchbook is a completely different one than the one that I use for figuring out comic things and sketching concept art or doing weird experimental stuff, and then I have like a completely different third small sketchbook that I use for thumbnails and layouts and taking notes and stuff like that. And all of this is also separate from where I do the actual final work on the comic itself, which is my computer. But having all these different mediums in which to work can get my mind kind of thinking along different tracks, like it helps me sort of settle into this, “Well I'm holding my thumbnail sketchbook. So obviously I'm about to thumbnail now,” I'm in the mood for it because I'm holding it. I don't know, it's another trick I play on myself I guess.

30:29.70

Rae

And just keeping a sketchbook in general, I feel, is vital, because you can do a bunch of observational drawings, studies, how to break things down without essentially having to do so in your comic.

30:44.88

Rae

And I'll find a lot of ways on doing sort of creative process games with myself. Like I'll go and be like “Okay, so here is this Gatorade bottle I just drank from, I'm going to turn this into a building today.” And it'll give you practice with the silhouettes and shapes, and still coming out with something that is unique and maybe that you could even put in your comic somehow. So I definitely think that creativity is also just a fundamental thing that you actually do need to practice. And part of that is trying to find different ways of looking at things, and you can do that by looking at other people's work, or going in with an intent of “I am going to make this random object into something else.”

32:02.11

Renie

And one of my favorite things is there's an artist... there's numerous artists on Twitter and Tumblr that will take can openers or kitchen utensils and turn them into spaceships and I'm always like “Wow, that's just It's it's such a good exercise and it's just it's right up but right about right on that.”

32:19.73

Varethane

I love those drawings. I know the ones you mean and they're the coolest idea. I will add one caveat to the sketchbook thing, which is that I absolutely recommend getting a sketchbook, but try not to make it a very fancy sketchbook, because those can be scary in their own right. And the ideal goal of having a sketchbook that you just kind of keep on you all the time is that you can just scribble in it, and you can make bad drawings, and you can draw 1 circle in the corner of the page and then turn the page and leave it mostly blank and not feel bad about it.

32:49.27

Renie

Yep.

32:56.13

Varethane

Don't feel bad about drawing in the sketchbook is the goal.

33:01.21

Rae

And the way I get over having a really nice sketchbook is I go and I pick a random page, and I take my most permanent pen, and I just mark over it and ruin that page. And then I have to use the sketchbook, because the sketchbook's ruined.

33:25.13

Renie

That's such a good idea too.

33:25.25

Varethane

And I always plaster the first 2 pages with like as many stickers as I can find.

33:30.37

Renie

Oh that's a great idea too. Yeah I tend to just do like a page. It's kind of like those old DeviantArt comments where it's like, “First I'll do a dumb drawing like that on the first one, and it's always something silly or stupid and poorly rendered, but you know wha,t it's there. It's broken it in. It's now an invitation to get dirty, mess around, and learn too.

34:02.10

Varethane

And something that I think about doing, which I haven't yet, but it's a free suggestion for anyone who like, say, has gotten a new sketchbook that they haven't drawn in yet and they're trying to figure out how to start it, is just to take every pen and like....

34:18.56

Varethane

marker and crayon and weird pencil that you own and test them one at a time with a little line, and then try painting over each line to see how the ink handles and whether it bleeds and stuff like that. I keep getting unpleasant surprises in new sketchbooks when I realized the first time I tried to ink something but like, “Oh the ink bleeds, because the paper's too absorbent!” and then I always wish that I had spent some time testing materials. And that's just a free way to do it that also breaks in the sketchbook.

34:50.61

Rae

Yeah, I highly recommend doing that. That's what I do with any new paper that I work with, because even if a pen is waterproof… depending on the paper, that's not necessarily true. Another thing that I always do, is you always want to test by doing a gradient as stark as you can on one side, and as light as you can on the other. This gets you a feel for the tool and the extremes that you can go with it. And I actually had a teacher that made me do it with every single hardness of pencil lead. And while that was really annoying, I usually only use 2 kinds of pencil lead for anything because I know exactly how dark I can go and how light I can go. But it is definitely a good way to know the range of your tools, especially if you're going to be using it to test things out.

36:01.26

Renie

And it's also a good excuse to do hashmark studies, or shading studies because then you can go “Oh, well I drew the sphere, now I can to shade the sphere and see how the tool works, but you're also studying fundamentals again. And bringing it back into that part of your practice. So it's multitasking. Absolutely that.

36:27.24

Varethane

So this is reminding me of something that… this was never really a part of my practice but I had friends who studied mechanical illustration and fairly hardcore like anatomical illustration for scientific stuff. And there's a series of exercises that people can do which involve on like a sheet of paper, you draw 2 dots very quickly, and then you draw a line connecting those 2 dots and then you draw another 2 dots, and then you draw a line connecting those 2 dots, and you just keep doing it to increase the accuracy of your hand-eye coordination on the page. Because when you're going really fast, it's actually surprisingly hard to land that line exactly on the dots, like you'll always be a little bit off center. Then there was another exercise which I think was, you draw a little circle, and then a slash through the circle, like as fast as you can, and you just fill a sheet with these little circles and slashes. And then there's like another one that's like, hatch 3 parallel lines and then hatch another 3 parallel lines. And the folks I knew who actually spent like, upwards of like half an hour to an hour doing this every day, their control over their lines was absolutely impeccable. I don't have the patience for it. But it is something that people do spend time, and it can make a difference if you make that part of your practice.

37:52.14

Varethane

Ah, however I don't have the patience for it. So if you don't, don't feel bad. It's fine.

37:57.33

Rae

And that actually sounds like a good way to practice if you're hand lettering to me personally..

38:04.46

Varethane

And it probably would be now that you mention it I.

38:08.26

Renie

I Yeah I could totally say that I'm gonna hit pause.

38:15.69

Varethane

Anyway, that has been a goat cheese and roasted red pepper wrap. Thank you so much for listening!

38:51.29

Varethane

I've been one of the hosts, Varethane. You can check out my comics at https://chirault.sevensmith.net/ and https://www.wychwoodcomic.com.

38:56.84

Renie

I've been Renie, and you can find my work at kateblast.com

39:03.30

Rae

And I've been Rae, and you can find my comic On Empyrean High at https://www.empyreancomic.com or Overlord of Ravenfell on Webtoon.

39:14.56

Renie

And we'll see you later! And now to go practice.

39:16.64

Varethane

Yay slappers.

39:19.10

Rae

And we're never done with fundamentals.

39:23.16

Varethane

I'm going to go draw a million circles and I'll become a wizard.

39:23.55

Renie

Our sisyphean cause.

----

Episode Release Date: February 7, 2024

Episode Credits:

Kristen Lee (@feathernotes) - she/they, ghostjunksickness.com lunarblight.com

Christina Major (@delphina2k) - she/her, sombulus.com

Miranda Reoch (@mirandacakesart) - she/her, mirandacakes.art intotheswellcomic.com

-----

The Intro "DO IT (feat. Shia LaBeouf)", and the Outro "It's Good To See You Again!!", both by Adrianwave, have been used and modified in good faith under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Licensed. Edits include: Fade IN/OUT, and a repeat added to the beginning of "It's Good To See You Again!!". For more information on this creative commons use, please reference https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.

Transcript

00:00.32

Krispy

Hello and welcome to screen tones where we talk anything and everything webcomics. Today we're gonna be talking about content warnings and ratings. I'm Krispy. My pronouns are she/they and I make the webcomics Ghost Junk Sickness and Lunar Blight

00:24.43

Miranda

Hello and hi I'm Miranda. I make the webcomic Into the Swell and my pronouns are she/her.

00:30.21

Delphina

And I'm Delphina. I use she/her pronouns and I make the webcomic Sombulus.

00:37.97

Krispy

So we've got all different types of stories to tell and we want to make sure that we are reaching the audiences we want to reach. Movies and games have official rating systems that could be adapted for comics and content warnings are another way to flag when someone might have phobic content or any potentially triggering stressors. But how do we apply these tools helpfully and respectfully? It could be pretty challenging but I mean that's why we're going to talk about it today. So of course like we always do I'm going to be starting with a question and this one I'm going to be throwing at you Miranda. So what rating do you give your comic when people ask and how do you broadcast it to your potential audience right?

01:22.50

Miranda

So my comic I consider as young adult and I don't have any clear content warnings on my site because of the way my comic starts off. It kind of is the darkest it's gonna get and so it kind of sets an expectation that there is some character violence and some darker moments. I feel like because I set that expectation from the get go nothing will really come as a surprise to readers later on.

02:09.00

Krispy

Like I mean that's a really good thing though because like ah, we've kind of touched on that a bit in the aesthetics episode where you talk about things that draw in audiences and whatnot and having that expectation like you said like Into the Swell . Starts with like that scene where someone's going to go ah hung and it's just like Okay yeah, the consequences of you know the actions kind of come right up there? Um, and I think that's really important, like that's a good point to set expectations.

02:29.46

Miranda

So yeah, it's pretty rough.

02:44.93

Delphina

I think sometimes people want to do — I hope this isn't a spoiler at this point — like the Madoka thing like oh I'm going to start off like really cutesy and sweet and then do a hard left turn into that dark stuff. That takes practice I think. And it also takes a certain medium. I don't think webcomics is that medium actually. I think because you have to read them over the course of several years if it's a long form story like you do want little hints and even if you watch Madoka that's they do give you quite a few tonal hints.

03:04.40

Krispy

Yes.

03:21.75

Delphina

Before like the cutesy stuff kind of goes by the wayside. So I think that's a really good skill to cultivate for your own comic.

03:27.43

Krispy

Ah.

03:38.60

Delphina

Integrating elements thinking of scenes and thinking of ways to show what you want to show? I think that's just kind of the hallmark of a good writer. As opposed to somebody who maybe doesn't look like they know what they're doing.

03:41.68

Krispy

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, there's the kind of this like I guess this era right now that we're going through where a lot of writers think that it's really good writing when you make something that readers can't predict and they're kind of obsessed with going in that direction. I'm finding it a lot in like the video games industry, the movies I mean Tv shows. It's just a thing right now and that's not necessarily a good thing to be quite honest. I think that when you're kind of clear with the indication of what we're kind of going for. That's my honest opinion a little bit better I mean like we've said in the aesthetics episode like that can lend into it so you do have all these like yeah indicators like you were saying Delphi with like Madoka and how they kind of be like there's a potential for something to turn. And I think I appreciate that? Um, as far as like warnings and content is concerned. It is in that similar vein where you do have something kind of indicating that this is who ah the story or this is the audience that was intended for.

04:59.99

Miranda

Yeah, definitely along those lines I think it might get confusing to some people that there’s a difference between a twist and just shocking your audience because it's just so out there and so out of the blue. That can’t be a twist.

05:12.54

Krispy

Yeah.

05:19.93

Miranda

But it's not necessarily a good one. Yeah.

05:20.87

Krispy

Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent agree there and I think that's when you're gonna kind of go into some murky waters because you know when you have something that is that alluring that has that kind of turn like honestly Madoka such a great example of that because. When people try to get you to watch that anime. It's like oh things turn at episode 3 and like it's a good kind of allure to that thing or as opposed to it's like you know you have someone. It's like oh yeah character dies and it's. Crazy twist or something I don't know there was just a certain way that it's done. Um, that doesn't feel like I'm trying to specifically shock the audience but you're trying to convey like this is what it's about you mean and then after that shock happens in Madoka, it's like oh. Ah, we're continuing with this kind of atmosphere. We're continuing with this narrative that you've laid down so that becomes the expectation so when we talk about like warnings and whatnot like when it's something completely at a left field. Um, you know it gets tricky when you kind of have some kind of expectation and I know that we did cover that I keep saying this in the aesthetics episode where you have like an art style or something that won't match with like the content that you have and could be very jarring and actually kind of hard to describe who the potential audience that's for and with that I did want to ask Delphie your opinion on the rating you gave Sombulus and how did you broadcast that to your potential audience?

07:03.60

Delphina

So Sombulus I always wanted to keep a little bit light. I wanted to keep it mostly, there are some darker feelings there, and some heavier like emotions. I did find it really helpful when I was starting to go to conventions to kind of work that into my pitch because for a pg comic or a young adult comic that looks like it might be ok for kids. You'll get a lot of parents walking up to you and asking you hey is this ok for kids. And even sometimes when it's not really clear from the cover of your story that they need to research a little more. They're at a convention There's a million things drying their attention. They're going to try to go to this panel in 15 minutes and they don't have time to really do the research so you have to have a snappy way of describing what your rating is for kids specifically. And there's a couple ways to do that in a convention setting. You can have other things on your table that sort of help you along with broadcasting your aesthetic, exactly like Miranda was talking about. You have the first scene of your comic that does that but the experience of your booth can also do that. We're not really talking about necessarily conventions here. But when parents ask me I say you know it's it's magic sword fighting I used to say you know it's Harry Potter level because that was a story and a mood that people could kind of understand like ok I'm okay with my kid reading Harry Potter there's scary stuff in there magic and sword fighting and monsters. So if if that's all it is then it's fine. I want to find a different analogy maybe Percy Jackson now I'm not sure because it just leaves a bad taste in my thread to say a Harry Potter now but it did work for the purposes of letting parents know what kinds of ratings to expect. I had another friend. Um, who used to use P for Pixar , so just like oh it's got a lot of fun stuff. But it's also going to hit you in the feels sometimes so I kind of liked that one. That's a fun little rating. Um, but yeah I don't tend to do very heavy stuff if I start going down that direction. Um, because you know I was a child of 90s anime

09:47.29

Delphina

Stuff could get really dark and really weird. Um, so sometimes if I'm not watching my own tone I'll start to veer into those sections like ok what if there's this betrayal and mind control things happen. And yeah, well scale it back Edge Lord. So, that's something that do yeah after dark I have many facets..

10:11.36

Miranda

Delphie after dark.

10:19.78

Krispy

Oh god.

10:24.49

Delphina

I go with Sombulus I think it works out for the most part I do like to keep it, mostly family friendly, but with the nuance that you're a savvy reader and you want to pick up on it and it really does bring me a lot of joy when someone's like I read this with my kid. All the time my kid is so excited about this and it was just like yeah it's so beautiful. Yeah, so I do try to keep it , something that doesn't go into hard gritty.

10:44.30

Miranda

Oh that's warm fuzzies right there.

10:49.43

Krispy

Yeah.

11:00.70

Delphina

Mafia Noir Whatever Um, but , nothing wrong with going in that direction either I think , it's like we're saying it's all about how you broadcast it and.

11:11.39

Krispy

And I think like hearing both of your answers to that really kind of hits home with the fact that you really need to understand who you're writing for and your audience for that and I think that's a great example with the fact that you're saying to use comparative works. To kind of give a feel especially at like convention settings. or like you know one one like places that you can actually actively talk about your comic your work a little bit more to a more captive audience or curious is to use some of that as a crutch when you're describing your comic you say like oh. You know blah blah Blah here's the tiny elevator pitch for it and then you know when there's more questions about it like oh ok like you know blah Blah Blah You can go into that comparative Stuff. You can be like oh well if you really enjoyed Um, Anime X you might like this. And stuff like that. So I like that as also an indicator of tone and the content inside of it. I think that's a really good way to kind of understand what you're going for because one of the kinds of magical things about indie comics indie work in general is that you know you can do so many things. And you can go into so many different doorways with how you write and of course that leaves you ample space and room to kind of explore a lot of things so just kind of understanding like where's the boundaries where can I stop, where should I continue to go to and who is this ultimately for?

12:45.82

Krispy

With that I did want to ask what actually is a content warning and how do you keep them helpful Miranda?.

12:57.40

Miranda

So for me, a content warning informs a reader or consumer of potentially uncomfortable topics which vary for everyone but some common ones are excessive gore, excessive violence, anything that can cause trauma or ptsd type stuff, and anything like that. There's obviously a whole bunch of triggers and everyone has their own trigger. It’s impossible to list them all. But those are some main ones. And it's either a general rating of your comic or story or movie or it's by page or by episode. A lot of content creators on webtoons or their webcomic will just have at the top of their page or the episode ‘this episode contains XYZ’ and you're aware of it for the rest of that episode. I personally find them helpful if the topic that is happening is completely different from the current tone of the story. Or if I'm reading something super lighthearted, very rated g, very childish and suddenly there's an intense gory violent scene. I mean it's not going to bother me but I'm going to be very confused and you may get more and worse reactions from readers that aren't me. Um, and you'll probably shock a lot of them and they will likely be in an unpleasant way. Um, obviously there's times that can work. But I think it's more of an exception than a rule.

14:48.13

Miranda

And even in movies and games and shows that do this. The one I can think of because we said P for Pixar, fo sausage party. Um, it's a cartoon. It's about talking food. You think it could be rated g.

15:07.00

Miranda

But it is definitely not and it has its pre-established rating that lets you know Okay, this isn't a kids movie and then shortly into the movie you find out exactly why it is not a kids movie. Um, so even if you plan on doing that.

15:14.37

Krispy

Mm.

15:25.62

Miranda

Setting a rating from the start. You don't have to spoil anything. You just say hey this is not a kid's story then that's enough of a content warning to like let them know. Okay, this isn't going to be kid friendly. I may not know why but it'll be less of a shock when it happens.

15:29.87

Krispy

No.

15:41.45

Delphina

So I'm going to start calling comics that S for sausage party.

15:46.86

Miranda

Like Claire might have issues with that. But it's okay, we might have to content warn that we're using sausage party in context for her. So she's not like triggered or anything like that.

15:58.88

Krispy

For Claire gosh it is true though I do like the precedent of like kind of taking what movies do and be like oh like these are the ratings that you do.

16:04.40

Miranda

Love you Claire

16:17.63

Krispy

Ah, you know general. Ah Pg 13 and and and so on and so forth. It's something that I personally take when I write our stuff. I think of you know what? I would have been reading as a kid like Full Metal Alchemists and watching Trigun or reading Trigun, either different experiences. But I Digress. Ah I think of that experience and I think okay, how old was, how old was the demographic that they shot for and what is the the kind of story the content that I'm going for and I aim it towards that and then that would be my general kind of like indicator like oh yeah, like Ghost Junk Sickness is for like teens up and you know don't read this if your baby kind of thing. And then for Lunar Blight it's going to be a higher rating.

17:08.41

Miranda

And we're also excited for it I'll say it. But I will say like the movie industry has done the effort of coming up with this rating system that is pretty understood universally you might as well use it.

17:20.44

Krispy

And yeah, yeah, yeah, and I agree I think that is one of the things that I personally think that writers should avoid.

17:27.27

Miranda

And or at least use it as a base Guideline.

17:37.66

Krispy

Ah, is when you overlabel and you start to spoil points it kind of is personally for me a turnoff when I'm going through stuff and it says there's going to be a death next page and I'm like what? oh what Why here? Why should you tell me now. Oh okay. And it takes you right out of the story. Um, so understanding that general notion of like does my comic support this random death and how it is done or is this like completely out of left field and I'm actually writing like Caillou and.

18:14.54

Krispy

Ah, horrible things happen or something I couldn't think of anything but something just horrible out of left field happens and you're just like I wonder but it's always about understanding your audience I think.

18:27.75

Miranda

And I'm just emphatically nodding in agreement at the too many things are listed here.

18:35.44

Krispy

Ah, yes, yes.

18:35.61

Delphina

And well actually for me like if I see like more than 10 content warnings or something on like a thing I'll just assess that you don't actually know what's going on and what the actual impactful things in your comic are.

18:49.58

Krispy

Yes.

18:52.84

Delphina

I will think you're lying because I've seen so many people who are like content warning for blood and ok I Guess there is sort of like a trickle of anime blood there. Um, that is a It's like if you are doing a scavenger hunt I think it's. Think of this as the Scavenger Hunt Matt Method right? So you're going through the comic and you have to find 3 examples of blood No matter how small they are.. It's just like that. Um, that's the letter of the law not the spirit of the law.

19:17.95

Krispy

You hear. Yes, yes.

19:25.50

Delphina

Um, and ah one of my things is at the end of the content matters we could describe any Wiley Coyote Roadrunner cartoon as extreme animal cruelty but we don't and the reason is that we have a collective understanding. About how that violence is treated and that it won't be interpreted the same way as actual animal cruelty and specifically in Wiley Coyote and Roadrunner. There's some actual rules that they follow about these cartoons to ensure that we don't read.

19:45.96

Krispy

Who.

19:58.78

Delphina

The constant exploding and wall smacking is violent. Um.

20:00.94

Miranda

I oh yeah, isn't it like 1 of them that coyote only ever hurts himself like no one else ever hurts him. It's all self-imposed.

20:07.59

Delphina

Yeah, he only ever hurts himself. He could back off at any time if he backed off at any time it would be okay, , and he would be fine but because he keeps persisting. That's why the violence happens and it's so interesting because comedy, especially slapstick really does have a lot of , very boring and Rigid sounding rules that we consciously or subconsciously follow to make sure that we're getting a funny tone and not a horrific tone. So yeah, watch out for that. Don't over label your things and yeah, it's not helpful to someone who wants to engage with your work.

20:45.38

Krispy

Yes.

21:02.69

Delphina

Um, to have to go through this bombardment if it because if they're they won't think anything of it if they're not if they don't have many triggers but if they do they might think this is way worse than you intended and.

21:14.61

Krispy

Yeah, definitely and you know as I think more about this like there's a lot of different kind of words that are very much thrown around in the community some hopefully uplifting and educational whereas others. Start to get a little bit water down and misunderstood too. Obviously the word triggers is something that has been unfortunately mishandled in a lot of places and a content warning isn't necessarily that either and it's not for that all the time. As well. So like you 2 have said it's very circumstantial but I did want to ask Stealfi since we're kind of going around this and we've answered a bit What content warnings are like what's the difference between a content warning. Ah, or censorship or stuff like that when you start getting those 2 like meddled.

22:12.60

Delphina

And yeah, they do get muddled I think , especially in the day and age of social media apps specifically on your phone like Tiktok or Tapas or Webtoons or whatever.

22:26.50

Krispy

Who.

22:29.26

Delphina

Because they have rules that will ban or restrict your content Automatically, Um, if you have words like die instead of unalive or show body hair or or weird things like that. they'll market as adult content and.

22:43.62

Krispy

Oh Wow oh.

22:46.73

Delphina

And yeah, we've got stories from friends about their comics.

22:51.14

Miranda

Um, I Just thought the unallive thing was just like internet talk because people were funny. I didn't know it was required somewhere really.

22:54.51

Krispy

I Hate I have a yeah.

22:56.77

Delphina

Ah, no, it came from Tiktok. It came from tiktok because if you speak the word die in your recording your video you will get restricted. You will get banned because you're talking about death.

23:13.27

Miranda

All right? so.

23:14.92

Delphina

Um, so people came up with this funny way around it. They'll say I'm alive so somebody should un alive themselves or whatever and it's still the same thing. It's actually a little more creepy to me. But , but you have to remember that those rules.

23:19.89

Miranda

So okay, that makes sense.

23:21.30

Krispy

Gosh Oh yeah.

23:33.42

Delphina

Do not exist to protect people. They exist to protect the company they are there so that some parent doesn't see their little Stacey looking at a post that they don't like for whatever reason and sue the company. and it may have side effects.

23:34.43

Krispy

Yes.

23:46.87

Krispy

And.

23:51.71

Delphina

Keeping minors from seeing adult content but it is overkill and it can also affect queer content and that's on purpose this is a financial decision on their part to restrict your language and your imagery because that is cheaper for their company than facing lawsuits or getting in trouble with the Apple store.

23:58.62

Krispy

Yeah.

24:10.98

Delphina

Or getting pulled from the Apple store. That's a threat for them, especially for apps that is it and as indie creators we do not have to borrow these terminologies, these restrictions on our own platforms and it.

24:11.30

Krispy

Yep.

24:20.32

Krispy

Yes.

24:28.16

Delphina

It's also one of those things where because we're marketing for ourselves and we're because we're a little more direct about reaching out to our own audiences Sometimes when we use too many euphemisms or or put little asterisks in place of vowels so that the word doesn't get caught. Um, the people who actually use tools to block these words that relate to the subjects that they don't want to see are forced to see them because you messed up their restriction their blacklist. Um, you messed up their filters and so really be careful with that I.

24:51.68

Krispy

Yes.

25:06.23

Delphina

If You're finding yourself restricting things or using euphemisms or different words or spelling things with an o instead of or a zero instead of an O. Whatever Um, you know that's all derived from censorship not content warnings and. If you're posting on a platform that does have that kind of censorship. You know, follow the rules if you really want to stay on that platform. Um, but don't do it to yourself thinking. This is actually helping actual readers because we're not Stupid. We know that.

25:38.31

Krispy

Yeah.

25:43.25

Delphina

Dies spelled with a one instead of an eye means the same thing and it'll have the same effect on me. Regardless, just don't do it to yourself and think about what effect that will actually have and.

25:44.82

Krispy

Yeah.

25:57.77

Krispy

Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent and I think that that's just the reason why we decided to tackle such an episode like this is because I see a lot of things kind of seeping into like the indie community that shouldn't. Actually be there I mean the whole point of this is that we have a lot of freedom to tell the stories as raw and emotional as we can. Of course you know, understanding the audience and who you're writing for so that it actually reaches those people. Um, but you know also at the same side like you know. Being as freeing as and and as true as you possibly can be because these stories are unique that way and I think that a lot of the intensities with certain things and emotions and whatnot that sometimes do get ah warned and and. Honestly, unfortunately censored in the ways that Delphi was described. It's definitely a kind of a scary future for some of it so being aware of the power that you have because you do have the power especially when you have like control of where you're posting your stuff to , you are. The master of the universe and I would definitely take control of that situation. There. Um, as far as that is concerned I did want to ask now. What's your advice to someone who's having like a really hard time wrapping their brain around how to rate or warrant about the content of their comic.

27:29.94

Krispy

Miranda and.

27:45.63

Miranda

So consider if what you're trying to rate or warn about is completely different from your usual vibe and tone , find examples of media that have tropes or scenes or things that are similar to yours. And see how they approach their warnings like maybe if you have other webcomics in the same genre you can kind of see how they handle their content warnings movies Tv shows. Whatever and i. As has been said, take the time to figure out who your audience is or who you're intending them to be , if you're intending your audience to be children. You need to be a lot more careful with what you're including in your comic. And what you're warning about whereas if you're intending your audience to be adults. You don't have to be as intense about your warnings and the content you're actually providing.

28:43.14

Krispy

I yeah, definitely agreed there. It's again just hammering back to like knowing who you're writing for and I wouldn't have you writing something like Kayu and then all of a sudden. It's like berserk style gore.

28:51.28

Miranda

Yes.

28:59.23

Miranda

Now Probably don't do that unless that's your goal then have at it and you'll you'll be great. Probably.

29:00.73

Krispy

Something crazy. But yeah, if yeah, if that's the hook The tonal shift from Kayou to Berserk was the hook then I guess go for it. You'll be known and then you know people will understand the vibe.

29:20.86

Delphina

It's so well, it's interesting too because a lot of times it comes up with children or youth friendly comics and swear words like should you be dropping f bombs in ah, children's comic and that's that's a little.

29:27.33

Krispy

Oh yeah.

29:37.68

Delphina

More where you might want to censor yourself a bit I think ah the the rule around showing stuff for kids is can the kid easily repeat. Whatever you're showing them like a kid easily repeat like throwing somebody in the ocean and drowning them.

29:40.36

Krispy

Who.

29:49.59

Krispy

Yes.

29:56.50

Miranda

Now we hope.

29:58.17

Delphina

Probably not , a kid have bomb multiple times all the time and they won't necessarily know the context in which that'll get them in trouble. So that's the reason why you might want to scale that back I do see quite a few comics that are.

30:07.54

Miranda

Ah.

30:08.77

Krispy

Yes.

30:17.65

Delphina

They would be perfectly fine for a kid's audience but they insist on trying to put curse words in there where I don't necessarily think they're necessary. Um.

30:28.76

Krispy

I hope.

30:34.65

Delphina

I Don't think they're particularly necessary and I don't know that they add anything to the narrative. I Think there's a lot of creative ways you can get around swearing that won't raise somebody's.

30:42.73

Krispy

Yep.

30:48.99

Delphina

Radar hackles and says you know what I was going to buy this but it just has this 1 word that bothers me and ah stay true to your vision if it really really matters but a lot of times it doesn't.

30:53.51

Krispy

Yeah.

31:01.59

Krispy

Yeah.

31:03.51

Delphina

Um, just gonna say that a lot of times your work is not actually better for having the f bombs. So , but it would be if Ka you went berserk. Yeah.

31:08.43

Miranda

Much true.

31:14.41

Miranda

And I think it would be warranted in that and if anyone does decide to take that route. Let me know because I I want to see how it turns out. Okay.

31:27.64

Krispy

Ah, next screen tones collaboration. Ah, ah, but that's such a good point delphi and like you know, thinking about that I did have some conversations with a few folks I'm just like what's the.

31:29.59

Delphina

Oh my God I.

31:42.59

Krispy

Overall content. Oh like what happens in your story. Oh well, this that and the other thing and I'm just like okay well you know that's comparable to like a Disney film. That's comparable to like it gets as quote unquote dark as something in the field zone of a pixar film and I'm just like why not broaden your audience instead of alienating them. Having this one random stuff that doesn't add to anything unless of course the rest of it supports it and it's like oh yeah, guy you does drop the f bomb. But that's because Caillou murders someone 2 pages later.

32:18.28

Miranda

Yeah, keep with your tone changed hey.

32:30.64

Miranda

Know my gosh your fault you brought Caillou into this.

32:33.88

Krispy

I'm sorry I it oh it was so dangerous, but like Miranda saying keep with your tone. Um.

32:39.18

Delphina

It was too dangerous.

32:41.42

Miranda

Now.

32:50.36

Krispy

And that in itself is an excellent tool to tell people what it's about like even the art alone to like if your hook isn't to be like some dramatic turnaround kind of thing the unfortunate side effect of the Madoka where people were like I want cute but also dark. Um. I think that that's good like you know, have that kind of general vibe about it and so that it doesn't become a laundry list because it can be a huge turnoff and very intimidating when you go to read a comic and you see the content warning. Um. Is. There's a lot. Ah the description is shorter than the amount of content warnings happening in the comic and that can be a huge turnoff because like Delphi was saying if it's not a highlight in the comic. And it's just kind of listing off these things. It becomes a scavenger hunt in the wrong way like it's not fun to be like oh my god there's blood and gore but the blood comes from like a bloody nose and the gore was from a tooth falling out I guess and it wasn't yeah.

33:58.93

Delphina

So Al gore. Oh.

34:04.81

Krispy

Oh gosh. Um, from that though. So like keeping in mind like you know, Um, when I think of like my stuff because I like action and violence I guess and my stuff does have a lot of violence in it. Um, it is one of those things that we put in like you know, ghost drunk sickness and. Winter blight will have violence in it and blah blah Blah Blah Blah Um, and it's just a general thing that happens all the time. So of course it's going to be like in one of those things that happens but I wouldn't put like ghost strong sickness has ah bombs. And there's bombs in it I don't know something something that's puppies. No, it doesn't. I don't know space. I mean it does have that I'm trying to think of like something it hardly has but it's there. Um, but regardless I don't know my story but it's there.

34:45.79

Miranda

Space Travel Wow cannibalism.

35:00.19

Krispy

You know what? That's a great example I wouldn't put like ghost junk sickness has cannibalism as one of the content warnings because that's like a plot point and it's not like a forever thing. Well that is. But anyway yeah.

35:11.54

Miranda

Or is it.

35:12.87

Delphina

Oh.

35:17.65

Krispy

I'm being called out. Oh God I'm just going to switch right to you Delphie you got to answer this question. Ah good.

35:22.18

Delphina

Canceled. Yeah, okay, well, , if your readers are adults. Um, they already know what they can and can't engage with. My advice is to respect the reader. And know that they'll know what they want to take the chance to read. Um, speaking for myself. My tolerance for sensitive topics is going to change based on the specific art styles used based on the amount of time the plot spends on that topic. Based on how the characters react to the topic and sometimes things that are completely out of the creator's control like my mood or whatever else is going on in my life and there's no way to expect a creator to know or cater to that and again just speaking for myself webcomics. Are actually some of the easiest things to read despite what my tolerance levels are they're way easier than movies or Tv in my opinion and there's a couple reasons for that I can reduce the browser size so that the imagery isn't as big emboldened in my face if it's something that's that's very

36:22.85

Krispy

So.

36:38.52

Delphina

Graphic I can skip pages or I can scroll real fast. I can control it. Basically the pace which I would never be able to do in a movie or Tv , and if the subject overstays my tolerance levels I can come back later once the plot has moved on. So. Instead of spending a week with that page I could read it all in one chunk I could also get a friend to read it and tell me what happened because webcomics are free to access so literally anybody willing to give it a read can do so and just fill me in on the relevant plot points and.

37:00.84

Krispy

Yes.

37:18.46

Delphina

Cater their language to whatever I need. So if I want to say is there animal cruelty in this they can say this is what happens and I can move on with that. Um.

37:28.52

Miranda

I was just thinking of animal cruelty and the dogs like dogs dying that gets me every time and I like I don't feel it should be content warned because it's very specific thing.

37:30.69

Krispy

Mm.

37:37.12

Delphina

Yeah, yeah.

37:46.40

Miranda

But if you have something specific like that. There are often resources like there's a website dedicated to telling you if guys are in a show or a movie. So if you have something very specific and you fear that that might.

37:51.20

Delphina

Does the dog die.

38:03.91

Miranda

Come into play. Whatever you're reading or watching there's probably somewhere out there that you can like if, like Delphie said, have a friend read it for you or there's probably somewhere on the internet that you can find if what you're fearing will happen, happens right.

38:13.48

Krispy

Um.

38:19.20

Delphina

I mean I don't know if it is necessarily for webcomics because we're so so yeah, but does the dog die.com is very good when there is literally no way I want to take a chance engaging with that topic. Um.

38:19.33

Krispy

Um.

38:21.50

Miranda

Yeah, yeah, maybe not for webcomics yet. But it's so useful.

38:24.45

Krispy

Yeah.

38:33.16

Krispy

And.

38:36.58

Delphina

But for me also most of the time the things that bother me aren't even listed and aren't even possible to list because it's a tone. It's a mood. It's a style again just how the comic treats that topic. Um.

38:49.69

Krispy

Yeah.

38:53.70

Delphina

Ah, an assault can be treated so many ways and you don't necessarily know how the author is going to go about it unless they signal to you in the tone of their other stuff. So like if it's a kind of dark comic If it's.

38:59.50

Krispy

Yeah.

39:09.84

Delphina

Post-apocalyptic something or another and I've seen other things I've seen kind of violence and then somebody says ok, there's there's assault in this chapter I can kind of get a picture of ok I know about the level I could see a couple ways. This could go.

39:25.32

Krispy

Yes.

39:27.82

Delphina

And that's how I know if it's going to be okay or maybe not okay for me. Um, but it's just you have to respect the reader you have to respect that the reader is an adult and they're making their own choices and if at any time they need to stop reading their comic Guess what. Nobody ever died from stopping reading a webcomic . There are so many other webcomics out there that you can read and if you find that you're yourself that you are a reader who maybe is expecting your. Creators are the creators of the comics you like to to try to cater to you that isn't a creator's Job. Actually, that's your Job. You know yourself, There's no way they can possibly know every single reader that they engage with or that they reach out to and when you need to step away for your.

40:08.51

Krispy

Yes, yep.

40:24.90

Delphina

Own health. That's what you do as an adult that is that is what you do and kids don't always know this yet. They don't always have the tools for this yet, but this is part of being an adult is curating that experience for yourself and walking away when you need that space. So.

40:26.14

Krispy

And.

40:40.53

Krispy

Yeah, and I think that thinking about that I'm looking back at like what you said about respecting the reader and I think that when you give that like power to them for them to decide. That's.

40:41.65

Miranda

And.

40:59.60

Krispy

Way much more respectful than kind of that laundry list that actually gives more anxiety I remember Spock is Spock spocking. I remember speaking to some ah fellow creators and. There was a lot of anxiety when you see such a long list of things that could be potentially hazardous in these stories and a lot of people actually avoid that they say when the list is too long and it looks like there's everything in there from the dictionary I can't engage with that and you know you find out when you look at the comic. You're like oh. Not even prominence. Not even a huge part of it or anything like that and you've lost all these potential readers because you were like over careful or you were overcompensating for that and you know there are ways to feel disrespectful. Um, kind of adding too much and assing which is one of the biggest things is assing that. People don't have agency to have and create yeah curate their own space. There's actually a lot of tools for people to do that that they do go for and they do understand to curate their own spaces and navigate things that may be difficult for them because like. They've lived with it. It's their lives their experiences and they know a stranger on the internet can help but to be presumptuous and curate their spaces like how you think ah should be curated. It's overstepping too I'm going to hit pause.

42:30.80

Miranda

So now I'm here.

42:30.59

Krispy

So you know with fat said kind of touching base on this I Do think that that has definitely been a chicken salad Caesar wrap with that I've been your host Krispy.

42:45.66

Krispy

And you can find my work at ghostjunksickness.com and lunarblight.com

42:56.84

Delphina

I and I have been Dellfina You can find my comic Sombulus at sombulus.Com content warning toasters.

43:07.45

Krispy

Toasters flying toasters right.

43:09.17

Delphina

Yes.

43:28.90

Miranda

I and I'm Miranda you can find my comic on intotheswellcomic.com

43:51.84

Miranda

I Could go for some toast..

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Episode Release Date: January 24, 2024

Episode Credits:

Christina Major (@delphina2k) - she/her, sombulus.com

Renie Jesanis (@renieplayerone) - she/they, kateblast.com

Megan Davison (@star-berrymint) - she/her, sorceryshenanigans.com

Nat (@snackbagstudios) - she/they, Portfolio Snackbag Studios

Q (@cecilieqmt) - she/her, Portfolio Snackbag Studios

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Transcript