Many webcomics work in a serialized fashion, updating with a page a week or batch of pages every so often, and this is something we probably borrowed from newspaper comics and issue format comics. With that, we wanted to talk about what it's like to keep up with our own schedules, expectations with retaining readership, and the process involved with sticking with something that works for you.

Some topics we'll touch on in this episode:

• What was the process for figuring out your update schedule?


• Why do we need update schedules at all? What benefits are there for keeping an update schedule, for both the creator and the reader?


• What is your advice to someone who is just starting out and trying to figure out an update schedule? What kinds of things should factor into your choices? Are there any things you should avoid when deciding an update schedule?

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Episode Release Date: February 25, 2025

Episode Credits:

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

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

Star Prichard (@starfishface) - she/her, thestarfishface.com castoff-comic.com

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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.

Transcription

This transcript is auto generated by our recording software.

00:00.01

Krispy

It means you gotta win the game with the food, I don't know.

00:02.44

Star

but with With the cookie? It was this great webcomics bake-off!

00:04.36

Krispy

yeah but but ah

00:08.42

Krispy

oh Okay, I'll pin it that. Pinning that.

00:12.14

Star

Okay, okay, okay. Bake to win.

00:18.58

Krispy

Hello, and welcome to ScreenTones, where we talk anything and everything web comics. Today, we're going to be talking about update schedules. I'm Krispy, use she-they pronouns, and I make the comics Ghost Junk Sickness and Lunar Blight.

00:33.32

Star

I'm Star, my pronouns are she, her, and I make the webcomic cast off.

00:37.99

Delphina

And I'm Delphina. I use she-her pronouns and I make the webcomic Sambulous.

00:43.47

Krispy

So, many webcomics work in a serialized fashion, updating with a page a week or a batch of pages every so often, and this is something we probably borrowed from newspaper comics and issue format comics. With that, we want to talk about what it's like to keep up with our own schedules, expectations with retaining that readership,

01:01.99

Krispy

And the process involved was sticking with something that actually works for you. It's gonna be kind of all over the place with that because we're unique in your creation. I'm gonna dive right into the first question. ah So, Star, tell me about this. What's the process ah for figuring out your update schedule? Like, how did you come to where you are now updating your webcomic?

01:24.20

Star

So the entire process is not going to just involve Cast-Off, it's also going to involve my previous webcomic, Psy, because Psy was like the weird experimentation webcomic where I was just kind of doing whatever felt right in the moment and then figuring it out and falling on my face and getting back up and being like, okay, that didn't work, let's try something else. And so by the time I started Cast-Off, I kind of already had it figured out.

01:53.32

Star

Um, with my very first webcomic, my first update schedule was, you get the pages when I do them. Um, and so I would sometimes do three pages, like back to back. And so then I'd go a month without updating.

02:09.76

Star

And that's like what happened with my first chapter is, um, I just over three months posted 16 pages, but there was like a two month gap in between two. Like I uploaded a bunch of pages right at the beginning and I took like two months. I didn't post anything. And then I was like, I want to finish this first chapter before I start college. And so then I busted out seven pages in like a week and I was like, ah,

02:34.79

Krispy

We die like men.

02:36.42

Star

we die like men.

02:36.75

Delphina

That's so much.

02:38.12

Star

And so I kind of did that for like my first couple of chapters.

02:38.42

Krispy

but

02:42.54

Star

um And then I started getting comments from my very small readership of like 10 people being like, hey uh when do you actually update because it seems very sporadic and i was like ha ha you see it is sporadic and so eventually you know i got enough comments of people suggesting is like i wish that there was like a regular update schedule for this so i'd know when to check for pages and i was like oh the people have made a request of me i can see how this works And so then what I shifted into for the last year or so of doing that comic was I would update every Saturday and what that meant was on Saturday I would wake up bright and early I would sit down I would draw an entire comic page start to finish and when it was done I would post it on DeviantArt and I would go about the rest of my evening because this usually took me like five or six hours um And that was just my update schedule

02:52.24

Krispy

and who

03:25.73

Krispy

oh my god

03:31.57

Delphina

What?

03:34.10

Krispy

Oh my God.

03:35.69

Delphina

What?

03:39.17

Star

For like a year I did this, because at the school I was going to at the time, i was I was going to SCAD, and we have Fridays off. We don't have classes on Fridays, so those are our studio days.

03:48.62

Krispy

who

03:48.75

Star

And so usually I would do the bulk of my work on Friday, and then Saturday I would usually have like either a club meeting or something, and I would bring my little laptop and my gigantic Intuos tablet ah to the Pokemon Club meetings, and I would just sit in a corner and draw, and I would, you know, take five or six hours and draw an entire comic page in one sitting, and then I would post it to DeviantArt, and then I'd still have all day Sunday to do whatever I wanted. Um, no buffer, we die like men!

04:21.49

Star

um And so, you know, that that worked. It was not great, but it worked. um And then a few years later, when I started cast off, I was like, I've heard tale of this thing called a buffer. And that seems really interesting and enchanting to me. Imagine being able to. Oh, no, because that's what happened is I got in a car accident.

04:41.24

Krispy

What?

04:42.22

Delphina

Oh no!

04:44.25

Star

I forgot about this chunk of the lore. So while I was in college, while I was doing that comic, um I was, you know, posting pages every Saturday just as I finished them. And then at one point, I got into a really bad car accident and I broke my wrist.

04:53.58

Krispy

Uh-huh.

04:56.70

Krispy

Oh my gosh!

04:58.01

Star

um And then I was like, oh, man, I can't make really make pages right now. Maybe I should be making pages ahead of time.

05:08.46

Krispy

like star the fact that that's what you thought of like a real bummer hmm I can't make pages yeah

05:13.24

Star

Ah beans, no listen this is the most on-brand shit for me because like I was also uploading the comic pages to Facebook because this was in like 2012 and so a lot of my college friends would read the comic pages because I was uploading them to Facebook.

05:30.03

Star

And I had so many friends give me grief because yes, I was in a car accident and I broke my wrist, but I didn't break the drawing wrist. I broke the other one.

05:37.58

Krispy

Oh my god!

05:38.81

Star

And so I was back to, and ah had I heard from several friends who were not like super close, but you know, they knew me and they would see me occasionally. I heard from several friends who saw my update that I was in a car accident and broke my wrist.

05:51.63

Star

And they were like, oh my God, I hope Star's okay. I don't know what I'm gonna see her next. And then they see me updating my comic two weeks later and they're like, oh, she's fine.

05:56.49

Krispy

ah

06:01.05

Delphina

Oh my god.

06:02.57

Star

I am not exaggerating, this is 100% true, because what I did... Sorry, brief tangent, you know, I had a cast on my left hand and that's how I do all my keyboard shortcuts. And I was like, well, this is going to be very difficult and less, uh, less efficient if I can't use my keyboard shortcuts.

06:18.34

Star

So I shoved a knitting needle into the wrist of my cast and I used the blunt end of the knitting needle to poke my keyboard to do keyboard shortcuts.

06:29.38

Delphina

Oh my god.

06:30.24

Krispy

oh Please, please, I need this drawn. like

06:34.39

Star

Oh, I think I did draw it and post it somewhere at some point in like a DeviantArt journal entry or something.

06:34.44

Delphina

Okay.

06:39.68

Krispy

up

06:40.69

Delphina

Okay, stupid questions.

06:40.81

Star

This is true. This is real. Yes.

06:43.58

Delphina

Stupid question for you.

06:44.89

Star

Okay.

06:45.57

Delphina

Because you had to work with a cast, did that inspire cast off?

06:50.07

Star

Oh my god.

06:50.18

Krispy

Oh my god.

06:51.79

Star

It didn't, but people have asked me that.

06:56.07

Krispy

Oh my god.

06:57.93

Star

Cuz I was like four or five years before I started cast off I think cuz yeah the car accident was my junior year of college and Then I started cast off like three years that later, I believe so um But yeah, and so I was like, wow, I really wish I could still be uploading my comic, despite the fact that I have been near mortally wounded.

07:18.75

Krispy

ah

07:20.03

Star

I was like, maybe, maybe perhaps perchance making comic pages ahead of time would be nice, and then like posting them on a regular schedule.

07:26.51

Krispy

Mhmm.

07:28.47

Star

And so then a few years later, when I started cast off, I took that in mind. um

07:33.05

Krispy

Oh yeah.

07:33.16

Star

But the update schedule for Castoff, it's like, so Castoff updates every Monday and Friday.

07:37.03

Krispy

Mhmm.

07:37.80

Star

And the reason for that is real boring. um It's because when I first started the comic Monday and Friday were the days that I worked from home.

07:46.69

Krispy

Okay.

07:46.91

Star

And so if anything went wrong with the upload or I noticed a typo or anything in the page or like I got a comment, notice is like, hey, this is an inconsistency. I could be like, ah, beans. And I would really be able to like just jump over to my personal laptop and just fix it on company time in like five minutes and then go back to what I was doing.

08:04.29

Krispy

Mm hmm.

08:04.51

Star

um And then even though I'm not working that job anymore, it just, it works. And so I just never changed it. People are used to it now. So yay.

08:13.57

Krispy

Yeah, yeah, it's it's interesting because like when I think of like the Friday and Monday thing, um that's schedules that we use also for ghost junk.

08:23.22

Star

Mm-hmm.

08:23.28

Krispy

And it's I always find it's like the beginning of the work day or the work week, I guess, I always find that's where they get the most readers because they're just bored because Mondays are usually like the slow days.

08:27.88

Star

and who

08:32.23

Star

Yeah.

08:34.54

Krispy

And then Friday is like, I want to go because it's the weekend. And I don't know, I Fridays are or, or sorry, Mondays are definitely like the most as far as um readership is concerned.

08:45.36

Star

Yeah, I've gotten a lot of comments from people saying the cast off is the best part of their Monday and they look forward to Mondays because their comic is gonna update and I'm like, aw.

08:50.37

Krispy

Yeah. ah

08:54.53

Krispy

Yeah, I definitely see like that sentiment floating around with like you know folks really enjoying that Monday update. So that's definitely something that drives me for that um as well.

09:03.81

Star

yeah

09:06.01

Krispy

I'm going to poke you, Delphi. Tell us about your amazing journey figuring out your update schedule. And I really hope that it didn't include an accident.

09:15.68

Delphina

No, nothing so exciting.

09:17.67

Star

What's your deep lore?

09:19.66

Delphina

Okay, well, when I first started drawing comics, they weren't actually web comics because the internet didn't exist because I'm old. so um So it was like in high school, I had a sketchbook and I would draw during history class and I would draw panels and stuff.

09:38.44

Delphina

And then my readership was my friends who would take my sketchbook and pass it around at lunchtime. Um, and so sometimes those updates were like a page and sometimes they were like a panel because that was, that was what I could draw during history class.

09:54.07

Krispy

Mm hmm.

09:55.38

Delphina

Um, so, um, so that was like, i you know, not your typical schedule sort of thing, but it kind of got me to the idea of like, oh, well, I have this the small readership who wants to see updates on a regular basis and I have to get them to them as fast as possible.

10:15.78

Delphina

And so that was, and I think a lot of us start with that impulse to just kind of like, okay, I did the page. I'm gonna post it. I can't wait. I'm very excited.

10:24.10

Krispy

Yep.

10:25.18

Delphina

um And so that is sustainable until you get into a car accident or something. um so um So yeah, I wanted to try to come up with something a little more planned.

10:38.19

Delphina

I think a lot of the problem too with posting things as soon as you're done with the page is that if you have some other ideas further down the line where you ah you're like, Oh, I want to take that back because I figured out a better way to do this that connects with the next page. You can't really do that if you're posting from page to page. um So i I was working with Nino Mongo, which was the national Like, it's like Nana Remo, um but we made it into manga because we're nerds on LiveJournal. And so I was into this little group um that was doing these every November, try to do 30 pages in 30 days. Ridiculous.

11:22.16

Delphina

um and i i Was just trying to like get as much stuff as I done just get a chunk of it done And what I found was that it did help me to some capacity to figure out. Okay, what is you know in my typical month? How many pages can I do when I'm like really gunning for it like full speed concentrating on nothing else and I Some weeks it was more and some weeks it was less but the average was kind of like three or two um and so that's kind of what helped me when I was ready to make it a Actual webcomic when I was ready to start posting pages online.

12:06.66

Delphina

I'm like, okay I know from my experience that like two pages a week is pretty comfortable for me and um

12:13.20

Krispy

Mm hmm.

12:14.52

Delphina

And a lot of the comics I was reading at the time updated on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so I thought I was going to be cute and different and do Tuesdays and Thursdays. um And i was I was very proud of like having one of the only comics ah updated on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so you'd have something to read. um But yeah, I so I don't get that the Monday people but um but it's worked out pretty well. um There's been a couple times when you know, later on down the line, I had a little more life stuff happening and I bumped it down to like maybe one page a week.

12:54.45

Delphina

um recently I decided maybe okay maybe the last update of the month because like eight pages a month that's pretty darn good for a lot of um of comics so maybe the last update of the month I'm gonna skip that one and do like a little life update so I could talk about things on my patreon or I could talk about

13:03.72

Krispy

Yeah.

13:15.97

Delphina

my kickstarters or anything else, um or just share sketches, just just have that kind of free space. And that seemed to to work out for me and gave me a little bit of a break. like It's planned and it's a plan like rest day and it's also something like that I can i can use as kind of a wild card when I have other things going on. So that's the update schedule I'm doing now. um Might adjust a little more that I have a busier job at this point, but we'll see.

13:54.89

Krispy

Yeah, yeah, I think it's important to like gauge with like what works with you as like creators too. And I think like the three of us in this conversation are really like we're obsessed with comics, guys, like we really like comics.

14:10.41

Krispy

So I think it's a it comes to show like or or goes to show like, you know, having like an accident and just being like, guys, I still got to get this comic out because it's possessing me.

14:10.44

Delphina

Really?

14:14.19

Star

What? yeah

14:25.10

Krispy

and figuring out like doing it the 30 pages a month kind of thing as a challenge it that really shaped yourself as a creator and it's funny Delphi you're talking about like um doing comics before it reminded me of the old days um I actually used to run ah so I'm assuming you guys know of like Captain Underpants and ah the characters in there had their own fan comics of Captain Underpants and they would staple it

14:46.12

Star

Oh yeah.

14:52.10

Krispy

and send it around the school. So of course I used to read Captain Underpants and I love Kirby, still do, and me and my friend had our own comics of Kirby in which we would draw the whole thing. It would be folded so I would draw it and fold it and then I would make a cover and we'd do it um like manga read style too.

15:13.19

Krispy

so Not left to right but right to left because of course.

15:16.69

Delphina

Of course!

15:16.77

Star

Okay.

15:17.08

Krispy

ah Yeah, and like I would pass it around like we'd have like this comic book bound. um And it would pass around like you know our class and stuff like that with whoever was interested in reading sassy Kirby stories.

15:31.49

Krispy

I think I do still have one copy. I will try to find it. But anyway, um and it's true, like, you know, I'm so excited about it. And it was just like, I need to just get it out. um My standard for the time was a lot of manga, and it still kind of is, which is its own kind of mixed bag. um But that fed a lot into how we approached a lot of our other stuff. So um as the years go by, like, I'm still drawing comics, I never stopped. um You know, I did the proto version of I'm sick this by myself and very much like stars like okay today is gonna be a comic day I'm gonna draw the whole thing in one day and then I'm just gonna upload it to deviator and like that was the process of that there was just like no no no man's land it it happened when it did thing

16:20.43

Krispy

um And then kind of moving forward, we did, I started working together specifically with Space, ah who I work with now, ah to do the other comics that I do.

16:31.05

Krispy

And we did a fan comic for TF2. And we developed a schedule for that. um So we did have a day in which we did upload and people were like, oh, okay, like, you know, I'm going to read this silly comic here.

16:41.08

Star

Mm-hm.

16:42.39

Krispy

um And I think that we just got that just because people were like, when can I anticipate it and like that's important we'll talk about that um in the next question but the anticipation is something that you kind of want to focus on um if you want to retain a lot of that stuff uh as far as readers is concerned um but anyway we did that but then we got to ghost junk uh we were like oh we're gonna do our own original thing we're gonna get into this and it's gonna be great um i don't understand our schedule of updates um

17:14.32

Krispy

Luckily, um because I have access to Tumbler's archive system, we can see back in the day, so 2014, when we kind of started, out we used to do this thing, and I'm just going to read it from our update posts, is that We want to keep our updates in one big dump.

17:35.00

Krispy

for ah I love that we said big dump, but anyway, but one big dump for the sake of immersion. But we have decided now that the first three Mondays of each month will update one page and then the rest of the 20 to 30 pages on the fourth Monday.

17:49.78

Krispy

I'm like, what is the schedule?

17:50.93

Delphina

What?

17:52.71

Star

What does that mean?

17:55.32

Delphina

What is the logic? It's so confusing.

17:57.66

Krispy

I, so, and I'm looking again, and it's we update, then we changed our schedule. ah you get ah Get excited for this one. It says we update one to two pages every Monday until the end of the month will we wea update the rest of the 20 to 30 pages. Like,

18:17.83

Krispy

And we kept up with it. i I am very proud in the fact that throughout all of these years, we have never missed a single update of Goshuk sickness, like at all. It's always been pre-scheduled. If we run into life problems, it's it's all there. The buffer oings existed. Now, I will say there's two of us. So, you know, don't feel bad about being like, er. But buffer is important for a lot of those reasons. Again, we'll talk about that later.

18:44.58

Krispy

Um, but ah I mean, we eventually figured it out that that was a little crazy.

18:50.29

Star

Yeah, a little bit.

18:51.40

Krispy

like And we were going to college at that time. I don't know where the time happened for us to be doing that we were working college, I don't know. Um, but it happened and a lot of our standards were the manga thing we were like oh but you know people get full chapters and they're so immersed and so a lot of the pacing um and everything is attuned to that which i don't know if i regret or i'm still kind of in love with i have no idea uh still to this day um but very weird update schedule um

19:25.36

Krispy

we eventually found it out. We figured it out when we were like, oh, there's other people around here and they aren't doing weird things like us.

19:32.33

Star

and so

19:32.65

Krispy

That's hmm. To that point, I'm going to ask who you star.

19:38.22

Star

Mm.

19:38.72

Krispy

um Why do we need schedules at all to update our stuff? Like, what's the benefits um for keeping an update schedule, like both for the creator and the reader?

19:48.25

Star

So I think there's definitely benefits for both creator and reader. For readers, like I said, I started maintaining up maintaining an update schedule because my reader specifically asked me, hey, I want to know when I can check back on this comic and know that there will be an update posted. um And like, I totally get that, you know, it's like a lot of webcomics these days I follow, I just like,

20:11.50

Star

wait for their social media posts. And then I'm like, okay, there you are.

20:13.80

Krispy

Yeah.

20:15.45

Star

um But sometimes I end up missing them. And so with a lot of comics, it's really good to you know just know inherently, it's like, oh, it's this day of the week. That means there will be a new update for this thing. And I know that my readers appreciate it because I like i schedule my ah comic updates well in advance.

20:31.52

Star

And it's gotten to the point where my readers do a countdown and on Discord. They do a countdown they're like they'll start they'll start like posting excitedly like 12 hours before the page goes up because I post the new pages on like Midnight every like every Monday and Friday and they're like, oh my god, you guys soon they'll start posting soon gifts in the chat like the Thursday morning and they'll be like guys soon and then that evolved into being like soup and they're like guys it's soup time

20:47.35

Krispy

Oh my god.

20:48.37

Delphina

Wow!

21:08.51

Star

It's like, gonna get a comic soon. And I'm like, y'all do this every like twice a week y'all do this. And so you know, it's like it's building hype, especially like, right now they've been very gung ho about it because there's been a lot of like lore and stuff dropped in the comic that's like answering questions that were raised.

21:17.58

Krispy

Yeah.

21:26.49

Star

and years ago in the comic almost and so it's like they're finally getting those lore drops and so people have been very excited but they know inherently it's on a schedule it's regular it is consistent a new page will be out at this time every single week and they know um

21:36.57

Krispy

Yeah.

21:44.32

Star

And so I think that they definitely value that. And for me, I also value that because, okay, so here's the thing. You guys might relate to this. Do you ever look at your to-do list and be like, oh, well, I could just work.

21:59.96

Star

It's like, listen, I've already done all of the things I need to do this week, but I have so many more things on my to-do list. I could just do those now and then not worry about them later.

22:09.84

Krispy

Mm-hmm.

22:11.14

Delphina

Yes.

22:11.16

Star

And then you you work too hard and you burn yourself out That was me for a long time when I first started doing um Like full-time freelance.

22:11.28

Krispy

Yup.

22:14.76

Krispy

Yes. Oh my god, yes.

22:24.34

Star

I kind of had to figure this out because you know I would do I update two pages a week and so I would finish my two pages a week but then I'd be like, oh I Oh, so no, that's not exactly what happened.

22:35.36

Star

So I was testing for a while with like batch doing pages. So I would do like eight pages at a time. That's like an entire month's worth of cast off updates. And I would sketch them all at the same time.

22:46.08

Star

And then I would ink all of them. And then I would color all of them. And I would do with this in like a big batch. um But that batch would take me like three weeks to finish on top of all my other junk that I had to be doing.

22:57.07

Star

um And so what would happen was I would know that I had a batch of pages that were incomplete. And as long as I had a batch of pages that were incomplete, I was like, I can't work on anything else.

23:09.51

Star

I have cast off pages. I need to finish.

23:11.00

Krispy

Yep.

23:11.38

Star

I need to do this. I need to sit down and do this. And so I just like didn't draw for fun for like two years.

23:16.71

Krispy

Yeah. Yeah.

23:18.20

Star

Um, because, and like, I'd finished my batch and I'd have like three days before I'd have to start the next one.

23:21.96

Krispy

Mm hmm.

23:24.81

Star

And that was really unhealthy. And so now what I do is I still work in batches, but I do two, but I draw two pages a week, and then I post two pages a week. I'm drawing like pretty far ahead. So like, um' I'll be drawing page 10, but the website is getting page like two and three that week. And so I'm pretty far ahead, but I'm like, once I have finished my two pages I need for this week, I don't have to think about the comic anymore this week.

23:51.10

Krispy

yeah

23:52.18

Star

And so usually Mondays and Tuesdays are my comic days. So like Monday I'll sketch and probably ink and maybe flat if I have time, depending on how complicated the pages are.

24:02.69

Star

And then Tuesday is just like finished doing the coloring, doing all the shading and exporting everything. But then the rest of the week my is like, okay, you're done with your pages for this week. Your comic workload is done.

24:14.12

Star

And you don't have to think about the comic again until next Monday. Go do something else.

24:19.16

Krispy

Yep.

24:19.38

Star

And so that has generally, been much better for my mental health because I'm not constantly dealing with this anvil shaped like a webcomic hanging over my head constantly and just me constantly being freaked out about the anvil that's gonna fall on me if I'm not working constantly.

24:35.89

Krispy

Yeah. Yeah. No, I totally understand getting sucked into the wormhole of like the work brain. Like, um, I, and it's like you, when you have like, it's, it's there and and you're just like, I could just do it.

24:49.51

Krispy

Like I could just, it's, yeah, I could just work on it.

24:50.06

Star

just work on it, yeah.

24:51.96

Krispy

Like I wanted, well, we wanted to finish Ghost Junk like this year and I, in 2024, I guess I'll just say that. Um, and I inked over, like, I think it was like 60 some pages in one month.

25:06.84

Krispy

And I was like, I just wanted to get it done.

25:07.58

Star

Oh my god!

25:10.57

Krispy

I'm never going to do that again. Just as like, you know, I don't do that was a lot. That was a lot. I stayed up till five, like most nights, like

25:16.32

Star

Oh my god! and

25:19.43

Krispy

don't do that, that's not healthy. um But I understand getting lost in the sauce, um especially for that. So we need breaks and we need breaks for ourselves, which is definitely why it's important for the creator and the reader to know.

25:32.57

Krispy

um ah I do want to poke you Delphi, like come on in, the water is fine.

25:32.98

Star

Mmhmm.

25:37.74

Krispy

um You know, why do we need update schedules and talk about the benefits and, you know,

25:44.26

Delphina

Yeah. So like 20 years ago, I would have said like, do you need an update schedule for your readers? Absolutely. Because they've got little bookmark folders for every day of the week and they're going through them and they're checking them and and you need to make sure something is there because they'll be sad if they do that too many times and they don't see something there.

26:06.17

Krispy

Yeah.

26:07.24

Delphina

10 years ago, I would have said, Hmm, okay. Well, there's social media now. And sometimes yeah you'll catch people's updates there. So it's, it's still important, but it's not as important. You can still you can still kind of follow them and you'll you'll see when they post and it'll be fine. Today.

26:28.20

Delphina

I don't know because social media has kind of exploded a lot of the platforms that used to be very stable or not so much anymore.

26:29.42

Krispy

Oh!

26:37.96

Delphina

um There's a lot of platforms now that are more algorithm based and things are kind of shuffled around and people don't see your social media posts sometimes and they won't know that you're updating because that's the platform's fault basically.

26:54.72

Delphina

um So I think I've come back around to saying, yeah, it's pretty important. It's pretty important for your readers to know that you're updating on this day a week and that day a week. I wouldn't try to make it very complicated. I wouldn't try to say, well, you know, every other.

27:13.98

Delphina

day, we're posting five pages, but then we're posting the other things.

27:14.21

Star

and you

27:16.27

Krispy

yeah

27:19.02

Delphina

um I like a simple day of the week that I can just say, okay, um this is my day, I'm going to go to the thing.

27:22.45

Krispy

Yeah. who

27:26.86

Delphina

I don't even know that I i like daily updates there's there's some comics that update daily and that seems like a lot in this day and age to like check the same site every day um But there's there's some people who do it and depending on the comic style it might work for you um But I like once or twice a week.

27:33.62

Krispy

Yeah.

27:34.48

Star

Ugh.

27:36.07

Krispy

Mm-hmm.

27:39.88

Star

Yeah.

27:48.61

Delphina

I think that's that's pretty solid. It's respectful of the readers time and And I feel like just it keeps your story moving if you're doing a long form story that it's important for people to know what's going on because people forget.

28:06.19

Delphina

Webcomic time is a thing and people don't necessarily remember week to week what happened. So if you're taking very long breaks are very sporadic schedule things um that might not work out so well so there is definitely a benefit in keeping your readers engaged um when you have that regular update schedule of ah Once a week every other week do something like that or or planning out your chunks if you do something sort of things and i definitely agree about the psychological aspect as a creator.

28:32.56

Krispy

Mmhmm. Mmhmm.

28:44.57

Delphina

um It's just very easy to feel like you're doing too much or you're not doing enough um unless you have a kind of objective way of looking at your progress. And one of those ways is your update schedule. You can say, I have posted two pages this week.

29:05.81

Delphina

that I have met the requirement, this is an objective thing. So whatever I'm feeling in my brain about not doing enough or doing too much, there is a definite measurement that I can see, okay, I've met my quota or I have not. And now if you're a workaholic, you can kind of take a break or if you're not,

29:27.45

Delphina

um, if you're not as devoted or you're, you're feeling like, Oh yeah, i'm I'm done. Like, like maybe you need to evaluate that, I guess. Um, but yeah, I feel like there is a lot of benefit for creators. Um, just on that emotional and psychological level to, to make sure that you're It's just a long game.

29:54.23

Delphina

And especially when you're you're doing this so long, it's um it's a little it's nice to have that regularity, I want to say.

29:54.59

Krispy

he

30:04.06

Krispy

Yeah, yeah.

30:04.61

Star

Marathon, not a sprint.

30:06.10

Krispy

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And you know, it's interesting. um And this is gonna be our next question. So I'm just gonna kind of preface this a lot. I hang out in the ScreenTones discord a lot because I am so nosy I'm so nosy. Like when people are like, I'm going to start my webcomic or my webcomic is this or I have some, you know, blah, blah, blah. like I like giving feedback and critique and stuff like that. I'm very passionate about that. So I'm just like, I'm so nosy. I'm like a little, little spider in the corner and I have my notebook. I don't know.

30:34.89

Krispy

um So people always talk about like how many pages or they usually say how many panels is a good update and I'm like that is impossible to just kind of say like you know as far as like pacing is a huge thing guys and we all have different comics and stories and stuff like that so like

30:45.70

Star

Yeah.

30:53.98

Krispy

You can't just be like, oh yeah, just always aim for 30 or just always aim for 40 or whatever. the The minimum kind of thing is ah that they assume is a minimum. Because one thing that I just want to point out in this episode is that I don't think that there is one way to do anything.

31:10.49

Krispy

these are just ways that like all of us have found out how to kind of have a healthy relationship with our comics because I think that's like key as far as creating webcomics is concerned is just being healthy about it and like moving the story forward because we want the project to be finished and we're having fun doing it so that's the biggest thing so when you start to ask those questions like How many panels should I do? how many what like What is a good update? What does a good update look like? It's like, well, what does it look like to you? You are, I'm hoping, ah reading web comics as well. And what's something that you enjoyed or aspire to? So always reflect on that and be like, do I see myself doing this? Or you know what do I do to make it work for um my kind of

31:56.21

Krispy

life schedule. um And with that, um going after you star, ah what is your advice for someone who is just starting out and trying to figure out like an update schedule? So like, what kind of factors ah like kind of go into these choices? And are things that you should avoid? Like, let's talk about it.

32:15.87

Star

Yeah, so I mean, I was i was musing about this with ah my stream viewers a few weeks ago in that it's easy to give advice. It's hard to give specific advice because everybody's so different and everyone's circumstances are so different, right?

32:26.74

Krispy

yes

32:30.95

Star

And so honestly, I feel like the best way for people to figure out what their own update schedule should be is to just Try a couple of different things. When you're first starting out like your very first comic, it's gonna be like that first pancake.

32:44.38

Krispy

Yes. Yeah.

32:46.83

Star

It's not gonna be perfect, it might it might be a little bit messy, but it's it's it's it's all about the learning experience, right?

32:53.92

Krispy

yeah

32:54.68

Star

You stumble, you fall, you learn how to get back up, and then you just keep going. And that's how all of us have learned how to do this, is a lot of stumbling and a lot of falling, and then getting up and being like, okay, there's a rock in the road there, don't step on that, because you'll fall over again. um And so honestly, I think my best advice for figuring out an update schedule, one, figure out how much you can commit to each week. And so what my advice has been for a couple years is take just like a week and work on the comic just whenever you have time.

33:29.11

Star

Just like take an entire week and just like focus on just the comic in all of your free time.

33:29.14

Krispy

Mm hmm.

33:35.29

Star

And I promise it's going to go somewhere. It's not going to be an unhealthy thing, but it's just like work is like, what is your maximum output? Look at your maximum output output, subtract one page from it. That's a good standard, I think, generally. So it's like me, I can do three pages a week if I have to.

33:55.51

Star

but I don't want to be working at maximum output constantly because that's how you get burnout.

33:59.72

Krispy

Yep.

34:01.36

Star

And so you take that maximum output and you subtract like 50 to like 30 to 50% from it. And then that's how much you can commit to on a regular basis every week, generally.

34:14.86

Star

um And so I can, if I have to, I can make three pages a week, two pages a week is far more doable. So that's what I stick with. Back when I was first starting and drawing my pages took me a lot longer because I was just slower in general, a page would take me like 12 hours. And so I only updated once a week because that's all I could do. That's all I had time for. And so for me, it's just like figure out how much you can commit to each week but don't like constantly be stressing yourself out.

34:46.16

Star

Don't keep yourself at maximum output at all times because that is how you burn out and start hating comics and that's not what you want to do.

34:46.91

Krispy

Yep.

34:52.26

Krispy

Yep, yep.

34:53.37

Star

um But yeah, and then also it's just like just test out a couple of different things. Like if you're going for more of like a webtoon style format and you're doing like number of panels per week, which I don't know, maybe this is my boomer moment, but I could never wrap my head around it because I've never formatted pages like that because I'm always thinking about like comics for print and stuff.

35:14.97

Krispy

Mm hmm.

35:15.42

Star

um But just like. Test it out. See what you can do. See what you can commit to. Try a couple different things. See what you like best. See what your audience appreciates more. And just don't be afraid to experiment and have like ah just get your fingers dirty a little bit. Just kind of like dig around. See what you can figure out. It's like don't be afraid to experiment.

35:41.28

Krispy

Yeah.

35:41.96

Star

You know? And it's just like, I feel like a lot of people are scared to experiment, but just like, don't be. You're not officially, like, published or anything. There's no one holding you to a certain amount. It's just finding what works for you is very important, but the only way you're going to find that is by testing the waters and testing a bunch of different things until you settle on what you are good with. Because like my first webcomic I did for three years, that whole cycle that I said where it's like I uploaded a bunch of pages at once and then I slowly shifted into an update schedule. And then that, that took three years to figure out.

36:16.65

Krispy

Yeah. Yeah.

36:18.17

Star

Because that's how long I did my first comic for. And so it's like, don't be afraid to just like, look at something that's not working and figure out how to fix it.

36:25.33

Krispy

Yep.

36:27.38

Star

ah You don't have to have all this perfectly figured out when you first start.

36:32.45

Krispy

Yeah, like a lot of folks are like afraid of that failure that people are really looking at them, and I get it. like Especially in this time of era, social media has a lot of eyeballs on people.

36:43.04

Krispy

and like you know But you guys also don't realize that like and social media is presenting a lot of the wins on people.

36:50.47

Star

Mmhmm.

36:51.02

Krispy

like We're not seeing the failures of like ah you know, what happens behind the scenes. It's something you really need to reflect on ah when creating a lot of this stuff. And like, I always say, like, you know, there's a lot of folks that kind of look over their shoulders at other people's homework and be like, well, I got to do it like that.

37:07.57

Krispy

I got to do it like that. It's like you don't because you're going to be drawing different. Your output is going to be different from the person over there. You can get inspired by how they're doing it, what they're doing. um Talk about their process.

37:18.68

Krispy

That is very important. Get nosy about how they do it. um and because like sart mentioned like it took her three years to figure that out and it is a process um you're not going to be like okay i'm going to start my webcomic bam and then everything just falls into place like i know people get stuck in pre-production hell because they're afraid to just see what it's like to have that schedule in there um but you do just have to go in and be like how what am i what's the actual week look like like what does it look like when i'm actually making comics

37:50.32

Star

Mmm-hmm-hmm-hmm. Very much, yeah.

37:52.65

Delphina

Yeah, I think that's important to like try to figure out okay, here's the ideal like here's here's what I look like.

37:59.34

Krispy

You out.

38:00.58

Delphina

But also, I feel like there's a lot of emphasis placed on the launch, right?

38:03.80

Krispy

Yes.

38:06.52

Delphina

Whenever I talk to anybody who's thinking about starting a comic, they're like, I want to do a big launch, I want to have everything figured out I want to have my ducks in a row I want to look professional I felt like that too it was it was just very much like oh gosh you know it's gotta to be good from the very first page or else things will be bad. And that is so not the case with comics, like web comics are super forgiving. Like a lot of times, ah people won't be hooked from page one or page two, it's gonna take them 50 pages, it's gonna take them 100 pages, like, you got time, you've got so much time to figure things out. So absolutely, I 100% agree with star just figure things out. Don't be afraid of looking a little goofy about like,

38:55.23

Delphina

You know what, I tried updating four days a week, and yeah that was not the right call. So this month, we're going to try something else. And um nobody's looking at you were pointing and laughing and saying, Oh, my gosh, you didn't know that you couldn't update four times a week. Like, no, it's fine. And like,

39:15.74

Delphina

you're gonna keep making pages, you're gonna have more readers coming in who never even saw that weird like transitional phase. So like, don't be afraid of it. It's perfectly necessary. um We've all done it. And just don't don't shy away from that because I think that part's kind of fun too.

39:35.08

Star

Mm hmm.

39:36.96

Krispy

Yeah, but that's that's just the thing. like i but that The delicious part, I'm using delicious here, um a about webcomics is the fact that we are our own masters, and we can do whatever we want, like update-wise, story-wise, upload-wise. We have a great resource on the ScreenTones blog on Tumblr that has like an awesome list of breakdowns of where to post your webcomic. And there's a lot of options. There are so many options that, you know, I think a lot of folks don't realize. So, you know, we do have a lot of freedom there. And why should you kind of change yourself to expectations kind of

40:16.34

Krispy

um enforced in your own standards like when reflecting on like webtoons or anything like that because like I know that's a big part of the conversation um when I talk to like younger creators they're like well I have to be producing the amount of panels that like original series that get paid to do and I'm like please don't please stop you are please don't that's it I agreed

40:36.90

Delphina

I don't even think they should be doing that, but that's my own personal opinion.

40:40.50

Krispy

Yeah, oh, ah yeah, it's just, again, I think a biggest like our biggest um underlying in this episode is iss avoiding burnout, being sustainable, I think is just, that's key to me. um You know, i I do, this is just a personal brag about like, you know, ah never missing an update for ghost drunk sickness, just because we were like,

41:06.40

Krispy

We want to be on the ball with our life, kind of things, the potential happenings in our life and the foo boy oh boy that a lot of things happen in 2024, and just doing a lot of things for our own kind of peace of mind, too.

41:21.60

Krispy

um that helps prevent burnout, it makes the story goes forward in a way that like you know we can keep up with the momentum, but like our journey is not going to be the same as somebody else either, like, you know, don't look at that and be like oh well I should be doing that because No, ah it's just not going to work for everybody, not to mention that like everybody has different stories, genres, characters and stuff like that. Everything's just not going to translate one to one ah with what you even receive to as far as like readership and retention or anything like that.

41:57.33

Krispy

so I think the biggest thing that I want folks to walk away with when listening to this episode is just that sustainability for themselves as a creator. um That's my biggest point.

42:10.88

Star

Mm hmm.

42:11.26

Delphina

Yeah, for sure. And I think there's nothing wrong with like, under promising and over delivering, right? Like if you find out that like, Oh, I'm doing one page a week, but like, now I've got all this buffer and like, jeez, like this is this is wild.

42:17.74

Krispy

Yeah.

42:27.13

Delphina

I mean, you can like, upgrade that at any time to say, Hey, guess what, we're doing two pages a week now. And that would be great. But also you can just hang on to it. You could hoard it like a little you know, dragon and you can say like, you know what, I'm saving this because I don't know if I get a different job or I have some very family emergencies or anything like that.

42:47.17

Krispy

yeah

42:51.21

Delphina

That can throw you off and you might not draw up for like the next month or something like that. so um I know a lot of us like to feel like, well, I can do it. I can do that no matter what.

43:02.18

Delphina

And like, can you though, can you do it for five years? Can you do it for 10 years? Because that's the kind of commitment you're typically looking at for web comics.

43:08.90

Krispy

Yeah. Mhmm.

43:09.41

Star

Mm-hmm.

43:10.80

Delphina

So you know what? I think you need to give yourself a little bit of leeway here.

43:16.36

Star

What happens if you get hit by a truck?

43:19.01

Krispy

Exactly! And then you're transported to another world and then you don't have your supplies!

43:23.11

Star

But you know what? Your comic can keep updating, and that's the important thing.

43:30.77

Delphina

There's an anime somewhere in here where you can only come back to your, you're reincarnated into your webcomic because you got hit by truck coon.

43:40.34

Star

Oh man, I wish that's what happened.

43:40.60

Krispy

it

43:42.03

Star

Nah, I just got a broken wrist and a bunch of chipped teeth and an eye patch.

43:45.09

Delphina

bo

43:45.56

Krispy

ah

43:46.38

Star

That just sucked.

43:48.80

Krispy

Unglamorous truck, please transport me to a fun world.

43:50.97

Star

like i got I got a friend to make me a button that's that I pinned to my cast and said, you should see the other guy.

43:58.21

Krispy

Oh my gosh!

44:02.36

Delphina

The other guy is my webcomic that I am drawing with a crochet needle.

44:04.01

Star

Yeah! I'll beat the shit out of him. Yeah! um It pushes up glasses. Crochet is with hooks. These were knitting needles.

44:14.63

Star

Excuse you!

44:16.43

Delphina

I apologize.

44:16.59

Krispy

ah ah This will be remembered.

44:19.29

Star

This was during my knitting arc where I learned how to knit squares and rectangles and then stopped.

44:26.37

Krispy

But it came in handy for the webcomic, so, you know, redemption arc.

44:27.85

Star

Yeah! I couldn't use my fingies and so I literally just shoved a knitting needle into- because like the ends of the knitting needle are like wider and they have like a little- like a dot or like a bead of wood on the end and so that it's- it's basically a finger and so you just like shove it into your wrist and you just go eh eh to do your keyboard shortcuts because also another thing was I was not just doing this in the privacy of my own home I had to do this during art school animation classes

44:56.49

Krispy

Oh my god.

44:56.59

Delphina

What?

44:56.87

Star

because we were doing, I had an animation final do. This happened right before midterms. And I, you can't operate Maya unless you can do like keyboard shortcuts with your other hand. And so I had a system.

45:12.77

Krispy

ah I need this.

45:13.78

Delphina

Star!

45:15.09

Krispy

I need this drawing. You need to find it.

45:17.29

Star

ae i have I have been searching, I think it was on my Facebook.

45:17.46

Krispy

Go into your deviantart.

45:21.00

Star

They got hacked and deleted a few months ago.

45:23.07

Krispy

Oh, well, we need a new drawing now.

45:24.18

Delphina

Oh.

45:24.55

Star

And so I know it's like I know I did art of this somewhere and I may have posted it on Tumblr, but it was on my old blog that I deleted a while back because it was cringe. And so I was like, damn, this might have been one of the posts I didn't archive.

45:38.47

Star

Shit.

45:39.14

Krispy

Oh, we'll get it. We'll get it.

45:41.71

Star

We'll get it.

45:41.90

Krispy

It'll come back. it

45:43.09

Star

I'll go digging through my old files just for y'all.

45:46.79

Krispy

I would appreciate that. I feel like I'm gonna make that the thumb of this episode too.

45:51.33

Star

Oh, golly, I can find it.

45:52.40

Krispy

Oh, I'm gonna hit pause.

45:57.05

Krispy

Well, honestly, I feel um invigorated to work on my webcomic with my update schedule now. um You know, with Lunar Blight, I will but mention um we're only doing one page a week because the pages are so detailed. um I ink it all traditionally, so it takes me such a long time to do any of that. So I do all the spot flags and I'm just like painting it. And I'm just like, you know, there is a fill tool on digital art.

46:23.66

Krispy

But man, is this relaxing.

46:25.85

Star

You gotta get in the zone!

46:28.20

Krispy

Exactly.

46:28.59

Delphina

That's valid.

46:29.98

Krispy

I've got to have fun with making web comics. And with that, I think that is a chicken salad Caesar wrap with this episode. um I've been your host, Krispy.

46:41.95

Krispy

And you can find my web comics at Goshen sickness.com and lunar blight.com.

46:48.82

Star

And I've been Star the whole time. And you can find my comic at castoff-comic dot.com.

46:59.87

Delphina

And I've been Delphina also the whole time, and you can find my webcomic Sombulus at sombulus dot.com.

47:08.05

Krispy

Heck yes! Time to go get some webcomics updated!

47:13.20

Star

Well, mine's on hiatus right now.

47:13.41

Delphina

Yeah.

47:14.81

Krispy

Oh.

47:15.59

Star

Yep.

47:18.06

Krispy

honestly that would be amazing place to cut just oh

47:18.24

Delphina

hot Oops. whoop

47:22.48

Star

Perfectly timed edits.

47:42.41

Krispy

Honestly, that would be an amazing place to cut. Just, oh!