Aspects in a Comic

Well, when you began your comic there is usually a first aspect that is considered. Then you develope on that to eventually create the comic. So, which aspect did you begin on?

There are many things that people begin before their comic actually is posted. It can be the characters that are considered, the humor, or the story. There are many other apsects that you might have started with then.

I've pulled a bit from focusing on characters (much to the pleasure of my roommates) and a bit from the humor end (at least I like to think so), depending on which comic of mine you're looking at.

However, I recently started working on a side project (still not sure when I'm going to start posting it). This one's definitly story driven, and I'm leaning strongly towards the serious side. It's the first comic that I've worked on that I was sure what was going to happen more than a week in advance.

Originally, it started out as a random thought that popped into my head at work a little over a year ago. I've been playing with it ever since, until I've become really pumped to get going on it. Looking back, it's really neat to see how far a single idea can be carried.

Characters. But I started when I was very young, so my character developments were all in the form of my childish drawings and stories, not planning specifically for my strip.

I started with a specific alien theme and developed it from there.
It's also about oddities. Things that don't happen much. This is the reason for the title. Things that occur once in a Blue Moon.
Along the way I have tried to keep a main story going throughout the entire strip and intentionally straying from it from time to time.

i started mine just to tell a story.

i really wanted to try and make a comic with well develuped characters, a good story and all that, but NOT resorting to my usual type of humor, which many would find offensive. ...such as laughing about that old Mr. Bucket toy...where you put your balls in his mouth...
those were the days...

but yeah, anyhow, i think i'm doing pretty good. i'm past my first personal milestone- i can't bring myself to do anything in the comic that is gross or disgusting. i'm still trying to get used to a new joke style, though.

I tend to start with a story & characters (can't have one without the other ^^), and go from there. In articide the story was all planned out in it's entirety from the beginning, and the emphasis was mainly on anything and everything that's needed, ie humour, people getting cut in half, etc...whatever's necessary. Great Vagueness emphasises less of the humour, more of the spaceships and exploding stuff and artwork. Crosswired is kinda different, and started with the interface and narrative form before the stories/characters were developed at all. I have different approaches for all the comics, depending on how funny/violent/stupid I'm feeling at the time. :) I'm not feeling particularly funny at the moment, and I want to draw more techically & work on my lineart, so I just changed comic. XD

And yeah, I will be getting back to articide...Zspade...maybe soon, depending on how things go. Dunno. :/ It was a lot of work when I didn't have much time, 's why I stopped for a while. :)

mood, i suppose. i didn't have a clue as to what plot or setting or characters i wanted to do. i just had an idea as to how i wanted the durned thing to feel like... and what music to set it to:). after that, the characters and plot came, but were all tailored to fit the mood.

Women. Mmmm.

Well, I have the chacters plotted out in my mind. (I know how they'd react to any given situation. That's a main key to really knowing your own characters, simplistic in nature or complicated). Then, I move on with the story by deciding how that certain character would respond to the situation I put them in. It's a good system :).

My strip's different each week, so what inspires me varies. Very often I'll get a certain visual motif in mind that I want to explore, and I find a narrative that fits with it. Sometimes I'll draw a whole strip first, and then go back to decide what's going on. Other times I'll come up with a story hook and try to find a visual that plays off of that.

Awesome thread topic. It's really cool to read others' approaches.

My biggest project in development is probably the most interesting. It actually started off as an idea for a role-playing rules system that was based on improvisational storytelling and folk archetypes rather than numbers and dice. I got more involved with the setting (a mythical rural America) and less involved with the game mechanics. Eventually I realized I had a story to tell in this world, and when I read "[into the strenuous briefness]" by E. E. Cummings, I had a title and a better idea at what I was trying to communicate. From there it's mostly been a matter of research and writing, writing, and writing.

I have another project that I'm working on mostly to see whether or not I'll be capable of drawing and committing to the above. It started off as a stray thought about why a certain type of erotica is always written with a male main character when it could work the other way too. Funny though, I scrapped that part of the project altogether and there isn't even any sex in the last draft.

My comic is, and always has been, about the concept and environment.

The characters were secondary. They developed on their own. The art and "story" develop on their own. But I've always planned and controlled the Repository.

Depends on what you're doing.

My typical rule for writing in general is that PLOT is paramount. But, characters generally make the plot, so it's sort of the odd combination of those two that I'd say I like to start with. I think if you pick the right character, the character IS the plot.

It's all about the funnies, baby. Which is probably why my characters are about as deep as a spoon.

I've set up several rules in my comic, like stuff that can and can't happen in the daft little world of 11.975. Despite that, things have worked out rather well. My main character, Deco, is excellent in that regard. All I have to do is put her in any setting and she basically writes herself. My comic is coming to the point where hopefully I don't have to plan anything.

Ethane

I've set up several rules in my comic, like stuff that can and can't happen in the daft little world of 11.975. Despite that, things have worked out rather well. My main character, Deco, is excellent in that regard. All I have to do is put her in any setting and she basically writes herself. My comic is coming to the point where hopefully I don't have to plan anything.

You're talking about world limits. I think most good comics have them, even in the world of Spaztic Plastic where a level of randomness is bound to happen. And I totally know what you mean about having a character that just responds to the environments you put him/her in.... that means you REALLY know your character.