Thread "The Story of my Finally Over Webcomic and What's Ahead!" in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 10:09PM, Sep. 26, 2016

When I started Powell and Derry five years ago I was in fifth grade. Elementary school. And now I'm taking concurrent enrollment classes at community college. It's been quite a journey I can tell you. When I uploaded my first comic back in September of 2011 I had just barely found out what a webcomic was. I checked out a book about webcomics, not knowing what they were, at the library. The book was by Dave Kellot, Scott Kurtz, Brad Geiger, and somebody else. I don't really remember what it was called but I think it might have just been called "webcomics" or something. I checked it out, read it, and immediately wanted to make my own webcomic. In the book they had a list of places like here were you could upload your comics for free and this is one they recommended. So I made a comic about two owls. Some of the earliest pages of Powell and Derry were based on some old unnamed comics I had made also about two owls. I had shared these comics in elementary school language arts class and had plans to become a syndicated newspaper comic. Once I finished making the first page of my new comic in Microsoft Paint I immediately uploaded it on my newly created Drunk Duck account without so much as even planning what the second page would be. And against what anyone would assume for a comic so poorly planned and made by an elementary schooled with an exceedingly short attention span I just kept making them. I soon started drawing them by hand. Even at age 11 I didn't think the MS paint ones looked that good. Which is not to say I was good at judging art back then considering that I was under the ridiculous notion that if I drew with MS paint's pencil tool my pages would look hand drawn. Then after that I started coloring the hand drawn pages with GIMP. In my early days of coloring I didn't even know how the color selector tool worked so I could never achieve the same color twice in coloring. The pages were I tried to color human skin were especially nightmarish. By the end of 2012 I had begun to realize that the early pages of this comic were really bad and that I could do better. I took cartooning classes at a local recreation center which taught me a lot. And in 2013 it seemed for a brief moment like my comic was actually going to become good. The art was improving at a steady rate I was actually beginning to get comments on my comics and I was beginning to get a feel for how Drunk Duck actually worked. But I was still dissatisfied with it and decided to end it. My idea was that I would start a brand new comic called "Vie Das Batteries". It was going to be sort of an interactive type of deal were people would suggest titles of comics in the comments and then I would make a comic based on those titles. I was super excited this new comic and even got it to be mentioned at the bottom of a Drunk Duck news post along with the announcement of Powell and Derry. There was only one problem with this comic. Nobody commented. I don't know why I thought they would. Powell and Derry despite its momentary peak in popularity didn't receive many comments and had been going on for quite a while at that point. With Vie Das Batteries I had only uploaded one page and even that little more that a filler or cover page. After the failure of Vie Das Batteries I took a break from making comics I took a break from making comics to just make random drawings. In 2014 however I began uploading pages of Powell and Derry again after I got myself a drawing tablet and an old pirated version of Photoshop from my cartooning class teacher. But after the 5 month break I had taken I just couldn't seem to get back into the habit of making pages of Powell and Derry regularly. I started another comic that was just a random collection of five minute (or less) doodles called "a collection of random drawings that don't warrant a title" which I still update occasionally. Neither that new comic or the new pages of Powell and Derry managed to garner much buzz and I didn't really get any comments aside from those one from my good Drunk Duck friend Kawaiidaigakusei. By this point I was no longer under the impression that I could turn Powell and Derry into a really great comic and was just horribly embarrassed by the old pages of Powell and Derry. In 2015 I basically just gave up on Powell and Derry entirely. I only uploaded 3 pages in that entire year and one of them wasn't even related to Powell and Derry. It was just a comic I did for some school newsletter one of my friends was making. However despite having given up on Powell and Derry essentially I hadn't given up on making comics. I wanted to make a new comic. And this time I wanted it be really good. I thought about the sorts of comics I like to read and realized that I like comics that have an ongoing story and good characters so I made an effort to make one like that. Powell and Derry had only ever had very short and made up as I went along story arches and despite making it for years none of the characters in Powell and Derry had really developed any sort of personality to speak of. And I've been working on making a new comic since then! I've gone through a lot of ideas and although many of them have crashed and burned I'm not going to stop trying until I can bring you a comic actually worth reading. So that's why I've finally ended Powell and Derry. Not just because it was well past its due date and mostly bad but also because I want to make a new comic! And despite my less then stellar track record with starting new comics I promise that once I start this next one it will be good!

Posted at 11:09PM, Sep. 26, 2016

That is a great story and fits in with kawaiidaigakusei's news post. A statement of what you have and where you want to go.

Not too many creators can say "THIS IS DONE, AND I WILL MOVE ON."

That led to the old saying "a work of art is never finished only abandoned. "

So many on the Duck whip.themselves over how the on-going project is going and just start over or walk away without a backward glance. Instead of just saying that this is done and I will do something new. Looking forward to whatever you come up with.

Posted at 1:09AM, Sep. 27, 2016

Ahhhh, no paragraph breaks? o_O

Posted at 2:09PM, Sep. 27, 2016

Loved reading that, awesome owl! I bet a lot of us can see our own webcomic journeys reflected in your story! Best of everything in the comic you do next! Godspeed, Mr. Owl!

And you went from fifth grade to college courses in five years? That's mind boggling in itself!

Posted at 11:09PM, Sep. 27, 2016

bravo1102 wrote:
That is a great story and fits in with kawaiidaigakusei's news post. A statement of what you have and where you want to go.

Not too many creators can say "THIS IS DONE, AND I WILL MOVE ON."

That led to the old saying "a work of art is never finished only abandoned. "

So many on the Duck whip.themselves over how the on-going project is going and just start over or walk away without a backward glance. Instead of just saying that this is done and I will do something new. Looking forward to whatever you come up with.

Thanks!

Posted at 11:09PM, Sep. 27, 2016

ozoneocean wrote:
Ahhhh, no paragraph breaks? o_O

Sorry. It was sort of just a stream of consciousness type thing.

Posted at 11:09PM, Sep. 27, 2016

Banes wrote:
Loved reading that, awesome owl! I bet a lot of us can see our own webcomic journeys reflected in your story! Best of everything in the comic you do next! Godspeed, Mr. Owl!

And you went from fifth grade to college courses in five years? That's mind boggling in itself!

Thanks! I enjoyed writing it. And it's not like I'm taking college courses for all my classes it's just one of them for my history/social studies and the rest are still high school classes.

Posted at 6:09AM, Sep. 29, 2016

I couldn't read a word of that opening post - my eyes just can't take that anymore, but I congratulate you anyway on coming to a decision, in a decisive manner: well done!
I like owls too.