Thread "Pay The Piper: ( My first webcomic on here)" in forum "Meet, Greet, Show and Sell*"

Posted at 10:05AM, May. 19, 2018

Hey guys,
So I bit the bullet and uploaded the first 15 pages of my webcomic to this site. It's called Pay the Piper (or just piper). The story is set in a fantasy world and is based loosely around the story of the pied piper of Hamelin.

Synopsis: When Con artist Nule discovers and unwittingly plays a note on a magic pipe belonging to the infamous pied piper of Hamelin, he unwittingly awakened an ancient evil. Now our unlikely hero must flee for his life, unlock the secrets of the past and fight to save a world that never cared for him. He will discover that some fairy tales are a great deal darker than he ever imagined.

So this story is sort of a comedy adventure (despite how dark the synopsis sounds). I'm going with a cartoony simplistic style. It's kind of weird making a webcomic since I'm primarily a writer and not used to visual storytelling. Hopefully this story works well in comic form. I'm trying to make a board driven story rather than a text based one to challenge myself. The character designs are already changing as I develop the art style, so please bare with me while it settles.

I could really use some advice/ direction for creating a visually driven story. All of the storytelling techniques I'm used to using are for novels and written stories. So I'm worried it might get too wordy, or be confusing. Any advice or feedback you can give me would be SUPER appreciated.

Here's a link to the first page. Please give it a look and let me know what you think. (Not just asking for compliments. Legit want a critique/ helpful tips.)

https://next.theduckwebcomics.com/Pay_The_Piper/5570819/

Posted at 6:05PM, May. 19, 2018

I'm so lucky I find your story interesting and the art is so cute!

May I recommend for you "How to understand comics" or sth like that from Scott McCloud, it may help you quite a bit. Specially the "Show vs Tell" and the "Panel transitions" Chapter, as you say you're having a bit of trouble with it.

Another thing that you may like is seeing animation movies (or even movies like Mad Max) and checking the storyboards of that movie.

As a writer, you may be interested in MadMax "writer" was actually a storyboard artist, there are almost no words in that movie. Pure action in the thumbnails, camera changes, and still expressing so much to the viewer.

Some comics I may also recommend is those on Webtoons, the most popular is "The Tower of God" for guys and "sirens Lament" for girls, though I think the one it may inspire powerful artwork is "Lackadaisy", that has even won an award because of the way it expresses the action.

I know it's too much and If you're busy, obviously you won't, but hope it helps. Decided to sub because of your background, I also understood why your artwork is like this and find it very good!

Added your comic to favorites, hope that's how it works? I'm new to the site!

Posted at 11:05PM, May. 19, 2018

MG Comics wrote:
I'm so lucky I find your story interesting and the art is so cute!

May I recommend for you "How to understand comics" or sth like that from Scott McCloud, it may help you quite a bit. Specially the "Show vs Tell" and the "Panel transitions" Chapter, as you say you're having a bit of trouble with it.

Another thing that you may like is seeing animation movies (or even movies like Mad Max) and checking the storyboards of that movie.

As a writer, you may be interested in MadMax "writer" was actually a storyboard artist, there are almost no words in that movie. Pure action in the thumbnails, camera changes, and still expressing so much to the viewer.

Some comics I may also recommend is those on Webtoons, the most popular is "The Tower of God" for guys and "sirens Lament" for girls, though I think the one it may inspire powerful artwork is "Lackadaisy", that has even won an award because of the way it expresses the action.

I know it's too much and If you're busy, obviously you won't, but hope it helps. Decided to sub because of your background, I also understood why your artwork is like this and find it very good!

Added your comic to favorites, hope that's how it works? I'm new to the site!

Hey thanks for the book recommendations thats super helpful! I've seen some of the lackadaisy stuff and its really good (though I haven't gotten around to finishing reading the comic yet) The MadMax thing sounds promising. I've always enjoyed movies that rely heavily on visual storytelling (just never been particularly skilled at it myself.) I'll give it a look.

And thanks for faving my comic. I'm new here too and not quite sure how all of this works yet either.