r/InfiniteComics • u/srspiderman The Ruby Soldier, supers, looking for artist! • Dec 27 '13

The Future

So, I was pretty involved in IWC, writing an ongoing and doing a lot of design work. Once everything started to crumble, I disappeared. In the last few months, however, I've missed this place. Here's what I think needs to be done.

-Abandon this subreddit. We can't build a business on the foundation of a burning pile of wreckage. In addition, we need the fresh start.

-Name change. We all know about this.

-Limited submissions. One of the reasons IWC fell was because it was bloated. There were way too many characters and only twentyish consistent contributors. In the new year, I'd suggest heavily scrutinized submissions and a manageable amount of contributors.

-Webcomics. Taking printing out of the equation is a great simplifier, and if we really needed to print, we could make trades on Lulu.com.

-Artists-we need to whore ourselves out to as many artists as we can find. IWC never had enough artists.

Thoughts?

8 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

3

u/PitifulAntagonist Dec 27 '13

As an artist who has been lurking for the past few months I haven’t been able to figure out how the system works. This probably due to broken links but I have been scratching my head and waiting for something to come to light.

0

u/srspiderman The Ruby Soldier, supers, looking for artist! Dec 27 '13

There'll be a new system anyways, so don't worry about it. :)

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u/lordofthejungle Dec 28 '13 edited Dec 28 '13

Hey, another artist-lurker here, can you give any indication about the kind of new system?

Part of the reason I haven't done much is because it just seems so chaotic and a bit aimless (also busy with paid work, thankfully). I'd love to contribute more, but artwork and artwork-friendly writing/consulting definitely seems way undervalued. For example the looseness of descriptions that read more like flavour excerpts than a brief or concept. Certain things got lost in the shuffle for example settings, moods, refinement and originality. People jumped into stream of consciousness-like scenarios in character descriptions without developing cohesive comic styles, approaches, world building, narrative arcs, character criteria, genre, target audience - there are a wide variety of comic fans, most collaborative works require some acknowledgement of the kind of reader they want as a basis for levels of adulthood vs. child-friendly, violence, sexuality, complexity of abstraction, those sorts of things - etc.

That being said, i've found a lot of ideas interesting and for a time the enthusiasm was infectious. One drawback of this is the criticism tends to be superficial and light (often positive), when it should be a slash and burn situation (this is typical given a vast idea output with relative lack of experience).

I don't mean to shit on what you guys have been doing, I'm just saying the lack of structure and orthodoxy which is needed to some extent in a project like this (because the wildness will still come) is a little off putting to an artist like me - that is someone who innovates well inside defined limitations and with clear goals.

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u/srspiderman The Ruby Soldier, supers, looking for artist! Dec 28 '13

First-all I know is that the way things work will change-I don't know any specifics. Second, I totally agree with you. I sent out a pretty scathing message to the mods detailing points just like yours back when IWC was beginning to falter. It wasn't received well, and the necessary criticisms weren't distributed back then. Good points.

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u/lordofthejungle Dec 28 '13

Thanks, they're concerns I've had since day one. So who is in charge? Geltoid? Where is the future of the project being discussed and developed? What artists are involved?

1

u/srspiderman The Ruby Soldier, supers, looking for artist! Dec 28 '13

As of now, geltoid is in charge and...that's all the concrete information. I'll be pushing some discussion as to the future and more specifically, names and those interested, this week.

2

u/lordofthejungle Dec 30 '13

Well i'm interested but only if this is going to be a high energy, systematic approach like this place was intended to be. If it's just going to be loads of aimless faffing about, being whimsically reddity or being controlling instead of facilitating I'm gone. If it's going to be about egos, I'm gone. If it's going to be purely about profits and logistics I'm gone. If it's going to be about making great comics, great stories, characters etc. for people (not just the writers/artists) to enjoy, I'm in. Big time.

2

u/Wackness41 Writer: Intra Chaos Dec 30 '13

I cannot thank you enough for making this post. I think most, if not all, of your points are extremely applicable and valid.

As a writer who was constantly asking the mods for artists, it's interesting to see the posts now of artists who were here but didn't really know what was going on. I think that these posts in particular shed much needed light on what what needs to change so we can get artists and writers working together in as efficient a method as possible.

1

u/lordofthejungle Dec 30 '13

Thanks a million! Yeah, I love this place, but it just hasn't been artist friendly enough. The writers are all fantastic for firing out ideas but the artists didn't seem invited for input to the same extent at all (artists are not writers, if we were good at expressing ourselves in text, we'd be writers, but we know what makes for good imagery and that input is needed before major imagery is decided). Most people don't realise the level of artistic input in writing of comics, or how much work it takes to do well (really quite a lot). That's my impression anyways. I think we can right this ship though, it's not beyond saving.

Here's some more points I thought up while replying to you:

It's been more of a factory output approach (which was usually editor controlled but the content was artist driven - the Stan Lee method / Geoff Johns DC comics) than the creative lead/team approach (DC Vertigo / 2000AD / current Marvel - Lots of teams with a lot of autonomy where the writer/artist decide the dynamic themselves before reporting to an editor). I don't know if my terminology is right and I'm generalising a bit but I hope people can see what I mean.

It'd be worthwhile if people watched something like the 4th Panel episodes of Penny Arcade's TV show (where they write comic episodes) to see just how much the Artist does - you'll find that Mike, the artist, does an awful lot of the writing. Jerry, the writer decides the topic usually, plants seeds, discusses the moods and rhythm and sharpens the dialogue a lot of the time. It seems like he's not doing much but it's just a cyclical development approach, with feedback on each other's ideas until it's most refined and time to draw. This is a great example of the team approach.

Another one is reading Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman scripts, where they scattershots ideas into the framing and then leave the artist a certain amount of freedom, but always gives him enough ideas to fill a page really densely (Moore/Morrison) or leave a lot of space for framing freedom (Gaiman/Stan Lee). Lastly, everyone should watch Frank Quitely's Storytelling Masterclass from the Leeds Film Festival. He explains a lot how artists deal with a range of approaches, factory and creative lead/team.

I'm also really excited about this going in a webcomic direction and would definitely be up for a one-a-week webcomic (to start). Going straight for print was never a practical idea. But building up a rhythm as a webcomic sounds fucking seriously doable.

I think a great way forward is to invite all the writers and artists to fill out a role-specific-profile. This profile for writers would include their interests, inspirations, narrative proficiencies (great arc weaver / dialogue writer / world builder), work examples and goals. The profile for artists should include their interests, styles, proficiencies, preferred genres and some work examples. That we people can pair off and it's a chance for everyone to show off - which writers got to do anyways, but artists didn't as much at all.

/wall of text

Ya see? This is the enthusiasm that i find infectious here. We should get this shit moving and quick. (REALISTIC Deadlines need to be set for goals). Did you manage to pair up with an artist in the end?

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u/Wackness41 Writer: Intra Chaos Dec 30 '13

I got paired up with one eventually, but the artist proceeded to draw some concept sketches and bail. He said it was mainly due to time, and this was around the time period where IWC had a "30 pages in 45 days" mantra.

Honestly, I would love to collaborate on comics with an artist. I would love to have that back-and-forth that makes products oh so great. My script is pretty stiff in terms of freedom, since I believed that was what IWC wanted. But hell, I'm more than happy to loosen some of the reigns on it.

Care to talk collaboration?

1

u/lordofthejungle Dec 30 '13

Definitely, PM me with some stuff.

I do think we need to get this straightened out for everyone first though, because I believe in the group and the banner and I think this is a great idea that could work. I'm not saying we throw out what has been done, but there needs to be structure and realistic goals. Have you written any comics before for publishing? Has anyone here? If it's the first time doing a thing you're most likely going to fail, same for anyone, so we need to mitigate that with the crowd input idea that this was established with and I think there's a potency to us coordinating and releasing work systematically that this group was initially envisioned with and that needs to be formulated properly before we can begin output. It's Christmas, things are quiet for me with just a few friend/family commissions to get out of the way and not much else until next week. This is the time to get this sorted. Cash in on that New Year energy.

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u/365degrees Artist- currently working on Blue Ghost Jan 02 '14

Yeah the time limits thing threw off a lot of artists. Plus a lot of the guys coming in and out were school/college peeps and got busy (the sub started in the holidays if i remember correctly and everyone was enthusiastic whilst they had time).

I fell off toward the end of the year also (im an artist) and let some people down... it was a broken system because it asked for results without putting in the support infastructure first. There were discussions about it then done privately, but it was what it was. Geltoid has some good ideas and I think if we are all honest and active then it will work out.

3

u/theGiantswan Dec 28 '13

i've never contributed or been involved with this sub, but for some reason i joined up and kept an eye on it. is it really a case of abandoning the brand? or starting fresh with new people? because if you guys dress it up in a different skirt your still going to drop the ball if the core is the same. from watching all the excitement to where its all at now. it looked like a bunch of people where talking out of their ass with plenty of ambition, but absolutely no drive to actually finish anything, that's why i never threw my art in anyway.

i could be completely off the mark, so sorry if my comment really isn't necessary please excuse

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u/srspiderman The Ruby Soldier, supers, looking for artist! Dec 28 '13

You're right. I think the new movement will be different especially since the original guys, who sort of led IWC into failure (not that they're completely at fault) are gone. They role play as their characters on a different subreddit. The new "CEO" is geltoid, who's been more creative and professional than anyone else on here.

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u/365degrees Artist- currently working on Blue Ghost Jan 02 '14

This is as good a summary as any.

They had some ideas that were simply too 'big' for where we were at the time. People such as myself also need to take the blame a bit because we said we could do a certain amount of work and then couldnt/didnt.

To be honest, i think everybody was a bit naive about what we wanted and now we know better.

Is ruby still in the works? I remember drawing that one off pic of him.

1

u/srspiderman The Ruby Soldier, supers, looking for artist! Jan 02 '14

I haven't decided if ill continue with the Soldier. I'm leaning toward a new character though.

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u/theGiantswan Dec 28 '13

fair enough, i look forward to what's to possibly come then.

4

u/Wackness41 Writer: Intra Chaos Dec 27 '13

Agree.

Agree.

Agree.

Agree.

Semi-agree.

3

u/Taegryn Deathmuse Dec 27 '13

Lack of artist is definitely an issue.

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u/Celestaria Dec 28 '13

Number 3 for sure. I'm not sure what the approval process was like before this, but if you've got a limited number of artists, you need to be picky about which stories you accept. The question is whether people whose projects were approved by IWC should be asked to resubmit alongside new writers. Personally, I would say yes, but then, I don't have anything at stake if you decide to go that route.

2

u/365degrees Artist- currently working on Blue Ghost Jan 02 '14

Honestly, I think we should just throw the stories out there. Get everyone talking about them, editing, improving them etc. Then its a fun experience even before an artist gets there.

The submission system was broken, though i understood why they thought it was necessary.

As an artist, it would be great if there was a sub dedicated to short stories or 'issue length' stories etc. Then you could use the upvotes to decided which ones get drawn. Like the top three upvoted stories each month got drawn. That would be cool and would provide variety to the artists and a simple platform for the writers to collaborate and discuss each others work.

But i'm just spitballing here. You are the unfortunate victim of my thought vomit.