100: A Pyrrhic Moment
December 11, 2024
Just under three years ago I started sketching for a potential web comic series that had no characters, no central concept or themes, no story, and no ideas. I told myself I had to commit to 100 comics or it wouldn’t have a chance to develop into something I saw a future for. I didn’t want to do a few dozen comics, hit the first wall (see: July 2023) and then give up on the project entirely. By giving myself a fixed quota of 100 comics, I was able to force myself to do the hard work.
Character design, story ideas, themes or concepts that would give the comic some kind of vision or purpose. Writing 100 comics as individual jokes, but also trying to loosely connect them into some kind of narrative. Even doing a series of directly connected comics at the end to give it some drama and achievement.
And it worked! About 18 months ago I decided to make sort of an ‘Avengers assemble’ type story. I wrote an outline, introducing new characters with their own arc and then giving the new ‘team’ a crisis to solve. And solve they…did? Okay maybe it wasn’t the Battle of New York. My special effects department is…(checks)…me.
What now? There’s a couple more comics just to get a couple small jokes and references in. Then… book? TV series? Movies? Yeah, right! Not unless Steven Spielberg suddenly takes an interest in our dear friend Roy.
I think I have a long series in front of me. Questions I need to ask myself and reflect on are: Keep or evolve my art style? (Faster less detailed comic or go full graphic novel style). Change the layout format from the 4-panel web comic style, or go full graphic novel again? Keep doing small webcomic arcs, or go for a full graphic novel treatment? A lot more work to produce a graphic novel. But for the stories I’m thinking of telling…maybe that’s the best way to present it?
I don’t think I can do what I need to do within the original restrictions I set out. But at the same time, the restrictions have resulted in this cute little unique comic that I don’t see anywhere else out there. Maybe that’s worth keeping as is?