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There comes a time in every webcomic’s life, assuming it lasts past the first several months, that a creator will look back at the first pages and think, “Man, that’s some rough stuff.”
Some people go so far as to completely redraw these pages in a frenzy of revision, which can lead to some real strangeness if their motivation doesn’t last through the entire archive… I remember reading at least one webcomic where I was really, really impressed with the quality, and then all of a sudden around the 12th page there was a sudden nosedive and things got much simpler and sketchier. I was confused until I realized that the author had done just what I mentioned above… marshalling their more recent skills, they’d gone back and overhauled some of their starting pages to match the quality of the later ones, but hadn’t followed entirely through. As a result, that 12th page was a reader’s first taste of the actual, original art from several years prior.
The Least I Could Do comic is another one I remember causing some controversy when big chunks of the early strips were redone, especially because they were redone by an entirely different artist. It turns out that was only for a print book version, though, and the decision made because the original strips weren’t made in high enough resolution– which is actually a very good reason. The old strips are still available online, but it’s not particularly easy to navigate to them… so you could argue that they’re effectively hidden away in favor of the modern, more polished Lar DeSouza look. Since Ryan Sohmer is one of those guys who is reportedly very concerned with being seen as “professional” and LICD is a big business for him, I can see why he might want to de-emphasize the past, even if there weren’t the added muddle of those strips being done by completely different partners he’s since parted ways with.
In fact, another writer/creator friend of mine had to hire a new artist to redo his first chapter of comics not because he felt they were particularly bad, but because the former artist asserted ownership rights over what he had drawn even though he no longer had any interest in continuing. There’s a lot of reasons to go back and make changes, and not all of them stem from embarrassment.
Now true, the biggest reason is probably still the idea of first impressions. Most comics are going to have their current strip/page posted for a visitor, but a natural reaction for a newcomer, particularly where a story comic is concerned, would be to want to start from the beginning. If, in the creator’s humble opinion, their early artwork looks like warmed over ass, they will feel a certain anxiety about scaring away potential new fans. A good story may keep people hooked, but first they have to snap up the shiny bait, right?
The flipside to this is that there are a good number of people out there willing to overlook roughness in the early presentation, especially considering they’re getting the content for no more cost than a bit of their time. Some fans actually go so far as to find the reworking of early strips something of a betrayal, because they enjoy seeing how far a creator has progressed from when they started to where they are now. Heck, when you’re a beginning creator yourself, sometimes it’s nice to look at a success story who arose from humble beginnings, and an unrevised archive can show a wonderful roadmap of that.
As for us? Dawn will be first to say she feels her art has improved quite a bit since the early days, but early on we made a mutual decision to “play it where it lies” as far as the visuals went, except in occasional extreme cases with a comic page that just recently went live. That’s extended to our print issues, and yet we still get purchases at conventions even though Issue #1 was made with far more enthusiasm than experience. Now I admit, where the lettering is concerned I went back through Episode 2 and Episode 3 and fixed that up a lot for the print versions. The art has stayed in its original form though, for better or worse. Hopefully for the better, at least in terms of most of our fans. One man’s junk is another man’s masterpiece, right? And I hope my writing has enjoyed a certain consistency to it… though that might be backhanding myself in the sense that if I started out “good”, I haven’t really improved at all.
Anyhow, we probably won’t be touching any of the artwork for the foreseeable future. The lettering? Well, I actually have done some touch-ups here and there already, and I’m pondering really digging in and fixing up that aspect of the early comics just to make things more readable and more consistent. But then again, it could be that such an effort isn’t really necessary… so if you’ve any opinions, I’ve got a new poll up on the left sidebar for Yea or Nay. And/or you can comment here. Let me know!
7 thoughts on “Tweaking the past”
Ballookey Klugeypop
I haven’t had any trouble reading the old ones, and I’m in the camp that likes to see how Dawn’s technical prowess has grown (though it’s not like, a huge difference — the early ones are still good!)
Magravan
When we were still running TOGM, I always had the landing page as the latest strip, so that people would drop in and see the art as it was. Was there a potential for some spoiler? Yeah, and on major spoilers I was a little wary of leaving it up like that.
But realistically, most people are going to forget about it by the time they get back to that point anyway.
As for font fixing / bubble fixing, I’m more okay with that, because that can affect readability. Art fixing is just an endless waste of time because by the time you’ve redrawn all those strips, you’re that much better again, and your new stuff is still going to look significantly better than the early stuff.
alexander hollins
agirlandherfed is currently redoing all the old ones, as she’s completely changed styles, and as much as I like the new art, I actually really dug the old black and white style and wish she’d do the new ones in both…
Clint
No worries on Dawn’s art, like I said we’ve no plans for revisionism there. I’m not sure how much impact that might have on an eventual Kickstarter attempt for a trade collection, I know we’d probably have a number of people advising us that it’s suicidal to have such a major art evolution in a single book… but again I’m thinking the worst that happens with a Kickstarter is that you don’t get the money.
As for lettering, it seems so far like my poll is being handily won by the “no touchie” side. Now this is one thing I’ll probably still revise in the event of putting together a trade, but as far as the online archive goes, I’m willing to bow to the will of the masses, even if some of those early font experiments make me cringe. 😀
The Letter J
Over at The Becoming, we ultimately decided doing some revisions was in our best interest. And, yes, there was some cringing when looking back at our early and more amateurish work, but it was considering the business side of things that ultimately pushed us to commit to the revisions.
In the last few years, “long-form”, or story-based webcomics have become increasingly more popular and plentiful online. The competition has become more fierce and it’s imperative that we stack the odds in our favor if we want a reader to choose to commit their valuable time to reading our comic instead of someone else’s.
I liken the first 5 pages of a comic to that of the first 10 pages of a screenplay or film – that’s when you have to hook the reader/viewer or risk losing them forever. And when you’ve got comics like Next Town Over and Boston Metaphysical Society looking the way they do right out of the gate, and we’ve got characters with lop-sided foreheads, an “attractive” lead who looks like Dwight from the Office on a bad day – well, that’s just not going to cut it. Story matters – it’s why they keep reading – but attractive visuals out of the gate is the best way to get them to give us a chance in the first place.
Now, as you’ve said, it’s not like the creators can just replace the first several pages and nothing else – that’s potentially more damaging as it commits the greatest sin in fiction: taking/jarring the reader out of the story – as it did with you in your example. In our particular case, we’ve got full page revisions for a chunk of our first chapter and then it’s just a panel or face here and there for continuity or clarity of story-telling. The biggest chore and undertaking is actually that we have to go back and recolor the entire comic, but this was something that was going to have to be done regardless so we could do a print collection.
And speaking of, the next thing we had to consider when discussing revising earlier parts of the comic was the idea that we’d eventually be selling print collections. It is my understanding that outside of the initial fan base who will actually make a purchase (something like 1-2% of readers I believe), the majority of our sales will be made at conventions.
So, at a comic convention, we’re no longer just competing with other hobbyists and amateurs like ourselves, but now we’re competing with professional creators and properties with actual name recognition. Yikes!
Basically, if we can get someone at a con to pick up and look at our book, I don’t want them to immediately set it back down because whatever issues plagued the early days of the comic. No, I want them to see a professionally crafted work that CAN compete with the big boys for their hard earned dollars.
I guess, to summarize my thoughts on the matter:
Online competition is fierce, first impressions are important and
Offline competition is fierce, first impressions are important.
Yes, It’s a huge commitment of time that might be better spent on other projects, and even after all the “fixes”, our comic may still just not have that x-factor that strikes a chord that generates readers, but I can at least take some solace that we did everything in our power to make it so.
That’s my take, anyway. 🙂
Lurker
You’ve made the right choice. I’ve seen too many comics death spiral when they start to rework old stuff.
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