Want to make a Comic? Here's how.
Do you have a story you want to turn into a comic but feel overwhelmed by all the big steps you need to take?
If so, don't worry - it's not a "you thing" :)
This happens all the time with comic creators. They have the idea but lack the production knowledge.
They have the comics but lack the fan base to sell it to.
They have the fan base but don’t sell much because they’re inconsistent and the algorithms throw them off.
There’s a lot of moving parts that have to be in place at the right time for everything else to succeed, and all of that amounts to a FULL TIME job, plus whatever else is already going on in life.
It’s EASY to get overwhelmed and avoid the extra work - to push off creating the comic till “tomorrow”, or “next week”, “next month”, “next year” - sound familiar?
There’s a common denominator that all comic creators share as the primary limiting factor - the ultimate factor in how much any creator will produce in their whole entire life:
Time.
In your case, YOUR time.
Makes sense, right?
Picture this:
You spend 5 years thinking about and developing a comic idea.
You spend another year thinking about and learning how to write your stories.
You’ve spent the last few months to a year turning those stories into a script.
Now you need to create your comics.
Realistically, how long are you willing to spend doing all the sketching, inking, coloring, lettering, and digital editing by yourself? Do you even *want* to do all that yourself?....
Let’s say you’re an artistic savant (congrats!). Next learning curve to tackle is marketing: If you want to sell the comic, you need a solid social media campaign strategy. But if you’re starting that social media campaign strategy after the comic’s produced and printed, you’re already late to the party!
That should only take you about… 5 - 8 years to refine, 2 - 3 years if you’re doing nothing else (like, I dunno, raising a family, working a job, y’know, life).
So that’s roughly 10 years spent on one story? At that rate how many stories do you think you can create in your lifetime?
Luckily, there are obvious, yet easily overlooked shortcuts:
- It doesn’t all have to be YOUR time.
- You don’t have to remake the wheel.
If time is your limiting factor, (and I’m willing to bet that it is) then here’s what you need to do:
Define the goals for your comic(s) and build a strategic schedule out from there, get organized.
Create MORE time by STREAMLINING your workflow to limit what you don’t like to do.
OUTSOURCE the things YOU don’t have to do. Let somebody else who does those things better do those things for you.
The first challenge comic creators face (and which effectively stops them from starting their projects) is that they don’t know where to begin, so they spend forever deciding but never figure it out.
How can they possibly know where to begin if they don’t know where they want to go?
Is the goal a single graphic novel? A web series? A limited series? A digital comic that eventually gets printed? A daily or one off comic script for a blog? All of these *products* call for different production and marketing *strategies*.
So figure out your goal, work backwards, and your next steps will present themselves. Build your comic brick by brick.
Now of course that’s easier said than done, right?
Normally, you don’t just build a to - do list and suddenly your project is created and beautiful and loved by many. There’s a lot of time consuming tedium that goes into achieving something like that - making comics, selling comics, and maintaining a fanbase takes dedication and WORK.
That’s why I believe in what artists call “creative laziness” and what tech and business folk call “automation”. It is a fact that the tedious tasks must get done.
But it’s less necessary for YOU to do them.
That’s why I’ve built automation and creative laziness into my S.I.M.P.L.E Sidekick Method.
This method is designed to meet you where you’re at in the comic creation process, so that you can take the most effective route towards your comic goals, using the same strategies that have been shown to work for the pros, (who by the way, have been where you’re at right now).
Instead of aimlessly stumbling through unnecessary tasks, get focused and get effective.
Instead of spending all day on social media, limit that time to 1 - 2 hours daily of strategic media activity and spend the rest of the day doing what you love.
Instead of putting your project on hold until you’ve “mastered” the art of the craft, let somebody else do that and move on with what you do best.
If the S.I.M.P.L.E Sidekick Method sounds like just the thing to get you the momentum you need to produce your comic, let’s hop on a quick Zoom call and chat about your next steps.
Just book a time to chat that works for you: https://calendly.com/theartbard
Spots are limited, and there’s zero obligation to work with me, but if we do end up being a fit I’ll invite you to become a private client of mine and I can do all of this for you (sit back and relax while I do all the hard work).
I’m excited to hear more about your project!
Stay healthy, keep busy, m’friends!
This is Shani, from The Art Bard signing off ~