How to start a webcomic: Prerequisites to start a webcomic #1: Drawing Fast

In this hub I will be discussing about the necessary prerequisites before starting your own webcomic series.

That is because just knowing how to start a webcomic in its general steps does not mean one will become a successful webcomic artist.

Too many times I have seen many webcomic artists that never came close to their success and fulfillment in life, and we need to consider what does it really take to become a webcomic artist.

Hence in this hub I will be highlighting one necessary skill an aspiring webcomic artist should have before starting a webcomic

A webcomic artist is different from a regular comic artist or a manga artist.

Often, a webcomic artist works alone, while a manga comic artist has about 2 assistants or more helping him alongside.

A manga comic artist then produces a chapter of their manga comic, which is about 20 pages of artwork, and submits it everyday for weekly release.

However, note that the manga comic artist has 2 assistants helping him to draw out his background up, inking and such etc.

And the manga artist with his assistants runs a tight schedule meeting each week’s demands.

What about starting a webcomic? Many webcomic artist start off with a few pages or chapters for a few weeks consistently, and then they are not able to continue producing their manga or comics as scheduled; they either run late, or they are on hiatus intermittently.

Being on hiatus intermittently or running late is bad for the webcomic, because the readers aren’t obliged to wait for the author; they may forget about the webcomic easily and webcomic artists will lose their readership.

Also, many of them stopped producing their webcomics because of the tight demands, and as some of them have other responsibilies such as a day job, they aren’t able to keep up with everything, which eventually forces them to quit their webcomics altogether.

Prerequisite #1: Webcomic artists must be able to draw fast and commit to the schedule stated for their webcomics.

These are some tips to satisfy the above prerequisite:

Tip 1. Plan out most of your webcomic in advance before publishing it.

Reason: Manga comic artist may be able to plan while drawing their manga comic, because this is their full-time job and they have assistants helping them.

However many webcomic artists are independent comic authors, and thus planning while publishing webcomics isn’t going to be time efficient.

Yes, we will not have the luxury like One Piece, who is able to run in serialization for more than 11 years, but lets not dream of that when all we need is to start small first.

Tip 2. Produce many chapters ahead before releasing the first chapter of the webcomic

Reason: This will serve as a buffer if we happen not to have the time to produce our weekly chapters or pages due to some reason, like unforeseen circumstances, holidays or day job commitments.

Tip 3. Learn how to draw digitally and master it.

Reason: As I recall in the previous post about the general steps of starting a webcomic, I stated that there is not a need to learn how to draw digitally on a graphic or drawing tablet.

However, learning how to draw digitally speeds up the process of drawing webcomics; we do not have to take the intermediate step of image scanning our work into our computer or laptop before editing it.

Yet learning how to draw digitally must be mastered before starting a webcomic. That is because in my experience, we need to adapt on how to draw on a graphic or drawing tablet, for it isn’t quite the same in drawing on a piece of paper due to the difference in sensitivity of the graphic or drawing tablet.

Tip 4. Hone your drawing skills to draw fast and well.

Reason: Self-explanatory tip.

Tip 5: Do some experiment with your drawing speed. If you aren’t able to produce 1 page a week to update your webcomic at least, that is a big sign that you need to brush up your drawing speed.

Reason: Experimenting with our drawing speed helps to tell us how fast we can truly draw, and it should remind us that we cannot promise what we cannot deliver to the readers.

If you are intending to update several pages in one week for your webcomic, make sure to experiment with that demand and whether you can cope with it.

Otherwise, be prepared for a major downfall for your webcomic.

Readers are only loyal when the manga or comic becomes popular or is attractive enough. Hence, we must not expect that readers will stay by our webcomics if we fail to meet readers’ needs.

Otherwise, readers are generally very fickle in choosing their manga or comic.

That's it for this hub. Stay tuned for more tips and advice on how to start a webcomic.

This hub is slightly edited and taken from Manga Journey, where I share about my experiences and learning curves of becoming a semi-professional manga comic artist.