Episodes
Same Face Syndrome
So here’s our scenario: you’re making your webcomic, your readers are following to the best of their ability, but you’re hearing the feedback that they can’t tell some of the characters apart. This can be about how you draw them, the styles and coloring you’re using… OR there could be aspects of your writing that are affecting how they’re perceived. For whatever reason, people are getting confused. That's what we call Same Face Syndrome and we're here to help you diagnose and treat.
Beginnings
The beginning hooks of your webcomic are what's going to inspire a reader to keep reading, and there are lots of approaches to starting out, depending on the story you're trying to tell. Today, we're going to talk about the many ways to begin a beginning.
Animation and Webcomics
A lot of creators in webcomics, including all of us here, have come from an animation education or a career path. It makes a lot of sense that many of us are drawn to it, because there's so much creativity and energy in the world of animation. And webcomics are very freeform, so if you have your own site or a platform that supports it, videos, GIFs, and CSS animation tricks are all on the table as tools we can integrate into the comic experience. So let's talk about it!
Printing Your Comic
You’ve been drawing your comic and publishing it online pretty regularly, and eventually it crosses your mind to make a printed version. Maybe your readers are asking, maybe you’re going to a comic convention, or maybe it’s just always been your dream to hold your comic in your hands. What does the process look like to get to that point, and what should you do (or avoid) along the way to make it work as smoothly as possible?
Lettering
A comic isn’t complete until the lettering is done! Today we're going to be talking about lettering - putting the words on the art of your comic panels, and tips and tricks to keep everything readable.
Hooks
Welcome to Season 2 of Screen Tones! Today we’re going to be going fishing… for webcomic readers! For a successful fishing expedition, it’s important to have a good hook.
Character Design
Today we're going to be talking about Character Design and what goes into making one that is effective, understandable, and memorable.
Pitching
If you’ve spent time in the comics world, you’ve probably heard people talking about pitching their comics to publishers, awards, review sites, collectives, and so on. But what are pitches? And should YOU be thinking about them?
Lore
LORE! We all love it, we all have it. It’s that cool secret sauce that makes sci-fi, fantasy, supernatural, or other speculative fiction so much fun to make theories about. How does this funky world you made up work? How do you keep it all consistent, and make it an interesting part of the story? Today we’re gonna talk about it!
Exposition
Your comic has some cool worldbuilding lore that ties into your plot and characters in some fun ways and you’re excited to show it off to readers. But how do you explain these things without putting everything else in the story on hold? How do you use prologues, how do you explain the gods/creation myths, how do you set up the custom jargon? And how do you avoid scaring readers away with a big infodump? Let’s get into all the different techniques you can use!
Marketing
So, MARKETING. You’ve got a cool new comic, and you’ve put it online, and now all you gotta do is… get people to read it! Easy, right? ….Right?
Pacing
Pacing is the term used to describe the speed at which narrative information is delivered – in other words, how fast or slow the story moves. If you’re reading something and get the feeling that some scenes were rushed, a plot point went by in the blink of an eye, or that something is taking way too long to get to the point and you wish it would just speed up… those are common issues with the story’s pacing. Every story is a little different; a meandering slice of life story has different pacing needs from an action thriller, or a sci fi adventure.
Hats!
This episode of ScreenTones, we are talking about Hats! And we don't mean bowlers or ballcaps, we mean all the roles that webcomic creators have to do to make this webcomic thing a reality! From marketing, to drawing, to social media, to lettering, to prepress, you name it, webcomic creators do it all, and the list of hats we wear goes on and on!
Spoilers
Spoilers: planned future events in a serialized story that have not been released yet. Every creator handles spoilers in different ways. Some have no qualms about sharing spoilers and details about future events while others keep things closer to the chest. There is no right way to handle spoilers; our hosts are here to discuss the many options for webcomic creators!
Villains
In today's episode, Screen Tones becomes SCREAM TONES! We're gonna talk all about VILLAINS, just in time for Halloween. Our speakers all have various villain types in their webcomics. How do they go about writing them - and why do a lot of webcomics lack a villain?
The Intro "DO IT (feat. Shia LaBeouf)", and the Outro "It's Good To See You Again!!", both by Adrianwave, have been used and modified in good faith under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Licensed. Edits include: Fade IN/OUT, and a repeat added to the beginning of "It's Good To See You Again!!". For more information on this creative commons use, please reference https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/