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Step: Brainstorm

***Warning: This post is fairly long! I tried to be as detailed as possible in my explanations.

The first thing you’ll need for any webcomic is a story. This means coming up with an interesting, unique, and fun story. It’s okay to start with basic, possibly even cliche ideas, so long as you later refine them into more unique concepts. But to start off, any ideas you think up, write em’ down!

Circle, highlight, or mark ones that stand out to you for later comparison. Once you’re down to maybe five potential stories (or less), either write out - or think out - a possible plot for each. This is the perfect time to weed out ideas that you don’t really like, as once you’re actually having to write a story for the plots, it becomes clear whether the story is good material to move on, or if you’ll need to pick another. Cross out (whether mentally or literally) any ideas you don’t like. If you have no interest in the story, your readers won’t either - trust me. Don’t force yourself to like any of the ideas.

If you don’t like any of the ideas: Trash em’ and start from the beginning. Brainstorm different possibilities than the first batch, or see if some of your initial ideas can be changed around somehow to have a different goal/challenge. 

If you like multiple ideas: Try and pick one that is your favorite, and use the others as mini-plots/concepts to include in your webcomic. No one says you have to only keep one, especially if there is a logical way that they can be combined. This often leads to a more unique and interesting story, which is exactly what you want! If they don’t make sense together, find the idea that is the most flexible. When writing, some artists find that the story takes an unexpected turn, for the better! Choose the plot that has the most room for this to happen without completely abandoning the storyline.

So like… Lotor is still the most relateable character I have ever encountered, in part because I can relate to his screaming breakdown. It was horrible. It was unacceptable. It hurt to watch. But as someone who has had a horrific screaming breakdown, I GET it, I got therapy to get past it and be better and Lotor… never got that chance. He’s me in an even worse situation, unmedicated and without help or support or therapy, screaming his pain and doing his best to help with no guidance, fucking things up with no support or anything to rein him in and help him. I get it. It’s too raw and real for me, but I GET IT.

Supporting evidence:

1. Humans say ‘ow’, even if they haven’t actually been hurt. It’s just a thing they say when they think they might have been hurt, but aren’t sure yet.

2. Humans collect shiny things and decorate their bodies and nests with them. The shinier the better, although each individual has a unique taste for style and colouring

3. Humans are not an aquatic or even amphibious species, but they flock to bodies of water simply to play in it. They can’t even hold their breath all that long; they just love to splash!

4. When night falls and the sky goes dark, humans become drowsy and begin to cocoon themselves in soft, fluffy bedding.

5. Some humans spend time in each other’s nests! Just for fun! It’s not their nest; they’re just visiting each other.

6. Some humans use pigments and dyes to make their bodies flashy and colourful! They even attach shiny dangly bits to their cartalidgous membranes!

7. Humans are very clever, and sometimes adopt creatures from other species into their family units. They don’t seem to notice the obvious differences, and often raise them alongside their own young!

8. If a human sees another creature in distress, they can commonly be observed trying to help! Even at their own risk, most humans are deeply compassionate creatures!

9. If a human hears a particularity catchy sound or tune, it will often mimic it, even to the point of annoying themselves!

10. Sneezes are entirely involuntary, and completely adorable. Especially when the human in question becomes frustrated

11. Humans love treats!!! Some more than others. Many humans will save these treats specifically for a later date when they are in need of comfort or reassurance. IE, pickles, pop tarts, Popsicles, etc

Part 2 in the apparently never ending saga that is JDS and LM digging they’re own grave and blaming everyone from Castlevania to WEP to even Star Wars Rebels?!

STORE UPDATE!! Link in my bio (or go to nymika.bigcartel.com)

My new charms arrived the other day and they’re beautiful! I’ve uploaded a LIMITED AMOUNT of the Spiderverse set as well as some others to my online store, so go check it out! I’ve only made a small amount of each design available, since Comicon is coming up; I hope you find something you like 💕 Thank you for your support!! 😙💗

@leakinghate If you’re collecting evidence of Dreamwork’s last-minute, slap-job editing, here’s another piece of evidence.  In “The Zenith,” we have this brief scene where Pidge, Keith, and Lance are trying to hold off Honerva’s fused ship while they wait for Allura and Hunk to catch up to them since Hunk went to go get crystals from a Balmera and Allura is the only one who can create wormholes.  We get this shot with the green, black, and blue lions, but less than a second later, Keith tells Allura to go get in her lion.  Unless Lance is suddenly piloting Blue again, Allura was supposed to be with them already.  What happened?

@leakinghate Our second missing episode…

The Source: Missing Scene Fragment

Location: Knights of Light Part 2: Lotor’s “corpse” is shown but we see no reaction from Allura and Voltron because that part of the narrative has been cut. Allura and Voltron discover Lotor is melded with Sincline and Allura determines to extract him. This drives the plot toward Storming the Pyramid.

Storming the Pyramid: Missing Sequence

Location in the narrative: Around Episode 11, sequentially between the reveal of Lotor’s body in Sincline during Episode 10 and the “come back to me” hospital scene.

Summary: Allura storms the pyramid where she finds Lotor’s body and does battle with the witch for the soul of her son.

Narrative Structure:

“We’ll do anything to bring back Lotor,” said in Episode 2 plus Honerva’s appearance just before Allura takes in the Dark Entity (she is the last person seen, therefore the “man behind the curtain”) leads us to this point in the narrative. Honerva sent the Dark Entity because Honerva cannot resurrect her son but Allura, a healer, can.

Heroine’s Journey: Reincorporation of and Healing the Wounded Masculine

The heroine makes peace with the “masculine” approach to the world as it relates to her and reclaims her own masculine power. The heroine must also put aside her misperceptions about the masculine and offer love and compassion to that which appears monstrous. Allura repeatedly rebuffs Coran’s, Alfor’s, and Lance’s statements of disappointment in her choice to take in the dark entity and their concerns that what she is doing is “too dangerous”. She states unequivocally that she “will not be afraid to use the power that she has”, calling directly back to her animus’s repeated statements that he “knows she has the power within” and that she has “all the power in the universe at her fingertips” in Seasons 5 and 6, respectively. She heals the prince with her love and compassion.

Jungian Analysis:

The animus, Allura’s (Ro)beastly dark youth counterpart and masculine half Lotor, is recognized and accepted as part of herself. This is highlighted with Allura’s callback to his lines about not fearing to use her power. She heals the animus with her feminine love and compassion.

Freudian Analysis: Tell Me About Your Mother

Freud’s theory about a boy coming into manhood is known as the Oedipal Complex. Freud stated that all boys inherently desire their mother (I know, gross, just hang with me here) and therefore view their father as a threat who must be killed so that the boy can replace him. However, the boy cannot grow into manhood until he puts aside his feelings of fatherly hatred and learns how to project his desire for his mother onto appropriate women.

Lotor has done away with Zarkon and moved into a healthy desire for Allura by Season 8. His coming of age is driven forward when Allura does battle with Honerva, who still wants to keep her son as a possession, to break the spell she has cast over him.

Other Literary Examples:

In Beauty and the Beast, Belle realizes she loves the Beast after his death. She declares her love, and her tears bring him back to life, breaking the fairy’s spell and revealing the Prince in disguise.

In The Hunger Games, Katniss is finally able to break the spell of the brainwashing President Snow inflicted on Peeta with a kiss, telling him “don’t let him take you from me… stay with me.” Peeta responds, “Always” and gradually again becomes the sweet baker boy.

In The Nutcracker, Clara distracts the Rat King so that the Nutcracker can land a fatal blow, breaking the spell and transforming the Nutcracker into the Prince of the Land of Sweets (sweets and decadent food in general are a common literary stand-in for sex and sensuality).

Other items I would expect to see in this sequence based on literary convention and narrative cohesion:

Allura arrives and heals Lotor, who is still under Honerva’s control. This is the place for our alchemist versus alchemist reprisal set up by Allura and Honerva’s initial meeting.

Some version of “You may be the Emperor, but I am your mother and you will do as I say” connects this episode thematically with lines said in Episode 2, “You may be the Prince but I am the Emperor and you will do as I say” and “You may be the High Priestess but I am the Prince and you will do as I say.” This leads to a “my love is stronger than your power” moment, connecting VLD thematically with DotU.

Given the strong Egyptian motif present, throughout the series, I would expect a strong allusion to the Isis and Osiris myth.

Sometimes it’s difficult to make your characters likeable as they are tested and are pushed to further and further lengths. Sometimes they have to make hard decisions, and sometimes the pressure gets to them and they mess up, hurt another character or an innocent bystander. How can you keep them likeable throughout the whole plotline?

- Keep their motivations pure. It almost always comes back to the heart – if their heart is pure, and that’s established early-on, the audience is more likely to root for them.

- Give them flaws – make them human. Not every character has to have some huge problem, like an addiction or a traumatic past or a disability – if your entire cast does, it’s no problem, but it’s not necessary. But every character has to have some flaw(s), whether it’s cheating at card games because he can’t stand to lose or being too-closed minded or closing off when she gets too emotional. If your character doesn’t have a flaw, they start to come off as too perfect, too angelic, pretentious.

- Give them permission to mess up. This ties in with flaws – if your character is inclined to make a bad decision at any point in the plot, don’t steer him away from it because “oh no he’s my protagonist and he must be Good and Whole and Pure and All-Knowing”. Let him walk into that ambush despite the sick feeling in his stomach and get half his army killed; let her rush into a confrontation with a bully and get into a fight with another girl who has a switchblade. Let your characters mess up – it shows that they’re human.

- But if your character messes up, let them own up to it eventually. The general who killed half his army by ignoring the unease in the back of his mind might cry over their makeshift graves long after the rest of the platoon is asleep; the girl sitting in the infirmary might feel remorse for knocking her opponent’s block off. Or your characters might argue and might be stubborn and might not apologize for weeks. But let them apologize eventually. This goes back to the heart, and what the character knows is right.

- Relationships with other characters are vital. That’s not to say a loner character can’t be likeable – but the audience’s perception of a loner character is determined by the thoughts/words of other characters. Characters all color each other and define parts of each other, just like people do to each other in real life. If your character is a jerk to other characters and other characters don’t like him (especially if the characters who dislike him are likeable), the audience won’t like him either. The character’s image depends not just on himself, but on his supporting cast.

My advice is: once you feel like you’ve got enough of the story and characters worked out to begin, just start in on it! If you get too mired in the planning stage, actually starting the work becomes harder. The characters are going to change slightly the more you draw them, but that’s normal, so don’t worry too much about that. That said, it does help to do basic initial planning ahead of time: model sheets and expression sheets, layouts for locations, and color palettes if you use those. Just enough to get you comfortable for the actual pages. 

It’s a good idea to create a buffer for yourself once you start and before you actually start posting, and to try and maintain that buffer for as long as you can. Real life happens to everyone, and you never know when something will come up where you don’t get much chance to work on your comic for a week or so. The more you have done ahead of time, the less you have to worry about when Real Life comes to kick you in the shins. 

It’s also a good idea to do a good number of pages/strips/panels/whathaveyou to judge ahead of time about how long it takes you to do one update. That way it lets you estimate how much time you can devote to working on it weekly. You may find that you can’t include color like you thought, or that you have to cut stuff that you found fun but isn’t really essential. But you’ll figure it out once you get into the habit of it. 

This is something I wrote up for a friend who wanted to start a comic, which I thought might be helpful for others? I’m no expert by any stretch but I have done a lot of research into both artistic endeavours generally as well as comic creation and history specifically, and I think (hope) these points are all helpful and salient things to remember when creating a webcomic. I learned all of these through experience (both positive and negative) so hopefully this will help some people avoid my mistakes.

Several of these tips apply to art in general, or even any creative process in general, but some of them are comic-specific.

{under the cut because this got long as all heck}

STEP: Character Development

How you develop your characters is a factor that can make or break your webcomic. You must have characters whom readers not only can relate to in some way, but who are also human and have flaws, strengths, personalities and who are believable. This isn’t to say that you should throw your slightly over-powered superhero out the window, but understand that those kinds of characters rarely resonate with the average reader.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

(Warning: Another long post; per usual).