Anatomy of a Dead Webcomic

First up, if you've missed it, Shamus posted a three parter of How Chainmail Bikini Was Going To Play Out. And now you know, the rest of the story.

I thought it would be interesting to examine the hows and whys of CB's downfall, for my own future reference and as a handy primer for future webcomic creators. A mostly unorganized list:

Drawing a Webcomic Is Not Quick.
I spent about 8 to 15 hours on every comic strip, for something people would read in 30 seconds. This is kind of mind boggling, until you settle in that several thousand people are spending 30 seconds reading, and every once in a while one of your jokes or pictures really resonates with people. I realize my friends list is somewhat biased, but it still pleases me every time I see a "Headdesk!" icon. But still, when CB was going every week, I'd spend about 15 to 25 hours a week making the comic. That's a lot.

How to get around this?
Try to settle on a size and format you can handle quickly and well. If you have a simpler art style than I do, go ahead and crank out 30 panels of MSPaint art, or stick figures, or video game sprites, or whatever. If you know things are going to be slow, from the get go make a smaller comic. I have a new project in mind, and I'm thinking it will be mostly black and white with the occasional splash of color, and considerably smaller in format than CB.

Your Cast and Characters
One of the things that really added to the amount of time it took to do CB was that we had 5 main characters, most of whom had two versions that regularly showed up. As much as I loved doing closeups, or shots of weird monsters or the hero shots, I always hated the full table shots and the full party group shots. 5 characters sitting at a table is just a lot to draw and get everyone just right if you're not going to go the Knights of the Dinner Table Cut & Paste route.

There's a reason most comics have a pretty small number of main characters. Most Penny Arcade strips have two characters in them. If you're going to do a webcomic, I'd suggest having two or three main characters, with your supporting cast showing up whenever the story or jokes call for it.

The other problem with having a fairly large cast is that it's all but impossible to spread the focus around evenly. Chainmail Bikini largely turned in to the Chuck and Casey show, which is kind of disappointing as I was always more of a Marcus and Ivy and Josh fan.

Character Designs
When you draw a character for the fist time, be sure to think about how often you'll have to redraw them. One of the things that really added a lot of time to making CB was the character designs I did for the fantasy view, with all of the little spiky bits and armor and straps and whatnot. I could ink and color Lucretia in no time flat, as she's just a big black shape with some points and almost no color. Josh or Ramgar or Jade took forever to get every bit just right, especially the coloring. So remember to keep it simple. No, simpler than that.

Conventional Wisdom is Right
When we started CB, I read a number of places talking about how two person webcomic teams that are halfway across the country never work out. And it turns out they were right. Now, I think Shamus is a great guy and there's absolutely no ill will there. But the simple fact is it wasn't the same as if I'd have started a comic with my buddy and we could meet at the coffee shop or sit in the living room up late working on things or if I did everything myself.

If you're thinking of starting up a webcomic, do it yourself or find a local friend to help out. Don't get someone you only know online to do the drawing/writing/whatever you're not going to do. Trust me on this one. It won't work in the long run.

We were always trying a tricky dance of balancing Shamus's fondness for tons of dialogue and jokes that take a dozen panels to build, and my desire not to spend 40 hours a week drawing that much. We never did find the right balance.

I think perhaps things would have worked better with an artist who didn't have any experience writing a comic as well. Someone who would have been more content to sit back and take direction and just draw the script would have perhaps been smoother than someone who wanted to add jokes tweak things. Now, I'm a big fan of the stuff I added, like the Displacer Moose or the zombies yelling "Brains!" or what have you, so I'd of course be biased in to thinking that the comic probably would not have been as funny without my input, but it certainly would have been less work to just draw stuff.

Make Sure You're 100% Invested In The Comic
Now, if you're doing this on your own then it should be pretty simple, just make sure that you're creating something you want to see. If you're teaming up with someone else, remember that making this comic is going to suck up a huge chunk of your time, and take every effort early on to create something that you're going to enjoy.

I'm actually not a fan of gamer comics. Before doing CB, I'd never followed OOTS or KODT or Nodwick or whatever. I hadn't actually read the entirety of DM of the Rings until Shamus and I started doing the comic together. And while I really enjoyed CB and plowing through the OOTS and DMOTR archives, gamer satire really isn't something I'm strongly excited about or a big fan of.

I can't see myself signing up to draw a Star Trek comic, or something that makes fun of Super Heroes or whatever. So whether your comic starts with an idea you have or someone saying
"Hey can you draw a comic about time traveling monkeys?" take a moment to think to yourself "Do I really like monkeys and/or time travel enough to do this for the next few years?"

While I'm a big fan of the characters in CB, I was never terribly invested in the story. I think that's partly because in something like Doors and Windows, I had a pretty rough idea of where things were going, but was mostly figuring things out as I went along. With CB, Shamus had the ending figured out before I ever came on board. And while it amused me a lot at first, 6 months later it was less exciting.

Hmm... that's about it. I could ramble on a bit more about things, but that's I think a pretty good look in to why CB didn't work out, and what can be learned from it.