1,000 words or a picture

[Hinton]

When I was being interviewed for the newspaper article, the reporter asked me a question that I found kind of odd at the time:

"Do you make movies with these [the miniatures]?"

I thought she meant did I film myself painting them or perhaps make some kind of video tutorials. When I asked her to explain, she asked if I made stop-motion animation with them. She then asked if I did some kind of comic with them. Of course, the answer was no, I didn't. However, that question got the wheels in the ol' brain pan to turning.

Several years ago, a comic book artist (can't recall his name) emailed me about a story of mine that he had read online and wanted to know if he could use it for an anthology comic he was working on. He would draw everything up, submit it to me to look over to make sure things were how I wanted them to appear and then have the comic published. Unfortunately, the comic deal fell through and I've never heard from him again.

After that, I spent a few months looking for artists that might be interested in drawing comics from my stories and have them posted online. The catch: I couldn't afford to pay for the artwork. Naturally, I didn't get any responses.

Now I'm thinking about trying to do some kind of webcomic from stories of mine (nothing Wyrd or Malifaux related; just stories that I came up with years and years ago). However, I'm still in the same situation: I can't afford to pay an artist to draw and I wouldn't feel right asking an artist to spend their time drawing something if they couldn't be reimbursed for it.

So, that leaves me with a few alternatives and I'd really like some input/feedback on the various ideas. Here are some different mediums that I could possibly use:

Drawn:

I can't draw and I can't afford to pay an artist.

Using miniatures:

They're static; trying to show different poses and facial expressions would be practically impossible.

Using some kind of pose-able figures:

Seems kind of....I don't know...bland. There are some great comics out there that use these kinds of figures, but they're more comedic than dramatic.

Writing:

Ok, this seems to be the most obvious choice, but there are a couple of drawbacks:

A picture is worth a thousand words (or more), so people would have to read my description of it instead of just seeing a picture.

People seem more keen on reading a webcomic than an online story. It's nothing against anyone; it's just faster and easier to read a webcomic that updates a few times a week instead of trying to read a "printed" story online.

I really want to tell the stories and I'm just trying to figure out a way to do it that will actually get people to read them.

So, any ideas?

[GreyHorde]

Give up on the notion of paying a comic artist straight out of your pocket. It's tough to make it worthwhile as a purely paid job. Few people I have ever met can get creative just because there is an hourly wage involved. In fact, that often seems to stifle the creative process. I have been on both sides of this, having been an independent comic book writer and artist years ago. I have not done a web comic, but the concept is the same, only the publication is different.

Instead, I suggest developing a business plan where you can sell advertising space, banner ads, subscriptions, content and trade outs, then contract the artist(s) for a percentage of profits. That might attract entrepreneurial artists who will buy into the potential and work to make it a professional & critical success.

My $0.02.

[Hinton]

Interesting idea, GH; thanks.

[redstripe]

I know a person who makes OOAK artist dolls and would pose them on her desk and around her computer and use Easy Comic Creator to make comic books with them. It was pretty cool.

[DrEvilmonki]

How good are you with photoshop?

Google images in poses you are looking for , cut and paste, put in some drawing effects.

[Hinton]

@redstripe: interesting idea. Might have to look into that.

@Dr: not very. The closest I've ever gotten to using PS is GIMP.