Advice wanted please

A season ago or so, I made a one-shot based on a story I’ve had in mind for years, and after submitting it to a contest that required some sort of artistic effort on my part, I remembered both how much I hate drawing, and how much I wanted to write it…and so, here goes a poorly drawn comic:

SUDDENLY, NOW THAT I LOOK AT IT, IT SEEMS AS IF ALL OF MY CLOSE FRIENDS HAVE BECOME MAGICAL HEROINES!?

I’ve elected to draw it closer to a storyboard style rather than anything close to a final draft, and don’t really intend to do that seeing as my own art when I’m serious with it is still pretty terrible. Instead, please enjoy a story about Magical Girls and their everyday lives.

The original one-shot has been posted over here; for a moment I thought to redraw it in the style I’m using from here on out, but I’ve drawn it upwards of three times at different times of my life already, so instead I came up with a new pilot. It’s still canon to other events, but I think I’ve put the necessary information into the first update, so if you don’t want to read that then don’t worry!

Updates will come from a backlog as I make more pages hopefully daily. Future updates will be mirrored under the cut as well as their own posts, and as always, all TRUE fake tryhard wannabe mangos are read from right to left~! yes the sfx is shitty thats the joke you dont think im tryin a make some tokyopop-ass manga here

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Chapter 1: Routing

so many kanjis i can't read.

good luck.

so many kanjis i can't read.

good luck.

Thank you, I'll do my best to see how many disapproving looks I receive from foreigners over how I'm butchering the art of SFX. "Silly gaijin, that's not the sound for tentacles going in someone's mouth. That just says 'tentacle'. You idiot, draw it again."

Routing pt. 2

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Spoiler

I noticed a bunch of views since the day before last, and I'm really glad since this IS a super small forum and all that; thanks for being interested in this dumb story about fake people who read right to left. I'm gonna try to pace out updates a little more, but ehh here you go

Routing pt. 3

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Spoiler

The 3rd update had the halfway point of the chapter by page number (22/44); it's only so large since it's acting as a pilot to this story, with future chapters being a uniform 25 pages.

Since 44 and 25 are big numbers for full size pages, I've been wondering this since I started posting, but does anybody think it would be better for future updates to be:
The full chapter?
5 pages every time?
The entirety of a scene before a large transition? Or, any other suggestions to take into account would be very useful. Right now I'm leaning toward 5 pages, but we'll see.

Routing pt. 4

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Spoiler

Even though I knew from the start that this was a small board, I thought that if I put out something I wanted to write, non-serious as it is I could still have fun with it. Obviously this is going to go into "creepy topic where single person talks to themselves for long period of time" territory real fast.

So if I could get some real advice, what would be the best place or way to post my own story and share feedback with people? Clearly this isn't working out here and I'm regretting ever trying this place out.

I'll be back with advice in like, 3 or so hours? I'm about to leave to meet some friends and only just noticed this topic augh

Better place for feedback is dedicated comic forums like those attached to hosting sites, or just generally making friends with other comic folks. There's a discord channel for a bunch of us who make comics? Which i can link if you want

I'll be back with advice in like, 3 or so hours? I'm about to leave to meet some friends and only just noticed this topic augh

Better place for feedback is dedicated comic forums like those attached to hosting sites, or just generally making friends with other comic folks. There's a discord channel for a bunch of us who make comics? Which i can link if you want

Thanks a lot, though on one hand since I don't have ambition art-wise I made this because I've wanted to write the story for a long time and I wanted to talk to people through it the way I did woth fan adventures a few years ago. Putting it on a hostingg site makes me uneasy because their forums are...well, for advertising their own stories, and not putting up installments so much. The last time I actually tried putting heavy effort into the art it ended up being completely ignored for an entire year, which I still don't look back on positively.

And thank you for the invitation, but I don't generally do well on chats with multiple people either! I have thought about darkening down everything to a 'non-draft' level and putting it on reddit r/manga via imgur since they do let people link to personal projects? I'd only get to do anything after I've completed a full chapter, but it's more appealing than drawing entirely for myself without entertaining anybody.

Comicfury is a pretty decent hosting site? They don't require you to have any advertising of theirs on your site, the forums aren't too bad (modded by one of my best friends who won't take any shit) and you can use your own url etc. People do discuss the comics there; theres a dedicated advertising forum and outside of that its all critique or chatting or advice instead of everyone yelling over each other to read their own thing.

I think a bit of the problem you're having right now is that you want your work to be seen, but its not happening. I know its frustrating to not have an audience, but thats the sort of thing that builds up gradually and to start often requires a bit of luck? You've gotta focus on getting it finished and putting out a complete work instead of getting discouraged because no one seems to be watching. You'll pick up people as you go along and they'll hang around for your next thing; if you never get it finished they won't hang around and you won't get much traction.

Also 'networking' with people is one of the best ways to get noticed. Maybe not via a group chat or w/e but following people and talking/interacting with them on tumblr and twitter really help. I've made a lot of friends that way, and i've kept abreast of the current news and goss and just generally been in the loop. Submitting small comics to things like zines or anthologies is also a good idea. Basically just focus on creating and occasionally saying hi to the other people doing the same thing is the best way to get somewhere. I mean. There are a ton of creatives on this forum but you haven't really posted anywhere but this topic; no one knows who you are so they're less likely to read your topic. (I found out there was a local comic group in my city a couple of years back; now i go to every meeting, count almost all of them as my good friends and have been published 3x over. The big names in my countries comics community now know me and my work).

Right! Onto content review.

I totally understand not making polished art to get the story out there! That's what i do myself. However, yours is quite hard to decipher in places. I would suggest upping the contrast so your lines are proper black, and instead of using hatching to shade using flat greys so its easier to distinguish shapes. At the moment its a little scribbley with the hatching. What would also help is if you varied lineweight: the outlines need to be thicker than the hatching, for instance. The old version was waaaaaay better about this.

Content wise: i'm really not into super stereotypical anime/manga tropes, even in parody. As it is i think some of this is slipping from satire into just repeating the thing its supposed to be satirising? Like, that girl doesn't need huge boobs at 13. It doesn't make it any less gross if you bring attention to that fact that its weird but leave her with them anyway. Its kind of an overdone topic as it is and i guess you just need to ask yourself if you're doing anything new and entertaining with it?

Comicfury is a pretty decent hosting site? They don't require you to have any advertising of theirs on your site, the forums aren't too bad (modded by one of my best friends who won't take any shit) and you can use your own url etc. People do discuss the comics there; theres a dedicated advertising forum and outside of that its all critique or chatting or advice instead of everyone yelling over each other to read their own thing.

I think a bit of the problem you're having right now is that you want your work to be seen, but its not happening. I know its frustrating to not have an audience, but thats the sort of thing that builds up gradually and to start often requires a bit of luck? You've gotta focus on getting it finished and putting out a complete work instead of getting discouraged because no one seems to be watching. You'll pick up people as you go along and they'll hang around for your next thing; if you never get it finished they won't hang around and you won't get much traction.

Also 'networking' with people is one of the best ways to get noticed. Maybe not via a group chat or w/e but following people and talking/interacting with them on tumblr and twitter really help. I've made a lot of friends that way, and i've kept abreast of the current news and goss and just generally been in the loop. Submitting small comics to things like zines or anthologies is also a good idea. Basically just focus on creating and occasionally saying hi to the other people doing the same thing is the best way to get somewhere. I mean. There are a ton of creatives on this forum but you haven't really posted anywhere but this topic; no one knows who you are so they're less likely to read your topic. (I found out there was a local comic group in my city a couple of years back; now i go to every meeting, count almost all of them as my good friends and have been published 3x over. The big names in my countries comics community now know me and my work).

Right! Onto content review.

I totally understand not making polished art to get the story out there! That's what i do myself. However, yours is quite hard to decipher in places. I would suggest upping the contrast so your lines are proper black, and instead of using hatching to shade using flat greys so its easier to distinguish shapes. At the moment its a little scribbley with the hatching. What would also help is if you varied lineweight: the outlines need to be thicker than the hatching, for instance. The old version was waaaaaay better about this.

Content wise: i'm really not into super stereotypical anime/manga tropes, even in parody. As it is i think some of this is slipping from satire into just repeating the thing its supposed to be satirising? Like, that girl doesn't need huge boobs at 13. It doesn't make it any less gross if you bring attention to that fact that its weird but leave her with them anyway. Its kind of an overdone topic as it is and i guess you just need to ask yourself if you're doing anything new and entertaining with it?

Thanks very much for the leagues of advice and I'll see what I can do with it. In the content, I have plans for the next 2-3 25-page chapters going over how the characters' stereotypical traits have given them different neuroses, in a more played bizarrely serious way;
Manly boss closet mysogynist guy is leading his whole life compensating for not feeling manly enough even though he's been buff since he was a child and as a result is a terrible leader who doesn't listen,
Fanservice action girl developed really, REALLY young, leading to a kidnapping, death of a sibling, self-loathing, and now she's constantly trying to be stronger to make up for the events she thinks she's caused but always gives up when a single opponent gets a sort of upper hand,
Pervert stereotypical shonen lead wants to be a good guy but since he's been so awful even his mother doesn't love him anymore he fluctuates between trying to be better, or taking himself even further down the shit path...

I still like the old one better as a pilot but don't want to use the old art style anymore, yet when I darken it into black everything gets overpowered and blends in even more badly. I guess a bug part of what I was looking for with this was the kind of communication I had with people in making forum adventures a while back, but don't feel secure in taking that leap from FA-level crafting to legit graphic arts, especially since my main focus is in prose publishing. But, I dunno. I do think I'll give the cluttered panels a redraw (though it's hard for me to figure out which ones don't come across--constant problem of mine), but do you want me to post the last pages here before the big sign-off? Or would that not really be able to do anything to alter the constructive criticism and suggestions given so far?