Why can't local comicbook/manga-making groups last these days?

[scifantanime]

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@Inahime and @zerk

Thanks for the heads up.
Will try to make time for it.
Most of my team mates would probably come as observers lang.

[Inahime]

thanks for the offer, but I already have them. teehee

[zerk]

@inahime

dang.... hahhhaahhaa..... i was hoping to clear up my shelf. how about shirow ? interested??


from Vemp

What: ART COMBAT 2: Christmas
Where: Gilligans, Ayala Terraces
When: Sunday, November 30, 2008, 1pm
Why: A friendly sketch battle free for all fight that anyone can join. Bring your own materials, paper, pencils, inks, sisters, etc. Artists are given the challenge to draw something related to the theme, which is Christmas (of course) in no more than an hour. The winner gets special prizes (old books, used photocopied porn, and a kiss from zerk). Drinking/open discussion follows after the event.

Special appearance by: Your mom.

Remember kids, this is just for fun and for you to meet fellow artists, but a little bit of competitiveness wouldn't hurt.

Sponsored by: Ensong's Manok, "Da best chicken inasal in Lilo-An!"

@sci

dont observe , join lang, it's all for the spirit of fun....... teammates jud... kuyawa ba. unsa diay na nga team??

[diem]

One-shots are a great foundation to make your artist's portfolio with. These can display both your story and drawing skills.

[zerk]

bitaw... artists are generally slackers.... me included. :P


and kulang sab market diri cebu to make the comics profitable... why make comics locally, you can publish your work online.

i can name a few successful comics that started as an online comics...

[scifantanime]

bitaw... artists are generally slackers.... me included. :P


and kulang sab market diri cebu to make the comics profitable... why make comics locally, you can publish your work online.

i can name a few successful comics that started as an online comics...

Well yeah, @zerk, but do you know any other online comic (besides bleedman's) that's made by a local talent here and has become successful not only in our underground but in the US as well?

As for making comics locally, what I meant with that is starting out as a strong base group here in Cebu and having those works published either in print or online. Call it a bout of regional pride and staving off the colonial mentality that we Cebuanos still have... I'd like to see the day when we can have something like a local talent pool company here that has clientele ranging from Western comic companies to even manga or manhwa ones.

[garuda666]

Some comic book groups were just one-hit wonders. Most of these people who went and founded them were too elitist and a bunch of arrogant idiots who have either dropped off from the end of the earth or have made some appearances from time to time in conventions banking on their underground fame of almost a decade na.

I maybe wrong here but I think the Cebuano mentality is still selfish and full of crab mentality that's why none of these local comic book groups have lasted up to five years or more.

That's why if I were you, bro, you'd best quit trying to establish something this ambitious because some of the people in these forums from the looks of it are just giving you false hopes (except for the people who've been responding to this thread, namely diem and Inahime, who really know what they're talking about).

Good luck na lang gyud, bro. But if I were you, you'd best give up on this one or you'll just wallow in frustration like the other local comic book groups here.

P.S. As for people who can't take what I've written here, you'd best start proving I'm wrong by doing something really concrete and not just ideas.

[zerk]

lisod man gud groupo.. most of the comics artist are isolationist ... sa western comics.. there used to be a talented bunchgaijin studios.. Jim Lee and fellow pinoy Whilce used to share studios.. even that didnt last.

@sci

our fellow istoryan ... john amor has some published work with Image, you can read his "beastboy joe" , it should be somewhere in his blog.

Eric canete is a cebuano.. pero murag didto sa US na dako.. image
Harvey Tolibao of glasshouse - studied here at CIT.. pero murag taga mindanao


up and coming .. si vemp, though he's also a slacker. hehehehe
up and coming ... cmontoya .... erotica artist.

[Inahime]

I know what you mean, there are plenty of people who have good ideas but have no follow-through.

I tried collaborating with others a few years back. We were reading stuff from SUKOLMO and we thought about trying one of our own. It started really well, we did a survival/horror themed comic and we even got to doing actual pencils. Later on, one of us got tired and left. We continued, but the other member (there were three of us) felt that the project didn't feel the same without the other member. In the end, we just dropped the whole thing.

One thing I found out was that some people dwell too much on getting results. Of course our comic was going to suck, it was our first attempt. However, if you focus on the process of honing your skills, the results will come naturally.

So to answer the question that is raised by this thread:

People will have different priorities. Some will live and breathe your project; others will drop this for a game of pokemon ruby. You may feel that this project is worth losing hours of sleep, others will just shrug.

Don’t rely on others; don't think of it as a "group". Asking for help is fine, but don't entrust a vital part of your project to someone who may be asked out by his girlfriend all of a sudden. Or someone who is still in school, or has work that needs to be brought home.

You’ll be disappointed at how people can be unenthusiastic about the project you're doing. Unless you're paying them, it will be hard to coerce them to get some work done.

Money. It all goes back to money. The investment here is high, but the profits are low. I’ve settled on publishing for myself. If I make money out of it, great! If not, that's fine. I just want to see something I created.

Most of the little money I have goes to expensive sakura brushes, rolls upon rolls of Bristol board and hardware for my PC. This is important, I would argue. Since I am an amateur, I have to clean my work digitally. This involves getting a scanner, a tablet and a GPU that could handle editing images at 300 dpi in lossless quality.

It costs money, a whole lot of it. This requires attention, dedication and perseverance. Not to mention a whole lot of practice. You should start, not later but now. Don’t wait for others, start doing something yourself.

It’s not easy; you won't emerge from this unscathed. Creating a comic requires guts, creating a group requires money.

...rant ends here. I will now go back to watching Eva.

[diem]

It’s not easy; you won't emerge from this unscathed. Creating a comic requires guts, creating a group requires money.

I agree that it's not easy.

I agree that people who get into this would either get scared, scalded or scarred.

I agree that "creation" of anything is going to take out a lot of someone.

Creating a group, however, does not necessarily requires money. Though keeping the members intact, making sure they do their part may require money or as I would feel some other form of "currency".

In keeping a group together until it reaches some measure of success, let us take a page out of those musician bands. They practice together, spend time together and do gigs. Gigs that pay not only in cash but also in "experience".

I firmly believe that if your group's members feel 'rewarded' because hanging out together and doing stuff together is so fun to do, they'd probably stick around long enough and contribute as much when ultimately the effort would pay off, somehow