Help with D&D 4e Webcomic Wanted!

[Camelot]

Forked from this thread.

I want to write a webcomic based on D&D 4th edition. Not being an artist, I would love the help of someone with artistic skill. Also, if anyone else wants to join the bandwagon, it would be cool to have other writers help, especially if you're good at humor! You probably don't even need to know much about 4e, just that it takes place in a tolkienesque fantasy world.

If this is the wrong thread, I apologize.

 

[RangerWickett]

Are you looking to write a serious webcomic, or a humorous one?

 

[Camelot]

I was thinking of modelling it on Order of the Stick, so it will be funny mostly, but have an overarching plot that can be pretty dramatic.

 

[cdrcjsn]

You need to answer a few questions for yourself before you even consider adding other people to your project.

What is the purpose of the comic? Pure hobby? Trying to make money with it? Did you just want to make OotS 4.0?
Who owns the comic? The writer(s)? The artist?
Who takes care of the website? Advertising? Future merchandise?
How long do you plan on keeping up with this? It would suck if an artist decides to commit and you grow bored after writing only ten strips.
Are you aware of the various rights involved (parody, fair use, WotC owned trademarks)?

I suggest you do the following before you even look for an artist.
1) Answer the above questions.
2) Write 30 strips. If you can't write 30 strips, then you might not have enough material to make a go of this.
3) Figure out exactly what you want out of a partner (because that's what you're basically asking for here).

Writing the strips will not only allow an artist to gauge your writing ability and show how much direction you give in laying out a panel, but it will give a working buffer.

Good luck. Personally, I'm having fun with my comic. I didn't think it was possible until I started it because I don't really consider myself an artist (wasn't even a doodler before I started my strip), but I think my art is improving and so far, a few hundred people are regularly following it.

So don't rule out the possibility of doing the art yourself if you can't find anyone else.

Just don't expect instant success.

 

[Wik]

As someone who has done a webcomic - it's a lot of work. Even just the writing part, though the art definitely takes up more work. And yeah, don't expect instant success.

To suggest making a webcomic that has someone else do the art (the harder part of the two, mostly) only works if you're Penny Arcade. But yeah, the "write thirty strips" is a good point to be made. I have about that many scripts kicking around on my hard drive, and it can be tough to do.

Why you need someone else to do the art, I don't know. Order of the Stick isn't great art, after all. neither are a bunch of other webcomics. Mine, for example, works fine, and I can't draw to save my life.

Make sure you have at least four hours a week to work on your webcomic. That is what's killing mine right now - I just do not have enough time to devote to it... so it's sadly on hiatus for the next few months.

I would make your world/setting as broad as possible, so you have more fuel for mockery, and set it up to parody some 4e tropes without it being a complete rip off order of the stick. The DM of the Rings is a great webcomic (and where I got the inspiration to do my own), and I personally find it's funnier than OotS in how it's implemented. But try something even a bit different. I think it could be fun to do something like "how to survive now that the edition has changed" and run the story as a sort of "4e survival guide" for newbie adventurers.

It'd be really funny if the adventurers' guide knew about the rules of the world, but not that they were "rules". For example "Studies have shown that those who use a heavy shield are approximately 5% less likely to get hit by an incoming attack, regardless of the percentage of increased surface area the shield has over a light shield. The discoverer of this effect, Louis 'Two Fingers' Malloy, was quoted as saying "I wish I knew about this three fingers' ago!"."

Or something like that. I'm riffing, here.

All that being said, remember that success in comics (indeed, most things) is just saying "yes" one more time than everyone else says "no". Best of luck to you!

 

[BrokeAndDrive]

PLEASE have something new and fresh to offer that will make your webcomic stand out from the eleven million billion other webcomics out on the Internet!

 

[Kaiyanwang]

I was thinking of modelling it on Order of the Stick, so it will be funny mostly, but have an overarching plot that can be pretty dramatic.

If you talk about OOTS, an important question: In the cominc, will the charachters have meta-knowledge of the gameworld, in the same (or similar) way of the OOTS ones?

 

[Camelot]

I guess I did jump the gun a bit. It seems like it would be really cool in my mind, but you're right, I don't know if I could stick to it. I think it'd be better for me to work on the project I'm currently working on so I can make that really good...

 

[Kaiyanwang]

I guess I did jump the gun a bit. It seems like it would be really cool in my mind, but you're right, I don't know if I could stick to it. I think it'd be better for me to work on the project I'm currently working on so I can make that really good...

"Hey Camelot, don't make it bad..."

I'm pretty sure people here criticised constructively and advisd you to make you succeed! If the thing is in your mind, take it as a side-projecy, gather ideas, and when well inspired, DO IT!

 

[Camelot]

=) Thanks. And thanks to everyone here. I understand that you're trying to help, and I'm not giving up, just looking at things a little more realistically.

It will definitely remain as a side project for when I have the time and inspiration. For now, though, I'm going to focus on writing short stories in anticipation for my planned novel. We shall see how that turns out...