What drew you into making/wanting to make comics?

I actually started off in animation and really love pre-production, stuff like animatics and storyboards. I did have a personal short film I wanted to make, but wasn't quite skilled enough yet. Comics wasn't too far a leap. A bunch of my professors at art school make comics (Marvel, DC, Boom, etc) and they sort of guided me that way.

I actually switched into manga though after an internship at a publisher! Now I make manga instead lmao

I always loved comics and animation as a kid and wanted to write stories for those mediums. While i also want to write prose and for live-action film/tv, comics are a first love. In terms of what drew me to the medium?... I liked the lack of limitations.

I've been watching anime and reading manga since I was a kid. I wanted to tell my own story, with own world, and my own characters and the most accessible medium was comics/manga.

I think on some level I pretty much have always wanted to make comics and tell stories. My Granddad was a professional artist and I loved being at his house and seeing his work all around. I always wanted to be able to do that myself. I think for a while that desire went away but I got into western comics in a big way from being a teenager and ideas would start to form about making comics again.

For many years low confidence and elf doubt held me back. I would draw constantly at work but never felt that I was good enough to show it to anyone. I would occasionally do some pieces of art for promoting bands that I was in and try to learn how to create comics, however the low self esteem would always eventually kick in and stop me from really trying.

As I got older things such as getting into a comitted relationship, having children and getting a mortgage meant that my priorities changed towards those responsibilities. I would still play around with the idea of comics but this would take much longer to do since I was always pretty busy.

Then about 2 years ago I started getting ill and have suffered from ongoing health issues that has stopped me from being able to work and has greatly diminished my mobility. This has meant that i have had a lot of time being able to work on my art and story telling. It has also meant a bit of a change in my mindset where I feel like I can either make comics now or never. Although I still spend a lot of time suffering from the dreaded imposter syndrome I would rather take any positives in my life rather than dwell on the negatives.

Over the last year I have developed and made a decent amount for my comic and last motnh finally took te plunge to release an issue on here. The second issue of The Embodied is due to be released tomorrow and so far I have been blown away by the response I have gotten. I guess what I am saying is that if I was to give any advice it is that if you want to make comics, just start. Do what you can when you can, it will be worth it.

@DicePoolParty Wow, thanks for sharing that. I'm glad that, despite everything that has happened, you can still find a chance to enjoy art and get to add that to your life. I think that's important to everyone to find the thing they like to do and experience that in whatever capacity they can.

It's interesting that I've found a lot of similar stories of people turning to art after other things became out of reach.

For me, I've always felt the need to do writing but in a more visual way plus also being inspired by a lot of movies I watch - I liked reading comics as a kid and kinda stopped from when I was a teen up until recently. I began taking an interest in making a comic or graphic novel after reading Frank Miller's The Dark Knight for a Uni module. That kinda sparked the need to make my characters have a story to them.

And after being tormented that my writing skills were always a bit on the rough side, I feel more confident in illustrating a story rather than using prose. And now I want to make these things (independently for the time being) for as long as I can - I hope to work in an industry at some point, but I think establishing what I can do now is most important for me.

And also the 'write the book you want to read' motif motivates my interest. So I just hope I can find some readers who will enjoy the few stories and series I want to bring to life. :)

Thank you all so far for sharing. I'll take a moment to respond to each of you.

@ArtCrumbs Out of curiosity, are you still interested in animation, or will you stick with manga?

@Daniel-G Very interesting. The lack of limitations certainly makes the medium more versatile, so I'm with you in that regard. I hope you'll get a chance to write for TV and/or film as well.

@Copoki I certainly understand what you mean. I think a lot of creators have had the same mindset.

@DicePoolParty I'm sorry about your health issues, as well as your low self-esteem. I hope you'll get better soon. I'll try to follow your advice as well.

@JanneKarneus I hope your storytelling capabilities will improve. The mainstream industry is a tough one to get into from what I hear, so I hope you'll be able to make it someday.

I originally started making comics to set a layout for an animated series (I still plan to have it animated one day) for YouTube, but things happened and I ended up scrapping the entire idea because I felt like it was to similar to other established comics/manga until about 3 months before my first comic issue on here. The reason I came back to the idea was after I had read Part 7 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. When I read that, I felt inspired to create something truly entertaining.

I don't know exactly how much I need improve, but I've been told mixed reviews so far many say they're good/great, others say they're bad or downright horrible, but I try to take the most positive parts from both types. I do believe that the majority of negative reviews are towards the art style, which is understandable to me as the comic's art it in Sticknodes because, bluntly I'm terrible at drawing. Mainly, I'm proud of how I am Improving in my dialog and storytelling.

I am 16 years old (Going on 17 very soon) at the time of writing this, I one day want to make a true career out of making comic books and movies because of my love for storytelling and creating. Right now to help that come to pass, I need to get better at getting my name out there. I want to have my own publishing brand so I don't have to deal with outside influence and restrictions. I am only 16 right now so I have a long ways to go.

Thank you @ArtCrumbs and to you also @MComicman. I appreciate the kind words.

Though it has been a difficult period I tend to concentrate only on the things I can control. I think that I have also adapted to be more open about the way I am feeling instead of bottling things up.

In terms of taking the leap into releasing my own comics I feel that it is important to show my kids that it is worth while following pursuits that mean something to you, even when the chips are down.

I always enjoyed reading books, comics and watching stories. If I play video games, I highly enjoy story-driven games.

At some point in my youth it turned into desire of telling my own story, and being rather visual person, mixing it with drawing makes a lot of sense.

Wish you nice day!

@MComicman I dabble in animation from time to time on a personal level, but I never worked in animation even though I have a degree in it. I didn't really like the idea of being a tweener for a long time, I liked preproduction a lot more, so moving away from animation in comics/manga was a pretty natural choice for me. I'll likely make my own small animations for myself, maybe do some Opening/Ending themes like anime have for my own manga too! I'll definitely be keeping manga as my primary craft though.

I loved reading growing up and eventually grew into wanting to make my own stories.

I also enjoyed making my own little comics in school in my notebooks. I wanted to figure out a way to share my stories with others but writing just didn't feel right. So I turned to comics to do it. And here I am!

Well I wanted to make an anime. But that's not something you can do by yourself so I started making manga in hopes of later being able to adapt into an anime. Then I just fell in love with manga entirely and even forgot about wanting to make an anime for a while lol. Only looking back on it did I realize that's how I got started.

What drew me into making comics is that I wanted to bring my characters and stories to life. I have quite an imagination that is unique from people, so I want to share them with everyone!

I grew up reading Archie comics. I always wanted to make one but didn't know how. I've been drawing since the age of 8 and took my first creative writing class in the 7th grade. Since 2013, I had fun writing horror and suspense novellas. Loving to draw more than writing, I decided to try my hand at making a comic--the best of both worlds.

In 2016, I took a few online comic courses, then started following a bunch of YouTube tutorials. Feeling comfortable drawing mini-comics, I tried my hand at creating my comic series called Unscripted. The 100 days of making comics YouTube challenge helped build my confidence, and I ended up publishing the 1st issue last year. Now, I'm up to the 6th issue :)

Eventually, I want to turn my novels into graphic novels.

I've been drawing since I could hold a pen and I constantly have ideas for new stories, so I feel like making comics was just a natural progression of those ideas. Marvel movies were a pretty big influence on my writing, most of my first comics were either superhero or superhero adjacent. I make a lot more sci-fi and urban fantasy stuff now.

Aside from me loving cartoons, it was the best medium for my story. Especially important to that is I found a way to do everything myself. I very much need this to be a one-man operation and the comic was the best format for that.

I grew up reading comics and manga so I slowly started on writing and drawing my own characters and world.

Characters emotions! I used to be a writer, and could only wrote my story's on paper, now I can put my character and emotions graphicaly, this is awesome!

I know most of you had this inspiration too: I got mine from Transformers and Marvel. The OGs!

I always start by saying my mother taught me how to read at a very early age by reading me comics so it was always in my blood. Made me a "storyteller" as it were.

Eventually, I got the idea for Bullets Bourbon in my teens and since I loved the medium already (It wasn't like I was going to be able to afford camera equipment or had a large group of friends to make "movies" with) I decided to teach myself cartooning. That way anything I could imagine, I could bring to life on paper.

@MComicman
Hello, I'm new to making comics.
It's something I've wanted to do since forever and I've finally gotten started.
I hope to continue making comics and live happily ever after!
Also, I like to be silly!

(I also wanted to try tagging/mentioning/@ing in these forums)
EDIT: hooray, I did it!

I have always done art, since I was a kid. I used to be into comics as a teen (mostly Image comics), in the 90s and probably thought I would end up drawing comics or go into animation or something. I never did though. Instead, I leaned more toward Fine Art and Illustration for years. I go into doing my current comic series more as a challenge. I had some friends who said that they thought my art would look amazing in a comic book, so I gave it a shot and ended up liking it.

I've always loved to draw ever since I was a kid. But making a Comic? It was something I didn't plan on doing at first. Until I stumbled into the world of online webcomics back in the 2000s. Mostly sprite comics, It got me wanting to make a web comic of my own one day. But I was too scared to upload one back then. I was just a preteen/teen at the time. And wasn't very good a drawing yet.

So I gave up on it for a bit, after a failed attempt turn that webcomic idea into a web novel (Mischief Knights 2008). I eventually got into indie game development during my early college years and in 2011. I tried to make my own game. My first game project, was a 2D Metroidvania title. Based on some of those old ideas I had and the failed Mischief Knights web novel. But without a proper way to learn coding and game development. I ended up biting off more then I could chew. And the whole project ended up being shelved due to me running into programming road blocks using Stencyl 3.X (2018).

I didn't want everything I worked on for about a decade to amount to nothing. So I worked up the courage to take what I had from that game project. And rework it into a webcomic (2019 to now). And that's how I ended up here. Alterria had a rough ride, but I've been enjoying drawing comics for a few years now.

Looking back at it all, I kinda came full circle with it.

My passion for comics since childhood pushed me to learn drawing with books, after one year I started a comic, but it was crap! Then, one year after that, I created another perfect one. And I also wanted to share my passion with others, and to share a laugh! Buuuuuut... in reality, I just wanted some MONEY!