WEBCOMICKERS: What are we afraid of?

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Anxiety and Comics

For the Month of March, we polled webcomic users on Deviantart, Twitter, and forums, posing the question:

:bulletgreen: What are the challenges that make you most anxious when beginning a new story or project?

We got a lot of excellent responses and more than a few webcomickers were willing to bare all their anxieties and frustrations!




:star: Any advice for conquering any of these infamous terrors? What worked for you? :star:

Tell us in the comments!



Top 5 Anxiety issues


:bulletorange: 1. Confidence/Self-doubt (22%)

:icontheblackwonderland: "i'm just afraid people might not like it and all the work would be for nothing"

:iconwhiskeyii: "To clarify, I think it's a combination of self-doubt and being overwhelmed. For whatever reason, I feel more comfortable when a setting in my head has been well fleshed-out, but it gets to the point where I start thinking about minor things and then wondering if it even matters (for example, what religion does a specific setting adhere to in a story where I might not address religion at all), but then I start thinking about how even small things shape people's lives and cultures (like that religion could tie back into a morality system, or not), and then I just...@_@"



:bulletorange: 2. Where to start (21%)

:iconhikapi: "Not knowing where to start. I'm not a good story teller and I tend to.. not have beginnings to my stories! XD"

:iconkomicfans: "definitely the story planning and making up my mind where to start. I remembered edited my story nearly 6 times and I'm still not satisfied :("



:bulletorange: 3. Time management (19%)

:iconpandasayori: 'A rather complicated mix of problems. Most of them revolving around university life and homework. Bleeh."

:iconkalafin99: "My weakness is in procrastination and time management... Also my family and school trouble me a lot, which deal with stamina, limited-time-on-computer allowance, and a naughty child."



:bulletorange: 4. Procrastination (14%)

:iconshiniro: "Guess you can almost call it chronic procrastination. I'm a student and right now I actually have quite a bit of free time due to certain circumstances, but even so I rarely get to take out my tablet and actually be productive even though I easily could be. Instead I play games or do nothing at all... guess it's also a bit because I get easily discouraged to actually find where to start."



:bulletorange: 5. Lack of stamina (13%)

:iconsachi-pon:  "it takes so long that i fear i will get exhausted and lose the will to finish. still, i want to try. i do like drawing, i do like making up stories. it exhausts me physically and mentally but that doesn't mean i dislike it. i still want to do it! but i feel like i will take forever and ever and ever..."

:iconkay-beast: "For me, it's a combination of time management, procrastination, and stamina. I'm in art school right now, and by the time I finish all my homework, I don't work on my own personal projects cause I'm all "but I already did art today!" T_T"




Other Problems


- Lack of feedback
- Health challenges
- Copyright concerns
- Need a community/support
- That tools do I need?
- Planning
- Update schedules
- Paneling

Need a Community:
:iconfanfreak200: "There is webcomic/writing community?!  O_o"


Copyright

:iconluffynotomo: " i'm worried about art theft or copyrights and such -- making sure no one else steals the same idea or characters ><"


Paneling
:iconiiwi: "-u- paneling man, that damned paneling and not knowing where to start."


Planning-Related
:iconsky-morishita: "I think the main thing that makes me most nervous when I'm starting a new project is having the whole story objective clear in my mind so that I don't end up dropping the project later because I don't know where the story is going."

:iconzumoarino: "Hmm, I think the main problem I have is that... I will have the general story planned out in terms of the "major/important" scenes "

:iconogawaburukku: "I really wish I'd made a buffer when I started. I kept putting off the comic for years and when I finally decided to do it I jumped right into it because I was so nervous I needed to know if people hated it before I continued. Very dumb move DX"


Health-Related
:iconlibberachi: "Oh god, the health problems, make them go away so I can get some shiznit done. ;___;"

:iconequilonic: "I also have health problems that prevent me from drawing, but that would only be a problem if I'd have enough confidence in my ideas in the first place. "


Update Schedule
:iconjaybiejarrett: "what intimidates me the most is the idea of a rigid updating schedule.  I mean I know that's what people expect and I fear that I'll always be late and stuff.  I need to work on my organization.  I'll probably end up updating once a month."




:star: Did we miss any? What makes you anxious? :star:

:star: Any advice for conquering any of these infamous terrors? What worked for you?
:star:

Tell us in the comments!

NEXT POLL: This month, tell us what your favorite webcomics community is (and why)





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Comments24
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Kryru's avatar
Planning forme too!
I always know thatprint companies and stuff have a set numebr of pages they'll print for prices but I just don'tknow the usual and stuff.

Ifeel Ineed toknowmy pagenumbers before Ican start planning my paneling.