Has anyone taken a crack at writing a fancomic? Doesn't matter what fandom. It occurs to me that I've never actually read one even though I know they exist.

Comics are an interesting medium, particularly webcomics given they let you do some interesting things with basic animation.

I had an idea about a year or two back of a HP story that centred on the idea that powerful wizards create these sorts of "pocket worlds" (think the Arcane Sanctuary from Diablo II) to guard their secrets and do other interesting things. I felt such a concept would do well with art or as a comic as it would let the reader see each of these worlds that are unique to their creators.

Most would reek of unnaturalness in their own way due to the difficulty in perfecting them. When I visualise them I see some as being like the homeworld of Jadis, the White Witch after she spoke the words; a barren, dead landscape lit by diffuse light because the creator has struggled to create a world of life and of sunlight. While others harkens to the bleak worlds found in the original Doom games; solid, angular fortresses as dark clouds swirl above unnaturally fast, yet there not even a breeze as the characters explore the labyrinth. Another, a dark fortress that sits atop a flat, smooth ocean, and underneath a black sky while the only light is produced by torches that dot the fortress.

I'm not much of an artist however, outside of things involving straight lines. I thought I might cheat by putting together scenes in blender and then tracing them. Something I might give a go as some point.

I'm curious if others have considered it and why.

 

When I first conceived of the basic premise of my HP/DC crossover, it was as a comic. I quite enjoy trying to combine more than just the characters and world when I build up a crossover, and trying to work in the comic medium would have been great for that. I even had a fairly strong vision for a number of different scenes, and how I'd like to depict them.

There was always going to be a significant issue with that plan, however. I'm no artist. With photoshop, plenty of reference images, and enough time, I can sometimes make something not terrible. Attempting the kind of detail and technical precision required for a comic-book style of art is entirely beyond me though. In the end, after telling myself for years that I could totally try and self-teach that kind of art, I re-worked the story to add a couple of extra background plot elements so that it could just about pass for a fully realised story.

Sometimes I still daydream about trying to create some individual comic panels for those stories, but I'm just too lazy to put in the effort needed to do it well. I also considered the possibility of engaging an artist on Fiverr or something to do what I wanted but I am not only lazy, I am also cheap.

 

I considered it for Dark Souls stories that I'm experimenting with, but it always falls short.

I do it with pencil, and my pencil is always too many sharp edges, all knees and elbows, to really capture the visual I have in my mind.

There are pluses to it, of course, as the DS world is bleak, desolate place that reeks of disease and death, that is IMO best captured through the white-black contrast. Only in truth, it was never enough (due to me never being good enough artist) to do the story I've had in mind justice, and the visuals that are supposed to show everything tend to end up frivolous, there only to capture the hero in his moments of awesomeness.

In the end, to be entirely honest, it was the edgy nonsense that had zero plot, occasional cool visual, and was more original than it was Dark Souls. It was the series of cut-scenes that felt out of the place, bland, repetitive, and worst of all boring.

I have no skills with online tools, and when I tried that it ended even worse than pencil so I was quick to delete any and all evidence of it ever happening.

It seems to me that there's a barrier between comic style and pure writing that I am unable to overcome, as in that I have issues with knowing what to draw, what to have my characters say, and how long the pause between the pages is supposed to last.

I tried, rendered it a complete failure, and then continued writing, the good ol' old-fashioned style. But I still have hopes that I will reach the stage one day where I'll be able to publish some of it and not be a object of complete ridicule.

 

I'd love to do a fancomic. There are certain things, especially action sequences, that are on another level when you can actually show them. It's also an interesting change of pace to tell a story almost exclusively via dialogue and visuals, a different type of challenge.

But there are two major problems with it. One is that it's long, really long. The time it takes to draw out every necessary scene would stretch even short/medium-length narratives into serious time drains. The second problem is a lot simpler and a lot more debilitating. I can't draw for shit. Not in the, 'oh it takes me a long time to make it look good' type of way but in the 'if I drew it it will be an irrecognizeable monstrosity' type of way.

If I were to make one I'd need a partner to handle the drawing for me while I focused on the written aspects. Understandably, I don't care enough to actually work at making that happen, so any ideas about doing one will just remain in my head.