Starting over on starting over.

Today I was making the long drive to my other office and the thought of "Just One More" came to mind. When people see Bitmap World, they think of pixels and smilies. Most don't realize that I had/have another comic which I actually draw. Now, I never said I was any good at drawing, but I managed to create some passable art. The strip is about...gasp...a large family. Unlike BMW, it is real-life. It wasn't quite meant to be autobiographical, or even semi auto-biographical. Still, it was going to be an outlet where I did explore some of the real aspects of raising a large family. When I started JOM, I had never done a webcomic. I wrote tons of fiction, so I thought it would be no big deal leaping from one medium to another. I was wrong. First of all, incorporating a story and pictures was not quite as easy as I thought. More importantly, there is a true art to writing a comic strip, particularly in pacing. I did JOM on a pretty erractic schedule, partly because I didn't really have a focus. I had some story elements and things I wanted to explore in the future, but each strip sorta flailed around. I hit certain notes I wanted to, but there was no song coming from the composition.

Bitmap World has been a great thing for me as it has taught me tons about not only comicking, but writing. I have learned to be succinct. I have learned pacing in a new way. I have learned how to force myself to be funny. It was through doing this comic that I realized all the blatant flaws in Just One More. I had every intention of starting the strip over, but expanding on it, giving it more depth, but my foray into Bitmap World made me realize just how much I needed to do. Still, I was ready to do it, and had already done some extensive work on it.

Then came the car ride where I started to think about Bitmap World and Just One More, looking at their likenesses and differences. I realized that one of the things that makes BMW work is that a lot of our life experience is put into there. Write what you know. I then realized that while JOM was never meant to be about my life, by putting more of my life into it, I could really bring it to a level I always felt it deserved.

So, here I am. Ready to reboot a comic, and realizing that I need to reboot it again. Rather, I need to start over again. That means throwing out a lot of what I have. It's both exciting and scary. A part of me still wishes I had a great artist to do the drawing part which would give me time to focus on the story. As it is, I'm embarking on 2 adventures. A revamp of the strip and a change of style and strip structure. I really have no idea how it will turn out, but I'm eager to start and find out.

I don't expect to have something tangible for the next month or so, but I'm working on it. Wish me luck! I'll be sure to post here when I have some rough draft for everyone to peek at.

Current Mood: artistic