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neocatharsis · 4 years ago

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NCT’s Mark Lee on Dreams, Instagram Poetry, and Growing Up

Mark has a lot going on — but he’s making time for poetry, introspection, and, of course, the members of NCT Dream. - Vivien Wu

“I’ve been thinking about dreams a lot these days!” Mark Lee exclaims over Zoom from SM Entertainment’s Seoul headquarters.

The 21-year-old leader of NCT Dream is enthusiastic as he mulls over the meaning of dreams, his back against a wall of pink and yellow flowers assembled by his fellow NCT members. He’s wearing a simple, white tee, and when he gestures with his hands, you can catch glimpses of the friendship ring that all seven members of NCT Dream wear as a symbol of their bond.

“I actually feel like dreams hold a large portion of a life, and I’m not just talking about the subconscious dreams that we all have when we sleep,” he continues. “If you put it in a way where dreams are actually things that motivate us, and the drive that keeps us going, especially as a strongly driven person myself, I feel like… a guy with no dreams is like…” He looks up, thinking. “…A car with no engine. So, I think it’s as important as yourself. That’s how deep I go with dreams.”

His interest in dreams is fitting, considering that they are also the central, underlying concept to the lore behind NCT Dream’s parent group, NCT. They connect their three subunits, NCT 127, NCT Dream, and WayV, in a complex, Inception-inspired fictional universe where dreams are the only way they can find each other, and where upon uniting they can mix to form new subunits collectively referred to as NCT U. In practical terms, this has resulted in a 23-member mega-group that is multifaceted in every way — from their musical styles and visual aesthetics to their cultural backgrounds and spoken languages.

NCT Dream’s original teenage concept meant that members were supposed to “graduate” when they came of age, and as the oldest, Mark was the first to leave the group at the end of 2018. Having grown attached, however, fans were devastated at his departure; after a year of separation, SM announced that the graduation system would be scrapped and that he would rejoin the group. Their new album, Hot Sauce, is the first with Mark in over two years. As fellow member Haechan declared in an interview with Teen Vogue earlier this week, “Mark [is] very special. NCT Dream means Mark.”

But before the rapper led NCT Dream, and before he joined NCT U and NCT 127 and SuperM — the man is in high demand — Mark’s childhood dream was writing. He grew up in Toronto, and through doing school projects and essays quickly discovered that he had a natural way with words. Inspired by Percy Jackson author Rick Riordan, Harry Potter, and James Patterson, Mark dreamt of becoming an author, long before he was recruited by SM at a global audition in Canada in 2012. “When I was in school, I was always the kind of guy who would write more than expected, and that became a thing that clicked for me,” he says. “I was like, ‘Maybe it’s something that I naturally do?’ But then that kind of turned into rap writing too, so I guess they kind of clicked together.” It explains his prolific career as a lyricist; since debuting, he’s amassed over 30 songwriting credits across his various groups, contributing to songs as iconic as NCT U’s “Boss,” NCT 127’s “Cherry Bomb,” and NCT Dream’s “Chewing Gum.”

Even with such an extensive body of work, however, penning lyrics hasn’t satiated his appetite for literary expression. In an interview with Japanese magazine Men’s Non-No, he revealed that he still hopes one day to write a book, whether that be a novel, autobiography, or something more philosophical.

In the meantime, he’s taken to writing what are basically short poems on his Instagram, which he created just a few months ago. He’s gathered over 4.5 million followers since then, but having such a large audience hasn’t deterred him from being endearingly vulnerable with the way he writes. When I refer to them as poems, he laughs and looks embarrassed, but when I ask him to tell me the stories behind them, he’s enthusiastic again. They’re short, but offer brief glimpses into Mark the writer — sharp, inquisitive, and thoughtful. As pieces of literature, they’re a little rough around the edges, but the sincerity he’s known for shines through, illuminating the introspective, philosophical side that may not be so obvious in person.

His first poem, loosely titled “Late Night Scribbling,” put into words his musings about sleep, thoughts, feelings, and writing. It meanders from topic to topic, hovering between feelings of hope and hopelessness, before ending with a comically awkward “haha.”

“I actually wrote that by imagining how I wanted to organize my Instagram page,” he explains. “I was thinking of creating an Instagram, then I realized that, well, I’m not really a picture kind of guy, I’m not really a travelling kind of guy… I kind of studied who I am first, and I [asked myself], ‘What’s something that I can really portray in an intimate way?’ and it turned out to be writing.”

“I started to brainstorm what kind of topics I could write about, and then from there on, I started to write a little each and every night, and that turned into Late Night Scribbling,” he continues. “That kind of gave me courage to start Instagram in the first place, that piece of writing.”

Two weeks later, he followed it up with “Black Socks,” a whimsical ode to, well, black socks — complete with accompanying photos of him wearing said socks. Immediately, it feels more confident and cohesive than its predecessor. Using the neat and tidy look of black socks as a metaphor, he describes his own mindset for living life: “Pleasure from perfect alignment; That also goes for my ability to be parallel with my thoughts and actions; I try to live out what’s in my mind, and keep it consistent even when forgotten like a working habit.”

Comments on the posts praise his writing and encourage him to continue sharing these small pieces of himself. On the stage, Mark takes on a confident, larger-than-life persona, while in vlogs and spoken interviews, he’s a bubbly character full of laughter and boyish charm. What the poems show is that, beneath these outer appearances, there’s another layer of complexity that is yet to be fully explored, and it’s not surprising that fans want to know more.

His day job as a K-pop idol doesn’t allow a lot of time for hobbies, though, and he confesses to not having written much lately. Despite that, he’s determined to stay in the industry for as long as possible. “Longevity is something that I’ve always been aiming for,” he says. “I’m willing to do this for a long time, and that requires a lot of work. I’m willing to take that as a challenge and I’m trying to stay as long as I can, but with quality.”

That focus on quality informs his preparations for the upcoming promotions with NCT Dream. In both their fictional world and ours, NCT Dream are a central component of NCT by virtue of their unique focus on growth — the seven members were aged between 14 and 17 when the group first debuted in 2016. Fast-forward five years, and the members are now 19 to 21, having reached a milestone in January when the youngest, Jisung, finally became a legal adult in Korea. When asked if he feels like an adult yet, though, Mark gives an extremely relatable answer with zero hesitation.

“I still feel like I’m in middle school, I’m gonna be totally honest. I swear to God, I feel like I’m… All right, I’ll put it up — I feel like I’m in high school!” He laughs. “I even had this talk with Jisung, ‘cos he’s the latest that turned into an adult. He said that he still feels like he’s a student, he doesn’t feel like he’s 20 [19 in international age] right now.”

It’s been a long time since all seven Dream members — Mark, Renjun, Jeno, Haechan, Jaemin, Chenle, and Jisung — have released an album together, and as the first full-length album since their debut, the fan anticipation is palpably intense. Mark himself has mentioned in various vlogs how important he believes this comeback to be, and that conviction becomes obvious whenever he talks about it.

“We had a talk all together, the seven of us, without any cameras or anything. I brought all the guys together and we talked before the whole momentum started, and I said that I’m willing to put my everything on this one. Like, I always had, but I feel like… the whole universe, or like— ” He pauses, trying to figure out how to articulate himself, and his next line is the most emphatic of our whole conversation. “There are things that are out of our control, but we can see and feel when the pieces match together sometimes, and I feel like this specific moment, this particular album, kind of had those essential parts.”

He’s thinking about all of the context surrounding this comeback: the group’s coming of age, the reunion of all seven members, the scale of the album, the fact that Jisung has only just recovered from a leg injury that meant he couldn’t dance for months — even the fact that 2020 was, against all odds, the best year yet for NCT, with release after release bringing them unprecedented success and momentum.

“I felt that coming and I explained all of that [to the group],” he continues. “This whole period of time has a lot of meaning to it, and we’re not taking that for granted, we’re working hard.” With everything that’s happened, Hot Sauce is a historic moment for NCT Dream, and that’s been reflected in their numbers — the album clocked over 1.7 million pre-orders, obliterating their previous record of 500,000 for last year’s EP, Reload.

Their familial bond and the success that has come with it is the culmination of years spent living, working, and growing up together. The members have collectively missed out on key experiences that most teenagers might take for granted, distanced as they are from normal life, and the group also benefits from an unusually loose adherence to traditional Korean age hierarchy. The result is a brotherhood that goes beyond just being colleagues. “What we have is pretty intimate, and it’s also genuine,” Mark says.

About his role, he is matter of fact. “I’m by far the most easily approachable punching bag for the team. I am not… complaining…” He laughs. “But all jokes aside, I feel like my role for this team… Yes, I am the oldest and I am the leader but I’m also… In Korea, in the culture, age is very important, but we’ve come so far that all those borders kind of just vanished and we’re all pretty much friends, and I guess I’m just a friend of theirs too.”

It’s true that, despite being the leader, his friendly personality and endearingly awkward mannerisms mean that he commands about as much authority as a small puppy. Instead, much like a puppy, he is showered with love and affection (fellow member Chenle refers to Mark as his son and his actual puppy Daegal as Mark’s little sister), but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a dependable leader figure. The opposite is true — in Renjun’s words, Mark’s presence unites the group in a way that makes him irreplaceable.

And while this may be the fifth year since their debut, in the grand scheme of things, the members of NCT Dream are still very, very young — by most standards, they would still be considered to have their entire careers ahead of them. Growth has brought them here, but where does Mark think it will take them in the future?

“Growing just never stops for us, I can see us growing continuously, endlessly,” he replies. “What the future holds is something that we will never know, but we always do try to prepare during the present, and so with whatever time we have currently and with whatever album, or whatever stage, or whatever piece of music it may be, we’re willing to make sure that we have the next one coming too.”

A final thought. “I’m glad that we’re striving for that, ‘cos we started off as…” Mark shakes his head, “…as babies.”

#nct #nct dream #Mark #nct 127

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adhd-ahamilton · 4 years ago

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I got to see Hamilton in Sydney!!

It was a seriously, seriously amazing time – I was always worried that by the time I finally got to see Hamilton on stage (I was even supposed to see it in America last year lmfao) it wouldn’t mean the same anymore. And like, obviously it’s not my hyperfixation anymore. But even like this, it was still an incredible experience! I always figured that the recording would focus more on close-ups and the like because you can’t really see that on stage, but you really can see so much of what’s going on when you see it live and the whole stage is full of things to notice!

I have a lot of thoughts about it (mainly about the Australian cast, though some of these things could just be live performance things)!

Firstly, only two lines had their wordings changed:

* ‘John Adams doesn’t have a real job, anyway’ → ‘Vice president is not a real job, anyway.’ This got a good laugh from the audience; obviously it was changed to preserve the joke, since most Aussies wouldn’t have a good idea of who John Adams was. (I explained the joke when I watched the recording with my parents.)

* ‘Weehawken. Dawn.’ → ‘Jersey. Dawn.’ This was a bit of a surprise, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense. Aussies also wouldn’t know Weehawken (I didn’t even get that he was referring to a place when I first heard it), while Jersey is very clear because they already made a joke about it. (That one didn’t get much of a laugh though, ofc lol) And it’s actually more consistent because later they do say ‘we were near the same spot my son died, is that why’ so they drive that connection even deeper.

I don’t think there were any other music/staging/choreography differences from the recording – just the acting. But ooh, this really was differently-acted!

Hamilton

I love Lin-Manuel Miranda. I love his energy and enthusiasm and intelligence and his optimism. But while I loved his dorky version of Hamiton, I have to admit, I didn’t always think it matched up with even the musical’s script, let alone the real person. This Hamilton, though? I kept thinking about all the ways he felt different from the original, and almost every time, it was like ‘yeah, this feels more like what I know of the real Hamilton.’ (Or at least, the Hamilton we wrote about in fic.)

This Hamilton is aggressive and prickly. Up until Helpless, we don’t really see him smile – which makes sense, y’know, with ‘talk less, smile more.’ When he confronts Burr at the beginning of the play, he doesn’t have Miranda’s overly energetic and talkative air, he’s more pushy and too intense. You really feel like, oh, yeah, he’s just walking up to someone on the street and badgering them into telling him about their life story. When he says ‘God, I wish there was a war’ he’s less naive and more so hyperfocused on his goal he doesn’t notice he’s said something super insensitive. When Burr says ‘You wanna get ahead?’ his ‘Yes’ isn’t quiet and firm, it’s more ‘yes obviously, nobody would not want to get ahead, so just hurry up and tell me already.’

And that’s just in the first couple of songs! He continues on like this, with that kind of burning intensity and hot temper, through the musical, though ofc it softens at important times. Importantly, his relationship with Burr is largely based in frustration. When he does ‘My Shot’, it honestly feels less like he’s singing to impress the guys and more like he’s challenging Burr and everything he just told him; I’m sure I saw him glancing back at Burr several times. Likewise, when he tells Burr to go get Theodosia, it’s not questioning – he’s outright saying that if he really loved her, he’d take any risk for her. And in Schuyler Defeated, his ‘Burr?’ isn’t questioning there, either – he’s already angry, he’s just demanding his attention. He genuinely seems to like Burr in a weird way that even he might not understand at times, but for the most part he just seems to find him really frustrating and is always trying to incite him to do more.

This Hamilton also feels very independent, and even aloof. In The Story of Tonight, while the other guys are totally sincere and moved by it all, Hamilton feels sorta… distant. At one point he half walks off until Laurens brings him back, which I think happens in the recording as well, but here I especially felt like that was how he was ‘really’ feeling. Not that he was being manipulative or lying in any way, just that he couldn’t be in the moment because he was still stuck in his head thinking about the future. And the whole way through, he very rarely seems to properly open up – my friend said afterwards that Hurricane hits so much harder when it’s the first time he’s really vulnerable in the entire musical. Which is basically how it happens.

It’s funny – you think of Hamilton and Burr as being contrasting this way, with Burr keeping his cards close to his chest and not revealing what he really wants until The Room Where It Happens, but this Hamilton doesn’t feel far off. But rather than keeping a secret per se, it’s more… he has such an incredibly strong, intense drive, and you’re never super certain where it comes from. And in Hurricane, it suddenly becomes clear – all this time, he’s still caught up in that trauma, and still feels like he needs to fight and scrape just to survive, even when it turns into this self-destructive impulse. Honestly, Hurricane has always been kind of a weird song – he’s been corrupted and is not the most sympathetic beforehand, but then you get this grand slow inspiring song talking about how he suffered in the past and overcame it, but THEN you cut to an almost comedic number about how he fucked everything up for himself and his family. In Miranda’s version, that mood up-and-down always felt a little too jarring. Here it made perfect sense – it was so shocking to see how vulnerable he was at the beginning, and then the song isn’t just repeating what we learned in the beginning, it’s explaining what he’s been keeping deep down all along, but also making it clear that this is manic and awful and destructive.

Part of that is the singing, too. This Hamilton can rap really well, but his singing voice is startlingly gentle and beautiful. It really helps to get across the sincerity of his feelings in Helpless, Dear Theodosia, and as I said Hurricane. On the other hand, there are also times his voice just goes flat, like there are so many emotions he can’t process them – you see that a bit in My Shot when he gets worried (‘I never had a group of friends before’), but it REALLY stings when he says ‘I have so much work to do.’ That hit me way harder than Miranda’s version :(

However, when you combine this Hamilton’s aloofness with that certainty and intelligence, you also get a version of him that is particularly… ironic? He’s always crossing his arms (when he’s not rubbing his face with a palm; those two gestures repeat constantly through the play), and kinda stepping back and Watching people, with a bit of a sense of self-important and even patronising judgement. This is very much ‘So quick-witted!’ ‘Alas, I admit it.’ He definitely does come across like a dude who thinks he is ‘smartest in the room,’ and puts way too much stock in his own opinion. Particularly with Burr whenever they were getting along there was a distinct sense of ‘You know what? I actually think you’re pretty interesting. And my positive judgement is hard to come by, so that’s a big compliment.’ (Burr does not seem to get this weirdly condescending vibe though, lol.) Honestly…. I gotta admit: I really don’t like people like that, haha – though I can’t say it’s entirely inappropriate for Hamilton characterisation. This Hamilton genuinely feels difficult, and that matches up to what happens in the script.

But, the consequence is that after Hurricane, some of the later songs didn’t have quite as much of an impact on me as in the original. In It’s Quite Uptown, I could somehow never quite lose that vision of Hamilton as a bit sarcastic and superior – the way he rubs at his face in grief still just felt a little… put-on and theatrical, like you can hear the frustrated sigh underneath. And this is a song that demands complete, total, unrelenting vulnerability – Miranda’s Hamilton sounds like he’s dying the whole time and that makes the emotional stakes really felt. Maybe it’s that his voice was TOO gentle in this song – Miranda’s more awkward voice actually adds to the exhausted brokenness of the situation?

And finally, when we got to The World Was Wide Enough… Miranda’s speech there in the silence might just be my favourite sequence in the entire musical, so I think anyone else would have struggled to match up to that. It doesn’t help that I was distracted trying to figure out Burr in this scene (which I’ll get to later). It was still beautiful, of course, but ‘What is a legacy?’ just feels so so very Lin-Manuel Miranda and anyone else singing that just doesn’t feel the same.

Overall, I really really enjoyed this version of Alexander Hamilton – as I said, he felt much closer to the actual characterisation I always imagined for him. And this one showed some really fascinating vulnerability in unexpected places, even if the ending didn’t quite land as well for me.

Burr

This Burr was really, really fascinating as well – an interpretation that feels different all the way through, but really pays off at the end with something very striking.

So, something the group of us all agreed was that this Burr felt a lot more like the ‘trust fund baby’ he calls himself. There’s something elegant and refined about him, a rich person who is used to moving through the world as a person to be admired. He’s actually quite graceful, somehow, even though he barely dances? But that also really brings to the fore one particular element – entitlement. (Seriously, my mum is physically incapable of bringing up Burr without mentioning the word ‘entitled’, lol.)

This is a Burr who is used to not having to work for things. He just sort of expects things to fall into his lap, eventually, in contrast to Hamilton. The world will eventually shape to match his desires – that’s how things work. Even in the latter part of the musical, it doesn’t so much feel like he needs to fight and scrape like Hamilton to get ahead, but more like… getting ahead is his birthright, and he just needs to effect that inevitable change into the world. But I’ll get to all that later.

The other thing my friend said was that this Burr feels very much like a preacher’s son, and the more I thought about that the more I agree. There’s something almost… toxically positive about him – the smiles don’t feel two-faced and manipulative so much as maybe like, wilfully ignorant? There’s a very ‘Don’t fret, God will work things out in the end :)’ feel about him, actually. But there’s also something deeply naive in him. Leslie Odom Junior’s version also had some of that genuine lack of understanding – when he muses in confusion over Hamilton in Wait For It, or when his face scrunches in confusion when he says ‘I don’t see why that has to end’ in Schuyler Defeated, and this one does all that, but it feels like an even more inescapable part of his character.

Like, there’s something about this Burr that is just a bit… lame. A bit ‘Hello Fellow Kids.’ But, intentionally!! As I said, he’s a preacher’s son. When he tries to act kinda cool or badass, it just doesn’t quite work. When he interacts with the other guys, even as he smiles wanly and shakes it off when they insult him, you feel like he does still want to be – or even think he is? - part of that group of cool young men. He’s just too… nice, almost. I felt a little more bad during The Story Of Tonight (Reprise) and all. And he seems to take it really earnestly that Hamilton likes him, even if, like I said, there’s a sorta superior quality coming from Hamilton.

He just comes across more naive. Rather than a manipulator, this Burr comes across as more of a shameless Yes Man, who doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with what he’s doing. But I also sort of felt like other characters easily saw through him, and Burr didn’t quite realise that. Like with Jefferson, it sorta felt like he thought he was being really strategic but Jefferson was just like ‘sure, this guy works as an ally, even if he’s kinda annoying.’

And when it comes to Wait For It… the song makes it clear that bad things have happened to him – he hasn’t gone through life without suffering – but he hasn’t had the same reaction Hamilton has had. While Hamilton learned nothing will come to him unless he takes it, it feels like Burr learned that things will just… happen to him, good or bad, and he can’t control it. Nothing that has ever really affected Burr has been of his choice – he inherited his position, and then his parents died, and all of that was just the uncontrollable whim of the universe. Leslie Odom Junior’s version emphasised the ‘I am the one thing I can control’ aspect a bit more – you feel that that version really had worked hard and struggled for the sake of his studies and job, but this Wait For It gave me a very uncomfortable feeling of being trapped. It’s as though everything about him is already decided, and even his efforts aren’t personal decisions so much as just what was natural and expected of him to do.

And that makes the second half of the story feel very different for him. In Leslie Odom Junior’s version, we see him take that self-control to new levels – that realisation that there is something that means as much to him as all of that drive and intensity Hamilton puts out, and it’s his own ambition. That he does want that, and he will have to fight and get his hand dirty to make it happen. As the story goes on, he becomes increasingly desperate and fearful, understanding more and more what it was to be that kid in the hurricane, becoming viscerally aware that terrible things can and will happen to him unless he stops them.

This Burr doesn’t feel like that. His downfall isn’t frantic. It’s very very cold.

In The Room Where It Happens, yes, his ambition crystallises and he changes strategy. But it feels less like an electric jolt, or an earthquake, and more of an epiphany. It’s okay for him to do these things. It’s right. He belongs in the room where it happens. Whatever he does to bring him there is by definition right and good.

He honestly seems to be feeling good through much of it. He’s so smiley when he comes up to Jefferson. He seems even more confused than Leslie’s Burr when Hamilton is actually mad at him for unseating Schuyler. And in The Election of 1800, there’s nothing of the original’s tired, manic energy, like he’s pushing himself to the brink and plastering on a smile to get through it. When this Burr campaigns, he’s energized and charismatic and friendly and filled with almost a kind of serenity. Like this is what he was born to do. His future is almost here – he just needs to reach out a little and it will be in his grasp.

Which, brief aside here while I analyse this haha – so, in Australia, a big part of our culture is what is called Tall Poppy Syndrome. i.e., an instinctive bitterness and hostility towards those who are perceived to stand above others. It’s often described as an aggression towards successful people, but I think that’s only part of it. Australians would describe their culture as breezy and casual and relaxed, but there’s also something disaffected about it, IMO. You’re not meant to ever take anything too seriously. Yes, we all take the piss out of politicians, but it’s sorta ‘lame’ to really seriously oppose them, too. It’s like our culture is stuck in the mindset of a self-conscious fifteen year old, where we’re all sorta lazily cynical and ‘bluntly honest’, but you’re not supposed to ever actually do anything about it all. Caring too much is kinda embarrassing. You’re just supposed to make fun of people and keep living your life. We don’t get the same fundamentalist groups intent on forcing their viewpoint on society like America does, but we also don’t get the same idealists who fervently believe that if we work hard we can make things better. They exist, for sure. But… well, it’s hard for me to imagine an Australian Leslie Knope, you know? (Who, btw, is one of my favourite fictional characters of all time, for reference.)

Watching Burr in The Election of 1800, I was struck by a memory. It was an Australian season of The Amazing Race, and on top of all of the typical relaxed Australian reality show contenders (seriously, I don’t know what the fuck Drag Race Down Under is on, that is the most un-Australian reality show I have ever SEEN), there was one couple that were I suppose Go-Getters. The type who eat healthily (probably vegan) and get up every morning in their athleisure to work out at the gym or go for runs. They were peppy and enthusiastic and they announced with huge smiles that they were going to WIN this! And the other contestants absolutely despised them. At one point, they did something to attract specific ire – honestly, it was probably nothing more than just not helping another duo who were going the wrong way, because in Australian reality shows everyone helps. But after that, multiple groups all ganged up to sabotage them. They took such delight in watching these two cheery people’s optimism flag, so very self-assured in having taught them to ‘not take yourself too seriously.’ Burr, as he was campaigning, reminded me of them.

It’s really telling, I think, that Burr is the one who reminded me a little of Leslie Knope, here – albeit obviously a much darker version. The kind of person who dorkily believes in the system and puts himself out there unselfconsciously, whose wide smiles are unironic and unmocking. In the original, Lin Manuel Miranda actually compared Hamilton to Leslie Knope at one point, with Hamilton’s ‘thirty years of disagreements.’ It’s a very Australian thing, to make Hamilton less earnest and more aloof and sarcastic, to make his anger as much about frustration with other people as about believing in something himself, and to make Burr, by comparison, sincere. Australians don’t really trust sincerity. Honesty is to be framed as an insulting joke, and Burr is just too polite to do that.

When the results come, Burr’s serene smile only very very slowly fades. Before his expression really drops, he turns away. When Your Obedient Servant starts, he’s quiet. The whole time he sings, he’s measured and controlled and entirely certain of himself. He doesn’t have LOJ’s grit or spikes in volume on ‘just to keep me from winning.’ He’s unnervingly quiet.

Even into The World Was Wide Enough this continues. In the original, Burr is outright frantic. He’s desperate and shaking with anger and fear, and when he points at Hamilton’s glasses and the like, you can feel that he actually isn’t sure of himself – that he’s trying to justify this to himself and knows he sounds crazy, but he just can’t pull back now. His voice shakes and goes up and down. When he says ‘we were near the same spot his son died, is that way?’ it rises and when he says ‘this man will not make an orphan of my daughter’ he cracks in real tears, like the mention of Philip reminded him of what’s at stake here, like that really is the reason he’ll kill him. This Burr stays quiet and cold. He doesn’t waver.

If that Burr was desperate, this one feels… and I hope this doesn’t sound like a joke: like a thwarted rich nice guy. The other Burr learned from Hamilton too well, and is replicating his self-destructive energy. This Burr hasn’t learned anything at all. Winning is still his birthright, and Hamilton has stolen that from him. Burr deserves it, and he deserves to punish Hamilton for this. It’s not an explosion of shock, a scrabbling for purchase in this new chaotic world that will doom them both. It’s vindictive. Burr knows what he is doing and he wants to hurt Hamilton for all Hamilton has hurt him.

After the shot, I was surprised to find myself not tearing up as I expected (usually, these two last songs always get me). With the original Burr, his singing is laced with pain as much as regret. When he repeats ‘death doesn’t discriminate’, we feel his sorrow as he fits Hamilton into the same kind of category as his parents and wife, as someone important to him who died. When he says ‘he may have been the first one who died, but I’m the one who paid for it,’ we understand that he’s referring to the depth of his grief. That having to live with knowing he killed Hamilton feels, in this moment, worse than death.

This Burr is still cold. And when he finally gets to it, and says ‘I’m the one who paid for it,’ he looks away. He almost spits. His face is contorted in bitterness. It’s rough and gritty, for the first time in the entire musical.

I can remember it vividly – it was shocking to see, and sends shivers through me to remember. I’d been waiting for that cathartic sadness, but it wasn’t here. This Burr, deep down, didn’t feel for Hamilton, at least in the end. He was pissed off because for once in his life his actions had consequences. Because of Hamilton, he had fucked up his life forever. His worldview had been shattered. And at that moment, that was all he could think about – that resignation and bitterness and anger. All along, maybe, he had been nice only because he’d had no reason not to be. Once it didn’t benefit him, and his pride and entitlement were damaged, he showed who he truly was.

It… was an experience, lol. Honestly I think it was partly lost on me because I so loved the original version and was like working myself up ready for a good cry here, so I didn’t get to just sit and take the full impact – I kept searching for a grief or fear that wasn’t there. But I don’t think this version is bad! It’s a very valid interpretation of Burr, and it was extremely fascinating to see unfold.

If I have one critique, it’s that one kind of problem with the whole Australian show is that the performances lacked grit. I really wanted more edge, more aggression, more intensity of those emotions – something more sharp and shocking. Hamilton delivers this kind of thing at times, especially early on, but ofc it fades away in the end. Jefferson, as I’ll get to, is too smooth-talking while also having that cold serene kind of anger. When we lack both Hamilton’s broken It’s Quiet Uptown and Burr’s frantic ‘this man will not make an orphan of my daughter’, we don’t get those life and death stakes quite as highly. By focusing all of Burr’s anger in one line, I think the rest of the songs didn’t have as much of an impact as I’d like.

But!! I really enjoyed this interpretation, and I’d love to see it again knowing what’s coming!

Eliza

OKAY nobody else is going to get those huge walls of text lmaoooo

Anyway this Eliza wasn’t a super different interpretation than Phillipa Soo’s, but I think she pulled it off at least as well, if not even better?

So, the really big obvious thing about this Eliza is her smile. Her actress has this amazing, big toothy grin that feels so lacking in guile, but also still so comforting. It’s so attention-grabbing and almost impossible not to be affected by. It just screams ‘hey, things will turn out okay, so cheer up! :)’ And it’s something that just comes out on Eliza as if on instinct – she’s wearing it through most of That Would Be Enough, and at the end of Take A Break when she escorts Angelica away, and even in Blow You All Away when she’s comforting Phillip or in flickers when describing Hamilton’s old letters in Burn.

The thing about Eliza as a character is that she’s basically defined by her emotional intelligence. She feels as strongly as Hamilton, but where he is uncontrolled and reckless and both self and other destructive, she is the opposite of all of those things. She’s measured and practical and knows exactly who she is and what she wants at all times. She will sacrifice for others, but it’s because she decides to, and if she is hurt, she will not keep herself in harm’s way. It’s an interesting kind of competence and I can understand in theory why it’s cool to have a female character like that even if I, as a neurodivergent mentally ill woman cannot relate in the slightest and feel sorta awkward to be judged against.

This Eliza nails all of that perfectly. She’s effortlessly charming and soothing whenever she wants to be – in That Would Be Enough, when Hamilton is turned away and putting up all of his sharpest bristles, you can feel her become something soft and liquid and find her way up against him regardless without getting hurt. It’s that strength of character that makes their relationship really work – it’s not necessarily that she completely understands him or is good at ‘handling’ him, but that her certainty of purpose and deliberate, skilful compassion make her perfectly suited to calm Hamilton’s deep down insecurities. She loves him entirely and makes him believe that. And when Hamilton responds with his own intensity, she loves that, and believes in that.

And all of that makes it mean so much more when she steps out of that natural mediator role for a moment. In Helpless she’s adorable, so giddy and excited and so clearly crushing on Hamilton with a youthful energy that somehow doesn’t feel all that naive. As she sings she’s constantly glancing back over at him, it’s really cute haha. But she does feel a bit more vulnerable here – it does feel like she’s silently asking for help from Angelica when they talk. More startlingly, there’s Non-Stop – when she calls out ‘Alexander’, it is SHARP. It’s the same kind of tone Hamilton takes when he calls out to Burr in Schuyler Defeated. It’s a bit startling actually, but in a good way.

That tone, I think, foreshadows Burn. Again, I think this Eliza takes the same tone as Philippa Soo, but this version (maybe just because I saw it live!) embodied it even more – she talks about her own desperation to understand, re-reading their old letters, and cites Angelica as back-up, but when she reaches the mid-point, she stops and seems to think. She weighs up the situation and her emotions. And when she says ‘I’m erasing myself from the narrative,’ it is very deliberate and conscious. She is in control of her fate and she can see herself objectively and this is what is just. Her moral core is impenetrable. She sees long arc of the future that Hamilton and Burr are so obsessed with and she says, yes, this is what should be done.

And then in It’s Quiet Uptown, that same self-certainty is there from the very first word. This whole musical, even at her lowest, Eliza has instinctively brought out that comforting, wide smile. Here, her face is expressionless. If Hamilton’s acting here didn’t quite hit my mark, Eliza’s was spot on. The withdrawal of that earlier warmth is all the colder when there is no doubt within her about it, and nobody can argue she’s wrong in that. When she takes Hamilton’s hand, she still doesn’t smile. It’s sad :(

Of all of the final songs, Who Lives Who Dies Who Tells Your Story hit me closest to the original. It’s actually almost jarring to see Eliza ask ‘have I done enough?’ This whole song, we hear a hasty energy to her she’s lacked all musical – the first sign that Hamilton has rubbed off on her, too. But when she asks ‘Will they tell your story?’ it’s still Eliza – this isn’t about a legacy, it’s because she’s still that giddy girl from Helpless who loves him and wants to do everything she can for the people she loves.

(Whenever she and Hamilton see each other but appear to walk past one another, only to circle around and meet in the middle again, I cry lmao;;)

Her gasp at the end is soft and quiet and delighted, as though she just spotted someone in the crowd who she hasn’t seen in years and can’t wait to catch up.

If I have one critique, it’s the lack of grit again. Her scream at Philip’s death wasn’t as wild and destroyed as Phillipa Soo’s, and while I like her gasp, I prefer the original’s shocked, overwhelming joy.

Overall though, she was extremely good! Her charisma was just blinding, but it was in that perfectly ‘mundane’ way you’d expect from Eliza. But that solid, immovable core always shone through. They really sold her relationship with Hamilton, too!

Angelica

This is the one I feel like I have the least to say about. My mum said she was the only character who just couldn’t quite match up to the original, and I don’t really agree, but I don’t have a huge amount to say, either.

This Angelica felt a bit older and more mature than Goldsberry. The original Angelica has a bit of brashness and vivid emotion to her – a bit more out there and exaggerated in her actions and expressions. More bold but also more chaotic. This one was a bit more quiet and considering. Diplomatic, maybe?

I actually worried when I first saw her that she wouldn’t be able to carry Satisfied because she was too confident and capable I wouldn’t be able to believe her vulnerability, but no, she pulled that off perfectly. When she was standing in the dark there in the end, the sadness radiated from her.

I actually got a lot more chemistry between her and Hamilton this time; I always thought I disliked the relationship in that canon because of my grudge against how LMM wrote it, but maybe it’s just that LMM was too old for her lmao. You’d think her quietness would contrast with Hamilton’s pushiness, but if anything it feels like she can just eyebrow-arch off his usual way of getting under people’s skin – when she says ‘you forget yourself’ it’s subtly disapproving, then when he delivers the punchline, it’s like he proves himself enough to earn her respect. Indeed, their mutual aloofness actually suits them both really well. You can just imagine them working together, quietly sharing their judgements on everyone else in the room around them. They’d be a terrifying power couple, and that really connects up to her advice in Take a Break.

I don’t have as much to say about the rest of the musical though. (actually IDK if that’s all partly just because by the end my ADHD brain had to work a lot harder to keep up, lol.) Her piece in The Reynalds Pamphlet did the job, and her singing in It’s Quiet Uptown was beautiful.

I guess, if I had to contrast them, the original Angelica felt more spirited and aggressive – very ‘you want a revolution? I want a revelation!’ - while this one felt more like the settled head of the family who already had her place but understood the world perfectly and knew she’d have to pick and choose what she wanted most. (...spoken like that she sounds like a big contrast to Burr, funnily enough?)

Lafayette/Jefferson

So not too much to say about Lafayette – the guy pretty much did him the same as Daveed Diggs, and pulling that off is very impressive but there isn’t too much to analyse here. If anything the Lafayette felt slightly less bright and cheery than the original, which may have been done to contrast with Jefferson.

Jefferson, on the other hand, was quite different. Diggs’ version is very loud and kinda abrasive and arrogant – always smiling and bouncing but with something clearly malicious lying behind all of that. He’s got a harshness to him, deliberately intimidating and surprisingly authentic in what he reveals of himself. He’s a villain character who’s fun to watch because he’s having fun himself and you gotta admire his balls.

This Jefferson is much more smooth and manipulative – maybe taking over from what Burr sometimes delves into? When he first appears, he plays to the crowd, encouraging the cheers, but it’s less arrogance and more like, he’s a celebrity putting on a show. He’s friendly and cheerful all through What’d I Miss?, disarmingly enjoyable to watch. He’s someone who knows the crowd and likes the crowd and is very very good and getting what he wants from the crowd without making it obvious he’s doing that. He’s definitely the type of #relatable celebrity fans would really want to defend.

But Hamilton represents a very clear change to his status quo. He starts off singing What’d I Miss? just in a fun, conversation-starting way as a rhetorical question, but after Hamilton introduces himself, he seems genuinely taken-aback. His last ‘What’d I miss?’ sounds like a genuine question, like, ‘wait wtf what’s going on here all of a sudden?’

And then we get the Cabinet Battles. Despite the above, Jefferson starts off his argument oozing with relaxed confidence. He doesn’t need to take any of this seriously – it’s already in the bag! Everyone loves him and as long as he makes some nice jokes and smiles disarmingly enough, he’ll always get what he want. And then Hamilton starts talking. And he’s pushy and hostile and sarcastic and mocking and angry and superior. And the whole time, Jefferson stands straight and Stares at him. We get none of Diggs’ ‘Haha, this guy is a riot! :D’ type of energy – this Jefferson is deeply displeased, and he is watching very, very carefully to take stock of the situation so he can put an end to it.

It’s actually really well done IMO – when the crowd oohed and ahhed, it felt like a 50/50 of ‘what the hell, people aren’t supposed to DISAGREE with Jefferson!’ and also ‘holy shit this guy is acting like an actual obnoxious child who needs to stfu right now.’ Both Jefferson’s easy entitlement and Hamilton’s unhelpful abrasiveness really got across.

In the second battle, Jefferson is much more careful. Whether it’s because he isn’t underestimating Hamilton anymore or because he cares much more about this, there’s an unamused urgency underlying everything he says. He still tries to be friendly and charming and diplomatic, but his smile drops often. This issue is important and he is not going to back down on it. It’s actually still not quite as immaturely insulting as Hamilton – more like, ‘can we stop humoring this asshole kid already and do something we very much need to be doing?’

(Also fun fact: in The Room Where It Happens, when we get to Jefferson’s version of events, Hamilton’s ‘I had nowhere else to turn’ is SO fake and sarcastic it was really funny, like even the Hamilton in Jefferson’s head can’t bring himself to actually say that sincerely.)

So, when we get to Washington On Your Side, he’s cold. At the time, he contrasts well with Burr, who is all smiles and surprisingly relaxed. This Jefferson is more like Angelica, quietly analysing the situation and slowly coming to a plan. The difference between cold, planning Jefferson and smooth-talking Jefferson is also great.

Because of all this, he has less of the really comedic stuff the original Jefferson got, with the exaggerated expressions and movements – in We Know, he’s more struck dumb by everything than the more over the top reactions Diggs did. But the controlled coldness contrasts with Hamilton better – it makes sense that he was the one who successfully connived himself to the top. And we get much more of that contrast between public and private Jefferson that is one of the interesting real-world meta statements, where who is was to the people and who he actually was were very different.

…….I think I had some kind of impression of ‘because I’m the president’ but I can’t remember what it was anymore. Hrm.

Anyway: enjoyed!!

Mulligan/Madison

So, how I’ve been saying the show lacked grit? I honestly think it might’ve all just collected in Hercules Mulligan lmao – obviously his parts are meant to be bold and brash and powerful, but these ones hit even harder than usual. His part in The World Turned Upside Down was just so Loud I could feel it in my chest! Great performance, I loved it!

Madison was very very different naturally, but also very different from the original version? While the original Madison felt tired and a bit disgruntled, like he was exhausted by Jefferson’s in-your-faceness and just wanted to get this done so he could get back to his work, his one felt much happier to be there. This Madison felt like he actually saw himself as Jefferson’s teammate, like he considered himself part of the show and was happy (even smug) to be helping out. When Jefferson passes him the microphone, rather than say ‘France’ with an irritated expression as if to say ‘everyone already knows this, just get on with it already’, it feels more like this Madison already rehearsed this with Jefferson deliberately. He calls out ‘France,’ as though it is some incredible zinger, like he’s been given the mic drop here. It’s pretty cute haha!

Overall this Madison felt a lot younger. Talking afterwards my mum mentioned that Mulligan’s role is hard because he has to switch to playing ‘an old man’, and was pretty surprised when I said Madison was actually the same age as Hamilton. This version felt a lot more age-appropriate. He still gets sick and starts coughing (and it feels a lot meaner when Hamilton makes fun of him! The dude was just so happy to be here – let him have his zingers!!), but aside from that he thrums with nervous energy behind Jefferson, like he’s ready to help out anytime he’s needed.

In all, he kinda feels like he fulfils that certain comedic henchman trope a bit? It really comes together with the ‘Can we get back to politics?’ ‘:’( please!!’ exchange. Madison isn’t made fun of, per se – it’s not like he really does enough in the script to get that kind of attention. But he’s just a bit funnier and more sympathetic, while also strangely feeling more like he and Jefferson are an actual team. (I mean, Jefferson hands him the mic as though he’s setting up a zinger, too. They’re both a bit ridiculous!)

Laurens/Phillip

Okay, this was one I was really curious about, for obvious reasons – LMM always sorta made it out that since he never included any of the Hamilton/Laurens stuff in the script, he kinda tried to act it in there more. In Story of Tonight or Ten Duel Commandments, or even briefly in the opening song, there’s meant to be a closeness that hints, however subtle, at that relationship.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get that at all here.

Laurens’ casting surprised me at first – he’s super short and extremely baby-faced, to the point that I wondered if he wasn’t played by a cis man. (His actor is a man, though, though ofc I wouldn’t know if he’s cis or not.) I was kinda confused about that all through the first act… until I got to the second act and, uh, remembered. But despite this – perhaps because of it? - he is an absolute firecracker. He’s hot-headed and rough and determined and every bit the young impassioned soldier.

He’s a bit more naive in the early songs – he seems genuinely friendly with Hamilton in The Story of Tonight, and you feel like he really does just like him from the moment he hears Non-Stop – but like I said, Hamilton is still pretty closed-off through all of that, so… it doesn’t really feel mutual. Hamilton likes him fine, but it doesn’t feel like he cares as much as Laurens does.

In Satisfied, he indeed seems super drunk, but it’s more like he’s just too young and drinking too much at a party than anything. The only time I really felt any particular chemistry between him and Hamilton actually comes from Story of Tonight Reprise – when Hamilton wanders off to speak with Burr, in sincere friendship, and Laurens comes over and starts ribbing Burr about his girl with almost malicious energy, it did sort of feel a little like he was jealous, if only that Hamilton and he had been talking so easily.

Finally, we get to Stay Alive. There, Hamilton and Laurens are just so angry and disgusted with Lee that they don’t really have room for anything else. It’s all very focused and determined and Manly, without any time for something softer or close between them. And I’m not sure how to feel about that. Laurens’ revulsion for Lee is historical record, and it says a lot about him and his values that that was so important to him. But there are other important parts of Laurens – that worry and fear and insecurity inside him, that ended up being so damaging to him. In such a limited script for him, ‘Alexander, you’re the closest friend I’ve got’ is really his one chance to show some of those emotions before he dies. Instead, Laurens never really gets to show that vulnerability, and I worry that it makes him feel too much like a ‘generic soldier character.’

I wonder if it’s because this Laurens looked so youthful that they sort of overcompensated, and felt the need to make him extra manly to make it clear he belonged there despite his appearance. But it sort of felt a bit too… macho for me. Nowhere to be found is that 18th century romantic friendship. Instead, it’s been replaced by a more WWI era Comrade and Comrade type deal. They’d die for each other, but would they write romantic letters to one another? And I think this is also unfortunately pretty Australian – real emotion is lame!! The only acceptable emotion is fucking hating your boss, and challenging him to a duel with your squadmate to get him what he deserves.

Well, I’m reading too much into it all, lol. But I always felt like the original Laurens barely got to show much of himself as it was, and this one felt even less so, unfortunately.

His final scene – is it We May Not Live To See Your Glory? - is done well, though. Again, Laurens just sorta feels like a generic young soldier, but ‘idealistic soldier who died too young’ is moving enough on its own. And in one of those rare moments, Hamilton really does feel shaken and vulnerable. ‘I have so much work to do,’ as I said, hurts – so lifeless and unlike him. Like nothing could process those emotions in him now, or express them.

Philip, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. First of all, yeah – having a shorter, younger-looking actor makes that Take a Break scene WAY less awkward, haha. It wasn’t even funny, it was just like ‘oh huh this just kinda looks all right?’ And the actor did really well playing a kid! He looked like a completely different person there, which is really good.

And then we get to Blow You All Away, and hoo boyy. If Laurens had been excessively confident, Phillip oozes uncertainty with everything he does. When he flirts with the girls ‘when I come back we’ll all strip down to our socks’ he manages to pull off the cocky act but in basically every other line you can see and hear the ‘a-am I doing this right? I’m not screwing this up, am I?’ radiating off of him. He definitely believes he’s doing the right thing – when he says ‘you talk about my father I will not let it slide’ there’s no hesitation – it’s just that he very clearly isn’t sure if he’s up to the task of doing it.

It was sorta interesting, actually – I think the original Phillip was more naively overconfident and reckless, and only had an attack of the nerves after he got himself into the duel. But – and this might just be me projecting here, lol – when this Philip confronts Eacker in the theatre, I got a real sense of like… ‘??? can I do this here? Where are you meant to threaten duels???’ and when Eacker is like ‘piss off, I’m watching this show now’ he seemed to wilt a lot, and straight up froze for a second or two, like he really didn’t know what to do at that point. And then of course when he talks to Hamilton he’s really worried…

And then his death. Somehow, I never used to cry much when this happened – it’s obviously very sad, but it didn’t manage to hit the right heartstrings to make crying, even in the recording. But oh god, this one was just awful… Even as he’s dying, Philip is still just so desperate for approval, like he’s so scared his parents will be mad at him for screwing it up, and Eliza is trying so hard to reassure him before he dies… I cried a lot :(

So overall, I really liked this Phillip, even if I don’t necessarily think it’s an improvement to the original. Laurens I kinda preferred the original, though this was still an interesting interpretation that gave me a lot to think about!

Washington

The guy did well! He has what Washington needs, and that’s a stature. When he’s on stage, your eyes are just naturally drawn to him. Even when he’s not doing much, he’s still a little intimidating. He has presence!

And in fact, this actor had an interesting quirk where the whites of his eyes could be seen easily? In Right-Hand Man, as he’s striding around at the center of the stage, his eyes just looked white, and it drilled in that slightly manic, crazed intensity underlying his strict, rigid rapping and self-control. It have the whole thing a really great effect.

But this Washington also had a sort of almost… slight fem-ness to him, that I didn’t get as much from the initial? It’s funny how during One Last Time, I suddenly got this vivid though, ‘oh, it’s like he’s a cool supportive teacher.’ Which… obviously?? Haha. Like he’s clearly a mentor to Hamilton all the way through! But it’s that specifically teacher description I really felt all of a sudden, that he was warm and approachable and gentle at heart, despite everything I said above lol.

Like, I feel like this Washington was just a bit less stoic than the original? Slightly more expressive and less stern. When he says ‘I’m from Virginia, so watch your mouth,’ in the original, it sounded like he was genuinely kinda offended? It was ‘watch your mouth’ as in ‘don’t disrespect my home state.’ But in this one, Washington sorta grimaces a little theatrically and says it more incredulously, like he’s actually saying ‘you wanna maybe try thinking about who you’re talking to before you say that shit, son?’ It’s more of a warning – less that he’s upset and more that other people would be, so he should really try thinking before he speaks.

He also still does the part in Who Lives Who Dies Who Tells Your Story when Eliza says she spoke out against slavery and he kinda stumbles and stares and then looks down in shame, given the real Washington’s actions.

I liked him! I felt a little more warmly to him in the end than the original, but that might just be a product of seeing it live.

Peggy/Maria

Okay so I don’t really have anything to say about Peggy, which had basically always been the case, hah. :’) I mean, I think this version made the transformation between her initial wariness vs her later excitement more clear? But that is very likely a live show thing.

Maria, though!! Honestly? I was never really a fan of the original Maria’s performance. She just feels too much like a cliched seductress archetype, and while you can argue that that’s the role she plays in the story, especially since there’s the uncertainty over whether or not she was deliberately setting Hamilton up, it just feels too on the nose. It makes it harder to believe Hamilton didn’t know what was up the moment he saw her, which I don’t think is intentional. And it makes me feel bad for the real Maria Reynolds.

But this one was very different – much more vulnerable. When she first talks to Hamilton, she’s not doing a sexy pout and throaty singing, she’s just sorta… quiet and monotone and lost, much like Hamilton gets when he’s too emotional as well. Like she’s in shock and truly has nowhere to go is just sort of crumpling as a person. And when she propositions Hamilton, again it feels sincere – she just wants him to stay.

And after he talks to James Reynolds (just as perfectly, theatrically assholish as in the original), that continues. When he confronts her, she genuinely seems desperate and scared and upset. I felt so, so sorry for her that I was yelling in my head right then ‘you can’t just leave her now!’ at Hamilton – and then immediately remembered what that’d mean… it’s a much more gripping situation.

And then in the end, James Reynolds walks off and claps, and Maria just stops, face and body entirely stoic, and follows after him in silence… Is that an indication it was all an act from her? Or is it that she’s so scared of him that she totally closes up and can’t cry, can’t show any kind of emotion or weakness around him, and just has to try and be a silent and flawless wife? No matter how you interpret it, it’s chilling.

Oh, and IDK if this is done in the recording, but in The Reynolds Pamphlet, she gets given one, too, and her look of just… upset/disgust is also really painful. At the end they say ‘his poor wife’, but who thinks about poor Maria?? :(

I still wouldn’t say that this is an accurate adaptation of the real events, since I think that gets right into the script and structure of Hamilton in ways that a regional performance just can’t really make better. But this version is at least better. It plays Maria with more dignity, I think, than making her into a sexy bombshell, even if that bombshell act does get subverted in the original as well. This one feels significantly more sympathetic.

King George

He was great!! He was played by an older actor who seems to have done a lot of serious Shakespearian plays, which of course makes him absolutely perfect – both in that he could flawlessly depict that pompous old privileged Brit, but also in that he probably has a good backing in comedy and political satire :P He was clearly having the time of his life playing to the crowd – throughout all his time on stage he was constantly alternating between doing one or two lines very serious and mostly straight, before doing something absolutely hilarious. That back and forth worked extremely well!

Also I never saw it properly on the recording but when he gets up and dances in the middle of the stage during the Reynolds Pamphlet?? AMAZING.

Obviously, Johnathon Groff is his own personality and is friends with LMM and brings all of that unique stuff to the table that nobody could replicate. But this actor was just as much fun to watch, and does have the added benefit of really looking and sounding the part.

Final Thoughts

I’d really love to hear other people’s thoughts on this run, especially from the perspective of it being an Australian cast/audience – I really hoped the booklet would include at least a piece or two from someone who worked on this run, but it did not. (In fact, it was one of the scantest musical books I’ve seen? I don’t regret buying it as a souvenir of course but usually they have at least one or two interesting pieces of new content aside from just backstage pics…)

What really sticks out to me is the structure of it all. Hamilton is definitely the central character that brings everything together through the first ¾, but around The Room Where it Happens Burr starts to take over bit by bit, allowing him to keep up the energy as Hamilton falls back further and further into becoming both less of a hero but also more quiet and passive. By The Election of 1800, Burr is giving us all the energy – until the end of The World Was Wide Enough, when he too falls back and Eliza takes over.

Given this, this Hamilton did an incredible job throughout most of the performance – he had amazing chemistry with every other character and really exemplified that scrappy, intelligent, driven, but aggressive and difficult character that never quite shined through in LMM’s performance for me. Burr’s more subtle performance complements that well, and he even arguably outdoes Leslie Odom Junior in The Election of 1800. However, after that I think his quieter acting and singing sort of fails to fill the hole Hamilton left behind, reducing the climax a bit of its energy. Thankfully, Eliza was able to bring that all back for her final number.

It also strikes me that this performance is a bit less teary, at least from the men. Eliza, Angelica, and Maria all bring out that vulnerability and the sadness of their positions wonderfully – a great improvement in Maria’s case, for me. However, Burr’s The World Was Wide Enough severely downplays the sincere regret angle, while Hamilton never quite hits the right notes on It’s Quiet Uptown. However, Hurricane and Phillip’s performance in Blow You All Away definitely hit that fear and panic leading to self-destruction. (Interesting I guess that Burr doesn’t also seem more fearful in The World Was Wide Enough?) Is that also a gendered expectations thing, perhaps?

Either way, I’m extremely glad I was able to see it if only for Hamilton’s performance – honestly, maybe the reason it seemed to lose a lil steam was just that Hurricane was so good everything else failed to follow it, haha. Burr also absolutely fascinated me here, too, and that was so much fun to see play out in real time!

Hamilton will be coming to Melbourne next, and I’m not sure yet if I’ll be able to go there but I’d really like to! It’d be really fun to test out these expectations/conclusions of mine with a fresh viewing, as well as see any other new cast changes/interpretations…!

#Hamilton #Hamilton Sydney #musical #this is INCREDIBLY long lmfao #IDK if I should apologise or the opposite #I miiiight end up xposting to ao3 as well as a meta #if I can be bothered to read it through and edit it a bit maybe heh

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copperpieceharlot · 4 years ago

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Bud I’m sorry to swing into your inbox uninvited like this but my soul is having an OOTS renaissance thanks to your content in the tag and did you say Leverage AU

haha holy SHIT this got Long. but yes. i’ve been. Thinking. (also literally Never feel like you have to apologize for sending me messages. i was Hoping someone would ask me about this. now i have an Excuse to share EVERYTHING ive written abt it :3)

Obviously, Roy is the leader/brains of the outfit. He grew up having some Strong Opinions abt what’s Legal versus what’s Right due to tragic backstory involving the death of his little brother which was definitely SOMEONE’S fault for negligence but since there technically wasn’t any illegal behavior, there were no consequences for it. Also he’s still angry at his dad bc he thinks his dad is also partly culpable (and also also just a dick). He’s the Moral Backbone of the team (alongside Durkon, more on that later) in basically the same way Nate was in og Leverage. He’s actually not the best at figuring out what people want (that’s Haley and, shockingly, occasionally Elan), but once he has that info, he is the absolute best at figuring out the ideal plan of attack to use in any given case.

Haley is still a thief. I mean she maps to Parker almost PERFECTLY. Her dad was a thief & a conman, her mom wasn’t but knew about it and mostly accepted it, but she died tragically in a mugging gone wrong or smth, which made Ian crank the paranoia WAY up and taught Haley to do the same in the name of “safety”. Let’s keep the “Ian is in Trouble and Haley needs money, Fast” which is why she signs on to the first job in the first place. She’s less acrobatic than Parker, tending towards finding (or making) weak spots in security, but she can still make a tumble check when she needs to.

Elan is the grifter who is somehow an Idiot but also not???? It baffles everyone. When he’s playing a part for a con, he’s FLAWLESS, but then the rest of the time he’s just. No Thoughts Head Empty. He probably gets lured in initially because he’s decided to try his hand at being part of a full team, rather than the two-man cons he’s been running that invariably end w his partner conning him as well and stealing half of his take. Also he likes the idea of being Crime Friends. He’s that tweet where it’s like, Roy: “after the heist is over, we split up and never communicate again” / Elan: [about to unveil his Crime Buddies Forever Friendship Quilt Puppets]: “never?”

Vaarsuvius is the hacker/gadget person. They have a Vaguely Snobby Yet Unidentifiable accent, dyed(?) purple hair (nobody has ever seen their roots) and nobody knows who they “really” are or where they came from, but they’re good at what they do so everyone just accepts the mystery. They probably got suckered into the team by their initial employer (who I’ll get to Eventually, lol) framing it as a challenge to their intellect, like, “oh, I see, you’re not smart enough to make this team work for you...” to which they were like Fucking Watch Me and also melted his computer. Anyways. They are joined (digitally) by their Intrepid Friend And Co-Conspirator (his words, not theirs), a fellow hacker known only as Blackwing, or, on certain forums, Blackwing_Bird. (In the first season, V only occasionally references him when saying they’re “calling in extra help” or smth for a particularly complex hack job. He starts showing up a little more in s2 and eventually by the start of s4 is a regular & established presence, but only appears as actions in a computer interface or output.) Elan is convinced he’s an AI, Belkar doesn’t think he actually exists, Haley pretends she doesn’t think he exists, and Durkon and Roy try not to think about it too hard, as long as B and V still get the job done.

Belkar is the hitter. He is on the team bc their initial employer got him out of jail for it. He doesn’t have a tragic backstory, he just likes doing violent crimes. As the series progresses, he grows some empathy & stuff, but really only for people who actually deserve it. Assholes still get decked. It’s all very touching. (Also he has dwarfism caused by achondroplasia. It doesn’t actually bother him and is useful in fights bc his opponents frequently have no fucking clue how to approach him, but he likes Pretending to take offense at stupid things just to see how far he can go with it.)

Aaaand last but not least, Durkon is the least involved member of the team. He’s actually a career criminal and Roy’s mentor, and wasn’t a member of the initial team that [redacted, I’ll tell you later, PROMISE] put together for a couple of reasons, the main one being that he’s Officially retired in order to spend more time with his family, which consists of his mom, his friend (not girlfriend) Hilgya, baby Kudzu, and a truly stunning number of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Roy frequently calls or visits him for advice and he Occasionally shows up to help out on local jobs, but generally he avoids doing crime if he can (as part of a deal with Hilgya, who is also a career criminal; basically, they’ve both cut back on the crime in order to provide a more stable home environment for Kudzu. But sometimes, you gotta do a little crime, and in those cases, Sigdi enjoys spending time w her grandson.)

NOW. THE BIG REVEAL YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. Who got the team together in the first place?!

The answer: Lord Shojo (or whatever Normal Person Name you want to assign him). Now this is where it gets tricky: he had them do a thing that they thought was good, THEN they thought it was BAD, but then when they confronted him he revealed that it Appearing to be bad was actually a test of character and would they consider working as basically internal investigators for him? But then he had a heart attack, so, rip. But THEN it turned out that he’d left them a bunch of money anyway and they were all feeling kind of Inspired so they formed the Order of the Stick, LLC (which, no, i am not coming up with a new name, actually, because I just don’t care. someone else can come up w a justification for that name, tho, i’m sure it’s possible). Also Miko was there and was unhappy abt their actions, and also their general existence.

Moving on. Villains!

Redcloak is the Sterling replacement, because that DEEPLY amuses me.

Xykon is a season-long main villain, probably one that Redcloak finds himself working for but then “teams up with” (read: blackmails) the Order to bring him down bc even Redcloak finds Xykon distasteful. That’s season 3, let’s say.

Tarquin is another season villain, say season 2. Nale probably shows up pretty early in s1, actually, as another recurring antagonist like Sterling but uh. Less good at it. Anyways the s2 final 3 eps deal with them (accidentally) discovering that Tarquin runs some Evil Empire Company, then trying to outplay him and take him down. Idk if Nale still dies in this version tbh.

Tsukiko is a one-off s1 villain who returns briefly in s4 alongside Miko, who has gone well and truly off the rails.

Season 1 finale has to do w Roy finally getting Vengeance for his little brother.

The vampire squad is the s4 finale villain who do smth terrible to Durkon and then get the Mother Of All Revenge served up to them by the Order.

I envision the show as being 5 seasons (like og Leverage) but I’m not going to sketch out s5 because I think it should be based off whatever happens in the current story arc, possibly involving some legacy of the OotSquiggle.

Other stuff!

The Order of the Squiggle is a legendary criminal team from the 60s who stole a BUNCH of famous shit & then proceeded to legendarily implode. This has no bearing on the plot I’ve sketched out, I just think it’s fun.

The Sapphire Guard members should probably be reworked as FBI. I don’t care about most of them but I do think that Lien and O-Chul could be like, FBI agents who Choose to look the other way while the Order does their very-much-not-legal-but-still-fair Justice Crime, and maybe even help them out on occasion.

So, the Final season-by-season outline, based on everything I’ve written so far:

s1 e1: getting the team together, doing a con for Shojo, then at the end he dies and the gang is like “dang what now?" and intend to split up except then they Don’t.

mid-s1: Nale shows up and tries to trick the Order, but then gets beat like a drum.

late s1: Tsukiko is an underling of the Villain Of The Week, winds up in police custody. But She’ll Be Back.

s1 finale: Roy’s Vengeance: The Vengeaning. also we meet Redcloak as an antagonist.

s2 e1: the truth abt Haley’s father comes out

early s2: The Two Live Crews Job but it’s the Order vs the Linear Guild and the Linear Guild ARE all bad guys.

mid-s2: Redcloak returns. ugh.

late s2: the sapphire guard FBI makes its first appearance, hello O-Chul and Lien.

s2 pre-finale: once again they’re in conflict w Nale over smth, he spends the whole episodes making Cryptic Remarks, they basically beat him (like a drum!) but then the stinger at the end is that Tarquin reveals himself and Elan is like “Dad?!”, roll credits.

s2 finale, part 1: Elan is hanging out w Tarquin bc he’s DEEP in Denial, the Rest of the team tries to take Tarquin down, but it doesn’t work.

s2 finale, part 2: Elan finally gets a clue and they manage to beat Tarquin. still haven’t decided if Nale dies or not, but I’m leaning towards yes. also they rescue Haley’s dad.

s3 e1: fuck dude idk.

early s3: Redcloak shows up, AGAIN, everyone groans. he has blackmail on them, he wants them to take Xykon down.

mid s3: The Rashomon Job but it’s about stealing the Talisman of Dorukan and it turns out that Nale was there too (“oh!” Elan says. “I was wondering why I looked so weird in all those mirrors! But it wasn’t my reflection, it was Nale’s!” “Sweetie, that wasn’t Nale’s reflection,” says Haley. “Huh,” says Elan, “so the mirrors were broken?”, cue eye rolling from everyone else.), and the Successful thief was Hilgya, who’d nabbed it from the owner before it even went on display.

s3 finale: they beat Xykon, actually factually, because he deserves to get his ass Thoroughly kicked, even if only in AU form. Lien and O-Chul are there, so are some other less helpful FBI people. There’s a bit where O-Chul Exact Wordses his way out of telling his superiors about the Order’s less legal activities without technically lying. King shit.

s4 e1: doesn’t really matter. maybe smth to do w some legacy of Tarquin’s company to set up the drama w Malack & Durkon later.

early s4: Durkon gets SENT TO PRISON. Malack approaches the Order abt this because sure they have Different Ethics but they’re still Friends. (Roy is surprised and a little hurt that he’s never heard of Malack, but he ignores that in favor of Let’s Get Whatever Fuckers Did This To Our Friend.)

immediately after that: Miko and Tsukiko return as a Team, preventing the Order from working on the Durkon situation

mid s4: Redcloak makes another unexpected & unwelcome appearance but he’s maybe a little less of a dick? the Order collaborates with Malack & his Crime Buddies (hello, Vector Legion) to pull one over on him tho, because “less of a dick” does not mean “a pleasant or decent person”, and also he was mean abt Durkon being in jail, so he totally deserved it. he still gets whatever he wanted tho, just takes a blow to his pride. also prevents the Order from helping Durkon. they’re having a LOT of setbacks wonder why that could be, not to make sure the season fills its whole length or anything, no sirree

s4 finale: something something taking down the organization, headed by Hel (yes that’s her real name), which framed Durkon for their Big Crime. Durkon goes free and Extra Firmly retires, For Good, He Swears, but says he “met someone new” who might be an asset.

s5 e1: minrah joins the team! and the episode is set in like, somewhere really snowy. that’s all i got.

the rest of s5: don’t know, don’t care, it’s open-ended until the comic finishes up.

#mine #ask #corvidcorgi #order of the stick #oots #leverage #leverage au #oots au #au #outline #haha this thing clocks in at 1.9k words because i am LITERALLY incapable of shutting up #hope u enjoy it bc i spent Way Too Much Mental Effort mapping out how the OotS plotlines might play out in a leverage setting #and then promptly ignored Most of that in favor of making it funnier & dumber & more villain-of-the-week #(bc lbr the comic is Good but it's got an overarching plot form that the Leverage story style does Not jive with)#i'm not tagging all these characters lol

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whatudottu · 4 years ago

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Because I've held this off for too long, once again it seems that @nukeli has beaten me to the punch with colour schemes. Damn my procrastination or whatever, but I only just realised that I didn't put any mention of the 'fodder' classes (Vehicons, Insecticons and I suppose Autotroopers since I'm including them) and wanted to put down my thoughts before writing this up.

An added bonus here is that certain character have different alts (based on character changes and even the heavier focus of 'robots in disguise' that these Decepticons are after) so it's not just me ranting about colour schemes.

Yes, this was why I was complaining about the wiki altmodes, so deal with the vehicles I found instead. May or may not be due to me using images as references haha.

The Autobots (you are here)

The Decepticons Part 1

The Decepticons Part 2

Going in order of my notes, we begin with Cliffjumper. He’s obviously a 1970 Dodge Challenger and what colours I’ve given him are on the image below. Nothing much to say about a definitely dead character other than I didn’t just wanna make him blue.

Next on the list is good old Doctor Ratchet. I’ve had it in my mind ever since Nuke’s one post that SG!Ratchet was like Medic from TF2, so I guess I took it and ran.

To play an opposite to regular Ratchet, he comes across as affable and friendly but is really just doing the things he loves to people he hates. Autobots, Decepticons, hates everyone. He despises Optimus Prime too, but he can’t do anything unless he wants to be cooped up in his berthroom reattaching his limbs for it. Believe him, he tried.

As for altmode and colours, I spent way too long finding that he resembles a Mercedes Benz G-Class ambulance that I was ticked to find out he wasn’t at all. I special looked for the green coloured ambulance because Synth-En, duh!

Breaking in after the Doctor comes our local wrecker Bulkhead. I don’t have much of a read on this guy, other than the fact that I thought it’d be a cool idea for him to lose a lot of his memories after ‘TMI’, ya know, from the Synth-En recipe? Certainly not set in stone, but it could very well contribute to my accidental theme of memory (which only has some small links in the posts I actually created).

With the help of my car enthused cousin I have given our not so loveable mech a Terradyne Gurkha, a little more military than the wiki’s off-roader Lamborghini that I’m too annoyed to bother to look at. I thought that the military origins and the black colour scheme sorta allude to something something mindless military man. yada yada.

Following him is our ever wonderful Optimus Prime, or maybe Lord Prime? Haven’t thought too much about that. What I have thought of is this master manipulator who mayhaps also be a little bit delusional idk we’ll decide in the car.

I always loved the idea of a smiling SG!Prime, as if there’s still hints of this benevolent leader that the original has, but it’s warped and meant to add fodder to the war, encouraging mechs to fight to their deaths all in the name of not only the Autobots, but their Prime. Also as a warped version of the original, I wanted Shattered Glass Optimus to be deluded in the fact that Megatron will change, change at least, to submit to the real leader. Ain’t happening. That’s sorta there with Ratchet too, but well, you read Ratchet’s piece didn’t you?

SG!Prime is consistently purple and black, and whilst I have found a Peterbilt Semi Truck with that wonderful colour, it comes with white instead. Think about it, this typically evil colour paired with often innocent white, that’s like perfect for what I’m going for.

Fitting that he’s next, it’s time for Prime’s Second In Command Ultra Magnus. I’ve... really got nothing for him. Maybe he’s still by-the-books but like he finds loopholes just to commit atrocities? I don’t know.

I’ve given this boy a Mack Trident alt instead of Prime’s Peterbilt, just for differences sake.

After Magnus, we got our little bug Bumblebee... or is it. Because I wanted to change his colours a bit without going into Beast Hunter territory, I wondered if bees come in different colours and, low and behold, they do!

As for the boy himself, I think he was one of the bots manipulated by Prime himself to join the cause and, given his almost rewritten personality, has only lived through to this point in the war by sheer luck. This mech is an absolute menace, feral and powered by the need for Prime’s approval, tearing others with denta and servo more often than with stingers and blasters.

Now you’ve noticed I haven’t been using his name? That’s because he’s now Blue Band (I just realised he’s still bb haha)! He gets his name from the Blue Banded bee, and I found a Chevrolet Camaro to match.

In line with BB’s younger status, feast your eyes on Shattered Glass Smokescreen! Oh boy isn’t he a delight. His hero worship has essentially turned him to a prime (pardon the pun) candidate for Optimus to form into his perfect super soldier, who already would die for this deranged mech even before laying optics on this grand Prime.

So, he’s an absolute suck up, a straight up spoiled brat that has it harder than Blue Band for Prime’s acknowledgement, and is actively showing off and bragging that he’s Optimus’ favourite (he’s not, he just encourages it because that’s the easiest way to get Smokey to do what he wants).

Almost to reflect that (perhaps another pun) I found this gaudy Chameleon Chevy Corvette that absolutely SCREAMS show off.

Regrettably partnered up with him after the passing of Cliffjumper, Arcee has run out of patience. Not everything she does is motivated by Airachnid (what kind of character would that be? not a fun one) but she does often enjoy killing those connected with her. After Tailgate, she’s gotten a little mad, but her effectiveness otherwise increased so others never bothered to ‘fix’ her.

Having lost both of her partners, when she absolutely hates another (read; Airachnid and Starscream because he still kills Cliff) the best kind of revenge is putting her opponents in her own pedes. Oh, that mech’s growing attached to one of his comrades? Slice and dice them before their optics. Oh, that femme is finally coming out of her shell and making friends? Gore out their spark and hope that humans don’t decide this would be the perfect time to practice what they preach and save the life of that same mech with a hard to perform surgery that may or may not have been lost to time.

Okay so she’s obviously a Kawasaki Ninja (haha that’s kind of fitting) and I was tempted to make her pink like other Arcee iterations, but look at this fancy stuff right here. He hoo glowy look pretty!

Almost in leu of an Airachnid archetype, Wheeljack comes in. Though still quite the wrecker and ever the bomb enthusiast, instead of actively celebrating his impacts and going solo to stop the rust settling in, he’d rather be offed whilst mechs are distracted by his pretty explosion and lay forgotten in the dirt.

I may have accidentally rooted the unintentional memory theme deeply with the wreckers (Breakdown included) and maybe just took it and ran, giving everyone else a little connection, but Wheeljack is probably the most explicit in this idea. He hates nicknames (which i super Ratchet uses to mock him here in Shattered Glass) because that’s like... naming something you’re going to keep to quote that specific fic which, honestly, I can’t remember. Wheeljack split from others to stop them from remembering him and put himself closer to a situation where he can die alone, as morbid as that sounds. No grand death, no stupid death and no straight up suicide (generally that’s a VERY impactful kind of death) so just a mediocre end is what he’s been looking for for a little bit too long.

As for his colours, I apparently have no taste and should not have a car because I really like what this image has going for it. This C3 Corvette is probably one of the few cars that fits the straight up box of a sports car that Jackie’s got, so I’m sticking to it, so no, don’t show me the wiki I’m ignoring it this was too painful to give up dang it!

Okay, finishing off the bots, I have the Autotroopers. Sure, I’m not using a reference of a car to show off the colours, mainly because there’s also going to be flier troopers too, maybe... surely... definitely. Most depictions of them are white, you know, goodie goodie, and I’m tempted to just laze around and do just that. Instead, I think a goldish colour would be fun.

Aside from sharing a key colour with Ultra Magnus, essentially a war lawyer, which is perfect for subjects made to obey, a nice glimmering finish almost feels like they’re all manipulated by Prime to believe in the Autobot cause. I suppose the special devision, if there is one, would be a nice Prime purple, sorta like if it’s Optimus’ personal guard if he actually had any belief they would do their jobs.

Oh boy this is so long...

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theindiegamereview · 4 years ago

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Meet the creative team: “Spellstone”

Are you a collectible card game (CCG) fan? If so, read on, because this week we spoke to the makers of Spellstone, a free-to-play (F2P) casual story-based fantasy card game that features vibrant, colourful, hand-drawn art on hundreds of beautiful cards that you can acquire and use in battle, both against the computer and other players!

TIGR: PABLO and DUSTIN are artists who have worked on Spellstone's art, helping create some of the iconic characters Spellstone fans know and love. We asked them how they came to work on the game, as well as what intrigued them about this project.

DUSTIN: I was working as a contract artist when I was asked to create some sample cards for a potential CCG, which is something I'd always wanted to do. The samples I submitted eventually led to me getting a contract to create the initial art for Spellstone. After about four months, I was offered a full-time position. I had such a great experience working with the team that I jumped at the opportunity!

PABLO: Prior to starting work on Spellstone, I remember doing an art piece to test my skills. I greatly enjoyed that because I particularly liked this game's art style - which is actually similar to my own! There were still slight differences though, so I've had to adapt a little. Blending my own personal style into an existing one was challenging. But something that intrigued me about Spellstone was the variety of factions in the game. Each and every one opens up a big array of possibilities when it comes to creating a character. I felt my options were unlimited and I loved it!

TIGR: Spellstone features many different cards and characters. We wanted to know who conceptualises all this, and how much creative licence artists get when crafting a character. FERNANDO, currently the main artist for the game, gave us more insight.

FERNANDO: That Spellstone has such an immense variety of characters means it's a complete and delightful dish for artists. It's hugely gratifying to find such visual diversity with which to play with. You're completely free to create, as long as you respect the game's universe and visual language.

As for the process, the concept of what a card must look like and how it must be functional in terms of gameplay comes from the guys in the game design department. Very creative people... sorcerers maybe? I don't know. Haha!

From a brief but concise description they give me, I can get a sense of what kind of character and action they want to see in a card. Once I have all the information I need to start sketching, my favourite hour finally begins: creative hour!

If the card description involves an existing type of character, like a goblin, part of the fun has to do with the way you depict that character, situation, action and specific emotion. There's also some freedom to create from scratch if needed - that's exciting and challenging! Sometimes the ideas come from a mix of characters, and that's when the laboratory inside my mind starts working: I press a button and something cool, spooky or funny comes out - whatever the game requires. Other times, new concepts require that I look for approximate references of what's needed, so that serves as the starting point. No matter what, it's always a very enjoyable process. Sometimes we have to make corrections, that's true. But as with everything in life, this is necessary for things to work properly. You may have to redraw stuff, but finally the card is done - it works, it delivers and it entertains!

TIGR: In Spellstone, cards can be upgraded from a single to a dual to a quad, and we really like that this sometimes tells a "mini story" of of sorts through the artwork. Some are funny (we just love Honeycomb Lobber!), some cute (Bomb Spirit is soooo adorable when he’s angry!), some uplifting (Aurora Shaver ranks among our favourites), and some, um, a bit disturbing, to be honest (Cleaverstorm Hunter, anyone?!)! And some are just sad - we can't help but feel sorry for the poor li'l forest furries that presumably got devoured by Alphamech Stalker! We asked the team how they came up with ideas for all these tiny narratives, and MELINDA, one of the game designers, told us more.

MELINDA: When I was younger, there were a few creatures in video games that terrified me. One of those I remembered most was Medusa, an air jellyfish from Ecco: The Tides of Time. While traversing through a water pathway in the sky, Medusa would try to pick up Ecco the dolphin and fling him off the path. Tetraspout's concept came from that, and you can even see poor little dolphins getting swept up in its attack!

TIGR: We asked the team if there were any cards they particularly liked creating, or found challenging to conceptualise. IVÁN, a colorist who worked briefly on the game, chipped in, as did TONY and RHADA, two of Spellstone's game designers.

DUSTIN: I loved working on the goblin cards! You could get silly with them. Frogs were a lot of fun too - the variety of colours made them interesting. For me, the water cards were challenging but I grew to love working on them.

PABLO: My favourite characters are Goblins! You can play around with them, making them look funny even when the card is telling a dark story, like a massacre. All of the cards were challenging to create!

IVÁN: I enjoyed working on Hedron The Critical Threat, Zyd The Unhinged, and some awesome Insect cards that have yet to be released (as of the time of this interview). I mostly liked them because of their cool concepts and Fernando's awesome sketches. Hedron in particular was a technical painting challenge, as it has textures, transparencies and glow!

TONY: As something of an artist myself (/sarcasm), the card I am most proud of has to be Dinged Waptor. Or really any of the cards I did for the April Fool's event, which is about the only time the art team lets me anywhere near card art. :) For April Fool's, I decided it would be funny to try my hand at drawing some cards I felt players would enjoy. So the first year I drew some original characters that consisted of a few stick figures, a chicken, and a bomb. The response was good, so the following year I continued the tradition, eventually going through and tracing some famous cards like Winged Raptor. My one rule while making these cards was that I could not erase what I did!

RHADA: We used to sell boxes that contained two new premium cards instead of one. We thought of making both cards in the box thematically linked. At the same time, while brainstorming concepts for dragons, I thought we could try to make cards that formed a bigger picture on the battlefield when placed consecutively, side by side. The initial idea was a serpent whose artwork overflowed into a second card, and after some iteration, we stumbled upon the idea of a dragon dance. The result was very cool!

TIGR: With the Spellstone story campaign recently concluded, we asked what was next in store for Spellstone fans. Would there be anymore new characters and amazing art to look forward to?

TONY: Absolutely! While the main story has come to a close, we still look forward to adding new characters, cards, and art to the game that lets our artists have fun and shows off the world of Spellstone.

TIGR: And finally, the most important question of all: would real-life Spellstone merchandise ever be made available for fans of the game? We really want a plushie of the adorable Bomb Spirit (complete with detachable bombs, perhaps?), as well as his angry counterpart, Firebomb Spirit! Also for Quetee Que and Adorabilis, please! And would there ever be any actual physical Spellstone cards produced for collectors?

TONY: I would personally love to see real-life merchandise, but we currently do not have the means to take on such an endeavour. Maybe one day we can strike a partnership with a team that can make this happen!

We thank the Spellstone team for their time and all the wonderful art assets that accompany this interview! Check out the game here on Kongregate, on Steam, or on mobile - three different ways you can enjoy this fun, cheeky and adorable CCG!

P.S. We just had to include our favourite card: Darkwater Adonis - don’t be fooled by his charms!

#developers

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imaginesfubu · 5 years ago

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Obey Me Characters as Pokemon Trainers AU (Pt. 2):

Part 2 is finally here! Read Part 1 here! Again, the pokemon chosen were considered based on character personality, appeal to said character, Pokedex entries, and, in the demon brothers' cases, their respective sin they represent.

Asmodeus: This demon trainer of Lust is all about fashion and appearances, meaning he prefers Pokemon Contests over battling. If he does engage another trainer, his brothers, or the MC, he will surprisingly put forth an effort if he notices that his pokemon party actually want to battle and dirty up their precious costumes. Since Asmodeus rules the pokemon contest industry, both the personalities of Asmo and his pokemon charming the industry and their fan club without fail, I would think Asmo would be a Normal type. His team will wreak havoc ob his opponents when all of his pokemon know the move "Attract." Vietnam war flashbacks to Whitney and her Miltank

Asmo's team would consist of: Sylveon (originally an Eevee), Wigglytuff, Cinccino, Blissey, Staraptor (refer to its Platinum entry), and Lopunny.

Honorable mentions: Audino, Chatot, and Purugly (when caught as a Glameow; was horrified that it evolved into Purugly. Emphasis on ugly, but still loves it nonetheless)

Legendary: Meloetta

"You are such an ADORABLE trainer! You're so cute that my pokemon and I could just eat you up!~"

Beelzebub/Beel: Beel as a demon trainer would look VERY intimidating due to his height and body build, he is actually a softie and a major foodie; he likes traveling with his brothers to different regions and their respective cities and towns to try signature dishes. Unfortunately for all the chefs, they love Beel as their regular customer, but ultimately hate the fact that he's literally eating the restaurants out of house and home, and kick him out in order to restock on food and other supplies. Don't worry, once the restaurants are fully stocked, the chefs graciously allow him back in, serving him and his twin brother Belphie to a free meal, accompanied by a dessert of their choice, also on the house.

Considering Beel's insatiable appetite, his loving nature towards his family, and his physical strength and physique, I can see him as a dual trainer of Normal and Steel types, leaning more towards Steel pokemon due to their resistance of Poison and sheer endurance to most of the other elemental typings.

Beel's pokemon would be: Ursaring, Munchlax (later evolved into Snorlax, sweetly reminding him of Belphie when apart), Alolan Sandslash, Copperajah, Aggron, and Bastiodon.

Honorable mentions: Steelix, Solgaleo as "the beast that devours the Sun"

Legendary: Melmetal (see Shield pokedex entry) or Solgaleo.

"I'm hungry. After this battle, wanna go grab something to eat together?"

Belphegor/Belphie: Y'all know Caitlin from Unova's Elite Four? That's Belphie. All this pokemon demon trainer wants to do is sleep and spend time with his twin brother Beel. Out of all of his brothers, Belphie is by far the most ruthless of all when it comes to pokemon battling, but doesn't like to show it until after you can't run away from a trainer battle. You wish you could. Belphie would be a very powerful Ghost type user. If you wake him to battle, only for the battle to be time that "I could be using sleeping," you will pay dearly your life. The only two people who have the honor to wake him for a battle are Beel and MC, only after MC proves themselves as a competent trainer.

Belphie's pokemon team would consist of: Gengar, Bannette, Spiritomb, Jellicent, Golurk, and Mimikyu.

Honorable mentions: Decidueye, Palossand

Legendary: Lunala or Hoopa, alternating Hoopa's forms depending on the battle.

"*YAAAAAAAWWWNNN* ....You woke me up to battle? ...Fine, but if this turns out to be a waste of time I could be using to sleep, you're suffering will be slow and painful."

Diavolo + Soon-to-be Dateables

Diavolo: This Demon Lord trainer is of course, the Champion of the Devildom, succeeding his dad. Diavolo is a trainer with many great titles and even greater status, but that doesn't stop him from swinging by each school in the Devildom to have fun with the younger demons and learn all about the latest trends and memes. Diavolo himself is a big kid himself, never thinking twice about his child-like actions in front of nobles or any demon trainer with a high status. He's very charming and charismatic upfront, and is the kind of demon you could talk to or joke about anything without feeling nervous. Diavolo knows that the only reason he's so laid back and fun-loving is thanks to Lucifer, so he trusts and appreciates Lucifer a great deal.

Taking into account Diavolo's personality and status, I would deem him as an expert in Dragon type pokemon, embodying the many personalities Dragon type pokemon have. They enjoy having as much fun as Diavolo does, and both are forces to be reckoned with.

Diavolo would have the following team members: Duraludon, Salamence, Dragonite, Tyrantrum, Haxorus, and Dragapult. Diavolo loves seeing Dragapult yeet Dreepy to their opponents because he finds it funny every time.

Legendary: Giratina, gifted to him from his father after beating him in battle and becoming Champion

"Being both a Demon Lord and a Champion is such a draaaag! Nobody wants to challenge me because they're intimidated by me, I guess. How about you an I have a little fun with a pokemon battle? Don't hold anything back from me!"

Barbatos: His ability to see alternate timelines and universes and manipulate them to his will leads me to the obvious: Psychic. Between caring for the royal family and their grand palace, he can't find the time to battle with his pokemon as a stress reliever, unless Diavolo orders him to battle him and to "have fun" while battling him. Even though Barbatos apparently knows all and sees all, he nonetheless humors Diavolo already knowing the outcome.

Barbatos's team: Gallade, Gardevoir, Alakazam, Espeon, Xatu, and Gothitelle.

Honorable mentions: Orbeetle and Indeedee (one male, one female whom he asks them to help with his daily tasks in the Devildom's royal palace.)

Legendaries: Dialga and Palkia: They both assist Barbatos when he uses his abilities to maintain order amongst the alternate timelines and universes, and keep him from over-exerting himself in the process.

"Would you like to challenge me in a pokemon battle? Haha, no need to answer that, I already know that that's what you want."

Luke: Precious child of God. Very defensive and reluctant to associate with demons, but over time begins caring for them. He favors Beel the most out of all the brothers, but will never admit it outright to anyone no matter how obvious it is to everyone else. Enjoys baking more than battling, so his team isn't fully evolved. He won't battle unless Simeon is training him in battle or Luke challenges trainers in the Celestial Realm that are around the same age and level as he is. Because of his personality as of now, he would be a Grass type trainer.

Luke's team: Treeko, Turtwig, Bulbasaur, Chikorita, Snover, and Bounsweet.

Honorable mentions: Snivy and Milcery, with Milcery helping Luke bake in the kitchen, and Skiddo

Legendary: Celebi or Jirachi

"What? You want to battle m-m-me?! Why? I know I'm not that strong, but I think it won't hurt to try!"

Simeon: Literally Luke's guardian angel in the place of Michael the Archangel during their time in the Devildom. He's very patient with everyone, especially with Luke. His patience gives off an impression that Simeon is a grounded angel who thinks things through before speaking and acting. But if someone hurts Luke in any way, all logic and patience goes out the window, as he will savagely check the individual and pray to God asking for forgiveness. Ground types would be Simeon's cup of tea.

Simeon's team: Torterra, Gliscor, Mamoswine, Flygon, Rhyperior, and Mudsdale.

Legendary: Suicune or Ho-oh

"I think I may be missing something in Luke's lessons as his mentor in both battling and teaching about the ways of the three Realms. Think you could help me figure out what I'm missing with a friendly pokemon battle?"

Solomon: Very mysterious human trainer who doesn't talk much about himself. Is he a rival or friend? It's difficult to tell, but he hasn't done anything to raise any alarms, so the MC deems him as decent for now. But why does he act like he knows something that everyone else doesn't? Because of his seemingly shady impression he gives to others, whether he realizes it or not, makes him a Poison type trainer.

Solomon's team: Roserade, Venusaur, Naganadel, Salazzle, Crobat, and Drapion.

Legendary: Eternatus or Kyurem

"Oh? You're approaching me? Instead of running away you're coming right to me?"

MC: "I can't beat the shit out of you without getting closer."

"Then come as close as you like!"

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Finally done! This AU is still a WIP, but thank you for reading such a long post! I decided to include Diavolo and the rest into one big post to keep from making so many parts to this AU

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me asmo #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me beel #obey me belphegor #obey me belphie #obey me diavolo #obey me barbatos #obey me simeon #obey me luke #obey me solomon #pokémon

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yuumi0035 · 5 years ago

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Yuumi’s art process (with pics!)

This is how I go about doing the art palettes, and generally how I do art (specially on lose, not so long pieces such as these). I’ll breakdown the process under the cut so I don’t spam people’s timelines (´･ω･`)

I was going to put these final advises at the very end but someone else might make use of these instead of going through the whole thing so here:

Important things to keep in mind in case you’re learning and actually think I’m worth being listened:

References are GOOD. No one is perfect and no one knows how to draw stuff from their memory so go google weird things, Google-sensei won’t judge. Hopefully. (else set your navigation on private).

Brushes and whatnot don’t make the artist, but it sure as hell help you feel like you’re doing what you like or not. I can’t stress enough how many times I’ve just not finished works because my brushes felt “off”.

Posemaniacs is very good for both anatomy and speed practise (I’m aware I’m really fast compared to my fellow artist friends but by no means it’s a standard, I just got used to work fast uwu)

Be careful with your wrist!!! use your whole arm when drawing!! and also T a k e · b r e a k s.

Art block is a bitch and strikes anyone. I’m usually artblocked but if you find something you’re passionate about go draw that, whatever it is. (I hadn’t consistently drawn in p much 5 years after college and thanks to MLB season 3 here I am LOL)

And now for the actual breakdown:

Step 1: Sketch

My first step is the sketch, which some of you might think “but it’s SO CLEAN!!”, yes, sometimes I leave my sketches as lines and polish them a bit. Anyways, these is what my sketch looks like and next an important thing:

...which is the 2/3 rule! Photoshop blabbery ahead, tl:dr how i made the grid

I’ve been doing this small trick by filling a layer of any color, lowering the opacity to 50% and transforming it to 33,33% it’s height duplicate and place on each side of the canvas and then merge, and then another layer doing the same but doing 33,33% width instead of height. Then I merge both layers, set the opacity to 30% and the result is that perfect 2/3 rule.

If you don’t really know what the rule is, I kindly suggest this instead of my explanation bc words are not my forte.

Step 2: Lineart!

Nothing to say here other than cleaning the lines from earlier with a different (or the same in this case) brush as the sketch one. Opacity varies from day to day.

I have several styles of lineart and they all come with the mood I feel on that day, so don’t be afraid of experimenting and finding what you like most! I personally like thin lines a lot but also thick lines too! i’m constantly looking for the perfect line™ and to give an idea this is what my brushes look like:

in summary, practise with as many tools you can find around and see which ones you like most uwu

Step 3: Base Color

This is probably the part where I give up the most bc it boooooores me LOL. I try to spend as little time as possible in order to overcome this step. These are usually colors I use in 99% of my pics, since... idk years. If you look in my old arts in twitter you’ll see them haha.

Something important I’d like to mention here is ✨LAYERS✨:

This is how my layers look like in the base color part. I tend to do 1 for skin color, 2 for hair / eyes, 3+ for clothes and stuff. I tend to separate them in colors so they don’t merge! I go with numbers because... I think it’s faster to type and I’ve been using this way of naming for years so it works for me, what matters is that you group your layers and keep them organized uwu (specially if someone else has to look at your psd files >>)

Step 4: Shading!

Normally, I shade every single layer with a proper shade but on the case of the palette challenge I’m doing just the skin because I want to stress the light mood. Liiiike if I want to go with a softer light I’d use lighter shades or a stronger light = stronger shades. To pick colors, I usually go with that brown from Chat Noir and Marinette’s jacket as my universal black (I don’t like working with black, I’m weird), and most of the colors I just eye pick from the Color Picker on Photoshop. In the right you can see my swatches:

To choose the shade tone (in this example we’ll use Chat Noir’s hair), I picked a Yellow -Adrien’s hair is specially hard to color ugh- And then with that same tone I’d choose its shade going diagonally looking for a darker tone. This way you can find interesting colors! On this pic I did that for Adrien’s hair and... the rest I did the following:

I did my lazy shading™ : which consists in a layer set to Multiply with 50% opacity (this varies depending on the light, again), and I shade everything with the same tone (my to go is purple, but sometimes I use other colors too). This gives a sense of uniformity and the resulting shades are way nicer in my opinion.

Step 5: But Yuumi... where are the palettes???

I take that people straight handpick the palettes and use them to shade all the way and I respect them for that. I instead decided to do whatever floats my boat so I color regularly but add the palettes over the whole thing to change the overall mood and colors of the illustration. I randomly use the Gradient Tool and use the palettes’ colors around and then set that layer to Screen, Multiply, Focal Light, Overlay... etc etc, whatever I feel like doing in that moment, and so the magic happens! :’D

I don’t usually do this on my works but this is a new way to experiment for me and I’m having fun with it!

Step 6: Finishing Touches

Here is where I use the palettes the most, adding random highlights in whatever way I feel like. Yep, I pretty much Ladybug my whole coloring process: Wing it and go with the flow™. I’m still learning about lighting and whatnots but I really don’t care at this point LOL

To which you’ll say: But Yuumi?? In art school they told me that---

To which I say: shhhhhhhhhhhhh assigntments are over for me. go watch some Bob Ross (I am serious). Do whatever you feel like. Be happy. No one is going to judge you, and if they wanna judge they better be paying for your work first. so. whatever you do: BE HAPPY. or don’t do it. unless it’s a school assignment, in that case go do it or i’ll kick your ass.

✦ Finishing Notes ✦

So yea, that’s my art process in how I’ve been doing these Miraculous Color Palettes and generally how I go about my illustrations most of the time. For more complex illustrations, I need to remember how I did those (oops). And actually, do them. These illustrations usually take up 2 or 3 hours to make, on other pieces i’ve been working on them for up to 8 hours, it really varies from piece to piece, but I hope this was helpful!

Please let me know if you have any questions, commenting in this very post will help me -and others?- keep track of things and learn together! My asks are also open and I’ll reply as fast as I can uwu (my requests are still waiting there, don’t worry).

aaaaand that’s all, folks. Stay Peachy!

#tutorial?#art process #miraculous color palette #digital art #photoshop #tutorial #ym0035art

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comicteaparty · 5 years ago

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March 7th-March 13th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from March 7th, 2020 to March 13th, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

What is your overall marketing/promotion strategy for your webcomic?

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I don't know if this counts as a strategy, but these are some of the things I do to promote my comic or my work in general. 1. Most important from what I've noticed (which I have been failing at due to stress and self-doubt lately) is to post updates to your comic frequently and consistently. It seems somewhat silly that simply putting your work out there is the best way to grow an audience, but it really is. Newly posted chapters frequently get shown on more pages and thus detected by the algorithms and potential readers. It also helps to establish trust with current and returning readers. 2. Participating in art/comic events, forums, and other comicking communities (such as this one). In a way, this isn't really marketing directly, but it is good to build connections with other creators! 3. Conventions! I actually have gotten a several new readers/followers from attending cons. It's also nice just to talk to people, get your name out there locally, and to make a little bit of money while at it. 4. Social media promotion. Tbh, this hasn't been super helpful to me, but more eyes is always a win in my book. I try to post almost every day, even if it isn't art or comic related. Having some kind of social media presence at all, even if it's small, shows people that you are working hard to connect to others. Also finding the right hashtags definitely helps with visibility.

kayotics

Overall, my strategy for marketing is to be authentic and just keep plugging my stuff. People will come if they like it. I work as a marketer for my day job, so I know what I COULD do, but I really don’t do that much since a whole marketing plan would take a lot more time than I have available to me. Some of the stuff I do otherwise: - regular updates. This ones pretty important for retaining viewers I already have. Any good marketing strategy is thinking about retaining people, not just getting new ones - self promo: this usually is on top webcomics or on social media. I get a LOT of traffic from top webcomics, and I get a good handful of people from social media. - conventions, like mentioned before, can be a great way to get people’s eyes on your stuff. I have a postcard that I hand out to people if they come by or they purchase something. - the thing I don’t do enough is post more art outside of the comic, or even just little previews. If I were dedicated to marketing, I’d be sharing sketches or illustrations on social media to grow my audience.

DanitheCarutor

Ah you know, I don't really have much of a strategy. At some point I promoted as much as I could on Twitter, adding my comic to those share/promo thread, getting in on relevant hashtag events, participating on WebComic Chat (whenever I remembered to). I've done a little promotion on forums, but there is really only so much you can do since only so many people hang out there and if your work is super niche like mine, they will pretty much avoid your promos at all cost. Lmao Other than those I don't really do much, at some point I attempted to use Instagram but the site/app is very stingy about offsite links. I also started a Facebook page, although if you don't have the money to boost your promos and don't usually have a lot going on with your comic outside of weekly updates, it won't get a whole lot of attention. I've also tried to be more active, but I'm not a good conversationalist, and I tend to be kind of a thread/conversation/mood killer so I try to avoid talking outside of Q&A prompts like this.

eli [a winged tale]

Same Dani, I used Instagram for a while too and I just don’t think the platform is a good fit for my vertical scroll comic (see exhibit 1) Twitter is a mixed bag as well and I think unless you have a solid following already, it’s hard to gain traction. What really helped was being on Webtoon’s staff pick for a couple days. I’m not sure how Tapas picked up but it’s reassuring that there’s a couple of followers gained every week when I posted regularly. So it really does sound like the first step is to have a steady update schedule (working on the buffer! Got a month’s work down today). It’s just challenging because while I could upload one page a week but on the vertical scroll sites it seems like a longer episode (6-7 pages) is valued more as a solid update. Love hearing everyone’s thoughts and hope to learn from y’all! (edited)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Consistency and con attendance were big ones for me, but something I learned worked well (and was really fun to do) was creating really fun, really dumb, non-canon bits of art every now and then. Following meme prompts or funny ideas from other people. If your comic can afford some humor being thrown its way, making people laugh is a great way to get some attention. No one needs to know the details of your story - they just need to relate to the characters/humor somehow. I had more than one person come across my dumb, meme-y ancillary art and go “Welp, I want to read your comic now.”

eli [a winged tale]

Memes to the rescue! What has been your favourite to do? And which one has surprised you in its relatability/popularity?

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Two shots of vodka.

Also that terrible sweater meme. Everyone is required to do the terrible sweater meme. People eat it up.

eli [a winged tale]

Too good

Ahh I can’t wait till I can actually write silly adult characters

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Now that you mention it, the nice thing about the terrible sweater meme is it works with a WIDE variety of comics.

eli [a winged tale]

I would love to do a meme with y’all

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

"Came for the story, staying for the sick memes"

Spring-heeled Jack

I try to post updates every friday when my new pages go up on Patreon. And then I make my big post when my tapas and website update at the end of the month. Between all that, I have little flyers that I carry with me and if I'm ever in a shop that has a little self promotion section, I plan on tacking up a flyer. I do conventions, and this will be my first convention season while actively making a comic, so flyers will be handed out then as well.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

My comic isnt very comedy-heavy, and even for the funny scenes, my sense of humor isn't compatible with most people's. So a lot of the memes out there just don't work. But terrible sweater meme doesn't have to be hilarious. It can be just cute, or even weird.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

For me, uh lmao. I sometimes make some funny strip panels and it was received well even though it's not polished for my liking lmao

Spring-heeled Jack

Keii, I feel you. I'm not good with comedy and my comic isn't meant to be funny, either, so I don't know how well a comedy meme will help me.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

overall, I try to be honest with just self promo and asking when I have a chance "Hey pls check out my comic lol"

eli [a winged tale]

Or maybe just something relatable? Seen a couple caption this on tumblr

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I think instead of memes, what I'm gonna do is my characters cosplaying more well known characters from works that have some tonal similarities with my own. This isn't just for advertising purposes; it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time for myself. But I'm realizing it can serve some of the same purposes that memes do.

Spring-heeled Jack

That's extremely cute!

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Keyword being "SOME" Tonal similarities... Some of them aren't very similar but have a couple of parallels, etc.

Spring-heeled Jack

Oh for sure. Even if you could find that 'perfect match', it might not be a great cosplay for them, and give too much away

Are "draw the squad" prompts still a thing? I love those

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

The One White Dude and the Tiger Dude in my comic will definitely cosplay Calvin and Hobbes at some point.

Spring-heeled Jack

LOL

omg please, Keii

eli [a winged tale]

YES

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Yeah, not every comic will have super memeable humor - but whatever you can do to break down that wall between you and a potential reader and go “Hey! Look at this. Is this relatable? Do you get the reference? Etc” Is a very good bet

Also yes squad memes are PERFECT

You can boil down your comic’s relationships so simply.

Spring-heeled Jack

I have four couples in my comic so those "ship dynamic" posts might be fun

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

What are squad memes?

eli [a winged tale]

I also need to be educated about squad I mean all the memes

Spring-heeled Jack

OH MAN!! They are fun as heck. You can find templates and it's a very simple character design in the template, but the poses are super silly. And then you just draw your characters in place of those simple figures(edited)

If you google "Draw the squad" you will find a bunch

renieplayerone

Oh! Ill have to try that! These squad bases look fun!

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I still have one of those I need to finish Back when I first started sharing my work, I was surprised and delighted at how quickly people shoved it through a meme filter.

Maybe that’s another thing! If marketing opportunities present themselves as a surprise, try running with them and see where they take you Within reason, of course. Never feel forced to follow anything that people respond to in a particular way. Just take it into account and see how you feel about it.

renieplayerone

(Im here to lurk on this week's question, i have no strategy and need ideas haha)

eli [a winged tale]

Omg draw the squad looks

too many to choose

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I love draw the squad poses so much TuT I wish I had more time to draw within more of them. I think I always get a little dishearten about making memes because I feel like I need to make my jokes full illustrations but I never have time for much extra content beyond ballpoint pen sketches :T

Mei

Honestly I don't have a marketing or promotion strategy for my webcomic. I make updates every week, and I post it on my twitter and kinda plug it there. I'm actually god awful at trying to make people read my comic because I'm a little bit nervous about it, to be honest. So I just sort of leave it there and see if people find it, half the time. That being said, I tried to promote it pretty hard at conventions last year. But that didn't go as well as I'd hoped. I'm hoping to make flyers with QR codes so that people can scan it, and it'll take them to the landing page/tapas for the comic. That might be a bit easier than getting them to just search the title, plus having a flyer is a nice bit of promotion if I get the opportunity?! Making memes and drawing characters in different clothes or in squad things sounds like super fun tho and I might look into that in the future

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's nice to hear everyone talk about this topic. TBH I had completely stopped promoting my comic because I got too scared of backlash, being a disappointment, etc. (Initially I'd attracted a number of people who weren't actually my target audience, and that led to some less than ideal results.) But some time last year, it occurred to me that 1) I'm making this comic for my reader self (or my "hypothetical taste twin" as I like to call it)... which means 2) I only have to appeal to people like me. So I started asking myself, "What would I have to say/do to get me to read this comic?" and that made it significantly less intimidating. I haven't actually started doing self promo (though I did start plugging my updates on Twitter at least). But most future self promo I do will be based on that ^ question.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

(oh god, I was just checking out the latest update for one of the Korean webcomics I read, and the new episode is about a hikikomori... who says "I want to change, but I can't step outside because... maybe there isn't a single person out there who will understand me." THAT WAS ME but with comic promo. Well, I'm getting better and I also hope this character will, too, though knowing this comic his chances aren't so great lol...)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I hope that wasn't too awkward to share! Tl;dr I really think the "what would I have to say/do to get ME to check out my comic" is a good approach for anyone else feeling intimidated about doing self promos.

In the same vein, but on the opposite side of the coin: I'm curious to know, what were some things that got YOU to read someone else's comic?

Some of my own answers to that aren't very relevant to what we can do for our own comics: e.g. I'm Korean and when Naver has a new comic in their pro comic lineup, I may check it out. I'm also a member of SpiderForest and I check out the applicants' comics during the app season. Stuff like that aren't really good promo options that we can take. But things that may be relevant: - 'Evocative scenery shot that doesn't show the face/ doesn't focus on the face.' MY WEAKNESS. That kinda pictures feel subtle and kind of lonely to me, even if it's a group shot. And I like stories with those vibes. -Promo includes an evocative quote. Could be from the comic itself, or from something else like a classical literature or whatever. The creator of Ark (https://www.arkcomic.com/) does this sometimes and even though I'm already following Ark, those promos get my attention.

eli [a winged tale]

Definitely the art promo now that I think of it! Merch, posters, banners etc. If the art intrigues me, I definitely take a look at the site/blurb/first chapter

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I wonder if we can semi-workshop promo art at some point? Not really intensive like "change xyz" because that's not always feasible with art, but just impression feedback like, "this pictures gives me these vibes, and makes me expect this kinda story"

I would be curious to see everyone's even if we don't workshop

eli [a winged tale]

YES

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Yesssss

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Yes please. I don‘t promo besides update notices simply because I have no clue to start.

Mei

Sometimes I get really attracted by the style of the story? I immediately started reading Wolfsbane because the art was cool and different from a lot of whta I'd seen on Webtoon up until that point. And then the story was perfect for me. What keii said about writing for yourself is right. Patrick Ness once said you should write the stories your younger self would have loved to pick up on a shelf

and I think that's a pretty evocative thing. At the end of the day, you should be enjoying what you're writing (hopefully). And if you enjoy it and you're having fun making it, that can rub off on the people reading it, or you find the people who like that similar vein of story?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

(It's also 100% legit to write stories for your current self )

Mei

(oh yes 100% that's what i'm doing HEHE)

Tolkein wrote LOTR because he was like

in love with worldbuilding

was there a market for such a strange type of novel at the time? No. Definitely not. Did he write it anyway? YEAH HE DID

Deo101 [Millennium]

I really wanna do an art workshop yes.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Aight, anyone who wants an impression feedback from me, post your promo art in #art_help

Warning, my impressions may be totally off lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

Also I don't do much marketing. Mostly I try to get in with communities and learn about making comics, I just want to improve my craft. All I really do is make my updated every week, and share whatever art Ive made on my Twitter or whatever

Okay! I think I only have my cover on my phone, but on my computer I also have my banners and icon. So I'll share all those in a bit when I'm at my computer

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

(off topic but I'm sick, and when I'm sick or very tired I constantly misread words. I read "my banners" as "my bananas" and I was very confused for a couple seconds.)

Deo101 [Millennium]

My bananers

Feather J. Fern

I am terrible at marketing my own work, but I am very good at marketing other people's work. I use the "you would like it for this reason" to grab people. Unfortunately I can't do it for my comic because I am bad at seeing the good in my own work oof. I am getting better at it though.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That's a really good way to do it!

And I can relate. My own hangup is a little different, but it can be extremely difficult to be brave for sure, whether in front of other people, or just in front of your own brain that constantly judges you.

Feather J. Fern

Yeah I was talking about a friend's comic and then the person I was talking to was like "Don't you write comics" and I was like "ahfoofjw yeah but don't look at them"

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I was thinking a lot about the whole "it's like [well known work] meets [another well known work]" approach that was discussed earlier. And I think that could be relevant here. Like, think of something that has either influenced your comic significantly, or just happens to have some core similarities. How would you market that thing? Could you market your own thing using a similar approach -- since there are similarities?

I'd thought of a really good example to compare HoK to. Then I got sad because the said example is extremely obscure outside of Korea. But now I'm like, hey, people don't have to KNOW that work. I can do this differently. I can talk about HoK the way I could talk about it.

('it' as in the other work that's obscure outside of Korea)

Feather J. Fern

I do think that's a good fast shortcut but I don't like using it becuase the shortcut sometimes makes people angry when they don't get what they like out of those two things

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That's why I said to NOT actually bring up the comparison work

Don't name it

Just list the traits that are shared in common

Feather J. Fern

Oh sorry

I miss read

(And my name changed colours all the sudden?)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's a confusing topic, so no worries

It means you leveled up

Feather J. Fern

OWO!

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Say you want to compare your work to... I dunno, DBZ, because it's got super strong aliens duking it out barehanded, blasting ki-like energy attacks, etc. Don't name DBZ. Talk about your work the way you'd talk about your favorite aspects of DBZ. "My comic has super strong aliens duking it out hand-to-hand! YEEEAH!"

OH MY GOD I NEED TO DO THIS NOW.

Feather J. Fern

Yeah! That's what I would do. (But it also helps for me that my comic has no hard reference points) but for my new comic, people are gonna compare it to Zach Bell, and Angelic Layer i think

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I'm gonna write up some drafts that I will revise and tweet at a later time

Feather J. Fern

So I jsut got to you know, not promo it as such XD

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I want to do this too for a quick pitch

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Do it (shop talk or story help maybe?)

I'm writing a vomit draft for mine

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Yee

Feather J. Fern

I think I will do it for Story help

(Also so I can help flesh out my new project lol lol)

eli [a winged tale]

Kei I might be suuuuper off since I read only the beginning but I sort of thought inuyasha but Korea and handsome boys

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Sometimes you don't even realize your story can be marketed as "blah meets blah" until much later down the line - I've only started realizing the number of existing properties I've absorbed unintentionally into my comic. It's not how I'd market it on a serious front, but to a friend for story help, heck yes.

But a lot of people on Twitter seem to do that strategy for PitMAD and it works great for them, so... shrug

I guess it still belongs in a "pitch arsenal," as it were

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, the one "blah" I just thought of is something I hadn't realized for all these years. But it makes so much sense now that I look at it.

eli [a winged tale]

See that’s where I got confused but I think this is what I’m gonna aim to do: - pitch to readers: inspiration but this awesome unique thing in the comic - pitch to other comic makers: the Logline - pitch to agents: comparison works if requested and longer pitch depending on their format - pitch to family: just read it plzthanksbye

renieplayerone

or alternative pitch to family: Please dear god never read this

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That's me

Oof... Writing the 'promote your comic by talking about the traits it shares with Another Person's Work,' I made myself cry, and that is definitely a sign I'm on the right track.

eli [a winged tale]

Right track is good!

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

It took me years to even think of an 'other more popular work' comparison for Children of Shadow. XD But at the same time, it's really different from the works I compare it to, so it's hard to say 'Read this if you like X or X because it has a few similarities in theme and tone, but is still very much its own thing'.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah which is why I'm not even gonna namedrop my X.

I'm just straight up gonna talk about 'My comic has [this trait]' (and X shares that trait, but no one needs to know for the purpose of that pitch)

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

To answer the weekly question... I really don't have a marketing strategy. Marketing is my achilles heel, so I generally just throw pages up and hope someone sees them. I don't really understand social media nor do I have the energy to sink tonnes of time into it, which seems to be one of the biggest requirements for being picked up by algorithms. So my marketing strategy is just.., keep making comics and talking to other creators and hope for the best

eli [a winged tale]

I think that’s still solid Capn

Ultimately you need a product to promote

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's something that helps me, because while I can talk about my favorite works done by others, I feel stuck when trying to do the same with my own. So it's basically telling my brain, 'hey, you already know how to do it with other stories. Do the same thing with your own.'

eli [a winged tale]

So true Kei

renieplayerone

thats my strategy too. best case you market it great, worst case you've made a new friend so win win :3

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

My incredibly low numbers after 14 years of making webcomics beg to differ but... maybe someday I can hire someone to help me market.

eli [a winged tale]

I’m using the comic platforms rather than my own site so... sort of relying on their algorithms. I imagine it can be harder if you just post on your own website?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Sometimes the platforms don't help much if their audience isn't into the type of comics you make

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I post on both my own website and on platforms, but the algorithms for WT and Tapas don’t seem to like me, haha.(edited)

renieplayerone

yeah same

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

One of my top favorite webcomics got a front page feature on Tapas once, but it wasn't the kind of a story that gets a lot of traction there, so it still didn't get very popular. And that was in no way a measure of its quality. It is an excellent comic, just not a good fit for that particular place.

renieplayerone

I get far more views on my site, but I get way more engagement on Tapas and WT

I actually treat those two mirrors AS marketing for the main site(edited)

eli [a winged tale]

Exactly renie! Good perspective!

I never know what different platforms tailor to...

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Yeah, what Keiiii said. I make dark fantasy comics and both WT and Tapas favour romance, especially comics geared towards a female audience and drawn anime style. My comics aren’t particularly feminine and romance isn’t much of a focus, so they’re just not what that demographic is into.

eli [a winged tale]

I’ve been trying to remember how I came across my favourite comics and usually it’s through the art (interesting characters, unique dynamic style that I enjoy) and the first chapter holding promise (able to see what the character wants/will have to change into)

Romance has always been the best seller in the story world I think

Oh and most recently hiveworks and other web publishers have great recommendations too per genre

And comic conventions are always fun to meet creators. Sometimes If I feel I jive with someone I’m an instant fan

renieplayerone

I absolutely need to get better at having confidence enough to make friends at conventions x_x

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I have noticed my audience grow a bit since joining Spiderforest. They’ve helped me get a bit better at promotion, though marketing just isn’t my talent, lol.

renieplayerone

im always terrified haha

eli [a winged tale]

It’s a big step for sure renie! It took me like... three years going to VanCAF as an attendee before actually exhibiting and making friends(edited)

Mei

I know i'm late but i personally detest the 'this book is X meets Y!!', even though I get why people do it. I just wish they'd describe it to me like what if I'd never read either of those books......

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I would really love to get out to cons, they sound like a great opportunity for connecting with other creators. One of these years I’ll be able to get to one!(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah im usually kinda like "okay, well are you doing anything new or are you just doing those things :/"

renieplayerone

I exhibit with the Boston Comics Roundtable and I still havent gotten the courage XD

Mei

yeah, cons are really fun even to attend or to make friends! I find it really tough though, I'm so intimidated;;

yeah Deo... same... it's like

sure, I could pitch a story as two things. Like I don't know "The Walking Dead meets Shaun of the Dead" which is semi redundant anyway

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I only use it to give people a framework for the kinds of tones and themes they can expect from my work when I have to keep my explanation short and sweet.

renieplayerone

they should have badges that say "Hi i want to make friends but you are all so awesome its intimidating be kind"

Mei

or you know... use those words to just describe the story? It may be a personal preference, some agents LOVE comparisons

Yes renie, yes!

i'd love a badge like that like

pls talk to me i'm scare

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Sometimes a few words can’t fully describe a story as well as saying: ‘It’s a little bit like X meets X but if you add [insert unique thing your story does]’

Mei

I personally find that it depends a bit too much on people having read those books or stories before. BUT if you're pitching to an agent, they've usually read those books

so then they get a sense or vibe of like, what the genre is

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

It’s all down to preference, really. Your own and the person you’re pitching to. If you don’t want to use comparisons to describe your own work, that’s valid, but try not to dismiss people who do.

Mei

so I get it, I just don't like it personally xD I think a lot of the times it takes away from your own voice and story

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That too is part of the reason why I'm not namedropping the works

Just having my self-promo self learn from my 'promo other people's stuff' self

Mei

yeah for sure, it adds that level of excitement to your own work that you'd give to others?

eli [a winged tale]

I think a cool exercise might be to check out someone’s work here and see how you would promote it

It’s always good to see from someone else’s perspective

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

yessssss, all of my friends have been much better at promoting than I am

mostly because they have no shame regarding it but they also just... know what sounds cool

Mei

Oh i'm very good at promoting my friends' work

I sold his DnD book to a kpop stan who doesn't like DnD and doesn't play, and it was a crowning achievement

eli [a winged tale]

Like for yours I’d probably say... Manta Ray princess finds herself very much dead but is given a second chance to revive her friends and save her kingdom... just need to find someone very much living and very much not afraid of the seaghosts they have become

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

SOLID

though now I imagine Phaedra as a Manta Ray in a dress which is... not entirely untrue

eli [a winged tale]

LOL omg I haven’t even thought of that! Just thought manta Princess is a hook

Mei

Me, pointing at Cheth "I mean look at him, LOOK AT HIM and tell me you don't want to read this"

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I guess for my work I market it from four potential angles: 1) The princess is cool and has a sword, 2) The villain is the best character, 3) The environments ain't bad, and 4) THERE'S A DOG

again, you gotta know who you're talking to and what they already like

eli [a winged tale]

In a world where a fallen god became trapped in the sea, a dead princess is given a second chance to fight for her life with a mysterious sea-bitten boy and undo the sea ghost curse that plagues the world.

Dammit I repeated world

Mei

hey... the environments are GREAT

eli [a winged tale]

Yeah Lady your environment shots are

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

ok I do try BUT BACK TO MARKETING

The number of times I see someone marketing their comic with very epic-sounding descriptors or broad generalizations... then that one day where they're finally like "oh, I have a character who turns into a hamster at nighttime" and people are like 'I'M SOLD'

And then they go ".... THAT'S WHAT YOU ALL WANTED???"

often it's those little weird details that get people interested

Deo101 [Millennium]

I wanna read about the were hamster please

Mei

sometimes I think the simplest and maybe slightly silly lines are what grabs people?

when things sound TOO epic i feel a bit intimidated

eli [a winged tale]

takes notes

Mei

but if someone were to sell me a big adventure epic as "it's hamsters and they fight the forces of evil" i'd read it

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

god yes

"Four small creatures band together to defeat a great darkness overwhelming their homeland."

No.

"Hamsters fight evil."

YES

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I.... I have no idea how to snappily describe my comics. XD

eli [a winged tale]

Same... I got to kids with wings for hair then my brain short circuits

Mei

i'd say it's the way you'd tell the story to a close friend

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

The best I came up with was 'Teenagers with supernatural powers team up with woodland critters to defeat monsters' but it sounds more adventure-y and doesn't really get at the fact that it's a dark story with horror elements and everyone's mentally ill.

Mei

like they come up to you and go "what's your comic about" "oh you know, my stupid comic's about mutant hamsters that take over the world" or something

(don't call your comics stupid none of your comics are stupid they are great)

Deo101 [Millennium]

"plant man and his goth boyfriend babysitting a ton of bozos" would probably be mine then

Mei

BEAUTIFUL

i'm sold

Deo101 [Millennium]

ghsakgjhgkhkgahgk my target audience...

Mei

i do think tho like this form of comedic one-lining may not work for something dark?

Unless you go "Spooky horror about cats that become humans at night!"

would need experimentation

eli [a winged tale]

It’s a balance I think.

Kids stranded on an island with weapons explore the darkness in human nature - Lord of the Flies

Mei

ooh yeah that's a good one!

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

A space explorer stranded on a foreign planet must join forces with the indigenous population and save his ship before his life support runs out.

Alternately

Small man goes to war with small carrot people

Pikmin

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

@Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios) I wonder if one could describe CoS the way how people might describe Evangelion, but with magical powers instead of mechs.

Teens, monsters, mental illnesses

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Probably. Though I've never seen Evangelion, but those three words work very well.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

The relationship dynamics are way different, but yeah, those three things...

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Also add trauma and cute lil animals and you have Children of Shadow. XD

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Evangelion also has trauma (though I don't know if you'd like it; this isn't a rec, just a promo discussion!) and it was refreshing to see at the time

A teen trying to fight huge monsters, even if he was doing it inside an equally huge mech, could lead to traumatizing experiences, and it was the first time I saw that seriously explored

Hmm, so I guess "teens, talking animals, monsters, mental illnesses feat. trauma" ?

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I don't know if it's similar at all, but that description reminds me strongly of Eureka 7. Wow, was that series intense,

🌈ERROR404 🌈

I really liked how the end happened - it was a nice solution to the lack of budget issue and told the story of his psyche reall well

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Though Eureka 7 was intense in a good way. I found the ending kind of unsatisfying, but admittedly I find the endings of 90% of animes unsatisfying (probably a cultural clash). But I enjoy them for the journey more than the ending.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I haven't watched Eureka 7, but the storyboard artist (one of the storyboard artists maybe?) for that anime is one of my favorite artists.

DanitheCarutor

Ah, a little late, but regarding the snappy promos I'm in the same boat as Cap'n with not knowing how to make one. At least one that would be ridiculous and totally not fitting the darker themes. I agree with all the people who have a generally hard time coming up with a pitch for their work, while having an easier time promoting other people's comics. Honestly my comic can be super boring to people who don't like pretentious, non-fantastical, angsty, character study types of stories. So it's really hard to think of a way to make it sound interesting without spoiling anything. Man! That thing when people come up to you, asking what your comic is about! Me: "Oh! Ah, it's uh, kinda sad and it has uh mental illness" -trails off with uncomfortable laughter- Them: Oh cool. -has a look of complete disinterest- Someone was actually extremely enthusiastic about the vague description of my comic, which somehow made me a mix of uncomfortable and excited.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I saw the conversation about blurbs and I just thought of one for a comic I'm working on! "An ecologist and a bird have a conversation about ethics"

I haven't started the comic yet so please send your critiques(edited)

and first impressions

(of the blurb)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

"Angsty character study with a heavy dose of mental illness" <--- Could this descriptor work? @DanitheCarutor

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

kei said exactly what I was just typing

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Great minds

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

oh, i just realized i've read dani's comic

I think your description is fine?

The artsy, angsty comics I follow all have kind of short, tongue in cheek descriptions

it's hard to capture the tone of an emotional comic in one sentence so they either joke about it or make it intentionally misleading

for example Drop Out's description is something like "two friends go on a road trip" and Fritz Fargo's description is "a human dumpster fire in the 90s"

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

The dumpster fire one is insta-effective

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Dani, maybe make your description shorter if anything?

Something like, "An emotionally stunted alcoholic attempts to make amends"

and then follow it up with kei's line about it being an angsty character study

RebelVampire

Im not gonna stop the convo cause it is on topic. However, i do want to remind ppl these #creator_babble chats are permanently archived. So thats something to keep in mind if youre gonna workshop.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I asked before in this discord about making my own blurb better. The main critique I got was that I included too many things that I thought were interesting and unique that a new reader probably wouldn't care about. Like how the mc's powers work. But though it's unique and important to the story, it's not going to be a main reason someone reads the comic. I revised the blurb to remove extraneous info and make the tone of the comic more apparent, and I think now I didn't lose anything and made it more concise.

I think maybe agtahr could also be summarized a bit more succinctly

DanitheCarutor

Yup, you did once upon a time but said you stopped reading it a while ago. (which is totally fine, the reason is understandable.) The mix of yours and Keii's descriptions do sound a lot better than mine. Lol Thank you Fish and @keii’ii (Heart of Keol)! I've noticed people really like the word 'angst' when you describe heavy stuff. At least when I was a teenager everyone found it appealing. I'll tinker with it a bit and use Drop_Out and Fritz Fargo as a reference. Anyways, I'm going to stop talking now, don't want to bog down the main topic.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That's a good point; 'the best things about this story' and 'things that should go in its blurb' have an overlap, but they aren't always the same.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Yeah, I did but I'll probably pick it up again eventually. I remember enjoying it. If you do want to keep talking, we can move to shop talk?

mirandalorian

babbling I have the first three episodes of my webtoon ready to post tomorrow and I’m really excited and feel kinda proud that I made it this far...even though it’s not very far. It’s far for me without posting immediately end babbling

Feather J. Fern

I forgot to ask, but if people are tabling at cons, do you guys have promo stuff at your con tables for your comics?

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Mostly a business card, but yes

carcarchu

i never did but my table partner one year had free postcards she gave out with purchase / to passerbys with her comic info and an illustration on it

kayotics

I always keep free postcards to advertise my comic on the table right next to my business cards.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Yep, the free postcards did wonders for me last year. They disappeared quickly!

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Buisness cards and postcards~

Feather J. Fern

Seems like Business and Postcards are the way to go.

Mei

business cards!!

i might be making flyers/postcards for my comic next time though! :D

sagaholmgaard

I haven't done much to promote my comic but I've gotten some good ideas reading through this, thanks! I currently plug my updates in twitter and instagram with a cool/fun panel from the new page. I do also share WIPS and try to engage through my instagram stories (Asking things like, 'what type of benders would the Reclaim squad be in an avatar au' and making doodles for the answers), but that only reaches those who follow my IG. its good fun tho. I've done memes with the characters a few times but I didn't get much attention, LOL. But it's fun so maybe worth trying again

Spring-heeled Jack

Today I went into a locally owned comic shop and went to the guy that owns it and said "I'm a local artist and I'm writing a comic. Could I give you some small flyers to let people take?" And he said yes, and then asked if I have any physical copies. I don't yet but told him I'll bring some by when I have them. He then let me know he carries other local artists! Something cool to think about if you have a local comic shop.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

ooo that's good to know

I droped off my zines at my local comic shop but maybe I'll drop flyers of my webcomic too lmaooo

Spring-heeled Jack

I also just ordered a business card carrier so I can tote some around with ease. I carry my flyers in my sketchbook. You should totally ask, it never hurts! Carry a few extra just in case you find yourself in a new area and find another cafe or comic shop.

I ran mine off on my at home printer on some nice quality but regular weight paper. I might need to get some more professionally done.

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

I keep a handful of business cards in my wallet -- that way, any time someone says "hey, that looks cool, what are you drawing?" they get a card with the title and URL. Slowly but steadily burns through the supply.

DanitheCarutor

Seeing if my local book shops will carry copies of my comic when I print them eventually is something I'm kind of excited about! My town is hardcore into supporting local artists and writers, so that'll be something neat to try out. Although I'm a little nervous that the rating might be a little too mature for what the vendors want on their shelves.

I know of using postcards to advertise, but never heard of fliers. Maybe I'll give that a try.(edited)

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I use double sided business cards, so on one side, it showcases some of my art, and the other side has contact info, a link to my comic website, and a QR code. It's been pretty helpful so far at conventions.

Nutty (Court of Roses)

You guys have all these sophisticated answers to this and my answer is just "scream on every social media platform I can reach and every person I meet about my comic."

Though I may not scream at people irl,,,

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

Let's see... I have a twitter where I repost my comic pages, and a couple mirrors that help reach different audiences. I've also carried around business cards that have my comic's URL on it. One fun strategy I've used is doing review-exchange things, in an I-critique-your-comic-if-you-critique-mine way (with the assumption that most people who read all the way through Super Galaxy Knights end up liking it). Though, that isn't really viable anymore now that the comic is 600+ pages, cuz nobody would ever agree to that trade lol. And... that's pretty much it? Though, I should note that my goal with Super Galaxy Knights isn't to make the most popular comic I can so that I can make a living off ads or patreon or print sales or whatever. If I ever do manage to make money off the comic, it'll be in "spinoff tech" (basically, video games or other media based off it). (it's the reason why a bunch of early Starstuff Stories fleshed out the abilities of the characters they focused on) I would like people to read the story because I think people would like the story, but it's not like my future depends on its popularity.

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

We (me and Q) are gonna (hopefully) tabeling at cons this year! I thought about doing free non permenant tattoos with our comic things. Also we have beautiful zines of the first chapter to sell. but a free postcard is also good

Desnik

promotional strategies...ah...the biggest thing I did for my first webcomic, RAWR! Dinosaur Friends, was simply update on a general platform (tumblr), using a consistent schedule and the same tags every time. That allowed some of the bigger biology/humor/critter blogs on tumblr to find me and I got a lot of people reading from their generous reblogs. I found some more niche crossover from sci-comm blog comments and dinosaur toy collector forums, because sometimes I'd have a comic that would coincide with paleontology news. It was mainly about finding my niche and bringing my stuff to that niche. To those struggling with finding readers, I would recommend distilling the contents of your comic and then reaching out to people who buy/read things like your comic. I've definitely made friends from general 'webcomic' forums and discords, but in terms of building a readership it's all about finding the niche and catering to it in a human way

In general I highly recommend shopping around for stuff like hobby blogs/forums/groups/discords that have some relation to the content of your webcomic. Those people DO want new content related to their hobby, but they don't really deal well with salesy pitches. Just be human and also a nerd for that hobby, too (nerdy enough to make webcomics about it)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, it's like fan comic for an existing IP with an existing fandom, except it's a fan comic of a 'thing' rather than an IP (e.g. you make a pirate comic? Great! Nobody owns pirates, but there are lots of pirate fans out there!).

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

The very first customer I had at the first con I tabled at, came over and said "I like ghosts! I like the ocean! I'll take it!" And wrote me later saying it was exactly what they were looking for.

And honestly it's all because I make sure every cover has something spooky and something watery, and the genres are in the title I make it very easy for people to understand what it might be like.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

omg the genres are in the title

that's genius

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Definitely not planned But it helps so much!

I think if authors have a rule on certain symbols/motifs they MUST make sure come across on covers/posters/etc, that can be a good marketing strategy. With some wiggle room, of course.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I... I feel like I can barely even describe what my comic is, which makes it so hard to market. 'Do you like comics with cute animals and eldritch horrors and angsty teens that have superpowers and hidden religious symbolism everywhere?!? Then my comic is for you!' What even is that demographic, because I sure don't know.(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

@Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios) If you take away the cute animals part, that actually sounds like stuff a lot of teens are into/ a lot of people were into when they were teens. And most people love cute animals, so adding that to the mix, in theory, shouldn't reduce the accessibility too much. Buuuuut CoS has its unique flavor that's decidedly different from all the "angsty teens, eldritch horrors, religious symbolism" stuff I consumed when I was younger. I don't know how to describe that flavor, nor how to utilize it for marketing. But yeah, maybe some food for thought?

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I've used short phrases that are sort of representative to describe my comic. Examples include "consensual mind control" "a guy whose ideal life is not being entirely alive" "friendship" and "anticlimactic conversations"

I have no idea how effective any of those are

someone tell me pls

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

As someone who just started reading your comic last night I think consensual mind control is a really cool descriptor. I haven't heard that too much before.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

that makes me happy

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

@keii’ii (Heart of Keol) Heh, I'm not sure what that unique flavour is, either, but it might have something to do with me avoiding the typical 'chosen one' structure that most teen fantasy literature has. The characters are all (except Fawna) a part of the hidden world already rather than discovering it, and everyone's pretty much running around like chickens with their heads cut off rather than having any power over their situation (which is kind of a huge part of the theme of the comic). It's definitely different than the typical urban fantasy, so it's been really hard to find which audience that appeals to. From what I've gathered based on the people who comment on my website, it's mostly academics in college or beyond, for whatever reason. XD

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Honestly I think for almost all comics their first pages were what convinced me to keep reading. Even with Phantomarine I was ambivalent about the description but then I saw the first page, and though, yeah, I'm into this.

Maybe my own comic can be the same way

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Exactly the same with me and your comic - I was also all about that first page It's a powerful thing! I think for anyone about to delve into a comic - which is, by nature, a very visual thing - it's going to be that visual that ultimately pushes them over the edge.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

maybe my description should just be ascii art of my main character O-O | -(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

^ It's why I tinkered with the first page of HoK soooo many times even after it went live. But it wasn't enough; it still gave off the wrong impression as to what kind of a story one should expect. Finally, more than a year after I started posting it, I redid like 1/4 to 1/3 of chapter one from scratch. Even though it will never be perfect, I can live with it now. chapter 2 on the other hand... It's an imperfect intro to the right story, rather than an intro (good or not) to the wrong story.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

To be honest, my intro probably doesn't hit the right notes to explain what my comic is about, which may be part of my problem. It starts out seeming more like an anthropomorphic fantasy than a dark urban fantasy / horror story. That's just something I think I'm going to have to live with, because I'm tired of reworking old pages (I already do it far too much). I think my best solution is drawing a new cover that showcases the tone and subject matter better than the one I'm using now.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

oh god, you reminded me of the 3 cover pages I spent hours on only to later scrap. Then my current cover page I did in one hour after it came to me at 4am(edited)

and it was perfect

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

and my page redoings were after the reboot.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Cap, I don't know how representative it is of the story but I looked up the Ashes cover page and it's very impressive

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Yeah, I already redrew my intro once.... and this is the third iteration of this comic. And I'm currently redrawing the first two chapters of my other comic. I'm so sick to death of starting over. -_-

@Eightfish (Puppeteer) Oh, thank you!! I like to go all-out on covers, heh.

Kabocha

Promotion... ... is that a thing you can eat? ... A few things I've tried is business cards -- tweeting about it -- posting about it on dA... I try to stay away from services like Tapas and Webtoon because I'm not formatted for those sorts of things, and I fear I'll probably just frustrate myself. It's a delicate balance right now between remaining happy with my work and getting it seen, but overall, I guess I'm not too stressed about it since it's not a source of income for me... I just... like making comics. I've also done conventions -- Conventions are fun, don't get me wrong, but nowadays they're a really low return on interest for many shows for original stuff (except slice of life and "oh no I did a bad" types of zines -- people seem to really enjoy things like that since it's often pretty easy to relate to). They feel like they used to be easier for selling original work, but the market's gotten rougher because there's so much competition and only so many dollars. if I ever print, I'm probably going to have to lean on some marketing-savvy friends for help... Hopefully things haven't changed too much by then. I think the tool that's worked best for me in the past few years has been doing guest comics here and there, as well as using topwebcomics, oddly enough. TWC was pretty good for referrals when I started doing comics way back in 2006~2007...

sagaholmgaard

Since the topic is about promotion... Do yall know if there are any twitter hashtag events for webcomic creators? My friends in the indie game industry have certain hashtags that people can post in during specific times every week - do we have anything similar?

Kabocha

#Webcomicchat!

https://webcomicchat.com/for-creators You may also find this page helpful

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

#webcomicchat is great because you get to talk shop while talking about your own work! It's not just "look at my comic"

sagaholmgaard

Ahh!! Thank you!

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I know some people do #WebcomicWednesday - not sure how official it is, but it gets some attention!

sagaholmgaard

I'll check that one out as well!

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

There's also #comicartistsunite too

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

webcomicchat always looked like fun, but I definitively am on the wrong side of the globe for the times it's going on

mirandalorian

Promotion is difficult. I always feel like I'm being too pushy, even for something that's free. I also feel like I built up a following that had nothing to do with comics or art and so when I switched directions to head that way, i don't get the response I would like. Reading all the thoughts here has been really helpful tho. Just got to put them into practice

Feather J. Fern

I think my current attempt for promotion is at least being more willing to promote. I have to force my fear of "I shouldn't tell people because it's not as good as (blank)" and just shove my comic into a spotlight

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

If anyone is worried about bothering people, putting variety into your promotions will make things more palatable for people for sure. I have one person on my timeline spamming the same exact post over and over again, almost daily, and it doesn't seem to be doing them any favors There's no need for a promotion every day. The people I see that do a more-obvious promotion tweet, like, weekly, or every two weeks, seem to get good results from that Sometimes less is more

mirandalorian

I need to get to that point Feathery. And ya, daily is a bit extreme imo. But I have to figure out the good balance

Feather J. Fern

Even weekly I don't do it because I feel like I am spamming and I feel awkward

Oh! Speaking of promotions, one way I found I got my comic promoted was by doing guest comics for other people! I got lots of viewers after each guest comic I did

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, for social media promo, e.g. on Twitter, you want to make your actual tweets have value -- not just things being linked off the tweets. (This is where gag-a-day kinda comics have an advantage, because each strip has entertainment value and you can just post the whole strip in a tweet.) Obviously this doesn't apply to every promo tweet; so like, weekly promo tweet that's solely about the links, as mentioned by others, is fine. But yeah, aside from those, you wanna make your promo tweets fun to read.

Feather J. Fern

Also cameos! Cameos are a great promo

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Not gonna lie, I am lowkey paranoid about doing cameos. Someone I know had to remove their cameo of someone else's character, because that other person objected to their character being in the print version of the comic.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Uff

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

oh rip

Feather J. Fern

Oh man, that's rough.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I'll never even print HoK but I can still imagine someone being all "NOPE, I CHANGED MY MIND" at a later time

Feather J. Fern

I am planning to do some cameos for other people, not that Go Figure will ever be in print but I can see that problem. I think what I would say is that if you want a cameo you have to be 100% certain

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Might be a good idea to have a very simple agreement thing you can have them sign

Feather J. Fern

Yeah I was going to have a written consent form

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

"I agree to let you do a cameo of my character, and to not be a jerk about it at a later time. Signed"

Feather J. Fern

Signed and dated by both parties XD

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

There's also the broad hashtags like #webcomics and even things more geared to genres like #drama and #fantasy and so on. Doing art memes helps sometimes, too.

mirandalorian

What do you think the best hashtags to use are? Is webcomics too saturdated?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I'm not sure about the best hashtags, but my biggest thing about hashtags on Twitter : don't use a bunch of hashtags in a single tweet!

For broad hashtags like #webcomics or #fantasy, I gotta wonder if anyone's actually checking those out...

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Yeah, I usually tag my update posts with #webcomic and my comic's name, but honestly I have no idea if #webcomic has ever helped out my post ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

mirandalorian

Ya, I typically keep it to two or less, but i always wonder if webcomic is actually useful lol

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

takes note to use something more specific than #webcomic in my next update tweet

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I think it may potentially be useful as a label for someone who's just found you on that platform, and is not sure what you're promoting. But beyond that...

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

I usually use #historicalfiction and #webcomic. Not sure which one helps more, but well, there it is.

mirandalorian

Ya, I should use the genre tag too.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Do people even search genre tags for that matter lol (a bit pessimistic, but still a genuine question)

like, I'll be the first to admit, I don't hashtag search to look for new comics to read. I don't think I ever hashtag search ANYTHING, unless it's like..... a very active trend that I am interested in (e.g. an upcoming video game that I'm looking forward to)

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Well, the tags are popular enough to be suggested by twitter so I'd think some use them, probably likeminded folk.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Same keii. I mostly use hashtags to look for fan art, exclusively on Instagram.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

There's also a trend of "art sharing" tweets. I have found a couple of artists and webcomics through that kind of event, but again, the turnover isn't anything to write home about.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I wonder if readers make use of the search more than us creators do?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I doubt it, Lee

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I never use it as a reader, at any rate, though I don't know if others are like that.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Though, actually that's not true, I have used hashtags to look at more things being posted within art events. So inktober, mermay, hourly comic day, etc.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

But art event hashtags are useful, because -- like I mentioned before -- those tweets provide entertainment value without anyone having to click on offsite links. e.g. the #StartToFinish tag that's hot right now.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I have followed new artists from those tags though and then checked out their off-site stuff. It's definitely a more round about way than someone specifically looking for comics to read via hashtag

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

From my limited observation, when people are looking for comics to read, they tend to ask for recs rather than do hashtag search?

"Anyone know of some good magical girl webcomics?" etc

which is a bit of a bummer for us creators, because that is completely outside of our control. Nothing we can do about it.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

here's the popularity for the #webcomics tag

So SOME people use it.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

@Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight) I'm gonna guess it's mostly creators using them to promote, rather than readers using them to search.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Also it seems to be peak in popularity in the USA

@keii’ii (Heart of Keol) the graph implies interaction, really.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

What counts as interaction?

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

tweeting it and searching it

what I'm saying is we can't know.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I don’t so much in Twitter, but I personally DO search hashtags on Insta to find new art.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's true, we can't know. I just personally can't imagine anyone searching for #webcomics to find stuff to read

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Insta is definitely hashtag game city.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, IG is a different beast

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Comics don’t generally gel so well with Insta’s format, though, so I’m usually seeking art and not comics.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

just to be safe, occasionally use it

To be honest, I'm probably more likely to find and become a fan of webcomics here on this server than any social media

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, I wouldn't say "don't use #webcomics" -- use it if you have no other, more specific tags to put. But on Twitter, you don't want too many hashtags, so if you got more specific ones... use those instead!

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

I feel somewhat self conscious in getting an instagram. But I'll get one most likely.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

It might be a good idea to switch up your tags regularly? Choose two or three from a relevant list each update and see if any of those tweets get a noticeable boost in engagement.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Yeah that sounds a good strategy

speaking of, any other creators into historical webcomics?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I don't seek them out, but there's some that I read.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

yours is touching upon the historical keii with the joseon-style elements.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's definitely not historical but yeah, got the aesthetics going for it!

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Yeah!

I must admit, I'm a bit starved for like-minded creators. I mean people that create historical webcomics. I know and follow a few but that's not nearly enough.

(if I'm babbling too much for creator babble please tell me!)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Babbling is fine! But this might be better for #general or possibly shop talk as it's not related to this week's topic?

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

oh sorry, there's a specific topic here too?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, all the channels under CTP Activities have a... topic thingie that changes weekly

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

okay got it. I'll take it there. Sorry :/

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Don't be sorry, be glad to chat about this stuff in another channel

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

With insta please be mindful that if you‘ll always post with the same hashtags, their algorythmn likely will assume you‘re a bot.

mirandalorian

Oh really?

I definitely did not know that.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Yup, it‘s a big annoyance. At least it was that way half a year ago, how is the algorythm now? Nobody knows.

I kinda hate insta, but it‘s the platform with the most interactions for me, although I don‘t know if it goes beyound liking my panel cutout.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Instagram does it‘s darnest to lock the user into theor own ecosystem.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Yeah, hard same. I definitely get the most likes there, but I get very few referrals from insta.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Funnily, the only social media where I KNOW I got at least one reader from is pillowfort and their teeny-tiny webcomic comunity!

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I keep wanting to hop over there, but also starting a new social media sounds exhausting TuT one day.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I need to start using PF

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

It‘s pretty chill, reminds me of the hey-day of livejournal, with great filtering - more intended to create many small communities than one giant pot like twitter.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I don’t think any platform’s algorithms like me. I get very low engagement no matter where I post. I’m just not good at figuring out what these platforms pick up.(edited)

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

I still have three invites left for this week.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Does cross promotion work for you guys at all?

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

A little bit? But I think my comics are a hard sell, so I generally don’t get a lot of referrals when I cross-promote with other creators.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

It‘s how I found this community; but otherwise, nope.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Now I need to check out your comics Lee. I'm intrigued!

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Haha, if you want to! If they’re not your cup of tea that’s a-okay.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I still have three invites left for this week.

@chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa] if you don't have plans for those invites, I would definitely take one and follow you first

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

About the hashtag thing on Twitter..... I have found the hashtags #webtoon #webtooncanvas and #celebrateCANVASday to be particularly useful for those of us publishing on Webtoon Canvas. I have gained a few new readers from this, and the official Webtoon Canvas page often retweets when these hashtags are used.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

That's good to know. I'm planning to start mirroring on Webtoon so I'll have to be sure to remember to use those tags.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I need to fix my series on WT first. But I'll give those hashtags a try once that's been done

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I tried using webtoon hashtags a few times, but their page never retweeted me. It seems either random, or there’s some hidden requirement for getting a rt.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

i use the tag sometimes but I found it more responsive if you have a vertical scrolling format comic

then they're more likely to respond to you

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Oh, yeah.... I use a traditional page format.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

same rip

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I do combine all my pages into long episodes at the ends of chapters, so it’s kinda scrolling, but they’re just traditional pages stacked on top of each other, lol. WT definitely doesn’t like that, but I don’t have the time to reformat hundreds of pages.

Feather J. Fern

Also promo thought, I randomly joined people's streams before and then got hooked on their comics after seeing them draw on twitch or something like that

Pistashi

I struggle a bit with promo stuff, because I get too self-conscious about self-promoting and I'm the type of person that ends up doing too much of it or none of it

at the moment I'm working on making a press kit and sharing it with some blogs and networks about comics

but still, what I usually do is join groups and try to talk with people that works with art and comics

this is kind of more inclined to networking and meeting new people to talk about what we like than promoting my work to potential readers

nothing wrong with that, but looking with a more critical eye I still have a lot to learn about building an audience and reaching people who could become future readers

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

I wonder HOW much a large social media following is worth. Insta‘s shown me that it isn‘t necessarily translating into readers.

carcarchu

in my experience followings on different platforms are non-transferable. same goes with having a large following on your comic itself, doesn't necessarily mean having a lot of followers on your art accounts. that's why they say "don't build your sandcastle in someone else's sandbox"

Pistashi

that makes a lot of sense

kayotics

If you’re building your following around your own content (original art, comic updates, etc) then the likelihood that the following is transferable is higher, but it’s still not 100%. You’re competing with everything else on their timeline too.

RebelVampire

i think a thing to consider with webcomics especially when it comes to social media is that a good portion of people who follow comic creators on social media are other comic creators, not people who are just readers. and the good majority of comic creators do not have a lot of time to read other webcomics. While there are certainly exceptions, I see those very few and far in between. So the conversion rates for social media right now are super low until the dynamic of the communities on the platforms changes.

kayotics

I’d agree with that, but also having a social media presence has definitely opened up some doors to being seen by other creators, many of whom are professionals. It’s good for networking, might not be the best for gaining and retaining readers.

RebelVampire

Oh yeah for sure. My point was about conversion factor

its factor in networking is a whole other matter entirely

and is indespensible

kayotics

One thing that I didn’t mention for myself is that networking has helped a LOT with getting new readers. Word of mouth, is always the best way to advertise, and other webcomic people giving you a plug can see some really strong results

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #comic tea party #ctp #creator interview #comic creator interview #creator babble

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