#so maybe we'll have a lineart comics for this time

[mokolat]

♫ "Mamma mia, does it show again My, my, just how much I've missed you?" ♪ (Preview ♥)

[gribok-art]

[ Twitch update ]

So, I've been streaming for a while now, it has been a really good and fun time ! I discovered something new that I actually liked, so, I will definitely continue doing them ! Thank you so much everyone for the support !

However I have a small announcement regarding the togafuka comic streams.

I've decided to :

Stream the sketching part. It's very fun seeing everyone try to guess what character is who, what's going on, since my sketches are quite messy and the characters have no features. I'd be revealing characters and lines as I'd advance in the sketching of the pages.

Do the lineart and shading off stream. There's not much for me to say during those, and even though it could be a chill stream instead which are good too, I prefer to do it on my own to really focus on it. I will be however, instead, posting small WIPs here and there.

Reveal the whole chapter on stream before posting it online a few days later. We'll read it together, I can read your theories or thoughts, criticism is welcomed as well of course, I'll answer questions and maybe point out things/details you might have missed.

Right after that, we'll straight on continue with sketching the next chapter on stream.

I don't know if I'll be streaming other drawings yet, but for now I'll leave it at that. My first streams helped me know better what works for me.

[flightyfinch]

ok this is only gonna be kinda interesting tbh bc it's been three years and i don't remember everything, this is mostly to entertain my friends

i used to freelance for Company. i started as a comics editor that worked with creators and reported to lead editors who were staff at Company and oversaw several comics at a time. idk how well this worked out as a system for Company (more on that later) but it worked well for me. eventually i was also signed on to write a comic adaptation of a book Company owned the rights to. i was given a lot of creative liberty on that and the schedule was strict but had plenty of time between chapter scripts being due, so it was pretty nice

in the middle of that project and a few others, i learned that another comic was in progress and was looking for a new writer to finish up the last 25%ish of scripts, and i was encouraged to throw my hat in the ring. i read all the published chapters of the comic and wrote up a short sample script according to prompts i was given

they wanted to see what i'd do with edit notes before taking me on, so enter two contributors to that google doc who we'll call Blake and Borpus. Blake was Company staff and a lead editor and a lovely person, i'd been in communication with her already about this job. she left nice productive notes about tweaks to the script

i never had any form of introduction or direct communication with Borpus. their name was listed on the comic as one of the creators, but apart from that i had no idea who they were. maybe they were also with Company or maybe they were an affiliate creator, but either way it looked like they'd been with this project from the start. their comments were blunt and honestly rude. this genius expected me to have included character development and backstory which hadn't been published yet. maybe they weren't looped in enough to know i hadn't actually signed on yet, i dunno, but one thing for which i give NO benefit of the doubt is that they rewrote entire parts of my dialogue. Company's editorial guide was very clear about how one should only ever provide EDITS, not directly redo another's work. on my own editing gigs i gave creators prompts and had them write the changes themselves. i only ever wrote out new lines or panels and offered them as suggestions if a creator and i had been working for a while and we had a level of trust

so Borpus pissed me off, but i still wanted more writing gigs. i took the notes and made changes to the sample script (putting BACK my dialogue and grudgingly working in the feel of SOME of Borpus's line changes) and my work was given the green light. when i signed on, to my relief Borpus's involvement vanished and i worked exclusively with dear Blake

but SHEEEESH i walked right into a mess. it looked like the comic's last chapters had been written at least once already and thrown out. i was given a rough version of the previous outline with a few story points they wanted to keep, and was asked to outline a new dozen ending chapters from that. i was given 2 (?) weeks for that and once that was done my schedule was one script due per week. this was a CRAZY speed bc every week was writing a new script and implementing edits on the previous week's script. i remember early on i was given a scrapped chapter that had reached the lineart phase, and was asked to rewrite the chapter and rearrange and reuse as many panels as possible to fit the new plot beats. it was understandable that they wanted to use work they'd already paid for and it was actually kind of a fun challenge, but it's also indicative how Fraught this production was

for the next couple months the pace was grueling, but apart from that it was fine. i wrote scripts, made edits, and they were shipped off to the art team. i reasonably thought that we were cleaning up from one emergency overhaul and the rest would be smooth sailing

after a couple of my chapters had published, Blake very apologetically approached me and i was T-boned by another overhaul. my chapters were spending too much time on new characters and story points and not enough time on the main couple...... the characters and the story points i had been assigned to do. yeah those. (specific gripe: how tf am i supposed to show the protagonist finding a place in her local lgbtq community without spending any time on the new people she meets in said community???) i made heavy new edits on scripts that hadn't been drawn yet, and i had to write one new chapter of the main couple hooking up and parting badly in order to amp up the feeling of resolution in the finale. i disagreed with this decision a Ton. this comic had been leaning hard on will-they-won't-they and it didn't make sense NOT to use them finally getting together for the finale. the reasons for the fight didn't make sense for the characters or for the fluffy goofy tone the comic had started with. but at this point i knew for sure that the clown car i was stuffed into was on fire, so i just wanted to maneuver myself to the nearest door. i made changes for them until they physically ran out of production time to ask me to make any more, and then i was done

a few other things happened mixed in this timeline of which i can't remember the order. Blake left Company (i doubt because of this particular comic but i'll never know). Company was acquired by a larger media corporation. and because i was the creator of the script Google Docs, i received the notifications when Borpus made their harbinger return and started doing rewrites to my scripts.

Contractually, anything i wrote for Company was their property. so long as any use of my work was credited and i was paid as agreed, it was theirs to do whatever they wanted with it. i know this doesn't seem to align with the practices i mentioned in the editorial guide, but it shows the hard split between the honor and respect generally shown on the production side of Company and the legal ownership rights the corporate side demanded. i could have edited those scripts as many times as they asked but they still could legally make any changes they wanted after the fact. no one WOULD, of course, bc that's stupid and insulting. no one except Borpus.

their changes sucked. characters became flatter and MEANER just to amp up drama. the scripts had been frankensteined and it was very obvious when you read them. i could have raised a stink about this if i wanted i guess, and someone probably would have stepped in on the principle of the thing, but i knew i didn't have any legal protection to lean on and this was all very clearly revealing itself to be stupid and not worth it. even in my early less muddled chapters the readers were unhappy. turns out if you keep trying to make changes to something WHILE it's in motion, people notice and realize they're being strung along. i just walked away.

as this was wrapping up Company's new owner, shockingly, did a big round of layoffs. maybe that system of freelancing editors to produce a higher quantity of comics wasn't good for quality, or maybe they were just being dicks. i don't know if anything would've even happened if i'd raised the rewrite issue, because the comic was finally ending and a ton of the people who'd made it were being let go anyway. all my connections at Company were gone and my work there dried up, so working on this comic didn't even amount to getting any better work there

to this day i don't know what the fuck was going on up top with that comic. maybe Borpus was in charge and behind every stupid demand for change. maybe this comic suffered a death by committee and Borpus was just one bad actor taking advantage of shitty management. all i know is mercifully people stopped reading this once popular comic, and it died in darkness where no one would see my name attached to it. many lessons learned, much dickheadedness witnessed. anyway the end. sometimes i like to look back on that smashed, flaming clown car wreckage, and now you can too ✌️

i think at some point i'll share the story of the shitshow that was the gl vertical scroll comic i wrote for bc i don't think i've ever explained the whole story to Anyone, and also who doesn't love hearing about a mess