Hey there.

standard al · August 22, 2010, 10:02:55 PM

Hello everybody. I just wanted to take a minute and introduce myself.

My name's Al and I'm the artist and designer over at The Specialists. It's a long-form superhero comic set during an alternate World War II. We started about 2 months ago, so there isn't a huge archive, but we're a good way into the first chapter, and what we've got so far should give you a reasonably good idea of the tone (even if the plot is still a little unclear at this point). We update every Monday.

My friend Shawn (the writer) and I have had many comic-type projects over the last decade or more, but we never really got anything off the ground. The characters and plot of The Specialists actually started as a one-shot RPG session last fall. We decided we liked the characters so much we would look into maybe self-publishing it as a scenario for a couple different superhero RPGs. We never did write it up in that form, but we couldn't let it die completely. So we thought we'd take a crack at a webcomic.

I stumbled across this forum and thought it might be a good place to get some feedback and get to know some fellow webcomic creators. I'm looking forward to spending lots of time here. Thanks.

Al

Gar · August 23, 2010, 04:01:41 AM

Hi, welcome to the board!

Had a quick look at your comic, art's good and you've got some nice framing and colouring. The pacing is a bit slow for webcomics though. It's good to read through the archives from the start, but looks set to be a check-every-couple-of-months-to-catch up kind of thing. It's engrossing, but the pages used to set the tone don't stand well on their own for a webcomic. It'll work well whenever you get around to doing a print collection though, and it's good going through the pages that are up already.

For marketing I'd recommend you wait until your first chapter wraps, and then have your ads link to the first comic page rather than the frontpage. Also when you're doing site extras you should flesh out the RPG elements (possibly not so much in the fore for the comic itself, but people might dig character sheets and custom D20 rules for your characters' special abilities.)

operationremie · August 23, 2010, 08:48:19 AM

welcome!

i do agree with gar. it kind of seemed weird as a webcomic. but i was enjoying it. WW2 is always a good place to go to. keep it up :D

Richard · August 24, 2010, 12:24:32 PM

Welcome to the boards!

I looked at your comic and enjoyed it immensely! It definitely seems like a series that will work in print format. I am always a fan of the long form webcomic series and I'm interested in where your story is going to go. It might take awhile, but I'll make sure to drop in once a week.

standard al · August 24, 2010, 06:57:15 PM

Thanks for all the kind words.

I wish we could update more frequently, but if I was to try and crank out more than a page a week, the quality would suffer for sure. I know one page a week seems pretty glacial, but we've got lots of cool stuff planned for the weeks and months ahead.

-al

Rob · August 24, 2010, 07:27:24 PM

One page a week is about one giant size issue per year or perhaps two normal sized issues a year. That is pretty glacial.

That said I did enjoy what you have up already. All I can say is that I wouldn't get your hopes up for much of a fan response until you have a year or two under your belt at that update rate. It's going to be a long, lonely road before you develop the community of readers to really start getting the reward that sustains most comics.

If you can stick it out though it should do well. You've got a decent premise and some interesting characters already. Lord knows we could use some more ethnic heroes in comics and the Jewish angle is something that hasn't been explored much. I just hope your writer has the knowledge to do it justice.

Best wishes and welcome to the board. I hope you get some good use out of what we do here.

standard al · August 24, 2010, 08:35:23 PM

Quote from: Rob on August 24, 2010, 07:27:24 PMThat said I did enjoy what you have up already. All I can say is that I wouldn't get your hopes up for much of a fan response until you have a year or two under your belt at that update rate. It's going to be a long, lonely road before you develop the community of readers to really start getting the reward that sustains most comics.

We knew going into it that it's going to be a long process. (Anyway--we're just over two months since we launched. We're barely out of the gate!) We've got a story we think is worth telling and that readers will respond to, so we're in it for the long haul. The value--for us--is in the process: in the creation, the telling of the story, in growing as creative people, and not in financial rewards that may or may not materialize or pie-in-the-sky dreams of fame and recognition. I know that if we continue to produce a story that we're proud of and that doesn't compromise its quality for the sake of expediency, we'll attract a community of readers in good time. It may take a year or two (or even more), but we'll get there.

--al

Rob · August 24, 2010, 08:56:31 PM

That's the spirit. ;)

Gar · August 25, 2010, 03:46:10 AM

I'd say taking the time to get each page highly polished is probably the best way to go for your story, and there's plenty of one-page-a-week longform webcomics that do just fine. It takes longer to build up an audience than the more frequently updated gag-a-day comics, but you also get more dedicated fans.

Specialists Shawn · August 25, 2010, 12:18:17 PM

Hi, everyone.

I'm the "writer" on The Specialists. I put that title in quotes because I don't feel I can take full credit in that department. Al is solely responsible for the art, but I am not solely responsible for the words. Al has contributed a lot to the story, and many of the characters sprang fully formed form his brow like Athena from Zeus.

Anyway, I'm really glad you're liking it so far. We're pretty proud of it, and it's always nice to know people appreciate what you do.

We have had a few ideas about content that I could contribute in between comic pages. I currently post to the blog once or twice a week, but that's superfluous to the comic, and easily ignored. Something that related more to the story itself would probably be of more interest to the average reader. Someone recommended news stories from our alternate history, and that is a definite possibility.

So thanks for reading, and for the feedback. It's always appreciated.

Shawn

Rob · August 25, 2010, 04:10:35 PM

Welcome fellow writer. ;)

Dragon Powered · August 25, 2010, 07:21:10 PM

Welcome welcome to you both.

Richard · August 25, 2010, 11:31:18 PM

Hello to you as well, Shawn! I'll mirror Rob's greetings as another fellow writer.

One route that you might want to consider is one that Erfworld took. For every comic page update they have, they then have an update that is entirely made up of prose. This piece of prose is placed on the site as if it were a comic page and usually has a small sketch on the top.

You'd probably want to do something slightly different if you want all of the main story going up via comic pages but you might want to borrow that sort of a format. That way the readers have a reason for checking in more than once a week and you get a chance to do a bit more writing.

Cheers!

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