Got fed up and deleted my archives
Submitted by stefan autsa on June 5, 2007 - 21:16
So I should be on my 51st comic now, but I got fed up of looking at my old comics and removed them from the site. Now I am on my 7th.
It's strange, and also possibly terrifying; I've gotten slightly better at drawing and the whole shebang of making comics (layout, spacing, etc) since I started in January ("lol", many of you guys/gals whom have done this since you were kids, are thinking), but when I started I thought my first attempts at comicking were so amazing. Just staring at the piece of paper onto which I had scrawled my amateur doodles, a smile on my face, proclaiming to myself "I can do this, it's a piece of cake". Strange, that for a piece of cake, it sure tastes like humble pie!
Now, for the first time, I vaguely understand how other artists feel when they say they hate their early work. If I hate my first comics this much now, how much will I hate them in a year? Or two years? Or twenty years?
God, I need a drink.
Hate but keep
by Nima - 06/06/2007 - 19:08
I don't know man, I think it's a bad move to delete your old work. I mean, it's still your work. You're going to keep improving and getting better for hopefully your whole life, and if you keep deleting old stuff that's not as good you'll end up with nothing.
Penny-Arcade is a good example of a comic that's made amazing progress over the course of the comic's life, and I wouldn't be surprised if they hated their first comics too (the art and writing aren't nearly as good as now), but they're still up there.
I'm only coming up on comic #20 and the stuff I'm doing now is, I think, much better than more first stuff, but I think it's nice to look back and see the progression (even if it's in such a short time).
So what I'm saying is, put your old stuff back up and keep moving forward. In a year or two you can look back and say, "hey, look how much more awesome I am today" and have proof to back it up.
Growth is great!