I've just gone through this problem recently, and I solved it another way; I deleted the first forty comics from my archives.

Although I only started in December, and I'm still nowhere near being good enough, either for myself or anyone else (but I will get there, through sheer arrogance/determination), and you guys are refering to years of progress rather than months, but I couldn't stand those first drooling comics forming the first strips in my now smaller archives. And now that I've done it, I feel no regret in deleting them. I've got less comics, but a bigger resolve.

This will be the only time I do this, by the way; I'm not going to periodically delete comics to keep up a standard. That would be a seriously bad habit to have! And I still have the original sheets and the scanned images. Maybe one day I'll put them back up, should anyone ask for their return. No-one has so far, so they can't be missed. They're certainly not missed by me.

http://thineappellation.com

I hate the thought of re-doing anything but there have been several large jumps in art style and ability. I didn't start over with the story when I rebooted the art - I kept going. But I pushed my older stories onto separate sites and linked to them as stand-alone prequels. So they are available to read, but separate from the current story.

Greg Carter Abandon UpDown Studio

Benevelent dictator prerogative - reviving a 2 year old but pretty good signal-to-noise ration thread about the pitfalls facing any webcomic creator starting to climb up the ladder of quality and commitment.

____

Xaviar Xerexes

On second thought, let's not go to Comixpedia. It is a silly place.

I agree with bob. It's better to study your old work and keep it around for several different reasons. You can give yourself a 'booster shot' by realizing just how much you've improved with practice, and it also archives yoru progress while you're doing it. I do my webcomic mostly for fun, but I'm also using it as a learning tool of what works and what doesn't, layout, art and story wise. If I ever take it to print, I'll definitely redo all of it because it hurts my face just to look at it.

But if you still think the early chapters are not up to snuff enough that it ruins the comic, you can always re-do them as a new chapter. Kind of like how tv shows and movies are re-made or updated, except this time you have a far more clear vision of what you want to tell.

But seriously, keep the old pages. For... for nostalgia. Because that's the in thing now.

I wrestled with this problem myself. I've come so far with my drawing skills that I can't stand looking at my earlier works they're just that bad. But if I were to redraw all my early strips when would I stop? It usually only takes a week or two before all the mistakes I make in my artwork come glaring out at me. I'll never be perfectly satisfied with my drawing so why bother redoing the early stuff? It would simply never end. There just comes a point where you have to put your pen down and walk away from a work and let it stand for what it is, a moment in time.

Besides, the visable progression in your work will act as not only an inspiration to other people to try (hey, that guy really sucked at first too but now he's not too bad so I shouldn't be afraid of sucking at first), but also as an inspiration to yourself (hey, I can see what I was doing wrong in the early strips and I know how to correct it now, I can see myself getting better, that means I'm going somewhere).

Plus sometimes you can just get a little too anal about shit that just doesn't matter. This is comics after all. We had a saying in the army "you don't pick fly shit out of pepper". Don't get caught up in the minutia.

I re-introduced my comic as a sequel, giving enough background information in the first few pages for new readers to be able to understand.

The old archives were moved to a different page, so that new readers who click the "first comic" link didn't get an eyeful of ugliness and run for the hills.

I thought of re-doing everything, but personally it's a lot more fun to write new material than to rewrite old.

Yeah, your old work can drag you down more than you relize...after all, if you're going for a consistent look throughout the strip, you may be less inclined to take risks with your style. You'll want everything to look more or less like the first few strips and, whether you do it consciously or not, you may hold yourself back from evolving or developing as quickly as you should. The thing is, webcomic features are supposed to change as the artist grows. So a contrast between the first and last chapters is often a sign of healthy progress. But it can be unseemly in a printed collection, for example.

Perhaps the best way to tackle the consistency issue is to avoid settling down too soon. For awhile it can be good to do minicomics or short webcomic features, taking as many creative directions as you possibly can, developing your style, before settling on something you can reproduce consistently for the duration of the comic. Even then, once you have a webcomic you want to keep up for a long time, be open to new ideas and changes in direction. Most readers will forgive a little ugliness in the early chapters.

And once your comic comes to an end, your readers know that your next feature will be pretty right from the very beginning, and they'll stick around.

Also.. if you've gone "pro" -- my first tip would be to tell you to CLAIM everything for tax purposes. Here is a small list of things you can claim-- you can do TONS more...

-your internet bill
-any computer hardware or software expenses.
-slap a magnet on the side of your car advertising for people to go to your website, and suddenly EVERYTHING for your car becomes a write off as well.

-art supplies and the like, of course.

- "reference" materials.... heh.....

Keep all your receipts--- and if you feel totally overwhelmed, pay an accountant a few bucks to do it all for you come tax season----
the groovy thing-- you can actually end up getting money BACK from the govt that can help aide you in your future stuff.

Now you know one of the BIG secrets to how some of those other guys can afford to go to big shows, and do merchandising out the arse. : )

Right on, DJ.

To that I would add, you'll need to have at least >SOME< income to show from your 'toon to make those deductions legit. In other words, if you made less money than you spent, that's okay. If you spend for your business, but don't derive any income from it, that's a red flag for an audit.

-K

Keep in mind, if you post a loss for three years straight you'll likely get audited and have your business classified as a subsidized hobby.

Despite my desire to change it, I left the first comics I did as is in my print collections. As mentioned previously, people understand that an artist improves with time. Jim Davis is always one example I think of in that Garfield looks completely different today than he did in the first strips.