Grave Robbing

by Danno on April 08, 2021

Here's an unsolicited look into the process of how I make my comics. First, I'll come up with an idea in my day-to-day life, while playing a game, or someone I know says something that I think could be turned into a comic. I'll write the idea down right away if I'm at my computer. Otherwise, I might make a little note of it on my phone to save on my computer later... Or I won't have access to any way of writing it down, then I'll hope I remember it later, which probably results in half of my ideas being lost.

Anyway, I keep a list of comic ideas on my computer. Depending on the time of year (for comics with a seasonal theme), how much time I have, how much I feel like drawing, and how well I can visualize the idea, I'll pick something from the list and roll with it. Some ideas get skipped over for months/years, then I might reevaluate some of the ideas. This has resulted in 3 tiers of comic ideas:

• 1. Usable comic ideas.
• 2. Complicated ideas where I can't visualize the comic well, it seems too underwhelming/poorly written, or I thought it'd probably be funnier as an animation.
• 3. Ideas that were too half-assed to make the cut, these are way too situational or obscure for a general audience. Or sometimes I can't remember if I already saw someone else make a comic with the same idea, in which case I sometimes find the original source and scrap my plagiarized plans.

Long story short, the past 2 comics came from some pretty old ideas that I previously categorized as "complicated tier". Like, probably 10 years old. I was on the fence about C-Mix #315 "Bombs for Sale", thinking I couldn't get the point across without making it an animation instead. I still think an animation would be better, but I can't be bothered to do it anytime soon, so comic form will have to do.

C-Mix #316 "Team 8" also had me stumped for a long time. The idea came from when I worked on the 8th floor of a building. Each floor had its own team and manager; employees just referred to each group by their floor, such as "6th floor is so slow." Anyway, through circumstances I don't remember, someone said "8th floor is the best!" and basically we had this comic. I felt like the whole "8th floor (group)" vs "4th floor (group)" didn't flow well, so the idea collected dust for a decade. I recently dug through some of those old ideas and discovered the comic would make sense if I just call it "Team 8" instead of "8th floor".

It's still a pretty mediocre comic, but I was short on time and needed an easy idea. It's mildly amusing enough. Why did I go to such lengths to explain something no one asked about? It's my website, I can do what I want!