I am thinking of making a comicbook series and possibly animation based on DC. I know I couldn't make money off it (can I make money off the videos of it?) but I was thinking of using fanfiction as a way to practice my writing and art skills. After making the fancomic I will work on my own superhero comic (the OC main character in the fancomic will be similar to my own superhero). Should I do this, though? I hear this is not a good way to get noticed by comic book writers and the industry, and is a way to get negativity and flagged videos. Also I hear DC could use my character without asking me because it's a fancomic(not sure thats correct??)
Should I write a fanfiction comic?
- Thread starter Karrya
- Start date
Blaze Logic
Member
Alright, a couple things I have to take note about this. First of all, should you make a webcomic? YES. A better question is why you wouldn't. ESPECIALLY if you want to practice your art.
Look if being a comic artist / animator is what you want to do as a career then you better start practicing as soon as you can. And a fanfic comic series would be a good way to get started practicing - given you hold yourself to some strict guidelines. What do I mean by this? Well, let's assume that you become a paid comic artist - I'm not going to lie, I know virtually nothing about the industry, however I can guarantee you there will be deadlines for your work. A good way to prepare for these harsh deadlines would be to start a comic web series and set a realistic deadline for every chapter and stick with it. If you say that you're going to release a chapter every week, release a chapter every week. It will be hard, but you need consistency with your deadlines otherwise you will never learn proper pacing.
Alright, enough of that. My next topic point: money. You already kinda answered your own question, but if you use the DC characters you cannot ever make money from it. Unless of course you work for DC. Ok, so you want to make money for your work. Who wouldn't? But how would you make money, you may be wondering. Well first of all, you'd need to use your own characters. Nothing DC [or other companies work] can be called your own if you plan on making any money from it. Lets assume you are creating an animated web series [your own story/characters], you can upload your series on youtube and over time you will [hopefully] gain an audience and then income. I could explain in extreme detail on exactly how you'd make money on youtube, but as it Is Im typing a lot - if you wanna know more just ask and I can explain in a separate reply. Alright, so thats how you make money from an animation, but what about a webcomic? Well admittedly I know less about that, but its roughly the same idea. Upload your webcomic to a website that you own, add advertisements to your website, and overtime you'll make money off of the advertisements on your website.
Ok. Next point; getting noticed / getting your work flagged. If you take everything I said above to heart, you'll never have to worry about getting noticed in the wrong way, and having your work flagged/removed. The only times this will happen is if you try to profit off of someone else's work. Thats a big no-no. IF you choose to make a DC webcomic, you MUST make it very clear that you are not and will never make any profit off of that work, that it is a fanfic - and even then there is still a chance that you're work might be removed. Copyright is a very tricky thing, but most of the time companies don't hunt down copyright violators unless they're making some serious money from the companies work. I want to be clear here, just because you use someone else's character without any profit does not mean you aren't violating the copyright. It just means that there is a very high chance that nothing negative will happen.
Now for my final bit here. I may have started to discourage you with everything I had to say. In today's age, everyone is trying to compete with everyone else. If you are feeling doubt about if you really want this or not, you need to draw a line in the sand right now. If you pursue a career in animation/comics, you need to keep at it. Consistency. Without consistency, no one will take you seriously. Set realistic deadlines for your work - once a week, once a month, twice a month, whatever. Just whatever you say you're going to do, be sure to do it. I wouldn't bother trying to start both animation AND a webcomic at the same time - unless you really have nailed down your time management skills. I've done some animation in the past - it takes A LOT OF TIME. Hours upon hours of work for maybe half of a minute of animation. I've also been working on a webcomic of my own for a few years now, and I can tell you that a webcomic also takes A LOT OF TIME.
Should you start a fan comic? I don't know. It depends on what kind of audience you hope to attract. The benefits of a fan comic is you'll be bringing in an audience that loves the same characters that you are drawing - as oppose to starting with your own story, in which you'll have to attract an audience from nothing. If you do start a FAN comic, you'll need to be careful but consistent. It may not be the worst thing in the world to make a fan comic, and then transition your audience to your own work.
Regardless of what you do, you should absolutely do something. And again, be consistent with your work.
Look if being a comic artist / animator is what you want to do as a career then you better start practicing as soon as you can. And a fanfic comic series would be a good way to get started practicing - given you hold yourself to some strict guidelines. What do I mean by this? Well, let's assume that you become a paid comic artist - I'm not going to lie, I know virtually nothing about the industry, however I can guarantee you there will be deadlines for your work. A good way to prepare for these harsh deadlines would be to start a comic web series and set a realistic deadline for every chapter and stick with it. If you say that you're going to release a chapter every week, release a chapter every week. It will be hard, but you need consistency with your deadlines otherwise you will never learn proper pacing.
Alright, enough of that. My next topic point: money. You already kinda answered your own question, but if you use the DC characters you cannot ever make money from it. Unless of course you work for DC. Ok, so you want to make money for your work. Who wouldn't? But how would you make money, you may be wondering. Well first of all, you'd need to use your own characters. Nothing DC [or other companies work] can be called your own if you plan on making any money from it. Lets assume you are creating an animated web series [your own story/characters], you can upload your series on youtube and over time you will [hopefully] gain an audience and then income. I could explain in extreme detail on exactly how you'd make money on youtube, but as it Is Im typing a lot - if you wanna know more just ask and I can explain in a separate reply. Alright, so thats how you make money from an animation, but what about a webcomic? Well admittedly I know less about that, but its roughly the same idea. Upload your webcomic to a website that you own, add advertisements to your website, and overtime you'll make money off of the advertisements on your website.
Ok. Next point; getting noticed / getting your work flagged. If you take everything I said above to heart, you'll never have to worry about getting noticed in the wrong way, and having your work flagged/removed. The only times this will happen is if you try to profit off of someone else's work. Thats a big no-no. IF you choose to make a DC webcomic, you MUST make it very clear that you are not and will never make any profit off of that work, that it is a fanfic - and even then there is still a chance that you're work might be removed. Copyright is a very tricky thing, but most of the time companies don't hunt down copyright violators unless they're making some serious money from the companies work. I want to be clear here, just because you use someone else's character without any profit does not mean you aren't violating the copyright. It just means that there is a very high chance that nothing negative will happen.
Now for my final bit here. I may have started to discourage you with everything I had to say. In today's age, everyone is trying to compete with everyone else. If you are feeling doubt about if you really want this or not, you need to draw a line in the sand right now. If you pursue a career in animation/comics, you need to keep at it. Consistency. Without consistency, no one will take you seriously. Set realistic deadlines for your work - once a week, once a month, twice a month, whatever. Just whatever you say you're going to do, be sure to do it. I wouldn't bother trying to start both animation AND a webcomic at the same time - unless you really have nailed down your time management skills. I've done some animation in the past - it takes A LOT OF TIME. Hours upon hours of work for maybe half of a minute of animation. I've also been working on a webcomic of my own for a few years now, and I can tell you that a webcomic also takes A LOT OF TIME.
Should you start a fan comic? I don't know. It depends on what kind of audience you hope to attract. The benefits of a fan comic is you'll be bringing in an audience that loves the same characters that you are drawing - as oppose to starting with your own story, in which you'll have to attract an audience from nothing. If you do start a FAN comic, you'll need to be careful but consistent. It may not be the worst thing in the world to make a fan comic, and then transition your audience to your own work.
Regardless of what you do, you should absolutely do something. And again, be consistent with your work.
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That part about it still being a copyright violation really discouraged me because I thought if I made a fancomic that I wasn't selling, I could do it with 0 worries. THats a real shame, I was very interested in exploring different perspectives on the current Superheroes I was writing a fanfic about.
Also, thanks for the well wishes everyone. I think I'll just stay away from fanfictions
-sorry for errors, I am writing this with one hand
Copyright is a real pain - but for good reason. Again, there are PLENTY of people out there who use licensed properties without proper permission. And not that I endorse this action, as long as you're not making any profit off of said work there isn't a whole lot of harm in doing so - unless you're using someone's characters to view the creator's work in a negative way. Im trying not to contradict what I said above, but Copyright is just that tricky of a subject. If copyright infringement is the ONLY thing you're worried about however, I wouldn't let it get the better of you. If you have a solid story with certain characters that you truly feel you need to share, just go for it. WORST case scenario [IF you aren't making a profit] is the creator simply asks you to take down the work. And again, the likelihood of that happening without a substantial audience is pretty slim to none.
If the creator asks me to take down my work I'll construe that action as disrespectful. I put in days/hours of work on the art and story..but just because it is set in the DC universe and uses a few obscure characters (and 2 Justice Leaguers as backgrounders) I have to remove it. I want to share my distinct vision of these people with the world. What are the possible ramifications of living in a society plagued by super villainy? Is "absolute power corrupt absolutely" a true statement for everyone? Does removing a violent super dictator from power create peace or instability or both? So many questions! Should I just make the people I am using from DC to be parodies and just make the world similar to DC Universe? I can understand an author not liking fanfictions: you get a lot of freaky stories, characters act way different than they normally would, your characters are being written without your consent and maybe even being written more interestingly. The more I write about my desire to write fanfiction, the more I want to. But I know I won't. Copyright infringement will always be there..
It depends on the creator and how they view fan fictions in general. For example, one creator might view fan fictions as good publicity and/or feel honored that someone enjoys their characters enough to even create a fanfic. Another creator however might feel that a fanfic degrades what the creator was doing with the character, thus would have it be removed.
Parody is a way to by-pass copyright, however you couldn't use the names of characters/settings. Just their likeliness and then attach a new name to the character [just use Batman as an example of that, as there are DOZENS of Batman parody characters, used everywhere from fanfics to cartoons and movies]. The catch with parody is you can't just blatantly copy, lets say Batman's character design and attributes and try to pass it off as your own. You'd need to alter the character - both in design and traits - enough so that someone can still tell its a parody of Batman, but also so that it's its own thing.
Thanks..I'll try my best to make them as similar to the originals as possible without getting copyright infringement. I guess I'll just have to make the majority of the story not focused on anything DC is doing
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