irkWORKS, the Journal Of

April 2009

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I'm planning to run 15-Minute Comics at irkworks at least through next week. Creating them has helped me shed my crippling perfectionism and even helped me develop my brainstorming skills. If I keep at it, perhaps my drawing speed will continue to improve. Regardless, my enthusiasm has faded.

If I know people like them, that'll restore some of my enthusiasm and I'll make more. Otherwise, maybe it's time to end the experiment. So please vote in the poll. And don't answer "Yes" just to be nice. I know the 15-Minute Comics aren't exactly comedy gold. And don't answer "No" if you think they're keeping me from doing "real" comics. There are other reasons for the lack of real comics.

Poll #1239111 15-Minute Comics
This poll is closed.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5

Would you like me to continue posting 15-Minute Comics?

View Answers

Yes, please!
5 (100.0%)

Meh. I don't really care one way or the other.
0 (0.0%)

No, please stop. You're embarrassing yourself.
0 (0.0%)

Tags: 15-minute comic

I'm using this post to accept comments regarding the 15-Minute Comics #12 through 16. (See the comics at irkworks.com.)

Tags: 15-minute comic

Another week, another batch of 15-Minute Comics. Leave your comments regarding the 15-Minute Comics #7 through11 here. (See the comics at irkworks.com.)

I didn't make any 15-Minute Comics last week. I tried twice, but it just didn't happen. If the strips were simply bad, I'd post them. But they were either unfinished and/or unrecognizable as comic strips. My brain just wasn't working. Well, I have a good buffer of strips built up so I shouldn't miss any updates.

Tags: 15-minute comic

New 15-Minute Comic posted at irkworks.com. I won't have a journal entry for each one posted. Just this one for the entire week's worth of strips. So add comments for comics #2 through 6, if you like.

Tags: 15-minute comic

I added a bunch of new sketches here. Dang, I oughta use some of those character designs in my comics.

Speaking of comics, now it's official...

They will appear at irkworks.com, of course. I'm building this up too much, though. It's been a wonderful experience making them so far, but the average reader will find a number of them to be pretty crappy. Hopefully, you can laugh at them when you don't laugh with them.

Tags: 15-minute comic, sketch, sketchbook

Looks like the 15-Minute Comic thing is going to be happening. I have six of them in the can. I'll wait until I have a magic number of about 20 before I start posting them daily. After I completed the first one I developed a fear of the whole idea. I was worried that each one had to be at least as good as the last one. Well, I eventually conquered that fear by forcing myself to do a second one -- a very crappy second one. After that I had no problem moving on. And some of them even turned out pretty good (I think).

My new problem is that I have ideas that pop into my head some time before I start the timer. If I turn those ideas into a comic later, it's not true improv. And at least once I went a little over the 15-minute time limit. So... what to do. I think I will have general rules in place (each comic conceived and drawn in 15 minutes), but allow bending of the rules. I'll indicate any time the rules are bent. The idea is to get myself drawing every day, as quickly as possible, and as often as possible. Why let the whole thing get bogged down by the rules?

Tags: 15-minute comic, comic

Before we get back to our usual programming, here's a tentative new feature: the 15-Minute Comic. I would give myself just 15 minutes to come up with an idea for a strip and draw it. There would be a new strip daily, or on Monday through Friday, at least. The purpose of this exercise would be to 1) increase traffic to this site, and 2) help me shed my crippling perfectionism. I think the 15-Minute Comic will work if we accept that crappy strips are permissible and inevitable. It seems there's no reason not to do this. Besides, how hard can it be to find 15 minutes out of each day to draw? Well, if I decide to go through with this, I'll build up a sizable buffer of strips before posting any more of these. That'll all but guarantee no missed updates. Leave a comment to talk me into or out of doing this. By the way, this would not supersede the other strips like IRK, Buttles, or even Dr. Depresso.

Tags: 15-minute comic, comic

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Website: irkWORKS.com