For a little more than a month between Dec 2023 and Feb 2024, I planned, drew, and posted 4 panels of comics every single day. My goal in undergoing this challenge was to build confidence, challenge my thumbnailing ability, and push myself to generate some creative momentum. When I finally called it quits, I had completed 36 days of comics for a total of 144+ panels. While these are rookie numbers to a professional mangaka, its more comic content than I’ve done in my life. I was proud, and I still am.
In this blog post I’ll be reflecting on my time doing a 4 panels a day comic challenge, and if you’re curious, you can find the output of my challenge here: Arquebun Daily on WEBTOON.
More backstory
Here’s a slightly expanded description of how I undertook this daily comic challenge to give you more context before we head in to the reflection. These were my goals before setting out:
For 14 days, I would post 4 panels of comic daily on a public platform. I chose WEBTOON.
The comics did not have to be neat or even good. The goal was to get them out of my head, on to “paper”, and up on the internet.
I used a combination of digital and traditional (AKA scrap paper and pencil) to make the comics.
After the first 5 days of undergoing this challenge, I realized it would take more time out of my days, and I decided to put my blog on hiatus to make the 4 panel comic challenge a priority in my life.
How It Went
Now, on to the reflection. In this section I look back on my experience with the 4 panel daily comic challenge through 4 different frameworks. These “frameworks” are just sets of questions that I used to help guide my thinking. And you can use them too in this free template.
The 4L’s
What did I like? I liked that I finally put some of my literally 100’s of pending ideas finally down on paper.
What did I learn? I learned about consistency, batching, working ahead, catching up, and rejecting perfectionism. Initially, uploading my shitty comics to a public platform really scared me. What would people think if I wasn’t perfect???
What did I lack? I lacked consistency. When I was past the 20 day mark, I often scrambled to catch up on posting comics. I remember one day where I paneled six 4 panel chapters in one day. Oops.
What did I long for? I longed for neatness and a consistent workspace. In the uploading process, I often had to go back and fix some of my totally terrible handwriting and panel spacing. This took a significant chunk of time, and stitching together .jpeg’s of my scratch paper comics was a really awkward workflow. I should’ve just made the comic neater the first time. To give myself a some credit though, to get the format right for vertical scroll would require a bigger piece of paper and more experience with how much space to leave between speech bubbles and new panels. Lesson learned.
Start, Stop, Continue
What would I like to start? **I want to start making and posting long form comics. I’m tired of the 4 panel ones. They don’t suit my writing style or the stories I want to make. I’d be happy with paginated or Webtoon style comics. Maybe even both (large style pages that are readable in a digital format too).
What would I like to stop? I find this question difficult to answer in this context. I’m not going to be continuing the 4 panel challenge. So the simple answer is I will be stopping that.
What would I like to continue? I would like to continue making comics, and continuing to embrace the bare minimum. I want to try making a comic that is extremely sketchy and not worry about how the art looks. I want to embrace storytelling as my priority, over pretty (and time consuming) art.
Jeff Walker’s 4 Words
What worked well?
Task batching ahead of time worked well. As in making a bunch of panels in advance and scheduling them to be posted over the next few days so I didn’t have to worry everyday about logging in to WEBTOON and fussing over where the hell I kept my files.
Working everyday in short bursts worked OK. Working in 2-4 hour blocks worked well. I like getting in the zone and just staying there.
What do I want to do differently? This is another question I find a bit strangely worded. I will chose to interpret this in a couple ways:
What do I want to do differently if I were to do this challenge again? If I were to do this again, I would push myself more to work at my computer. There, I can type out my speech bubble text and move the panels I’ve sketched out around more easily, thus speeding up my workflow, giving me more time back in my day.
How do I want to proceed in making comics differently in the future? I definitely will embrace making poor thumbnails. I came across an animation storyboard artist on Twitter who shared their refinement process a while back. It really opened my mind to how rough a first draft can be. I want to go for extremely simple stick figures to lay out my story to start, then transition in to the decently detailed sketches I know I can make as my “final” aka post-able version of the comic I make.
Brynn Donovan’s Writing Challenge Reflection
What did you learn about yourself as a writer? I learned that I really like stories that span over many, many panels. I often struggled to think of stories that could be complete in 4 panels. Long form suits me better.
Did you enjoy the challenge? Yes. It was difficult, but yes.
What improvements did you notice in your writing skills? I learned that I can draw inspiration from sources that I would originally have considered as “cliche”. I also increased my Clip Studio Paint competency, and spacing for panels and speech bubbles makes more sense.
Lessons Learned
Making comics isn’t as scary as I thought
Making “bad” art can bring me great joy and a sense of accomplishment
I shouldn’t make up excuses for why I’m not creating. Art, stories, and music can be made anywhere
What’s next?
What’s changing, if anything? What project is going to come next out of this?
I’m done with the daily comic challenge. On to longer form stories. The “natural” progression might have been to say that I’m now on to weekly panel releases, but thats too short of a time frame for me right now.
Longer Short Stories
Consider making these comics in to their longer form selves to add to a portfolio:
The Last Day
Twins
Waking up in the future
My goal isn’t necessarily to make a comic - its to make a compelling story that follows themes that resonate with me and that will resonate with my audience.
I also want to give fanfiction writing a try. (And maybe pull a Fifty Shades of Grey).
So, should you try this challenge?
Honestly, my answer isn’t a hard yes. This challenge is difficult and pretty time consuming. You might not think so from just the idea of it. 4 panels a day? And they don’t even have to look good? That’s easy. But by the end of the challenge, I felt like a wrung rag.
I recommend it to people who have been putting off their creative projects for a long time, and are serious about making comics. I definitely feel more brave about making comic work after completing this challenge.
Think you’ll give the challenge a go? See: challenge instructions.