Webcomic Burnout: Have YOU Experienced It?

I'm the first to admit I've felt the burn quite a few times in my three or four years in the webcomic game. There were(and still are)times when I didn't feel like doing ANYTHING, much less coming up with ideas, writing, and drawing new strips. I even went two weeks once not doing a new review on this site, which I've tried to avoid ever doing again, even though I've felt the hand of laziness gently caressing my shoulder every so often. What causes your burnout? Let's discuss..

Pretty much anything can cause someone to skip updates. Breaking up with a girlfriend, hospital stays or sickness in the family, you ate too much pizza last night, hangover, etc. Running out of ideas is a fairly regular one. Writers block can be devastating. You sit down to write out some ideas and BAM!, blank mind. You might think, "Man, what else can I say about these characters? Should I kill one off? Introduce new ones out of nowhere? Are they even worth continuing? Should I just start a new webcomic? AGGH!" Don't panic! One way to remedy this is to just give it a rest for a day or two, relax, and go about your daily life. This can go a long way toward rejuvenating you, and toward deciding whether this is something you want to continue or if you're writers block was just a small hiccup on the road of your comic. You have a job, right? Everyone needs a vacation from that, so why not from your comic?

After doing GothyMcgee(of which I actually took off around a year of doing it, shamefully), I wanted to get back into webcomics, but wasn't sure in what capacity. Then I started reading review sites, and even the one review I received of Gothy. I didn't care for the layout or ranking style of that site, and was pretty miffed. I decided that I could give my opinion too! It doesn't take much for me to get excited and start something new. I made a Blogger account and slapped up my very first roughshod review. Shaky as it was, it felt good to write and give what I hoped was a good review with constructive critiques of what was right and wrong with it, in my honest opinion. I felt great! I wasn't drawing and writing a comic, but I was still able to do something webcomic related and be a part of the community. That, in part, even got me energized enough that I changed Gothy to Difference Makers(until ComicGenesis malfunctioned, and I stopped again)for a bit, dropping the three panel gag format and making it a superhero storyline format. Since then, I've created TwoHeadsTalking, and just recently, Off Kilter Comics. I'm feeling better than ever writing, drawing, and sharing what I can do with all of you. Sometimes all you need is a change of direction to get your juices pumping again.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you need to change your comic at all to get recharged, those are just suggestions. You can always request guest comics to give you a week, two weeks, or even a month off to regain some sense of why you're doing this. You might read the guest strips and start feeling that need to create your own strip again. Other people can give you perspective on your characters and style of writing. Try it! If anything, it'll give you that break you may need.

If it's just plain laziness that you're feeling, then I don't really have any advice for you except if you really care about your comic, then you should push yourself to update for the fans. They depend on you, and the least you can do if you can't make yourself update is let them know you're taking a day or two off and when the next update will be. Be cordial. The fans are a big part of why we do this, aren't they?

In closing, you're not alone if you feel the burn. We all experience it, you just have to find a way to get past it, for yourself, the fans, the principal of the thing, you name it. Webcomics should be fun, and if you take that out of the equation, you'll definitely lose your spark. Do you have any stories of burnout and how you coped that you would like to share? Please, feel free, we would love to see them. Thanks for reading!

Jack