The Necessity of Buffers

24 Aug 2009 21 Comments

by Nikkiin comics Tags: ,

Or, rather, why I feel that having a buffer for myself is important.

There’s a lot of reasons why I feel that, personally, I desperately need a buffer when (if, at this rate) I start a webcomic.  At the same time, I’m well aware of the fact that buffers won’t work for other people/types of comics and I’m aware of when other people should have a buffer but, for various reasons, don’t.

I suppose I should start with why I feel that most comics (actually, pretty much all comics except for ones satirising current events) need a buffer.

It’s actually a very simple reason, really.  Buffers exist to protect you when life happens.  Ever had a 24 hour flu and spent the morning intimately acquainted with the toilet bowl and the afternoon passed out delirious on your bed?  Or maybe you’ve had your ISP decided that you no longer deserve internet and you spend an hour on the phone trying to get it working again and you’re just too frustrated to draw (and have too many missed tweets to catch up on).  Or perhaps just a really long day and all you want to do is just collapse and sleep for the next twelve hours but, gosh darn it, you’ve got that comic to draw.  If you had a buffer none of this would be a problem.  And it’s not like you have to make up the bit of the buffer you lost the next day or anything.  Nobody but you sees how large your buffer is and, thus, you can take your time building it back up.  Devote an extra hour every day to your comic until you bring your buffer up to a comfortable level.  You should not be stressing over something that your audience doesn’t see and shouldn’t even care about.

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