#bonus points if you can pull out some super niche comic villain

[soarrenbluejay]

Supervillains for a community. (Well, except those jerks over in Gotham, insular lot, but they’re they’re one problem) Of course they do- supervillains are a group defined by strong opinions and a willingness to see them through, often with a healthy dash of societal failures and trauma as a catalyst.

The fentons, while not active even on the online message boards, are well known and explosive when they do show up, full of fascinating insights and hours long rants on mad science on hair pin turns courtesy of that ADHD attention span. Bit of the cryptids you feel honored to bump into kind of deal. Besides, like a good quarter of the community as it aged, they’d settled down and had kids (not necessarily in that order) and taken it very seriously! Out in the middle of nowhere, where even the most fearsome government outpost members, the local branch of the IRS, quake before them in fear. Out of the way.

Reveal gone okay-ish, Danny moves to Gotham still to get some air bc now things are Akward and he landed that engineering scholarship which is loads better than any other college would give him with his track record. So- the mysterious Fenton children are finally crawling out of hiding! Everyone is psyched! And roll in to Gotham en masse to witness the fireworks!

Except Danny is Determined To Be Normal. He’s had enough of the throwing himself into harms way shit for a lifetime- he wants to be free to peacefully built Rube Goldberg machines and unintentional increasingly complex bombs to his hearts content. JAZZ, on the other hand- the coveted token Normal One, has finally snapped! She’s watched her baby brother she practically raised throw himself into danger over and over and could do nothing, and now that she’s exposed to this whole network of superheroes outside of small town Amnity, some of those uglier emotions are coming out. And boy is she pissed! And can’t afford to show it much while filing the paperwork to have Arkham legally razed to the ground!

See I love this idea of like, niches in superhero society. A villain the heroes know they can plop their kiddo down with for an exciting afternoon brawl while they take care of a particularly grisly case and come back to a few hours later ranting about some new life lesson and a new move they really want to try. A villain who has a functioning moral compass despite their somewhat batshit long term goal and you can contact to fuck with another villains’s plan so they can laugh at them and you can have an easy afternoon. One who pries up hostile architecture and fills in pot holes, idk man. Get creative here, there’s such potential!

So Jazz becomes a Training villain- someone the heroes know their sidekicks will walk away from in a fight 100% of the time, usually with some new lesson to ponder and only a couple of bruises. Sometimes even snacks!

She also absolutely ambushes mentors to check that they’re worth the kiddo, which they appreciate once they get over being jumped in a dark alley by a 7 foot Amazon trained force of nature. They are not used to being on that side of the jumping, it’s a little unnerving.

(Yes, she low key adopts Shazam upon checking in with him on cursory ‘is the main hero of this city and asshole’ checkin. Yes, the super clones get yoinked out from under Superman’s negligent thumb to go have a blast with Ellie. What about it?)

This however only encourages more assorted weirdos to crawl out of the woodwork. It’s not often one of their own forfeits their potential spot for the running of the coveted Most Normal I Swear prize, but when they do it’s bound to be good! But jazz is off hounding various heroes and punching the faces in of pedophiles and shit whenever there’s no cape within easy reach, and so is a mite bit harder to contact than Danny, who has innocently gotten an apprenticeship under a clockworker for access to their workshop and is gleefully going about doing nerdy shit with great abandon.

Plus this is Gotham. No one gives a shit if someone in the Mad Alchemist uniform and still smoking from their latest experiment pokes their head in a window to bother the local shrimp teen- none of the usual social rules apply, everyone’s crazy here! So everyone drops any and all attempts at masking and just acts their genuine unhinged selves, much to the alarm of the Bats and frustration of Danny.

Bc he cannot get these mfers to go. Away. Even liberal use of the creep stick has little effect when the interloper is calibrated for an opponent with super speed or laser vision or whatever, and he’s trying to maintain his guise as a Normal College Student Do No Investigate.

So he calls in the big guns. He’s not super active in the supervillain kids group chat ever since things in amnity calmed the fuck down post becoming King and then immediately using a loophole that says he will not take the throne until he is grown, as defined by finishing learning his trade a la the medieval standards Pariah set up. So he can just take his sweet ass time with his graduate degree and out of inter dimensional bull shit that much longer! Point is, he hasn’t taken the chance to rant over there in a while, so his Crazy friends are getting a lil worried.

The change to come over and shout at their batshit crazy but (mostly) well meaning parent AND see Danny? Score!

The bats, however, are getting awfully suspicious about this one kid that villains from all over the country are flocking to, especially young and upcoming ones as of recently! And he’s acting his engineering course- all the worst rogues are known to have flown through their PhD studies prior to Cracking. They seem to have a real problem on their hands with this Fenton guy.

#dp x dc #dc x dp #mad science #supervillain community #bonus points if you can pull out some super niche comic villain #justice for kite man #local child of a crazy chemist: so you know that trick you showed me with the soda and the reaction that could turn into just like all foam #Danny: yeah and also back the fuck up #lcoacc: so it’s been like my comfort food right but like I started wondering what you could do #danny: oh no (he says while making what amounts of an overachieving smoke bomb) #lcoacc: so I was like what if I add more of a base to it so it could be solid and then maybe just like a LIL acid to see what happens #Danny: oh ancients #lcoacc: but then the killjoy supes came in a ruined everything from where I was ruining lex Luther’s day #Danny:… did you get in on camera #lcoacc: OF COURSE. oh also like everyone ever if coming over for a sleepover lol #Danny: WHAT I CANT FEED YOU MONSTERS #lcoacc: no worrries we’ll rob a bulk store or something lol #Danny: nO

[comicteaparty]

September 21st-September 27th, 2019 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from September 21st, 2019 to September 27th, 2019.  The chat focused on the following question:

How would you describe the target audience for your comic?  Did you intend to aim at that audience, or did it just happen?

Deo101 (Millennium)

My target audience for millennium http://millennium.spiderforest.com/ was and is LGBT youth. Specifically teens. I know when I was a kid reading a story where gay people are just kind of... There? No jokes, no stereotypes, more than one... That would have helped me a lot. So I'm trying to make that for other kids! I think the story has reached a much wider/older audience then I intended, but I know it has helped at least some LGBT youth/young adults and that's all I could ever ask for.(edited)

spacerocketbunny

The target audience for Ghost Junk Sickness is definitely queer youth and young adults! Much like what @Deo101 (Millennium) is saying, basically we wanted something like the cool action scifi comics we read when we were younger with good queer rep that's integrated and normalized in the universe! As it turned out though, the audience we reached has been all over the place ranging from older women to big biker dudes?? Every time we go to cons we can never guess who'll purchase a book because the range is so varied! I'm sure we still reach the original target to an extent but the rest is all over the map it seems! I don't think it's a bad thing, it's just been pretty unexpected

Deo101 (Millennium)

Not bad at all ^^ more like a pleasant surprise!

spacerocketbunny

Exactly!

Deo101 (Millennium)

I think those other, older people are also looking for a story to reach their inner child... And I think that's great

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Lol, I feel the similarly way about my own story. My goal was definitely to make something me as a kiddo would have loved, which essentially would have been shonen stories but with a female majority cast. I think I already figured my target audience would be similar to me, but I've been consistently surprised by how many male identifying folks like it. I guess I do like that they can hang though X) Anyway, these are my floppy, post work out thoughts. Hopefully they make sense.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

The target audience for Phantomarine (http://www.phantomarine.com/) was never super clear from the beginning - I just wanted to make something I'd like as a teen. Luckily (or unluckily! in terms of describing it to people ) the story is a mishmash of a bunch of different genres. It's not quite a ghost story, not quite a pirate adventure, not quite a fantasy epic, but it has elements of them all. And it does seem to have attracted people who like those different genres. It may not be easy if I ever want to publish it properly (it's a little difficult to describe my 'brand' ) but as it is, it's got everything I would have liked when I was between 14 and 18.

My happiest surprise is hearing about the younger kids who have read it, understood it, and really enjoyed it. Knowing that 10-12 year olds can appreciate my work is really awesome. I try to keep the language and scary/questionable content at Harry Potter levels, but I like having some of the depth/maturity of stories like The Golden Compass. If they like Phantomarine now, I really hope they find extra enjoyment with it as they grow up. It's going to be a ride!

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Gosh, I get that feel of being multi-genre and not knowing quite how to describe your Brand X') I feel like I've gotten better at defining it over time but it's still a struggle to briefly describe what my thing even is some days. Also Golden Compass I'm always excited to find other comic folks who were also influenced by that series.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

It's my gold standard for the right blend of fantasy, reality, and maturity. It's just the best

keii4ii

The target audience for Heart of Keol (https://heartofkeol.com/) is extremely tiny, but it does have appeal for people outside of that niche. I make it for myself, and the relevant aspects of "myself" here are: a) Grew up in Korea, is living (or has lived for an extended period of time) in a predominantly English-speaking part of the world b) Bonus points if they spent some time living in rural Korea c) Is into slow burn drama about characters who could be described as being "genuine" and probably "lawful" as well d) Likes the aesthetics of fantasy settings, but is more into the mundane, almost slice of life, side of drama e) Is very much into reading between the lines for more emotional stuff. Reads a lot of heart from sceneries, possibly more than from faces. (I have face blindness and this affects how I experience comics both as a reader and as a creator)

Obviously people who meet both a) and b) are gonna be harder to find! But if one can meet c), d) and e), that's enough to enjoy the comic the way it's meant to be enjoyed, or so I hope.

The reason a) and b) matter is because it affects how the setting/aesthetics come across. To someone like me, the old Korea setting feels homey, warm, nostalgic. It's like a shorthand for "sit down and enjoy this heartfelt slow burn tale." But to others, Magical Asia might feel exciting and exotic, which isn't really what the story is meant to be, so there may be some dissonance.

seetherabbit

I haven't given much thought about the target audience for Vulperra. (https://vulperra.com/) other than then it's probably for people who like adventure, fantasy and cartoony-ish animals

Cronaj

My target audience is kind of all of the place. Initially when I began scripting my comic, Whispers of the Past, I was really into anime and manga, especially ones like Attack on Titan that were a gritty fantasy. However, since then, my style and story have changed tremendously. My target audience now tends to be young women, aged 15-25, who enjoy detailed world building in high fantasy and are definitely into family drama in story telling. Initially, I wrote the story to fit certain perameters that I myself enjoyed. For example, I am particularly obsessed with the idea of the mundane meeting the fantastical and amazing. The quiet lull of ordinary life juxtaposed by the rigor of magical entities. I specifically focus a lot on drawing beautiful artwork for the panels, because I myself am a picky-pants when it comes to selecting comics I want to read. Another one of my obsessions is a fantasy setting so detailed that you feel like if the story ended, the world would still live on. (One of my inspirations was the Inheritance series by Christopher Paolini, in which the author essentially wrote several languages, similar to Tolkien.) In reality, my readers tend to be women aged 30+ (probably who watch k-dramas like I do), and a lot of D&D players. It's fun really, discovering how much of my own hobbies bleed into my stories.

AntiBunny

Early on with AntiBunny http://antibunny.net/ I was hoping for fans of scifi and film noir. What I got were fans of classic cartoons and furries. Which is fine by me really. Furries are nice people who are passionate about their hobbies (and spend money).

Jonny Aleksey

A superhero audience was always the intention for J-Man (http://jonnyalekseydrawscomics.com/the-undefeatable-j-man/), but specifically, right now, I'm aiming for something all ages. Slightly teen drama, cartoony but grounded. My inspirations were Spectacular Spider-Man and the DCAU so anyone who likes that is the readership I expect. Hopefully I can reach people who are on the fence about superheroes. The all ages aspect is something newish relatively speaking. When I started my webcomic I wanted to stay away from the "deep real edgy" tone I made when I was in high school (shiver). It took me a bit to really get that tone down. I don't use curse words and only mild blood, but occasionally stuff that borders on teen+ go through. (there's one instance in #5 where J-Man's face gets burnt by the villain that might've been a bit much) I don't think the all ages banner is going to restrict me from telling certain storylines/character development. Just means it won't be excessively grim.

Erin/Leif & Thorn on Kickstarter

The target audience for my webcomics is LGBT nerds who want stories that give them strong feelings, and who like SF/F, anime, competent characters that don't have to take turns with the Idiot Ball to keep the plot moving, and cats. Admittedly that last bit might be redundant, since everyone on the internet likes cats.

Ash🦀

I’ll be honest with you, I’m the target audience of my comic. (http://www.fwmgofficial.com/) it’s not out yet (it’ll be out October 31st) but as the writer I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. Mostly, it’s just targeted to young adults and autistic people. I never got to see people like me in comics, so I wrote a comic where an autistic person can be the hero too, even in his own way. For me, I figure whoever likes it likes it and that’s good enough for me. (also furries. Definitely targeted furries)

Kay Rose

@Ash🦀 cant wait to read it!

Ash🦀

QwQ thank you!!

MJ Massey

So far Black Ball is pulling in a mix of people who like the vintage aesthetic (1920s and art deco with some old-school macabre for some reason?) and people who like shonen manga, which is great. Even if Black Ball isn't specifically macabre or strictly shounen (though I myself have made shounen battle manga-esque comics in the past)

DaemonDan (The Demon Archives)

Audience of my comic... Per Google it's 18-35 year old men from the US and Russia XD Which makes sense given it's a pretty hard sci-fi with a lot of military action from dudes in power armor and etc. Though I try not to go too "high octane action!1!" and explore more psychological elements too.

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #creator interview #comic creator interview #creator babble #comic tea party #ctp