Maybe not yet, but I think it has potential. (^_^)http://thespecialistscomic.com/
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Epic Webcomic?
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I might come back and look at it when there are more than 8 pages. I can't get hooked with that little of a story.
-Terry ----- "so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today" TF2: Spy 
Yeah. It's way to early to tell if this has got legs, or if he'll bail on it.
Good art, though, and the obvious subject matter has me curious. -- Bob --------- Then the horns kicked in... ...and my shoes began to squeak.  Bob Schroeck Wrote:Yeah. It's way to early to tell if this has got legs, or if he'll bail on it.Thats the trouble with new web comics. Especially the ones that update only once a week. (Personally, I'd take the hit on the art and strive for at least three pages a week until the story is established.)
You throw the first chapter online - then update weekly - and have six months worth of strips in the can ready to go. If you have the discipline to do all these things; regular updates should be a doddle.
Hi, everyone.
Thanks for checking out "The Specialists". I completely understand your hesitance to jump on board a new webcomic, but I hope you come back and give us a look after a while. We certainly don't intend to quit any time soon. We've got the next few pages drawn and queued up, and scripts for the next couple of scenes are written. I realize that a weekly comic moves at a pretty glacial pace, especially in those early pages where the story is just being set up. But the story will be picking up after the next few pages with the introduction of a new character. In time, we hope to realize that potential for epicness that blackaeronaut saw! Shawn
Welcome to the forums, Shawn! And thanks for coming by to give us the lowdown direct from the creator's mouth.
I know that producing a webcomic is very time-intensive, but I hope you'll find us friendly enough to hang around with. -- Bob --------- Then the horns kicked in... ...and my shoes began to squeak.
Hey Shawn,
Welcome. It looks interesting so far, and I will be checking it out. I'm glad you've chosen a reasonable update schedule. Far too many comics spawn with the best of intentions, but fail when the artists can't keep up the pace they've set. Good luck. Shayne
Well, howdy there! Not often this happens! Makes me glad that I went and piped up about your strip. (^_^)
If you do get the time for it, I honestly recommend getting social around here. The people here are reasonable and friendly, and we have a pretty good sounding board for new story ideas, original or otherwise.
You know, to be honest, no one is more frustrated by our weekly schedule than I am! Scenes like the one that is currently playing out with Max are important to the story, but when you tell them one page at a time, they seem to stretch on forever. But it's easy for me to want to rush things forward, since my part of the process -- the writing -- is the least time-consuming. My partner Al does all the art, and he's got a full time job and a wife, so there are only so many hours that he can devote to the comic each day.
We're new to this, but one thing that was clear from the start was that we had to be consistent with our release schedule. People are going to want more than one new page a week, but more than anything, they want each update to be done on time. So we went with a schedule that we were confident that we could keep up with. (I'm secretly hopeful that as Al continues to draw these characters, he'll get faster at it, and we might be able to ramp up our update schedule. But that's just my wishful thinking.) Shawn SpecialistsShawn Wrote:(I'm secretly hopeful that as Al continues to draw these characters, he'll get faster at it, and we might be able to ramp up our update schedule. But that's just my wishful thinking.)Ah, there's the rub. One of the things I've noticed about authors and artists about webcomics is that they usually only improve the update schedule if the artist throws themselves completely into it - you know, making it into their bread and butter. There are a few notable examples of this, like J. Jacques's Questionable Content (http://questionablecontent.net/) or, of course, Fred Gallagher's Megatokyo (http://www.megatokyo.com/). And can anyone forget Phil and Kaja Foglio's Girl Genius? http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/ Of course, they all had to develop a critical mass in their fanbase before they could do something as risky as that, and that takes time. No worries, we're a patient bunch.  The other thing I've noticed about webcomic artists? The art part never goes any faster, because the artist's technique is always improving, ergo they will always find new ways of drawing that will use up more time as they experiment. Really, I'm not offended at all - Questionable Content has made so much improvement just because the art improved so much over the years. This is just one of those simple facts of life. So, in short, do we expect you guys to hurry up? Nah. Relax, take your time. We'll be chillin' in the mean time.
No discussion about Webcomics and update schedules is complete without mention of Schlock Mercenary's Howard Tayler, with ten years of daily updates under his belt...
talk about a high bar! "No can brain today. Want cheezeburger." From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies  Wiredgeek Wrote:No discussion about Webcomics and update schedules is complete without mention of Schlock Mercenary's Howard Tayler, with ten years of daily updates under his belt...What, only ten years? Bill Holbrook hasn't missed a daily update for Kevin and Kell since he started the strip 15 years ago... and that's while he was drawing two other strips for the papers. It's a rare artist that can match Howard Tayler and Bill Holbrook, though... -- Rob Kelk "Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law." - Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012 robkelk Wrote:Yeah, I think it was at WorldCon last year that Howard Tayler mentioned in a panel that the only way he was ever going to beat Bill Holbrook's record was if "something unfortunate" happened to BH... and then he started getting a shifty, scheming expression.Wiredgeek Wrote:No discussion about Webcomics and update schedules is complete without mention of Schlock Mercenary's Howard Tayler, with ten years of daily updates under his belt... That was the same Con where Howard was wearing some really exotic looking boots -- all black leather and bright chrome. Which lead me to comment (not in Howard's hearing, unfortunately): "Howard Tayler... at Worldcon... with the Fancy Boots." (That was a "Clue" reference, for those too young to remember). Of course, the other choice would be "Sergeant Schlock... with the Strohl BH209 (Ominous Huuuummmmmm)... wait, where's the body?"
* Black Aeronaut blows the dust of this thread.
* Black Aeronaut damn-near hacks up a lung. * Black Aeronaut blows some more dust off. Whoah. Dredging the archives here just for funsies and find THIS thread! Why the necro? WELL. The Specialists is now over 300 pages long. My how the time flies. I'm gonna go on a binge when I get a minute for it.
RE: Epic Webcomic?
03-18-2019, 12:33 PM (This post was last modified: 04-19-2019, 07:02 AM by Bob Schroeck.)
Wow. I forgot about this entirely -- those first eight pages didn't ring a bell for me at all. Time to archive-binge, I guess... and maybe see if SpecialistsShawn will come back...
-- Bob
I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh, Clark Kent, Mary Sue, DJ Croft, Skysaber. I have been called a hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the sun grows dim and cold....
Yeah, might be worth dropping them a line, letting them know we moved and all.
Okay, I'm 125 pages in, and we got some very human, very FLAWED people.
ON BOTH SIDES. Let's see which way this goes...
Archive binge complete.
It's a bit disappointed that they haven't had much progress since July 2018, but I'm holding out hope. The story has been quite a ride so far, and there's been a lot of great character development. 
Yeah, I don't really like supers that much and it was all very good. But that's because it's really about human failings, like racism, sexism, PTSD, budget cuts, and just the inhumanity of war.
At least it stopped at a good spot, after a major engagement, and a denouement. And an obvious sequel hook, but hey I've seen Marvel films before so that's obligatory.
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto
I've dropped SpecialistShawn a line with the link to the forums. Maybe we'll see him, maybe not.
And he has, as of this morning. Welcome back, SpecialistsShawn!
-- Bob
I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh, Clark Kent, Mary Sue, DJ Croft, Skysaber. I have been called a hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the sun grows dim and cold....
Hi, everyone! I believe this forum was the first place we saw "The Specialists" mentioned online, and I'm really glad that you came back and gave us a second look!
It's unfortunate that you caught us during a long hiatus. I know how this looks. How many webcomics have taken a break and just never come back? But Al and I are committed to finishing our story. It may take us a while, but we've come too far to give up now! We started a second project, just work on something different after so many years. It's called "Big Universe," and it's a humorous sci-fi anthology. To be honest, that project hasn't come together as quickly as we'd like, but we're nearing the end of our first scene. Our original plan was to switch back and forth between the two comics, releasing a scene at a time. I'm not sure if that will still happen, but we're definitely itching to get back to "The Specialists" soon. Next month will be very busy for us; we're exhibiting at two big conventions in Phoenix and Denver. But after that, I'm hopeful that we will be able to settle into a groove and start getting some work done. In the meantime, I'm working on the script for the remainder of "The Specialists". We've always intended to have three acts, each with four chapters, for a total of twelve. We've completed six chapters so far, so by that measure, our story is halfway finished. But as I work on the script, I'm starting to wonder if the second half will be as long. It's possible that we'll have fewer chapters, or that the chapters will be shorter, so we're probably more than halfway. Anyway, thanks again for reading, and thanks to Black Aeronaut for dropping me a line to let me know that this thread was resurrected! I'm glad to be back, and I'm looking forward to checking out the forums and the Access Denied site. I've been a tabletop gamer all my life, and I love world-building, so it looks like there's lots to explore!
Ah yeah. World building is definitely something we love to do around here. You should see the project I started called There’s Nothing Better. In this fun collaboration, the boundaries between universes started to break down and causalities began to merge, causing people and places from fictional settings to start showing up like driftwood on a shore.
The fun part is in hammering all this stuff together into a strange whole that somehow works.
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