#39: Google Wave - 5 Uses for Comic Creators
Last year, the release of Google Wave was met by most with a collective shrug of the shoulders. Billed as "a new web application for real-time communication and collaboration," many users initially struggled to see its utility. (Not that their weren't some creative uses found for the tool. Click for a laugh.) Is there really a need for a tool that's part email, part chat, part online document creator? I'm firmly in the camp that there is, and that for comic book creators especially, Google Wave is a collaborative tool you should be using. In this article, I'm going to outline five specific ways I'm using the Wave to further my comic creating endeavors.
1) Conversations and Brainstorming
Google Wave will not replace email. And it won't replace chat, forums, phone calls, Twitter, Facebook, or many of the other valuable ways we communicate with each other today. However, it WILL and SHOULD replace many of those tools for SOME purposes. And I think the creative, focused conversations and brainstorming required for creating comics is one of those things.
Google Wave brings a lot to the table. It's more flexible, editable, better organized, and more easily shared than email. Wave is more robust than chat for sharing links, video, images, and large files. Wave conversations are more easily searched and archived than phone calls. In my opinion, Google Wave is the best free online tool for both asynchronous and synchronous creative brainstorming.
Below I've posted an example of a Wave. In this Wave, you'll get to see the process of collaborative costume design in action, as Matt Zolman and I batted back and forth on the costume for EPIC, a new superteen comic we're debuting at the Baltimore Comic Con this August.
As you browse through the above Wave, you'll see how easy it was to share images (which could be viewed in the wave, or as a slideshow) and discuss in both real-time and asynchronously the subject at hand. This same conversation would have likely taken 20 emails. Instead, it is one Wave. (One easily shareable, embeddable Wave that you're reading some five months later. Cool, no?)
2) Task Tracking, Planning and Management
I'm constantly looking for ways to improve my organization, and for good reason. I have multiple projects in multiple phases of production going on in collaboration with multiple creators. Without a solid system of capturing all the "stuff" that goes into creating comics, it's hard to stay on track. Google Wave is a tool for task tracking and management.
Ben Paddon , co-creator of the British sci-fi webcomic Jump Leads sees a lot of value in Google Wave for this purpose. "There are four writers on the Jump Leads team, so Google Wave has offered us a very quick, easy way of sharing notes and scripts...Most importantly, it's been very useful for planning out story arcs. Jump Leads is about to embark on a massive story arc - our first multi-issue event - and using Google Wave has allowed us to keep track of the arc. We've been plotting out the events, discussing character growth and development, and keeping ourselves focused."
Start a wave, give it a title and start making your list. Waves save automatically, so once it's created, it's there for you. It's very easy to make your to-do list and use the strikethrough button to check off completed items. Share your wave with others on the list, and they can keep you updated on their progress as well. Sure, there are plenty of other ways to manage something as simple as lists...from expensive software to post-it notes. Google Wave is another good way to do it, so if you also have yet to find a perfect system for you, give it a shot.
3) Getting New Talent Up to Speed
I think most of the people who dismissed GW early on did so because they did not have a pressing collaborative project to use it for. Creating comics, though, is usually a highly collaborative process, so I quickly found it useful. Often in comics, collaborators come on board a project at different times. A writer might start working with an editor on a script. When the script is ready, they then find an artist. When pages are finished, a colorist or letterer might come on board. Often (in the indy world especially) talent will leave a project before it is completed, and they'll need to be replaced. Keeping track of who knows what, and who's been given access to what information can be a big pain, and slow down the process of creating.
What's great about Google Wave is that it allows easy archiving of many of the important conversations (located in Waves) throughout the history of the project. You can add a new person to a previously private Wave at any time with just a single click. "By having all of the information in a Wave everyone has access to, that means everyone has access to the exact same data and they know where to get it from. With email it's all too easy for people to go off on tangents amongst themselves leaving others out of the loop, but with Google Wave everyone sees the exact same notes, files, discussions, everything. It's a perfect log and a brilliant repository for this data," says Padden.
Matt Zolman and I spent several months batting around EPIC ideas on a number of Waves. When it was time to find a colorist, we created a new Wave, where we shared links to promising candidates, and discussed them. When we eventually selected Ty Tyner as color artist for the project, we were able to add him to many of our earlier Waves. Ty found it very valuable to be able to go back and see the conversations that helped form the direction of the project by reviewing Waves from months back. I'm positive that Google Wave helped him get on the same page a lot faster than he would have otherwise.
4) A Google World
It really does seem like Google is running the world these days. As long as they keep cranking out useful tools, I don't expect that to change. My friend, writer/editor Steven Forbes, a huge Google fan, suggests this tip:
5) A Great Approach for Creative Team Interviews
Perhaps the best use of Google Wave I've seen thus far was a few weeks ago when Eric White, moderator of the HueDoo Forums (one of the better online hang outs for aspiring comic colorists), requested an interview with the EPIC creative team.
Eric sent me an email with a set of about eight interview questions, and asked that I share them with the team. (A pretty common approach to interviewing in the comics blog-o-sphere.) I told Eric I thought Google Wave would be a far better interview tool, and suggested we experiment there. So here's what I did:
First, I posted Eric's eight interview questions in a new wave, and invited Ty Tyner, Matt Zolman, and Eric as participants in the weave.
Then, I started working on answering the questions in the order I wanted to tackle them.
While I was typing my responses in the Wave, Ty logged on and started answering a question about coloring approach directed at him. (Yup, I could see what he was typing, as he was typing it.)
I was working on answering my questions, and monitoring Ty's response at the same time. I decided to reply to something Ty typed, which he then replied back to. This little back and forth gave our interview a more conversational feel than your standard email interview.
As Ty and I continued to work on our answers, Matt logged on, and all three of us answered questions at once, filling out the interview in short time. We saw what each other was typing, and again commented on each other's responses where appropriate.
Then, Eric White joined in as well, and added a few follow-up questions and requests for images based on the direction the interview was taking. It was very cool and very efficient. The way I see it, with Google Wave, you can get a team interview with creators located in different states that still feels more like a conversation than a canned question and answer. However, unlike an audio interview or live chat, creators have the ability to take time to think through the questions and craft solid responses (great for those of us who aren't the quickest of wits.)
Limitations
I'd be remiss if I didn't talk a bit about some of the drawbacks to Google Wave. Here are a few to be aware of:
- The Big Wave Problem - Big waves can get awfully unwieldy. Google Wave hasn't solved this problem. It's not always clear when it's time to make a new wave, and when you should edit an old wave down, removing no longer relevant info. That's a matter of user preference. I tend to go back and clean up large waves that I'm still using from time to time, to keep them relevant and reader friendly.
- Not a script writing tool- For creators looking for a new way to write their scripts, unfortunately, GW is not it. I tried it for that purpose early on, but a hiccup that caused me to lose some of what I wrote was enough for me to abandon it for that use. (Haven't had those same problems since, however.) Though containing more formatting options than email, GW simply isn't on par with Google Docs or Word for producing finished documents. Rather, it's best used for jotting down quick ideas, brainstorming, and collaborative discussion.
- Gadgets? - There are a number of "gadgets" you can add to waves to increase their utility. However, integrating gadgets into your Waves is not very user friendly, and I've yet to found many useful ones. Which is not to say that they don't exist...it's just they haven't made a difference in my experience of the product.
- Glitches- Some people I've worked with in Waves (Ty Tyner, looking at you) have had more trouble than others. Some have found it to be a bit glitchy, with typing being unnaturally slow or other problems. While I've found this at times, it seems to be a lot better now that it is a product open to the general public and out of "Preview" mode. Yup, that's right, if you want to ride the Wave, go grab an account now.
So there you have it. I've tried to make a case for incorporating Google Wave into your comic book creating. What say you? Have you used Wave for this purpose? What do you like about it? Problems? Have I convinced you to give it another look? Let me know!
Tyler James is a comics creator residing in Newburyport, Massachusetts. He writes and draws Over, a romantic comedy online graphic novel updating every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He also writes Tears of the Dragon, an epic fantasy webcomic. His work has been featured at Zuda Comics, and includes Interrogation Control Element, a political action thriller, and Super Seed, the story of the world's first super powered fertility clinic. When not making comics, Tyler works as a game designer and content producer for a software company.
Contact Tyler directly at tylerjamescomics@gmail.com, keep up with him at his blog, or follow him on Twitter.
Attention Readers: If you enjoy this column, you might be interested in checking out The ComixStreet Recap. It's a new series I've begun where I share and comment on interesting topics, resources, and events relevant to comic creators. The column is bi-weekly, and posts on Thursdays.
Previous Columns
1: Big Goals
2: Resolutions
3: The Great Idea
4: Research Part I
5: Research Part II
6: The Killer Pitch Part I - The High Concept
7: The Killer Pitch Part II - The Synopsis
8: Pay Your Artists
9: Zuda Comics- A Tale of Five Submissions
10: Creating Great Characters Part I (Or Why Wolverine is Everywhere)
11: Creating Great Characters Part II (Or Why Wolverine is Everywhere)
12: Structurally Sound- The Beginning
13: Your Reputation
14: Structurally Sound- The Middle
15: Structurally Sound - The End
16: Your First Con
17: Beat It
18: Memorable Scenes
19: Mailbag
20: Comics Dialogue - Part I
21: Comics Dialogue - Part II
22: Baltimore Comic Con - Part I
23: Baltimore Comic Con - Part II
24: Is It Worth It?
25: The Re-Write Part I
26: The Re-Write Part II
27: The Re-Write Part III
28: Taking Initiative
29: Setting the Table for a New Year of Creating Comics
30: Ready to Script
31: An Artist Ready Script
32: Going All In
33: The Dip and Being the Best in the World
34: Patience Pep Talk
35: Tools You Should Be Using: Viddler
36: Zuda Says No More Competitions
37: Business Mailbag
38: 30 Characters Challenge Post-Script
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