One of the things that can really irk your audience is missing an update on the scheduled day. This is not good. Happy readers encourage others to check out your comic and are more likely to support you.

However, as I know from experience, it’s not always easy to keep a schedule if you push yourself too much. Yes, a buffer will help combat this, but what happens when it runs out? You need to pick a schedule you can stick to.

But, before you come up with a schedule, you need to figure out a few things:

1) What kind of comic do you have? A comic strip is much more flexible than a full page story. With a story you have to have several pages a week so the audience doesn’t get bored. But if it’s all jokes, then a more flexible schedule can be appropriate.

2) How long does it take you to do an update? Sit down with a stopwatch and time yourself — from writing a page to uploading it online — also factoring in inks drying, scanning and programs loading as they are all part of the process. If it takes only an hour or two, you should be able to manage many pages a week. If it takes 6-8 hours though, you should probably update less and/or try to cut down production time.

3) How much free time do you have? If you have a job or school, you need to make sure you can do your comic around them. If you have to work overtime or stay back a lot, you’re going to have less time to draw.

So, what would be best for you? My advice would be to attempt to do daily updates for one week and see how many you actually get done. If that was a normal week for you, then the number of comics you get done is probably best. If you had an unusually busy week, try adding one more page if you think you could manage it.

This post was submitted by David Herbert.

Ed Ryzowksi has posted a video of how he processes the colour on Evil Inc.

Many of us are putting an enormous effort into our comics, and yet we haven’t been able to build our businesses to the point at which we can quit our day jobs. The day job has become the sole irony in our lives. We can’t take our comics to the Next Stage until we rid ourselves of it, and yet, if we do, we have no guarantee that the comic will provide the same money. So, how can we balance Dream Job with Day Job?

Let’s get right to the real secret: WORK WHILE YOU ARE AT WORK. I’m a teacher, and I can’t tell you how many people I hear claim they are so busy, yet they I rarely see them grading papers or preparing lessons. They spend a lot of time gabbing, joking, and talking about how bad things are at the school. It’s like there’s an inverse relationship between how much they talk about work versus how much work they actually do (and how important they think they are, but you knew that). I’m not suggesting that you be a hermit at work.

If you are serious about this, you need to get as much of your work done at work as possible. Don’t bring your stuff home to “do where it is quiet.” You have other things to accomplish night, and drawing goofy pictures beats dragging out the workday every time.

To help you work while you are at work, try to limit personal e-mail, Web surfing, and YouTubing. Keeping a calendar book can also help. When you send a business e-mail that needs attention, make a note in the calendar to get back to that person in a week (or whatever seems best). Then don’t e-mail them before that. People will appreciate your patience, and more often than not they will get back to you before you hit that note in your calendar.

Consider cartooning at on your lunch or break time. This is especially good time if you have some privacy during lunch. I’d suggest using a simple “marble” notebook. They have a stiff cover for support and can be casually closed if someone comes by. It may actually improve your mood and productivity to have this little bit of “Me time” during your day.

However, keep it within reasonable bounds. If you are cartooning instead of working, your supervisor may not think too highly of that. And if you are like me, you like having heat, electricity and all the other stuff that day-job check provides.

Over time, as people learn that you are the resident cartoonist, you may even be able to use your cartooning skills at work. I remember reading that Scott Adams, creator or Dilbert, began by submitting cartoons for a company publication. I’ve been able to include some of my cartoons in my lessons, and I am not above posting by comics in my room for a little self-promotion.

Work and comics will always be a balancing act. While many of us dream of the day when we can draw comics all day long, most of us will still need our jobs. There’s nothing wrong with taking some of that down time and putting it do good use. And if it helps you look forward to going to work every day, so much the better.

This post was submitted by john fredericks.

One of the best things about Webcomics is the lack of boundaries. This is especially true when it comes to content. Webcomics range in all content levels, from family-friendly to beyond-XXX, and there will always be people who want to read anything in the spectrum.

However, while there are no barriers to bringing the NSFW naughtiness, is it the best choice for your comic? If you do it too often, can it lose its impact? Here are some thoughts:

1 - Language. Popular comics such as Penny Arcade and Ctrl+Alt+Delete are not shy about using foul language, but it’s not at the heart of their popularity. You can use the f-word if you wish (or maybe use it and then blur it out like Least I Could Do) but if you overuse those words, they lose their punch.

2 - Violence. When scripting a fight scene, think about how much impact the fight has on the whole story. If it would have a lot, then maybe some blood spilling would be effective. If not, just a few punches that cause the loser to go down should be fine.

3- Nudity/Sex. As Scott Kurtz once said in PvP: “The only thing better than a nipple is the promise of a nipple.” Remember that while full frontal nudity will make them happy, a slither of cloth or a well-placed speech bubble will keep them coming back for more.

This post was submitted by David Herbert.

If you digitally color your comic like me, then you know that “flatting” is one of the most boring and time-consuming steps. This is the process of filling all your line work with flat colors. Photoshop has a magic wand tool that should, in principle, make coloring easy — since you can select closed areas of your line work to color. The problem is that you want all the colors to be right up against each other underneath the line art with no white showing (this is called trapping). This is essential for making sure your comic prints correctly. You can mess around with the expand selection option, but this is time consuming and not very precise.

Fortunately, I’ve found a free Photoshop plug-in that does this all for you. It saves me a ton of time and is one of the main reasons I’m able to update a full-color comic three times a week. This was originally discussed in a Questionable Content tutorial pointed out to me by Danny Burleson.

So how does this magic flatting plug-in work? First, you download the plug-in. Once you have it correctly installed, you should have two new options under your Filter menu: BPelt->Flatten and BPelt->MultiFill. Now, bring up your line art. You need to make sure a copy of the line art is saved in the background layer. In addition, you need another copy of the line art somewhere else, either as a separate layer, or as one of the channels (I do the latter). You need this separate copy because the background line art will be erased in this process. Your artwork should then look something like this:

Next, go to Filter->BPelt->MultiFill. There are options that allow you to adjust how things will be filled. If you have lots of crosshatching or open lines, try playing around with these options. This will fill all of the line work with colors from a chosen palette, just like this:

But we’re not done yet. The line work has been filled with color, but the colors don’t butt up against one another yet. So go to Filter->BPelt->Flatten. This will expand the colors and erase the line work, so that your comic looks like this:

That’s it. We’re essentially done. You can use a combination of the paint bucket tool and the lasso tool to fill the flattened colors with your comic’s normal color palette. If you have simple line work, this can be done in seconds. Because of the crosshatching I use, it takes me a little longer, but it’s still super fast. Here’s the result:

Your comic is all ready to add shading. Here’s the final product:

This post was submitted by Tony Piro.

Barry T. Smith, of InkTank fame, walks us through this step-by-step demonstration of how he uses Photoshop to build word balloons.

This post was submitted by Barry T. Smith.

There’s no question about it, Adobe Photoshop is king of the hill. It works and works well, but it has one big flaw for a poor artist trying to get a comic started on the old interwebs: price.

A quick peek at Amazon shows that Photoshop CS4 is currently retailing for $589.99. Ouch!

If you haven’t had a fat wad of cash lavished on you by Venture Capitalists who just know your webcomic business is the next big thing, and you want to keep your new business legal (thou shalt not steal), then you may want to check out some free alternatives.

Thanks to the miracle of open source software, you do have some choices. Are they as good as Photoshop? Not really. Are they good enough to get you started? Absolutely.

The “best of the rest” in terms of features is GIMP which stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. GNU stands for GNU Is Not Unix. Yes, that is what passes for geek humor. No, I did not make it up. That really is what it stands for. Sad isn’t it?

GIMP has many of the features of Photoshop, but not all. You can scan your strips, correct errors, color them, etc. It supports layers and it can read and write just about any graphics format you can throw at it. GIMP works on just about any operating system you can find too: Windows, Mac, Linux. You don’t have to be a computer geek to use it, however. Basically, it is modeled on Photoshop (don’t tell the GIMP people I said that!).

If you work on Windows, another option is Paint.net. It has far fewer features than GIMP, but is easier to use for beginners. Like GIMP, Paint.net supports layers and most of the basic drawing tools. It can work with most file formats as well.

One of the nice things about free software is that you can try it without risk. Don’t like it? Just uninstall it and never look back. You have lost nothing.

When I work, I tend to use both Paint.net and GIMP for different things. I’d guess 85% of what I do can be done in Paint.net. I find I get things done more quickly in Paint.net, so I tend to use it. For some things I flip over to GIMP. Since I paid nothing for them, it is no big deal to use both.

Starting a webcomic is hard work, but it doesn’t have be expensive. If I ever make money with my comic, I may buy Photoshop, but then again I might not. Every dollar I don’t spend, is a dollar I don’t have to earn.

Thanks, Open Source Software!

This post was submitted by Jeff Ammons.

Writer/artist collaborations can be powerful, but it’s not a guarantee to success. One of the crucial aspects to forming a beneficial creative team is being honest about yourself, your partner — and how both of you work with in a collaborative setting.

Think about how you and your partner react to each other.  Do you have a healthy creative relationship in which you’re both free to offer suggestions and negotiate fair compromises? Or do you constantly debate and argue with one another, because you disagree on a part of the comic? Or perhaps you avoid conflict when you see something your collaborator does that you disagree with?

Regardless of how confident you are that your partner’s point of view is absolutely wrong, you need your collaborator in order to make the project work. 

So here are some suggestions to improve the relationship you have with your partner:

1) Talk about what you both want the comic to be. The type of genre, the story’s tone, right down to why they’re doing this project with you.

2) Now that you both know what the other wants, make an agreement. Reach some middle ground that both parties can agree to. Try and keep everything as fair as possible. Remember, it could take a while — and there may be things you won’t want to shift on — but in order to make it work you’re going to have to grit your teeth and go for it.

3) Once you reach an agreement on how you two individuals can best work together, put it in writing and then stick to it.

Hopefully, by the end of your discussions, you will have everything worked out and the two of you will be able to put together a webcomic that will make all the others jealous of your talents.

This post was submitted by David Herbert.

As webcartoonists careen down the uncharted territory of this new economy, it might be useful to take a quick peek in the rear-view mirror. Obviously, keeping one’s business viable during this challenging time is pretty daunting, but are there actually a few opportunities out there?

I think there are.

I guess it’s due to my newspaper background. I’ve always been told that newspapers are Depression-proof. They’re cheap entertainment / information and they have historically flourished during harsh economic times. Of course, newspapers aren’t faring so well today. But I don’t think that it’s because papers are no longer cheap entertainment.

It’s because cheap entertainment has moved to the Web.

So, maybe — maybe — we as Web entertainers are in the same place that newspapers were at the beginning of the century. They innovated like crazy to survive the lean times, and after the economy rebounded, those innovations powered their businesses forward for decades to come.

Comforting thought, eh?

So, in that spirit, here’s a look at one of the prime innovators of that time, William Randolph Hearst. By no means was he a cuddly sweetheart. But he was a newspaper guy who really knew the power of comics. And his influence remains almost a century later.

Hearst was first…

• Heart stole Richard Outcault, cartoonist for Joseph Pulitzer’s “Sunday World” to create what became the “Yellow Kid” —  the first regularly appearing character in newspaper comics.

• A year later, Hearst got cartoonist Rudolph Dirks to create “The Katzenjammer Kids” — the first comic to use panels to tell stories.

• Hearst pioneered the licensing and merchandizing of comics. Some of the licensing has even outlived the comics. Very few people know that “Buster Brown” shoes were originated to advertise a comic strip by the same name.

• His newspaper started reprinting comics in a booklet — which formed the seed for the modern comic book.

• He originated the first full page of comics which published Monday through Friday.

• His Newspaper Feature Service  – which was used to  distribute features among newspapers — matured into King Features Syndicate two years later.

• Heck, his company even pioneered animation, licensing his paper’s funny-page stars to his  International Film Service.

Most of these things occurred during times of very modest economic growth, but they lead to some truly phenomenal innovations that have lasted on the American landscape for decades. I’d like to think that we’re in a similar time right now. Many of our own innovations have already been spawned (Project Wonderful comes to mind) and some are yet to be developed. But the things that we do to survive this next few years are likely to be the things that power us as artists and entrepreneurs into the next several decades.

Rosebud, indeed.

This post was submitted by Brad Guigar.

Here’s a list of useful Photoshop shortcuts I’ve found. They should work in almost all versions.

B - Brush Tool
E - Eraser Tool
[ - Decrease Brush Size
] - Increase Brush Size
Z - Zoom Tool
V - Move Tool
G - Paint Bucket
W - Magic Wand
C - Crop
M - Marque Selector
T - Text Tool
L - Lasso Tool
X - Swap Foreground and Background Colors
Shift+F5 - Fill Selection with Foreground Color
Ctrl+A - Select Canvas
Ctrl+T - Free Transform
F - Fullscreen
Tab - Hides Toolbars
Spacebar (Hold Down) - Drag Canvas
Hold Alt while using the brush or paint bucket tools to get the color picker

On every tool, you should be able to hold Shift and push the appropriate key to change the tool. Pushing Shift+G will change between the Paint Bucket and Gradient Tools.

This post was submitted by Encifer.

Lettering is a crucial part of the visual presentation of a comic. After all, the text is what you’re actually reading, right? You can have the cleanest line-art and the sharpest writing, but if you have illegible (or otherwise unappealing) lettering, you can unwittingly cause a major turnoff to a potential reader. Unfortunately, lettering is often not given as much thought as it deserves.

Of course, there are two approaches to lettering: Hand-lettering and digital lettering using a computer typeface or font. Since most webcomic artists use the latter, it might be helpful to give digital lettering a closer look.

The decision of whether or not to use professional fonts in your comic strip shouldn’t be taken lightly - in fact, the outcome should be based on how seriously you take your comic. If you’re just a hobbyist or new to the comics biz, maybe pro fonts aren’t for you. However, you need to keep in mind that if you do end up publishing in print or selling merchandise, free fonts can be tricky to deal with. A lot of the time you’ll end up needing to give credit, and if you don’t, you can get in a lot of trouble.

Now, if you’re trying to make a living off your webcomic, a pro font can be an important investment. Put simply, it’s quality versus cost. If you’re on a tight budget, Blambot Professional fonts start at only $20 USD. Fonts from other sites can be a bit more pricey.

Let’s take a look at the pro fonts some of the webcomic juggernauts are using:

Penny Arcade by Jerry “Tycho” Holkins and Mike “Gabe” Krahulik uses the swanky Blambot Causal font, which gives them a distinctive look. Blambot Casual is priced $ 30 USD (Blambot.com)

VgCats, Scott Ramsoomair’s comic, uses Comic Geek for both VgCats and it’s sister comic, Super Effective. Comic Geek is priced $20 USD (Blambot.com).

Scott Kurtz’s PvP uses the font Comicrazy. Comicrazy goes for a steep $395 USD (ComicBookFonts.com).

Some other commonly used professional fonts:

Blambot Pro ($20 USD)

Webletterer Pro ($20 USD)

Anti Hero ($20 USD)

Some of the more commonly used free fonts are Digital Strip, Webletterer, and Comic Sans MS. If you do end up going with a free font, make sure you use something that’s appropriate (i. e., a comic style font). If you’re writing, say, a superhero-action-thriller webcomic, Times New Roman might not be the best fit for your dialougue bubbles.

It all comes down to personal choice. Choose the font that you feel best matches the style of your webcomic. If you’ve considered all your options, and you’re confident in your decision, that’s all that really matters.

This post was submitted by Charlie Gavin.

Not long ago, Scott Kurtz posted an introspective piece here on Buffering. In it, he pondered if it was helpful or hurtful to have a large buffer. On one hand, a large buffer would give him a certain amount of freedom. On the other hand, he felt he could keep his comics fresh by working on them days before they ran.

For me, the answer is simple: Buffers are Better Bigger.

Earlier this year, my wife gave me the best present a Webcomics Widow can give to her spouse: Time. She took both of our kids with her to her parents’ house out-of-state for an extended Labor Day weekend. All told, they were gone about five days. Between the holiday and a couple vacation days I had accumulated, I was able to make use of all of them.

After five, glorious days of nonstop comicking and take-out Chinese, I had gained six weeks of daily strips. And twelve pounds.

My comic-producing life ever since has been better than it has ever been in eight years of daily work. Writing is much less stressful; drawing is less rushed. I insist on producing a week of strips every week, so the pressure to produce is still there. But I know I have some flexibility in my schedule to accommodate almost anything that arises.

Like Thanksgiving. Which drained a week from my buffer.

And although a five-week buffer is still head-and-shoulders above anything I’d ever had previously, I have every intention of making that week back this month.

Just in time for Christmas.

That’s the funny thing about buffers. You never miss them until they’re gone. And now that I have one, I’m never letting it go.

Most webcomic artists understand that it is a good idea to have a user-friendly Web site with things that their fans can buy. They also understand the value of going through the convention circuit to spread the word about their work and sell their merchandise. These commonly established thoughts are all Good Things.

There is one thing that some comic creators don’t understand: How you conduct yourself when you are sitting behind your convention table and otherwise interacting with your fans is just as important as all of the above mentioned points. This can make or destroy your career.

Let’s look a bit closer at some examples of things I have observed in my travels throughout time, space, and Webcomics:

MeanFace Person

Would you want to approach someone who looks like this? No way. This person is clearly having a bad day and is projecting major “LEAVE ME ALONE OR ELSE” vibes. No one wants to risk being yelled at. Most people are shy when meeting a new person to begin with. A face like this is enough to scare away most people in the building.

We all have our bad days… bad months… bad years. A creator’s job as the face of their comic is to entertain their fans, not to burden them with their personal problems. No fan wants to pay to feel upset.

The Drunk

Would you think that this person was someone deserving of your respect and readership? Don’t laugh. I help organize conventions and I have had to eject people for sitting drunk or high behind their tables! It is frightfully common. Not only is this a turn-off to the fans, but it reinforces the misconception that Webcomics shouldn’t be taken seriously. This is bad business for everyone. Most likely, the con will blacklist this person.

Personally, I take this even more seriously. I am sure some people could have one drink after hours and still be OK, but I don’t drink at all while at a convention. At one of my first cons I mistakenly had one screwdriver after hours at a room party. I figured there was no harm because I was with friends and no one else. Well, one of my friends brought in a big group of people. One of the girls was a huge fan of my work. She started crying and saying that I changed her life and gave her hope.

All I could reply to that was, “Thank you so much. I’m sorry I don’t feel well. I had a screwdriver.”

Never again. A convention is first-and-foremost a business. Not a party.

The Overcompensator

Have you met this person or perhaps sat next to them at the con? Does this make you feel comfortable? No way. Why does it make sense to act superior by way of putting others down? It doesn’t. They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, I say it takes a community to raise a comic.

If a person is insulting to their fans and the other comics next to them at the con they will find that at the end of the day, they’ll be alone.

Fan support is important, but so is the support of others in your field. The Internet is a big place. Often fans look for more comics to read through their friends and the comics they already know.

We aren’t competing here. It’s not like selling Big Macs. No one is going to say, “I read X, so I won’t read Y.” and vice versa. People read what they like. If they like both of these comics, they will read both.

We’re all just regular people who like to draw and tell stories.

The Used Car Salesman

Would you want to hang out at this table and look at everything this person has? Probably not. When I run into this person, I may stay around long enough to be polite, but I’ll avoid them for the rest of the weekend.

This individual mistakenly thinks that everyone is there to learn about becoming their fan and that quick at-con sales are better than a slower but more sustained, self-renewing fanbase. 

I’m usually there to gauge if this person would be a good guest for one of the conventions I work for, or simply to introduce myself as a friend. If I can’t get a word in edgewise and I feel like they are trying to shame me into forking over my hard-earned cash. I usually run away and never return.

Beyond this, the best way to grow a fan base that buys from you repeatedly is to make your fans feel comfortable.

One year a fan of mine came to my table and we had a great conversation about some of her observations. She then said,” I really want one of your Coffee is My Homeboy T-shirts, but my Mom  gave me only enough for dinner. You know what? I can skip dinner. I really don’t want them to sell out before I can afford it.”

I told her not to worry, that I’d be selling this particular shirt for a long time. It won’t sell out. I then said that there was no way I was taking her food money. I sent her off with a free bottle of water and some stickers and told her to come hang out whenever she wanted. Why did I do this? Because I really love what I do and I have a deep respect for people who would support me.

Every year since then she buys from me and brings her friends who also buy from me. Immediate sales mean nothing. Longevity and integrity mean everything.

Conclusion

The key point here is that you have to love what you do. If you don’t love what you do, you may as well be inside a cubicle.

You also have to respect the people around you, and you have to be able to take the first few thousand rejections to the gut while keeping your game face on.

Spider-Man might have said that great power comes with great responsibility. Webcomics have a great responsibility to put a great face on something we love… minus the Spider-Tights.

This post was submitted by Onezumi.

If you’re like most people, you’re fully in the swing of buying presents for the upcoming holidays. But you’re not most people, are you? No, although you’re on a tight budget, you still pride yourself on choosing unique and thoughtful gifts for the people on your list. You love the look on the recipients’ faces when they light up over your perfectly chosen token of esteem. And you know you don’t always find gifts like that at Wal-Mart, don’t you?

So, it is with great pleasure that I bring you the Webcomics Gift Guide. Spanning the World of Webcomics, one can find a little something for each unique person on your list:

For: The librarian / bibliophile… any of the Unshelved collections will have her screaming. Quietly.

For: The girl who can hang… a GWS collection will have her laughing… that knowing laugh she uses just before she drinks you under the table.

For: The connoisseur of wild art… slap a little of Eric’s finest on them.

For: The Sci-Fi chick… help her adopt a Jinxlet.

For: The Military Sci-Fi affectionado… a Schlock Mercenary T-shirt that explains Rule One: First Pillage, THEN burn.

For: The jigsaw-puzzler… Chris Yates’ Bafflers are hand-painted, one-of-a-kind, and challenging as all get-out.

For: That guy at the office who always has a joke ready… have KC transform it into a custom comic.

For: The person who’s always trying to out-do herself with a hysterical Christmas card… the S*P cards will assure her the top spot on everyone’s mantle.

For: That guy who uses his desk to express his refinement to the world … the Wondermark calendar is the height of sophistication. Twelve individual monthly cards, each 8.5” x 5.5”, sit in a heavy brass easel just SCREAMING sophistication. And they’re devastatingly funny to boot.

For: The dog-lover… Dave Kellett’s collection of pug-themed comics will have them howling. With laughter.

For: That hopelesly-lost-in-the-80s guy … Scott Kurtz’s Truth, Justin and the American Way is a brilliant send-up of the decade of leg warmers and Izod shirts.

For: The conspiracy theorist … the Sam and Fuzzy “Ask me about the Conspiracy Theory” T-shirt is sure to please. In forest green, which matches beautifully with any tinfoil hat.

For: The old-school Mac user … the “Would You Like to Destroy the Universe?” dialogue box — in Mac OS 9 style — will defrag the hard drive. Of his heart.

For: The plugged-in Preistess … the Lunar Bistro 8-bit Tarot cards will have her seeing joy in her future.

…And of course, there’s this guy. But who would possibly want a book about corporatized super-villains, right?

This is, by no means, a comprehensive list. There’s tons of great webcomics merch out there for you to stuff stockings with. Have one to add? Get thee to the Comments button!

So, you have come up with a great idea for a webcomic. You have created a few characters and a storyline. But you work full-time, go to school part-time and don’t have the ability to update three times a week. In addition to all that, you don’t really have the money to buy a domain name and hosting for a comic you may only do for a few months before you decide it’s not for you.

This was the problem I ran into when I launched my webcomic. I was only going to be able to update once a week at the most and I wasn’t sure how long I was going to last before I packed it in. Add to that the cost involved in setting up a website and I was already thinking this was a bad idea. Then it hit me: I could put my webcomic on Blogger. It wouldn’t cost me a dime to get up and running and I could just delete the whole thing if I chose.

Is Blogger perfect? Not even close. But for the hobbyist webcomic artist or someone on a tight budget, it could be the solution you are looking for.

First, the good.

It’s free! No startup cost, no hunting for a Web host, no cost to you whatsoever. You can setup your comic in about twenty minuets and post your first strip. No knowledge of HTML, CSS, databases or anything like that needed.

You can run ads from day one. Since Blogger is owned by Google, you can set up Google Adsense and start running ads at the same time you set up your comic. You can run up to three ads at a time on your blog and start earning a small amount of income.

Updating is easy. Updating your comic will take no more than five minuets. The interface is very intuitive and easy to learn. You can upload a new comic and make a cup of coffee at the same time.

Now the bad.

The archive system is not ideal for webcomics. The archive system is a bit unwieldy and makes finding early comics a bit more work than it should be. Plus, there is no way for a first time reader to easily go to the first strip and start reading.

Comics are posted smaller than actual size. In order for a person to read the full size comic, they have to click on the image of the strip. As we all know, the more a reader has to click, the more likely they will move on. Newspaper or four panel style comics would be okay, but a full-page comic may have a problem.

Limited customability. You can’t make any significant changes like you could if you had your own website. You can change the color and the font, but that’s about it.

I have had my webcomic on Blogger for about two years. Now that I know I want to do my comic in a more professional and full-time manner, I plan to move to a formal website. However, if when I started I had to pay to put my comic on the Web, I don’t think I would be at this point now. For a first time cartoonist or someone who just wants to do webcomics as a hobby, Blogger is a great, low-cost way to get your feet wet and see if webcomics are for you.

This post was submitted by David Goodman.