Incorporating an oddly shaped panel into a vertical-scroll comic

Incorporating an oddly shaped panel into a vertical-scroll comic

Building an audience on the web means adapting to the vertical scroll. But that doesn't mean giving up innovative page...
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Webcomics Confidential: Draw larger

Webcomics Confidential: Draw larger

I took a question on Twitter recently: "Would it be wrong to draw my comics on A4 paper? I find...
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November To-Do List

November To-Do List

It's time to get started on (*choke*) the penultimate month of 2024.If you plan to offer new merchandise for the...
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ComicLab Ep 359 — Should your readers be your writers?

ComicLab Ep 359 — Should your readers be your writers?

BlueSky is beginning to feel like Twitter did ten years ago! Engagement is up, conversations are genuine, and follower counts...
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Understanding social media

Understanding social media

Social media is among an independent artist's most frustrating elements. We struggle for engagement, wage constant battles with "The Algorithm,"...
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Writing humor

Writing humor

Writing comedy is a challenge that is made even more daunting by the fact that humor itself is completely subjective...
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CMYK vs RGB

CMYK vs RGB

If you're saving your comics in RGB mode, you may be making a potentially expensive mistake. The content you are...
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ComicLab Ep 358 — “Help! I’m not funny anymore!”

ComicLab Ep 358 — “Help! I’m not funny anymore!”

Cartoonists Dave and Brad share some thoughts with a young humor writer trying to find their Funny. Also: Is BlueSky...
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ISBN — a beginner’s guide

ISBN — a beginner’s guide

An ISBN is a 10- or 13-digit number used to identify a book from a specific publisher. Once your book...
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How to write a Halloween joke

How to write a Halloween joke

On Substack, a cartoonist was struggling with writing a Halloween joke. He was experiencing a common problem. He was stuck...
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Correcting an unfair review

It’s hard to avoid getting personally insulted when somone posts an unfair review of your work on the Web. Even if you know that the site has low Web traffic, you still want to defend yourself (and your work) against misconceptions. But doing so runs the risk of making you look thin-skinned and touchy. Here are some thoughts on navigating those tricky waters.

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by on December 16, 2013
Posted In: Community
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Web Hosting Basics

This post was generously submitted by Philip M. Hofer (“Frumph”),  ComicPress theme developer and creator of the Comic Easel WordPress plugin (Comiceasel.com).

Hosting is the ‘place’ on the web where your site is located and being delivered to its audience.  The Internet is not magic. Your site is on a computer somewhere. When you go to a Web site by way of its address (URL) in your browser, you’re contacting a host, which then makes a request for the page to be displayed by its Web daemon. There are several types of hosting available: free (managed), shared, VPS and dedicated.

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by on December 4, 2013
Posted In: Web site
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December To-Do List

It’s already December. It’s a month dominated by holidays — both preparing for and celebrating them — and it’s the end of the year. It’s probably the most challenging months for a webcartoonist, so let’s get organized.

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by on December 3, 2013
Posted In: To-Do List
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Creating an Automatic Send-By-E-mail Comic Mailing List

Given the popularity of RSS, social media and other ways of keeping track of our favorite webcomics, it’s hard to believe that anyone would rather get their favorite comics e-mailed to them. I mean, that’s what cavemen did in prehistoric times, right? But believe it or not, some of your readers would rather read their comics this way than follow an RSS feed.

And since it’s pretty easy to set up an RSS-driven e-mail campaign through a service such as MailChimp.com, there’s really no reason not to.

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by on November 26, 2013
Posted In: Tech
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Mailbag: Using “copyrighted” book titles

Q: I have a question about book titles. If I used generic episode titles as book titles would I have to worry about copyrights. I write an anime parody comic an wanted to use episode titles as the naming convention on my books. I’ll steer clear of ones with character names of course, but I’m wondering about ones that don’t have that. If I named a book “Kidnapped at the Hot spring” would that be a problem to the makers of Naruto?

As always, when I speak about legal matters, I’m honor-bound to remind you that I’m not a lawyer.

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by on November 25, 2013
Posted In: Business
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Custom Reports in Google Analytics

One of the most useful features in Google Analytics is the ability to create Custom Reports.

These are reports that you can design that compare data in a specific way using Analytics’ dimensions and metrics. If that sounds a little confusing, it helps to remember that “dimensions” describe data and “metrics” measure data.1

Here are a few that I’m experimenting with and learning a great deal from. You can experiment with making your own or you can click “import from gallery” and find hundreds of plug-and-play customizations.

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by on November 21, 2013
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