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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Webcomics Confidential: Size doesn’t matter

Webcomics Confidential: Size doesn’t matter

when it comes to your audience, size doesn't matter. A small and engaged readership beats a huge, lukewarm audience every...
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ComicLab Ep 357 — Innovation fascination

ComicLab Ep 357 — Innovation fascination

Having wrapped up his 16th Kickstarter, cartoonist Dave Kellett shares some insights about setting realistic expectations, avoiding paid advertising, and...
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Adding lettering to improve original art sales

Adding lettering to improve original art sales

Selling original art is an integral part of the business model of an independent cartoonist who works with traditional media...
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Plateaus

 I looked back in the sand and I saw my footprints had formed a chart of my pageviews over the years. And I asked, “Look at all of those times that the chart flattens out and doesn’t increase for months on end… what’s with that?” And the answer came back, so simple and pure.
“That, my child, is when you were improving as a cartoonist…”

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by on September 27, 2010
Posted In: Art, Creativity
14 Comments

If you’ve ever posted “worth my $30,” please read…

I’m preparing a flyer for NYCC promoting the site. I thought it would be fun to run some of the “X along was worth the thirty bucks” comments I’ve received. Below are the one’s I’ve gathered. If you see your name, please give me a quick post giving your consent for the quote to be used (or, if you’d rather not, just say so, and I’ll replace it).

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by on September 24, 2010
Posted In: Uncategorized
10 Comments

‘What a waste of time’ — dealing with criticism

I was lucky enough to get a generous review on io9.com last weekend. And in the comments section under the review, the response was overwhelmingly positive. I was being tweeted, and e-mailed and Liked.

It was a really good weekend.

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by on September 23, 2010
Posted In: Articles
41 Comments

Boundaries: Build ’em or Break ’em?

It’s one of the most liberating aspects of webcomics: The complete lack of boundaries.

Very few — if any — webcomics exist under a structure that imposes boundaries on the language or visuals used by the cartoonist. Most of us are completely independent, and therefore set our own boundaries.

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by on September 22, 2010
Posted In: Community
59 Comments

NYCC Bootcamp discount

Members of Webcomics.com only pay $30 for the special Webcomics Bootcamp at New York Comic Con, Sunday morning, Oct. 10. Here are the details:

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by on September 21, 2010
Posted In: Uncategorized
17 Comments

Line weight

Varying the thickness of your line can improve your art in several ways. It’s an incredibly powerful tool at your disposal. Using thicker and thinner lines can have three different effects.

Heavier lines indicate shading. Letting your lines get heavy in areas that are further from the light source in the illustration (and thinner are they’re closer to the light) can add instant three-dimensionality to your drawing.

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by on September 20, 2010
Posted In: Art
13 Comments

E-Mail Comic Delivery

As I was writing yesterday’s post about building an e-newsletter for your fans, it took me back to a time in my early geezerdom — before RSS — when I was e-mailing my comic out to my readers who didn’t want to visit the site daily.

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by on September 14, 2010
Posted In: Business, Tech
2 Comments