Webcomics are a great way to show off your artistic talents online. You can even make money with them, with a little bit of luck, if you do it the right way.

When I started The Flowfield Unity, I had experience in handling comics in print, but had absolutely no idea how to create and manage a webcomic. This article is my attempt to collect together everything I have found out through research and trial and error.

This article is written with a small press ethos in mind, that is ‘if anything can be done, it can be done for free’. Hopefully running a webcomic may make you some money (though be prepared for the amount to be ‘not very much’), but it certainly should cost you little more than your time.

Stage 1 – Starting Out

The first thing you will need is an idea for your webcomic. There are no hard and fast rules here, but the following tips may be worth considering:

1. Webcomics – it’s a marathon, not a sprint. If you want to have a sucessful comic, you are going to have to supply regular updates to keep your fans happy. Make sure that your idea is sustainable and that you can create it quickly enough to adhere to a strict schedule. When thinking about this, be realistic with your abilities, and remember that life will do its utmost to prevent you from meeting this schedule.
2. Do your own thing – Looking at already sucessful webcomics and seeing what makes them work is a good idea, but copying storylines, characters and jokes is a bad idea. Being different helps you stand out and being yourself gives you a much easier ride when it comes to creating and publishing your comic.
3. Test your idea out – Make your friends and family read it and see what they say. Make sure they’re being honest and take any criticism on the chin.

Stage 2 – Tools of the Trade

So, now you’ve got an idea for your webcomic, how do you create it? Well, this is pretty much a matter of preference – you can make it by hand and then scan it, or you can create it digitally, or you can use a mixture of the two. You might need to try a few variations before you find a method that suits you and your comic. Here are some very good tutorials on each:

• Inking – By Scott Ruggels
• Fonts and dialogue – From BlueCrashKit
• Everything Else – Onezumi Tutorials… these are worth reading.

Either way, you are going to need a few programs to help with manipulating the artwork and creating your website. There are plenty of commercial programs out there, such as the ubiquitous Photoshop, but unless you are willing to use illegal versions, they are going to set you back a considerable amount of cash. Fortunately, you don’t have to resort to software piracy or spending money. There are some greatource and freeware programs out there that will do everything you need for free. Here is a list of the most useful:

• Firefox – The best web browser available
• Notetab Lite – A great free text editor with tons of features
• The Gimp – A free alternative to Photoshop
• WebDwarf – A free wysiwyg webpage editor
• Inkscape – A great vector image program

And these two, whilst not actually programs supply free things that may make your comic life a little easier:

• Morguefile – Find reference photographs here
• Blambot – Free downloadable fonts to help you with lettering

For what it is worth, my advice would be to create several differnt strips or episodes at this point, before you start thinking about your website. As well as helping you to create your website around your comic, it will also help you test many of the websites functions whilst at the same time helping your audience to get a better idea of what your comic is about.

Stage 3 – Getting your comic online

It’s important to think about what you require from your webcomic site. This can be broken down into two parts:

1. What your fans will want and need
2. How easy it is for you to run and maintain the site

In general, your readers will want a clear, easy to navigate site that allows them quick and easy access to your comics. This should include: A way to see the latest strip (usually the homepage), Archives by date and title for easy navigation, and possibly a way of delivering the content to them (RSS or by email).

You however, will probably want an easily customisable system that allows you full control over the look and function of your site to allow you to give your readers what they want with the minimum amount of effort and fuss.

So, with these things in mind, we can assess the various ways in which you can present your comic online… each have their pros and cons, and like me, you may end up checking a few of these out before you find the right one for you.

• HTML – Whilst I would advise reading up on it a bit (whichever method you choose, a knowlege of HTML will be useful), I would not reccomend trying to run a webcomic purely by editing text files by hand. It can be done, but there are much easier ways that will leave you with more time to spend on your comic. There are plenty of sites out there that will help you, e.g. webmonkey.

• Webcomic Hosts – Arguably the quickest way to get your work online is to use a webcomic host. These sites provide you with an easy way to display your work and provide a lot of features to help you on your way: Automatic RSS feeds, camments and rating systems, customisable templates and ready made communities for advice and criticism. So why doesn’t everyone use them for their webcomics? As with most things, there are a few drawbacks; they may enforce advertising, or prevent you from showing your own. They may also have content guidelines that impinge on your artistic creativity. There is also a slight stigma with hosting your comics on these sites, possibly because a lot of webcomics hosted in this way are not very good. I still stand by the opinion that if you are just starting out, these are the easiest and quickest way to get your comic out there and they don’t cost you a penny. Check out the following hosts, they’re all fairly similar; always read the fine print and have a look around at the comics hosted on these sites.
• DrunkDuck
• Comic Genesis
• SmackJeeves

• Blog your comic – Blogs (short for weblogs) are seemingly custom made for webcomic hosting. They share many features with the webcomic hosts without being quite so tailor made. They enable you to post your comics as a single entry with it’s own title and associated text. There is also a large blogging community that may be able to give you feedback and help. However, some free blogging tools are better than others for webcomics. Blogger.com for example, isn’t bad. You can customise the templates fairly easy and manage the blog with a minimum of fuss. They often generate RSS feeds for you too. Aside from blogger, there is LiveJournal which comes with a very community orientated approach, useful for finding fans. Wordpress is also free and for my money even better. The only drawback is that a lot of the free acounts have limited storage space for your pictures, though this can easily be circumnavigated with the use of a free image host – a site that lets you upload your pictures and then supplies you with a link to it to insert into your post. Imageshack does this with little fuss and is even better if you sign up for a free account.

• Collectives – If you are feeling brave enough, and you think your comic is good enough, you might want to apply to an established webcomic collective. They often offer hosting as part of their membership. A collective is usually formed from comics with a similar theme or outlook and creators that generally enjoy helping each other out. There is power in numbers and collectives capitalise on this. That said, joining a collective is a bit like a contract, be prepared to join in with discussions, marketing ideas and promoting the collective as a whole. A general rule you should follow is to try and give more than you take… and you’ll probably end up getting a lot more out of it. Take the time to find a collective that suits you and your comic before you apply, and don’t take it too hard if you are not accepted. A few collectives will give you in-depth feedback as to why you were not accepted, take this criticism graciously and use it to improve what you do. New collectives spring up every week, but here are a few that might give you an idea:
• DayFree Press
• Transplant Comics
• Collective Inkwell

• Do it yourself – By far the more intimidating path, but perhaps the most flexible and rewarding is to host your comic yourself. You’ll need a good understanding of how the internet works and you’ll have to be prepared for a bit of anguish during the initial setup of your site, but once it is up and running you will be able to claim, ‘I made this’. There are plenty of free tools and software to help though, just remember to read the instructions and don’t be afraid to ask questions:
• Wordpress – as well as being available set up and for free, you can also download the software that makes Wordpress run for free and install it on your own server. This gets round the limited upload space so that you can keep your site and comics all in one place. You can even download the comicpress theme that makes publishing your comic on the web much easier. This is what I use now and I find it to be by far the most flexible approach as well as providing every feature I could ever need.
• I-strip – A flat file system for hosting webcomics. This is useful if you do not have access to Php/mysql on your server, though I found it a little tricky to get up and running, the support is there and it does a fine job
• CUSP – A comic update script for Php. I t seems that this one is getting on a bit and support seems limited. That said, I stuck with it for a few months and it was fairly reasonable. I would reccomend Wordpress/comicpress over this though due to the lack of automated functions and the ability for your readers to comment on your site.
• Walrus – a small automated system that you can install on your server. Similar to CUSP and entirely customisable. I didn’t get on with this one though, but that shouldn’t stop you having a look.

So now you have a comic and a way to show it to the world. Sit back and enjoy it for a moment, look at your site and bond with it.

Stage 4 – Promoting your comic

You can only admire your own comic for long before you start wondering, ‘would other people like this?’. The only way to find out is to get some traffic for your site and see if you can gain a few readers. With forums and communities, my general advice is read up on the existing posts and watch any forum activity for at least a week so that you can get a feel for the place and always check before you post that it is appropriate to do so. This advice is also true for communities in general.

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A word about communities – Communities are not advertising boards. Sure, they can be a great source of readers and you will advertise your site by taking part in community discussions, but please, please, do not start spamming every community you come across with a ‘look at my comic’ post. Try to live by the rule of ‘give more than you take’, that is participate in discussions, offer advice where you can, be funny and helpful – this is a much easier way to make friends and find readers that the tirades that often follow a spamming.

Remember, a happy visitor is a returning visitor.

• Forums – A great source for readers, not only do forums give you a place to post information about your site, but you can also include some information and usually a banner in your forum signature. Make sure this links to your website so that if someone finds something you’ve said interesting or funny, they can visit your comic. Do remember to stay on topic and avoid spamming them. There is usually a thread for shameless promotion and such – use it.
• Chat Rooms – I’ve had limited sucess with chat rooms. They are quite time intensive, but you might fancy a try. Search for comics or webcomics in Yahoo!chat.
• Communities – Try joining some of the Livejournal communities related to webcomics. Many actively encourage you to show people your comic and they will generally give you plenty of feedback.

There are also some social networking sites you might want to try. Stumbleupon, Del.icio.us, Mirthcanal, Digg, and a few others. Most of these sites require you to tag your content. Keep your tags appropriate, but be a little more creative than just ‘webcomic’ – reflect the content of your strips.

Coming soon…. Merchandise

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