For my first featured online resource on making webcomics, I’d like to introduce to you my favorite podcast, Webcomics Weekly. Webcomics Weekly is the -ehem- weekly podcast of Brad Guigar of Evil Inc., Dave Kellett of Sheldon, Kris Straub of Starslip Crisis, and Scott Kurtz of PvP. If you’re really into webcomics and haven’t heard of these guys then I suggest doing some extra homework and get to know them- now. They are considered to be some of the most (if not the most) successful webcomic creators around and to prove that, they’ve even written a book called How to Make Webcomics, which you can order now at Amazon or at each creator’s respective sites (they make more money that way, plus, you can order a special artist’s edition).

Their podcasts are light, funny, and most importantly, very informative. You can even send them an email and they will answer your question in their podcast. I personally find their podcasts very entertaining and I’ve learned a lot just by listening to these podcasts, but some may not be as comfortable with the inside jokes, the delivery of certain ideas, and/or Brad’s laugh, which has been the subject of ridicule across a few episodes. If you really want to learn about making webcomics and the business of webcomics, though, there’s no better way than to listen to the pros.

Do bear in mind though that you don’t have to take everything they say to heart. Part of learning how to make webcomics is making mistakes yourself. Doing everything that the professionals say does not guarantee success, but at least, will give you a head start.

A few months ago, I wrote a tutorial on how to color in Photoshop for the blog portion of my comic Draw Write Play. I broke it down into 3 parts so that the post won’t be too long but now that I’ve discovered how to break blog posts, I thought I’d repost the entire tutorial here all in a single post. This is the first tutorial that I’ve ever written, and therefore is not my best piece of work but I hope it will still be useful. I used my sketch of Zuko for this tutorial. You can see the finished colors below.

Before we start, this tutorial assumes that you have a basic understanding of Photoshop and it’s workspace. Essentially, you should know where the tools and windows are located, what blending modes are, how layers work and what each tool is for. If you’re not familiar with Photoshop’s workspace I suggest reading the Photoshop Help file. Honestly, a lot of people tend to neglect the Photoshop Help file but it has tons of information that can help you work faster and more efficiently. I still use it when I get stuck or if I can’t remember what a certain blending mode is for. Read the rest of this entry »

The 3-Column version of Tyler Martin’s Comicpress theme for Wordpress is now available for download! Please note that this is a version I modified myself, and as I am not an expert in PHP or CSS coding, there might still be some bugs in the theme which I may or may not be able to fix. This version has two sidebars, one on the left and one on the right, which are both widget ready. Please note that for some reason, the “Latest Comics” widget does screws up the layout when placed on the left sidebar so I strongly advice not to place it on the left sidebar (or not use it at all). If you have a suggestion on how I can fix this, do let me know. You can download the theme at the “Downloads” page of this site.

If you already have a webcomic and looking forward to publishing it on your own site but have little experience in making websites, then Wordpress and Comicpress are the tools for you.

Before discovering Wordpress and Comicpress, I looked at all the other webcomic publishing tools on the internet and a lot of them were too complicated for my taste. I didn’t like the free comic hosts available because I really wanted a website with my own design. I wanted a system that made it easy for me to publish my comics while not having to write a lot of code.

And then came Comicpress. I’ve already been a big fan of Wordpress even before I wanted to use it as a comic publishing tool so when I found out that I can easily publish my comics using Tyler Martin’s theme I immediately wanted to try it out. It wasn’t until last year, though (when I started Draw Write Play), that I actually started using it.
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You only need two things to make a webcomic: a comic to publish, and a site to publish it on.

From the word “webcomic” alone you will agree that it’s basic meaning is that it is a comic page or strip that is published on the web. So if it’s not published on the web, it’s just a “comic”, right? Of course, it will take much more to make the actual comics and the actual site that it will be published on but the main thing to learn here is that if you’re not comfortable making traditional comics then there’s no reason for you to make webcomics.

I believe that the the discipline of making comics and the discipline of making webcomics is just the same. It’s just the medium that is different. The web just gives creators a lot more freedom in presenting their comics and the potential to reach a world wide audience. I won’t dive into discussing the differences between traditional comics and webcomics, you can go to Wikipedia for that. All I want to point out is that webcomics are, in the simplest sense, just comics on the web. Read the rest of this entry »