All right, this post may cause me a little bit of trouble, but please take what I say with a grain of salt. Obviously I am not an expert on anything, and much of what I say is based on opinions.

Let's talk about webcomics that use a manga or anime style (for the rest of the post I will just say "anime" and use it to encompass both styles). I promise I won't make the sweeping generalization of "all anime style webcomics are crap" that gets tossed around lightly on the web. But there's no doubt that there is a saturation of these kinds of webcomics. Why?

Well, the obvious answer is that anime has a huge and loyal fanbase. Fans, especially artistic ones, want to emulate it because it reinforces their passion for it. Another answer is because it's easy. Both of these reasons are poor reasons to use it as a style, even if they are well-intended.

Emulation is a poor artistic choice. Just because you love Dragonball Z it doesn't mean you should create a comic using that exact style. Take inspiration from it. If you like the way the eyes are drawn, try that, but use your own style. You don't have a style? Then keep drawing; you'll eventually develop your style. And style is like a fingerprint - no two styles are exactly the same. Unless, of course, you are conciously emulating one. Turn off that part of your brain and up the ampage to the creative part.

As for the easy-to-draw aspect, here's something you may not have noticed: Good anime is not easy to draw. Generic, run-of-the-mill, bad anime is easy to draw. Why do you want to have a generic style? Why do you want to be lost in the sea of bad artwork? Make yourself a life raft out of good drawing skills.

And using the anime cliches - the giant sweatdrop, the frustration vein, etc. - is a total cop-out. Don't tell me it's part of the style. If you are 100% Japanese and you know the insides and outs of why they do the things they do with anime, then I'll concede and give you a free pass on the cliches. If you're just an American with an obsession for anime - do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Learn how to make your characters emote. Study facial expressions. Study hand gestures. Study body posture. All of these things add up and will express emotions better than anime cliches ever could.

And for crying out loud, don't do the "action sound effects" thing. You know, writing "falls over" if a character - you guessed it - falls over. Learn to draw action. Learn to draw body movement.

By forcing yourself to steer clear of emulation and creating your own style you will not only have a better product, you will feel better as an artist. Trust me. I tried the anime stuff and when I look back on it, I'm glad I didn't stick with it. I'm more than happy with my current style because it's mine. It can't be lumped into a generic category.

Make your artwork stand out and your comic will stand out.

Writing, whether it be for a story, an essay, or even a webcomic, is not easy. Well, let me rephrase that - good writing is not easy. You could be the warrior of the English language, wielding correct spelling like a sword and proper grammar as your shield, but that doesn't mean you can string words together and make them interesting. Similarly, you could have the hardest working imagination this side of a tripped-out hippy, but it doesn't mean you can structure your words properly.

While I can't add anything to your imagination and I don't want to discuss the technicalities of the English language here, I can and will offer some advice that should make your webcomic writing a tad easier. However, the caveat is two-fold. One, everything I tell you is something that I've tried and has worked for me, but may not work for you (and that's okay, as I'll explain later). Two, this is mostly aimed at long-form webcomics or gag-driven comics that run short storylines.

The Pondering Phase: One of my favorite writers, Terry Brooks, offered up a suggestion in regards to writing, and I've found that it works well. Take some time ruminate about a storyline. Not just think, but ponder, daydream, analyze, etc. Go over it in your head again and again and again, but don't write anything down yet. This is sort of like a filtering process - the good ideas will get caught in your brain and the rest will wash away down the drain. When you've had some time to let the things come to a boil in your head - for me it's usually when the excitement builds to a point where I can't contain it anymore - write it all down, but don't structure it just yet. That's the next part.

The Outlining Phase: This is where you'll give a bit of structure to your story, but still keep it loose. Outline the story as if it's a script, with back-and-forth between characters and action parentheticals. Don't worry about panel or page restrictions, just write. Get it all down on paper (or on the word processing program of your choice, but I prefer to do this stuff on paper; it's more organic that way). Now you have your storyline in a readable and, most importantly, reviewable format. Go over it a couple of times and make edits - trim the dialogue, switch words around, add some lines, whatever you need to do. Just don't become married to it yet. Once you've got that done, we move onto the harder part.

The Portioning Phase: Now you have to take what you've written, break it up, and fit it into whatever format your webcomic is - three panel, four panel, six panel, full pages, etc. The tricky part is not to compromise what you've written in your outline for the sake of fitting things into your format. Once you've tried this process a few times, though, you'll find that as you're writing the outline, you subconciously create the dialogue to eventually fit into the format you use. Remember what I said about keeping things loose? This was for a good reason. You won't always be able to transplant things directly from your outline into the format. Sometimes you'll have to add a punchline that you didn't think of earlier, or sacrifice a line of dialogue for pacing's sake. In the end, if you play your cards right, you'll end up with well-written scripts for an entire batch of strips/pages. But we're not done yet.

The Roughing Phase: Sketch out your strips/pages on scrap paper or in a sketch pad. Don't worry about perfection, this is just preliminary. Sometimes when you can see visuals accompanying what you wrote, it can prompt new ideas for dialogue or move the direction of the story somewhere better. Plus it's just a good idea to think things out before you finalize anything. Speaking of which...

The Finalizing Phase: This is where you take pencils and pens to paper (or stylus to tablet). By this point, because of the steps you've taken, you should be confident that what you've written is solid. There should be no doubts in your mind. But if there is, fix it before you realize you have to scrap the whole thing and start over.

And there you have it! This is a process that I've developed and it works for me. Try it. It may work for you, or it may not. Maybe you'll take some of what I said but do your own thing. This is totally understandable. No two people have the same processes for writing because we all operate differently. Find what works for you and stick with it. At the end of the day we're all heading towards the same goal even if we're wearing different running shoes.

My first suggestion for a topic was advertising. Advertising is one of the most important things you can do for your webcomic. Without it, how will people know about it? They won't, that's the bottom line. Getting your webcomic's name out there is a lot of work, and it can cost money, but if you're smart about it you'll do well.

Before you even begin to advertise, though, ask yourself - Do I have enough interesting content to advertise? If you only have one, two, or three strips up, or if your story hasn't quite picked up it's pace yet, or if you just have the site up with nothing on it, the answer to this is no. If you direct people to your webcomic and it has nothing interesting on it, or not enough to hold a reader's interest, they will leave and not bother coming back. So make sure before you really start advertising that you have enough to hook a potential reader.

The first thing to remember is to take baby steps. Worry about the big ad campaigns later on down the road. Right now you're just rolling the snowball down the hill. Once you get that started, it'll grow and pick up speed.

What do I mean by that? Well, the easiest and cheapest way of advertising is word-of-mouth. Tell your friends and family to spread the word. Place a link in your signature on forums (but remember your manners and don't annoy people about visiting your site). The intended purpose of this is that the people you reach will see your webcomic, like it, and spread the word to other people. Those other people will do the same, and so on and so on.

When you've exhausted that avenue, move on to the free webcomic resource sites. This includes listing sites like Onlinecomics.net, The Webcomic List, and Webcomicz, and top lists like buzzComix and TopWebcomics. These will put you in touch with a large number of webcomic readers. You can even branch out to non-webcomic-related networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and even LiveJournal. As of right now I only know of one webcomic-related networking site, ComicSpace, but there may be more I'm unaware of.

Once you've done all that, and once you feel confident that you have a webcomic worth investing money in, it's time to move onto paid advertisements. Many webcomic sites will offer spots on their page in the form of buttons or banners. Usually you need to contact the creator to get a price and sometimes to get on a waiting list. Check some of your favorite webcomics for advertising opportunities.

Another increasingly popular option is Project Wonderful. Project Wonderful is a bit complicated to sort out at first if you aren't familiar with bid-based advertising, but once you get it figured out it's a very useful tool. You basically set up an account with money in it, and you bid on ad space. It's a pay-per-day model, so you can find advertising as cheap as a few cents a day (although you may not get a lot of visits from these ads). PW offers all sorts of options and tools for you to make the best decisions on places to advertise.

You do need to be smart about your advertising, though. Keep in mind the demographics of the sites you look at - are the people visiting that site likely to enjoy your comic? When I look for sites to advertise on I usually look for webcomics that are fantasy-related or that have a feel that my comic shares. However, if you have the money are willing to try gambling on a long shot, you may just capture some people on a non-related site. I know the webcomics I read range from one end of the spectrum to the other, and there are many others like me out there. But for the most part you want to try for the demographic that is the safest bet for you and your webcomic.

And while advertising is important, let me stress again that what you are advertising needs to be the best that you can provide. If you don't have a good webcomic, all your advertising will be worth naught.

I was originally going to start doing "how to" articles in a chronological fashion - from the start of a webcomic to the maintaining of it. But I realized that there's no way I can do that, because I'll inevitably skip something. There's so much ground to cover and if I get mired in the details, we'll never move forward.

So from this point on I'm taking questions from you, the reader. If you want to know how to do something, please feel free to ask. I will give the best answer I can give you.

Otherwise, I will be posting articles as they come to me. They will generally be lumped into the following categories:

Webcomics 101: The beginning steps of creating a webcomic.
Webcomics 201: More in-depth articles on a particular step (i.e. drawing, writing, web design, etc.)
Webcomics Analysis: A break-down of the dos and don'ts of webcomics, usually citing examples.
Webcomics News: If something major goes down that I feel will benefit from a discussion, I'll post it.

More categories will be added as I go along, and I will go back and tag the older articles with these categories.

Before I start this entry, I need to make a point. When I single out a webcomic or even several webcomics, it's not because I hate them. On the contrary, these are comics that I read on a regular basis. I think it's my enjoyment of them that leads to the picking apart of them because I want them to be as good as they can be. I just felt that I needed to get that out there.

I mentioned in a previous entry the difficulty of writing a webcomic that mixes humor and drama. Usually if an inexperienced or poor writer tries it, it ends up being an oil and water mixture. You have both floating around, but they never come together and form a cohesive structure. But it can be done. Just look at movies like The Royal Tennenbaums. You have a drama-drenched story involving bitterness, hatred, redemption, and love, but you laugh your way through it. It works. But it's a fine line to walk.

So what brought this up today? I submit to you exhibit A: Questionable Content from Monday, March 10th. We've had the build up to Faye and Dora's confrontation, and this strip was part of the pay-off. I was feeling good panels one through four, but that last panel... *sigh* This is a case of oil and water. The drama is moving smoothly, we're getting into the moment, but Jeph, god love him, sneaks his trademark last panel jokiness into the mix. Unfortunately, because of the dramatic build-up, the comedy just doesn't work, and it ruins the dramatic moment.

Far be it from me to tell another webcomic creator what to do, but here's my opinion of how it should have worked. The dramatic dialogue should have continued all the way into the last panel, but Penny eating popcorn - which was funny - should remain there. That's non-intrusive comedy on the dramatic moment. We get our dramatic moment, and then we glance over at Penny calmly watching and eating popcorn and we get a chuckle. It works because it's subtle, something that I think a lot of comedy writing folks tend to forget. You don't always have to be so in-your-face with the comedy; what that does is prove that you're underestimating the intelligence of your audience.

There's no set formula to making drama and humor mix together, and that's what makes it so hard. Drama has rules and comedy has rules, but those rules are exclusive to each other and they never get together for a long-term relationship. But if you play your cards right, sometimes they can get together and go bowling and everyone has a good time. I think the real trick to it is to ask yourself if the mixture works. If not, how can you fix it? Can you fix it? If not, then go one route or the other, but not both, or you'll end up doing a split and ripping your pants.

It's been noted in quite a few place, most notably in the popular Webcomics Weekly podcast, that long form comics have less of a chance at succeeding financially using the current business models of daily comics. The main reason is the slow pacing of a story-driven weekly (or even tri-weekly) strip as opposed to the read-and-be-on-your-way pace of a gag-driven daily strip.

I think I've found an obstacle that could be avoided in order to up your chances at succeeding with a long form comic. The problem lies in the attempt at mixing humor/gags into a plot-driven story. It's something that isn't easy to do - keep your story moving while bringing in the laughs.

First of all, lets establish that moving a story along is difficult enough when you're only publishing three strips/pages a week. I know this from experience. It's even more difficult when it's a weekly gig; you need to make sure your story is solid enough that people will keep coming back (take a look at Earthsong; Lady Yates recently dropped down to one update a week, but I can guarantee her readers will keep coming back because of her strong storytelling skills, not to mention artistic ability).

Now let's add humor into the mix. The trick is to only add what you need. It's tough, because, let's face it, you've got a thousand jokes and lots of witty dialogue you want to share with people. But the reality is if you start dropping that stuff, the story takes forever to move forward.

Case in point - College Roomies From Hell!!! This is a comic that I've gone back and forth on (for reasons outside of this subject), but today I came to the realization that the comic suffers from a slow pace because Maritza drops too much humor into the strip. Sure, the dialogue can be funny, sometimes witty, always absurd, but a lot of the time it's forced into the strip, pushing the story to the side. Update days will go by and nothing will happen, except characters talking. Now, if the comic didn't rely so heavily on plot and subplots, this wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. But Maritza chose to give the comic some meat, in the form of relationships, good vs. evil themes, and all sorts of other dramatic elements. Also, if the comic updated daily, or even five times a week, she could get away with the way she currently does CRFH!!!, although I still wouldn't recommend it. There has to be some compensation to allow for pacing.

Now let's look at a comic that succeeds in this realm - Girl Genius. The Foglios only update three times a week, but they manage to keep the story moving and make us laugh at the same time. They've succeeded in finding a formula of humor and story that works to keep the pacing of the comic marching forward without too many sluggish moments. They keep the plot and action in mind, even when the characters are conversing with each other. Very little of the dialogue is ever dedicated to "fluff talk".

In summary, your best chances at gaining and securing a readership and potentially making money off of said readership when you're doing a non-daily, story-driven comic lie within making sure your pacing is spot-on. If things move too slowly because you're inserting too much fluff into the story, people will lose interest or won't be interested in the first place. Remember two things, and I constantly push for both of these: 1.) Less is more, and 2.) KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid!

You can’t build a house without a foundation. Well, you can, but eventually it’s going fall over or sink into the ground. The same goes for webcomics – you need to be building your webcomic on a solid foundation. What do I mean by this? You need to go into this knowing how you want to do it.

Do you want to do gag-a-day strips or a serial story? Do you want to be a single panel comic, a traditional newspaper strip, or a graphic novel page comic? Color or black and white? Original recipe or extra tasty crispy?

Okay, okay, let’s slow down a bit. I’m guessing that if you’ve decided to do a webcomic, you probably at least have an inkling of what you want to do. Now it’s a matter of what you’re capable of doing. So how do you figure that out? Do some practice runs. Can you write thirty four-panel strips, each with a punch line? Can you create thirty one-panel gag comics? Can you keep continuity going – and interesting – for thirty pages? Thirty isn’t an official benchmark or anything, but it’s a good test of your abilities.

If punch lines aren’t your bag, you might want to stick with telling a story. If you can’t keep a story going, you’ll probably want to stick with gag-a-day comics. If you can do both, try shaking both into the mix. There’s no set formula here; it all boils down to what you’re comfortable with.

There are also some technical issues to consider that will affect you in the long run. First is being able to put together a strip or page in a timely manner. I understand that there are a good number of successful comics that update on a sporadic and even unpredictable basis, but my personal conviction is that you should have a set schedule. Even if it’s only one page a month, you should be able to guarantee your readers something. However, if you say you’re going to do three days a week, make sure that the format you choose can be done three days a week. Can you come up with three punch lines per week on time? Can you color your full-page layouts and stick to your schedule? This is where doing practice runs comes in handy again. Set yourself a test schedule and act is if you’re officially updating a webcomic. If you can’t do it, you can at least find out where the problem is and fix it before you go live.

Another technical issue to think about is putting your strips into a print collection someday. Yes, you’re a long way off, but it’s happening more and more so you may as well prepare ahead of time. Some readers like to have a hard copy of the comic on their bookshelves, and you may even be able to make some decent cash off of the venture. However, if you have an unwieldy or unconventional strip format, a print collection may be difficult or even impossible to put together. So try to keep your format simple and, above all, consistent.

Make sure that the format you choose will be good for you and for your readers. One of the easiest ways to lose your readership is frequent hiatuses and missed updates. You want to keep your readers happy. But on the same token, you don’t want to make yourself go insane trying to keep up with a schedule that doesn’t work with the format you chose.

You didn’t think this much preparation went into a webcomic, did you? And we haven’t even gotten to the hard stuff yet!

This journal has been sitting idle for too long. I've been using the time to decide what I wanted to do with it, and I've decided that I am going to start posting articles on how to do a webcomic. These articles will appear in some form or another elsewhere eventually (more on that as it develops), but I will be using this journal as a testing grounds for the articles themselves. So below you can read the first of (hopefully) many more to come.

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You’ve got a great idea for a story that’s just bursting to get out of you. The problem is that you’re not very good at writing prose. You like to draw, though, and you’ve got a scanner.

Welcome to the start of your webcomic.

My name is Pete Tarkulich, and not only am I the creator of the webcomic Bardsworth (www.bardsworth.com), but I’ve been a rabid webcomic reader since about 2002. And while I don’t view myself as part of the “webcomic community”, I do pay close attention to what goes on within it. These credits may not make me a webcomics expert, but I’m confident that I know enough to guide you through the answer to the question “How do I make a webcomic?”

So why do people choose to do webcomics over print comics? Well, there are a lot of advantages to doing a webcomic. The simplest answer is that anyone can do it. You can. Your sister can. Your grandmother can. Your dog may have a bit of trouble, but I’m sure if he really wanted to he could. In the most bare-bones setting you can do a webcomic with a sketch pad, a pencil, a scanner, and a bit of internet know-how. I wouldn’t suggest it, but you can.

Another answer is that it’s a cheap way to be published and distributed. You draw your comic and put it up on the web, and boom, you’re published. The internet stretches over the entire planet and is accessible by anyone with a computer and a connection. Your distribution is built in.

Yet another answer is the general nature of the internet. You can get immediate feedback on your work, you can chat with your readers, and you collaborate and converse with other creators. Not to mention that with the internet you have the advantage of things you can’t do in print, like animation or interactive functions.

There are probably a handful of other reasons to do webcomic, but to me these are the most important.

However, just because you can do a webcomic, does that mean you should? Can you keep up with an update schedule? Do you have the time and the money to market yourself and draw in readers? Do you have the skills necessary to produce not only good artwork but a good story as well? If you’re unsure about your abilities in regards to any of these questions, you may want to reconsider your decision to do a webcomic. However, if you have a confident answer to each of these questions, then hop aboard.

Many people jump into the webcomic world unprepared. I’m hoping that this column will help prepare you and guide you along. I don’t claim to have all the answers, and you might even find that doing things differently works better, but I’m pretty sure I can steer you in the right direction.

You might want to bring a compass just in case, though.

Another long-awaited (HA) update. The problem is that I haven't found much to talk about webcomics-wise. I'll see if I can't find something to talk about, though.

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It looks like Faye from Questionable Content has been forced to admit her dependence on alcohol. I don't know how I feel about the way it was executed, though. It's been a couple of weeks real time, but in the comic it can't have been more than a few hours since Marten made the comment that set Faye off. It feels like Jeph Jacques rushed the whole acceptance thing, especially with a character like Faye. Of course, just because she's admitted to the problem it doesn't mean she's going to be successful at righting it. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

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While I'm not a fan of Misfile, I am a casual reader, and the last couple strips made me grin because it reminded me of the scene in Jaws where the characters are drunk and comparing scars. I think Chris Hazelton should have cashed in on that and made a sly reference (unless the scar thing itself was the reference) to it. Just my opinion.

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I mentioned this on Monday on the main page of Bardsworth, but Reprographics is back from a long hiatus as Reprographics 2. If you aren't familiar with it, it's a photocomic based around the creator, Chris Yates, and the wackiness that happens in his "life". Check it out.

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Huh, I guess I had a little more to say than I thought. Good for me.

Sorry for the lack of updates. Of course, there are probably only three people reading this blog anyway, but none-the-less my apology goes out to those three people.

I'm still catching up with my webcomic reading after my vacation, so I don't have a whole lot to say. But here are a few tidbits. On with the show!

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Cutest. Strip. Ever. Seriously, even if you don't know anything about the character or the story going on in Wapsi Square, you can't deny the cuteness of that last panel. Just try.

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On the heels of "Cutest Strip Ever", we have "Best Obscure Joke Ever" over at Nothing Nice To Say. I feel special because while I don't get a lot of references in NNTS, I got this one straight off the bat. Go me!

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I was checking links to comics that I haven't checked up on in a while (hey, I read a lot of them), and it looks like Spell Check has started over from scratch. It didn't get too far into the story before the restart, so you aren't missing too much if you're just reading it now, but if you don't check out the site you are missing too much. Abe has one of the most interactive and interesting webcomic page setups I've seen and I applaud him for it. Most webcomic creators, myself included, don't utilize the web for it's interactiveness as much as we could, so it's great to see a fresh approach. Oh, and his art style rocks, too.

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Woo, been a while. A lot's happened, too. So let's begin, shall we?

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I haven't seen much mention of this anywhere in my travels, which is odd considering what a heavy hitter the comic is, but it looks as though Brent and Jade are finally engaged over at PvP. As long as this comic has been around, I've only been reading it for a handful of months, but having taken almost a month just to go through the archives, this is as exciting to me as I'm sure it is to longtime readers. To be honest, I thought it was a clever set up for a joke, but no, it's for realsies. If the couple were real, I'd say congratulations, but instead I'll offer congratulations to Scott Kurtz for finally pulling it off.

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The popular fantasy webcomic Inverloch has finally come to a close. I have to be honest - I felt a bit "meh" about the ending. I've felt that way for some time, actually. I was really into the comic for a while, but somewhere along the way - perhaps once the updates slowed to trickle - I started to feel a little indifferent. This is not to say, however, that some of the plot twists that Sarah created were not ingenious and intriguing. I feel like some of the energy disappeared along the way, though. Maybe this has something to do with Sarah mentioning that she was starting to feel burned out on the comic, or maybe it's just me. The final "battle" was pretty climactic, but after that things just... stopped.

I don't mean to be sounding negative about a grand achievement, though. I do offer Sarah congratulations for accomplishing a hard task, and thank her for all of the hard work she put into the comic so that we could read it. Regardless of my critiques, it was a wonderful comic, and it's presence will surely be missed within the webcomics community.

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The unstoppable force that is Kris Straub has started up a Saturday-only Starslip Crisis based strip called Starslip Crisis: Alterverse War. It's in color! And apparently there will be crossovers. Make sure your seatbelts are securely fastened because I have the feeling this will be an interesting ride.

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Lastly, this has been thrown around in a lot of places, but I feel I must do my duty as a reader and a fan of David Malki !'s and spread the word. If you haven't see David's documentary, Me vs. Comic-Con, go watch it now. It's only 15 minutes and it's better than anything you can find on TV. Unless, for some reason, they put The Tick back on the air (cartoon or live action, either one).

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The book release party for the third Sheldon collection was last night (8/19/07). I picked up a copy of 62% More Awesome as well as a copy of the second colletion, The Good, the Bad, and the Pugly, which I had been meaning to get for a while. Both are complete with sketches from the man of the hour, Dave Kellett. I had wanted to chat with Dave for a bit and maybe get a picture with him, but alas, he was in high demand. At least I was able to show my support by showing up. And we got free drinks. Can't go wrong there.

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As of Sunday 8/19/07, Dominic Deegan has reached it's 1500th strip. As much as I may have criticized the recent storyline, DD remains one of my favorite reads and I give a heartfelt congratulations, as well as a thank you, to Mookie. I know I look forward to the future of DD.

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In other news, Pintsize jumped the shark (8/20/07). He said it, not me.

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I should have mentioned this earlier and it slipped my mind, but hopefully Ed won't hate me because of it. Geek Tragedy now has two strips running per week. The first is the normal, storyline driven strip, and the second is a new creation dubbed Geek Tragedy Squared, which is a one-shot comic that doesn't necessarily have to feature the cast. It's a good way for Ed to flex his creative and comedic muscles and I applaud him on the effort.

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Looks like we have a new webcomics review site. It's hosted in the same place as Tangents and it's called "#@!%$*". Pronounce that as you will. It'll be interesting to read it side-by-side with Tangents, as Steve tends to get a bit (make that a lot) more ranty than Robert. Looking forward to it, though.

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Finally, I was debating whether or not to mention this, and I've decided that I will. I have a guilty pleasure, and it's called Your Webcomic is Bad and You Should Fee Bad. John Solomon has stirred up a little bit of annoyance in webcomic circles, but I think the majority share the sentiment of, "Meh." I'm in that category, yet I find reading Solomon's blog entertaining. Maybe it's because, whether or not it's a made up persona, he's a complete asshole. He just rips into webcomics and webcomic creators with uncalled for venom and abuse. I don't condone this behavior, but I think it's funny. Maybe I'm sick and twisted. But I'm smart enough to know that if he ripped into my comic, I wouldn't even care. I'd probably just laugh at it.

For the literature nerds out there, Dave Kellett has a nice little string of Shakespeare-oriented strips going that are absolutely hysterical. Start with this one and move forward. Note: Shakespeare saying the phrase "Oh snap" may be the funniest thing in the world. Ever.

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Old news to those who follow webcomics religiously, but the folks at Blind Ferret Entertainment - who bring us such joys as Least I Could Do and Looking for Group, as well as the animated PvP series - are doing a feature-length animated movie for Looking for Group. You can view the "trailer" here. It's actually an animated short set as a parody of a rather famous Disney song, with some sick twists. Okay, a lot of sick twists. If irreverent and tasteless violence-based humor is not your thing, you may want to stay away from it. Otherwise, I can guarantee you'll be laughing.

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In the world of Dominic Deegan, our title character is trying to explain his involvement in the events that have just transpired. Besides the fact that it's starting to feel like the end of a Scooby-Doo episode, it does explain why the whole SuperGreg scenario happened. Unfortunately, even this doesn't make me want to retract what I've previously said about the events. I think the SuperGreg thing was a poor choice to involve in an otherwise serious storyline, especially given the drama surrounding the end of it. But at least we do have an explanation now.

However, after seeing some of the teaser images of the upcoming storyline, I must say my excitement over the comic has been rekindled.

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Wow, I was actually linked on ComixTalk today! Does that mean I've hit the big time? Nah, it just means I need to watch what I say or something might come back to bite me on the ass.

Oh wait, this is the internet; that's bound to happen eventually no matter what I do.

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On the subject of webcomic anniversaries, Theater Hopper celebrated it's 5th anniversary on Sunday, 8/5/07. Theater Hopper is another comic that I just started reading in the past year or so, and it has become one of my favorites for several reasons. One, I'm a film nut. Two, Tom Brazelton tends to stick with family friendly humor without pandering to people. And three, it's just plain funny. And it's really neat to see how Tom's art has improved over the years. He's definitely taken steps to advance himself and it shows. So happy birthday Theater Hopper and congratulations Tom Brazelton!

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One of the things I love most about Starslip Crisis is how Kris Straub can insert a good amount of human emotion into the comic. The best example is with the whole Jovia issue. We tend to forget about it in the wake of other storylines, dramatic and comedic, but Straub bumps it in there every now and then just to keep us on our toes. (Note: I would link important strips, but I can't remember which storylines they happened in, and I don't have time to go sifting through the archive.)

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Questionable Content turned four years old as of 8/2/07, so happy birthday to QC! I started reading QC recently and fell in love with it. One of my regrets from the San Diego Comic-Con was not stopping by to meet Jeph Jacques (I kept losing track of the Dayfree Press booth). Oh well, maybe next year, right?

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I'm happy and flattered that Zach Miller, after stumbling upon this blog, titled the 8/2/07 Joe and Monkey strip "Comic Book Deaths" based on my post. Unless he's just messing with me. But in any event, it looks as though Kleptobot did suffer a comic book death, but I'm happy to say that there is a pretty believable explanation for it.

On a side note, I have to mention that one of the things I love most about Joe and Monkey is the stuff that takes place behind the main event/dialogue in a given strip. I won't list any examples, because they are much funnier if you catch them on your own.

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First up, not only is this strip funny, but they use the word "pop" rather than "soda". Mitch Clem, you rock my world.

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Wow, I can't believe it, but Zach Miller was true to his word that one of his characters would die this month. I thought it might have just been a clever gag or something, but damned if I wasn't wrong. It'll be interesting to see if the character stays dead or if it becomes a "comic book death".

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And now back to a familiar subject - Dominic Deegan. The first four panels of today's strip (7/30/07) almost makes up for the whole superhero costume debacle. The look on Dominic's face in the fourth panel had me laughing.

However, I need to backtrack a few strips and talk about what I saw as a problem. DD has always been a pretty smart mixture of comedy and drama. It's tough to mix those two, because at times it's like mixing oil and water, and you end up with a mess. This is how I saw this particular strip. In other circumstances, I would have cheered about this strip, as it places the protagonist into a very tight spot. But the fact that Gregory is wearing that ridiculous outfit takes away from that drama, seriously damaging the storyline at that point. Let me state that the two ideas - the catch 22 and the superhero outfit - could have worked apart from each other. I do think the SuperGreg thing would have worked in a purely comical storyline, but not in a dramatic one. And the catch 22 scenario should have been saved for a time when Gregory wasn't in superhero duds.

Again, I know how hard it is to mix the comic and the dramatic, and far be it for me to be speaking of it regarding a veteran like Mookie, but everyone slips up now and again.

At least Gregory is out of the superhero outfit. ;-)

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I promise, I won't say anything about Dominic Deegan today. Except for that sentence, of course.

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In light of the Harry Potter crazy, I'm glad we can count on David Malki ! for some comic relief. Today's bonus strip (7/25/07) is just as good.

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Today's Michael's Exciting Life page (7/25/07) is an excellent tutorial on how to read a comic. With potty humor at the end. Well done!

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It seems I'm not the only one who thinks Mookie jumped the shark with the current Dominic Deegan storyline. In fact, he used the exact words in his news post (just in passing; he wasn't admitting that he did). I looked in on the DD LiveJournal community and it seems that there are others who feel like I do. Let me state for the record, though, that this doesn't mean I'm going to up and quit reading Dominic Deegan. I still love the characters and I think the comic is both funny and engaging. But that doesn't mean I have to like every storyline. In the end, it's all about what makes Mookie happy, and if he enjoyed writing the SuperGreg storyline, good.

Remember, we all love The Simpsons, but not every episode is good.

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So true... so true... (7/23/07)

Oy vay, I think I was right to worry about the current events (7/20/07) in Dominic Deegan. Even the attempt to make the costume thing a gag came out kind of lame. Mookie, please ditch the SuperGreg thing! It's not too late!

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I'm going to have to backpedal slightly concerning my comments yesterday about College Roomies from Hell!!! My original statement implied that the author was forcing Dave's misery-inducing situations. However, as we can see from today's strip (7/20/07), Dave is bringing it on himself (which was also something I touched upon). While you do find yourself feeling sorry for Dave, you can't help but realize that sometimes he's just as dumb as shit, you know?

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Misfile is a webcomic that I just recently started to read. I'm kind of lukewarm on it at the moment - not sure if I like it or dislike it. It has it's entertaining moments, and the characters can be pretty fun to watch (how could a pot head angel not be?). I've realized that my reluctance to accept it as an enjoyable read comes from the writer side of me. I think Chris Hazelton suffers something that a lot of writers suffer - ignoring what the characters want to do and forcing his will on them.

Now, obviously this is a judgement call; I didn't create the characters, so I can only base my reactions on what I've learned about them through reading the comic. However, recently a little tiff started up regarding a post on Tangents (scroll down to the 7/9/07 post), which is good considering how easily things get turned into full-blow shitstorms on the internet. The post in question was in regards to this strip being seen as fan service. I'm not going to go into the events that lead up to that strip; if you're really interested, read back several strips.

I don't see it as fan service, but I do see it as a vehicle for a gag or two. Unfortunately, because the whole scenario felt forced, those gags fell flat on their faces. As unrealistic as I personally feel the situation was, it could have been better handled over the course of more pages rather than rushed in a couple. As a writer, you need to let your characters act the scene out and not force them forward.

I think it's ironic that I'm starting my LiveJournal off by doing something that I've ranted about other webcomic sites for doing - talking about Achewood. It gets talked about a lot, and sometimes I get tired of hearing about it, but the fact remains that it's a damn funny comic. Today's strip proves that. Chris Onstad has become the master of taking absurdly surreal material and making it laugh-out-loud funny. I mean, come on, a childhood drum? For a moment you scratch your head and raise an eyebrow, but then you just accept it and laugh. I think what dominates the obvious silly nature of it is the character responses to the situation. We can overlook the fact that we have no idea what a childhood drum is because Ray and Cornelius do and are very serious about it. That's what I like to call good writing.

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I mentioned this in my own forum, but Wednesday's Dominic Deegan strip has me a bit concerned that Mookie may have jumped the shark. I'm hoping that the SuperGreg thing is a one time gag because if Mookie sticks with it... well, I know Dominic Deegan is supposed to be a funny strip as well as a serious one, but this is going over the top with the goofiness (not to mention the anachronisms, although that may be the wrong term to use; I'm referring more to the pop-culture references being used in a world that is obviously not our own). I'm going to give Mookie the benefit of the doubt, at least until I can read further into the storyline. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

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Conflict is the basis of a good story. This is one of the fundamental things I've learned over the years as I've studied writing. However, I've always felt that conflict can go too far. When you have a main character that you keep putting into negative situations, eventually it just becomes abuse. I'm starting feel that way about Dave from College Roomies from Hell!!! Dave has long been the subject of bad things, which is understandable as he is one of those people that invites misery into his life and wallows in it. However, I feel like Wednesday's strip may lead to even more misery. Poor Dave has suffered enough. As much as he's an angsty son-of-a-bitch, I've invested myself in his character, and I really want to see that misery end at some point. It's been happening for what feels like forever. I thought allowing Blue into his life would bring some happiness, but now it looks like it's just going to be more trouble. I hope I'm wrong.

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This Sheldon strip made me laugh. Dave Kellett is awesome at magnifying the annoyances in our society and making fun of the people who perpetrate them. He previously went off on people use Bluetooth (I can't find the strips in the archive, but they're there, I promise) and that was funny as well.