An Experimental Life

Well first you need a few intangibles: interesting characters, some writing skill and talent, and a premise that offers lots of possibilities. Oh, mental illness helps, too, so if you don't already have a mental illness, run out and get one quick before all the good ones are taken.

You probably already have these things, though. As stated earlier, this isn't a writing or drawing tutorial. I am assuming here that you already know how to plot a story, write dialogue, and produce whatever form of art you plan to use. This webcomic tutorial will focus on how to get those great ideas out of your head and onto the web, have some fun, and maybe even make a couple of bucks while you're doing it. To repurpose a phrase from my friend Phil (Brucato), there are literally DOZENS of dollars to be made in webcomics!

Once you've gotten the intangibles together, here are the physical things you'll need. We're not even going to talk about web hosting or update scripts yet (that will come in a couple more pages)--This is just getting the stuff from your head into the computer.

What we use:

• Computer
• Plain white printer paper (as bright white as you can get it, but you don't need anything fancy. Go for legal size if you want to draw in comic strip standard size or 11x17 if you want to do comic book standard size, but we just do regular letter size here.)
• Pencils (We use mechanical pencils loaded with .5mm lead, which you can pick up at any office supply store.)
• Plastic erasers (This is important--The plastic erasers work much better for this than rubber ones.)
• Drawing pens (We use Sakura Pigma Microns, usually 02s--which draw a .3mm line--with occasional use of 03s, 05s, and very rarely 005s. 02s are really all you nbeed, though. There are other brands that'll work just fine, though. Don't try regular office felt tips or you will be dissapointed. If you can't find them at your local art and craft store, try Dick Blick Art Materials or MisterArt.com.)
• Scanner or other method of digitizing your art (If you don't have a scanner you can make a photo comic with a digital camera, or use copyright-free clip art , or generate your own computer graphics, or draw with a Wacom tablet. Of course in those cases you won't need paper, pens, or pencils, either.)
• Adobe Photoshop or some other graphics software (You can find older versions of Photoshop on Ebay pretty cheaply. I've seen version 7 go for thirty bucks, and to be honest, Photoshop 5 should work just fine. If you're dead broke, try The Gimp or Gimpshop, both of which are free.)
• good comic fonts (I'll also tell you where to get those for free.)

Once you've got all that together, read on.