An Experimental Life

The two most commonly used forms of dialogue attribution in comics are the word balloon and the simple line. The simple line is self-explanatory--just use the line tool on a new layer to draw a line from the character to that character's dialogue.

Word balloons are a little more involved, but aren't that tough, really. You remember that we already made a layer called Word Balloons, right? Back in section 4, Your webcomic template. Make sure that this layer is beneath your dialogue layers and above your art layer.

Select the word balloon layer, and using the oval marquis tool (or the rectangle if you want rectangular dialogue boxes), draw an oval around your first bit of dialogue and move it to center the dialogue within it. Fill it with white. If you followed the instructions in the Template section, you should now see a black line in the shape of an oval around your text.

Now on the same layer, go to the lasso tool and select the polygonal lasso. Draw a triangle with the base inside the oval you just made and the tip pointing toward the character speaking and fill this with white, as well.

Congratulations! You've just made your first word balloon. Lather, rinse, and repeat as necesary. There are some other cool things you can do with layers and word balloons, but this is a basic webcomic tutorial designed to get you up and running. We may do a more advanced one later.

Save the comic you just finished. This will be your archive (and possibly your print version) of that day's comic.

Now go to "Image" and resize your comic to 72 DPI. If you followed directions earlier, your comic will now be the exact width at which you plan to post (that's why I had you create your template at 72 and resize it). At this point, go to the File menu in Photoshop and select "Save For Web."

If you're doing black and white, you'll probably save in 8 colors in gif format with no transparency, and dither set to about 88 percent. If you're scanning grayscale or color you may want to experiment to see what settings give you the best file size to quality ratio. Some of our color Sundays are posted as Jpegs, and some as Gifs, depending on what works. Remember that smaller file sizes are better, of course. You'll save it to the "Strips" folder you created earlier in your comic folder.

So now that you have your first comic done and saved, open up your template again and change your title and other information to the fonts you selected for them while making your first comic. Now make your next few comics and save them with the same naming convention as you saved the first one, because you'll want to have at least four or five done before you start posting, and at least ten before you start promoting.

Once you have your first few strips done, it's time to talk about getting your comic on the web. This will mean finding hosting, choosing and customizing an update script, and designing your site.