Tue Sep 4, 2007 — by Glenn Hauman

GLENN HAUMAN: How to create your own webcomic!

Finally-- we were wondering!

People have been speculating that we here at ComicMix were going to start up with a webcomic any day now, but we had a secret shame -- we didn't actually know how to create 21st century cutting edge webcomics that all the kids read today. But thanks to Ridiculopathy (with a hat tip to Dirk Deppey) we finally know how to do it!

Rule #1 - Don't draw anything. Illustration is hard work and a time-consuming skill to acquire. Thanks to modern technology, most notably the copy & paste feature found on most modern computers, it is now completely unnecessary. Grab a random image from Google Image Search and add some speech bubbles. Don't even draw the speech bubbles- just search "speech bubble" on your pal Google Image Search.

Easy enough. Who needs real artists and letterers anyway? They're always late, and just make you tired and grouchy.

Rule #2 - Don't write actual jokes. Other than the mistake of spending time drawing a comic, the second most common mistake newcomers make is writing one. Some people waste hours wracking their brains for a funny premise or clever line, but it's utterly pointless and only exposes you to the danger of your readers just not finding your jokes funny. Instead, start from a very specific audience (most often based on a fandom, fundamentalist religion, or bizarre sexual practice) and tell them what they want to hear in four-panel format.

Hey, we can skip over getting writers too? Hot damn! Brian, we just dropped our burn rate down to, like, nothing! We can put it all back into T&A -- er, sorry, T&E. Travel and Entertainment. Really. Honest.

Rule #3 - Don't be gracious. A great way to generate buzz for your web comic is by picking a fight with another web comic, preferably someone with a more established site so that the inevitable "look at what this moron just said" links on his forum will boost your server stats. Again, you can't and probably shouldn't write jokes about them, so just barf up a few panels about calling your target names and making them cry.

This keeps getting better and better! Hey, um -- who do we want to pick on today? Scott Kurtz? No, we'll see him this weekend. Warren Ellis? He's not crossing the Atlantic for a year, but his fans are scary. Wait -- Bendis! He's under an exclusive contract, he wouldn't be able to write for us anyway, so we don't have to suck up to him. Hey, Bendis! Get a toupee!

Rule #4 --

Oh, who cares at this point? We're ready! We know everything! Time to start up a web comics publishing empire!

I wonder if we can have a press release ready in time for Baltimore....

ComicMix's Utility Infielder Glenn Hauman is coy for a living.

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