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Before you jump headfirst into publishing your comics online, you should build up a bit of a backlog of comics. Try to draw at least ten or so quality comics that you would be proud to have on your site. If you're going to have a story-based comic then it would be a good idea to plan your first story arc. It is really useful to maintain this backlog of comics whenever possible, so that you can fall behind in
creation of comics but still have content to post online. Nothing turns away readers faster than failing to provide them with content when you say you will. If you eat into backlog, try to draw a few extra strips so that it doesn't get diminished.
As a helpful guide for your comics, decide roughly what format they will take (e.g. three or four panel gag strips etc.) and draw up panels on your computer. You can then print these and draw strips within panels, ensuring that they stay neat and consistent. When comics have been drawn, scan them into your computer and touch them up any way you like. It's generally best practice to remove speech balloons and text and add these on computer, because it will usually be neater and easier to read. Remember to fit balloons around speech, not speech into balloons. It's amazing how often this is forgotten. Some good fonts, free for non-commercial use, can be found at http://blambot.com. Don't get too stressed about your artwork, I found that most people don't mind slightly inconsistent and not overly fantastic artwork provided they enjoy content of comic.
So now you're ready to get going with online side of things. Start writing your web page so that you can just upload it when you're ready. Webcomic PHP management systems are relatively easy to find. I personally really like ComicPro that, unfortunately, seems to have vanished from web. If you can hunt it down it's worth a look. Web hosting is quite easy to find as well, you won't need much space to begin with so you can use one of many free providers out there (including http://keenspace.com that provides free hosting specifically for webcomics), use web space provided by majority of ISPs or purchase your own web hosting plan (you can get a quite cheap one because you won't be needing many features to begin with). When signing up for any hosting package, make sure you have permission to change read/write attributes of your files because PHP comic managers will need this (this is done on Linux servers using CHMOD from your FTP program; In Windows you can Right-Click a file, select Properties and change security permissions there; or you may need to use a proprietary control panel provided by host).
You're going to need to decide on an update schedule for your comic. It's probably best to start small and build up; maybe two or three updates a week. This way you have three to five weeks of comics in your backlog, which allows you to fall behind substantially before anyone notices.
While we're on topic of deciding schedules, it will help you if you actually try and schedule an hour or so into your day to write comics. If you just try to fit them into free time that you're "bound to have just after you finish just this one last thing" then you'll often find yourself failing to get a strip drawn on time.
Now that you have your comic online you can start promoting it. There are a huge number of comic directories out there that will help get you exposure. Get your friends excited about your comic and they in turn will get their friends excited. Read other people's comics and get involved in their forums. Find sites that accept guest artwork or comics and send some to them. The best promotion comes from getting people to read your comic and fire a link across their instant messenger program to another friend. My current list of "must read every day" comics came entirely from various people sending links to me. Don't expect instant success, look to sharing your vision with even just one new person every day.
Well, I hope that helps to give you a few ideas about how to make your comic and keep it running. When your characters start to grow they'll almost create stories and jokes themselves and strip won't be anywhere near as hard to write as it was when you first started out. Just keep drawing comics on a frequent basis so that you don't fall out of rhythm of your created world and above all else have fun.
Daniel Punch M6.Net http://www.m6.net Daniel Punch is a University student doodling his way through many a boring lecture.
