For years young, creative men and women have dreamed about making a living from their comic strips. But until recently their only avenue of success was through a syndicate or publisher. Now more and more cartoonists are doing it on their own and self-publishing their comic strips on the web. With the right amount of work, knowledge, and luck, so, too, can you. Scott Kurtz and Kristopher Straub offer their advice on how to create compelling characters, develop a solid comic strip, build a website, forge a community, and start earning money from your Webcomic without having to sell your soul. Written by the Eisner award winning cartoonist behind PVP, Scott Kurtz! PvP received 1.3 Million unique page views in Q1 2007 and averages 150k-200k per day!
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More About the Author
Brad Guigar is a Philadelphia-based cartoonist who has been creating a daily comic strip for over 12 years. His strip, Evil Inc, is about a corporation that is run for super-villains *by* super-villains. It appears in newspapers such as the Philadelphia Daily News and updates every day at evil-inc.com. An Eisner Award nominee, he has also written a comprehensive tutorial on general cartooning, "The Everything Cartooning Book," and co-wrote the seminal independent-cartooning guide, "How To Make Webcomics."
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
29 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Anyone with a comic and a website to promote it on has a webcomic. But these four artists combine their artistic and marketing strengths (kind of like Captain Planet) to show people how to make a successful webcomic. It's not a how-to-draw book; these guys are assuming you know how to draw already. This is a book talking about font legibility and character design and the difference between web quality and print quality resolution. I think this book should be alongside Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art" on any comic artist's bookshelf.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Not many books manage to give a decent introduction to combining being an artist and a businessman. Guigar, Kellett, Kurtz and Straub do this excellently. I bought this book because I'm writing a Master's thesis on webcomics -- and "How to make webcomics" will definitely be quoted heavily in it -- but reading this book also gave me a renewed interest in making my *own* webcomic.
The best authors for books on how to make webcomics are definitely webcomics creators who love what they do. Guigar, Kellett, Kurtz and Straub show an enthusiasm in this book that rubs off, and in a wonderful mix of creative chapters (writing, creating your characters), practical chapters (scanning your comic, making a website) and business-related chapters (making an income out of your webcomic), it becomes very clear that the authors love what they do, and that anyone who loves webcomics may one day compete with them on the webcomics arena. You learn that you have to love webcomics to make one, as they won't give you much income the first couple of years, but you also learn to not feel guilty for monetizing on your work. This is the perfect combination of a "how-to-be-creative"-book and "how-to-sell-your-art"-book.
If there is one thing I hope will change in the second edition, I wish for a more global perspective. The book is great, but many of the points stated in it aren't really that useful for non-Americans. For instance, when I make a webcomic in Norwegian, I will probably never get ten thousand readers. I could write it in English, but that would create problems with a store, since I'm still physically based in Norway and won't be able to send books and T-shirts to USA or UK without charging a lot for sending them -- probably more than my readers want to pay. And if I need to use print-on-demand, there aren't really anyone over here that can offer that, ... and so on, and so on. I hope that a future "How to make webcomics" will be able to have a chapter answering some of the additional questions that rise when creating a webcomic outside the US.
But that is nitpicking, really. This is the epitome of a five-star book.
The best authors for books on how to make webcomics are definitely webcomics creators who love what they do. Guigar, Kellett, Kurtz and Straub show an enthusiasm in this book that rubs off, and in a wonderful mix of creative chapters (writing, creating your characters), practical chapters (scanning your comic, making a website) and business-related chapters (making an income out of your webcomic), it becomes very clear that the authors love what they do, and that anyone who loves webcomics may one day compete with them on the webcomics arena. You learn that you have to love webcomics to make one, as they won't give you much income the first couple of years, but you also learn to not feel guilty for monetizing on your work. This is the perfect combination of a "how-to-be-creative"-book and "how-to-sell-your-art"-book.
If there is one thing I hope will change in the second edition, I wish for a more global perspective. The book is great, but many of the points stated in it aren't really that useful for non-Americans. For instance, when I make a webcomic in Norwegian, I will probably never get ten thousand readers. I could write it in English, but that would create problems with a store, since I'm still physically based in Norway and won't be able to send books and T-shirts to USA or UK without charging a lot for sending them -- probably more than my readers want to pay. And if I need to use print-on-demand, there aren't really anyone over here that can offer that, ... and so on, and so on. I hope that a future "How to make webcomics" will be able to have a chapter answering some of the additional questions that rise when creating a webcomic outside the US.
But that is nitpicking, really. This is the epitome of a five-star book.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
By BoneHead
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
As someone who's been creating a webcomic for many years (Pewfell), I found this book to be very well put together, helpful and inspirational. I would definitely cite it as being essential reading for anyone hoping to monetize their own webcomic. Though much of it was stuff I already knew, I still found very many useful insights from these four guys who've actually walked the walk. All the information is put together in a fun, lighthearted, easy-to-read and well-thought-out way with lots of practical examples, great illustrations and comic strips. Great work & thanks for sharing, guys!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
good for the beginner
covers very basic concepts and some advanced ones too. This is a good book for those wanting to get started in making web comics. It covers web design and also comic book design. Read more
Published 11 days ago by officer_m
5.0 out of 5 stars
Strongly recommended!
I've been doing a Web comic for over seven years and wish I had this book when I began! This is the way such books should be written--by more than one successful person, each... Read more
Published 1 month ago by M. Pascale
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great book for anyone interested in the industry of self-publishing...
A great read for anyone who is doing or thinking about doing a webcomic. Rather than tell you how to draw this book focuses on the business aspect of the industry. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Robert L Aube
5.0 out of 5 stars
How to make webcomics
This is the bible for anyone who would ever think about drawing comic strips, web-based or print! Buy this book!
Published 4 months ago by Christopher Hogue
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very good book
I hunted long for this book. Finally found it here. Love it, although I already knew a lot of the technical parts about file formats. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Ray Burke
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Advice from People who have Experienced the Webcomic World
I'm only part of the way through the book, but I do think this was a good purchase. At first, I was hesitant, but I think an important thing to keep in mind is that this is a book... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Terri Yang
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very informative and enjoyable
This book contains a lot of information from four experienced web comic writers. I found the technical information in the chapter Image Preparation to be very helpful. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Ellen T.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truly a Must-Read for designers and comic artists alike.
In our constantly changing world, we live most of our lives in front of the screen, working with the 1's and 0's on a daily basis. How to Make Webcomics is funny and informative. Read more
Published 10 months ago by June
5.0 out of 5 stars
Yah
It had all the info I wanted and them some that never occured to me~ it also came so clean with no pen marks or anything. Im satisfied.
Published 11 months ago by RandomCitizen
5.0 out of 5 stars
Helped my Web Comic.
This book is awesome and helped to get my web comic "Dungeon Hordes"[...](google it! it's solid proof of what this book can do for you) off the ground. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Jonathan Murdock
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