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
23 of 25 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.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
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
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 9 months ago by Jonathan Murdock
Pretty Decent
This book definitely has some useful information in some areas, though it is lacking in others. There's a great section on image preparation and decent advice on how to set up... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Jim
How to Write a Book on Webcomics
These four authors have done a great job of providing an all-you-need-to-know book on getting a webcomic off the ground. Read more
Published on May 23, 2010 by Adam Christman
Webcomics
I thought this was a great look into the way webcomics work. A solid introduction to the differences of "then and now", and how aspiring artists can make it on their own with some... Read more
Published on April 14, 2010 by Bryan Cox
As a starting webcartoonist I recomend this book
This book covers the basics of what you have to know to get a webcomic up and rolling. A perfect starting point and reference book for the working or aspiring webcartoonist. Read more
Published on March 24, 2010 by Eric Royal
Informative, goes beyond those useless "how to draw" books.
In here isn't the usual "how to draw" book where they tell you where to put the circles and the eyes and such. Read more
Published on February 19, 2010 by Kathy
Gives you a huge leg up to start a webcomic. Invaluable.
I can't recommend this book enough. Assuming you already know the basics of drawing it covers writer's block, promotion, conventions, merchandise, the realities of how much work... Read more
Published on December 8, 2009 by Matthew Munk
Serious webcomic help
This is a good read for anyone wanting some help in taking their webcomics a bit further. It's not one of those books that spends half the time telling you that you need to have... Read more
Published on May 11, 2009 by A. Bilitz
Still scared of HTML
I work as a full time artist so some things in this book that might be useful to others, are old news to me because I've heard them said elsewhere a million times over. Read more
Published on March 2, 2009 by Panama Jack
An essential reference for webcomicers old and new.
I picked this book up after listening to the archives of Webcomics Weekly, the podcast produced by the four authors. Read more
Published on February 15, 2009 by Alexandra Heberling
Inside This Book
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
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black copy, lineart layer, table banner, voice bubbles, word balloons, other cartoonists Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Artist's Alley, Starslip Crisis, Project Wonderful, Evil Inc, Panel One, Panel Three, Penny Arcade, Checkerboard Nightmare, Sans Serif, Resample Image, Panel Two, Panel Four, Bloom County, San Diego, Adobe Flash, Drunk Duck, Image Size, Mary Sue, Save For Web, Los Angeles Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
black copy, lineart layer, table banner, voice bubbles, word balloons, other cartoonists Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Artist's Alley, Starslip Crisis, Project Wonderful, Evil Inc, Panel One, Panel Three, Penny Arcade, Checkerboard Nightmare, Sans Serif, Resample Image, Panel Two, Panel Four, Bloom County, San Diego, Adobe Flash, Drunk Duck, Image Size, Mary Sue, Save For Web, Los Angeles Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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