Episodes
Comedy
There are a lot of approaches to comedy in comics, and I wanted to get an episode together about that. Humor is OFTEN rooted in all kinds of cultural trends: current events, age groups, time periods, and styles, so it can be hard when people ask about how to learn to write comedy to find a way to talk about it! But Bob and Delphina are going to do their best today to break down at least their experience and approaches, and hopefully that’ll help you too
Buffers
We’re not here to tell you how to live your life. If you want to post every comic page as soon as you’re done with it, that’s valid. But! A buffer of comic pages can help keep your comic on a steady release schedule, set healthy reader expectations, and prevent burnout or stress during the times when you can’t be at your drawing desk as often. So let’s talk about buffers!
Beginnings
The beginning hooks of your webcomic are what's going to inspire a reader to keep reading, and there are lots of approaches to starting out, depending on the story you're trying to tell. Today, we're going to talk about the many ways to begin a beginning.
Jam Session! Motivation
How do you stay motivated making comics? It's a hard question, so today we're going to jam about it and see what answers we can find!
Shortcuts and Time Savers
Webcomics take so long, and while the perfectionist in our brains might tell us that we MUST do everything the long way, I think we've all pretty quickly learned that the easier you make the journey for yourself, the better. So this is going to be some quick lessons we've learned that changed our process and made life easier.
Sticking With One Idea
Do you have a bunch of ideas, but you can never stay fixated on just one? It can be tricky to stay focused for a project as long as a webcomic, especially when everything else starts to look SO MUCH SHINIER. But there are things you can do to increase your chances of seeing it through to the end and resisting the Plot Bunnies, so today we're going to talk about that!
Drawing from Photo Reference (with AdorkaStock!)
Drawing anatomy and poses can be tricky, but there's some excellent tools out there for referencing poses like the awesome stuff that Sarah makes at adorkastock.com. But how DO we do it in an effective way? Let's talk about it!
Coming Up With Names
Does your webcomic contain characters? Maybe even places? Perhaps it also needs.... a title? If any of these things are true, you've probably had to sit down and face the struggle of deciding names for the things in your comic, as well as for the comic itself. These things are important, giving vital information about tone, genre, details of setting, and all sorts of other cues to the reader... But why's it gotta be so hard? Anyway, today we're gonna talk about it!
Alternate Formats
Webcomics are pretty great in our opinion, but they're not the only way to get a narrative story out into the world. Prose has been an option forever, but today, with so many new technologies, there are so many more options available! You could use anything from video games to podcasts to tell a story. But each option has its own pros and cons depending on what sort of project you're building, and today we're going to talk about them!
Plotting a Webcomic
Coming up with characters and scenarios is one thing, but when you're working in a longform narrative comic, you're going to want to think about a plot. Planning out your plot in a webcomic is a unique challenge compared to some other mediums, so today we're going to talk about it!
Themes
The concept of a "theme" is something that comes up in writing when we're talking about character motivations or plot in a longform narrative comic, and it's basically a word or concept that's at the core of what you're trying to say in your story. So we're going to talk about what themes are, how they come about, and how you can use them!
Collaborative Projects
Webcomics can be a lonely road to walk if you're only ever sticking to your own story. But collaborative projects with other creators can really be worth your time! Sometimes these take the form of printed or digital releases of books or zines. Sometimes these are centered around a theme or fandom. Or sometimes they're just "your-character-here" style single graphics. Folks have done all kinds of things over the years as collaborations, and for webcomic artists, it can not only be a ton of fun, but also be a way to cross-promote to similar audiences. So let's talk about what you need to think about when starting your own collaborative projects.
3D Models
One tool that webcomic artists can take advantage of, to help save time and sanity, is 3D models. Whether tracing directly or using them for reference, they can help you visualize complex places, objects, or poses from different angles. So let's talk about them!
Blorbology
If you are on any social media platform with artists, you may have heard the terms "OC", which stands for "original character", or "blorbo" which stands for... I don't know, I think Tumblr just made that one up. The terms evolved because creators needed a way to talk about freeform character concepting. Whether they're part of a fanfiction or just the guy you always seem to end up doodling in your sketchbook, it's often the case that in the process of drawing and experimenting with scenes for these characters for fun, they really can develop cool backstories and deep emotional meaning in the creators' minds, and that's what we're calling "Blorbology".
Getting Started (2025 Edition)
Whether it's your first and only webcomic or one of many that you're planning, preparing to launch a new comic can take a lot of thought! You'll be thinking about things like organizational aspects (which is getting your art and story plans ready), technical aspects (which includes hosting that works for the scope of your comic), the timing and how you get the word out once you're finally ready to launch.
The Intro "DO IT (feat. Shia LaBeouf)", and the Outro "It's Good To See You Again!!", both by Adrianwave, have been used and modified in good faith under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Licensed. Edits include: Fade IN/OUT, and a repeat added to the beginning of "It's Good To See You Again!!". For more information on this creative commons use, please reference https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/