Step 1: Pick a Topic
Before sitting down and beginning to pen your electronic masterpiece, you will need to come up with a basic premise behind your comic strip. As a general rule, the "funnier" comics on the Internet fall into one of three main categories:
1) Geek humor,
2) Relationship jokes,
3) "Cutting Edge" humor that is too intelligent for anybody but the author and his coffeeshop friends to understand.
Most Internet comics tend to fall into categories one and two, as "cutting edge" humor doesn't seem to generate that much traffic (as opposed to cartoons about Linux and dating). It doesn't really matter if you're very knowledgeable of the subject you're writing about, or if you even have the most rudimentary of artistic talent, because on the Internet anybody can have a webpage! Yes, thanks to the miracle of the Information Age, you too can toss up virtually any mess of digital vomit for the entire world to see! Don't worry about your comic being "funny enough" to go public, just be concerned with learning how to make text show up as bold in AOL Press!
Step 2: Pick a Title
The first thing anybody will notice about your Internet comic (besides the Angelfire popup ad) will be its title. You'll have to think of something clever and indescribably witty, a name that will bring in people by the millions. The title should also have some practical relationship to the actual subject matter of your comic, shown in the following examples:
Example #1: Comic revolves around the hilarious antics that ensue in a web design company.
GOOD TITLE: "Web Wackiness!". With a name like this, people know it's going to be a comical look at Information Superhighway!
SLIGHTLY LESS GOOD TITLE: "The Hilarious Antics That Ensue In a Web Design Company". Sure, the title does a good job at sufficiently explaining what the comic's about, but it's just not catchy.
BAD TITLE: "Family Circus". This name, while being recognized by many people, is unfortunately taken. As a general rule of thumb, you should probably not use names of other comics for your cartoon.Example #2: Comic is about a single father (Bob) trying to raise his wisecracking son (Tim).
GOOD TITLE: "Bob and Tim". Simple and to the point! It not only reminds everybody who the main characters in the comic are, but it also let's everybody know that your comic isn't "BadTech" (which has a completely different name).
BAD TITLE: "Adolf Hitler's Rotating Testicle of Doom". While being somewhat catchy, references to the Nazi party and most genitalia should probably be avoided.
Step 3: Create Some Characters!
Here's where our comic starts to form and take shape! Now many people out there are afraid to make their own Internet comic because they're under the false impression that it requires actual skill and artistic talent to create one. They couldn't be farther from the truth! Even the most blind, piss-poor, seizure-ridden of braindead chimpazees can make their own Internet comic! To determine if you have the raw tools needed, ask yourself the following questions:
1) Do you own a computer?
2) Do you have MS Paint installed?
3) Do you have access to an external device which allows you to input some form of data into your computer?
If you answered "yes" to any of these questions (or "no", it doesn't really matter at this point), you are in fact ready to get started! Let's go!
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About This Column
Something Awful Guides can help you, the Internet reader, make the most out of your life and just might possibly end up getting you incapacitated or killed!
