Creating Web Comics: Some Useful Books

By John Freeman on May 20, 2013

If you’re thinking about creating your own web comic, I’ve found these three books useful reading.

How to Make Web Comics
by Scott Kurtz and Peter Straub

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 hits per day.

Webcomics: Tools and Techniques for Digital Cartooning
by Steven Withrow and John Barber

“Webcomics” is an introduction to one of today’s fastest growing and most exciting areas of publishing – online comics, created digitally and distributed on the Internet. Combining profiles of well-known webcomics creators with detailed workthroughs that reveal the nuts and bolts of every aspect of comic creation and presentation, this book is a “must-have” for anyone interested in where comics are headed in the 21st century.

Comics 2.0: An Insider’s Guide to Writing, Drawing and Promoting Your Own Webcomics
by Steve Horton

Teaches readers how to develop a concept for a webcomic, draw it, and publish it on the Internet. The book also shows them how to promote their finished webcomic and earn money from it. Webcomics 2.0 explores the two methods of webcomic creation: traditional paper-and-pencil art that is scanned and manipulated on a computer, and digital art that is created entirely on the computer.

It covers three popular types of webcomics-adventure, humor and manga, and reveals the tools, software and resources that will help both authors and writers get started in webcomics creation.

About the Author
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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.