With Return of the King still gallivanting in theaters, everyone knows J. R. R. Tolkien these days (except, evidently, my spell check). So it won't be big news to bring up why it was that the good professor wrote the books in the first place. He wrote a story that he himself wanted to read but had been unable to find.

Tolkien was not a writer of fiction by deliberation, but stumbled into it.

Syndicates, groups, hubs, and collectives.

Despite the fact that few of them ever meet face to face, webcomickers seem to crave community and camaradie. To this end, some webcomickers seek out like-minded creators, and form groups. Some of these groups are meant to do little more than offer comfort and a sense of community, while others are meant to expand reader bases, and occasionally even make money.

This feature takes offers a snapshot of some of the perks and drawbacks of collectives, and then offers a list of these joined creative masses in the event that you've just been itching to be assimilated by someone... anyone.

I have had the (unfortunately not unique) opportunity to learn something of the art of flame from the hands of some of the masters. These experiences have given me a bit of insight into the strategy and tactics of how to skillfully conduct a conflict by using flames.

Persons interested in taking up the art of flaming people may have a career open to them as a politician or lawyer, or in any other profession which requires a supple spine and no morals.

You may remember that Comixpedia called for questions for Sam Brown late last year. Well, Sam recently came through with the answers. The slightly eccentric but wildly popular creative force behind explodingdog.com has been marvelling the Internet droves with his art, and producing his work through a very interesting relationship with his audience – readers submit titles, and he draws pictures to fit them.

I am over two weeks late writing this article. There are a lot of reasons why -- for one thing, it's hard to think of something clever to say about the world of webcomics immediately after writing a six page paper about the Emperor Alexis Comnenus I of Constantinople -- other examples include extremely urgent tea drinking, needing to listen intently to the same three tracks of the opera Carmen 14 times through because I can never hit the bloody flat at the end of the aria and I need to know it by Saturday, and wanting to avoid the incessant teasing of my housemates when I use my voice recognition program.

Previously on Comixpedia, Xavier Xerexes provided us with a brief overview of syndication methods for online comics. Today, we're going to be looking at XML-based syndication methods, such as RSS, in a bit more detail.

What?!
Let's get our baseline terminology out of the way first. RSS is a markup language based on XML, but what does that even mean?

Our own Cat Garza leaps out from the mists after a prolonged absence, and shoots off a fresh new Cat Chat interview with none other than Jamar Nicholas, small print artist and animator who has garnered notice for himself for his The Jamar Chronincles, and who now has a weekly webcomic featred on Kevin Smith's Movie Poop Shoot site. Cat chats him up here about "the process", the comics industry, and good ole' dreams...

You're loyal. You know this game. You've got at least one example of this sort of thing bookmarked, regardless of whether or not it drives you batty. The beast keeps calling you back to places where you know it lurks, and you keep going, dammit. You know you shouldn't, but you do it anyway, over and over again. Dammit.

Hey there, seniorita, that's very astute
Why don't we get together and call ourselves an institute.

Well, I think that's sort of how it goes, anyway. I can't really remember. But what I do remember is that later in that same song – Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al", by the way – somebody walks on down the alleyway with a roly-poly little bat-faced girl.

"So what," you ask, mouth agape and eyes quickly glazing over in the benighted absence of some sort of fast-moving things you can zap with your BFG?

Last column I stressed the importance of starting, of making that push and getting the momentum to start your own comic project. If you don't start, then you'll never know what's possible. But, there's no need to throw caution completely out the window.

For the love of all that's holy, create a buffer of strips/pages BEFORE you start posting them on the web.